A Few Words About A few words about...™ Warner Bros. Home Video & The WB Archive Collection -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[atfree]

Personally, I love coming here and reading these forums and I love the contributions of all of the "industry insiders" that drop hints, tips, or announcements, and I find it pretty wonderful that they take time to answer questions. One of the downsides of reading along here though can be the amount of negativity expressed over what has not been released, or complaints about what has been released, or just the outright bashing of releases that people feel "could have been better."

Yes, I know this is a discussion forum and people should and are welcome to express their opinions but with the amount of nitpicking that seems to precede and follow just about any and every release is it any wonder that Warner would take their time and try to put out the best product they can? I mean why rush to get stuff out when if they do a lot of people will complain how horrible the release is and that they should have done this or that? I mean every little thing can become an epic negative that some people will complain about to their graves it seems.

I know that as consumers the general cry is we want everything now, it all has to be awesome, and we want it cheap...or we have the right to complain forever. However it seems not much consideration is given to how these really are not really fair expectations nor would it lead to a particularly heathy marketplace for the product.

Often it seems being a company or individual that works to bring us our blu-rays is a pretty thankless and tough job. You have to be willing to endure a lot...and I mean a lot...of criticism, bashing, and dissatisfaction with what you have done and be willing to accept it in a humble manner while asking "Please, sir, may I have some more?" while lining up for your next beating. It seems every release is accompanied by a chorus of "But why isn't this perfect and why can't you sell it to me for less?"

I wonder how a lot of these people that complain would feel if everyday when they did their job the entire population surfing the internet was permitted to watch them and critique them and constantly kept asking "Why can't you do your job faster and for less money, and why isn't everything you do perfect?"

After a short period of time I bet a lot of people would just want to quit doing their job and all of them would just wish all the people asking these questions would go away.

Now I'm not saying that everybody that is questioning something and complaining about certain releases is wrong or should not do so but I can say in my history with blu-ray only one release really burned me and I did not purchase it. This was the recent release of The Big Red One on blu-ray and the failure of forethought to actually (prepare for HD and) include the better and much ballyhooed (including Martin Scorsese) longer version that better represented Sam Fuller's vision. That was I think one of the most bizarre mistakes I think I have seen made so far with regards to blu-ray releases by a major studio and one that I would guess at some point will be addressed. I mean why go to all the work and trouble of assembling the longer cut only to ignore it when it came time to present it in high def? So I am in agreement that sometimes things can go horribly awry but it seems there are people that feel that way about every release.

Honestly I am fine with people expressing their opinion but I think once and a while before issuing a complaint we should step back and think about how good the blu-ray format has been to us and consider that while a release may not be perfect it may very well be the best version of the film we (or maybe just I because maybe I'm alone in this) have ever seen.

I am in total agreement with you. I have rarely complained about the quality of a BD release (The Great Escape was probably my biggest disappointment along with The Big Red One). I am rarely unhappy to receive a BD release; more often just frustrated that they (catalog titles) don't come out faster.

Now, I will say we are EIGHT years into the BD format so I do think there has been some foot-dragging on the part of all the studios in releasing catalog product. It's been a little like the chicken and the egg.....studios complain that catalog titles don't sell, we say release more so we can buy them. Hopefully, this Warner's thing will turn out to be what we've been waiting for.

 

[Will Krupp]

I wonder how a lot of these people that complain would feel if everyday when they did their job the entire population surfing the internet was permitted to watch them and critique them and constantly kept asking "Why can't you do your job faster and for less money, and why isn't everything you do perfect?"

Are all the people who are complaining directly giving me money to do what I do? To my mind that would make a difference.

I GET that sometimes the perceived nitpicking seems overwhelming (and sometimes it probably is) but I'm sure the studios have thick enough skins at this point not to have their feelings hurt when person A or person B on the internet may complain about a release. Some of us may complain but, with few exceptions, we're still laying out our cash so the trade off has be large enough that they stay in the business.

