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Info & Help Wanted: to help preserve the OT... (Original Transformers)

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Does anyone have decent copies of the original broadcasts of the original Transformers (1984-1987) cartoon? If you’ve seen the Rhino boxsets, you may have noticed the extra sounds that Rhino added in (disgusting), or the fact that they used the pre-broadcast master tapes which didn’t have the final artwork done, and there are some (non-original) animation errors.

I remember seeing VHS tapes, VCDs, and DVD-Rs of this all over the web and Ebay until the Rhino sets came out, and now they’ve completely disappeared. If anyone has these, or knows someone that does, please let me know so that a preservation project can get rolling.

I’d like to find as many commercials, bumpers, news items, etc. that can be added as bonus material, instead of the crap Rhino put on there. I’ve seen the commercials on a few TF fansites, but never any that I could grab of any decent quality.

Thanks in advance for any help out there.

FE<3OT

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You might want to check to see if Madman's used the Rhino transfers. From what I can recall they were different. I know for a fact though that the Madman DVDs at least have the eyecatches/bumpers. I have AVIs of the entire series (I own all 6 Madman boxsets - so I'm allowed to keep these ). I could check the AVIs against the Madman DVDs if you tell me some specific things to look out for.

For what it's worth, the Madman DVDs have a 5.1 mix and no original stereo track.

On a laughable note; I've always kind of had the perverse intention of reconstructing some G2 episodes, or at least doing a transfer of the G2 VHS tapes. I think it would be a laugh and be one of those discs that you'd have just to show how much editing can screw with things (a la the variations of Thief and the Cobbler and the OHMSS Narrated Cut). I can still remember the Cybercube (was that the name?) and its over-the-top CGI transitions between scenes.

To contact me outside the forum, for trades and such my email address is my OT.com username @gmail.com

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I have a UK DVD of Generation 2 that has "More than meets the eye" parts 1, 2 and 3, "SOS Dinobots", and Heavy Metal War. I'd be interested to see what your tapes have on them. I watched it recently, and OMG what a bunch of CGI crap. It's the Transformers version of the PT.

I'd be curious to see what the Madman transfers are. If it's a 5.1 mix, then it's most likely just the Rhino transfers. Are the Madman sets the ones in the silver tin from China?

Here are some links to a great website that points out the flaws in both the US and UK versions of the G1 DVDs:

Season 1
Season 2 part 1
Season 2 part 2
Season 3 part 1
Season 3 part 2/Season 4

FE<3OT

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I am interested in helping out with this project:

first here are some sites offering the

Apparently you can get a supposedly uncut/unedited version of the episodes on dvd from TheDVDPlanet.org:
http://www.thedvdplanet.org/product.php?productid=283930&cat=256

it looks like TheDVDPlanet.org may be a home outfit.


here are some other places to check:
http://www.sell.com/search/index.x?_d=1&posted=mini&show=mini&search=transformers

and

http://www.ioffer.com/search/items/transformers/