First TV Show to DVD

A couple of weeks ago I was entrenched in thought about which was going to win the format war, Sony and their Blu-Ray Disc or Toshiba's own HD DVD. Not that it really matters right now, as I will support neither until it is clear which provides me with a better viewing experience. However, the format war is not what this post is about, I still want to address television shows on DVD.

You may remember on January 4, I wrote a post about my DVD Dilemma, giving you some insight on my obsession with television shows on DVD. While I was thinking about the Blu-Ray and HD DVD format war, I was wondering which complete television season would make it onto those formats first. Upon thinking about that, I then began to wonder which television show made it to DVD first.

I spent some time looking around the Internet and found a message board post about the subject. To my dismay, most of the contributors misunderstood the topic and began rattling off the television shows they first bought on DVD. That of course did not help me. Some who understood the topic believed that it could have been the X-Files, but after some digging, I found that to be false.

Today, after a few clicks of my mouse, I may have found the answer. I came across an article by Greg Hernandez of the Los Angeles Daily News called, "TV shows old and new send DVD sales soaring". In this article he says, "It began a few years ago when HBO began selling entire seasons of its hit shows "The Sopranos" and "Sex in the City" in boxed DVD sets."

I checked with Amazon.com, which specifies the DVD release date on the product information page. The Sopranos was listed as being released on December 12, 2000 and Sex and the City on May 23, 2000. It looks like Sex and the City may have been the first television series to make it to DVD as I have yet to find any releases that predate it.

Now we have entered a new generation of media formats so we can easily figure out what the first series will be on Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Because I am such a nice guy, I will you spare you the suspense. For Blu-Ray, it is none other than The Sopranos Season 6, Part 1, which was released on December 19, 2006 a little over 6 years since season one was released to DVD. As for HD DVD, Smallville The Complete Fifth Season came out first on November 28, 2006 trumping the HD DVD release of The Sopranos Season 6, Part 1 on December 19, 2006.

I think this mystery is solved as it was bugging me for a while. Of course, if anyone knows of a TV to DVD release that comes before Sex and the City, I hope you let me know.