EXCLUSIVE HTF ANNOUNCEMENT: Twilight Time May/June Releases (You will want to read this!) (1 Viewer)

[haineshisway]

Emphasis above is mine.
The Egyptian was $40. Since that was TT's first Blu, people seem to have that price point stuck in their heads. But you're correct, subsequent titles have been lower.

Ah, forgot that was the one title. I think they learned immediately from that, although, truth be told, I don't remember that price at all.

 

[SAhmed]

4h and 44 mins later I managed to get my order in for both "The Big Heat" and "Journey To The Center of The Earth" - very frustrating experience! As other folks have put it, poorly executed at best. Not the best way to support your customers.
Regards,

 

[Dick]

Dear Twilight Time:
I was finally (after 3 hours) able to secure a few copies of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. Thank you.
But...
Three hours?
I am not being compensated for the time I spend trying to order from your web site, which was obviously so overloaded that I could not make anything work despite constant refreshing. You had, in an earlier phone call, told me you would be accepting phone orders between 4-5 p.m. EST, but I could not get through, even with auto-redial. The line was busy throughout.
So, in spite of the fact that I continued trying to make my purchase between 3:38 and 5:00 p.m., constantly refreshing, I could not get through to procure just one of the 100 signed copies. yes, I understand what "first come, first serve" means, but there are computer whizzes out there who have the savy and the software to wedge their way in before anyone else gets a chance at such an offer, and a few of them are probably buying up a dozen or more copies just to re-sell them on eBay at scalper's prices.
I am happy I was able to get a couple of copies, as I am sure this title will sell out, perhaps even more quickly than FRIGHT NIGHT did. But, I think that, if you are going to go this limited edition route, and offer something special for the first 100 copies or whatever, you need to have a web site that can handle the traffic. It was so slow I kept timing out, and I have a reasonably fast high speed connection.
I realize Screen Archives is handled by only a few people and your budget is limited. We all appreciate the work you do to help bring CD's and movies to us that would otherwise never be available. But, having now experienced the FRIGHT NIGHT sellout and the almost instant depletion of Pat Boone-autographed copies of JTTCOTE, it might be advisable for you to reassess the way you handle such special offers.
Thank you.

 

[David_B_K]

Aw, I'd cut them a little slack. With only one title sold out so far, they probably did not expect the demand for the autographed version. We can't expect them to have a crystal ball . I didn't get the autographed version, either; but it looks like they have at least sold 200+ copies. Hopefully, they will live and learn if they try an autograph stunt again.

 

[Bryan^H]

Too bad that cover art is so damned ugly. Quite a letdown after the gorgeous Mysterious Island.

I'm still scratching my head as to why they didn't use the fantastic poster art:

Anyway, I plan to pre-order it when I get home tonight.

 

[David Weicker]

I finally got my pre-order in. Once the autographed version was sold out, I gave up. I realize that was the main cause of the server problems. The 'black friday' effect.
I initially retried a bout 6:30, but the server was still slow. Now that it is 8pm (chicago time), the server seems to be working.
As for the prices, I've now ordered four TT titles. Two have been just under $40, the other two just under $35. I realize that TT claims they are charging less, but if there is a Mandatory shipping cost, it is charging that much. Postage is not postage - other retailers offer free shipping or have much lower shipping costs.
David

 

[Mark Collins]

After hour upon hour I did make my order. Just this very second. I just decided no movie is worth this trouble and if it sells out so be it I walked away from my PC and just now came back.. I am very gald I have the movie. I have not had time to read the above posts I look forward to that on Saturday. I am very glad TT was able to get the problem solved. I even pulled out my dvd copy out in the event I shall never receive it.
I sure hope all fans do receive and be able to order their copy.

 

[Bryan^H]

Good God, people are actually purchasing pre-orders from 3rd party scalpers on E-Bay at double the cost:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Journey-to-the-Center-of-the-Earth-1959-Blu-ray-Limited-Edition-3000-PRE-ORDER-/170821731497?pt=US_DVD_HD_DVD_Blu_ray&hash=item27c5c4c4a9

 

[haineshisway]

I finally got my pre-order in. Once the autographed version was sold out, I gave up. I realize that was the main cause of the server problems. The 'black friday' effect.
I initially retried a bout 6:30, but the server was still slow. Now that it is 8pm (chicago time), the server seems to be working.
As for the prices, I've now ordered four TT titles. Two have been just under $40, the other two just under $35. I realize that TT claims they are charging less, but if there is a Mandatory shipping cost, it is charging that much. Postage is not postage - other retailers offer free shipping or have much lower shipping costs.
David

Twilight Time has NOTHING to do with the shipping charges.

 

[bgart13]

I was able to pre-order JOURNEY and THE BIG HEAT... after trying for about four hours of getting the site to work. SAE needs to fix this, this is seriously ridiculous in 2012. I'm glad I wasn't trying to get an autographed copy of JOURNEY, otherwise I'd be pissed. Some of the money they're getting from the TT releases should be used to upgrade their servers.

