The first chance to own any BBC Quatermass came with an abridged version of 1958/59s 'Quatermass and the Pit' being released by BBC Video on a single VHS tape.

This edition was presented as a one hundred and eighty-seven minutes tv movie, with the episode recaps, recap narration and title sequences all purged from the middle episodes. The closing to episode six 'Hob' were replaced with a rolling black and white computer generated version to allow for the cast from all six episodes to be credited.

Nigel Kneale assisted BBC Video with the presentation of this release, removing certain scenes from the original which Kneale felt added no real value to the production simply as the scenes were added to allow actors to move from set to set during the live portions of the programme. A full list of the edits can be found here.

Having purchased the rights from BBC Worldwide this 1995 DVD and VHS reissued was simply sourced from the same edit of 'Quatermass and the Pit' that had appeared on the BBC Video 1988 release. (see above for the list of edits).

The picture and sound quality is comparable to the VHS release above. Sadly the 1950s retro style cover art has been jettisoned for something a little less pleasing on the eye.

The holy grail for Quatermass aficionados came in the spring of 2005 with the release of 'The Quatermass Collection'. A BBC Worldwide release on DVD of all extant episodes from the three BBC Quatermass productions.

Extensive cleanup work as carried out by the same team who work on the BBC Worldwide / 2|Entertain 'Doctor Who' DVD releases. The clean up work on 'Quatermass and the Pit' also included the application of the VidFIRE process, a computer run process which interpolates the 'missing' fields from a film sourced image essentially restoring the video 'look' to the production. Notably this was the first commercial release of footage having benefited from the use of the improved VidFIRE v2. You can read all about the extensive clean up work by clicking here.

Released over two separate tapes, released a few weeks apart, this release, sadly, left allot to be desired. Whilst the picture quality was acceptable for VHS, the sound was muffled and left it often hard to make out certain lines of dialogue. We would guess that this release was sourced from 16mm prints, not 35mm on which the production was originally made.

It's notable that the first tape is entitled 'Quatermass' whilst the second is labelled 'Quatermass 2" possibly leading to some confusion, as this is 'Quatermass IV' not the BBC's 'Quatermass II'. Also episode one 'Ringstone Round' is shown as 'Huffity Puffity Ringstone Round' on the front cover of the first tape.

A welcome addition to the Quatermass collection was Clear Vision's 2002 DVD and VHS release of the 1979 'Quatermass'. Again it appears to have been sourced from 16mm prints, but both the sound and picture are clear and it is a vast improvement on the old VHS release. The Thames idents are intact at the opening of each episode, although the end-caps appear to have been 'updated' at some point. Perhaps this was only source available from Freemantle who now own and maintain the Thames and Euston Films catalogue.

The four episodes are split equally over two disks, with an additional third disk containing the abridged film version of the tale 'The Quatermass Conclusion', which was sold abroad as a TV movie.