As mentioned by everyone else, this is a truly superlative series, all the more remarkable when you consider the list of stars, directors and producers who refused to appear in it when it was first created.
The lack of a DVD release is, unfortunately, entirely the result of human greed. In the almost 25 years between the time that the series was created, and the time that it was set for DVD release (with lots of extra interview footage not shown in the original series), the ownership of significant parts of the original film footage had changed hands. The home video market, and the DVD market did not exist at the time the series was made, and so there was no provision in the contracts for usage of the original footage for it to be used in such a manner. This was common at the time of course, and is usually not a problem as copyright has often lapsed, or no-one really cares either way, but the new owners of significant parts of the silent footage used in the series made sure that the copyrights were renewed and then tried to squeeze the producers for huge amounts of money, which made the DVD release uneconomic.
Therefore, only weeks before the DVD was due to be released it was scrapped, and all the DVDs were destroyed. I've managed to track down and rip a full set of episodes from the LaserDisc release, which is the best source material available, but otherwise it's only the old VHS tapes that are available. A very sad situation, and I hope the scumbags who caused this are happy with themselves.
The lack of a DVD release is, unfortunately, entirely the result of human greed. In the almost 25 years between the time that the series was created, and the time that it was set for DVD release (with lots of extra interview footage not shown in the original series), the ownership of significant parts of the original film footage had changed hands. The home video market, and the DVD market did not exist at the time the series was made, and so there was no provision in the contracts for usage of the original footage for it to be used in such a manner. This was common at the time of course, and is usually not a problem as copyright has often lapsed, or no-one really cares either way, but the new owners of significant parts of the silent footage used in the series made sure that the copyrights were renewed and then tried to squeeze the producers for huge amounts of money, which made the DVD release uneconomic.
Therefore, only weeks before the DVD was due to be released it was scrapped, and all the DVDs were destroyed. I've managed to track down and rip a full set of episodes from the LaserDisc release, which is the best source material available, but otherwise it's only the old VHS tapes that are available. A very sad situation, and I hope the scumbags who caused this are happy with themselves.