Highlander, Xena and Hercules: the Legendary Journeys on Blu-Ray?

[marycrawford]

TVShowsonDVD has the news that Davis-Panzer will release all seasons of Highlander on Blu-Ray dvd discs, and that other series will follow, including Hercules: the Legendary Journeys.

They're already taking online pre-orders for the first season of Highlander at $39.95.

I'm a little dubious about this, to say the least, even apart from my feelings about the usual let's-squeeze-the-fans-for-maximum-moolah approach. ("Buy now and get your BONUS Duncan Katana Mini-Sword!" Poor Duncan.)

I'm happy to have my ordinary Hercules DVDs, but they are not exactly pristine in quality (especially towards the later seasons - some scenes turned out to be unusable for vidding purposes because another episode was 'leaking through' in the background). Are the episodes suddenly going to look diamond-sharp, pristine and beautiful thanks to the wonders of Blu-Ray? I don't know enough about the high definition process, or about the way Hercules was filmed, to have the answer, and I'm quite a long way away from owning a Blu-Ray player, let alone a high-definition TV, but if anyone else has more information or a DVD review once they come out, I'm interested.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Um...Highlander looks kind of crap on regular DVD. I don't think Blu-Ray will enhance it.

I have to say, I love my Highlander DVDs, though. They have the most extensive (and candid) extras I've seen.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I love the extras on the HtLJ dvds too. They did a good job with those. I have the same doubts you do - I just wish I knew what the advantage of Blu-Ray for these series is. If they just blow the originals up to a huge size without improving picture quality, that would be a total waste of money.

[marthawells.livejournal.com]

Davis-Panzer will probably do it as cheaply as possible, so I have the feeling the quality won't get any better. I just hope to God they don't start their creepy aggressive phone sales and spam clubs and all that crap again. It felt like it went on for years while they were selling the tape sets and then the DVDs. And there was that whole "20 extra hours of special 'European' footage and episodes" lie, that was fun.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the fact that they are only going to be taking online orders...hmm. I hope they don't start spamming message boards and such again, too.

Hey, do you remember any info/technical stuff on how HtLJ was originally filmed, i.e. the film format and such?

[marthawells.livejournal.com]

I feel like I used to know but my brain no longer work good. I just know it was definitely film, not video, and way too early for any high def formatting stuff.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

HEE. Well, same here. I was groping for info, and all my brain would come up with was "64 mm film, was that it? or was it 64 cm? inches? cupcakes?"

And yeah, I'm starting to think that this could only work if they remastered every episode, which I doubt, given their commitment to sparkle motion cheapassery.

[marthawells.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel like we were lucky to get the cheapass DVDs.