Warner Archive Discussion Thread (FEEDBACK) - Page 100

Do we have a source for this info?

I am excited about those titles in the Film Noir box, but in the article I posted a few days ago, George Feltenstein said there would be 10 titles, not 8.

I thought The Devil Thumbs A Ride and Stranger On The Third Floor were supposed to be included as well from early info that leaked out... It was indeed supposed to be 10 titles.

Btw, why is this in the Archive thread? It's not a VOD release is it?!?

Don't panic.

Before there's no real announcement or a trustable source, we have to take the info with a grain of salt, especially since Warner said during the chat, that Armored Car Robbery won't be included in the set:

 

Got my replacement disc for the unplayable HOT MILLIONS yesterday and it played just fine. One curiosity however, after Peter Ustinov says his final line, "Are you alright?", the frame freezes and the end credits come on which is fine but there is no sound. Surely there was some music to accompany the credits or was it this way theatrically too? Anyone know?

Well I hope A.C.R. IS included as it's a great film and deserves to be!!

Me too I was disapointed when they said it would end up on the archive along with all those other noirs I asked about.

Well, the current WB archive sale offers 10 titles for 99.95, a fraction under $10 per.  Time to crap or get off the pot;  time to put up or shut up. What will the whiners and bellyachers say now?  "I'd only buy DVD-Rs if they were under $2 apiece"?  If you don't move on this, I think Warner Brothers can safely disregard your criticisms.  If you don't buy now, you're never going to buy from the Archive, no matter what the circumstances.

Meh.........wake me up when there's a 5 for $50 or better yet a 2 for $20.

$100 is a bit too much to ask when you're first dipping your toe in these waters.

Aside from that, right now there isn't 10 titles available that I feel the desire to own, probably 5 or 6 at the most.  I'm sure there will be some day but not now. 

I'm in no rush...these aren't going anywhere seeing as how they're MOD.

Well I wouldn't necessarily call that a good DEAL, rather a balanced price point that should reflect ALL of the Archive titles consistently, and without any minimum purchase requirements. Put up or shut up? Really, at $100... you can't be serious!


I still long for the days when Warners would release their SIGNATURE COLLECTION on pressed disc...

If only they'd continue with these sets, they could give Dana Andrews a box with top-notch thrillers like "Edge Of Doom", "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt", "While The City Sleeps" and fun adventure and westerns like "Duel In The Jungle" and "Strange Lady In Town". Two years ago it would've retailed for just under $50 and we'd have five great looking films and a few extra short subjects and commentaries... sigh.


Ten films for $100 is fine; expecting consumers to have to spend $100 on individual releases in one-shot, is not. To purchase even half of these DVD-R's at Warners set cost without taking advantage of any discounts, is also not. The real offer: Buy 10 movies at face value for what they should retail at, or none at all. A deal? I think not...

If you have an extra $100 to spend on Archive titles however, it's acceptable by all means.

I just bought Sony's Columbia Noir and Fuller sets however, and in addition to all of the back catalog classics this slump is allowing me to catch up on, I'm also saving up for their February box sets... so I don't. 

Picked out 10 I wanted and it totaled $168, even at checkout. Didn"t continue the transaction.

That site is worthless. Going to see if I can order over the phone today.

Some titles, for whatever reason, are not appearing as eligable for the 10/$100 offer- even though they are marked down at $14.95. I know Carny is one of them and there are others. You need to have at least 10 of the 'safe' titles for it to recalibrate the total (any additional $14.95 titles will still be $14.95 in addition to the $100).

I feel burned by Under The Rainbow (especially at $15), but the 10/$100 sale is a huge incentive since there is such a backlog now of titles I'm interested in. Just got off one order and am about to place another
Berlin Express
Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark
H.M. Pulham Esq.
I Love Melvin
Johnny Eager
She
Soldier In The Rain
Crossroads
Who Is Killing The Great Chefs Of Europe
Comrade X
The Baby maker
Bermuda Depths
Four Daughters
The Heavenly Body
I Take This Woman
Made In Paris
Man From Atlantis
Somewhere I'll Find You
The Sheepman
Honky Tonk

Would have been nice to have been able to pick up Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr in Signature sets for about $5-6 a film, but I'm just happy to finally have a chance to get them. Though I should emphasize I won't be happy if I see the same lazy compression used on UTR. I probably can accept the use of older masters, though I hope this doesn't mean a lot of analog smearing. Poor compression is another matter altogether.

Well I finally did it, the 10 for $99.95 (well actually $103.35, after adding sales tax and using the CABINWB $5 off coupon) and free postage deal was enough to place my first Warner Archive order.

A friend in the U.S. was willing to receive the order and will send it on to me. I suspect the Air Mail postage will cost another US$40 - US$50, but even so, it will work out to cost about AUD$165 for 10 discs. Or about 45% off the regular prices including international postage prices from TCM.com.

If they had these prices normally, I would probably order a bunch of them every few months. More likely they will have this sort of sale at the same time next year, so I'll order another ten then. I always suspected they would have a big end of year sale around now, so I'm glad I just waited.

Couldn't do the 10 for $100. For me it would be like doing 10 blind buys which for $100 is too much. For those film buffs that know the more obscure titles I'm sure this is a great deal considering where their prices start from per disk. I like many think this is the proper price for all the titles, but it is what it is so if you want a title bad enough you got to look for these kind of sales. 

I bought:
- Along the Great Divide, and
- Bright Leaf.

