4/5 great set but..
  by M. Gibb (Auckland New Zealand)
pretty annoyed that i preordered this and then a week after it got sent yo me they lowered the price by almost $20. Pretty dishonest from Amazon

4/5 Fantastic collection of childhood memories!
  by Thomas Paine (USA)
I'm a big Transformers fan but passed on the Kid Rhino dvd collection awhile back because of price and unecessary "adjustments" to the show. I had gotten two dvd packs of G.I. Joe from Kid Rhino previously and didn't like the changes at all, since they tend to distract rather than enhance the show. Shout Factory has provided an uncut and beautiful collection. There are only a couple negatives that I can find in these dvds.

First, the severe lack of extras dissappoints me greatly. There are extras, but not on a level that you'd expect from a full series release box set. Only a hand full of things are offered. What I was really excited about was the commercials and PSAs. Unfortunately there are only 4 commercials, and all of them are from the later years of Transformers (Headmasters, etc.) I'm very saddened that this is all they provide. By the way, there are 2 PSA's. I'm not sure why they decided to grant entirely separate sections for these 15 second clips. Again, very dissappointing.

Second, there are scenes that look brand spanking new (from the cleanup), then there are scenes that look aged and blurry. I didn't notice at first but there are a few episodes where the switch occurs every so often and becomes noticeable. I'm assuming these scenes were not available for repair when Shout Factory was putting together this set. However, a big positive is the audio. Sound was sometimes a problem during Hasbro cartoons, for example sound effects would be at whisper volume and were obvious mistakes. The audio, from the dozen episodes I've seen so far on these dvds, is fantastic. I'm not sure if Shout Factory fixed the problems or what but it's great.

Anyways, overall this is a fantastic set. It's all you really need if you're a fan of the show

5/5 Who would rate this below 5?
  by Edwin Y. Kim
I bought this early in the summer directly from Shout Factory. This set completely outdoes the Rhino DVDs [Optimus Prime style]. YouTube user Zaranyzerak (who is an expert in DVDs and Transformers) will confirm just how fantastic a DVD set can be POSSIBLE. Keep in mind in post-production this series was mastered on video so expecting HD pristine picture will have to look elsewhere. A lot of people have complained about the price of this set. If you compare the price of all 5 Rhino sets new, factory sealed it will probably be around $300 minimum where the Shout Factory set is half of that ($150 if you can't do the math) and you do get better quality. This really is the definitive set of the Transformers. If you're a fan THIS IS IT!

3/5 Better than the Rhino releases, but still flawed
  by Garrett Aja (North Las Vegas, NV)
Despite being one of the most popular cartoons of the '80s, The Transformers has had an awful time on DVD. The initial DVDs of The Ultimate Doom (released alongside the then-rare "Rebirth" three-parter on single-disc DVDs) had a pressing error which resulted in a batch of the discs including the "Rebirth" three-parter instead. However, the problems really started when Rhino decided to remaster the series by going back to the original 35mm negatives. Those 35mm reels were incomplete, however: every re-take in the series was not present, forcing Rhino to insert the footage from whatever sources were available. Rhino, was not perfect, however, (far from it, in fact), and many scenes were left uncorrected, and others had poor attempts to digitally alter the 35mm footage to match the broadcast masters. The famous transition sequences even had to be re-inserted in the first four episodes, and a great many were of the incorrect type. Adding insult to injury, the new 5.1 sound mix had added effects, and a great number of episodes from the first two seasons did not have the unaltered audio available (and the company responsible, Magno Sound, lied to everyone about the new effects, even after fans identified sounds from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which first aired as The Transformers entered into the land of perpetual reruns).

So, now, leading up to the 25th Anniversary of the fabled animated series, Hasbro assigned home video rights to Shout! Factory, which promptly declared that they would be fixing Rhino's mistakes. The mono mix has returned, lightly stereo-ized but without Magno's alterations (though some episodes, such as The Ultimate Doom Part 3, have reverted from a stronger mix of the effects and music tracks of the Rhino DVDs to the muted mixes that were created in the '80s). And true to their word, Shout! has fixed may of the problems with the prior DVDs. However, there are still a great many errors present, especially in the first season (which was the most problematic of Rhino's releases).

