Like you say; it does seem odd that there's all these channels ( providing an illusion of choice rather than much real choice )& yet the amount of older & archive programs is miniscule, when they could no doubt have 3 or 4 channels showing that sort of thing. And I'm not including ones like UK Gold which cater mainly for old-ish comedies & soaps ( which is fine for those who like it but otherwise narrow ) Then BBC4 occasionally serves up a morsel - but it usually is only morsels; when they could be serving up 3 course meals ! Probably the slow release of stuff is partly to do with profit maximization ( its fair enough when careful restoration work is involved - but thats often not the reason ). Talking of ebay; there is of course some good stuff ( knights of god/sky is still on there ) but as you say all that bidding can be fiddly & time consuming. There's a good one at the moment of 2 DVD set of 30 odd Magic Roundabouts from TV on disc 1 & on disc 2 39 previously released ( the old volumes 1,2&3 vhs's, not volume 4 - tho some of those from volume 4 may be on disc 1 perhaps ) And combining both topics I'm amazed BBC/whoever didn't restore & release the original Magic Roundabout in the wake of the recent ropey film version - These are great & include the very 1st one ( most of but not quite all of that paticular one was shown on the BBC4 documentary a while back ) The 5 have been completely restored except for the soundtrack in parts of that 1st episode which presumably had been damaged beyond repair( unless its just my DVD ). Its staggering that such a hugely popular & famous show has not been released yet, even tho theres been a modern film version etc.
And it does the system good to have a bit of rant now & again.
Some sales of this item have a buy it now price of £9.99 ( sounds fair )
They are all original Eric Thompson ones on both discs.
I actually bought that recently ( got it fairly cheap luckily ) as I noticed in the small print at Amazon that an xtra on the 2 disc "Collector's " edition is some ( 5 ) complete original b/w episodes ( in both English & French versions )!
I think also that there is no french version of that one on the DVD.
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