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Universal re-releasing some of the DVD's previously released on DVD-18s? (1 Viewer)

jimdc58

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It appears that Universal is finally going back and re-releasing some of their DVD-18 releases on single sided DVD's. I've found that you can now get the Ma and Pa Kettle movies and the Francis the Talking Mule movies in the higher quality format. Are there any of their other sets for which they are correcting this long standing error? I'd especially like to see the Carole Lombard and Deanna Durbin sets re-released.
 

borisfw

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I know the Ma and Pa Kettle were released on single sided dvd . But I hadn't heard that Francis had been released on single sided .
 

mdnitoil

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Technically, the Abbott and Costello's were fixed when the giant box was released.
 

JoeDoakes

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jimdc58 said:
It appears that Universal is finally going back and re-releasing some of their DVD-18 releases on single sided DVD's. I've found that you can now get the Ma and Pa Kettle movies and the Francis the Talking Mule movies in the higher quality format. Are there any of their other sets for which they are correcting this long standing error? I'd especially like to see the Carole Lombard and Deanna Durbin sets re-released.
I think they released the first Francis film as part of their aniversary, did they also revisit the others?
 

jimdc58

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JoeDoakes said:
I think they released the first Francis film as part of their aniversary, did they also revisit the others?
According to Amazon.com the newer Francis release of the first volume is two discs. I saw it at WalMart, and you can tell from the new packaging that it is two rather than one disc. WalMart also has both Volume 1 of Ma and Pa Kettle in two discs, as well as the complete series (which is all single sided discs).
 

jimdc58

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mdnitoil said:
Technically, the Abbott and Costello's were fixed when the giant box was released.
I know that the complete A&C box set is one sided, but I'm not sure about the smaller sets. I see the first volume in new packaging at WalMart, but I don't know if it is the two sided or one sided discs.
 

borisfw

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jimdc58 said:
According to Amazon.com the newer Francis release of the first volume is two discs. I saw it at WalMart, and you can tell from the new packaging that it is two rather than one disc. WalMart also has both Volume 1 of Ma and Pa Kettle in two discs, as well as the complete series (which is all single sided discs).
I just checked Amazon and the Francis set is listed with only one disc . None of the recent reviews that I read gave the number of discs in the set. I will check Walmart and see if that set is 1 or 2 discs . I would upgrade if they redid the movies on single sided discs .
 

borisfw

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I just rechecked Amazon . You are right . A newer version does list the set as 2 discs .
 

Nebiroth

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Not much chance of this happening with the Legacy sets, because most of the films in those were originally on single discs. I had all of them, and kept them because of the crappiness of the DVD-18's in the Legacy versions. A shame because the Legacy sets were nicely packaged, took up less room, made a nice collection, and AFAIk at least some of the films were better looking versions - and of course, it was the only way to get the Creature and Invisible Man sequels, and House of Dracula. WHich is why I own the Creature and Invisible Man sets - the Creature discs are single siders, thankfuly. I bought the r2 disc of House of Dracula, which is paired with Dracula on it;s own. I really pity anyone who had the original single siders and then "upgraded" to the Legacy ones and didn't keep their first lot! Also dodged the Kolchak set by buying the UK edition, which is on single sided discs. Luckily I'm not interested in the many other sets afflicted, like Columbo or the Hitchcock ones, to name but two.
 

borisfw

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For those interested . I picked up the Francis set at Walmart . Four films on 2 one sided discs . Not sure why they didn't add a disc with the last couple of movies on it .
 

jimdc58

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borisfw said:
For those interested . I picked up the Francis set at Walmart . Four films on 2 one sided discs . Not sure why they didn't add a disc with the last couple of movies on it .
I doubt the remaining films will ever be released, unless they are released as DVD-R made on demand. Seems the studios have pretty much all (even Disney) quit issuing any classic movies on manufactured DVD's, except to reissue movies they've released before.
 

JSul

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Mad Ghoul Jungle Woman Mad Doctor of Market Street The Spider Woman Strikes Back The Phantom Creeps....an original Universal print, not the Commonwealth versions...so far VCI has the best one, but would like Universal to provide one....if not, Image or Criterion.
 

