Echo Bridge- The problem and the solution... (1 Viewer)

[AnthonyP]

A few more titles Echo Bridge owns the rights to now that might hold appeal for some.


Beautiful Girls (1996)
Four Rooms (1995)
Full Frontal (2002): Steven Soderbergh
Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown (1997)
Ideal Husband, An (1999)
Journey of August King, The (1995)
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990): James Ivory
Playing by Heart (1998)
Third Wheel, The (2002)
Tsotsi (2005)

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Not true.... we never even spoke about materials. Echo Bridge out bid us with money.

See? It doesn't make sense this company had more money to bid to get these movies, and then put out discs that are close to bootleg quality.

 

[cafink]

Originally Posted by FanboyZ

I can state this to A MORAL CERTAINTY that Echo Bridge had access to 5.1 tracks (as did Alliance in Canada) and upon authoring downmixed them to stereo.
I can't prove that- but I shouldn't have to.

What? You've made a pretty outrageous claim--why shouldn't you have to prove it? And if you can't prove it, how do you know that it's true?

 

[mattCR]

I can state this to A MORAL CERTAINTY that Echo Bridge had access to 5.1 tracks (as did Alliance in Canada) and upon authoring downmixed them to stereo.
I can't prove that- but I shouldn't have to.

This isn't a question of morals. There is no moral certainty in question. What is in question is the physical delivery, which either was or wasn't in XYZ format. LIke I said, most of us will boycott these titles because they are terrible anyway. I'll root for Englishman who went up a hill, because I like that film (in a second batch).


But just as DVD survived tons of bad releases, and SyFy weekly survives crappy movies, Bluray will survive bad releases.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by cliff mac


Not true.... we never even spoke about materials. Echo Bridge out bid us with money.

Cliff - Thanks for setting me straight on this. There is so much talk out there, but you are the only one that actually knows. I edited my post to make sure the information is correct. By the way Shout! is my favorite DVD company last year and so for this year. Waiting on the two Ron Howard pictures to arrive today and cannot wait for the Women in Prison films. I know they will be done right. Booked those as a triple feature in many a drive-in in the late 70's.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Does anyone know who has the rights for these titles overseas? It doesn't look like the domestic EB releases are even to be considered for purchase. The Sirens release looks like a repackaging of Miramax's last DVD release (which I believe is the same as the Alliance release). Shame that Englishman (which I consider a companion piece due to the cast/style) and Beautiful Girls are in EB's hands.

 

[Worth]

Alliance holds the rights in Canada, but they don't do their own transfers, they only release what their given, so the quality is very hit and miss.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by Bryan Tuck

As for the ones that are cropped, it's possible that some of them are HD broadcast masters (as has been mentioned, some of them are apparently 1080i).


At any rate; not sure who's to blame here, Echo Bridge, Miramax, or both. It is kind of funny, though, that both do seem to be going out of their way to deliver a substandard product.

I think you're probably right - it seems likely based on the titles being cropped and missing the surround tracks that they may have been (mistakenly? intentionally? unknowingly?) provided with broadcast masters instead of the previous home video master. Might be that the previous DVDs were mastered in SD resolution, while the TV masters were the only HD sources they had? Until you can step into a studio's archive you never know what they actually have - and even then, sometimes you still don't know. With Miramax no longer what it once was, it seems entirely possible that the people who were in charge of the archives aren't around anymore to supervise what's going where. That shouldn't be a problem that's passed on to the consumer...but it seems a plausible explanation.

 

[FanboyZ]

Every Alliance release of a film now put out by Echo Bridge at least has it's 5.1 intact, I have no reason to assume that Alliance was treated any differently by Miramax when leasing out films for them to release.

 

[FanboyZ]

"Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood" features a proper 5.1 DTS HD-Master Audio track even though the box says stereo only. Perhaps Echo Bridge is trying to mend their evil ways.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by FanboyZ

Every Alliance release of a film now put out by Echo Bridge at least has it's 5.1 intact, I have no reason to assume that Alliance was treated any differently by Miramax when leasing out films for them to release.

They did have different owners. Mirimax is now a totally different company, in that they only want to make money of the library and rake in as much as they can without spending any.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by FanboyZ

Every Alliance release of a film now put out by Echo Bridge at least has it's 5.1 intact, I have no reason to assume that Alliance was treated any differently by Miramax when leasing out films for them to release.

Hopefully they are reading the Forum and listening to what the posters have to say. You can have and take credit for pushing this to the forefront. Thanks.

 

[cineMANIAC]

Some observations. I'm a fan of the Children of the Corn sequels (except Part II) - they're dumb but fun and many of the gore effects were nicely done by industry pros, some of them feature cameos by recognizable actors. All in all I'm glad they're coming out on budget blu's but why is Part IV DVD only? I don't get the logic behind some of the decisions made by Echo Bridge as pertains to what gets a blu and what gets a DVD, which films are grouped in triple features and which ones get standalone releases, etc. So, Parts II through IV are a triple feature DVD but Part III gets a standalone Blu. IV gets a separate release but is DVD only. V and 666, which, by the way, aren't demo-quality but look very nice, get a double feature Blu. Confused yet? I was! The final entry was vastly different in tone but I enjoyed it quite a bit and hope to see it on blu. I would've liked to see some extras for these films but I suppose you can't ask for much from these flicks, which were cranked out on the cheap and don't really merit exhaustive analysis. I was also surprised to see an Echo Bridge version of 1993's Fortress recently. The Lionsgate version is still widely available and very cheap - no need for another release.