Warner Archive Discussion Thread (FEEDBACK) - Page 15

re: Warner Archive Discussion Thread

It was one of my most wanted too Jacqui!

So it looks like the manufacturing process is indeed identical to the RKO Box - I did have a defective disk in that box, so I hope quality control has improved in the few months since then.

Assuming thats the case, I hope the price can come down and we can get some incentives to really dig into this program. I've ordered the following in an initial gesture of support, but as many have said here, I won't be able to keep up this kind of momentum without a price break from WB's end:

The Beast Of The City
On Borrowed Time
Possessed (1933)
Dance Fools Dance
The Big Circus
Rasputin and The Empress
Money Trap
Big House
Private Lives

re: Warner Archive Discussion Thread

I want most of those on your list, so hopefully one day, Warners might do a three for two type of promotion to make things a bit easier on the back pocket.

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That's...a little shocking. More than a little actually.

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Hmm, must admit, I was a little perplexed. Waiting on the reviews with baited breath....

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Maybe Warner should have two price points, one for old film to analog video transfers, and a higher price for film to digital video transfers.

For example, Bohwani Junction was a candidate I think twice for the "DVD Decision" voting contests in 2005 and 2006. So it is quite likely that that was a new film to digital transfer prepared in case it was a winning candidate.

But by the sounds of it, the On Borrowed Time transfer is very old, most likely made for TV more than a decade ago.

Customers should know the source that the DVD was made from before buying. One way to do this would be for Warner to say on each film's page if it was a digital or analog master.

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Please Warner release CinemaScope classic film noirs ie..."Hell on Frisco Bay",
"I Died A Thousand Times", "House of Numbers", "Slightly Scarlet" just to name a few. Also the Sci-Fi classic "The World The Flesh and The Devil" which is one of the most requested titles on the TCM website.

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I asked about I Died A Thousand times, they said it will likely be on the archive. I'm hopeful it will be done this year.

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Slightly Scarlet is available from VCI in widescreen format:

SLIGHTLY SCARLET

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I'm not surprised about ON BORROWED TIME. I burned a copy off TCM a few months ago, and the print was in very bad shape, but I suspect without lots of money invested in it, it's not going to look any better. I'm glad that wasn't one of the five I chose for my first order.

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Maybe we should make a thread where people can rate the image quality of different releases out of 10?

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I think that's a good idea. My titles shipped Monday afternoon, so perhaps if they come today, I'll be able to talk about one of them later tonight.

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The difference is clear and obvious. Those initial purchases are consistently at a much affordable price point and what you receive in return to warrant your spending is a professionally mastered disc with custom artwork and specific packaging. If the studio is going to "downgrade" in regards to the quality of any one of these features, be it presentation wise, packaging or cost... it should be reflected in their asking and NOT in any instance attach a HIGHER price tag to said products when what consumer are essentially receiving is LESS than what is customary and expected from a studio product and retail home video release!

So to jump back to your initial question... YES, they should guarantee that any high-priced purchase from their "Archive Collection" remain exclusive to this collection!



Exactly.


The specific process is irrelevant, the point is that the studio's reasoning for offering these films through this venue is because the cost of producing them for a commercial and retail market would not be a viable option. In other words: selling mass produced DVD's of vintage and often obscure titles at commercial retailers on consignment is simply not profitable to Warner Home Video. Therefore, in order to recoup the costs of maintaining and preserving these films and their holdings for future generations, and in order to profit for their licensed catalog, the studio has opted to go through this "alternate" method of selling to a much more specific and direct consumer base. Fair enough. But the MOST OBVIOUS and telling factor in this program MUST be that the costs are SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than they would otherwise be through their standard factory pressed commercial route or else they would not be incorporating any of this! So regardless of how the discs are being mastered or which company or third party is doing the work... it is obviously costing Warner Home Video MUCH LESS to manufacture and produce these discs. Yet they are charging MUCH MORE in exchange, which is my main beef! Point blank... NO DVD-R from ANY company should ever cost as much as, or in excess of, a factory pressed retail disc. Ever.

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oh but there's another (better, and, sadly, just as unlikely) way around this--and that's for people not to buy this stuff at all... and either record the movies off of TCM--or ask a friend with access to the channel to do it for them (that's what I do)

I'm at least as rabid an aficionado of studio age films as anyone on this forum ("blind buy" is not a question for me, at least re: the stuff from the 1930s and 1940s--I've either seen ALL of these, or want to see them, simply because I want to have comprehensive knowledge of the Warner, RKO, MGM catalogs) and I am absolutely not supporting this initiative from Warner...

make a Four Daughters and sequels Boxed set

make a "literary adaptations" set that includes Three Comrades (or a Margaret Sullavan set)

do anything you want, with pressed disks and shorts/trailers/commentary tracks, and I'll be first in line (as I currently am for about 10 releases from the same era) with my pre-order on Amazon.ca for ALL of them...

but I say take this archive and shelve it...

