Where to buy Babylon 5 video tapes and books.

Updated as at 8th June 2006

As the adverts say "available from all good video stores"! However, some have better prices or special offers than others. Please let me know if you know of any more mail order suppliers or video stockists online.

Updating this page for the first time in four and a half years, it's depressing how all but one of the British retailers I used to link to have now gone out of business. The only UK site still online from my old recommendations is HMV, but you might also want to try www.sendit.com or other favourite purveyors of DVD's by mail.

The German supplier AVIDES Media GmbH, appears to be able to offer video tapes for less than 5 euro each, and DVD box sets imported from the UK at very reasonable prices. They appear to be successors to Ralf Hastedt's Internet Media Service whom I used to link to - at least the link redirects to their site!

A note to all our American friends! Please note that the VHS tapes listed here were issued in the British (PAL) format - they WILL NOT PLAY on American (NTSC) standard video recorders and TVs, so there's not much point in you trying to buy these unless you have an unusual home video setup! DVDs from the suppliers listed here are normally Region 2, which means they won't play in North American (Region 1) DVD players.

American readers may also be interested in this posting by Joe Straczynski, which was picked up from Compuserve in early May 1998:-

#: 32662 S2/Bab 5: General
10-May-98 00:48:12
Sb: #WB Home Video Does B5
Fm: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI

Victories come in all sizes; in some ways, this is a small one, in other ways this is a big one.

For four years, we bugged Warner Bros. Home Video about releasing B5 on videocassette in retail outlets. But WB has never released a series before on tape, it's not something they *do*, not sufficiently prestige when compared with their big movies. Eventually they were persuaded to let Columbia House try it for mail-order, for the first season.

And CH was *swamped* with orders. Phones rang off the hook, and tapes were back-ordered to try and fill the demand.

And Warner Bros...noticed.

And this month, they made a big announcement about the coming release of Babylon 5 on video through retail outlets all over the country. I've seen the cover designs for the first batch, and they're extremely good looking montages, each specifically designed for that tape. They're putting a lot of thought and effort and time into this, and a big campaign. I believe the first batch hits the stands in July or August, somewhere in there.

This is a big victory for us. On a grand scale, it may seem minor, but it's the most direct statement of "you were right" we've ever had from WB, and they were sufficiently mensches to say so, and act on it.

If these go well, they're also talking laserdisks and DVDs down the road, and should THAT happen, I'm going to push like hell to have them release the widescreen versions.

But that's the next campaign. For now, this is a big victory for us, and we're mighty pleased.

jms

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Last updated: 08-06-2006.

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