Do studios duplicate/replicate their Blu-rays in house or do they use a separate company? (1 Viewer)

[Persianimmortal]

If they sell well enough to make a release feasible then this is all we need.The problem is that if it doesn't have the potential to make big money there seems to be little interest from certain parties.Luckily TT saw a potential market where others (including many studio people) didn't. It seems that Nick Redman did not read some of the threads over here and in other places attentively enough as otherwise he would not have started with the futile endeavour of releasing catalog titles on Blu-ray

I agree that it's a lucky thing that Nick Redman didn't take any advice from threads on forums before starting TT. If he had, he'd have been led to believe that, apparently, if you invest large sums of money into Blu-ray releases of obscure catalog titles, loading up the discs with lots of superfluous extras and topping it off with fancy packaging, then selling them at very low prices in unlimited quantities, you'd be swimming in money.

Instead, quite wisely, Twilight Time chose a model which involves releasing a limited quantity of just 3,000 units at a premium price, with a sensible amount of extras, and attractive but not fancy packaging, and they do extremely well as a result.

And for the past three years, Twilight Time has been wearing a lot of heat from so-called Blu-ray fans precisely for taking what has turned out to be a sound approach. Those same fans who knew, and still know, that "catalog titles sell well on Blu-ray!!".

There's a quote from Chuck Jordan, former head of GM design, which goes "A good designer doesn't need Mr. and Mrs. Zilch from Kansas telling him what to do." I think that quote applies to virtually every industry. We may not like what the studios are doing, and they may not always be right in what they do and how they do it, but it's their job, and they're the ones with detailed sales and marketing information, not us.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Even with their new model, they have to do some learning as they go. I think its safe to say they learned that DVDs don't sell as well as Blu-rays. They now have real chapter stops, and more special features including original ones like the commentaries we are seeing more of. A lot of that is because of another novel concept: listening to their customers.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Personally, I think you're fooling yourself to think the younger demographic is interested in buying these titles. Streaming might be another matter, but actually owning them and finding storage for them is not something I think they're interested in, at least, not in great enough numbers to alter the final sales figures much. Anyhow, you and I differ so I'll leave you with the last word on this topic.

Exactly. Most of my friends (late 20-mid 30s) from the old IGN DVD boards - where we constantly talked movies and DVDs a decade ago, and all had large (250+) collections - have sold off most of their DVDs and rarely buy blu-rays. I'm the anomaly that still buys a lot. And the generation after us that is in their mid-20s now? They want it all streaming for convenience. That's the reality of catalog.

 

[jcroy]

Exactly. Most of my friends (late 20-mid 30s) from the old IGN DVD boards - where we constantly talked movies and DVDs a decade ago, and all had large (250+) collections - have sold off most of their DVDs and rarely buy blu-rays. I'm the anomaly that still buys a lot.

(As an aside).

I don't know where I would fit in. I only started buying a lot of dvds/blurays in 2011. Prior to 2011, I had very little to no interest in dvds and blurays.

Frankly I'll admit outright that buying a lot of dvds/blurays is largely an easy way to indulge in my ocd compulsive collecting/hoarding habits. The fact that I enjoy watching the movies/shows, is largely a tertiary (or quaternary) concern to me.

(I don't want to discuss my secondary reason for buying a lot of dvds/blurays. But MY PRIMARY reason for buying a lot dvds/blurays is to feed my ocd compulsive collecting/hoarding habit).

Recently I've come to the conclusion that I was largely fooling myself into thinking that I was buying dvds/blurays for other reasons like: better picture quality, ownership of a physical object, immunity to studio/internet "kill switches", midlife crisis, etc ... I now know these reasons are self-serving semi-rationalizations and/or I was lying to myself.

 

[OliverK]

If he had, he'd have been led to believe that, apparently, if you invest large sums of money into Blu-ray releases of obscure catalog titles, loading up the discs with lots of superfluous extras and topping it off with fancy packaging, then selling them at very low prices in unlimited quantities, you'd be swimming in money.

The advice to invest large sums in catalog titles is certainly the general vibe that I am getting from this thread and especially your posts

 

[FoxyMulder]

The advice to invest large sums in catalog titles is certainly the general vibe that I am getting from this thread and especially your posts

Made me laugh.

