Kind of sad to see that there is no bluray release for the complete series of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In many ways, I prefer it to the Twilight Zone (even though TZ is still fantastic). I like AHP because it's more about real people and real circumstances rather than crazy fantasy/sci-fi the way TZ often is. Do you think we'll ever see the complete series on blu?
I would *love* a blu. I dumped the DVDs onto my TV hard drive and have been making my way slowly through the first season. Picture quality is pretty good but I would always welcome an upgrade. Thankfully it is Hitchcock and a blu is likely to happen someday.
I don't think any HD masters exist for the series, and it's a long series, so the restoration costs are likely to be exorbitant. If I'm not mistaken, Universal has only released seasons 1-6 to DVD in the US. Season 7 and the three seasons of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour were released in other territories, but I think only in PAL format. Only the first four seasons are available on Hulu and only seasons 1 and 2 are available on Amazon Instant Video. I don't see it happening, to be honest. It's likely to be exorbitantly expensive, both for the studio and prospective customers, and if the series didn't sell well enough on DVD to release in it's entirety, I can't see it being viewed as a worthwhile gamble for Blu-Ray. Best case scenario is that they license the series to Shout! Factory, who release a complete series DVD boxset.
Yeah, this is my fear as well. I would be tempted to take a DVD box set at this point, but my Season 1 flippers had a lot of problems with playback so I'd want single-sided DVDs which would make the set too huge to be affordable. Love this damn show.
When it comes to classic television on Blu-Ray, The Twilight Zone is more an exception than the rule. There are way more classic TV series not on Blu-Ray than there are on Blu-Ray.
I don't even think they've packaged the full series on DVD. You can buy individual seasons, which personally, I never liked doing. I used to buy seasons of shows, but then I'd get irritated when they'd eventually package the whole series in a much more concise, neater box, and usually for a better price. Case in point: I started buying seasons of Sanford and Son at like $20-$30 a season. Low and behold, a few months later I got the whole series for $22.
I'd love it if they released an HD upgrade, but it seems pretty unlikely. I don't think it has nearly the prestige value of Twilight Zone. I've picked up the first 3 seasons, but since I haven't made it all the way through season 2 yet, I'm holding off on buying the rest. So an upgrade right now would save me a lot of money. I'd only have to re-buy 3 seasons.
I would definitely be in for these if they ever happened. Went thru 3 seasons or so on Hulu a while back. Also took in everything I could with One Step Beyond or at least I think that is what it was called.
