Rating: 
Summary: great show
Review: amazinf this ultraviolint series is still one of the best on tv the first seasons a mere warm up but amazing season including indroducing the two gorgues women who battle evil and have realisionships also introduced this season ares the heart throb for xena but its like a buffy/spike kind of love aND ARES IS POWERFUL AND THE THE GREATEST XENA CHARACTER NEXT TO ALTI CALLISTO IS INTRODUCED THE GORGES PYYCO WHO EATS DRINKS AND SLEEPS TREIENG TOKILL XENA SEE WANTS REVENGE CAUSE XENA KILLED HER PARENTS SHES A GOD AND KILLS ALOT OF XENAS CLOSET FRIENDS. AN AMAZING SEASON ALTHOUGH THE WEAKEST OF THE 6 SEASONS CAESER AND ALTI ARENT INTRODUCED TILL FURTHER SEASONS A GREAT SEASON WITH A GREAT SEASON FINALY
Rating:
Summary: No Problem from New York
Review: Well, I think the problem people are having is with the equipment they're using to view the show, as many others are saying. I have a very very recent 27 in tv and the same goes for my dvd. I have the component parts of the dvd connected to the component parts of the tv, and the color is amazing! I figured it was because they graphically enhanced it, but now I realize it is because of the equipment I'm using. :-D I'm very happy with the set, and the graphics and sound is great! I say buy it, because when u do get newer equipment, u'll enjoy it thoroughly.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Effort, But....
Review: The seven piece picture gatefold is done quite nice, each with a picture from a highlight of the episode on each disc. The entire set is housed in a slip case with a picture of Xena that showcases her look of danger and excitement and is a nice touch in introducing the earlier stories of Xena's adventures. The menus are quite interactive. Each episode selection has a moving picture from the episode itself to help guide to viewer. The background shows fire in motion, and any menu done in motion is definately better than the static ones. The original Xena theme, with all the lyrics plays in the background, is a nice touch. Each episode is broken up in chapters, again with thumbnails to help the viewer. The picture quality, as many fans have pointed out, can be quite horrid, especially for the first three quarters of the season's episodes. The amount of grain present in the video is so great that it literally seems like you are watching the show through a veil. As a result, the Mpeg-2 compression can not handle this level of grain and the picture quality suffers; every minute detail in the picture becomes 'blocky'. Motion artifacts are even worst, it's like watching a scene disolving into another. I watched the dvds on my flat screen HDTV, which has a feature that doubles the level of detail, but it also doubles the amount of video noise, grain and motion artifacts. On the plus side, effort was put into improving the brightness and color of the video and I can tell you that it really helped when it came to dark interior scenes or bright outdoor ones. The dark scenes were improved with low-light details and outdoor scenes produced the lush, saturated look of New Zealand's greenery. Hope is not totally lost though, as I found that by the time you get to episode 19, 'Altared States', the level of video noise and digital artifacts had decreased substantially; it was only noticable during scenes that involved lots of movement. Things improved further in episode 20, 'Tie's That Bind'. I can honestly say that, except for the small amount of video noise associated with most tv produced shows, there was virtually no grain and digital artifacting of any kind. With these improvements, they lead me to think of one of three conclusions: 1)The original video masters were not taken care of properly (a very common problem for most shows produced before the DVD era) and this is especially true for Season 1 of many shows; or 2)There was not enough space on the dvd for the video to be encoded at a 'healthy' rate (for example, Warner decided to encode six episodes of 'Friends' on a dual layered dvd, which contains only about 150 minutes of video, allowing a high bit-rate for the best presentation, versus Xena, containing four episodes of 300 minutes of video on each dual layered disc, of which it probably had problems of video noise and grain already inherent in the video masters); or 3)Who ever supervised the video transfers (it was neither Rob Tapert or Sam Rami, they were not involved in this set in any way) just didn't do a good job. Either way, with episode 19 showing a good potential of things to come, perhaps the video quality will improve by the time Season 2 is released. Most people know that this set Anchor Bay released is the duplicate of what Davis-Panzer Merchandising Corp. released last year on their own web site. Whether Anchor Bay improved the video and the audio of this set is unsure, and we will know when Season 2 is released. The audio on the other hand is great, for a tv show. Remixed in 5.1, the sound is a lot more expansive than when it was shown on cable. Strange thing is that a couple of episodes are mixed in full 448kbps, whereas most others are mixed in 384kbps. Extras are minimal, a cd-rom is included to provide the viewer with some actor and director bios, a trivia, a screensaver and the Xena Chronicles, which catagorizes each character on Season 1. A small photo gallery in included on Disc 1. As mentioned before, there was no involvement from anybody that was directly related to the show when this box set was produced, as the rights were sold to Davis-Panzer Merchandising Corp. However, Anchor Bay has stated that they will try to get Rob and Sam, and as well as lead actresses Lucy and Renee to participate on commentaries on future seasons. [On a perculiar note, for some reason, my set came with a 7th dvd (in additional to the cd-rom) that contained the 60 minute documentary 'What You Didn't Know About Xena - a featurette from the directors of Season 1', and I can tell you, it's quite informative, if nostalgic].