As far as this thread goes, i'm disappointed with many replies and, i'm thinking it's the glass half full syndrome at work here.

 

[RolandL]

I remember years ago when my mom still had a 4x3 set she was playing back a copy of Sixth Sense on DVD that looked awful. Everything was stretched out. I found that it was set for a 16x9 TV in the DVD player. I fixed it and instead of saying it looked better (which it did), she said it looked worse because of the black bars! She would rather look at a distorted picture than the $(&-? Black bars.As a side note if studios thought they could better market their catalog titles, they would be trying. They have been burned too many times.

I have relatives that have hd tv's but refuse to pay extra for HD channels - they just stretch to fill the screen. So when they watch ESPN and other channels that are letterboxed to 1.78 within the 1.33 frame, its stretched to an even smaller letterboxed image.

 

[OliverK]

As far as this thread goes, i'm disappointed with many replies and, i'm thinking it's the glass half full syndrome at work here.

Are you sure you mean half full? I am getting more of a glass half empty message here.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Are you sure you mean half full? I am getting more of a glass half empty message here.

Yeah probably that, i never get these eternal phrases correct.

P.S. I can't even sneakily go back and change the wording to reflect that meaning as you have quoted me.

 

[Chip_HT]

I have relatives that have hd tv's but refuse to pay extra for HD channels - they just stretch to fill the screen. So when they watch ESPN and other channels that are letterboxed to 1.78 within the 1.33 frame, its stretched to an even smaller letterboxed image.

Ugh, if you're gonna stretch, at least stretch it out both directions....

 

[Vic Pardo]

I was in Paris the first week of July and the video store up the block from my hotel had sections like these:



And they still had lots of VHS:



So catalog titles are still big somewhere!

My big problem as a consumer of these titles is the lack of awareness of new catalog titles when they get released. Sometimes films I want get released and then go out of print without my knowing about them. And I'm a target demographic for these titles. In the old days, you'd see new releases listed in various magazines or see them on video store shelves and that's how you'd find out. Just like when I wanted to know what was interesting on TV, I'd look up what was on in TV Guide and I'd find out. Now I don't know how to find out when something interesting to me is on TV or newly released on DVD or Blu-ray.

Also--and I run the risk of contradicting my previous paragraph here--I've bought very few catalog titles on Blu-ray and only when the price has gone below $10. I could probably list them all here: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE SEARCHERS, THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA, IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, BARBARELLA, THE WILD BUNCH, and THE GETAWAY. I already have hundreds of other catalog titles on VHS and DVD and I'm usually satisfied with them. Or I simply don't want to buy them again. I need to save money and space. Still, I watched my WILD BUNCH blu-ray a week or so ago and I got to thinking that I kind of wish I had more films on Blu-ray like this that I subject to repeat viewings, such as maybe some of the Connery Bonds like YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (are these even on Blu-ray yet?). Or LUST FOR LIFE, which I watched on TCM-HD the last time it was on and was blown away by it.

When I was growing up, most of my peers and I watched old movies on TV all the time. We loved Humphrey Bogart as much as we loved new Clint Eastwood movies. We watched old John Wayne movies on TV and new John Wayne movies in neighborhood theaters (CHISUM, BIG JAKE, et al). But I don't know that many peers of mine have become collectors like I have. Not even my old film school buddies. We used to be able to see this stuff for free on TV (albeit pan-and-scan, cut and interrupted by commercials). Beyond the absolute must-haves like CASABLANCA, THE SEARCHERS et al, how many of the old movies we used to find by channel surfing (which meant getting up and turning the dial) do we really feel like owning. For me, the answer is thousands, but that doesn't apply to too many of my peers. And my daughter and her generation? Not likely. And I've trained her to like old movies. She even went with her friends to see THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN at one of those Movies-in-Bryant Park deals one summer evening. But they don't seek them out as rigorously as we did. They have too many other pop culture choices, such as all those TV shows they absolutely have to follow, like "Game of Thrones," et al. And old movies are not prevalent anymore nor do they register with their peers much. Few parents of my age are instilling a love of old movies in their children. I was once appalled at my brother because his three sons told me they'd never seen any westerns. So I stopped lending them anime and Hong Kong titles and instead dropped off a stack of westerns. And they liked them. But I was furious at my brother because I had to do that.

