Toon Zone Talkback - "Transformers: Robots in Disguise" That's Just Prime

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*~*September Goddess*~*

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This is the talkback thread for "Transformers: Robots in Disguise" That's Just Prime.

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Toon Zone will soon publish a review of Transformers: Animated. In the meantime, just to whet your appetite, here is Hellcat on Transformers: Robots in Disguise.
 
I remember this show back then on Fox Kids, the show was a mixed bag for me, but I still enjoyed the show for what it was worth. I always liked Prime as a Fire Truck, and Sky-Byte rocked!

I was hoping Hasbro and Disney would release the complete series on DVD and re-air the show on JETIX around the time the Transformers movie hit theaters, but alas it wasn't meant to be. :( Still have hopes for a DVD release even though it's very unlikely that it'll ever happen
 
If possible, I'd suggest picking up the 2 sets from my review. Disney now own the show via Saban and their US branch doesn't see any market for releasing it, otherwise Rhino or some other company would surely have made DVDs. Luckily, Jetix UK goes nuts with putting their shows out there, especially for the cult market :)
 
RID was a great show, it's a same that it's been left behind. I'm amazed that Disney didn't air it when the movie game out the show would have fit in perfectly on Jetix. Maybe it'll be back some day soon, either on TV or on DVD.
 
I remember seeing an ep of Transformers: Robots in Disguise when it aired on Fox. Saban, which hadn't had an animated hit on any channel not named Nickelodeon in what seemed like forever, looked like they were finally going to snap that streak. Not to be. Fox cancelled the show. IIRC, it was around the time that they transitioned to the Fox Box (now 4KidsTV), at which point the net went into the toilet on SatAM, save maybe for Sonic X and TMNT.
 
We have a winner folks. RiD finished its run, and the success of RiD led Hasbro to authorize Transformers Armada for airing on CN. I still believe the Transformers series (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron) would have all aired on Fox Kids if they hadn't sold their contract to 4Kids.
 
I hated RiD at the time. But given the quality of what we've gotten since then, I wouldn't mind watching it again. It might not be so bad. It at least had an excellent dub, which is more than can be said for Armada or Energon.
 
Eh, personally, I didn't think it was that good of a show (well, at least of what I saw, which was the first 15 episodes). Part of the problem was probably the post-9/11 edits, but it also had to do with how generic some of the episodes were.

Then again, I have the same latter issue with G1 as well.
 
Ah, yes, Digimon, now on Toon Disney. In 1999, Fox & Saban brought this out as their answer to Pokemon, which WB acquired halfway through the 1998-99 season (originally syndicated). In the last 15 years, it's the only toon that was a real ratings winner for Saban, and yet, in 2002, Fox dropped it to make room for 4Kids. It was supposed to go to ABC as well as UPN, but ABC chose not to run it after seeing the poor ratings it was getting on UPN. In short, Fox burned it out by overplaying it to death with marathons every few months.
 
Fox didn't drop anything. Saban sold his company and its properties to Buena Vista internationnal and thus Digimon was bought by Disney. Buena Vista owning a network that was a competitor of Fox (ABC) they didn't keep them around. Fox then sold its SatAM block to the first company to fork over the dough, AKA 4Kids.

And I hate ABC for chosing to air the same 13 or so episode of Emperor's New School instead of NEW frickin' DIGIMON episodes! How can you expect a show to be a hit when no one gets your network -.-
 
I recently bought these Transformers RID DVDs from Amazon UK, as I enjoyed the series when it was shown on TV. But I have to wonder what setup you were using for this review, when you state the video quality is fine.

The video quality is just awful on these DVDs, with various glitches in almost every scene, caused by a extremely poor NTSC to transfer I assume.

The background scenes especially look low quality, an example for series 2:
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I watch the majority of my DVD via computer, which unfortunately shows any video quality issues, all too clearly.
 
The discs don't have sparkling video, true. However I have seen worse examples, hence why I felt it was ok to refer to the video as generally fine. These are cheap cash in DVDs, so the video quality is just about as expected.
 
It is always worth mentioning any issues with audio or video quality in reviews, even if you have seen much worse on other DVD releases.

Transformers RID was produced in 2001 in USA, with the original Car Robots series been produced in 2000 in Japan. So a DVD release with good video quality should be possible, considering this series isn't that old.
 
He did. He said in his opinion - the quality was okay with no major issues, especially in a no frills DVD release. Problem with audio and visual appraisal - as you yourself point out succinctly - that quality or platform of the player can make a difference to the viewing experience.

As Hellcat said:



That to me is pretty clear - that the disks are a no frills affair and the video and audio is fine by the reviewers standards with no major problems on his run. He's hardly suggesting that the DVDs are crystal and perfect, he's just saying the audio and video - in his opinion - worked fine in relation to his expectations with no glaring problems. If your computer shows the glitches, more than you personally expect from a release, I think that's a fair piece of feedback - not so much for the review, but for any other people like yourself who do have higher expectations of these releases than they offer, but I think Hellcat did give an indication that this was a no-frills product.

I must admit, I'd have been very surprised if this had been anything else. I've not seen many decade plus cash-in releases that offer just the bare minimum of DVD features carry any decent transfer - you get very much what you would expect, and if it otherwise, I'm sure the reviewer would be blown back off his chair with surprise and reported this inconsistency with our jaded expectations. :)

In the end, the demographics who probably read our reviews are either a) people who are caught in the trends and are curious for a cheap fun buy and probably don't have a massive issue with quality, or b) those perfectly used to these sort of releases and from a quick description of the DVD's own qualities a "fine" with no major problems gives a clear message what contextually they can expect; that this post decade old cartoon has had no crystal clean transfer. So in the short space of the review, I think what HC said was fair appraisal and neither group would expect or need much more, unless they were people who had an eye for quality as an important consumer expectation as yourself.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that really a DVD release should have better quality than fine - especially if you encountered constant glitches. I just don't get the impression the reviewer caught any on his copy - but its something perhaps potential buyers should be aware of!
 
Trying to give the best review possible is always my objective. I try and avoid just typing "This is great, buy it now!" and to give as much info as possible. At the same time, like everyone on staff the work I do is unpaid and has to be fitted in to the rest of my activities (which include studying, commuting and general horror endurance). This is a roughly 40 episode series, so it would take me almost an entire day to watch the full series in one sitting. Therefore, I didn't. I looked at a few random episodes on each disc and typed my review from that and my memory of the TV airings. Whilst the video quality wasn't superb, at no point in doing this did I encounter anything of the quality of your screencap.

I appreciate you feel my comments in the review were not helpful enough. I'll do my best in future reviews to correct that. But at the same time please understand I am not a paid journalist with the time to pour into every nook and cranny of these discs. I'm just a fan doing this out of the goodness of my heart to help keep the site stocked up with content.
 
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