Being a Douglas and Cooper fan, as well as some of the supporting cast, these looked like decent blind buys. For $26 shipped.

With the high cost of shipping and handling with WB, I think the free shipping on anything was enough for me to buy a few. That's one area where they usually kill deals for me. I also like the preview for quality offerred when checking out a title. It's still obviously being viewed in a small window, so it doesn't tell everything, but it helps to a dregree.

I've found in the cases of Tarzan and Under The Rainbow, that the small little flash video is actually VERY misleading.
The problems with Under The Rainbow are related to poor compression and edge ringing. There is no way to see this effect on a postage stamp sized, heavily compressed clip. It would be far better (though still not quite ideal) if Warner posted about 20 screen caps taken once every 10 minutes or so in the film. The benefits of this would be several over their current 'flashy' method, including giving a better idea of any compression related faults as well as any weaknesses in perceived resolution due to using an old, smeary, analog master.
Take a page from DVD Beaver, Warner. While still not perfect, Mr Tooze gives viewers a much better idea of any given discs actual visual qualities than you do for all your high tech, over produced, flash.

Wasnt the preview for BERMUDA DEPTH was in 16x9, but the DVD was full frame (which it should be, as it is a TV movie from 1978)?  So I usually dont go by the previews on their web site.

Would have done it if I'd known about it, but not advertising a holiday weekend sale until the holiday has started seems like not optimizing the marketing. 

To Marco: Sorry I put the info in this thread it's the only one I have time to check. The release will be a regular commercial set not an archive release. There may well be two more titles, but the eight I mentioned are the only ones Warner volunteered.
To the person who had trouble with the Archive checkout I'm not sure why your titles didn't come up with the correct price but in case you were using a coupon, you can't combine it with a sale the coupon causes the prices to increase above the promised discount. Perhaps the whole site malfunctioned as Warner sent out a 20% off coupon today along with apologies for some unspecified problem the site had.

I placed an order last Saturday but it hasn't shipped. Has anyone had an order ship that they ordered last weekend?

Simon, I placed an order on 11/15/09. When it still showed "IN PROCESS" on the Archive site on 11/25/09. I called for customer service for status. I was told that it was scheduled for shipment within the next 24 hours. 2 hours later, there was a knock on my door from the UPS man with the shipment. Talk about fast service! The site however still shows the delivered order as "IN PROCESS". Go figure!

I have found that when my orders move from IN PROCESS to SHIPPING that the shipment arrives the next day.  Seven days is as long as I have waited for a order to ship.

I had an order that was placed on the 23.It was still listed as in process yesterday.I called and they told me they would research the order and to call back today. The order is still listed as in process today. I called and they told me my order shipped yesterday and gave me a tracking number. So who knows. Doesn't seem to have any clear pattern.

Anyone know why my latest WBArchive order with WBShops was shipped with the same address, on the same pre-printed packing list form from Itasca IL, home of the Infinity Resources companies: DeepDiscount, DVDPlanet, VideoCollection, Critic'sChoice, etc.? 

Seemed strange enough to me to call WBShops (customer sevice in Arizona) and got only the 'stock possible' that the order might have been out-sourced. My prior orders all shipped from Warner Bros., Elk Grove IL., ALL COMPLETE ORDERS.  This one was missing 'Comrade X' with the TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK explanation on page 2, despite my having chosen 'ship all at one time.' I don't know about other collectors, but I despise partial shipments unless I for some reason choose that route, pain in the neck to get any info on when to expect shipment. MOD seems to have a different meaning in Arizona than here in NC!

I also pointed out this was the first time not getting a shipping date and a tracking number via email; this package simply arrived via UPS and the website still shows the whole order as In Process. I have two other more recently-placed orders In Process, so I'll be watching them closely. The Archive titles I've purchased have for the most part equaled or exceeded my expectations, but my future ordering pattern may change if today's experience repeats itself.

Has anyone actually received Comrade X?

 I also pointed out this was the first time not getting a shipping date and a tracking number via email; this package simply arrived via UPS and the website still shows the whole order as In Process. I have two other more recently-placed orders In Process, so I'll be watching them closely. The Archive titles I've purchased have for the most part equaled or exceeded my expectations, but my future ordering pattern may change if today's experience repeats itself."

The same has just happened to me!  The store has the initials DC from Ithaca.  Beats me.

Thanks for the various replies. My order has been stuck at "In Process" for the last three days. So, I guess that MAY mean that it has already shipped. On the other hand, when I placed the order all the items said "ships in 7 days". I suspected they just added that so they could deal with the flood of orders.

My order is being sent to a friend in New York so it can be shipped to me, it would've been good to know if / when it was sent.

I purchased Dogville over the weekend.  The package shipped to me very quickly within a day!  It shipped from a place in Illinois.  When I opened the package the discs were loose and rattling around in the box.  They were scratched and unplayable.  I called Warner and they immediately shipped another dvd out to me. They told me to keep the scratched one and don't bother returning it.

I hope the new one arrives soon!

So was that order just 1 item? My order was 10, so I guess it could be taking longer preparing them.

I have an order pending "in process" for four titles, ordered last weekend when I got the email about the sale.  I have no idea when they will arrive, but I imagine that the company got a lot of orders last weekend due to the sale.  That may or may not cause slower deliveries than normal.  But really, there is nothing "normal" with this program's execution.  Go to the dreaded webpage three consecutive days, and you may see certain titles appearing and disappearing at will.

It was just one Item.

Simon, it was just one item.  I'm surprised how quick it got to me. Very interesting!?