Mark Gray's Spacecraft Films

[nickrulercreator]

Is it gone for good? I only have Apollos 8/11, Gemini, and the Saturns DVDs, and copies of other sets on eBay go for hundreds of dollars. I desperately want to add the other Apollo DVDs to my current collection without shelling out what would total to be several thousand dollars.

[ZachS09]

I have both “Mighty Saturn Rockets” DVDs in my collection. The Part 2 version was the first time I saw the Apollo 4 launch in its entirety.

I was also enthralled by the numerous angles of the Apollo 8 launch.

[markbike528cbx]

I see "The Mighty Saturns: Saturn V (Extended Collector's Edition) " used online for ~$70 USD

Apollo 15 : Man Must Explore used on Ebay ~$ 89 USD.

I see sets for under 100 dollars, I'm sure if you got EVERYTHING it might be a thousand, not thousands.

Three editions of the Spacecraft films series, Three disc Project Gemini , Three disc The Mighty Saturns 1 and 1B and three disc Apollo 11 Men on the Moon.  all for $65 USD.

Oh, you wanted new, yep, hundreds each.

[nickrulercreator]

I see "The Mighty Saturns: Saturn V (Extended Collector's Edition) " used online for ~$70 USD

Apollo 15 : Man Must Explore used on Ebay ~$ 89 USD.

I see sets for under 100 dollars, I'm sure if you got EVERYTHING it might be a thousand, not thousands.

Three editions of the Spacecraft films series, Three disc Project Gemini , Three disc The Mighty Saturns 1 and 1B and three disc Apollo 11 Men on the Moon.  all for $65 USD.

Oh, you wanted new, yep, hundreds each.

I don't necessarily want new, just "good enough." And yes I actually bought several of those sets you listed (Gemini, Saturns 1/1B, Apollo 11, Saturn V, Apollo 13), but others like Apollo 9,10, and 17, are close to $500.

[woods170]

Is it gone for good?
<snip>

Yes, Spacecraft Films is gone forever. Good riddance actually because Mark's customer service was the probably the worst you will ever find. There are loads of people all over the planet still waiting for their purchases to be shipped. Some have been waiting as much as 10 years.

Mark Gray is actually a forum member here. But his profile page shows that he last logged in 11 years ago.

Basically: Mark is a fraud. Some older threads with complaints about his lack of service and basically scamming people out of their money, are here:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=6990.0

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26288.0

[ELinder]

it's a great shame, because he didn’t start out like that. I don't know what happened, but I started buying his disk sets as soon as he started producing them. They were always top quality, any email interactions with him were very good, and I got everything shipped promptly when I ordered. Yes, some of the sets took longer to finish than he estimated, but there were fairly regular releases. They're still worth buying if you can find them.

[woods170]

it's a great shame, because he didn’t start out like that. I don't know what happened, but I started buying his disk sets as soon as he started producing them. They were always top quality, any email interactions with him were very good, and I got everything shipped promptly when I ordered. Yes, some of the sets took longer to finish than he estimated, but there were fairly regular releases. They're still worth buying if you can find them.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you that his sets were of excellent quality.
Personally I have the Gemini set, both Saturn sets, Apollo 1, Apollo 7, Apollo 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 11, First Moonwalk, Apollo 12 and Apollo 15 sets. But I got ALL of those via either Amazon, Ebay or other resellers. But never straight from Mark. And that is because the first reports of bad experiences with Mark began hitting the internet as early as 2004. At least when Amazon says it is "In stock" then you can count on the fact that they actually have the thing in stock and will actually ship it to you.

Not so with Mark Gray unfortunately. And from the age of the various complaint threads it is clear that this has been going on for the better part of 2 decades. And it is not incidental either.

[Steve G]

I loved the films. I have all the Apollos including Apollo 1, Mercury and Geminis, X15, MOL, Valkyrie, and "Live from the Moon". I was hoping to have Skylab. ASTP, and the Vostoks that he hinted he was working on. The only customer service issue I had was for Apollo 15, which took months but it was backlogged and finally got it. Some of the 16mm were a ripoff as they were small screen resolution, but he had rare footage and they were well put together. Customer service was an issue, but he was clearly a one-man-show and didn't have the sales to cover the cost of staff to support him.

