Legal Knightmare DVDs
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Any more news on the plans to release Knightmare on to dvd ?
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We seem to have had a resurgence of interest in the recent days. Awesome. Where did you find out about this, chaps?
Don't know about everyone else, but I've been watching the complete set of Knightmare episodes on YouTube recently [1] and decided to browse the site/forums after that!
I hope you (general) don't mind me pointing out that the "Knightmare on DVD?" link on the knightmare.com homepage isn't that easy to spot - at first glance it's just one more news item in a list. Would it be possible to increase the font size, or colour or something, to make it the main focus of that page? To get as many casual viewers' attention as possible it really should be the first thing your eye falls on..
[1] The existence of which, by the way, doesn't affect my willingness to buy high-quality complete episodes on legal DVD.
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Instead of going for a DVD release, why not bypass that & go straight to Blu-Ray? There is far more room on a single Blu-Ray disc, so it wouldn't be as many discs for the full 8 series plus extras. Also, I would love a commentary or 2 from Tim Child & Hugo Myatt or any of the actors involved, or from any of the teams too. Or from the fans like what they do on the ''Red Dwarf'' fansite ''Ganymede & Titan''. Also, a nice few featurettes would be great too, with interviews from all the main people involved. Also archive footage, CITV appearances & trailers etc, behind-the-scenes footage & any other interesting stuff would be great to see too. So, I think Blu-Ray would be a good way to go for a retail release, and with the players coming down in price now rapidly (£100 in Asda now!), I think Blu-Ray will take off in the next year or 2. Also, it's great picture & sound quality too. Normal DVD is still good, but I just think it would be better to go down this route, if only for the size/storage capabilities that Blu-Ray has over 'normal' DVD's.
Also, this might be more appealing to people now as Blu-Ray is starting to become more popular & also an incentive to buy it from fans who may already own bootleg copies on DVD or VHS.
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Blu-ray is expensive to mass produce. I don't see it decreasing on a per GB basis for some time to come.
DVD duplication (if and when we ever get to the stage of DVDs) is also cheap, so we'd be adding significant cost to something that currently isn't costing us the bulk of our money.
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Bluray would not be a good option anyway. First, the footage would need to be scaled up as it would currently be at standard television resolution, so there would be cost involved there. Second, bluray is coming along, but it needs you have to Hi-Def tv to see it at its best and not everyone has one of them. DVD is fine, you can do a straight port of the footage and 99.9999999999999999% of the population can buy it and view it.
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Yes, except we'd obviously create new ones.
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We seem to have had a resurgence of interest in the recent days. Awesome. Where did you find out about this, chaps?
I've known about this site for about about 6 years or so but never really made an account to join in with the forum. Basically joined to voice my opinion that yep, i'm definately interested in the Knightmare DvD release. Although i have them all on tape thanks to challenge the quality doesn't do it justice on VHS. Plus my girlfriend's sister made a few errors when taping some episodes for me the week we went on holiday.I just hope it makes it to DvD very soon.
Knightmare and Terrahawks were a massive part of my childhood. I've got the Terrahawks complete set on DvD and now i'm after Knightmare. RAWR !!!
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Ye gods, I am late on this one, aren't I? 99% of the reason I visit this forum these days is when there's a new Eye Shield out, and I must have forgotten for the last two.
All-new fan commentaries, you say? I'd miss my own funeral to be on that.
And even if I wasn't, I'd buy the lot in an second.
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Off-topic posts have been moved to the relevant thread.
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Just thought I'd add my support to this - would love to be able to buy Knightmare on DVD.
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I am 100% behind a DVD release of Knightmare.
I have wished for Knightmare on DVD since I bought my first DVD around 8 years ago.
Nearly every classic Children s TV program is available to buy on DVD, and Knightmare is LONG overdue a release onto DVD.
I've always thought it shameful that it hasn't been released.
Having the episodes on a digital format, and the extras could be superb!
I am all for this!
Fingers crossed, and I'm sure that a Knightmare DVD release has the support of the whole KM community!
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Hey Mystara - it's been around six months since the initial post regarding legit copies of Knightmare. I was just wondering if there was any update on your original post - so is there enough interest? When would there be a yes/no decision made?
Cheers (and still supportive of both downloads and DVD/Blu Ray copies),
Tiggy
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I'd like to pledge my support to any 'official' DVD release of ''Knightmare'', but I think it's probably too much hard work & far too expensive for the fan community to do on their own. We need Tim Child or a DVD company (such as Eureka or similar) to get involved & help along the way with all the minor details etc. Now I admit that I don't really know the in's/out's of what goes into making & releasing a series on DVD for retail, but I'm sure there's lot of legal bits/pieces & also copyright stuff to sort out, which could take-up a bit of time & also prove costly. I'd love to see a proper 'official' DVD of ''Knightmare'' to get released one-day, but don't forget we are talking about 8 series/112 episodes, which will be a fair few discs & also I'd love to have some extras, such as behind-the-scenes & commentaries etc. All this would take time & money, so unless some serious backing is put behind the project then sadly I don't ever see it happening, which is a really sad thing. I wonder what Tim thinks of this idea though? Surely if he were to get involved, then perhaps he could persuade a big company or 2 to get invloved etc. I'd love GrantNaylor Productions (who make ''Red Dwarf'') to venture into doing DVD's for other series, as the ''Red Dwarf'' DVD's so far have been fantastic, really well put-together & crammed to the fore with extra material, so to get that kind-of treatment for ''Knightmare'' would be amazing! So, to sum-up I do hope one-day we finally get to see ''Knightmare'' on proper 'official' DVD or even Blu-Ray & I'd like that day to be sooner rather than later, but unless Tim & others get involved then I don't think it will happen for a while at least, or unless someone in the fan community wins the National Lottery jackpot soon! Lol I do hope it does happen though, as it would be great for all of us fans to have the show we have loved for so many years on proper 'official' shiny discs!
