your Twilight Time / Columbia wishlist? (1 Viewer)

[Robin9]

Let's face it, most DVDs look like garbage upconverted on a large HDTV.

Sorry, but no, I won't face it. Perhaps most of your DVDs look like garbage when shown on a large display but most of mine look like what they are: good quality DVDs. Obviously they don't look as good as a high quality Blu-ray disc but they don't look like garbage either.

 

[Persianimmortal]

My TT Columbia wishlist is.....

That's right. My wishlist is empty.


This is because I want to update most of my DVD collection to Blu-Ray. and TT 's pricing and limited runs are making that difficult or impossible.


Let's face it, most DVDs look like garbage upconverted on a large HDTV. While this is often due to the age of the transfer, many older films don't have good surviving elements and a DVD of these films will look bad even when upconverted with the best player and displayed on a small 32" or 40" screen. Anyone who's spent the better part of the last two decades collecting DVDs - as I have - is naturally going to want to update some part of their collection to Blu-Ray. TT is unfortunately starting to put out so many titles I want to update that I've lost the ability to keep up. This is no doubt true for a lot of collectors, considering that TT is charging around $38 total for a single Blu-Ray. Given the money I've spent supporting the home video units of the major studios, the dumping of titles to TT seems like a cruel joke to me. It seems especially cruel, given that reasonably good quality Blu-Rays of some titles are readily available from other licensees - cough.....Mill Creek...cough - for as little as $8 a disc. My hope then is that the studios will begin selling licenses to other companies and the output from TT will dwindle. My only option for some titles as of now is probably a region B release, but my experience is that Region B Blu-Rays often have shoddy picture and/or audio quality in comparison to a Region A version.

I just want to add my comment in addition to what JohnMor, ahollis and Robin9 have already said in response to your post above: you're wrong on all counts.


Most DVDs do not "look like garbage" when upconverted - DVDs can look quite good when upconverted on larger screens, as long as you're using a higher-end Blu-ray player. I've seen very noticeable improvements in DVD upconversion quality from high end players, especially newer players with more processing power onboard. In any case, most every DVD is eminently watchable on an HDTV, not "garbage"; if you want better quality, guess what - as Allen says, you need to pay for it.


This brings us to your second statement, which firstly exaggerates the cost of Twilight Time titles, and secondly conveniently ignores the fact that - as discussed ad-nauseam on this and other forums - TT's high price/limited availability model is a large part of the reason why studios license high quality transfers to TT in the first place. It may be a "cruel joke" to you, but once again, quality costs, and studios don't owe you pristine $5 Blu-ray transfers just because you purchased their products in the past.


Finally, the last piece of your diatribe really sticks out as ignorant. Region B Blu-rays do not "often have shoddy picture and/or audio quality" compared to Region A transfers. The transfers are often identical, sometimes superior (e.g. Arrow releases).


I get that you want to make it sound like you have no alternative but to helplessly whine about how every studio owes you cheap, pristine Blu-rays. But that's not the way the market works buddy, at least not for catalog titles on Blu. The harsh economic reality is that as a tiny niche with virtually no market power whatsoever, we catalog Blu-ray buyers need to cough up the dough if we want quality releases. Either that or stick with your "garbage" DVDs.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

I just want to add my comment in addition to what JohnMor, ahollis and Robin9 have already said in response to your post above: you're wrong on all counts.


Most DVDs do not "look like garbage" when upconverted - DVDs can look quite good when upconverted on larger screens, as long as you're using a higher-end Blu-ray player. I've seen very noticeable improvements in DVD upconversion quality from high end players, especially newer players with more processing power onboard. In any case, most every DVD is eminently watchable on an HDTV, not "garbage"; if you want better quality, guess what - as Allen says, you need to pay for it.


This brings us to your second statement, which firstly exaggerates the cost of Twilight Time titles, and secondly conveniently ignores the fact that - as discussed ad-nauseam on this and other forums - TT's high price/limited availability model is a large part of the reason why studios license high quality transfers to TT in the first place. It may be a "cruel joke" to you, but once again, quality costs, and studios don't owe you pristine $5 Blu-ray transfers just because you purchased their products in the past.


Finally, the last piece of your diatribe really sticks out as ignorant. Region B Blu-rays do not "often have shoddy picture and/or audio quality" compared to Region A transfers. The transfers are often identical, sometimes superior (e.g. Arrow releases).


I get that you want to make it sound like you have no alternative but to helplessly whine about how every studio owes you cheap, pristine Blu-rays. But that's not the way the market works buddy, at least not for catalog titles on Blu. The harsh economic reality is that as a tiny niche with virtually no market power whatsoever, we catalog Blu-ray buyers need to cough up the dough if we want quality releases. Either that or stick with your "garbage" DVDs.

Excellent write-up on responding to MichaelEl's points and I find myself mostly in agreement.


I do however see his point on "garbage DVDs" and even upconverted still look crappy. I have a few of these myself (and they're not bootlegs), including some well-known titles. Disney's Swiss Family Robinson (1960) DVD for example had rather blah PQ, though not total garbage. Thankfully Disney eventually released the far superior Blu-ray.


And on the other end of the pole, I have some very nice DVD transfers. Examples The Big Clock (1948) and The Wild Life (1984).


Your take on Twilight Time offers makes a very strong point on how & why Twilight Time gets great transfers, most of the time anyway.

 

[MichaelEl]

Most DVDs do not "look like garbage" when upconverted - DVDs can look quite good when upconverted on larger screens, as long as you're using a higher-end Blu-ray player. I've seen very noticeable improvements in DVD upconversion quality from high end players, especially newer players with more processing power onboard.