[Blackstar]

I agree with the earlier comments. But maybe we can turn this thread into something useful for the future. Maybe we can compile a list of all the sets that were produced. Then, in the future, if somebody is interested, they can see this list and they may know what to look for.

So let's add content here.

[Steve G]

Mark put a tremendous effort in the production, and though the customer service was poor, he offered a unique product available nowhere else.

Here are the sets that I have.

Project Mercury: A New Frontier. Six DVDs, over 24 hours. (Phenomenal, a must-have)

Project Gemini: A Bold Leap Forward. Three disks, over 6 hours including an original documentary. I would have liked the 16mm films to have been motion-stabilized.

X-15: The Edge of Space. Three DVDs. Not bad, but there are some better documentaries out there.

Mach 3: The XB-20 Valkyrie. One CD. Very Good

Man in Space: U.S. Air Force Manned Space Projects: Phenomenal.

I have all of the Apollo missions. This includes all of the TV transmissions, though the quality is really poor on some depending on his sources. (Apollo 9, the only footage he found for the two TV transmissions was through CBS News) and all audio on the moon when without TV coverage, supplemented by still photography. AS-16's drive up Stone Mountain was on 16mm, slowed down and matched audio. Amazing.

First Moonwalk: The restored Apollo 11 EVA. I bought this not knowing the restored EVA was also on the Apollo 11 box set.

Live from the Moon: The Story of Apollo Television. This is the only Blu-ray release and is a 95 minute original documentary, which was really well done.

There are others I didn't get and I regret not getting. The Mighty Saturns comes to mind.

The fact that these were DVDs have the resolution far below what we now expect. A shame these were never released as Blue-rays.

Having been in the video and film production business, I am more sympathetic to Mark than others. The work and effort on the films is first-rate and hundreds of hours went into each one. The research and quest for rare footage is extensive, and he has given us precious documentaries of the golden age of spaceflight. I really believe that having such a limited, targeted audience, he didn't have huge sales that would have given him a better business infrastructure and capital that would have prevented the customer service woes described. It would have been good had someone with deeper pockets bought him out, but that didn't happen.

[mtakala24]

The films were great, but shame about the customer service. But I'm a bit sad to see it go nevertheless.

Maybe, new film scans, better quality materials on Bluray, and the rise of HD streaming services on Internet overtook the quality he was able to produce. There was a set about the Shuttle development in works for many many years - which I did order, but never got as it was never released - and it was always "missing this bit, or that bit." Certainly, one of the bits was the rendered concept footage and animations - something that will always be a moving goal in quality. Maybe those were produced in 2012 or something but if released now on DVD, they would already look very dated in quality.

Here is the list of sets I have:

Spacecraftfilms: Aeronautics And Space Report 1965
Spacecraftfilms: Aeronautics And Space Report 1966
Spacecraftfilms: Aeronautics And Space Report 1967
Spacecraftfilms: Aeronautics And Space Report 1968
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 1
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 11
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 12 - Ocean of Storms
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 13 - The Real Story
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 15: Man Must Explore - Extended Collectors Edition  NOTE: Disc 6 is unreadable, I was able to get the raw copy as files from Finnius
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 7: Shakedown Cruise
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 8 - Leaving the Cradle
Spacecraftfilms: Apollo 9 - Spider Takes Flight
Spacecraftfilms: Developing Project Apollo NOTE: Disc is unreadable, I was able to get the raw copy as files from Finnius
Spacecraftfilms: Challenger
Spacecraftfilms: Liftoff! Success and failure on the launch pad
Spacecraftfilms: Man In Space - U.S.Air Force Manned Space Projects
Spacecraftfilms: Manned Spacecraft Center Reports 1964-1969
Spacecraftfilms: Mission To The Moon
Spacecraftfilms: Project Gemini
Spacecraftfilms: Project Mercury
Spacecraftfilms: The Mighty Saturns: Saturn I and IB
Spacecraftfilms: The Mighty Saturns: Saturn V
Spacecraftfilms: X-15 The Edge Of Space

[yg1968]

I wish that Mark Gray had given all of his titles for someone else to sell.

