MOD Programs: The Official HTF "Pros & Cons" Discussion Thread

Thanks, Shawn. I hope the anti-MOD crowd takes advantage of this opportunity to get it all off their collective chest once and for all but I have my doubts.

For me, the MOD programs have been terrific. So many titles that I never thought would see the light of day. Let's face it, there's simply no market for Kay Francis, an actress known only to die hard film buffs. A Kay Francis box set would gather dust on the shelves of a CostCo or Best Buy. Now, with the Warner Archives, an opportunity to rediscover her as many of her films have been released via the Archives.

Still, to those who had been fantasizing about a Kay Francis box set back in the day when pressed DVDs were King, it was never going to happen. Hell, there hasn't even been a Jean Harlow box set available on pressed DVD and she was much better known than Kay Francis although I suspect even Harlow's star has dimmed. Last year on JEOPARDY, a photo of Harlow was shown and none of the contestants (all educated, intelligent, well rounded people) had no clue as to who she was!!!

Okay, I'll play.  I'm still pretty much refusing to spend any money on these burnt discs.  Plenty of titles I'd like but I simply don't trust the format to be anything more than temporary.  All well and good, but not at the prices they're charging.  Frankly, I'm not even sure if I'd bite at half the price.  As far as I'm concerned, any burnt disc purchased will need to be archived on some other media that I will then have to maintain.  At this point, I see it as a waiting game.  A couple more years and I figure all these mod titles and then some will be available either streaming or as downloads.  I'm also figuring that the cost for these digital delivery options will be much less.  If I'm going to plunk money down on this product in a format I view as non-optimal, then I want to spend as little as possible on it.  Considering that I feel I must migrate these burnt discs to a more durable format and then maintain them, I might as well just get the straight digital files and not even bother messing around with the discs.

I dunno, the only thing I can think of to explain this is that we're living in an alternate universe, one where making things available actually decreases their accessibility.

The thing I can't figure, and I know I'm somehow missing something obvious, is this new trend of limited autographed editions.  I mean does it really cost that much more to simply press the 500 discs you're autographing rather than burn them?  I mean, you already committed to signing 500 of the things.  Presumably you expect to sell all of them, and to date, I've been reading that all have sold out in a matter of days.  If you really want to impress me with a limited edition, how about making a real DVD?  That would impress the hell out of me.  Not only that, but I'd probably be purchasing at full price to make sure I got one.  Instantly they'd go from getting none of my money to getting me to pony up at full retail.  Anybody else who's happy with DVD-R can wait two months for them to go on sale, which would naturally coincide with the exhaustion of the pressed disc stock.  From there on out it's burnt discs.  Like I said, I know I must be missing something.

"MOD programs are not for the general public. They are not aimed at everybody. They're aimed at the one movie buyer or the die-hard, not the average, ordinary consumer. MOD programs just help to make old movie collecting on DVD more of a niche, reducing the group of people buying them to those who remember these films, have the money to pay for them, and don't mind the poor quality and presentation they're getting."

Up until that last bit, I thought that was a pro-MOD comment. 

There are films, and there is film education. Having the films available helps with the education. But if someone doesn't know who Francis or Harlow is they're not going to pick up pressed or MOD discs of their more obscure movies, even if they're captioned, have Criterion-level extras, cost $3, and are available on Mars.

And when was "old movie collecting" a mass interest? Most people collect new movies, then call their DVD of TOY STORY 2 purchased in 2000 an "old movie." And the most-consumed "old movies," GONE WITH THE WIND, say, or CASABLANCA, are long available, two or more times over. 

The one thing I truly lament about MODs is the way they've divided this fairly harmonious community. 

Older (or "classic" if you prefer) films have ALWAYS been targeted toward the film buff/collector. The bone of contention has always been are there enough of them to make a release of certain titles or actors commercially viable? Apparently yes in the case of Esther Williams and Bette Davis collections and no in the case of Betty Grable and Joan Collins sets. If a Betty Grable (who at one time was the biggest star in America) box set tanks (and according to Fox, it didn't sell well enough to merit a second volume), why would Kay Francis fare better than Grable on the shelves of CostCo? The Archives provide an opportunity for both fans and the curious (who are the target audience for this kind of thing) to check Francis out. A "rediscovery" by the mass public on the shelves of Best Buy is pure fantasy!

Ah, so this is where i'm being shuffled off to... well, it does feel homey here. I like the idea of candlelight, too.

