Cannon: The Complete Collection
DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:
Cannon Season One and Two were previously released in 2008 thru 2010 on pressed DVDs by CBS/Paramount. The first 2 seasons were released as 2 Volumes per season. Then in 2013 CBS/Paramount released season 3 in its entirety, however they put it on DVD-Rs instead of pressed DVDs. Pressed DVDs are supposed to last longer than DVD-Rs. Then CBS/Paramount did NOT release the final 2 seasons of Cannon. CBS/Paramount did not remaster Cannon. The video quality is like VHS, contrasty and sometimes there is a thin band of color on the left side of the screen. Then in 2015 VEI released Cannon as a box set with all 5 seasons including the pilot movie and the “revival” movie, “The Return of Frank Cannon”. This VEI release is NOT remastered and is missing the episodic promos that were on the earlier CBS/Paramount releases. However ALL the DVDs are on pressed DVDs and are single sided and have color labels on them unlike the grey labels that CBS/Paramount used. Each season is in a plastic 6 DVD case, except for season 5 which is a 7 DVD case, and all the cases fit in a cardboard slipcase. And it appears all the original 1970s music is retained and the episodes are NOT cut, they are complete and are around 50 minutes each. The extras are the 2 movies and a 7 minute slide show of scenes from the series set to the theme music. Cannon is different than the rest of the private eye shows, he is a loner with no regular supporting cast like the Rockford files and Mannix and he is fat, William Conrad frequently jokes about his weight. Cannon is a fast paced show with believable action in it. Cannon is a tough, but likeable guy. It’s too bad VEI didn’t remaster Cannon, the show deserves it, but at least they released the whole series uncut on colorful pressed DVDs. If you like classic TV with masculine private eyes and fast paced stories you should buy Cannon.
– JOE BLOW
Great to see the Cannon series in total in one place. The video and audio are solid. The menu audio is about twice the volume of the episodes so be ready to be blasted until you launch an episode.
My complaint is the quality of the DVD reproduction. I’m in the second season now and have had three disks, across season 1 and 2, where one of the episodes pixelates and sound drops and the player slows to a crawl with re-reads. I sent back my first set and replaced it so the issue isn’t isolated. It gets so bad the episode is un-watchable and I have to hit >> to the next section to continue watching the story.
– DaveInCC
The shows are as good as ever when it comes to William Conrad, the plot and the co-stars. I wonder what happened with the sound mixing, though. When the volume is loud enough to hear the dialog clearly, the music is annoyingly loud. Hearing is a subjective thing and one has to assume whoever did the mixing thought it sounded perfect to his ears and tastes. My hearing is better than normal at all frequencies up to 12,000 Hz, so it’s not a hearing deficit on my part. I couldn’t get the first disk to play anything beyond the initial logo information and music on my computer. No matter what I did, it was impossible to select an episode. I didn’t try other disks. I don’t have this problem with other boxed sets. It does play all right on a DVD player and looks fine on the large screen TV. I thought it was interesting that there is a disclaimer at the start warning that things might not be as good as one would like because of the age of the series. However, I have all the Star Trek episodes and there is no mismatch between the dialog volume and the music volume. The original Star Trek began in 1966 while Cannon began in 1971. I’ll probably keep this, but hope it’s done much better by someone else in the future.
-Irene P. Kittrell
DVD Wholesale Main Features:
Actors: William Conard
Directors: *
Format: Multiple Formats, Box set, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Number of discs: 31
Rated: Unrated
Studio: Visual Entertainment Inc.
DVD Release Date: September 2, 2015
Run Time: 6180 minutes
