I currently don’t own anything pertaining to the Cats, but lately I have been eying the season sets of the show. But should I get it or wait for these newly announced episodic collections? Because I read mixed reviews of the old set, and would like to hear from someone if they had heard anything about any improvements with new release.
From what I’ve read and heard the new sets are exactly the same as the old ones with new box art. I recommend getting the old ones now while they’re cheap.
Chris here…
If you can get the old season sets for a competitive price, then I would go for those - I highly doubt that the new episodic releases will be remastered or anything like that, IMO they’ll almost certainly just be the same masters in new packaging - it wouldn’t surprise me if they even have the same DVD menus and everything! 
I personally don’t think the season sets were that bad, there were a couple of inexcusable things (such as a couple of episodes missing their title cards and “The Unholy Alliance” missing its music track - although subsequent runs of the Season 1 Part 1 set had the music track intact) and one small “screen roll” in the episode “Exodus”, but aside from that I thought the episodes were in decent quality and certainly a step up from the VHS recordings we’d been used to up till that point.
Take care…
Found a review of the first DVD of the new release. From what they say you’re definately better off getting the boxed sets. It’ll be much cheaper in the long run and it says there’s nothing new.
http://dvd.ign.com/articles/118/1180235p1.html if you wanna check it out.
Dang! What a rip-off. Thanks guys for your input, I’d surely be going with the season set, someone was nice enough to offer me a great price for complete pack.
Go for the season set. It’s price has dropped the past year at Specs and Best Buy. And now’s the time to get it. Because as soon as the new shows takes up speed they’ll be hard to come by.
Did the subsequent releases have those missing title cards fixed?
Also If I remember correctly the UK Region 2 releases had no issues with the missing title cards nor with missing music track.. right?
Chris here…
You’re absolutely correct, the UK Region 2 releases actually used a different set of masters for the sets (PAL masters rather than NTSC masters) and are in overall much better shape than their US counterparts!
It was a few years ago so my memories are hazy, but I think I even spoke about this in some detail on a couple of the early ThunderCast podcast episodes: http://www.thundercatslair.org/podcast/episodes/ .
Take care…
The new release is supposed to run about $20.00 each, and it will take 3 of the new to equal 1 of the original box sets. So buying the new will cost you about $240.00 for all 130 episodes. That’s how much it cost to buy the box sets when they were first released, but now they are down to about $20.00 per set. Going with the box sets now will cost about $80.00 for all 130 episodes.
I believe a couple of episodes from the Season 2 (seasons 2-4) UK region 2 boxset are missing their title cards, while on the region 1 set they are all complete with them.
It’s been a while since I’ve watched them, so cannot confirm exactly which eps were missing title cards. I have the complete Season 2 boxset (rather than the 2 part 33/32 ep sets)
I do remember that some eps were a bit shaky on the region 1 Season 2, Part 1 boxset, whereas on the region 2 version of these eps, they are much better in quality with a totally stable picture.
Thanks for the confirmation guys. It still irks me that there is no definite version of the season sets (Region 1 nor 2) which has everything intact. All this has steered me from buying them right from the beginning.
I have them, but I wish they would’ve cleaned up the video up some. You can still see a lot of grain and stuff. It really needs to be remastered on blu-ray. Maybe with the new show it can get this if it does really well.
Doubt it. They are re-releasing the DVDs as we speak. Season 1, part 1 was released a few weeks ago (just disks 1 & 2 of the original box set).
Wow! What a difference in price for the EXACT SAME CONTENT! I’m stunned. :eek: I was going to ask for the NEW Season 1 Part 1 set for Christmas, but after reading this post I’m going to ask for the old box set instead.
Typically, I can’t afford to buy complete series on DVD all at once. I hope there will still be copies of all of the older box sets for sale going into next March, because then I’ll be able to get them this way:
1.1 - December, ask for it as a Christmas gift
1.2 - January, purchase it myself
2.1 - February, purchase it myself
2.2 - March, ask for it as a birthday gift
I bought the complete series from Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001F6Q322/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theultimatedr-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B001F6Q322
It’s much cheaper than buying the region 1 dvds 