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Single layer (4.11 GBs).

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Several films in the Archive interest me, chief among them Walter Scott's Quentin Durward with Robert Taylor. However, the clip associated with it is from some war movie, and the description says "standard edition". I don't know if that means P & S or that is has no bonus features (which none of the Archive selections have). TCM has shown a beautiful widescreen print of Quentin Durward, so I am hoping the Archive version was the master for that print.

I am also hoping widescreen movies are anamorphic. The fact that some of the clips are squeezed leads me to believe they will be. I, too will wait until some of the guinea pigs have received their discs before pulling the trigger on my own order.

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I should add that I'm objecting as strenuously as I am because I don't want to see the other studios follow suit in this folly

(although, sadly, I must admit that I'd be a lot more tempted by Universal, Columbia and Fox offerings of this sort, because a lot of those films, which also include the Paramount catalog from the crucial--for me--period, aren't available 24-7 on cable television...)

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Yeah I sent an email complaining about this one.

Feltenstein emailed the following to DVDSavant:

Of course letterboxed transfers can be be encoded anamorphic from a non-anamorphic source by cropping off the letterboxing. But I'd like to think Warner wouldn't do that, because it would simply reduce quality.

Also there webpage is so full of Flash, and a lot of the clips are cropped or otherwise improperly encoded.
That just means a lot of great films will never be available to be seen because, sadly, most people aren't interested with most of the films made throughout film history.

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Warner has already stated that all films will be in their OAR and if widescreen they will have anamorphic presentations.






Crawdaddy

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Posted by Jefty:
Why? I am totally psyched about this. This could really shorten our "Films Missing on DVD" lists. I'd love to se Fox get into this, as they have tons of classics not yet released. My only reservation is the price. I do hope they come down a bit.

Thanks, Crawdaddy and Simon on the clarification on the OAR/anamorphic thing. though I certainly hope it is not "fake" anamorphic, achieved by cropping the black bars. I did a fake remaster of the Star Wars OOT onto dual layer discs so I could watch the films with the subtitles in the right place (my TV/DVD player does not do zoom well), but it is certainly not the quality of a real anamorphic transfer.

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I am psyched about films being available too David--but the thing is, they're ALREADY available as DV-recordings... (although many Fox, Universal, Paramount, Columbia films from the 1930s and 1940s are not... that's why I'd be tempted to buy them, despite my objection to this entire line of thinking)

I will pay the studios to take a chance on mass-producing real DVDs, but I'm not subsidizing this print-on-demand cash grab...

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The last thing Robert needs is anyone rushing to his defense, but when I read Thomas' (I'm guessing tongue-in-cheek) comment, I couldn't help but think back on the countless times I've read Crawdaddy's comments railing against the high price of software product--especially in the context of keeping the hobby mainstream.

For someone like me who is on the lower end of the hobby spectrum (in terms of dollars invested in hardware), I am rather sensitive to the pricing patterns of software product and know that Robert has always been a voice of reason in terms of "keeping it real."

=============================

Regards the $20 pricepoint on these Warner titles: This is, without a doubt, an exciting program for those who have yearned for years for particular catalog titles buried in the Warner vaults. And it is very interesting now to watch the reviews as product starts to make it out to purchasers.

Like anything else, the market will decide the value of what people are willing to pay for ANY product. But, my guess is that after an initial enthusiasm (easily gauged by how difficult it is to keep up with this thread!), people will decide that $20 is going to be a bit too high to fill their collection with all those long-desired films. This will vary, of course, from enthusiast to enthusiast but I hope the $20 price doesn't doom the future of the program. Of course, it may just be that Warners is feeling that $20/title is barely covering the cost of offering the program and they don't dare go any lower.

In any event, it IS, without a doubt, a great opportunity. An opportunity which must seem overwhelming to many of the regular participants on this board!

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A bit off topic, but to those fans of the film BRIGHT LEAF, if you haven't already seen it, look for the documentary BRIGHT LEAVES. It is Ross McElwee's look at the film that he believes was based on a family member of his. Great film.

