Twilight Time Announces January/February 2014 Releases (1 Viewer)

[cocophone]

As long as they don't use DHL I'm happy. Also their website wasn't state of the art even 20 years ago. If I had not heard of SAE on this forum I would not order from them because the quality of their website is so bad makes me doubt the quality of their business.

 

[ROclockCK]

As long as they don't use DHL I'm happy. Also their website wasn't state of the art even 20 years ago. If I had not heard of SAE on this forum I would not order from them because the quality of their website is so bad makes me doubt the quality of their business.

As Mr. Redman has noted Robert, SAE was established in 1976...so that's a pretty impressive 37 years of 'street cred' right there. What other major retailer* can come within even a decade of that track record for customer service?

But the meta question remains: "Do you truly believe a trendier iBiz reskin would make that much of a difference in terms of SAE's trusted rep among movie media fans and collectors...their core customers?"

* online or off.

 

[Bob Cashill]

I received a shipping notice from SAE on Monday; my order arrived today, USPS first class packaging. I'm sympathetic to those who've had problems but in two years of ordering I've never had a hangup.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Just as an fyi, SAE has been in business successfully since 1976, so they must be doing something right. Incidentally, SAE told us today that the new shipping methods they had tried as an experiment ("Innovations") has not worked well for them, so as of last Monday they have reverted to the prior First Class / Priority mail shipping arrangement they had in place before…trust that will ease the minds of some anxious collectors…

That's good news. At my job (mail order DVDs) we once switched to the FedEx SmartPost hybrid shipping method (FedEx and USPS). That lasted exactly one month before we switched back to standard First Class and Priority Mail.

 

[cocophone]

As Mr. Redman has noted Robert, SAE was established in 1976...so that's a pretty impressive 37 years of 'street cred' right there. What other major retailer* can come within even a decade of that track record for customer service? But the meta question remains: "Do you truly believe a trendier iBiz reskin would make that much of a difference in terms of SAE's trusted rep among movie media fans and collectors...their core customers?" * online or off.

If not for this forum I might not have heard of SAE and I would probably not have ordered from them because their website looks like a website from 15 plus years ago hosted on Yahoo. I shop at lots of niche merchants and all have a more modern website. I think a modern website shows the company cares about their "core" customers.

 

[ROclockCK]

All I can say is..."à chacun son gout."

I think the SAE site looks and works just fine for its primary purpose. Tarting it up with a lot cycle-sapping scripts and intrusive 'suggestions' ("buyers who bought this also bought that"), plus e-mail-enabled 'stalking' (I now regret ever giving Amazon my primary business addy), would just end up dumbing the thing down to the lowest common denominator of 21st century eCommerce.

 

[JohnMor]

All I can say is..."à chacun son gout."

I think the SAE site looks and works just fine for its primary purpose. Tarting it up with a lot cycle-sapping scripts and intrusive 'suggestions' ("buyers who bought this also bought that"), plus e-mail-enabled 'stalking' (I now regret ever giving Amazon my primary business addy), would just end up dumbing the thing down to the lowest common denominator of 21st century eCommerce.

 

[Persianimmortal]

All I can say is..."à chacun son gout."

My French is rusty, but I think this translates to "What a maroon." Just kidding

I think the SAE site looks and works just fine for its primary purpose. Tarting it up with a lot cycle-sapping scripts and intrusive 'suggestions' ("buyers who bought this also bought that"), plus e-mail-enabled 'stalking' (I now regret ever giving Amazon my primary business addy), would just end up dumbing the thing down to the lowest common denominator of 21st century eCommerce.

 

[ahollis]

Well I order on the SAE and have received all my orders. No complaints here. I actually think FOXConnect and WAC sites are harder to maneuver around and order. Not everyone can be amazon.

 

[ROclockCK]

My French is rusty, but I think this translates to "What a maroon." Just kidding

"Maroon" is masculine noun, so technically you would need a "le" in there somewhere...but I digress.

Completely agree there. On virtually any merchant site, I want to get in and get out as quickly as possible, not have my browser bogged down with endless applets with ever-so-friendly suggestions, cookie policy popups, ads, large images that automatically load, even videos. On a full-powered quad or eight core PC it's bad enough, but even on the new iPad I find some of these sites hair-pullingly frustrating.