I just posted something on another thread that would probably be better suited here. And then all the cheerleaders who apparently never liked when film companies treated their product like it was important and had a greater value than just another slice of cheese it had to squeeze out, they don't have to hear the droning. But it was a mean trick to have that gruesome pro-mod wolfhead staring at me to start the thread.

I did mention the droning, didn't I?

If it makes the winning side any happier, i almost broke down and bought my first archive disc today -- a glenn ford film that apparently was once labelled for a formatted boxset but has now been given the Kay Francis treatment. Just like hazbeens Bette Davis, Edward G Robinson, Errol Flynn and Joan Crawford.

Yep, that's a some terrible company.

Now that the companies have discovered how to treat its customers like the big oil corporations, I think i too will just park my money until the next format comes along. How many of you have about 100 discs unopened, too?

i happen to own pressed dvds that are single sided and have the tendancy to freeze up. I for one am glad about the mod programs because many of these classic films would never see the light of day. As far as the pricing i would rather pay $20.00 for one of these mod discs than buy a bootleg edition for the same price that is a piece of crap. one of the benefits of these mod programs is that it puts bootleggers out of business. 

It would truly be a dull world if we all agreed.  Power to the opinions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingfish 

i happen to own pressed dvds that are single sided and have the tendancy to freeze up. I for one am glad about the mod programs because many of these classic films would never see the light of day. As far as the pricing i would rather pay $20.00 for one of these mod discs than buy a bootleg edition for the same price that is a piece of crap. one of the benefits of these mod programs is that it puts bootleggers out of business. 

Interesting.  I never was tempted to buy bootlegs precisely because they were pieces of crap.  For me, they never were in business.  Maybe that's why I find it so easy not to buy any MOD discs?  If I don't see any value in the product then I have no problem keeping my money in my wallet regardless of my love for the material.

My only gripe with MOD is that these films aren't available anywhere for rental. I refuse to buy a film I've never seen - and most likely will only want to watch once - even if it costs $5, let alone $20

Personally, I don't think that doubling or tripling the price of a product whilst making big reductions in it's quality and content value should be regarded as a step forward.

I regard this as a scheme that just takes advantage of the desperation of fans to get hold of certain films to rip them off. It's just throwing the starving man a bone - and an expensive one, at that.

It's no wonder that everyone is jumping on board this little bandwagon.

The techincal issues don't worry me that much - it's the price structure that really bites. $20 for an unrestored movie that doesn't even include a trailer? Three movie boxsets priced at $70+ that parade themselves as "value sets"? I mean, come off it! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nebiroth 

Personally, I don't think that doubling or tripling the price of a product whilst making big reductions in it's quality and content value should be regarded as a step forward.

 

I regard this as a scheme that just takes advantage of the desperation of fans to get hold of certain films to rip them off. It's just throwing the starving man a bone - and an expensive one, at that.

 

It's no wonder that everyone is jumping on board this little bandwagon.

 

The techincal issues don't worry me that much - it's the price structure that really bites. $20 for an unrestored movie that doesn't even include a trailer? Three movie boxsets priced at $70+ that parade themselves as "value sets"? I mean, come off it! 

Totally agree.

In the real world, there are such things as quality control. Products have standards. Why is it that MOD programs seem immune to the basic standards and quality control that have developed in the industry the past 30 years?

If low quality is all they can give, ok, then adjust the price accordingly. If they want to keep the high price, ok, then please raise the quality; give us subtitles; try to remaster most of these films; throw a little short or cartoon onto these dics. But no, they continue to give low quality at a high price; they want their cake and eat it too.

I really think the studios jumped the gun at these MOD programs. They should have waited until technology could come to the point where these studios could do these MOD programs right. I just hope that these programs aren't set in stone; that advances in technology will eventually let them correct their misguided beginnings..

Well, the only way the studios are going to "correct" their MOD programs is when folks decide to stop buying them.  Given how the crowd on this board is so excited they'll actually pre-ordering titles sight unseen, I'd say the studios have about zero incentive to raise the bar.

It's nothing to do with technology. An MOD disc can deliver the same quality as a standard DVD.

The current crop of MOD's look worse and lack extras because the studios have decided not to invest in restoration or putting extras on the discs.

Why should they? They apparently have a customer base that is ready and indeed eagre to buy these films - at virtually any price and any quality.

The only thing that will change the pricing, quality or content of these things is if enough people stop buying them.

The target consumer these are aimed at just won't do that. They'll go on buying no matter what.
 

Youo know, it reminds me of that sketch in The Simpsons, where Millhouse is putting cash into a "Waterworld" videogame. He puts forty quarters in, gets to move the character one step and then it's Game Over: Please Insert Another 40 Quarters.

