Hi!
The subject line says it all!
I received it today (Sat May 6), and I will give you a more thorough review and comparison to the "movie" disc from earlier this year.
What I will say for now is: the disc authoring is rather interesting. In all of the four episodes, everytime you see the commercial bumper that says "Vytor will return after these messages", you have to press chapter skip forward once to continue the show (then you'll see the commercial bumper that says "and now, back to Vytor, The Starfire Champion!" and the episode continues.
I have played with this disc on three different DVD players and got different results with them. I had the most trouble when playing it on my Ayre Acoustics DX-7e DVD transport -- during playback, the DVD "freezes" up during various scenes. When this happens, I have to hit skip forward once to get it going again...only to freeze up again throughout the disc. But the "frezzes" occur on the same frame on the video every time (so the "freezes" are not random -- in other words, the Ayre dosen't jive with those certain spots on the disc and, therefore, "freezes" at the same point everytime. My Ayre transport is absolutely stellar when playing DVD movies you buy at stores, but it's a finicky critter when playing with DVDs direct from World Events. Hmmmmm...The Ayre transport is a customized Pioneer transport. So if you have a Pioneer player, you might or you might not have the same issue...DVD players are different in behavior.
On a much happier note , I put the new "Vytor" disc through it's paces with two other DVD players: a Panasonic portable DVD player with a built-in 9" LCD widescreen display, and my iMac. The good news is that there are absolutely zero "freeze-ups" throughout playback on BOTH the Panasonic and the iMac. But you still have to hit chapter skip forward once as I described above. Otherwise, you will wait for anywhere between 60 and 120 seconds for the episodes to continue on their own.
I decided to play the waiting game (not hitting chapter skip forward) on all three players and got the following results: The Ayre takes painfully long to get it's act together and continue the episode. The Panasonic takes it's sweet time, but the wait is not as long as the Ayre. The iMac, not surprisingly, is pretty zippy, as I only had to wait about 60 seconds at the most -- other spots are much shorter in duration. And my iMac is over 3 years old (the G4 17" widescreen version)!
Technical bumps aside, the video quality is very good (when played on the Ayre and viewed on my Loewe (pronounced "loo-Vah") 30" HD widescreen CRT (glass tube) TV. The video has an even better, and more film-like character, on the Panasonic's little 9" LCD display. The iMac (with it's 17" LCD display) is no slouch, either. But I would kill to see something like this through a PowerMac G5 on an Apple Cinema Display!
The stereo sound is quite amazing! It has both stereo music and stereo effects that we have come to know and love from World Events' past efforts like "Voltron" and "Saber Rider". Great audio engineering was used with "Vytor", but expect even better with the forthcoming "Voltron" DVDs that, most assuredly, will get the greatest TLC.
The overall experience of "Vytor": The Original Series...it definitely brought me back to that one week in January 1989.
I will later post a comparison between "Vytor": The Original Series disc with the past-released "movie" disc.

Jodi

The playback issues sounds like disc authoring problems.

quote:

Originally posted by SGB:
The playback issues sounds like disc authoring problems.

Exactamundo!
I neglected to mention that there are some disc authoring issues (far less severe, though) on "The Best of Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs" Vol. 1 DVD set.

Jodi

Thanks for sharing that Jodi and please if anyone else is having trouble let me know. Yes I would have loved to have edited out all the commercial blacks but alas this disc being a "freebie" I couldnt get much of a budget for it.

Some orginal Vytor is better than none at all right?

The DVDs are mass produced in a professional dubbing facility so it is strange that there would be any playback issues...

JC

had no trouble playing mine on my computer but my pioneer dvd player had issues... but I still like having what I got... thanks alot admin

quote:

Originally posted by aimee30:
had no trouble playing mine on my computer but my pioneer dvd player had issues... but I still like having what I got... thanks alot admin

Glad to hear you like what you got. I like mine, too!
It is interesting to hear that your Pioneer player did have issues...I was not at all surprised!!
I will write back later this week after I have had a chance to try the "Vytor" Original Series DVD on a number of DVD players. I will give it a "spin" in an Arcam player, a Rotel player, and in a Sony player and Panasonic player.
As I already reported, it does just fine on my portable Panasonic....I just have to hit the chapter skip forward once between the commercial bumpers.

Jodi