Olive Films Blu-ray Release and Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[ahollis]

When we began looking at various methods to fix wear and damage on some of our 3-D elements, we realized that it would not be economically possible to repair every single flaw in a 60+ year old element.These repairs are not cheap and you can wind up spending more money than you would ever hope to make back in sales. Let's face it, the bottom line for any distributor is not losing money. It's a fine line you have to walk so please keep that in mind when you watch transfers of older films.Nobody has an unlimited budget!

Agreed. I'm not looking for something perfect. If I was I would not be a supporter of WAC or own as many titles from Olive as I do. As said in many of HTF threads by experts, several of the Olive Titles could have been better with little money spent. I am extremely hard on the Fox MOD program and a supporter of Twilight. Twilight which has a high price, but you can purchase blind and not expect problems. As you can Blu from Sony, Criterion and Fox. I just ordered FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE. I read the reviews and know what to expect. With Olive I wait to purchase until I hear about the quality I don't wish to expect something to look good then be disappointed. The review I read said the transfer had scratches and dirt but you have to expect that with a title this old. Ok I know what to expect so do I think it's worth the cost. With this film yes. With another title No.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Just to clarify, the stereoscopic aspect of our titles will be flawless.

It's the film-related issues that might show some wear.

For instance, we could have done a wet-gate 4K scan of THE BUBBLE negative but it would have cost close to 50K.

I would love to have done it but we would have been in red in perpetuity. We had to settle for a standard scan at 1/5th the cost.

 

[haineshisway]

What is so hard to understand here? They should not have released The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell if that was the best they were given. You say no. You don't ask people to spend dough on crap and this argument of "well, at least we have it" doesn't cut the mustard or the ketchup or the mayonnaise. And yes, Olive is given a pass - not so much here - but on other boards. In fact, the worse the transfer according to those who post there, the more "film-like" it is - save me from these people, really. And Mr. Lime, do you work for them? Come on, you think when they release a Jerry Lewis film with completely faded color that that's scanned from the best available element? It's scanned from a BAD element, not the camera negative and no attempt has been made to correct the color and let me tell you three hours in the transfer room with that same transfer and I could at least have acceptable color for you. No one is talking about perfect. China Gate looks nice save for the scratches and dirt on every frame - that I'll accept. Billy Mitchell - not on your tintype, I'm afraid. Why is everyone afraid to call it the way it is - it is one of the WORST transfers EVER - not necessarily the authoring of the transfer but the elements used. You just don't release something like that and yes, if that same sorry transfer had been released by Twilight Time or even Shout Factory, there would be cries of tar and feathering. Why is no one calling for a recall on Billy Mitchell? They would be if that were released by Universal or Warners. Olive is charging MORE than those labels, so if some of us wish to be critical about something as horrendous as Billy Mitchell then we have that right because it is a TRAVESTY. There is no defending that disc, Mr. Lime.

Some Olive transfers have been perfectly fine. The Quiet Man is not one of them, BTW. Nor is Summer and Smoke, which I recently viewed.

 

[haineshisway]

Just to clarify, the stereoscopic aspect of our titles will be flawless.

It's the film-related issues that might show some wear.

For instance, we could have done a wet-gate 4K scan of THE BUBBLE negative but it would have cost close to 50K.

I would love to have done it but we would have been in red in perpetuity. We had to settle for a standard scan at 1/5th the cost.

The BUBBLE? Why would anyone EVER do a 4K scan of The Bubble? There isn't 4K worth of information on that negative. I understand if you have the luxury to preserve at that cost, but if it's just for a release a 2K scan or even a hi-def scan would be fine.

 

[JoHud]

Could it be that it's Paramount giving Olive the greenlight to finance a remastering these titles? I'm beginning to doubt if Olive really looks at the element beforehand and it's really Paramount that remasters and makes the judgement calls on whether the elements are in good enough condition. In that position, I doubt Olive would say "no" to a transfer they already bought and paid for. It's a different situation from an "on the shelf" transfer that the studio had already done years ago and deciding whether or not to use that. It doesn't quite answer the issue regarding McLintock!, but certainly the majority of other titles done through Paramount.

