Dear Warner Bros.: Last year's THE HAUNTING Release Was Superb...What About 2014? (1 Viewer)

[Dick]

If you are finally willing to give us some of the Paramount titles you are wasting away, a great October title would be DRAGONSLAYER. Or, from your own library, THEM! or THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

Thanks.

 

[Thomas T]

If you are finally willing to give us some of the Paramount titles you are wasting away

I stand to be corrected but does anyone actually know the terms of Warners licensing deal with Paramount? You are assuming they have carte blanche with the Paramount library but do they? Do they have the rights to the entire Paramount library or just a certain amount of specific titles? Does their license agreement cover blu-ray or just standard DVD? I really feel the Warners bashing is unnecessary. Of all the major studios, they've set the bar for home video.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I stand to be corrected but does anyone actually know the terms of Warners licensing deal with Paramount? You are assuming they have carte blanche with the Paramount library but do they? Do they have the rights to the entire Paramount library or just a certain amount of specific titles? Does their license agreement cover blu-ray or just standard DVD? I really feel the Warners bashing is unnecessary. Of all the major studios, they've set the bar for home video.

I have pointed that out a couple of times that Warner doesn't have access to every Paramount title yet that simple fact as been ignored by some posters.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Of all the major studios, they've set the bar for home video.

Is this the same Warner who would routinely put out low bitrate encodes of their major titles on blu ray during the formats early days and who continue to do low bitrate encodes even to this day, i'll take what Sony/Columbia are doing even though their catalog is a little smaller. I'd like to see Warner re-encode some of their earlier titles and re-release them.

Of course if you mean they have released some great catalog titles on blu ray then yes i agree, i hope it continues.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Is this the same Warner who would routinely put out low bitrate encodes of their major titles on blu ray during the formats early days and who continue to do low bitrate encodes even to this day, i'll take what Sony/Columbia are doing even though their catalog is a little smaller. I'd like to see Warner re-encode some of their earlier titles and re-release them.

Of course if you mean they have released some great catalog titles on blu ray then yes i agree, i hope it continues.

Generally, I've never experience too many problems with Warner's BD releases. Perhaps you have, but I haven't experienced such problems.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Generally, I've never experience too many problems with Warner's BD releases. Perhaps you have, but I haven't experienced such problems.

It's not that i have experienced problems as such, it's that i think too low a bitrate can give a slightly less defined and smoother image, especially when using the VC-1 codec, the classics titles tend to have a higher bitrate than the average release.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It's not that i have experienced problems as such, it's that i think too low a bitrate can give a slightly less defined and smoother image, especially when using the VC-1 codec, the classics titles tend to have a higher bitrate than the average release.

So it's a nitpick?

 

[FoxyMulder]

So it's a nitpick?

For sure, although i believe too low a bitrate has more chance of introducing unwanted artifacts or smooth the video, for example Batman Begins, so in a few cases it's more than just nitpicking, you will notice things more when you use a projection screen too.

 

[Mark-P]

It's not that i have experienced problems as such, it's that i think too low a bitrate can give a slightly less defined and smoother image, especially when using the VC-1 codec, the classics titles tend to have a higher bitrate than the average release.

For Christ's sakes don't judge a disc by how good the picture looks, judge it by what your bitrate counter shows!

 

[FoxyMulder]

For Christ's sakes don't judge a disc by how good the picture looks, judge it by what your bitrate counter shows!

I think you are misunderstanding me and taking my views out of context. I am NOT a bitrate counter junkie.

I do judge things by what the picture shows, i then look into what i am seeing and in some cases there is a direct link to too low a bitrate and image quality, why do you think streaming is frowned upon by those who own projectors, because the faults are all too evident when seen at a larger image size, bitrate is important, the compression of the disc is important, obviously a skilled compressionist can do more and fine tune at lower bitrates but there comes a point when things are too low and the aforementioned Batman Begins actually drops into dvd bitrate territory for a number of scenes and fine detail is smoothed out.

