Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I won't bother reviewing the actual program assuming that most people who are considering purchasing this item are familiar with the program itself. Prior to purchasing this 6 DVD, 70 episode set I was interested in knowing whether or not the episodes were complete or edited syndicated prints as well as a few other technical and quality concerns. I hope that this review may answer some of those questions for potential buyers. Knowing that most Public Domain inexpensive dvd sets such as this will vary in quality this set is no different. Although I have not watched every episode I have scanned through most of them. Overall quality throughout is Very Good with many episodes being very clean with some others being not quite as good. However ALL are very watchable. Audio seems to be reasonably clear and sound level is adequate and not too low if watching on a television without an outside amplified source. The majority of the episodes (I would say somewhere between 40-50) seem to be complete and uncut with a running time between 25:00 and 25:30 minutes each. Another 10-20 episodes are slightly shorter at app. 24:30 to 25:00 minutes in length. The remaining episodes are edited syndicated prints running just under 22:00 to 24:00 minutes each. At least one episode which I watched in its entirety had the original "Alcoa Presents" opening as opposed to the more familiar and common "One Step Beyond" opening. This was a pleasant surprise. I have several other public domain releases of this program and this is the best of them so far. As to the remaining 27 episodes they can be found on the bootleg dvd sets being offered. The bootleg sets can be found relatively cheaply on select sites catering to collectors. Those sets also vary in quality with a mixture of syndicated and complete episodes. If you are a completist you may want to pick that set up as well since it appears some of those episodes (mostly from season 3) may not be in the public domain and are not likely to be officially released. I hope someone found this review helpful. As an afterthought I just wanted to add one more thing if you're still skeptical about buying this set. I compared all of the season 1 episodes on this set to that of the "Official First Season" Paramount set. The quality on that set is better...lets say a 10 rating. These Season 1 episodes are I would say a strong 7 to an 8. The "Paramount" episodes run a few seconds longer which is easily explained by a Paramount/ CBS logo which appears at the conclusion of each episode. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if the same original source material was used without the cleanup process. So here it is...You can get 22 first season episodes at about half the cost of the "Official" set plus an additional 48 episodes for about half the price.