What is the best version of the G1 Cartoon DVDs to buy?

I am in the U.S. and want every one of the U.S. seasons. I might eventually get these new Japan Collection releases too, so it would be good if they all had similar packaging, extras, audio/video settings, etc.

Transformers Japanese Collection: Headmasters

Is the Shout! release for Seasons 1 - 4 the best way to go quality and price wise in 2012?

 

i hate to burst your bubble! but the english audio dub is horrible on those

 

Yes, the Shout releases are the most recent, should be fairly available, and probably about as good a quality as your are going to get.
They should also be fairly cheap (keep in mind the MSRP on each season set or part was about $20)

 

They come with both a subbed and dubbed version right?

 

yes! & the original chinese audio too

 

Is the season 3 individual set (from Shout) more or less in the correct air order? I have the full series set and seem to remember season 3 on it is supposedly in production order, with characters sometimes showing up before their "debut" episode.

+-MWG-+

 

Not on the Shout DVDs there isn't. Their Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory sets are Japanese with subtitles only.

The Shout DVDs are your easiest, best bet for G1 on DVD, unless you want to risk a deal on a bootleg set or a used set of the Rhino DVDs (which have their own issues).

 

ah right! well the one's that were released in the UK, have the jap audio on them, coz i just checked

 

Please don't use the term "jap", it has a pretty ugly history and some people take offense to it or consider it something of a slur.


But yeah, I'm pretty sure the Metrodome releases had the delightfully awful StarTV dub. There really wasn't much in the way of extras on the Shout! Japanese series DVDs, probably to keep costs down.

 

The Rhino releases are the ones with the most uncorrected errors right?

 

btw what's that parrot thing that keeps waving about, below your avatar?

 

Boy Howdy are they.

It's a kakapo named Sirocco, a rare new zealand ground parrot.

 

ah right, ty  didn't know that you were into ornithology

 

"Original Chinese"? Since when were any Transformers cartoons "originally Chinese"?

 

Not sure if you have an Amazon.com account..they have some pretty low pricing on the individual seasons now, all from Shout....S1 is really cheap...the others about the same as orig. issue price.

http://www.amazon.com/Transformers-Complete-First-Season-Anniversary/dp/B001SLNPTI/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1351755114&sr=1-3&keywords=transformers+g1+complete+series

Amazon.com: Transformers: Season Two, Vol. 1 (25th Anniversary Edition): Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Chris Latta, Corey Burton, John Walker: Movies & TV

Amazon.com: Transformers: Season Two, Vol. 2 (25th Anniversary Edition): Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Chris Latta, Corey Burton, John Walker: Movies & TV

Amazon.com: Transformers: Seasons Three & Four (25th Anniversary Edition): Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Chris Latta, John Walker: Movies & TV

 

maybe he meant the 'english' dub made by singapore tv broadcast, and singapore as you know is predominantly ethnic chinese.

 

The dub on Headmasters was so terrible it turned me off dubs forever. If you don't put the subtitles on you'll actually be getting a different story to what the show intended.

 

I hate to drag the thread further off the road, but is that the same kakapo that had it's way with Mark Carwardine's head on the Last Chance to See documentary?

My favorite bird by the way.

 

It is. Best bird.

 

Yeah, the Shout! box sets are your best bet, really.

At least in terms of the US series, that is. They use the original audio instead of the horrible sound effect potpourri on the Rhino sets; and remedy the animation errors by using broadcast video in place of film where necessary.

In terms of the Japanese series though, I'm just biased towards the UK DVDs because the subtitles are slightly more consistent and in terms of character names (Fortress, for example, is nothing like Cerebros). However, since you probably live in the US and only Headmasters is region free (and even then it's still PAL), you don't really have a choice on the matter...

ISHYGDDT