A few words about...™ The Wizard of Oz -- in Blu-ray

The Matrix Revolutions issue was an encoding error that was a relatively inexpensive fix - re-encode the file.

This Oz issue is something that likely occurred during the Lowry clean-up or the HD master, which is 5-6 steps back in the process, and would be prohibitively expensive to correct.

As for whether it "should have been caught" - those expecatitions are rather unrealistic. People very familiar with the film, such as Mr. Harris, didn't notice it. And at which phase should it have been caught? Ideally at the Lowry clean-up or HD master stage. If caught on the final disc QC an issue like this would likely be approved. After all, it's not a deal killer, extremely few people would notice, and street dates and millions of dollars would be lost if one had to go back to the HD master to fix it.

It's the principle of diminishing returns.

I'm unaware of any Lowry involvement in Oz.

Sorry, getting my titles mixed up. I think you know what I mean, though - an issue such as this would be from the early stages, during the digital scanning to 8k or other prep work, etc. It's not a fix that would be a matter of flipping a switch or recompressing the digital file.

I agree with your comments. I know that they do. They have had awesome customer service in the past. That's why I brought this up...they may not even know about it. I wish they would also fix the deleted/altered Garland line, but that's wishful thinking.
Edited by Eric Scott Richard - 11/7/09 at 4:46pm

In the future they should definitely pass a test copy or two of upcoming titles to the folks here. Any mistakes not caught by them would definitely be caught by the eagle-eyes on this site. I've often wondered why the studios don't do that, with all the problematic discs (BR and DVD) that there have been in the past several years.

Security reasons. The legal problems with such a program would be a nightmare.

Yep, I agree.  Piracy a huge problem now for the studios.

But what about all the review copies that are sent out to HTF members? Those can be pirated too, no?

Review copies are final versions of the disc build, after the QC stages, and are far too close to the street date to make any significant changes to unless a *MAJOR* issue is found, and then that's a loss of a ton of money to do that.

Hi all,
          I'm new here...Just finished watching my "Sing-along" version of The Wizard of Oz, and before you ask, I didn't (sing along, that is). Disc of the year so far. I can see only one blu-ray rendered film with the potential to beat it - if it ever comes to blu-ray: The Quiet Man!

I forgot to check before I sent the disc back to netflix, but isn't there a deleted scene with Buddy Ebson that was included on a previous version?

I didn't notice if it was included on the blu.

Edited by TonyD - 11/12/09 at 7:36pm

The "footage" you are talking about is the song "If I Only Had A Heart" sung by Ebsen before his untimely departure from the film. It is accompanied by costume test/portrait sitting stills. It's on the Blu-Ray.

Sorry- the point I was trying to make (which I guess I didn't make clearly) was not that review copies would be suitable for QC testing (I know they aren't), but that review copies can be pirated, too.

I got my UK copy today. I wasn't really interested in the entire gift set and the MGM doc, so this was an easy buy. Yes, the cover doesn't look as good as the US version, but that's a small detraction. The 'Sing-A-Long' banner isn't as big as the pictures suggest, so it's not too bad.
Now the movie, I think everything has been said about it, and I agree with those statements. It looks absolutely beautiful.

Are the extras all in NTSC, non-region format?

Marvin, Warner releases are always open region with SD content in NTSC.

I was watching TBS tonight, and I guess they are using the new transfer because I saw it as well- very minor to be sure, but still visible to me.

They are using the new transfer, because the wires were gone. It is minor, but there was never a problem there. I'm an Oz fanatic so I've seen the film hundreds of times. Of course it would pop out to me right away. Shame.