JoHud

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I have the new 10-film "Classic Westerns" set from universal and can confirm that these too are single-sided DVD9s. Three previously MOD-only films are included: Tomahawk, Comanche Territory, and Texas Rangers Ride Again.
 

jimdc58

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Has anyone here ever had an issue with DVD-18 discs, after playing them once and seeing that they work okay, then starting to freeze or skip during later viewiings? In other words, do they go bad, or is it just a matter of there are so many defective ones manufactured, and if you get a good one, you're okay?
 

Nebiroth

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I'm fairly sure that the Invisible Man Legacy set I had was OK when I bought it - as routine I use a PC based disc checker that reads every sector on a DVD and checksums it to make sure it's OK when these discs are involved. But I got the same set out after reading this thread and found that both sides of the sequels disc had errors on them. In fact at least one side was previously good because my PC still had the scan log from the previous time and wanted to know whether I really wanted to scan it all over again. However, this said, I found I was able to correctly read off the full content of both sides without any errors by leaving the disc in an unheated room all night. As soon as the disc had been in the drive for a while and warmed through, I started getting the read errors again. I only have a very few of these discs as I avoided them whenever possible. The Hammer Collection two disc set was screwed up on the day of purchase - bad sectors at the layer change point on both sides of both discs, rendering the second movie unplayable in all instances. The "cold disc" approach did not work for these, so the Invisible Man set may simply have been always borderline. I think the logical conclusion is that these discs can be assumed to be entirely untrustworthy. That's why so many people back them up. With the Hammer set I'm tempted to try the old trick of putting them into a freezer overnight and then thawing them over several days. I'm sure the concept of allowing the crystalline structure of the plastics to relax is just an urban myth but there's nothing lost since the discs are bad anyway, and I long ago bought, mostly from Germany, single disc versions of most of the films on there anyway
 

JSul

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I bought the Legacy series on Dracula, Wolf Man, Frankenstein, Mummy, and Invisible Man. I read about the possibility of defective discs...all made in Mexico....so watched closely for the "made in Mexico" info on each package, and tried to avoid them. The Wolf Man set was one that I had to buy w/made in Mexico discs and sure enough, had to replace the disc w/Werewolf in London, as it had two areas of skip/freeze up on it.....only replacement disc was made in Mexico too, but so far, no further problems. Bought the recent bluray of Univ Monsters, and am very pleased with it.
 

JoeDoakes

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JSul said:
Mad Ghoul Jungle Woman Mad Doctor of Market Street The Spider Woman Strikes Back The Phantom Creeps....an original Universal print, not the Commonwealth versions...so far VCI has the best one, but would like Universal to provide one....if not, Image or Criterion.
To what exactly are you responding?
 

JSul

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My mistake. This post was in response to titles hoping to be released on dvd on another thread. Sorry.
 

jimdc58

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Nebiroth said:
I'm fairly sure that the Invisible Man Legacy set I had was OK when I bought it - as routine I use a PC based disc checker that reads every sector on a DVD and checksums it to make sure it's OK when these discs are involved. But I got the same set out after reading this thread and found that both sides of the sequels disc had errors on them. In fact at least one side was previously good because my PC still had the scan log from the previous time and wanted to know whether I really wanted to scan it all over again. However, this said, I found I was able to correctly read off the full content of both sides without any errors by leaving the disc in an unheated room all night. As soon as the disc had been in the drive for a while and warmed through, I started getting the read errors again. I only have a very few of these discs as I avoided them whenever possible. The Hammer Collection two disc set was screwed up on the day of purchase - bad sectors at the layer change point on both sides of both discs, rendering the second movie unplayable in all instances. The "cold disc" approach did not work for these, so the Invisible Man set may simply have been always borderline. I think the logical conclusion is that these discs can be assumed to be entirely untrustworthy. That's why so many people back them up. With the Hammer set I'm tempted to try the old trick of putting them into a freezer overnight and then thawing them over several days. I'm sure the concept of allowing the crystalline structure of the plastics to relax is just an urban myth but there's nothing lost since the discs are bad anyway, and I long ago bought, mostly from Germany, single disc versions of most of the films on there anyway
Thanks. Just trying to decide whether to buy all of the single-sided versions in my collection as they come out, or whether it's an awful lot of money unnecessarily spent. I'd still like some other people's input as to whether they have seen these discs "go bad" after no issues on the first play. I also hate to give Universal yet more of my money. Seems they should be replacing the DVD-18's free of charge.
 

Darby67

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As much as it is a long shot, I would love to see Universal re-release all of the Monsters Legacy sets and the Kolchak: The Night Stalker complete series on single-sided discs. Darby
 

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