Alternatively, maybe it would be worth contacting Challenge, to see if they've got any plans to repeat the show again at any point in the future? The worst they could say would be no & it would be fabulous if they could repeat it again, as they've been showing ''The Crystal Maze'' now on/off for more than 10 years or so!...
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The short answer is: no news.
The longer answer is:
The rights holders didn't get back to me, which isn't a big surprise. When the new site gets launched, I'll phone them, clarify what is and isn't allowed, discuss the issue with the other participants of the project and get some solid numbers done. Then we'll make a full survey of fans and see how many people would be prepared to pay for it.
In general, I think the probability of it getting off the ground is small. In several months, we've only had interest from 100 - 200 people. This number is significantly smaller than the number needed to cover the costs to make the episodes downloadable. They certainly don't cover the costs of DVD distribution.
I'm probably still inclined to buy the rights to a single episode and see what happens. But I suspect it will involve lots of people getting cross when the money isn't raised to buy the next one.
There's also a time limit with respect to producing DVDs. The rights to the episodes last for five years. We need to purchase all the rights to a particular season before we can produce a DVD, and the logistics might require us to purchase all the rights to every episode before we can consider DVDs. That means if it takes 4.5 years to raise the money to buy all the episodes, the DVDs will only be available for sale for a month or two.
Again, this is a problem which is made worse by the lack of interest.
With respect to getting a company involved - it'll never happen. We're not looking at any kind of profit margin for producing these DVDs. Big companies do. The only people who could do it much cheaply would be the rights holders themselves.
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The only way I see it happening is by reaching people outwith the current community.
That basically involves getting national media attention, or paying for advertising or something.
Some online media outlets such as theregister (www.theregister.co.uk) are a technology based UK company. Their demographic consist of 25-40 year old men. Exactly the sort of audience who will remember Knightmare. They're all very much into digital media rights. They're exactly the sort of people who might be interested in a bunch of fans buying the rights to a TV series. Particularly since it's never been done before.
Sadly, to my knowledge, nobody has tried to make these kind of groups aware of what we're doing. As another poster commented, the only people we're currently reaching are people who are already in the community.
If you REALLY, DESPERATELY, BADLY want this thing to happen - try writing to newspapers and news organisations. Write to media outlets, post on facebook, LJ and twitter (I can't believe I had to beg people to post this news to their facebook pages). If you're wealthy, or have a spare £5, consider advertising on facebook or google (£5 buys you in the region of 500 clicks on google).
We've already covered the core community very well. The trick is to get your friends to tell their friends. Do that, and we might be in with a shot.
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Doesn't sound too good, does it ...
Yeah, I have to agree that the latest news on this from Mystara doesn't sound too promising, but then again I'm not that surprised, as it's just too much to expect the fan community to be able to do on their own, with the cost of the whole project being one of the major hurdles, without any help from a bigger company etc & as Mystara said no big company will want to get involved as it's a such as small project with no possibilities or any profit being made from it etc. So, I think in reality this idea is basically all but gone-for-a-burton. I salute the likes of Mystara for trying their best to try & get this idea off the ground, but as he said there was only interest from around 100 - 200 people, which was way below the desired amount to get things moving in the right direction. It's sad news of course, but at least it was a good idea to start-off with & a real shame that it looks like that it will never come to fruition. Although, Mystara's comments above about trying to get people outside the fan community is a good idea, so anything that is worthwhile doing is a good thing, so I am going to remain positive as long as I can, but as it stands at the moment, things aren't looking too good, which is a real shame! Oh well...
I still wonder what Tim Child thinks about this idea, as it's always been frowned upon to obtain bootleg copies of all the KM series, yet with still no 'official' DVD release, how are us fans meant to watch the show we have loved & cherish all these years? Thank heavens for Gary Garratt for sticking all the episodes onto ''YouTube'' & of course the Challenge repeats in '03/'04 were great, but I'm sure many fans like me would love to own the full 8 series of KM on proper 'official' shiny DVD discs. Maybe if Tim got involved this could have a better chance of possibly happening at some point? Maybe in-time for the 30th anniversary in 2017 perhaps?
Anyway, to sum-up, I hope one day there will be some good news regarding a proper DVD release of KM, but sadly it seems like it's a long-way off at the moment. But hey let's not totally give us hope as you never know what may happen in the future of course!...
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The best move any single person can make would be to go and stick a fiver in to Google adwords.
If 500 people click on the link, then 500 people know about it. If they all tell two people, then 1000 people know about it.
Even if only 20% of them sign up and post their support, that's 200 more names.
It's what I'll be doing when the new site launches. Though I'm of limited funds and money spent there is money that can't be spent on buying episode rights.
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