I don't think anybody is wrong for complaining about something they see as being less than it could be. It may not be MY complaint but different things are important to different people and if we didn't have complainers, we also wouldn't have as high a barre for quality as we do.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Now, I will say we are EIGHT years into the BD format so I do think there has been some foot-dragging on the part of all the studios in releasing catalog product. It's been a little like the chicken and the egg.....studios complain that catalog titles don't sell, we say release more so we can buy them. Hopefully, this Warner's thing will turn out to be what we've been waiting for.

Sure, Alex, I know what you mean. It's hard to wait and we all have our wish lists and mine is about a mile long with catalog films. Mainly most new films do not interest me I'm sad to say. I look forward more to catalog titles on blu-ray than I do to new films. I mean I'm very lucky if there are a dozen new releases a year that interest me. In most cases there are probably no more than 5 new films a year that excite me.

I think our wish lists are fun though and when a film from my list actually hits store shelves it is a big event. As a recent example when Point Blank appeared on blu-ray I swear as I was walking into the store to purchase it the theme from Chariots of Fire was playing and everything was moving in slow motion.

 

[Alan Tully]

I suppose if you're going way back to the b/w movies of the 30's & 40's, will most of 'em really look that much better than the DVD? I suppose if you're projecting big, maybe you'd would notice a big difference. Most of my picks are from the 50's & 60's...& of course I have to mention, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

 

[Jason_V]

Now, I will say we are EIGHT years into the BD format so I do think there has been some foot-dragging on the part of all the studios in releasing catalog product. It's been a little like the chicken and the egg.....studios complain that catalog titles don't sell, we say release more so we can buy them. Hopefully, this Warner's thing will turn out to be what we've been waiting for.

And guess what? No matter what any of the studios do...no one is happy. Title A is not out, Title B has no extras, Title C is only distributed through Twilight Time, Title D doesn't look good enough...seriously, I wouldn't want to work in the home video division at any studio at this point.

Paramount gives Warner some of their titles to release...someone here thinks it's a terrible idea. Warner repacks Wizard of Oz (yes...again) to make a bit more coin...someone here isn't happy. Sony provides titles to Twilight Time...and the 3k limited run irks people. I mean, seriously. It's as much our fault as it is their fault.

I picked up some chocolate rice cakes on clearance this past week at the grocery store. Apparently, no one was buying them so they went on deep sale. Would it be logical for me to expect the store to carry more considering what they had was not selling? Of course not. Same thing here. If you want catalogue titles, you have to buy them before they go on clearance/sale. Otherwise, the store and studio see no incentive to produce/stock these kinds of titles.

 

[Robert Crawford]

And guess what? No matter what any of the studios do...no one is happy. Title A is not out, Title B has no extras, Title C is only distributed through Twilight Time, Title D doesn't look good enough...seriously, I wouldn't want to work in the home video division at any studio at this point.

Paramount gives Warner some of their titles to release...someone here thinks it's a terrible idea. Warner repacks Wizard of Oz (yes...again) to make a bit more coin...someone here isn't happy. Sony provides titles to Twilight Time...and the 3k limited run irks people. I mean, seriously. It's as much our fault as it is their fault.

I picked up some chocolate rice cakes on clearance this past week at the grocery store. Apparently, no one was buying them so they went on deep sale. Would it be logical for me to expect the store to carry more considering what they had was not selling? Of course not. Same thing here. If you want catalogue titles, you have to buy them before they go on clearance/sale. Otherwise, the store and studio see no incentive to produce/stock these kinds of titles.

It's an impossible task to make everyone happy. It can't be done! The consumer base is just too diverse with varying degrees of expectations.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Are all the people who are complaining directly giving me money to do what I do? To my mind that would make a difference.

Ok, well we could say what if your boss or end users of your product or service told you every time you did something "Will, this is ok but it could have been better. I don't know why you did not do this perfectly and I really think you should be making less money for doing this."

The idea is the same. Yes, I think we should hope for quality and I think it is fine to say "Well, why couldn't you have tried this or done that?" but when the reality is they did not do this or that because it would have cost more money, which would cause them to ask more for the product, which would decrease sales because people don't want to pay more for their blu-rays...well...realistically sometimes releases are probably less than perfect because they are attempting to deliver something that will in fact turn a profit. More money spent means more money charged. I would have paid more money for a release of The Big Red One had both versions been included in HD. I also would have waited (and really am waiting because I did not purchase the current blu-ray) until such a release appears.

