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USHE Announcement: Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

Osato

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Wonderful news! Love the packaging and can't wait to pick up this set in September!
My word, 4th Quarter is really looking expensive huh?
I'll probably watch them in order, but Rear Window would be tempting to watch first!
I'm glad NBNW is being included even if I will double dip on that one.
Great news today!!
 

Moe Dickstein

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Mark-P said:
Well I do mind the double dip. They are bound to put these out individually and that's how I plan to get them.
Why not sell those two and buy the set? Its guaranteed to be cheaper, unless you don't want all the films...
 

Robin9

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Bob Cashill said:
Amazon UK is offering a "Masterpiece Collection" box (minus NORTH BY NORTHWEST) that costs $151 at the moment. It should be region-free.
Thank you! That's much more interesting as I already have North By Northwest on Blu-ray
 

Nelson Au

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I have to come to this section of the forum more often. This is great news! Having two copies of NxNW isn't a bother!
I'm hoping all the cautious post will be proven unwarranted. Looking forward to finally seeing these titles in HD. Especially Vertigo and Rear Window. It will be interesting to see how all the optical effects for The Birds fares, but I'm not worried, it is what it is and I doubt we'll see CGI birds! :)
 

johnSM

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So are the US sets still not going to get Psycho with the lossless mono soundtrack option like the single UK release?
 

Doctorossi

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johnSM said:
So are the US sets still not going to get Psycho with the lossless mono soundtrack option like the single UK release?
I expect not, and it's one of several reasons I'll be waiting for individual releases.
 

lukejosephchung

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Between the release of this Universal Masterpiece Collection box set and the two newly-announced Warner titles for October 9th ("Dial "M" For Murder" in both 3D & 2D AND "Strangers On A Train") in blu-ray, it's going to be a banner Halloween season for Hitchcockian cinemaphiles...
 

John Morgan

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According to the press release, only THE BIRDS has that Bonus feature 100 YEARS OF UNIVERSAL-Restoring the classics and I remember this film being in the montage. So, and this is only a guess, maybe THE BIRDS is the only title on this set that really got the full blown restoration. I am sure all the others have had hi def transfers done, if not actual scans and major cleanup and color restoration. Here's hoping for the best.
 

Lord Dalek

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I'm not sure why having a mono track in lossless is considered a dealbreaker anyway. These are very old films made with very old sound equipment (Westrex) in limited fidelity and would probably be just as shrill and reedy with an extremely high bit rate as a low one. Every Criterion PCM transfer I've heard from films made in the same era wasn't the pinnacle of sound reproduction.

That said if these are full bit DTS sound transfers, they should sound much better than the typical lossy Dolby 2.0 mixes that most studios give us.
 

Doctorossi

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Lord Dalek said:
I'm not sure why having a mono track in lossless is considered a dealbreaker anyway. These are very old films made with very old sound equipment (Westrex) in limited fidelity and would probably be just as shrill and reedy with an extremely high bit rate as a low one.
the problem is that the particular fidelity issues imposed by lossy compression are not the same fidelity issues caused by the production limitations of the time. While it's true there is some overlap of the problem areas (for example, these recordings have less upper-frequency information to damage), lossy compression still leaves the opportunity to introduce new issues to the soundtrack that don't have to be there. One could make the same claim about HD video for movies shot on older (slower) film stocks. These movies should have HD sound for the same reason they should have HD video and the two of them together are the promise of Blu-ray.
Lord Dalek said:
That said if these are full bit DTS sound transfers, they should sound much better than the typical lossy Dolby 2.0 mixes that most studios give us.
It remains to be seen what bitrate will be used for these tracks, but the lossy DTS algorithms are just as lossy as the lossy Dolby ones. This should not be an issue for Blu-ray- lossy audio and SD video are for DVD.
 

classicmovieguy

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I'm not interested in the whole set, but will definitely be interested should the titles come out individually at a later date ("The Birds", "Rear Window", "Vertigo", "The Man who Knew Too Much").
I'm a bit cautious about "Vertigo" and the Harris/Katz restoration print (we all know what happened when "My Fair Lady" came to Blu-ray without any additional restoration work), so hoping that Harris and Katz have been asked to at least supervise "Vertigo"'s transition to BD.
 

JoeBond

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classicmovieguy said:
I'm not interested in the whole set, but will definitely be interested should the titles come out individually at a later date ("The Birds", "Rear Window", "Vertigo", "The Man who Knew Too Much").
I'm a bit cautious about "Vertigo" and the Harris/Katz restoration print (we all know what happened when "My Fair Lady" came to Blu-ray without any additional restoration work), so hoping that Harris and Katz have been asked to at least supervise "Vertigo"'s transition to BD.
I'm a lot less worried about Vertigo than you are, I have an iTunes version that while has the usual compression issues movies on iTunes have it does have great colors and no edge enhancement, but I'm worried the most about how The Man Who Knew Too Much will look. It's DVD from the Masterpiece collection is what I'd call a coaster since it's not only has DNR but has some of the worst edge enhancement. I prefer the original DVD's look. I really hope this one's improved for the Blu-ray.
 

Patrick Mason

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John Morgan said:
According to the press release, only THE BIRDS has that Bonus feature 100 YEARS OF UNIVERSAL-Restoring the classics and I remember this film being in the montage. So, and this is only a guess, maybe THE BIRDS is the only title on this set that really got the full blown restoration.
I think Vertigo and Rear Window would not be candidates for the whole centennial promotion as they were not produced by Universal, though they now own the rights. That does not necessarily mean they would not receive any extra treatment as they are still extremely high profile catalog titles for them. Fingers crossed anyway.
 

Escapay

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Patrick Mason said:
I think Vertigo and Rear Window would not be candidates for the whole centennial promotion as they were not produced by Universal, though they now own the rights.
Given their stature and popularity, I can't imagine Universal passing up on the chance of giving them more promotion, regardless where they were produced. It certainly hasn't stopped them from including their "100 Years of Universal" featurettes on a mere catalog DVD title like Paramount's Sullivan's Travels :/
That disc includes two "100 Years of Universal" features: "The Carl Laemmle Era" and "The Lew Wasserman Era." It's quite hilarious that the first one is included, since Laemmle's era ended in the 1930's, years before Sullivan's Travels was ever made at Paramount! And the only connection "The Lew Wasserman Era" has to the film is it was among the pre-1950 Paramount films MCA owned and eventually distributed through their acquirement of Universal in 1962. Granted, no one should bother with Universal's DVD anyway since Criterion released a better one, but still...
Since Vertigo is listed as having "The Lew Wasserman Era" included, Universal probably justifies it the same way they justify Sullivan's Travels as being part of their celebration.
 

Yorkshire

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classicmovieguy said:
I'm not interested in the whole set, but will definitely be interested should the titles come out individually at a later date ("The Birds", "Rear Window", "Vertigo", "The Man who Knew Too Much").
I'm a bit cautious about "Vertigo" and the Harris/Katz restoration print (we all know what happened when "My Fair Lady" came to Blu-ray without any additional restoration work), so hoping that Harris and Katz have been asked to at least supervise "Vertigo"'s transition to BD.
I've asked in the RAH area, but no response yet.
Steve W
 

Garysb

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The set is up for preorder at Amazon so please add the link for Home Theater Forum .
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008DCAG9M/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00
$299.98 list price. Currently 30% off $209.99 which is $14 per film at the current sale price.
 

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