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*** Official Warner Archive DVD Review Thread (1 Viewer)

Ernest

Supporting Actor
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Dec 21, 1998
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I purchased Betrayed, Bhowani Junction and 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse which are all MGM titles. That would be great if the MGM titles are included in the WB Archives. Now if we can get Fox to start a similar service titles like the Egyptian, Esther and the King, King of the Kyber Rifles and Seven Cities of Gold would become available.

The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin, Lee J Cobb) and Bhowani Junction (Ava Gardner & Stewart Granger) were shot in widescreen 2:40 x 1 and are released in anamorphic widescreen 16 x 9. The audio is 2 channel stereo. I just viewed a small portion of each DVD and the video I saw was excellent.

Betrayed (Clark Gable, Lana Turner and Victor Mature) was shot in 1:33 x 1 and is presented in Full Screen with the audio in mono. Again I only viewed a small portion of the DVD and the video was excellent.

This service is great and hopefully the next group released will include the Naked and the Dead, Dark of the Sun and PT 109.

The DVD's were shipped via UPS and I received them 3 days after ordering.
 

Simon Howson

Screenwriter
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Feb 19, 2004
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If you have a DVD drive, can you check if these two are dual layer discs (over 4.7 GB)? 4 Horseman is over 2.5 hours long, so it should really be on a dual layer disc. If it was on a single layer that would be just 4.2 Mbps, which I think is too low (It seems that recently Warner usually aim for about 6 Mbps.)

I suspect that both of these films were prepared for regular DVD releases, I am sure Bohwani Junction was part of DVD Decision 2006, and I can recall Warner talking about the likelihood of releasing more Minnelli films during a chat.

I would love if Fox did something like this too so we could get access to rarer CinemaScope films like Blue Denim, On the Threshold of Space, The Way to the Gold, and even a new transfer of Beneath the 12 Mile Reef would be great.
 

CineKarine

Supporting Actor
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Karine Philippot

Great idea to have a thread to discuss the received DVDs. Thank you for sharing with us!
htf_images_smilies_smile.gif
 

Sergio A

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May 11, 2003
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128
4 HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE has already been released by WHV as a 'traditional' retail DVD as a region 2 in France and the review by Gary at DVD Beaver says it was dual-layered disc - but this is no guarantee that the 'on-demand' version in dual-layered as well of course.

Feedback on all these releases is really welcome, thanks very much to all.

Sergio
 

Bob Furmanek

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BETRAYED was protected for Academy, but was composed and intended for widescreen presentation.
 

Chuck Pennington

Screenwriter
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May 11, 2001
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1,048

Save for the substandard printing, yes. Even the face of the disc itself looks quite nice. It could be mistaken for a very, very good bootleg, as far as the disc and packaging goes. Do the actual movies look like regular DVDs? Well, that's up for debate on a per title basis....
 

Jay E

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May 30, 2000
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2,483
Thanks for the reviews Chuck!

The Baby Maker is one of the films I was interested in buying (at a later date due to money restrictions). Barbara Hershey looks lovely in your screenshots
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Chuck Pennington

Screenwriter
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I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though a print was used for the transfer, one with variable color and contrast at that. It has the look of still photos from that era, though without the extreme fading. I had hoped a trailer would be included and that it would be a progressive transfer, but still - don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, or whatever that expression is - lol.
 

Jay E

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Yes, it is for the more obscure films like this, where I really see the enormous benefits of this service. These are films that I never thought I would ever see or see again, and now I will have the ability to actually own them...it is a tremendous boom for us film fanatics!!!

I just wish their pricing would come down some...but we will see.

Thanks again for your detailed review. I look forward to any others you might be posting.
 

Robert Crawford

Crawdaddy
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Any member that wants to post their review comments regarding the PQ of any Warner Archive DVD release is welcome to do so in this thread.






Crawdaddy
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2003
Messages
27
I sincerely hope that they release the next batch of titles with progressively enhanced transfers. It does make a difference and - as Warner really wants to give us the best quality available when it comes to this Archive Collection -I hope they might at least consider it.
 

Chuck Pennington

Screenwriter
Joined
May 11, 2001
Messages
1,048

Much better than recording them off of television, for sure. And even if there were recorded from TV they wouldn't be in anamorphic widescreen and would probably have logos in the corner or something.

Bottom line: The titles I got are better than the alternatives by a large margin (the alternatives being VHS releases from decades ago or a TV broadcast) - but still not up to the most basic standard studio releases.
 

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