CiNEPHiL

Mcdmann114 said:

I bought the vhs listing on ebay & I will upload once i’ve had a chance to rip these. I messaged the reddit account you linked & she no longer has access to those tapes.

That’s good. If you can find someone from vhs-decode community near by, who interested in preserving this series - it would be even better.(https://discord.gg/pVVrrxd * https://www.reddit.com/r/vhsdecode/)

At least try to get maximum quality as you can. And try to remove distortion at the bottom of the frame (by loosing screws and rotating board on the VCR head (if your VCR has board like this) -> https://i.imgur.com/c27Lmf2.jpeg).
vs

Rhino home video full set on eBay - https://www.ebay.com/itm/187013664520
Would be great if someone who had VHS-decode hardware can do RF Capture of it.

Little bit more input on the preservation topic. Here is the recordings from the Sci-Fi channel (mixed SP and EP) - https://www.reddit.com/r/VHS/comments/14jvnk2/off_air_tv_show_recordings_free/
Maybe someone interested in digitizing it (if it’s not thrown away already).

StarCandies said:

I want a high quality copy to watch…

It’s sad, that to this day no one in U.S./Canada hasn’t tracked down such “a high quality copy” to preserve the series.
I crossed by Lee Sonko’s blog post where he says that had a box of 57 SVHS tapes with Babylon 5 on it in the garage. And he don’t know what to do with it (since B5 already released on DVD). And 7 years later, when someone ask if it still available - turns out the box was thrown away… That kind of story is most likely happened and to VR.5 - someone had it, but 30 years later it’s rott somewhere in the waste. 😦

Doctor M said:

I’ll see what I can do.

Any luck with VHS-ripping?

Even for closed captions alone the higher quality is better.

All of them. It’s interesting to compare with existing subtitles.

Doctor M said:

Are you requesting the captions? I can probably easily rip them, but not the episodes in good quality and I don’t have time to sync and delete any subtitles from the commercials.

Well, if you can rip captions - that would be great, even with commercials.

Doctor M said:

I recorded it from my cable provdier when it originally aired on Fox. They are SP.

These recordings from FOX channel has closed-captioned in it. There is english subtitles only for first 6 or 7 episodes can be found online.

MADDRAGON said:

I’m wondering who owns the copyright at this point.

Copyrights is somewhere between CBS and Vine Alternative Investments.

Doctor M said:

VR5 was released commercially on VHS in the U.S… (Although some music was changed to save money.) I have my old VHS tapes from back then…

Do you have RHINO home video VHS release, or you have TV broadcast VHS records (in SP mode) from Sci-Fi channel? It’s worth to made a proper video capture of this with VHS-Decode (Domesday86 Project).

I wonder if someone (from Virtual Storm community) had made SVHS recordings from Sci-Fi channel back in the day (1997 - 1999)? It would be pure Gold if the TV signal was clean with no interference.

Ryan McAvoy said:

You want multiple Madonna specials? Why? ;-)

 It's David Cronenberg movie - VIDEODROME (1983) with two TV air date.

So did you find someone who help you out? I also interested in the possibility to record in the UK digital TV broadcast of VIDEODROME - maybe will show "open matte" version.