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The Official LUCY ON BLU-RAY Thread!


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MARCH 18, 2014!

 

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Amazon has listed Season 1 of I Love Lucy on blu-ray priced at *gulp* $129.99 (currently marked down to *gulp* $90.99)

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/Love-Lucy-Complete-Season-Blu-ray/ref=%26%2574%2561g%3d%2562l%2575r%2561yf%256fr%2575m%252d20?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1386425660&sr=1-21&tag=blurayforum-20&ASIN=B00H5NY6CI

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Really hoping they stick to the updated "comic" style art for these.

 

i-love-lucy-season-1-dvd_200.jpg?k=76df5

 

Oh, and I'll say it... the price on this is absolutely ridiculous.

Agree about the list price...which can't possibly be correct.  My guess is that (hopefully!) it's simply a "placeholder"-type price to get the listing posted... and will be (again, hopefully!) adjusted/corrected later.

 

If this is indeed just a one-season only release, this price IS ludicrous and does not bode well for the success IMHO for future releases...as it is double the price for most comparable one season sitcom titles, usually in the $50 range (full retail, usually discounted especially over online sites like Amazon, etc.). 

 

We'll just have to wait and see I guess.  Stay tuned! ;)

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Some dish from TV Guide:

 

ILoveLucy_TheUltimateLucy_BLU_comingsoon

 

 

Brief preliminary mention on TV Shows On DVD: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Love-Lucy-ultimate-Lucy-season-1/19243

For that price, I'll keep my mind un-blown.  Thanks.  Admit to not watching much of first season on my DVD set.  It was the last season I bought.  Was the original price also over $100?  I understand that there were a couple of not-perfect prints, but from what I've seen....just how MUCH clearer can these Blu Ray's be?  And how clear do we need them? 

 

I've gone from 1) setting my VCR to TBS every day and taping them on the 6-hour speed VHS (approx. 18 VHS tapes)-- to 2) Columbia House entire VHS subscription-- to 3) DVD.  I may stop there.  I still have all those VHS tapes....Just can't get myself to dump them.

 

Yes, it's great having them all at my fingertips, but......there was just something, I don't know, special about having to arrange your schedule around an ILL showing by a local station.  You never knew how long they were going to run it...and in the pre-Bart Andrews book days, I didn't know them in order, so you never knew what episode was going to be on.

A local station ran it at 7pm, then it went to 5pm then 3pm and then it was shown once a week, Saturdays at 2:30pm AFTER the baseball game....TIME PERMITTING.  Ugh.....you don't know how frustrating it was sitting there at 2:15 with the ballgame seemingly near the end only to have delays and then god forbid a TIE.  Even if the ballgame ended, they would have to TALK about it for another few minutes, cutting into ILL episode, which they sometimes "joined in progress".  However past a certain point, they would instead opt to run their 15-minute filler "Travels with Don and Bettina", crummy 16mm travel films.  I was never a swear-er, but when the "Travels" graphic would come up, I'd less loose with a string of drunken-sailor expletives!! (and this was before my voice changed).  On a day when the baseball game ended on time (or some "crank" called in a bomb scare---this was BEFORE caller ID), the episode would run intact and it was quite a thrill because they were in the Hollywood years and showing them in sequence. 

"Progress" as it were, is wonderful but with each new step forward, one of life's little thrills fades away...something, like the above, that we didn't know we'd miss....

I met a local Lucy fan as an adult and we had the exact same experience of frustration with the post-baseball showing.

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I'm not going to buy it at that price,  but its the "extras that will blow fans minds", that's got me curious.  What could possibly blow our minds?

Exactly! But remember, that was basically a "salesman" talking, regardless of how high ranking, job title etc.: They just want to sell their product!   But then again...I really hope they are!! ;)

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I have a feeling that price will drop before its release. CBS's Dick Van Dyke Show Season 1 Blu-Ray release had a list price of $60 and is now available for half of that. 

 

It's good to see CBS upgrading I Love Lucy into the next generation of home video, though I doubt it will be the last to come. The show's 35mm film negatives contain over four times the amount of visual data that Blu-Ray can handle. Of course, that added clarity wouldn't be very noticeable on today's mainstream HDTVs. But that does mean if 4K or 8K Ultra-HDTVs become "a thing" within the next few years, we'll likely see ILL in yet another format down the line (not to mention the possibility of colourized versions). Ultra-HD is already quite popular for digital cinema screenings, though it has yet to catch on amongst average consumers.

