While it doesn’t seem at the moment we’re getting any new Shout! Factory DVD sets save for new seasons, wanted to open up things here for any discussion.
Mainly because I really have two questions:
1)I fell behind on collecting and was catching up, but see Volume 34 is out of print. What’s the movie rights that’s causing that?
2)For the re-release of Volume 5, did they fix the brightness glitch that Rhino had, most notably in the “Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders” disc?
The darkness issues for Merlin were corrected, however, I think the Shout version looks a bit too washed out. I still watch my homemade copy for that one. No, it’s not high def, but the color looks right, and the image is crisper.
But yeah, it’s an improvement, you can see it at Tubi…
Time Chasers is another where they fixed some of the darkness, but again, it’s not perfect, Shouts release is oversaturated, the colors are not as warm as in the Rhino.
Volume 34 was apparently pulled from sales due to a lawsuit from someone involved in a documentary on the “Viking Women Vs. The Sea Serpent” disk. It is not believed that it was about the rights to any of the films. It seems possible that Shout Factory might re-release it someday with the documentary removed if it ever made financial sense to do so, but they may not feel that they would sell enough copies to cover the cost of making a new glass master.