Discotek Media has licensed the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Haha, right? I saw the covers and while I do like the look of them and the homage regardless, the show didn't concern itself almost at all with the content of the games. Pretty cheeky.

Sounds like this was long overdue so it's cool this is happening. That said I am really not a fan of this show lol, I'm not even especially nostalgic for it even though it was the first piece of Sonic media I had any prolonged exposure to. Even as a kid I thought it was sort of dumb, and once I started getting my hands on the games the show became even more frustrating. Not to knock on this release for that, though.

 

That's some pretty fantastic box art. About time, that era of Sonic shows always got the cheapest looking DVD sets about time we got a good one.

I think I'll upgrade the old set to this one

 

I've never watched AoStH but I've seen a ton of people talk really fondly about it.

I might buy it.

 

AOSTH was my entry point into the series along with Sonic 2, and I have some fondness for it for that reason. I revisited it earlier this year for a podcast episode about it and found it to be really... tedious. It's much easier to appreciate the show when you're 6 years old and not so discerning. I went into the rewatch trying my best to like it — hey it's a show that's just about Sonic & Tails battling Robotnik robots, and it's gag-driven, this could be fun! — but the unfortunate reality is that the gags are just not very good, at any point. It's not like watching, say, classic Looney Tunes and appreciating the joke structure or the impressive animation. AOSTH just feels very tired and rote, in my opinion. I think the episode lengths each being a half-hour hurts it; these might've worked better as 11 minute episodes.

That box art is spectacular, though. It makes me wish the show itself was better! But I still might buy it just for the box art, haha.

 

Random title cards? Everything we used matched up to the actual episodes.

Re: Europe. Different regions have different licensors. We only have the license in the US. However, at this point, if you have a PC Blu-ray drive, it's not hard to change the region. Or put the episodes on your media server.

 

Pretty much. The Dic cartoons introduced me to Sonic, but rewatching them now they're pretty banal. They're standard 80s/90s cartoon game adaptation in terms of quality, with bad animation, gags and plots. Not to mention that the original characters don't even match the style used by Sonic and Tails' designs. Not much value outside of nostalgia.

 

Those cards aren't on my US Shout! Factory sets. I even watched that episode recently because I've been rewatching the series.

 

That's the slate from the master tape, and no, they're definitely not on the episodes on our release. (And I never saw any on the Shout! version which we referenced heavily.)

Also, it says it's a pal version, I guess you're refering to a PAL/EU collection? I'm guessing this isn't the Shout! version?

 

What about getting a multi-regional Blu-ray player?

I'd certainly be up for having Sonic OVA on Blu-ray, and wishfully with plenty of extras.

 

If I may ask, Kushami, what needed dropouts repaired, and did these dropouts also occur on the Shout! Factory set. If not, can the older DVDs be used to patch the dropouts? I would also be curious to know what kind of assets were provided, especially since I know DiC stuff has passed many hands over the years.

I was also wondering if the team has any idea who may have this high quality version of the sales pilot that Bioware seemed to have had. It seems like SEGA may have provided it to Bioware (so perhaps SoA has a copy archived?). Here's a link to the video that uses the clip (go to around 1 minute in the video):

Oh, and one last question. Will the set be deinterlaced, or will the video stream be interlaced, relying on the user to handle the job?

 

It's case by case, honestly. I did speak to a contact at Sega for some advice on the artwork. The licensor provided the video materials, but finding the tapes for this show was difficult. I pulled from my own recordings to help fill in blanks. The thing is, with old shows like this, the master tapes are degrading almost every day. Because of this, it's very common for there to be a lot of dropouts and video issues, so you have to mix and match sources to try to restore them. We looked back at a lot of past releases and recordings I had, and learned some of the audio issues stretch way back to when it first aired, so it's just on the show itself.

 

A bunch of the dropouts appeared in the Shout! set, a bunch didn't. Like I said, some stuff even appeared on the original airings. It's like a needle in a haystack.

I definitely do not know anything about that HQ pilot footage; if I knew this footage existed I would've tried to ask for it. I was under the impression SoA didn't have much AoStH stuff from what I heard though. If we ever revisit this set in some way, I'll reach out about it. I did a lot of research into things for this set but this clip never came up. It looks like the version pictured here is slightly different, though, since the title screen animation is different.

Edit: I'll add, since the version used in the Bioware video has a green backdrop, I imagine it's maybe from before they composited in the background shapes.

 

Good to know. I wasn't aware of the technical errors that made it to air, so that's news to me. In terms of the Bioware sales pilot footage, going by the green background, it could be an even earlier copy of the sales pilot, as you said, with Milton's copy being sourced from a more complete version.

I will say, I'm really happy this release is happening. I had wanted to own the Shout! Factory sets physically for a long time, but due to them being out of print (with Volume 3 being notably hard to get, due to being sold online only), it was never really viable, and I knew the later DVDs were bad, so I avoided them. I had even gotten to the point where I was considering collecting all of the known DVD releases of the show, to try and source the best quality versions of everything, but with this new Blu-Ray set, it seems I wont have to do that. From the looks of it, unless something comes out later, this should be the be-all, end-all release of the show. Seriously, thank you to the entire Discotek team for treating this release with loads of love and care. Ill be sure to pre-order it.

 

Hot damn, you guys at Discotek always hit it out of the park with these releases. Instant buy.

Now to pray for SATAM and the OVA

 

I'm not even sure if I currently have a viable Blu-ray player to run these on and I'm already inclined to get this for Christmas just for the cover art alone!