 

It's also worth noting that I Love Lucy has already been available in HD from CBS for over a year now, albeit in a highly compressed online format. Many HD-quality episodes are available fairly cheaply to stream on Amazon.com or to download on iTunes. It will be interesting to see how well these Blu-Ray discs sell now that online TV streaming and downloading has become so popular within the last few years. A lot of episodes of the show are even available for free on Hulu. Plus, many people assume that "old stuff" can't possibly look better in HD, which may automatically draw some away from this Blu-Ray release.

 

On a related note, CBS also created an HD package of all I Love Lucy episodes for syndication after they completed the series' restoration for DVD a few years ago. I haven't heard of any networks using this HD set for broadcast yet, and I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps the demand just isn't there. I did, however, notice a couple of these HD snippets in Macy's 150th anniversary commercial a few years back.

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Really hoping they stick to the updated "comic" style art for these.

 

i-love-lucy-season-1-dvd_200.jpg?k=76df5

 

Oh, and I'll say it... the price on this is absolutely ridiculous.

I agree about the price- for that price I expect a hologram of Lucy to come from the TV and do Vitameatavegamin! 

 

I disagree about the cover though. Though its nice, the cover for the Blu Ray should be a little more elegant. Enough with the wacky looking Lucy.  I think Ric Carls work should be on the front this time. Ric is phenomenal as we all know, but some of his work, like the Trivia Book cover, or the ILL Paper doll book, stand out as BRILLIANT work that displays Lucy in an elegance and artistic light that makes you gaze at it for hours. It captures you, and intrigues you. The same can be said for his work on the I Love Lucy Book cover. Every time I see that cover, I want to pick it up-becuase Rics work just attracts me to it. Eye catching and breathtaking. We  had the  soft, colorized photo montage for a cover- we had the comic look, I say,  lets go with something a little more sophisticated for Blue Ray.

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The DVD image quality is superb, but I can guarantee the blu-ray upgrade will look even better. If the Dick Van Dyke Show review tells us anything its that these films will look unlike any version we've seen before. I'm very excited to learn more of this release.

 

I can understand picture quality, but for heavens sake, how much more hi def and remastering can be doe to the original masters that will make such a big difference. I think the new Christmas show has the Blu Ray quality

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I can understand picture quality, but for heavens sake, how much more hi def and remastering can be doe to the original masters that will make such a big difference. I think the new Christmas show has the Blu Ray quality

 

I think the remastering on the original DVDs is wonderful, but it'll be the 1080p transfer that'll show off the remastering even more than the DVD. Trust me. Get a DVD of a movie or show, play it on a big screen, then pop in a blu-ray of the same program and see the difference for yourself.

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I've downloaded a few of the HD episodes off iTunes and I think the picture quality is even better than the DVD releases.

 

Yes, I've seen those, too, and they definitely are. Although some digital artifacts are noticeable from the files' compression, the quality of iTunes's 1080p versions are much clearer. It's likely that the same transfers used for iTunes files will be used for the upcoming Blu-Ray sets. 

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Anybody in "the know" with regards to the special features? I must admit -- my curiosity is definitely peaked. Anyone care to speculate or engage in some wishful thinking? 

 

Maybe there's more material from the pre-series vaudeville tour. Maybe more on set home movies. 

 

Maybe that documentary that Fidelman's book claims was produced during Season Three's "Equal Rights" will make its way onto a future release. (This would truly blow my mind.) 

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Personally, I'd love to see/hear remnants of the 1956 farewell cast party held for Jess Oppenheimer, though I have no idea if those elements will ever be released. As for other unreleased bits, I recall that a few of the new episode introductions recorded for I Love Lucy reruns were still missing several years ago; perhaps some of those have been found.

 

I don't have Fidelman's book on hand; what was this "Equal Rights" documentary? 

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I looked it up again -- Dann Cahn says it was filmed around the time of "Equal Rights" and screened in a theatre once. It documented production of an episode and what everyone did behind-the-scenes.

I've always assumed that they were referring to The I Love Lucy Movie, which was still lost at the time of The Lucy Book's publishing, and some of the recollections were off 45+ years later.

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