A couple of questions

[GaylordDuke]

Well, hi, y'all!

Cousin Gaylord Duke here, from England, just passing through Hazzard.

I've got a couple of questions. I've just discovered, to my great pleasure, that the two Dukes TV movies (Reunion and Hollywood), which I've never seen, are finally out on DVD. However, they're only available to US customers, and I live in the UK and need a disc that works with Region 2.

Now, looking on eBay, I see that there's a couple of people advertising this disc in the UK, and one of them claims that it's the official disc, and that it works in Regions 1, 2, 3 and 4. However, the official info listed by Amazon US says that it's only a Region 1 disc. Warner Bros, very unhelpfully, fails to specify the region coding on the official page for the release.

I really want this DVD (I've got the TV entire series, after all, and adore it), but I don't know whether to trust the eBay seller.

Can anyone who owns this disc please tell me whether it's Region 1 only or whether it's multi-region (or region-free)? Does anyone in the UK own it? If so, can you play it on a player that hasn't been region-hacked?

Alternatively, does anyone know if a European DVD release is on the cards?

Any information much appreciated! Thanks a lot.

-----

Secondly, I was just wondering... is it possible to get a clean sound clip of Rosco saying "cudyudyudcu!" from anywhere? (You know - the sound that plays over the Warner Bros logo at the very end of many episodes.) I think it'd make a great alert sound for mobile phones, computer errors etc., but the episodes only ever play it with other noise going on at the same time (tail-end of music or whatever). Can a nice clean copy, without other extraneous sounds, be found anywhere?

Thanks for any info you can provide, folks!

[MaryAnne]

Howdy Gaylord Duke! Welcome to HNet!

Hopefully somebody more knowledgable than me can help ya out on the first question. And to be honest, my answer on the second question probably won't be much else help either but perhaps somebody out there can recall this too.

I seem to recall that Rosco's giggle used in the closing credits of the Dukes (over the WB logo) was actually in an episode. Problem is, I can't recall what episode specifically and it's been awhile since I've popped in the DVD. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is it would've had to have been pulled from some episode in the first couple of seasons (or at some point before the giggle started being used).

Of course, whether the moment in the episode has any background noise or music, I can't recall that either.

Shame on me. LOL

But at the least, I DO know it was heard in a particular episode.

[Meadowmufn]

Buford here says it's from Deputy Dukes.

As for the region-free DVD, I'd be pretty skeptical. I'll do a little research though.

[RogerDuke]

I can't help you GaylordDuke but I want to welcome you to the HazzadNet. We sure hope you stay after you get those questions answered because you sure sound like somebody who belongs here!!

[GaylordDuke]

Thanks for the warm welcome, folks. I just discovered the site yesterday when I was researching the TV-movies DVD, and thought it would be a great place to ask about it.

I'm probably not a typical Dukes of Hazzard fan (whatever constitutes one of those), and I'm not even American, but I grew up watching it on the BBC every Saturday evening in my youth, and always really loved it. When it came out on DVD I was delighted, and recaptured my youth to some extent by watching the whole thing at a rate of an episode a week, on Saturday evenings! (Sometimes I can't resist, and watch episodes at other times, too.) Now that I've been through them all, I've gone back to the beginning and started all over again! It's just such a sunny, funny and happy show; I love everything about it.

Have to say, I felt very let down by the 2005 film with a new cast, which was crude and seemed to me to rather betray the ethos of the series, and I haven't seen the new Beginning film (and don't expect much from it). But the TV films featuring the original cast I would love to see, and I never have, so I'm very keen to get the DVD of those.

I'm sceptical about the multi-region version being advertised on eBay, of course, especially as the DVD isn't available on Amazon.co.uk, Play.com or any of the other UK DVD retailers; I suspect it's either a mistake (i.e. a Region 1 only US import) or a pirate copy (and I want to buy the legitimate thing, not a knock-off; we Dukes may run shine, but we don't steal). I know I'm not supposed to post links on the forum, but if anyone wants to take a look, just search for "dukes of hazzard reunion r2" on eBay.co.uk - that gives the page I'm talking about as the only result. There's a picture of the front and back of the box, and it looks legitimate enough, but it's too blurry to read the region-code logo at the bottom. Also, this DVD's fairly expensive; too pricey to risk if it's not legitimate. My guess is that WB will do an official European release in due course (it took a few years for the rest of the TV series to make it over here), and I'm probably better off waiting for that, but I'm just itching to see the films, now I know they exist! So it'd just be interesting to know about the status of the current release.