On a side note, I viewed my original 'Xena Trilogy' dvd from Univeral and the video quality was excellent, with not a slightest hint of dirt, noise or artifacts in sight. The three episode arc was encoded at a higher bit rate though (191 minutes on a dual layered disc), which explains the great presentation, but it does not explain why the newer, later Season 1 of Xena could look so much inferior to its original successor. Perhaps Univeral retained the superior video masters and 'lent' Davis-Panzer the less the stellar ones? Let's hope that Season 2 will look much better and beginning with Season 3, Anchor Bay will ensures that the show will be presented in Anamorphic Widescreen.
Rating:
Summary: FINALLY XENA! But...
Review: I agree with the other reviewers. It is great to be able to enjoy Xena's First Season and Lucy Lawless in all her glory! The first season finds the series still looking for an overall look and a direction, and you will have to wait for Season Three and Further Seasons for truly mythological storytelling and pathos.My only complaint is ,of course, the total lack of special features of this Anchor Bay DVD edition. IT lacks alternate comment sound tracks, or documentaries, etc. One MAJOR miss is that NONE of the episodes are close-captioned (this is strange because when they were originally broadcast, they were...!). Maybe Anchor Bay will correct this in future Xena seasons'DVD releases. The lack of extras and the lack of close-captioning is the only two reasons why I adjudicated 3 out of 5 stars to this DVD. I did not experience any noticeable graininess or blurring when playing my DVD's on my Sony DVD player and viewing it on my Sony 32" TV (not a new one, I might add). I have not tried watching the DVD's on my computer, but it has been my experience that DVDs do not play back with the same quality on DVD-enabled computers. I still recommend XENA SEASON ONE DVD to all Xena enthusiasts.
Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: very gory series with amaZING FIGHT SCENES IVE BEEN A FAN FOR AWHILE XENA AND BUFFY ARE THE TWO MOST BUTT KICKING WOMEN ON T.V. HAVE YOU SEEN AL THE MEN AND WOME MONSTERS DEMONS ASE THES WOMEN HAVE THIS DARK PROVACTIVE SERIES IS VOTED ONE OF THE BEST ACTION SERIES OF ALL TIME XENA IS ALSO BEEN NAMED ONE OF THE GREATEST CHARACTERS OF V
Rating:
Summary: violintest and best show ever
Review: amazing this gory and romantic series is a work of art. its brilliant dark ansd i guess some episodes are campy and funny
Rating: 
Summary: Where are the subtitles?
Review: I'm a big fan of Xena and i only have to say one negative thing about this DVD and that would be that they did not include subtitles. Almost every popular tv series on DVD has subtitles and why would they not, they must be cheapies. Subtitles do a lot of help if the sound is bad or if there are deaf people out there that want to watch it too and they are stuck with not buying their favorite tv series on DVD. Plus, i think they could sell more copies for including subtitles. Hopefully, in the near future subtitles will be included in their other Season sets or this will be a big disappointment not only for me but many other people out there.
Rating:
Summary: Xena rules!
Review: I thought this DVD set was amazing. I watched all of the episodes in almost 3 days because I loved it so much. It is full of action and all of the episodes have a great stroy line. I would recommend this to any die hard Xena fan. You know I'm one.
Rating:
Summary: No problem with this fan.
Review: I couldn't wait for Xena to be released on DVD and especially the entire season in package form. I was not disappointed at all. I had purchased ten of the first episodes from another supplier and the problem with picture quality was about the same. But this edition is far better. The sound quality is excellent, and the disc display is wonderful.
So I say, if you want Xena...buy this. It's wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: 16MM filming is not the problem
Review: Although the season 1 episodes are great, the picture quality is quite awful. I have read a lot of excuses about the problem being caused by filming on 16MM rather than 35MM. If you would like to see how good it should have looked, I invite you to view Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons 1 and 2, both of which were shot in 16MM ... and have picture quality vastly superior to this. It looks like someone did the conversion on a home computer and then converted it to disc. I sincerely hope that subsequent seasons have markedly improved quality, as I love Xena.
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