Anyways, here is my list:

Apollo 1: From Design to Disaster
Apollo 7: Shakedown Cruise
Apollo 8 - Leaving the Cradle
Apollo 9 - Spider Takes Flight
Apollo 10 - The Dress Rehearsal
Apollo 11: Men on the Moon (2003 and 2011 versions)
Apollo 12 - Ocean of Storms
Apollo 13 - The Real Story
Apollo 14: Mission to Fra Mauro
Apollo 15: Man Must Explore
Apollo 16: Journey to Descartes
Apollo 17: End of the beginning
First lunar landing
Mission to the Moon
The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
The Mighty Saturns: Saturns I and IB
The Mighty Saturns: Saturn V
Saturn's First Power: Building the H-1 Engine
Project Gemini: A Bold Leap Forward
STS-1 to STS 41B
STS-51-J to STS-28
Challenger
STS-109: Columbia and Hubble
Developing Project Apollo
Aeronautics and Space Report 1965
Aeronautics and Space Report 1966
Aeronautics and Space Report 1967
NASA - Manned Spacecraft Center Reports: 1964-1969
Project Gemini Flight Controller Orientation
Liftoff! Success and failure on the launch pad
The Astronauts vol. one
X-15: The Edge of Space
Man in Space
Project Mercury: A New Frontier
Freedom 7: America's First Space Flight
Live from the Moon - The Story of Apollo Television (on DVD and Blu-Ray). It can also be found here on Mark Gray's Vimeo channel:
https://vimeo.com/channels/39850/413822599

I am missing the following titles:

 1968 NASA Aeronautics and Space Reports (these are available on YouTube);
 Manned Space Flight Quarterly Reports: 1965-1970 (some are available on YouTube) and
 First Moonwalk: The Restored Apollo 11 EVA.

P.S. For a complete list of the Spacecraft Films DVDs that were once available, see the second post in this thread (in this other forum):
https://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=157767

[mtakala24]

I wish that he had given all of his titles for someone else to sell.

Me as well. What if someone bought his unreleased content, then crowdfunded the remaining production and release via kickstarter/indiegogo. I would 100%  buy at least the Shuttle set that way.

[nickrulercreator]

So incredible to see this thread blow up as it did. I guess I can add what I have:

Apollo 8
Apollo 11
Apollo 13
(Looking at A15/17 for purchase)
Gemini
Saturns I/IB
Saturn V
Liftoff!

I strongly believe this work should not be made behind a significant paywall as it essentially is right now ($500 for one dvd set Some places). All of mark’s work should be documented and made publicly available through NASA’s website in my opinion.

[JAFO]

So incredible to see this thread blow up as it did.

....
I strongly believe this work should not be made behind a significant paywall as it essentially is right now ($500 for one dvd set Some places). All of mark’s work should be documented and made publicly available through NASA’s website in my opinion.

I remember when Mark first released the films, I was single at the time and had the luxury of being able to sit and watch the films in 5.1 at whatever damn volume I wanted, as many times as my OCD fascination with spaceflight required that day/night/very late night. He put out a very nice product and I had many of them, I didn't mind paying him for his work.

One thing I REALLY liked was that Mark recognized the historical value of the material, and he left them alone with no watermarking, etc. There's another company out there who will go unnamed, but they put a big assed time clock across the bottom along with their logo, blocking parts of the material and ruining them. Seems wrong that they are able to take material produced by others and do that. Sure, I understand they need to make money, but....

[nickrulercreator]

Completely agree. Exploitation at its finest

[Finnius]

Here is my list:

Apollo 7 (2dvd)
Apollo 8 (3dvd)
Apollo 11 (3dvd)
Apollo 13 (3dvd)
Apollo 15 (6dvd)
Apollo 17 (6dvd)
Project Mercury (6dvd)
Project Gemini (3dvd)
Saturn V (3dvd)
Saturn 1 & 1B (3dvd)

I am looking for:

Apollo 1 (1dvd)
Apollo 9 (2dvd)
Apollo 10 (2dvd)
Apollo 12 (3dvd)
Apollo 14 (5dvd)
Apollo 16 (6dvd)

I would be willing to buy the actual disks or perhaps trade disc images if anyone was willing.
I don't know if trading images is ok at this site or not...i'm sure someone will chide me if that is the case.

[yg1968]

A number of these DVDs are available on eBay. However, they are often expensive.