I have a new high end Oppo player, a region-free Sony player, and a high end, large screen Samsung LCD. Most of the DVDs I own look fairly bad regardless of how I tweak the settings of this equipment. DVDs of 80s films often look particularly bad, but that may be due to the age of the transfers. Admittedly, some DVDs of older B&W films have a nice contrasty appearance, but DVD just doesn't have sufficient vertical resolution to make wide format films look good. There's always some loss of image quality due to the upconversion process, and this is greatly exacerbated by the letterboxing.

This brings us to your second statement, which firstly exaggerates the cost of Twilight Time titles,

No, I was off by around $4. I checked my Screen Archives account and every title I've purchased from them was $34.30 to be precise. This is around twice the average price of a Blu-Ray I would guess and $10 more than the typical Criterion Blu-Ray.

conveniently ignores the fact that - as discussed ad-nauseam on this and other forums - TT's high price/limited availability model is a large part of the reason why studios license high quality transfers to TT in the first place.

The studios also license titles to companies like Mill Creek, which offers decent quality Blu-Rays for a reasonable price. What then is it that justifies the much higher price TT is charging? It certainly isn't the quality of the transfers, as TT has in some cases released better transfers of a title. For example, it cost me an additional $34.30 to in order to see JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH the way it should've looked in the first place. $68.60 is a bit much for a single film by today's standards, don't you think?

Finally, the last piece of your diatribe really sticks out as ignorant. Region B Blu-rays do not "often have shoddy picture and/or audio quality" compared to Region A transfers. The transfers are often identical, sometimes superior (e.g. Arrow releases).

Many of the Criterion Blu-Rays I own are noticeably superior to the Region B equivalent, and most of the Region B Blu-Rays of Hammer films I've gotten have had problems of one sort or another. Region B Blu-Rays are sometimes produced from older, shoddy HD transfers - e.g. FAHRENHEIT 451 - and they tend to have lower bitrates. In cases where I've replaced a Region B release with a new Region A release, the latter almost always has a higher bitrate - e.g., THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. Some Region B Blu-Rays are actually BD-Rs!

I get that you want to make it sound like you have no alternative but to helplessly whine about how every studio owes you cheap, pristine Blu-rays. But that's not the way the market works buddy, at least not for catalog titles on Blu.

It's funny that I'm able to get quality, legitimately-licensed Blu-Rays of any number of films for a reasonable price. If what you're saying about the production cost of Blu-Rays were true, all Blu-Rays would be priced significantly higher than DVDs. In many cases, however, the Blu-Ray is actually cheaper than the DVD equivalent.

The harsh economic reality is that as a tiny niche with virtually no market power whatsoever, we catalog Blu-ray buyers need to cough up the dough if we want quality releases. Either that or stick with your "garbage" DVDs.

I'm not sure what justifies attaching a much higher price to a Blu-Ray. A DVD represents 4-8 GB of data, while a Blu-Ray represents 25-50 GB of data. Given the advances in computer technology over the past decade, it really shouldn't cost any more to prodce a Blu-Ray than it does to produce a DVD. Most films got an HD transfer years ago anyway, and so it's just a matter of pressing some discs.

 

[Persianimmortal]

I'm not arguing that DVDs look fantastic when upconverted, but neither do most DVDs look like "garbage". They're entirely watchable if you're interested in seeing the movie. Of course most of us here prefer Blu-rays because of the obvious quality improvements, but exaggeration about DVD quality gets us nowhere.


I'm not going to get into a long debate about what you consider the inferiority of most Region B transfers, as it is clearly based on a few isolated examples. Suffice it to say that I have a Region-Free player, so I can purchase from any region, and I import all of my BDs from Amazon US or UK. I still find myself buying Region B transfers quite often. You're basically trying to suggest that you can't possibly consider buying Region B transfers where a Region A one doesn't exist because of this alleged inferior quality, and I think we both know that's an excuse. In any case the studios don't care; they won't listen to your pleas, exaggerated or otherwise, they will follow the market. If catalog titles sell better in Europe, that's where they will get released.


As for the rest of your arguments, it all boils down to this: If it was as easy and profitable for studios to release HD catalog transfers on Blu-ray as you suggest, they'd do it themselves rather than license out. If they could make greater profits by licensing to the cheaper providers like Mill Creek rather than the more expensive providers like Twilight Time, Criterion or Arrow, then again, they would. And again, you're using exaggeration to try to make a point. How many quality transfers has Mill Creek released versus Twilight Time?

 

[BRAD1963]

 

[Robin9]

What happened to Persianimmortal? Why doesn't he post any more? He always had something interesting to say.

 

[Konstantinos]

No Mercy (1986) (pretty please....)
The Last Emperor (1987) (new 4k restoration that is only available as a 3d bluray till now)

 

[disctrip]

Fort Ti in 3-d please.

 

[Randy Korstick]

The Long Ships
Anzio
The Heroes of Telemark

 

[aPhil]

Return of the Vampire (1943)
restored

 

[Bernard McNair]

I would love to purchase:
The Long Ships
Lord Jim
McKenna's Gold
The Victors (complete)
among many others

 

[topanga]

Come on Twilight Time, I'm still waiting for:

 

[Steve...O]

I've asked before but since Brad posted the poster above: The Last Hurrah. Great John Ford film with a terrific cast.

 

[TheSteig]

Anything Karloff , but Mill Creek has them I believe.. but TT can get blu ray rights if they wanted, but then we'd need to wait for Sony to make HD masters for them unless they have done some

 

[john a hunter]

Barabbas, Barabbas, and Barabbas!!

 

[Paul Rossen]

Barabbas, Barabbas, and Barabbas!!

Barabbas Roadshow version in 5.1 sound.

 

[RolandL]

 

[BRAD1963]

 

[Brad Fackler]

I am also very anxious for Hal Ashby's SHAMPOO. One of Ashby and Warren Beatty's best.