Transformers - Additional Info, and a Packaging 'Beauty Shot', for Shout! Factory's DVDs

We've posted a lot of news recently about Shout! Factory's upcoming releases of Transformers on DVD. And, now that Shout! and Hasbro have issued a press release confirming the deal which allows these releases to happen, Shout! is starting to open up with additional information.

For starters, they've released a "beauty shot" of the first release, June 16th's The Transformers - The Complete 1st Season: 25th Anniversary Edition. You can see that at the bottom of this write-up, including disc art for the 3 DVDs included, and a first look at the collectible Limited Edition Autobot Magnet included inside the package.

Additionally, the Shout! Factory official message boards have opened up an official discussion thread for fans to ask about, comment on, or make suggestions regarding this release. This "Definitive Transformers Thread" begun the other day, and going through the posts made up until this point in time, we've learned several things about the upcoming titles. We'll briefly cover them in the below list of bullet points, but we encourage everyone to go read the original postings in the thread, to get the complete information and context straight from the source. Most of what is written below is quoted from, or paraphrased from, the message board posts (even when it's not obviously so, but we want to make sure all the credit for the wording goes to the original posts over there):

• There are currently 16 discs being produced for Transformers on DVD
• Addressing fan concerns that the box art pictured for The Transformers - The Complete 1st Season: 25th Anniversary Edition didn't look "special" enough, it was stated that "The title treatment and characters will be fully embossed and the background will be BEAUTIFULLY printed on a shiny foil board that really makes those background colors POP. Unfortunately, you can't see the effect in a photo."
• Hasbro provided Shout! with the same masters Rhino used, but changes were made. DVD producer Brian Ward traveled to New York and examined the 1-inch digibeta masters. Ward comments that they "have not physically held up well over the years...in some cases, they're nearly unwatchable." Shout! has replaced problematic footage from the masters - or faulty animation which has been disputed by fans over the years for the Rhino releases - with the best quality 1-inch source material they could find, and color-corrected everything to match. Ward feels that fans "won't even notice many of the instances of slightly softer picture...it looks REALLY good."
• Rhino's audio tracks, with additional sound effects and music never heard in the broadcasts, was NOT used. Ward says Shout! "went back to the original source mono and created a nice stereo track to even out the audio. It sounds really nice."
• Shout! does not seem to be using any of the old extras from the Rhino releases. You'll see all-new bonus material, including interviews with "original Hasbro toy designers," "original comic writers and editors" and "the gang behind the series itself, (including) the voice talent." Specific names are not available to be revealed at this time (if for no other reason than because not all the material has been recorded yet). Commercial bumpers will be included as part of the episodes. Ward comments on further supplements: "I will also have commercials from the appropriate seasons. In other words, you won't see a commercial for the Sharkticons on the season one release. Something you should know about the commercials is this: the quality of what you're accustomed to seeing on YouTube and other DVDs is pretty much what you're going to get here. And it's for one simple reason. No one ever anticipated the future lives of commercials, when they were first being broadcast. So Hasbro never kept high-quality masters. They kept VHS screeners of their commercials, strictly for reference later. So when you say, 'why couldn't they get the original copies from Hasbro?', we actually did. Still, there are some pretty cool commercials here and I'm looking forward to having them included." There will be other material as well, and Ward wants fans "to know that this property is being handled with care by folks that loved the franchise far prior to its acquisition at Shout! Factory." In terms of extras, "The complete series sets will have everything that the season sets will have and more.
• Full details about The Transformers - The Complete Series DVD set cannot be disclosed or discussed until Shout! and Hasbro both have approved an announcement and issued a press release.
• Ward does comment, however that "the season one set will have a slipcase with thinpaks. The complete series set will have...neither."
• These releases are only concerning the original "G1" incarnation of The Transformers, produced by Sunbow, and not any other series that came later.
• Shout! Factory will be participating in the BotCon 2009 Transformers convention (Pasadena, CA; May 28-31)
• When asked about the 1986 animated feature film, Ward responds: "No plans for the movie, right now. Sony Wonder did a pretty decent job only two years ago, so I'm not sure we could top it just yet. And it would be asking a lot to get folks to dip a third time."