As for the Warner site, I have to agree the Flash on the site is very distracting. I was at it this morning and kept having all sorts of annoying animations popping up that made it difficult to even open the title to read more details.

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CRISIS has shown on TCM in recent months. I know, as I had it sitting on my DVR for awhile.

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I'm not sure of the specifics, but the additional menus, as well as multiple menu languages, probably take up some extra space on regular releases.

I guess we wont know until someone looks into the tech info on these titles.

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Just placed my first order. I got "One Trick Pony" (which I saw years ago on cable) and "Countdown" (which I've never seen, but is the kind of sci-fi film I usually get a kick out of). Pretty good experience with the website, no problems there. The $20 price tag was a little on the high side, but considering that they're selling small quantities and can't make up the cost by selling tons, it's reasonable under the circumstances. That, and the code posted on here was a nice little help. Between that and free shipping, two movies for $30, no complaints here. I'm definitely bookmarking the site and checking back often!

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I give Warner a thumbs up for a least making these films available, but for me I would rather rent many of these titles from Netflix as I don't want to spend $20 or so on each dvd. There are some I would buy, but most I would just like to see once.
Happy viewing all

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I will change my entire perspective on this situation if an when Warners:


A. Adjusts their pricing to a more reasonable standard for their offering.

B. Initiates a program in which any releases in the "Archive Collection" later issued to commercial/retail DVD are offered as trade-in to customers who've previously purchased.

C. Offers these catalog titles in a more efficient manner by actor/director/genre groupings and box set collections. How do they plan on tackling their short subjects and theatrical animation if restricted to this overpriced single-disc format? I can already pick out dozens of films on WHV's website which could be packaged (not necessarily physically!) and sold in groupings at discounted cost. Which is just good business and should be a given. Especially if the studio intends to target people like OURSELVES; classic film aficionados and loyal collectors who've supported Mr. Feltenstein and the studio's classic output throughout...

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From another forum:

So, I JUST got my package of titles I bought...

They all look OK, but the cover arts (front/back) are kinda ugly, with only one pic on each side. The printing of the covers looks OK, but the quality (of the slipcover printing) DOES look like a bit of a step down from a normal DVD. Small text looks a bit rough and pixelated on the back. Honestly, to me, it looks like they were printed very cheaply... almost like with a higher-end laser printing instead of, say, a professional 4-color offset process.
The discs themselves were nice, clean and devoid of any fingerprints that I could see, but they are indeed a "manfactured DVD-R". There is a notice on the back of each DVD case that says:

THIS DISC IS EXPECTED TO PLAY BACK IN DVD VIDEO "PLAY ONLY" DEVICES, AND MAY NOT PLAY BACK IN OTHER DVD DEVICES, INCLUDING RECORDERS AND PC DRIVES.

Well, my discs play in my iMac office computer, at least, so far.

I popped in DOC SAVAGE and, while it looks a step up from the old laserdisc release, it's certainly not perfect. I'm watching it on the Mac in our office here, and I'm noticing constant, very lite (but, still noticeable) vertical lines through the picture. It's a bit soft, and DOESN'T look like any sort of new HD restoration, if you ask me. The discs I looked at briefly start with a promo for the Warner Archive collection (in 4x3), then go straight to a bland 16x9 still menu screen with a highlight for PLAY MOVIE and PLAY TRAILER, with no separate chapter stop screens (but it says you can skip forward/backward on the remove for chapters every 10 minutes or so). The trailer for DOC SAVAGE is 4x3, interlaced, and looks like dog dookie.

After looking at DOC SAVAGE, I put CAPTAIN NEMO AND THE UNDERWATER CITY in and it faired MUCH better to my eyes. The picture was colorful, clean, and quite beautiful.

NOTES ABOUT CRESCENDO
In tiny lettering on the back of the CRESCENDO box, it says: THIS UNRATED VERSION CONTAINS MATERIAL DIFFERENT FROM THE PG-RATED VERSION.
Also, the back of the box mistakenly says that CRESCENDO is in B&W.

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@ John Hodson

John, I take it "Captain Nemo" is anamorphic widescreen? Could you please verify?

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That post on another forum was mine. NEMO is indeed anamorphic widescreen. 16x9 / 2.35:1

I ordered 10 discs and have spot checked five of them. So far, I am very pleased with the quality (with DOC SAVAGE being the exception... it's NOT a terrible transfer by any means... it's just not as good as some of the others I've checked). Still DOC is well worth the upgrade if all you have is the VHS or LaserDisc.

I am very pleased with my purchase from the Warner Archives and will be ordering some more soon.