[Finnius]

yes that is where I have been getting mine from. The ones in my 'want list' are not currently being offered. Guess I will just keep checking ebay every once in awhile and see if copies turn up. There is 1 person selling Apollo 12 but even with a couple counteroffers, this guy won't budge so I have to give up on his copy. lol

[Finnius]

I wanted to give a shout-out about the Spacecraft films dvd's. Being that they are now 15-20 years old...many discs are beginning to show disc-rot. I HIGHLY suggest you check your discs and create backups immediately. If you need help with recovery methods...please PM

On another note...I am also trying to contact Mark Gray for possible purchase of:

Apollo Onboard Film In HD (Uncompressed) Delivery by Computer Drive

I have posted in a couple places, and I am hoping that he (or a friend of his) will see this post and reply to me.

Thanks.

[Steve G]

The best way I have found ripping the DVDs onto your hard drive is to use HandBrake. It bypasses any write protection that Mark used.

Mark often used multiple angles that required a special handheld remote to access, which was a pain. HandBrake gives the ability to see the angles, and then rip them appropriately. The beauty of HandBrake is that it's free with no adaware or nasty hitchhikers with the software.

Just be sure you organize the destination file and use separate folders to divide the mission's highlights, such as prelaunch, launch day, etc.

You can also figure out quickly how to determine the beginning and end of the chapters so you don't get little five minute segmants that need pieceing together. Will require a bit of trial and error, but the end results is great.

[Finnius]

yes there are many programs to copy a dvd on a 1-to-1 basis. I was talking about disc-rot....which handbrake cannot deal with.

[Blackstar]

Seeing the words "disk rot" made me nervous, so I pulled out my collection to check them. No disk rot on any of the open cases. Almost all the disks are in perfect condition. The Apollo 15 and 16 ones are still sealed. I also have the STS-109 disk. I don't know if I have Apollo 12 and 17. If they made Apollo 17, then I probably have it and need to find it. I might have skipped Apollo 12 because I knew there was not a lot of good lunar surface footage.

It has been a long time since I watched any of these, but I should do so. I remember being really impressed with them at the time. And that raises an interesting question of if these still remain the best quality videos that were made publicly available? Maybe there are a few higher-quality shots in things like the Apollo 11 documentary.

[yg1968]

The best way I have found ripping the DVDs onto your hard drive is to use HandBrake. It bypasses any write protection that Mark used.

There is no protection on the DVDs, you can just copy and paste the files onto a hard drive. You can then play the DVDs with PowerDVD.

[yg1968]

Seeing the words "disk rot" made me nervous, so I pulled out my collection to check them. No disk rot on any of the open cases. Almost all the disks are in perfect condition.

You wouldn't be able to see it visually. You would only know by playing the DVDs or when trying to copy them onto a hard drive (i.e., if they are damaged, you would get read-errors when trying to copy or play the DVDs on a computer).

[Finnius]

Seeing the words "disk rot" made me nervous, so I pulled out my collection to check them. No disk rot on any of the open cases. Almost all the disks are in perfect condition. The Apollo 15 and 16 ones are still sealed. I also have the STS-109 disk. I don't know if I have Apollo 12 and 17. If they made Apollo 17, then I probably have it and need to find it. I might have skipped Apollo 12 because I knew there was not a lot of good lunar surface footage.

It has been a long time since I watched any of these, but I should do so. I remember being really impressed with them at the time. And that raises an interesting question of if these still remain the best quality videos that were made publicly available? Maybe there are a few higher-quality shots in things like the Apollo 11 documentary.

1. check your sealed sets. just because they are sealed does not mean that the aluminum coat has not started to oxidize.
2. mark did indeed make a 6disc set for Apollo 17.
3. mark did release an HD uncompressed set of all Apollo mission on flashdrive. It was 1TB in size. Those would be the best publicly available. I am trying to contact Mark to purchase that. If anyone reads this that is in contact with Mark...let him know. Cost is not an issue for me.

[Finnius]

yg1968 is entirely correct. All the discs were set for Region 0...with no copy protection added. On CD's disc-rot would be visually apparent...but not on DVD's. Again, if anyone is experiencing read-errors on their discs...you can PM me for the best programs to use to try and recover your discs. I also might be able to help in other ways as well.