Just because SAE's site is mainly text and small images, doesn't make it equivalent to those garish old Yahoo Geocities pages. It's plain and simple, and gets the job done. However I think it's reasonable to ask for better (automated) notifications, especially for shipping delays.

If I'm lucky Koroush, I will have shuffled off this mortal coil long before we reach the inevitable nadir of eCommerce...that sorry point when nothing on a website will load except for the ads. Unfortunately, we're so close to that now, I'm no longer prepared to predict how soon we will hit that once-unthinkable [sic] milestone.

Of course this is all sidebar to Twilight Time's January/February release schedule, and even the original discussion about SAE's quality of customer service. And TT has already confirmed that SAE has abandoned mail 'Innovations' (at least domestically). So I apologize to the forum for my little diversionary rant about post-millennial eCommerce. However, before hanging it up, I do want to applaud your insight in nailing what I believe will eventually become the clarion call for adoption of future tech: "plain and simple".

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Also there is a backorder for TT as the entire run of 3000 discs is not always necessarily made up all at once. So if say 1000 are made up and sell out, there are 2000 more to print and they might go on backorder while a run is being made of a new batch of titles.

 

[Persianimmortal]

However, before hanging it up, I do want to applaud your insight in nailing what I believe will eventually become the clarion call for adoption of future tech: "plain and simple".

Glad to hear you share my philosophy My own website embodies it. It's nothing fancy, but it loads up fast and performs its primary purpose, which is to convey information in written form to the average person.

While I find a complex site like Amazon.com to actually work incredibly well given the enormous wealth of content it holds, it's in the minority. Most other sites just try (badly) to distract their readers/customers with a whirlwind of embellishment in the hopes that they can either induce impulse clicks, or else dazzle them into believing that because the site is flashy, it must be run by a crack team of professionals. It's basically the Las Vegas approach, which caters to the Magpie Syndrome.

I appreciate the honest down-to-earth aspect of SAE. The site could use some minor refinements, but I hope they keep it plain and simple in the future. And that's enough of that from me

 

[RobertSiegel]

I'm assuming that Exodus will be coming relatively soon from Twilight Time, even though the elements are in bad shape from what I've heard. I was going to import the Australian release, but I might just wait so I can hear Ernest Gold's Oscar-winning score isolated.

Actually Exodus was running on MGM HD and it was just stunning, obviously a complete remaster. I think it had the overture, ect. Can't wait for a blu-ray.

 

[haineshisway]

Actually Exodus was running on MGM HD and it was just stunning, obviously a complete remaster. I think it had the overture, ect. Can't wait for a blu-ray.

Exodus never had an overture. I saw it the first week it played, at the Wilshire Theater here in LA in 70mm - I thought it was a fantastic movie. The new HD transfer is yards better than the old DVD, which would not be hard, but it's off 35mm elements and therefore as good as it looks, it would look 1000 times better off the large format elements and in its proper ratio and with sound off the six-track element.

 

[cineMANIAC]

If MGM starts cranking out impressive transfers from truly remastered elements I'll be a very happy camper. Aside from (most) of the Bond films, I have never really been very satisfied with their Blu-ray output. The upcoming Robocop reissue will be the first real test of the studios' intentions. I've been hearing many positive comments about their HD broadcasts so perhaps they're finally stepping it up and actually putting some of those transfers to use for Blu-ray.

 

[RolandL]

Isn't Man in the Dark set for pre-order today?

 

[DP 70]

Isn't Man in the Dark set for pre-order today?

Yes it is Roland and Zulu and Khartoum which I am sure you will be getting.

 

[Charles Smith]

It felt so damned good just now, putting Man in the Dark in my cart -- along with the other new releases -- and getting that confirming email.




(See?)

 

[bujaki]

No confirming email, but checked order status and everything is OK. Ordered all 4 titles!

 

[ahollis]

KHARTOUM, ZULU and MAN IN THE DARK in cart and have confirmed email. I'm happy and looking forward to the New Year.