Among the things that are still uncorrected:
-Incorrect transitions in the second and third parts of the "More Than Meets the Eye" three parter
-Rampant amounts of incorrect footage in the recaps and previews for many of the multipart episodes
-Numerous shots of missing snowfall in the opening scene of "Fire in the Sky"
-A handful of mis-framed shots in "Divide and Conquer" and "SOS Dinobots" (the former episode as the Autobots transform to meet Prime at the weapons factory, and during the battle with the mindless Dinobots in the latter episode)
-Starscream colored as Thundercracker at 15:33 of "Fire on the Mountain" and 2:15 of The Ultimate Doom Part 2
-The missing background as the Energon Cubes explode at the climax of The Ultimate Doom Part 3
-Rhino's digital tinkering to fix the 35mm footage of Wheeljack and his Shock Blast Cannon in "Heavy Metal War"
-Lava which moves *up* Megatron's face (and gets in his eye) in the last shot of "Heavy Metal War"
-The mis-titled title card for "The Master Builders" (titled "The Master Builder" on the DVD)
-The *correct* spelling of the word "Decepticon" in the title card of "A Deceptacon Raider in King Arthur's Court"
-Missing freeze-frames at the end of two episodes: "Auto Berserk" and "Revenge of Bruticus"
-Incorrect openings for all five parts of Season 3's "Five Face of Darkness": Only parts 3 and 5 have the correct video, and unlike the prior Rhino DVDs, the audio is from the normal opening in both parts.
-"Dark Awakening", which was altered so as to precede "The Return of Optimus Prime", features only the audio from the original airing (which did not feature Victor Caroli's famous narration). In this era of DVD branching, it seems a bit silly that both versions were not able to appear on the same disc (what with the historical significance of the alternate version).

To be fair, the episodes are much improved. "Heavy Metal War", rendered nearly unwatchable on the Rhino DVDs, has only 19 incorrect shots, which is a significant reduction (and many of the differences are rather subtle in those 19 shots). Other episodes with are even more successfully corrected, such as a few seconds of black on Rhino's "Desertion of the Dinobots" Part 1 and the upholding of "War Dawn's" notoriously slowed-down Act 2 (done to cover up the removal of the original-and far more gruesome-crippling of Orion Pax from the final episode). [EDIT: Further investigation by yours truly reveals that the second act of "War Dawn" is still played at the wrong speed-only the voices have been corrected.] Also, the extras are very good, featuring a great number of commercials, an excellent cast reunion, and a conversation with Bob Budiansky that's infinitely better at illustrating his importance to the series than the similar one with Larry Hama that's featured in Shout! Factory's G.I. Joe set. I do, however, find the lack of participation from David Wise (who was at least as important as Flint Dille and Earl Kress, who were re-interviewed for this set, to the series) a bit disconcerting. Also, due to Hasbro's orders, the running order for Season 3 does not match the running order on the packaging of the version of this set offered directly by Shout! Factory as of this writing. However, it is the continued insistence on using the flawed 35mm masters (and not the broadcast masters) that causes the greatest concern with this set, especially when broadcast masters are used on 5 episodes (Season 1's "Countdown to Extinction", Season 3's "The Burden Hardest to Bear", and all three parts of "The Rebirth"), just as they were on the Rhino DVDs, and they look pretty good for their age (and the inconsistency of Sunbow's telecine transfers). Until a more even-handed approach is taken, it's hard to recommend such an expensive DVD box set.

5/5 Excellent in every way.
  by Deinabo D. George (Bronx, NY USA)
This THE box set to own. I never purchased any of the Rhino releases but Shout Factory's treatment of this venerable series is most excellent. From the Dolby Pro Logic soundtrack to the imperfections that crop up in some episodes (no doubt present on the boradcast masters used by Shout Factory) this the Transformers as I remember them.

I ordered this addition from Shout Factory directly since I wasn't sure if it would be available from other vendors. All 16 discs were present and accounted for as well two magnets, a 60-page booklet, and a flyer for the G.I. Joe collector's set. If your a Transformers fan this is the most complete edition of the series worth owning to date. Buy it and enjoy!