i have one question for yall. IF the DVD were to come out in Region 1, would you want the Original B&W Episodes, or the Colorized Versions?
I for one would prefer The Colorized Versions, since i grew up watching them in reruns on "The Family Channel" till they yankied it.
That's a good question. I believe it should have both choices on the DVD; a few episodes on a DVD with options of watching B&W and colour. It's possible. Each season would be a bigger set, and if I had to pay more, then so be it. I'd do anything to have Zorro on DVD (in region 1 of course)!
http://www.livejournal.com/~mononoke_lynn/
I would prefer the black-and-white, simply because that's the way (for better or worse) the series was filmed.
shareI'd thought about this before. I came to the conclusion that both the original black and white and the colorized versions should be included, since there's a large group of people that may have only seen the show in it's colorized format.
shareWas looking at www.dvd.nl (Dutch) and there it says that Zorro Season 1 comes out this year.. Don't know if it is this zorro series or some other but have send a mail to them asking about it.. Would be great!
sharewas looking a bit more and found this: http://www.kindertv.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1129&Itemid=194
for you who dont read dutch:
Buena vista will bring out the complete first season of Zorro out in a very luxe dvd-box.
Guy Williams is the legendary masked hero in this classical adventure full of action from the original disney tv series
release: 19-10-2005 according to several sources
More on that Season 1 DVD boxed set, I stumbled across this a few days ago and only now got around to posting it here.
While looking through various Zorro sites I stumbled across a boxed set DVD image. So I followed the link to find out more, and found myself at Amazon's French website looking at Season 1 of Disney's Zorro series for sale.
http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000VKLP8/qid=1125969603/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_11_1/171-4356682-1087439
Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in French but I figured out what little the site has for details. The set has 39 episodes on 6 DVDs and has both English and French soundtracks [in original mono]. It doesn't say whether it's color or B&W so I presume the set is comprised solely of the original B&W.
According to the site Disney released the DVD set in June 2004: out over a year, I'm surprised no one else seems to have posted about it. The set is an official Disney release, the "Disney DVD" logo is clearly emblazoned on the box - that bodes well considering Flobacca's find about a Dutch release, perhaps a region 1 release isn't too far off then.
A word to any potential importers:
This is a region 2 DVD, at the very least you will need a DVD player that is able to read region 2 discs. What's more the video signal is likely in the SECAM standard [rather than PAL [UK, Australia, etc] or NTSC [USA, Canada, Japan, etc]] and you would need a tv capable of reading a SECAM signal or some sort of converter to alter the signal to NTSC/PAL [whatever your native video format is].
It is possible that you may be able to view the discs on a computer but you would need a DVD drive set-up to view region 2 discs, possibly some other things. I don't know much about that, but the folks at www.VideoHelp.com could probably answer questions if your set on importing.
I haven't found any information yet regarding a Region 1 [North America] DVD release. But with a French set already out and a Dutch set on the way I'm guessing that Disney is probably working on one. Since there doesn't appear to be any sales listings for a US set on October 18th [when most other new Zorro related DVDs will be out] my guess is that Disney is waiting to time the boxed set release to coincide with eventual Legend of Zorro DVD.
I found some more information on the French Zorro DVD set. Bill Cotter has a Disney site with a section devoted to Zorro, he has a page set up detailing the French DVD set with plenty of images. Check it out http://www.billcotter.com/zorro/dvd.htm
EDIT: Oh, forgot to add the Disney used the colorized episodes in the set.
I love Zorro and have all the old black and whites plus the whole series in color on DVD. If interested in the series they have it available on DVD for $139.99 at TVDVDMania.com. It is region free dvds so it will play on any player. Hope this helps.
shareIt should be noted that the DVDs being sold by TVMania and other vendors are bootleg and not endorsed by Disney. The only official release so far to my knowledge is the French version sold on the French Amazon.com.
Be wary of trusting your money/credit card information with sites selling bootlegs. They are in a 'less than honest' business, so they could be 'less than honest' with your money or credit card information.
For more information about Disney's Zorro, Bill Cotter (the author of "The Wonderful World of Disney Television: A Complete History") maintains a message board at:
http://p208.ezboard.com/fthewonderfulworldofdisneytelevisionfrm7
This is a late addition to the stream. People have been saying colorized, that is color added to a B/W image. If Disney produces a color DVD of zorro it most likely was filmed in color. Walt was willing to shoot in color because he knew he could recoup the $$$ later. I know I saw some color episodes on VaultDisney.
shareZorro was NOT filmed in color. It was a very expensive series and this is why Walt decided to shoot it in black and white. When colorization became a craze in the middle of the 80s, Zorro (along with "The Shaggy Dog" and "The Absent-Minded Professor") was one of the first series that was colorized. From today's standards, it the color isn't perfect but it is nevertheless good work and it is fun to watch the episodes in color.
If you have the chance, try and get the French Season one Box Set of "Zorro". I bought it last year and the picture/sound quality is great as well as the packaging. It contains all 39 first season episodes in English, French, Spanish and Italian. Only the colorized episodes are available.
BTW if you don't like the color on the colorized sets from the Disney Video Club, why not just turn off the color on your TV?
shareThere's been a lot of discussion about the French zone 2 box set, so to make things clear - I live in Paris and could check it out: yes, it is a computer-colorized version, yes, it is awful to watch, and no, you can't get back to the original b & w by turning off color on your TV set, because what you get is a blurred b & w mess (computer-added colors don't disappear, they just add another layer of grey on the original picture).
Hope this helps
I have the colorized versions from the Disney video club and reducing the color all the way on them works just fine. Now mind you these are videos that are from analog masters so there is quite a bit of analog noise that is in the regardless of the color overlay.
At any rate reducing the color should simply remove the chroma signal and you should be back to the basic black and white signal. Of course this is on an NTSC video I'm not sure if it will work on a PAL or SECAM system.
Doug
With Disney now releasing Zorro piece-meal through their Disney Video clue [for awhile now] hopefully they'll put at a "season 1" set soon {a set like the 'season' sets released in various European markets already}. I've not bought the individual packaged DVDs because buying a TV series gets expensive quick when it's only a few episodes at a time.
To michel.lejeune2,
Thank you for a lucid and intelligible answer to the colorization of film. Besides that, most modern TV's don't have a simple color knob to turn off the color like old timey TV's.
"There are 10 kinds of people, half understand binary and half don't!"
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