I'm also of both sides in the reality of getting the best possible transfer quality on some of these titles. I doubt more niche titles like It's In the Bag would really warrant an expensive remastering and restoration, but I do think Olive and/or Paramount should put more funding behind restoration of it's top-line titles in the Republic library like High Noon, The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, or The Quiet Man and it does seem that Paramount continues to not treat those titles near as well as their main library. The Bavaria restoration that Olive distributes through Olive pretty much blow away the whole Republic output thus far, though it also explains why they take so long to get releases. I'd also say even in the confines of remastering, there continues to be room for improvement for whoever does the remastering on these titles both in an audio and visual sense.

I'm reasonably satisfied with Olive's given the sorts of releases they do, especially with the more obscure titles they release.

 

[ROclockCK]

What are you talking about? What release of their looks like a 1997 transfer? 99% of their releases are HD masters created from the best available elements. Who was doing HD masters in 1997?

I didn't mean that literally. Merely noting that "expectations" for HD masters are higher than they were for SD...as they have every right to be.

In many cases, there's not much you can do. When the negative has deep scratches and water damage, warping, etc. Also, certain types of film doesn't transfer well to HD, they look very grainy and probably would look better on SD.

Then why not just leave them SD only? As soon as you author to Blu-ray you're just begging consumers to judge the product by a much higher standard of quality...again, it's all about expectations. If a title is not yet HD-ready, or can't be comfortably taken to HD for whatever source element or clean-up workflow reasons, then IMO all you're doing is confusing the market by releasing such product 'as-is'.

In less than one year, I've gone from pre-ordering almost every Olive Blu-ray to now approaching each release with caution...patiently waiting for reviews on sites such HTF, whom I can at least trust to call a spade...well...a shovel. As already noted, I'm pretty easy to please and very understanding when it comes to the difficulties transferring vintage celluloid. And as a customer, I've paid my dues with this label. But now I'm much warier.

How does that dwindling trust in Olive's acquisition and production standards help this label to grow?

Do you guys even know how much money is spent on these scans and masterings. They've spent a boat load of money to make these releases available and many of them for the first time in any format and all you read is these negative and snotty posts. When 80% of their releases are very good to great.

If you truly believe Olive has hit the "80%" mark for "very good to great" sir, then I'm afraid we have no common reference point for further discussion here. Being generous, I wouldn't even say more than 50% of what I've purchased from Olive has been "very good", with most of the remaining titles at best merely "good" or "acceptable" (given the challenges).

I've enjoyed many of Olive's titles though, especially the B & W Noirs...warts and all. Will I buy more? Of course. Just not sight unseen anymore.

 

[haineshisway]

I don't know Olive from a whole in the wall, but I can guess that they are not putting ANY money into the transfers themselves. Like Twilight Time, I'm sure they are handed the master and then they go off and do the authoring and pressing. And I can assure you that Twilight Time has passed on many transfers that they deemed were not acceptable for Blu-ray. They've put out a few things that weren't from perfect elements, but those were acceptable - Billy Mitchell is not acceptable.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Then as Bruce suggests, Olive should learn when to say "No thank you, not good enough", and simply pass on that master...or shelve the title entirely until a better element can be found/negotiated. BTW, that's not to be confused with "anger"; it's just "exasperation". I never know what to expect when I open those Olive cases anymore.

Umm they have lol. They pulled back a bunch of stuff due to poor elements, so what exactly are you asking for?

 

[ROclockCK]

At this point? Proof. With my own eyes. I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[haineshisway]

Umm they have lol. They pulled back a bunch of stuff due to poor elements, so what exactly are you asking for?

