Jean Harlow Boxed Set???? - Page 8

 

That doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.

 

All it takes is for one little change and we could be having a totally different conversation about streaming. What if Netflix does a licensing deal with Warner? You know those Archive titles will be the first to show up in such an arrangement. How many folks just like us would be willing to pay the equivalent of one Archive a month to be able to stream the whole thing? It would be like having TCM On Demand.

I'm not saying this is going to happen, but I don't think it's nearly as far away as some folks would like to believe.

 

Which is my point as I expect sometime in the near future that movies on TCM will become more available for Demand downloading and there goes disc media.
 

 

I would like to stress that despite my obvious disappointment with some aspects of this set, I would NOT recommened or endorse boycotting it. The bottomline is that the films themselves will probably look fabulous if what Warners is telling us is true. Also, though they have not promised another set, perhaps if this one sells well enough they will do another one with the remaining films which are all pre-codes (Including the remaining 3 titles at the other studios).

I do wonder how this set will meet any sales expectations when it is only available at the archive and receives very minimal promotion. I still do not understand their business model for the archive. I don't see why they can't do a limited pressing and make them available to online vendors like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bestbuy.com, dvd planet, TCM, etc; More and more people are buying online, so by limiting this set to burned dvd-r's via the archive has me worried.

I DON'T like the fact that the experts who know Harlow best weren't consulted for this set---this is pretty obvious by the pink exterior on parts of the box - a color that Harlow loathed (while certainly NOT that important, imho, it's an example of something that a Harlow expert would've known). I think these studios are paranoid that if they invite and consult such people, that they'll have to cough up extra money. While in some cases this may be true, I can say for certain that this wouldn't have been the case here. Many people have worked their assess off to make Harlow's centennial important and special -- yes, this includes some of the people at WHV who worked hard on restoring them (Thank you!). The exhibit at the Max Factor Museum in Hollywood is the sole creation of Darrell Rooney ("Harlow in Hollywood" author). He toiled for MONTHS on this and was not paid anything. His only compensation being his love for Harlow and the hope that her legend would be exposed to millions of people who visit the museum annually. It's paid off thus far: the exhibit was slated to end last month and has now been extended through the end of the year due to popularity.

I feel that with a little more effort, this set could've been truly "special" considering the wait we fans have endured.

If that happened I would just settle for watching the movies on TCM and not pay extra to stream and deal with the lag, freezing, timeout and other hassles of streaming. I have no interest in ever streaming and especially paying for streaming unless all TV and media formats were no longer available and that was the only choice which all the above is not likely to happen anytime soon.

As little as 6 months ago, I would have been scared to death of talk like this....but to me collecting died at the point they started releasing DVD-Rs. I will continue to support all pressed disc programs and still buy DVDs and Blu-Rays on a regular basis. I just received the Laurel & Hardy set and the new Tom & Jerry Blu-Ray amongst several others this week. That said if it comes down to buying DVD-Rs vs streaming, I'm 100% on the streaming side. I have yet to buy a single Archive title at this point and don't see that ever changing (If this set had been done properly, that may have changed!)....but if the Archive started a streaming program or licensed titles to Netflix, I would pay a premium to stream many of these titles. I would gladly pay $3 per movie to watch once vs. paying $10-$20 per title and received a DVD-R that I'll likely only watch once before the media fails. In the meantime, I will continue to send my disposable income to Criterion, Sony, & the other studios that are issuing pressed titles.

Hey, how people spend their money is their business and the same applies to companies like Warner when they decide on a business strategy to maximize their profits.

Is somebody stating otherwise?

and

 

I'm just reaffirming the obvious as we seem to keep repeating the same stuff everyday.  Anyhow, I'm more interested in hearing from those that have bought these discs and their opinions of them.  As of now, I haven't bought them so I'm intested in the quality of the presentations.

True! I think it's just the huge disappointment after such a long wait. I'm looking forward to hearing people's opinions also....but I seriously doubt it will knock me off the fence!!

That's shocking.

 

I'd got over my disappointment a long time ago when such actors like Spencer Tracy and John Garfield didn't get many of their titles released on SD DVD.

Again, an assumption that the entire Warners Archive collection will automatically die on us eventually, leaving us with unplayable discs. I didn't buy into these scare tactics from the beginning and now have hundreds of titles that would never have seen the light of day as pressed discs because of minimal interest. I have no problem whatsoever with whatever choices any collector makes on how he spends his money and what he will or will not buy. But over two years after the inception of the Archives and the overwhelming success of the MOD program (so much so that Sony, Universal and MGM have adopted it though their results have not been as spectacular), we still have the doomsayers! Ah, well .....

When will my Archive collection "fail"? 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? After my death? For the record, I have 223 Archive titles in my collection and I've begun the slow task of rewatching older titles in their entirety that were purchased over 2 years ago. I've watched 33 so far and they all play as smoothly as the day I got them.

Maybe, just maybe -gasp- they won't fail at all! What a concept!

Congrats. Since we're now going on anecdotal evidence, I've already had two that failed. So maybe, just maybe -gasp- they all will fail eventually.

Coincidentally, I just received a promotional email for the Archives offering me a free stream of Sh! The Octopuss. I didn't even know Warner was involved in streaming, but I thought I'd mention it given the timeliness of the topic.

First off, each person has to make these decisions for themselves. You make your decision and I'll make mine....and we make these decisions based on our own experiences. Calling me a "Doom Sayer" is quite frankly insulting.