So far, what i have found is that the most prominent set to have problems is the "Project Mercury 6disc set". Not the big bulky set that had six separate compartments...but the slimmer set that had the discs back-to-back. Both packaging sets were released in 2005.

[Finnius]

Another good free program is "makemkv" It reads dvd/bluray and preserves all audio/video tracks. It also preserves all chapters stops/subtitles/languages. As for the secondary angles/videos...it finds and rips those but yes you would still have to label them according to which is which...by comparing. I do this by loading the actual dvd in Cyberlink and the 2ndary in another vid program like kmplayer, vlc, mpc-hd. Your vids will come out with no compression. so if that vid was 2gigs to start..the file will be 2 gigs as well.

The best way I have found ripping the DVDs onto your hard drive is to use HandBrake. It bypasses any write protection that Mark used.

Mark often used multiple angles that required a special handheld remote to access, which was a pain. HandBrake gives the ability to see the angles, and then rip them appropriately. The beauty of HandBrake is that it's free with no adaware or nasty hitchhikers with the software.

Just be sure you organize the destination file and use separate folders to divide the mission's highlights, such as prelaunch, launch day, etc.

You can also figure out quickly how to determine the beginning and end of the chapters so you don't get little five minute segmants that need pieceing together. Will require a bit of trial and error, but the end results is great.

[mtakala24]

Good discussion about disk rot. I will reserve some time to read my collection to HDD format.

Any ideas about trying different DVD readers if some disk cannot be read? I would presume it won't make a difference, although reading of bad disks was popular differentiator (and measured in technical reviews) when DVD drives first came out for PCs.

[Finnius]

i have 2 bluray reader/writers hooked up to my rig...didn't matter. I have finally copied all my discs and so far only had 2 instances of problems. The aformentioned "Mercury" 6disc set and "gemini flight controller orientation". Luckily for Gemini i was able to force-recheck and finally retrieved all the data. For Mercury I had to get anothe set as my 1st set had 3 discs rotted almost 50% and the others had about 15%

[mtakala24]

I have started my process. The D1 on Gemini set took 5+ hours to read, but eventually 0 errors. D2 and D3 seem to be fine.

[Thorny]

I copied all of mine with Acrok Video Converter Ultimate, no issues. They are Mighty Saturns: Early Saturns and Saturn V, Apollo 11, Project Gemini, and Liftoff.

[mtakala24]

Late night, the first problem came up. Apollo 15 6-disc set, the last disc is giving unreadable errors. I'm interested in getting working files and willing to trade with proof that you also really have similar issues.

Also Developing Project Apollo (new, in the wrapper still!) was almost completely unreadable.

Update a day later: those turned out to be the only rotten ones for me.

[Finnius]

I have finally finished these so far: (with a bit of brute force rechecking with Recovery Toolbox for CD & DVD Decrypter)

1967 ASR
Apollo 7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17
Astronauts v1
Challenger
Developing Project Apollo
Gemini Orientation
Liftoff!
Mission to the Moon
MSC Reports 1964-1969
Project Gemini
Project Mercury
Saturn I & IB
Saturn V
STS-26

[aaronmelzak]

Created an account just to post here. I too was unfortunately a customer of Spacecraft Films that did not get all their orders. I had well over $200 worth of orders never delivered. And now the website is gone, I assume Mark is either gone or moved on.

I have long archived all the discs I bought from their store or obtained from libraries in my area. I think I have everything that was released and provided. The only thing I didn't get were the third set of STS DVD's and the collection on the Manned Space Center which were the last sets he sold pre-orders for but never delivered.

Here is my collection (backed up in multiple locations and ripped to video):

1965 ASR
1966 ASR
1967 ASR
1968 ASR
Apollo 1, 7-17
AWC
First Lunar Landing
Freedom 7
Gemini
Man in Space
Mercury
Mission to the Moon
MSC Reports
Saturn I and IB
Saturn V
STS-1 to STS-41B
STS-51-J to STS-28
Challenger (STS-51-L)
Columbia
The Astronauts Volume 1

Is there anything I am missing?

[catdlr]

Created an account just to post here. I too was unfortunately a customer of Spacecraft Films that did not get all their orders. I had well over $200 worth of orders never delivered. And now the website is gone, I assume Mark is either gone or moved on.