Another example for your consideration, the first release of Mad Max 2, lower bitrate and the film grain suffers, they increased the bitrate and increased file size for the re-release by one third and guess what happened, the film grain is more solid and refined and fine detail improves slightly, don't take my word for it, check out both releases and see for yourself.

 

[Robert Crawford]

For Christ's sakes don't judge a disc by how good the picture looks, judge it by what your bitrate counter shows!

In fairness to Malcolm, he has experienced some picture issues with certain Warner titles. However, I think the majority of us that don't own a projector system won't see those same issues.

 

[cineMANIAC]

I think was the OP was referring to was the fact that Warner has not taken full advantage of their Paramount-licensed titles in general, and I agree. There's been very little trickling out of this deal and that's no secret. Even popular contemporary titles like BREAKDOWN, which I believe may be part of Warner's acquisition simply because it's a much-requested title, is nowhere to be seen. It's just a wee bit frustrating that there's little movement with this, that's all.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I think was the OP was referring to was the fact that Warner has not taken full advantage of their Paramount-licensed titles in general, and I agree. There's been very little trickling out of this deal and that's no secret. Even popular contemporary titles like BREAKDOWN, which I believe may be part of Warner's acquisition simply because it's a much-requested title, is nowhere to be seen. It's just a wee bit frustrating that there's little movement with this, that's all.

Well, we're all frustrated, but it is, what it is.

 

[dana martin]

If you are finally willing to give us some of the Paramount titles you are wasting away, a great October title would be DRAGONSLAYER. Or, from your own library, THEM! or THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

Thanks.

and to add to that I would love to see Jekyll / Hyde double feature or maybe the original Cat People or Village/Children of the Damned double feature , man I miss the chats

 

[Robert Crawford]

and to add to that I would love to see Jekyll / Hyde double feature or maybe the original Cat People or Village/Children of the Damned double feature , man I miss the chats

That would be nice too. However, having Them and The Thing from Another World on a BD double feature release would make me so giddy I wouldn't know what day it was.

 

[Yorkshire]

Well, we're all frustrated...

That gets my vote for understatement of the year at these forums.

You're not a secret Brit are you Robert?



Steve W

 

[Yorkshire]

and to add to that I would love to see Jekyll / Hyde double feature or maybe the original Cat People or Village/Children of the Damned double feature , man I miss the chats

Or any Val Lewton.

Alternately, some Val Lewton would be great.

Steve W

 

[Thomas T]

titles like BREAKDOWN, which I believe may be part of Warner's acquisition simply because it's a much-requested title, is nowhere to be seen.

May is the operative word here. We don't know so why all the accusations and head banging? Warners has the biggest catalog in the industry (Warners, MGM, RKO, HBO) and everybody wants everything now! There are still a lot of unreleased titles I'd like too but you know what? If they stopped making DVD/blu tomorrow, I'd still have MORE than enough to watch the rest of my life! I've got titles I bought almost five years ago that I still haven't watched!

I'm just guessing that maybe some suspect (as I do) that in a few years, the bottom is going to fall out of the physical media market and that's it, party over so they want it now before the bottom falls out. Understandable.

 

[atfree]

I'm just guessing that maybe some suspect (as I do) that in a few years, the bottom is going to fall out of the physical media market and that's it, party over so they want it now before the bottom falls out. Understandable.

Precisely.....but I'll still be able to get pirated DVD's from China on EBAY!!!

 

[Dick]

I have pointed that out a couple of times that Warner doesn't have access to every Paramount title yet that simple fact as been ignored by some posters.

Yes, you have, and I am aware they have a limited licensing arrangement with Paramount. But because we are not made privy to which Paramount titles Warner Bros. controls -- some silly corporate secrecy thing -- all we can do is let them know which titles we would love to see on Blu-ray and hope that they have a. the licensing rights; b. the interest in bringing these oft-requested titles out themselves; or c. finally admitting they cannot take advantage of their vast library or aren't interested in doing so, and sub-licensing to a more willing distributor.