"What a rip!" he says.

And then starts putting the money in again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdee28 

 

I really think the studios jumped the gun at these MOD programs. They should have waited until technology could come to the point where these studios could do these MOD programs right. I just hope that these programs aren't set in stone; that advances in technology will eventually let them correct their misguided beginnings..

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdnitoil 

Given how the crowd on this board...

Please; we're not a "crowd," we're "you people." Don't condescend to us with such wishy-washy terminology.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Penna 

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdnitoil 

Given how the crowd on this board...

Please; we're not a "crowd," we're "you people." Don't condescend to us with such wishy-washy terminology.

What I really meant was fervent fans.  I think that's probably the politest way to put it.

"The current crop of MOD's look worse and lack extras because the studios have decided not to invest in restoration or putting extras on the discs"

Current crop? While some of the early transfers were problematic (and even Warners has admitted this), the majority of the "current crop" look excellent. Sharp, clarity and vivid colors. I've many titles from the Warners Archives and only three so far from Sony but if you didn't know, you couldn't tell the difference between between a newly pressed DVD and a MOD. Indeed, if many of these were "pressed" rather than MOD using the same transfers, the anti-MOD crowd would be pleased as punch. It's not the transfers that bugs 'em, it's that they're MOD, and not pressed.

Sure, there's still the disappointment like the soft looking ENCHANTED COTTAGE but they're the exception, not the norm. Even some pressed DVDs had poor to disappointing transfers.

As for extras, personally, I was never into extras and they were always, for me, something to clutter up the disc. I'm all about the movie. Extras are okay and sometimes very nice but never an incentive for me to buy.

I admit to having bought a bootleg once -- get smart series @ half the price time-life was originally selling it for. At the time i was pretty ignorant of the whole dvd vs dvd-r thing and got stuck with some discs that, besides the bad karma, looked ok (tho the set was obviously less than what time-life was offering). As i rolled through the series i'd notice that some discs would skip, others would freeze. It wasn't long before I was calling up time-life for the real magilla (before the real price drop). That was the one and only illegal purchase i can recall making and i regret it, not just because of the money.

I'm sure warners has some quality control and have pushed the technology to where the product is much greater than that knock-off. And while I'd dearly love to have a lot of those movies since rolled out by the archive, i can't go there. So much of my purchases of old, more and slightly obscure titles involved blind buys. I'd buy a dvd boxset if 1/2 the movies i knew were aces and take the rest as a bonus; i'd grab a single pressed disc of a unfamiliar title based on word of mouth, stars and/or price. Right now, dvd-r and its price point and difficulty getting it here in Canada stacked the deck. I'm more than happy just to keep encourage the smaller companies like Timeless, VCI, Shout and Image with my money for now.

And i agree, it's great to hear sensible discussions over this issue in a respectful manner. At times i've crossed the line but understand fully what a great hobby we are all interested in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas T 

 It's not the transfers that bugs 'em, it's that they're MOD, and not pressed.

 Of course that's the problem. The transfers and the masters used can be good or bad as was always the case with proper pressed discs. When a poor transfer was put out it was rightly criticised.

The real sticking points are the media, the pricing and the availability issues (especially for overseas buyers). Personally, I  dislike the whole exclusivity buzz of the program; the fact that some movies (and they're not all total obscurities either) are about to become the preserve of a mere handful of hardened collectors is anathema to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Livius 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas T 

 It's not the transfers that bugs 'em, it's that they're MOD, and not pressed.

The real sticking points are the media, the pricing and the availability issues (especially for overseas buyers).

I think there is also another potential issue. If it was purely about content being released on MOD or not at all then I think there would be less concern. However, with higher pricing to the consumer, less remastering, and less risk for studios, who is to say that they won't start pushing more and more content this direction that normally would have been on pressed releases in the past. I'm sure current content and the most well known to the general public will still be profitable enough to do in large runs to remain on pressed media, but what about all those lesser known titles that now could potentially go the MOD route in the future.

I know for myself that I have discovered some great films/TV shows from the past through blind-buys of various collection sets (film-noir, gangster, actor-based) where each film ended up costing under $7 on pressed media. In some cases, what I initially would have thought were the weak links to some of these sets became my favorites (e.g., Fountainhead in a Gary Cooper Collection, Petrified Forrest in a Gangster Collection). Thus, leading me down more paths of other discoveries and more blind-buys.

Out of a 1000+ films and 300+ TV seasons, I would say 50% is now pre-60's content (before I was born). Without a cost structure condusive to blind-buys on a budget and confidence in how the media is constructed so that I can stockpile for future years viewing, I never would have ended up with the collection I have.