I have long archived all the discs I bought from their store or obtained from libraries in my area. I think I have everything that was released and provided. The only thing I didn't get were the third set of STS DVD's and the collection on the Manned Space Center which were the last sets he sold pre-orders for but never delivered.

Here is my collection (backed up in multiple locations and ripped to video):

1965 ASR
1966 ASR
1967 ASR
1968 ASR
Apollo 1, 7-17
AWC
First Lunar Landing
Freedom 7
Gemini
Man in Space
Mercury
Mission to the Moon
MSC Reports
Saturn I and IB
Saturn V
STS-1 to STS-41B
STS-51-J to STS-28
Challenger (STS-51-L)
Columbia
The Astronauts Volume 1

Is there anything I am missing?

This is an excellent post to welcome you to the Forum. I'm sorry for your unfortunate loss of funds due to this company. I'm glad you were able to obtain copies elsewhere and were smart enough to rip and archive them in various locations.

I am glad you are here among professionals.
Tony

[nickrulercreator]

It's been a while since I even looked at this thread I created so long ago.

I guess, to start, my current collection consists of the following:

ASR 1967
MSCR 1964-1969
Apollo 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, and 17
STS-26
Gemini
Saturns - I and IB
Saturns - Saturn V
Liftoff!

It's great to see others keeping their collections up and growing them as they can!

[ariane5]

3. mark did release an HD uncompressed set of all Apollo mission on flashdrive. It was 1TB in size. Those would be the best publicly available. I am trying to contact Mark to purchase that. If anyone reads this that is in contact with Mark...let him know. Cost is not an issue for me.

I bought that flashdrive with all the 16mm films on it. In the end it is not o.k., because those are the old film scans which are blurry towards the edges.
There was a new scan of all the 16mm filmns, which are available on youtube if you search for "Apollo Flight Journal" resp. "Apollo nn Flight Journal" (set in the flight number for nn). Only missing is Apollo 16.

[ariane5]

Here is my collection (backed up in multiple locations and ripped to video):

AWC
Columbia

What is meant with AWC ?
I am not aware of a set called Columbia. Therer were sets for STS-26, STS-27, ST-29, STS-30, STS-109. I have those.

[yg1968]

Is there anything I am missing?

You have the main ones but there was a few more. For a complete list of the Spacecraft Films DVDs that were once available, see the second post in this thread (in this other forum):
https://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=157767

See also my post in this thread:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=58193.msg2454299#msg2454299

[Finnius]

so I have been going thru ebay to aquire any that I'm missing but after grabbing like 6 discs that some clearance company had...i'm at a standstill.

am still looking for quite a few like:

F-86 Sabre - (2-DVD's)
Mach 3: The XB-70 Valkyrie - (1 DVD)
The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal - (3 DVD's)

and other ones that are harder to find. I would be willing to trade or REPLACE any defective discs you have (as long as you show me a pic of the set you have defective. seems only fair that you had to own it originally to get a disc replaced)

edit: i have these currently-

1967_ASR 1disc
Apollo 01 1disc
Apollo 07 2disc
Apollo 08 3disc
Apollo 09 2disc
Apollo 10 2disc
Apollo 11 3disc original
Apollo 12 3disc
Apollo 13 3disc
Apollo 14 5disc
Apollo 15 6disc
Apollo 16 6disc
Apollo 17 6disc
ASTRONAUTS V1 1disc
Challenger 3disc
Developing Project Apollo 1disc
GEMINI ORIENTATION 1disc
Liftoff 2disc
live_from_the_moon (720p).mp4
Misson to the Moon 2disc
MSC REPORTS 1964-1969 1disc
Project Gemini 3disc
Project Mercury 6disc
Saturn I & IB 3disc
Saturn V 3disc
STS-26 1disc

The reason I am doing this is two-fold. 1: Mark will most likely never continue or restart his site. 2: From a historic perspective I feel these discs should be preserved by as many people as possible for future generations. This is why I brought up the subject of disc-rot in the first place...because i was working on making backups and started encountering problems. We need to preserve this material for the future.