The way we used to discover movies on TV, I now find stuff on YouTube. I've actually begun watching old movies like HGHWAY DRAGNET, PLUNDER ROAD and SILVER LODE on YouTube. Not the best way to see movies, but I see movies this way that I don't want to make blind buys of. And old TV shows like "This Man Dawson" and "The Asphalt Jungle." We can't buy or own everything. There should be some means on the web of seeing stuff in HD and the best possible quality without buying them outright or paying more than a couple of bucks. I'd see more stuff on Amazon Instant Video, which I've never actually taken advantage of, if I knew what was on it and knew it would be close to DVD quality.

But I also have more stuff in my collection than I'll ever get to see in my lifetime and a lot of the titles I have on DVD and VHS are out of print now and don't exist in any other format so this is the only way to see them.

 

[Brandon Conway]

My big problem as a consumer of these titles is the lack of awareness of new catalog titles when they get released. Sometimes films I want get released and then go out of print without my knowing about them. And I'm a target demographic for these titles. In the old days, you'd see new releases listed in various magazines or see them on video store shelves and that's how you'd find out. Just like when I wanted to know what was interesting on TV, I'd look up what was on in TV Guide and I'd find out. Now I don't know how to find out when something interesting to me is on TV or newly released on DVD or Blu-ray.

Shameless promotion - I try my best to keep this list up to to date:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/284283-pre-90s-catalog-on-blu-a-comprehensive-list/

It's US centric and limited to theatrical features up through 1989, so it's not quite all encompassing, but it can only help.

 

[SeanAx]

But I also have more stuff in my collection than I'll ever get to see in my lifetime and a lot of the titles I have on DVD and VHS are out of print now and don't exist in any other format so this is the only way to see them.

Amen

 

[Ed Lachmann]

What I'm hearing is that the older customers are more often willing to buy while the younger ones are almost as happy to stream. As an "older buyer", I purchase blu-rays because they offer me a near theatrical experience in the home. I don't buy the discs to "hoard" them but to enjoy them, quite regularly and often in shared situations. I grew up loving movies and will do anything to own the ones I'm particularly fond of. I could give a rat's buttocks for loads of extras or fancy packaging, I want the movies and not in some "pay per view" situation. I'm terribly unfortunate to be of an earlier generation weaned on the widescreen epics of the 50's and early 60's, which were the STAR WARS of their time. Back in the VHS days, they were among the first to see a home video release, even though the low resolution made them difficult to watch at times. In those halcyon days, even the greatest and most historically significant silents made their way into the home market. Not so much anymore. The higher price tag from releasing companies like TT doesn't bother me in the least. I'd spend MUCH more to own certain titles. It's just that the titles I want seem "unfashionable" today.

 

[atfree]

What I'm hearing is that the older customers are more often willing to buy while the younger ones are almost as happy to stream. As an "older buyer", I purchase blu-rays because they offer me a near theatrical experience in the home. I don't buy the discs to "hoard" them but to enjoy them, quite regularly and often in shared situations. I grew up loving movies and will do anything to own the ones I'm particularly fond of. I could give a rat's buttocks for loads of extras or fancy packaging, I want the movies and not in some "pay per view" situation. I'm terribly unfortunate to be of an earlier generation weaned on the widescreen epics of the 50's and early 60's, which were the STAR WARS of their time. Back in the VHS days, they were among the first to see a home video release, even though the low resolution made them difficult to watch at times. In those halcyon days, even the greatest and most historically significant silents made their way into the home market. Not so much anymore. The higher price tag from releasing companies like TT doesn't bother me in the least. I'd spend MUCH more to own certain titles. It's just that the titles I want seem "unfashionable" today.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm in your same age group, I believe, and was raised with the great classics from the Golden Age. I don't collect just to collect, I enjoy my films regularly. There's not an unwatched BD or DVD in my 500+ title library. Each film I own is like owning a small piece of film history....and streaming doesn't fit that bill for me.