I'm glad to hear it, but how do you explain Billy Mitchell being released. If that's their idea of something acceptable, then they need to learn the definition of acceptable.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Most of the titles in the Republic catalog have been MIA for close to a decade on DVD or Blu-ray. While I totally get wanting every release to be amazing, in many ways it's miraculous that any of these films have been made available after so long an absence.

Everyone has their own views on where to pick their battles. Since the alternative as far as I can see it is never having any of these films out ever again on home video without these releases, I'm personally willing to cut them some slack.

 

[FoxyMulder]

In many cases, there's not much you can do. When the negative has deep scratches and water damage, warping, etc. Also, certain types of film doesn't transfer well to HD, they look very grainy and probably would look better on SD.

I have to disagree here, SD DVD is NOT good for grainy films, an SD DVD cannot handle the film grain structure correctly, at least MPEG 2 and low bitrate which is what DVD offers cannot handle it and you get artifacts galore all over the place as well as noise mixed in with the film grain, blu ray is perfect for films with a more prominent grain structure, of course new 4K film scans and handling the releases correctly would negate some of the film grain issues you speak of in the first place.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I'm glad to hear it, but how do you explain Billy Mitchell being released. If that's their idea of something acceptable, then they need to learn the definition of acceptable.

I would assume that the cancelled titles are even worse. My point to Steve was merely that they had already done as he suggested with not releasing certain titles due to elements.I think Olive would be better off doing a few less titles and investing in a minimal amount of work on the remaining titles as you've mentioned, it's not full restorations that anyone is expecting, but there's more to all this than just doing new scans.

 

[Richard Gallagher]

I watched the Bob Hope comedy Off Limits the other night and it looks very good. Another HTF member has said the same about My Favorite Spy. Both are Paramount films, obviously.

 

[Ken_Martinez]

Jerry Beck has reviewed the first Betty Boop disc on his website: http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/dvd-review-betty-boop-the-essential-collection-volume-1/#comment-9988

It really sounds like Olive was in over their heads with this release, arrogantly ignoring experts, wrong aspect ratios, atrocious copyright research and so on. Hopefully, Paramount will license the other Betty's and the rest of their theatrical cartoons to someone else.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I don't believe consulting experts is in their business plan either, especially "bloggers"

 

[JoHud]

The aspect ratio is the only quibble I have about the Betty Boop Collection and something that Olive or Paramount could have fixed with minimal effort. The UM&M logos are annoying, but restoring the logo to near all of the cartoons would have been fairly labor intensive and would have near required outside help similar to the outstanding work done on the Laurel & Hardy Essential Collection. Don't get me wrong, it might have been doable without too much extra cost, but I doubt Paramount or Olive are really that interested in title restoration of their short subjects in addition to operating outside of their inner circle if they ever did choose to do so. At this stage, it's not a realistic expectation.

The HD Walter Catlet shorts included in the recent Cohen Film Collection disc had those UM&M logos as well, so it was pretty much expected for this collection long before I got around to watching it.

The cartoons look great otherwise, about as good as it will get for a long time.

I seriously doubt Paramount will license these cartoons to someone else in the near future and if they do, will most likely retain the same problem except perhaps the aspect ratio. Though we can dream!

 

[Ken_Martinez]

I don't believe consulting experts is in their business plan either, especially "bloggers"

And their releases have largely been for the worse for it. Look at all of the complaints about aspect ratios and e-mails falling on deaf ears.

Surely the guy who helped put the old laserdisc set together might have been an asset to these releases.

 

[Mark-P]

Just wondering, would people be happier with Olive if their pricing model was like Mill Creek or Echo Bridge? Those two companies also put out material pretty much "as is" with very little cleanup. The difference is of course that Olive specializes in much older films which have naturally suffered more deterioration. I know if Olive titles had a $10 SRP, I'd certainly be stocking up! I've been relatively happy with the few Olive titles I have purchased.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I think that or did the slightest work to things then people here would be falling over themselves with praise