[Finnius]

Here is my collection (backed up in multiple locations and ripped to video):

AWC
Columbia

What is meant with AWC ?
I am not aware of a set called Columbia. Therer were sets for STS-26, STS-27, ST-29, STS-30, STS-109. I have those.

me neither. I looked at the old website and can't see anything that might fit those 2.

[Thorny]

me neither. I looked at the old website and can't see anything that might fit those 2.

AWC might be Astronaut Wives Club, but what that has to do with Spacecraft Films, I don't know.

[db9999]

I'm glad I found this interesting conversation about SpacecraftFilms!

Like a few others, I created an account here just to discuss the SpacecraftFilms DVDs. Some folks on this thread have converted them to iso images and/or video files which is a great way to preserve the videos.

I'm surprised that, to my knowledge, NASA never made these videos available like SpacecraftFilms did. If NASA made similar DVD/Blu-ray discs I think they would sell very well. These are video recordings of the most impressive engineering feats in history and I would think NASA would have made them available for streaming or on disc. Hopefully the National Archives has copies of everything SpacecraftFilms made.

Someone mentioned having problems with a few discs. My Mercury disc #4 gave me problems. I think I was finally able to convert it to an iso image file but I need to watch it again to make sure it plays correctly. If my image doesn't play properly I would probably be willing to trade for a good copy.

Here is what I have:

Apollo 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
ASR, 1965-1968
The Astronauts, vol 1
Developing Project Apollo
Freedom 7
Gemini
Gemini FCO
Live from the Moon, DVD (not sure if I also have the Blu-ray version)
Man in Space
Mercury
The Mighty Saturns, I and IB
The Mighty Saturns, The Saturn V
Mission to the Moon
MSCR 1964-1969
STS-109

[mtakala24]

From what I understand of the timeline, the Spacecraft Films scans that they did, were in the pre-HD/4K era. Some materials have since been scanned again and released by Nasa too in HD - at least some of the Apollo 11 footage is like that.

[buckyhead]

Great thread on an important topic.  If NASA won't sell or host this data... then it falls to people like those of you above to make sure it stays alive and available.

As cool as it would be to own the physical DVDs, the second-hand market is just out of my price range (and too sparsely populated).  I wonder how many copies exist out there.

[gpalz]

Curious to know if anyone's DVD(s) are not playable anymore? My DVD players are unable to read my Apollo 1 disc now. Disc plays the opening Spacecraft Film intro and stops. No issues when I bought it years ago.

[catdlr]

Curious to know if anyone's DVD(s) are not playable anymore? My DVD players are unable to read my Apollo 1 disc now. Disc plays the opening Spacecraft Film intro and stops. No issues when I bought it years ago.

I read a report long ago that this issue may occur.  I decided to rip all my DVDs to data.  Had to purchase an extra external FH to house them all.  But look up this product "MkvToMp4": it reads the entire DVD, analyzes it, sees what is recoverable, and spits out the content so you can choose what to convert to MP4.

https://www.videohelp.com/software/MkvToMp4

[gpalz]

Curious to know if anyone's DVD(s) are not playable anymore? My DVD players are unable to read my Apollo 1 disc now. Disc plays the opening Spacecraft Film intro and stops. No issues when I bought it years ago.

I read a report long ago that this issue may occur.  I decided to rip all my DVDs to data.  Had to purchase an extra external FH to house them all.  But look up this product "MkvToMp4": it reads the entire DVD, analyzes it, sees what is recoverable, and spits out the content so you can choose what to convert to MP4.

https://www.videohelp.com/software/MkvToMp4

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to get the program to analyze the DVD and do what you describe. I'll visit the video help forum and see what I can find there. Thanks.

EDIT: Gave VLC a try. VLC is capable of reading and capturing the individual VOB files.

[mtakala24]

Yeah, disc rot is unfortunate and happens. I think me and Finnius can provide replacement vob files to replace unreadable ones that you may have but for what we have saved succesfully, against proof of ownership.

[gpalz]

mod edit: apparently about the Apollo 1 disc

Just to follow-up here and close the loop. Turns out the first 14 VOB files are readable which covers up to CM Removal. It seems the remaining VOB files 15 - 34 are no longer readable based on the few that I tried to read unsuccessfully. Backed up the good VOB's and converted them MP4's as well. So I was able to salvage around 2 hours of material from the DVD. Thank you for your input.