Transformers questions by newbies, and not-so-newbies

[Iriorne]

I looked into this earlier this year/last year but I can't find the post. Anyway, this is what I've worked out from reading around the web:

The G1 series has been remastered twice. The first US release was by Kid Rhino, and used pre-broadcast masters as the broadcast masters had deteriorated. The company they contracted to transfer the soundtrack to 5.1 added in a whole bunch of sound effects which were not originally present. Apparently they're very loud and sound pretty terrible. The pre-broadcast masters also used unfinished animation segments and had some animation mistakes that Rhino attempted to correct, often poorly.

The second US release was by Shout! Factory, who cleaned up the majority of the sound effects and mistakes introduced by Rhino. It's not perfect as some sections had to be restored from lower quality sources but it's a lot closer to the original.

As far as I can tell, the first Madman release is based on the Rhino release while the 2012 remaster is based on the Shout! Factory release. I own the 2012 version and haven't noticed any obvious problems.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Question:
Saw that they are doing DX Gum Kits of Overlord and Road Ceaser and that Road Ceaser is made up of 3 bots. Now I have the Motorvators (Gripper, Lightspeed and Flame) - were the original Japanese versions of these toys designed to combine? I though they just had the little 'Facemaster' Energon Figure gimick thing.

Edit: Just looked it up on TFWiki. A shame the Motorvator release didn't come with the shields you could use to combine them. Like when they released G2 Constructicons without the kibble to make Devestator. Never understood why they took so much play value out of these figures to save a few cents by not producing extra plastic bits.

[Sinnertwin]

Brainmaster
Liokaiser's another that was released by Hasbro sans parts & two members as Rescue Force. They're crap.

[GoktimusPrime]

The interesting thing I find about Road Caesar and Lio Caesar is how these are two opposing gestalts in the same series whose names are both based on "Caesar," but Road Caesar uses the Vulgar Latin pronunciation ("See-zar") whereas Lio Caesar uses the Classical Latin pronunciation ("Kaiser"; and Western fans typically use this spelling to denote the classical pronunciation (both names are originally written in Japanese Katakana)). So it's like Road Caesar is the Yang to Lio Kaiser's Yin.

[Jetfire in the sky]

The G1 series has been remastered twice. The first US release was by Kid Rhino, and used pre-broadcast masters as the broadcast masters had deteriorated. The company they contracted to transfer the soundtrack to 5.1 added in a whole bunch of sound effects which were not originally present. Apparently they're very loud and sound pretty terrible. The pre-broadcast masters also used unfinished animation segments and had some animation mistakes that Rhino attempted to correct, often poorly.

The second US release was by Shout! Factory, who cleaned up the majority of the sound effects and mistakes introduced by Rhino. It's not perfect as some sections had to be restored from lower quality sources but it's a lot closer to the original.

As far as I can tell, the first Madman release is based on the Rhino release while the 2012 remaster is based on the Shout! Factory release. I own the 2012 version and haven't noticed any obvious problems.

I have had both Rhino and Madman and the poor and loud 5.1 sound effects are exactly the same, I thought there was something wrong with my Rhino disks, hence getting the Madman ones.

[jazzcomp]

Do Heroes of Cybertron PVC figures have takara stamp on them?
Just like the SCF?

How would you know if a figure was HOC (hasbro) or SCF (takara)?

[iamirondude]

are we getting the platnium predaking by any chance?

[GoktimusPrime]

How would you know if a figure was HOC (hasbro) or SCF (takara)?

HoCs have light piped eyes, SCF don't.

[UltraMarginal]

So today, I bought a Metroplex, I'm having a real hard time installing the arm. I've tried it both ways. The black clip Vertical or horizontal (pictured)





neither position seems to lock in and the arm slides in and out to the end of the clip. the Vertical position is harder to remove but it still doesn't lock. is there something I'm missing?

[Cat]

Do Heroes of Cybertron PVC figures have takara stamp on them?
Just like the SCF?

How would you know if a figure was HOC (hasbro) or SCF (takara)?

HOC are molded completely in translucent plastic, then fully painted.

SCFs are molded in colour.