 

[Brent Avery]

As much as I would like to wait for a review, like others I pre ordered as it might just sell out by then, although I sure hope it ends up being an above average transfer. Twilight Time has to rely on SAE for these sales so I would not blame them too much for the slow down earlier. Considering most of the titles so far have been selling at a more or less leisurely pace it is difficult to tell how fast any particular one will sell. At least most of those really wanting J T T C O T E will hopefully get a copy. If it sells out quickly perhaps Fox will take notice.

 

[rsmithjr]

I was finally able to buy a copy. I didn't care very much about the autographed copy and wouldn't have minded it being sold out, but the overall way this was handled was not very professional. One does not expect a commercial site to behave this way these days. TT has been getting a lot of publicity, and the Journey disk and Pat Boone autograph was mentioned in a number of prominent places.
They were not prepared.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Good God, people are actually purchasing pre-orders from 3rd party scalpers on E-Bay at double the cost:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Journey-to-the-Center-of-the-Earth-1959-Blu-ray-Limited-Edition-3000-PRE-ORDER-/170821731497?pt=US_DVD_HD_DVD_Blu_ray&hash=item27c5c4c4a9

But it's free shipping
When you start with the TT higher price, it's almost like its being scalped twice.

 

[Jacksmyname]

I started at 3:59pm yesterday. I finally got in at 5:27pm.
Was able to get a signed copy of Journey.
It's now Saturday, 10:38am here. I just tried SAE's site and got right in, using a Samsung tablet.
Journey is still available. The signed copies sold out yesterday in about 45 minutes or so.

 

[Alan Tully]

Yep, now all the dust has settled I see it's still for sale, & probably will be for a while. SAE should really stop calling these Blu-ray releases NTSC, they're not.

 

[Johnny Angell]

What I find odd is these released are 3000 per. Can there be that many people wanting them? How many hits does it take to slow them down, a thousand?

 

[haineshisway]

What I find odd is these released are 3000 per. Can there be that many people wanting them? How many hits does it take to slow them down, a thousand?

That is exactly right - there was no danger of this selling out instantly - watching the panic was amusing. 1000 hits at one time would certainly slow down the site, especially depending on the kind of hosting deal they have with amazon. Why would anyone think this would be an instant sellout when Fright Night, which is the ONLY title that has sold out and is a much more apt title to sellout due to the 80s thing, took eight weeks to sell out. As we all keep saying, Mysterious Island is nowhere near sold out nor are any other titles save for Fright Night. Maybe Journey will eventually sell out but it's not going to sell out today, tomorrow, or a week from tomorrow, unless the crazy speculators smell another fright night and the only way they're gonna smell it is watching the unnecessary panic on these boards.

 

[moviepas]

I ordered 7 hours before I am writing this and no problems. However, 6.5hrs later I got a Promotion post offering me a selection of DVDs to choose one from a small list if I spend $85 before May 10 for their anniversary "Thank You". I have immediately written asking if I qualify as I had just ordered so I will see if they will do this without me being able to enter a Promo Code. They do have a Promo Code if you order thru Amazon but the selling price is higher to start with. I did not qualify for the signed Journey Blu Rays as those 100 were already listed as sold out. I was not chasing the signed copies but living on the other side of the world has its good or bad points but it all depends what time of the 24 day I am on-line, which is most of the time.

 

[dpippel]

Originally Posted by haineshisway /t/318832/exclusive-htf-announcement-twilight-time-may-june-releases-you-will-want-to-read-this/210#post_3916505
That is exactly right - there was no danger of this selling out instantly - watching the panic was amusing. 1000 hits at one time would certainly slow down the site, especially depending on the kind of hosting deal they have with amazon. Why would anyone think this would be an instant sellout when Fright Night, which is the ONLY title that has sold out and is a much more apt title to sellout due to the 80s thing, took eight weeks to sell out. As we all keep saying, Mysterious Island is nowhere near sold out nor are any other titles save for Fright Night. Maybe Journey will eventually sell out but it's not going to sell out today, tomorrow, or a week from tomorrow, unless the crazy speculators smell another fright night and the only way they're gonna smell it is watching the unnecessary panic on these boards.

Unnecessary panic? You fail to factor the 100 autographed copies of Journey into the equation. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are upset because they couldn't get one due to the server capacity issues.

 

[haineshisway]

Unnecessary panic? You fail to factor the 100 autographed copies of Journey into the equation. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are upset because they couldn't get one due to the server capacity issues.

I didn't fail to factor it in - I'm sure it helped the initial crash of the site. But there were only 100 of those and maybe there were another 900 folks who wanted it and kept coming back over and over and over and over and posting how they couldn't get on, which caused panic, which caused more people to join the fray - this is what panic does. At the end of the day, the 100 copies were gone, and I'm sure the preorders were nice but not near a sellout. Take the autograph copies out of the equation and you most likely would not have had quite the crash they had. I've watched this kind of thing happen over and over again in the soundtrack world. But it's not really necessary in the Blu-ray world - if I were Twilight Time I would almost dispense with the signed copies It's nice to know that Pat has such a nice cache after all these years.