In addition to the shortened version of “Threads”, fans in North America have been stunned to learn that the five-disk US/Canada (DVD Region 1) box sets for Stargate: SG-1 Season 8 offer much less in the way of special features than the six-disk sets offered in Europe in the DVD Region 2 zone (DVD’s are released with different region codes for different parts of the world).
Here is a breakdown of extras for the North American Region 1 box set now on sale:
Disk 1 Extras:
- Audio Commentaries: New Order 1 and 2, Lockdown, Zero Hour
- Beyond the Gate: An Airforce Experience with Richard Dean Anderson
- Photo Gallery
- Production Design Gallery
Disk 2 Extras:
- Audio Commentaries: Icon, Avatar, Affinity, Covenant
- Director’s Series: Avatar, Covenant
- Photo Gallery
- Production Design Gallery
Disk 3 Extras:
- Audio Commentaries: Sacrifices, Endgame, Gemini, Prometheus Unbound
- Super Soldier: The Making of a Monster
- Photo Gallery
- Production Design Gallery
Disk 4 Extras:
- Audio Commentaries: It’s Good to Be King, Full Alert, Citizen Joe, Reckoning 1
- Beyond the Gate: A Convention Experience with Chris Judge
- Photo Gallery
- Production Design Gallery
Disk 5 Extras:
- Audio Commentaries: Reckoning 2, Moebius Part 1 and Part 2 (not Threads)
- Director’s Series: Reckoning
- Photo Gallery
- Production Design Gallery
In contrast, the European box sets, such as the BeNeLux Silver Box Set version offered in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxemburg, offer these additional features:
European Features
- Unedited 60-minute version of Threads
- Director’s Series for Threads
- Michael Shanks: A Convention Experience
- Amanda Tapping: A Convention Experience
- The Last Days of Teal’c Featurette
- From Stargate to Atlantis Featurette
- Secrets Revealed Special (including 15 minutes that were not aired on SciFi)
- An Interview with Mallozzi and Mullie
- Director’s Series for Moebius
The BeNeLux set does not offer audio commentaries for “It’s Good to be King”, “Citizen Joe”, or like Region 1, “Threads”. It’s not known why this is the case.
While the European box set is not offered at US retailers, there is nothing to prevent North Americans from buying it on-line. For example, the site below offers the BeNeLux version for $55 (US dollars) including shipping to the US:
These DVD’s have a choice of English menus and the original English audio tracks as well as other language choices.
The main caveat for US customers is that you must have a multi-region or region-free DVD player with PAL encoding, or the disks will not play. Such players are typically available on-line for reasonable prices. For more information, go to DVD Hacks. Or simply google “region free DVD player’ to find vendors.
In addition, most US PC’s have DVD players that will only allow you to switch regions a limited number of times. You can get around this limitation by purchasing and installing the software DVD Region Free, available here.
We live in hope that MGM/Sony will come to their senses and offer an additional S8 DVD with the missing extras and the full version of Threads. If not, then consumers do have other choices.
This information was collated from various posts on Our Stargate, sg1_spoilme, and Gateworld. Thanks to all who have provided this information.
Does anybody know if these DVDs will work on Playstations or Sony TV DVD Players?
As far as I can tell by googling, Playstations are sold for Region 1 in the US, so it would have the same issues as a typical US player. As for your other player, I’d recommend visiting http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks, looking for the model number, and seeing if you can get rid of the region lock.