As for Rosco's funny noise, I think I'd spotted it in an episode, though I couldn't have identified which one. Thanks for that; I'll try to find it. I've a feeling, though, that when I heard it I was aware of other sounds going on too, and it's probably fairly unlikely that it'll be possible to extract a nice clean version. Still, I'll check it out now that I know the episode. I'd love to have my computer make that sound rather than the usual alert noise, and to have it happen when a text arrives on my phone.

Anyway, thanks for the answers, and I hope someone with the DVD can tell me more!

[DaisyMaeDuke]

My "cousin" BoJamesDuke is also from the UK. I am pretty certain that BoJames has the reunion movies but I am not sure if it they were bought here on a visit to the US or not. I'm sure though that we can find out for you. MiniHogg may know as well.

Welcome aboard!

[BoJamesDuke]

Say my name and i'm sure to appear eventually lol

Hey there cousin from England! Wherebouts in the UK are ya?!

As for the reunion DVD's, don't buy the ones your looking at from ebay. Seriously. The Dukes of Hazzard box sets and the reunion DVD's have really weird things goin on with their reigon codes because I've got a mix of American and English regions of the box sets and my Reunion DVD's are both American (region 1) as well and they work fine on my laptop. Here's the thing, my laptop is definitly not multi regional because I tried to play another region 1 dvd on here and it wouldn't let me. Its something to do with the way it was recorded onto the disks, not having NTSC recording on it or something, which means it doesn't really matter about the region it should play on any DVD player, that's what i've found anyway.

They're not releasing the Dukes reunion movies on DVD over here unfortunatly, as everyone knows who lives here, England is pretty much a Dukes-Free domain apart from the occasionaly showing on Bravo. If you want it you need to buy a region one copy, DO NOT TRUST EBAY when they say oh its region 2 cause it aint

Hope this helps!

[GaylordDuke]

Thanks a lot for all that. (To answer your question, I live in Huddersfield.)

I agree that I shouldn't trust eBay; that's why I asked on here!

I'm very interested to read that you've got the so-called Region 1 DVDs and that they play OK on your laptop when they 'shouldn't'. I think that's a good indication that they'll be OK, and it may well be the reason why the eBay listing refers to regions 1, 2, 3 and 4: perhaps the seller knows that, although they're advertised as Region 1, they actually work in other regions as well. That's the charitable view, but it may well be true, as that particular eBay seller appears to have a good rating, which it presumably wouldn't if it were scamming customers all the time.

Anyway, I've decided to risk buying the US DVDs (but not from eBay!). I looked on Amazon.com and found that I was able to get the pack for just over £8 *including* shipping. (In fact, the DVD pack cost £4.16 and the shipping cost 1p less than that! £8.31 in total.) So maybe it won't work when I finally get it, but 8 quid isn't too much to lose if it doesn't. Better than the 20 quid being asked on eBay, anyway!

The shipping time is estimated at around a month, so I'll still have a fair wait for the DVDs, but once they've arrived I'll post here again to say whether they work for me or not.

I'd be interested to know how you know that this DVD pack isn't being released in Europe. Has there been an official statement by Warner Bros? I'm a bit surprised, because they've released all seven complete series as individual packs, and also as a big all-in-one box, so it'd make sense for them to finish the job with this TV-film pack. (And the two recent new-cast films are out over here, too, so the TV-films pack is the only missing item.)

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, everyone, and I'll keep an eye on this thread if anyone else has something they want to say. Besides, as I said above, I'll let you know whether or not the DVDs work OK on my player once I've got them.

[BoJamesDuke]

Because I work for the WB.. LOL Nah I don't I joke

I read it somewhere when the DVD's first came out, I was looking for the date as to when they would be released in England as Reigon 2 but they said that it wasn't going to happen. I can't find the link anymore, I had it saved on my old laptop but have since got a new one.

It should be just fine, if it isn't then buy a multi reigon DVD player, they're not that expensive anymore due to the new blue-rays taking up the market

Glad to have been help!

[DaisyMaeDuke]

I knew Bo would know!

[GaylordDuke]

Hi, y'all!

Title says it all! GOOD NOOZE, good nooze!