Secondly, we have very different viewing habits. I have movies that I've owned for more than 10 years because I simply don't have the time to get to them. These archive titles will likely be at the very bottom of my viewing queue and will likely sit unwatched for greater periods of time (thus my concern over DVD-R).

Finally, DVD-R may be my #1 concern with these archive titles, but it is followed very closely by items such as "Lack of Extras", "Mixed-Bag Transfers", and "Too High of Price Point". I purchased nearly every title that WB released to pressed disc....even many that I'll probably never watch because I wanted to support their efforts. I now feel like their efforts are a mere shadow of their previous efforts and no longer worth my support......even more so when you throw in the DVD-R, Price Point, & Lack of Extras.

Best of luck to you on your Archive purchases. I will continue to support other companies.

Getting back on topic for a moment..........

Has anyone yet received their set or a shipping notice for that matter? I haven't heard anything.

Personally, I'm more disappointed in the lack of special features than the fact that they're on DVD-R's. I'd written here months ago that there was a possibility that this would be an archive release, though I was personally hoping for a retail release on pressed discs. I was not expecting an epic Ken Burns or Kevin Brownlow style documentary on Harlow (do she certainly DESERVES one), just more than we got here.

I find it surreal that we can get Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney & Eisenstein films on Blu-ray from Kino, but we can't get popular films like A Streetcar Named Desire, From Here to Eternity & On The Waterfront. The studios claim they don't sell, but do these even more obscure silents from Kino Sell? I'm assuming they do because they keep releasing them.

Ah, the DVD-R myth

The issue goes down to the type of disc used - the quality of the disc and the dyes used.

This explains all - http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm

Does anyone know what type of media they are using?

 

Nothing for me. Amazon.ca sent me a note yesterday saying it should ship on the 25th, today they sent a notice saying they're having issues procuring it, but are still trying.

 

I'm keeping thumbs held that I get it eventually.

I just got my shipping notice..........

(For some reason, I'm having a problem getting the HTF quote function to work)

Yeah, mine shipped too. Pretty fast, actually, since Archive titles usually take up to a week to ship after release.

Same here, and I normally wouldn't care much about the MOD media. A good remaster looks just as good on a DVD-R disc as a pressed one, and the Warner Archive is still the only one that currently uses dual-layered discs, so it certainly doesn't affect bitrate. However, the hype and long waiting for this set pretty much guarantees at least some disappointment in the extras department. Still, I'm happy to finally be able to watch these films in what I'm fairly confident will be a quality presentation.

It seems they only offer those on occasion to advertise both the MOD disc and the digital downloads. I'm not sure if the digital downloads stream or not, since they are pretty expensive and I never found a need to purchase their downloads vs. buying the disc. Sh! The Octupus, however, digital download--probably because it is part of a set.

I am still very much on the fence when it comes to this set. Although I would love to have these, the fact that they are DVD-R has certainly stirred up a lot of controversy. Maybe if Warners is not willing to do anything special for the product, then maybe they should let someone like Criterion or Kino have the rights to these classics. Certainly they would put much more work into them.

Amazon.ca is now telling me it will ship Nov 27. Yeash :S

Amazon.com doesn't have a shipping date yet but that's fine with me as long as I get the set for my 40 something pre-order bucks.

We should also remember that there is a difference in Streaming and Digital Downloads They are two different beasts.  I would much rather prefer a Digital Download over a stream.  Movie collectors will be collecting Digital Downloads of films in the future.  I would not be surprised if the Warner Archive starts to include a Ultraviolet Digital Download with each disc purchase in the future.

Disc have been a big success over at the Warner Archive I hardly see them getting rid of those.  BTW  Home media sales were up in the 3qtr of this year it was reported yesterday in the press.  The first increase in sales since 2008.

 

 

THe problem with going with firms like for example, Netflix is that what is on the service is there for a limited time as the streams expire after the rights do.  I wanted to stream a few Bond movies a few weeks ago, they were there earlier in the week but gone when I went back to watch them.

 

Warner realizes that that one little change would also devalue their catalogue.

But would you purchase a archive title if it came with a digital download of the film like the ones coming from Ultraviolet?  A download file that you can store however you like weather on a DVD-R your server hard drive or even in your cloud locker?  I see the industry going this way and giving the consumer more options to collect, not less.

 

My Boxed set shipped!  Hope to have it for the weekend!  What a marathon that will be!!!

That could very possibly push me over the top....because it would essentially be a back-up. I'm not BIG into streaming and wish that it would disappear. I just prefer streaming to DVD-R.

Either way, the money that I saved on this set is being set to Criterion today for their 50% off sale at B&N!!

Well, got the set and they all work fine. Doing some quick spot checking, 5 out of 7 of these look great. Despite the lack of a "Remastered" label, Riffraff and Personal Property look just as good as the remastered titles (Bombshell, The Girl From Missouri, and Reckless).

Suzy begins soft, but looks good after the first reel and throughout the rest of the film, only marginally lesser than the other 5.

Saratoga is the least impressive in terms of picture quality. It is softer than the other titles, and looks the same as the print that airs on TCM. Not impressive, but not bad either. Expect this one to be an older transfer

Here are some screencaps for those interested
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by JoHud - 11/17/11 at 11:04am

So Which of her films HAVE YET to see a DVD or Archive Release?

Credited performances not yet released on DVD

The Secret Six (1931)
Iron Man (1931)
Goldie (1931)
Three Wise Girls (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Hold Your Man (1933)

Of those, WB only has Red Dust and Hold Your Man left in its library unreleased. However, those two require extensive restoration due to poor elements.