I rarely post new topics, but here's something I'm genuinely interested in that I haven't seen before.

I'm a fan of British television producer Gerry Anderson who became rich and famous due to an animation technology known as Supermarionation, which featured electronic marionettes in futuristic settings. His most famous works (to North Americans at least) include Supercar (1959), Fireball XL-5 (1961), Stingray (1963), Thunderbirds (1964-66), Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967) and Joe 90 (1968).

Of these series, Joe 90 is my favorite, Stingray second and Captain Scarlet third. I didn't much care for Thunderbirds and I don't believe The Secret Service was ever broadcast to U.S. audiences.

Unfortunately, Carlton International Media Ltd. (the ITV successor to ATV) has licensed its programming to A&E New Video in America, which has even less business sense than Polygram or Channel 4 in the U.K. They completely destroyed Thunderbirds with a faux 5.1 channel soundtrack that completely eradicates the original dialog, and if it weren't for DVD ripping and AC3 remixing, nobody this side of the Atlantic would know what half the episodes were about.

Anyway, certain such series, Captain Scarlet in particular, will only be released as Region 0 DVDs in the U.K. with no U.S. release announced or even anticipated. I can live with that, but Joe 90? No way.

Supermarionation is very MPEG-friendly material to begin with because fiberglass lacks many of the hard-to-compress nuances present in human flesh. How many of you guys are transcoding GA programs and what techniques do you find most effective?