My DVD pack of the two films arrived this morning from the USA - much sooner than I'd expected (the shipping time was estimated at a month, but it's only been ten days).

I popped the discs in the DVD player attached to the TV as soon as they arrived, just to check them, and... GOOD NOOZE! Both worked perfectly. And while I was having the evening meal, I watched Reunion, which was actually pretty great (apart from the rather disappointing, unconvincing, unsatisfactory ending about Daisy). Anyway, it worked just perfectly, and there was no way to tell it wasn't a European release.

Having watched Reunion, I've just put both of the two discs in the pack into my computer, to check the info encoded on the discs, and it seems that the eBay advert was actually correct: both discs are indeed set as usable in Regions 1, 2, 3 and 4. So there's nothing 'odd' as such about them: they do officially support Region 2 in the encoding. The only oddity is that the back of the DVD package clearly states that they're Region 1 only - so it's wrong.

The discs are NTSC encoded rather than PAL, as one would expect of any US-originated disc. I don't know what difference that makes in terms of modern recordings and DVDs; all I can say is that I couldn't see any picture quality problem at all, viewing on a relatively modern (four-year-old) flat-screen TV. The picture was absolutely fine, and looked just like any of the other Dukes episodes that I've got in PAL format.

I haven't watched Hazzard in Hollywood yet, but I've checked the disc and it's fine, and the encoding is the same: they're both NTSC, Regions 1, 2, 3 and 4. That's definitive information for anyone else who wants the answer to this question.

So, that's really great - and thanks to all who responded to my questions. My Dukes collection is finally complete, and I've just watched the first 'new' episode I've seen in three decades!

Cudyudyudcu!

[texasdaisy09]

I'm so glad it all worked out for you!

[BoJamesDuke]

Happy to be of help, glad you've finally completed the collection!

Are you sure that the ones you have are NTSC recorded? Because the back of my DVD pack and the seasons I brought in America don't have that coding on the back of the packaging whereas others that I have brought there do and definitly only work as reigon one..

[GaylordDuke]

Are you sure that the ones you have are NTSC recorded? Because the back of my DVD pack and the seasons I brought in America don't have that coding on the back of the packaging

Yes, I'm positive, because I specifically checked the discs themselves for this information before posting my previous message.

As I say, I've physically played the two discs on the DVD player hooked up to the TV, and it's a standard Region 2 player that hasn't been hacked (or whatever the term is for making them region-free).

More to the point, after checking the discs on that player, I put them both in my computer. In Apple's DVD Player software, I called up the disc information window to check exactly what it says. And the information provided there, read directly from the discs themselves, is NTSC encoded, Regions 1, 2, 3 and 4 supported (for both discs).

I can't comment about the US series packs because I have the Region 2 releases of those. As for this pack of two TV films, it does indeed say "Region 1 only" on the back (both in terms of the region symbol and the copyright message), but that information is inaccurate according to the encoding of the discs themselves, which, as I say, I've checked specifically.

You mentioned in an earlier posting that Warner Bros took an official decision not to make a European release (or perhaps any release outside the USA?). I just wonder if someone at Warner Bros was aware of that position while mastering the discs and decided (with or without official permission), because of it, to make the discs support multiple regions. They might have felt that, while it could be marketed in the way WB had specified, they could physically make it so that anyone from outside the US who really wanted it, and went to the trouble of buying it from overseas, would find that it did actually work for them. It's just a thought, and probably not true, but you never know.

[BoJamesDuke]

Hmmmmmm that's soooo wierd....ah well, I'm just happy they work LOL

[GaylordDuke]

Hi,

Does anyone know why Waylon Jennings isn't the Balladeer on these two TV-films?

When I saw that his name was absent, I assumed that he must have died before they were made (like Sorrell Booke), but I've just looked up his details and found that he only died in 2002. So he could theoretically have done the Balladeer work for the two films, which date from 1997 and 2000.

Anyone know why he didn't? In effect, he was the only cast member who was still alive but didn't take part. It just seems a shame.

[BoJamesDuke]

EDIT: In the second one, Waylon wasn't well. It was in the first one that the WB were too cheap to pay him enough to do the balladeering.

[GaylordDuke]

Thanks. The replacement struck me as OK (in Reunion; haven't watched Hollywood yet), but Waylon would obviously have been preferable. And not having him means that some of the flavour of the original is absent. Pity.