I own about a dozen MOD releases of films I truly wanted but figured would never come out any other way. I expect I will buy more over time. But my buying practices with MOD will never come close to how I appraoch pressed media. I just hope MOD stays to just that content we would never see any other way and doesn't become the norm for all lesser known titles.
 

 Thread Title: Based on the comments so far in this thread, I would say a more accurate title would be the "Pro's and Con's of MOD Program's" instead of a complaint thread. To be a complaint thread I would not expect to see any positive comments about the MOD program. However, I do thnk having a thread to discuss MOD programs in general is a good idea. Too many times individual threads discussing particular MOD content gets derailed by philosophical differences of opinion about the program itself. This way any discussion not pertaining to the actual content of a MOD release can be redirected here.

Given the all-but-nonexistent pressed DVD release WB gave to the excellent ME AND ORSON WELLES (a recent favorite I had to purchase through the Amazon Marketplace) I wish it had been a MOD, so more people could see it. The Paramount titles through Olive aren't particularly well-marketed, either. At least the MODs you can get at any time...if you know they're there to get, as their marketing can be problematic, too. 

For those that mainly have issues with the cost of MOD, here's something that may interest you.  Warner Archive is currently running a Black Friday Sale (that ends on Monday 11/29).  Buy 5 single disc Warner Archive DVDs for $50 w/ free shipping.  After you choose 5 discs, the discount is reflected in your shopping cart.  

$10 a disc isn't too bad.  This sale ends Monday, November 29th

"If the model of mass releasing of new DVDs was still via the pressed tried-and-true method, all the above could have and probably would have been released sooner than later. Some in better editions than what is being offered now, but that is neither here nor there. It may not have been released this year, it may have been released 4 years from now. But if the companies could make a profit off it and there was a sellable print available, the movie would be released."

More conjecture. "I love statements like that last one -- can't be proven and is only used to shut down discussions." Pot calling kettle! I mean, there are films I now own that never made it to VHS or LD, and I wasn't holding my breath to see them on DVD now or four years or 12 years from now on a pressed disc. Long ago, or so it would seem, the companies decided there wasn't much of a market for a good chunk of their holdings and acted accordingly, which is to say, did nothing. For all their problems--and I do have issues with MODs, like the unplayable disc of SARATOGA TRUNK I received yesterday--they are a response to film buffs. 

Then again four or 12 years from now this entire discussion will likely be moot. Netflix's embrace of Instant Streaming last week--they got me to change to it, by raising the price on my DVD plan while offering unlimited rentals for a relative song, practically begging you to switch--may well come to be seen as the killer blow to the whole kit and kaboodle, pressed and MOD. Goodbye red envelopes, goodbye DVD?

But before that happens this Black Friday sale is an excellent way to check out the Warner Archive. If your chief objection is price, that objection has been temporarily addressed. It may augur more cuts in the future. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Cashill 

 

"If the model of mass releasing of new DVDs was still via the pressed tried-and-true method, all the above could have and probably would have been released sooner than later. Some in better editions than what is being offered now, but that is neither here nor there. It may not have been released this year, it may have been released 4 years from now. But if the companies could make a profit off it and there was a sellable print available, the movie would be released."

 

More conjecture. "I love statements like that last one -- can't be proven and is only used to shut down discussions." Pot calling kettle! I mean, there are films I now own that never made it to VHS or LD, and I wasn't holding my breath to see them on DVD now or four years or 12 years from now on a pressed disc. Long ago, or so it would seem, the companies decided there wasn't much of a market for a good chunk of their holdings and acted accordingly, which is to say, did nothing. For all their problems--and I do have issues with MODs, like the unplayable disc of SARATOGA TRUNK I received yesterday--they are a response to film buffs. 

 

Then again four or 12 years from now this entire discussion will likely be moot. Netflix's embrace of Instant Streaming last week--they got me to change to it, by raising the price on my DVD plan while offering unlimited rentals for a relative song, practically begging you to switch--may well come to be seen as the killer blow to the whole kit and kaboodle, pressed and MOD. Goodbye red envelopes, goodbye DVD?

 

But before that happens this Black Friday sale is an excellent way to check out the Warner Archive. If your chief objection is price, that objection has been temporarily addressed. It may augur more cuts in the future. 

And then there is Ultraviolet.  Stay tuned for CES 2011.  MOD plays well with UV. :)

Also I believe I am a movie collector not a format collector.  Does not matter what format as long as I have the option to purchase which most of the services out today and proposed allow the collector to do.