I do think a forum like this is good for letting the companies know what we think of their releases. However, I think it would be more productive if we explained what issues we had and how this affects our buying decisions. Sometimes complaints stray into the ridiculous and a lot of them read like ranting. I'm a big believer in letting people say what they want to say but you have to admit the internet does leave a lot of room for the rude and nasty.

One of the big things to me about all this is with a release like The Big Red One I am torn because I don't know if it is better to buy to show support for the catalog release or not buy to show a lack of support because it is radically flawed product. If the current release sells poorly because there are a lot of people that feel the way I do does that backburner The Big Red One extended version ever finding its way to a shiny little blu-ray disc? I have some faith that there are some rather influential voices out there that may complain about this title and how it was handled which will lead to correcting the oversight.

In this situation I feel glad we have a forum like this where "industry" people visit that hopefully read our thoughts but who wants to read something that is an extended rant? In some threads here I have seen people just flat out attack people over an issue they had with a blu-ray...I mean really that does not have to happen. Certain threads here about certain companies always seem to explode into battles over how these companies present their releases and/or what they charge. I do think the "What have you done for me lately, Warner Brothers?" threads are a little much considering Warner is at the forefront when it comes to making titles available in creative ways. Sure, we'd all like everything on blu-ray yesterday but they at least created the archive for people that can't wait to see a title.

I'm not saying don't complain or don't point out something that you think could have been done better but I do think a lot of these complaints could be better expressed.

 

[Jason_V]

Agreed, Robert. Without a doubt. The people who aren't happy are louder than the ones who are happy (as with anything) and that's all the studio hears. The negative.

 

[trajan]

Mr Harris---Did Warner say anything about releasing more Paramount titles?

 

[RolandL]

Kiss Me Kate in 3D, please!

+1

 

[atfree]

I suppose if you're going way back to the b/w movies of the 30's & 40's, will most of 'em really look that much better than the DVD? I suppose if you're projecting big, maybe you'd would notice a big difference. Most of my picks are from the 50's & 60's...& of course I have to mention, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

I'd say so depending on the work that is done. Look at The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Laura, Stagecoach, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), etc. I believe they all were tremendously better than what I saw on DVD (and my display is a 46" Panny Plasma). And I've seen many newer films look worse than their DVD counterpart (The Big Red One being a prime example). B/W films can be absolutely stunning on BD if they're done right.

 

[atfree]

Sure, Alex, I know what you mean. It's hard to wait and we all have our wish lists and mine is about a mile long with catalog films. Mainly most new films do not interest me I'm sad to say. I look forward more to catalog titles on blu-ray than I do to new films. I mean I'm very lucky if there are a dozen new releases a year that interest me. In most cases there are probably no more than 5 new films a year that excite me.

I think our wish lists are fun though and when a film from my list actually hits store shelves it is a big event. As a recent example when Point Blank appeared on blu-ray I swear as I was walking into the store to purchase it the theme from Chariots of Fire was playing and everything was moving in slow motion.

Your statement "the best version of the film we (or maybe just I because maybe I'm alone in this) have ever seen" sums up my attitude as well. I consider myself a fan of the film, not the disc. I don't spend my time viewing a disc looking for edge enhancement, excessive DNR, haloing, etc. My wife will tell you when I'm watching a BD I am totally immersed in the film. Now, when I see something that just sticks out (Spartacus, The Big Red One), etc, I notice it but I'm not running my magnifying glass over the screen like Sherlock Holmes so I can post a "Gotcha" on a forum. And I read a LOT of those. I just want the films, in the best possible condition (realistically).

I do feel there's a feeling of desperation in many of us BD fans.......streaming seems to be the direction home video is going towards, "leasing" copies of films vs. owning them is where the studios apparently want us to go......so we feel that if our favorite film(s) aren't released on BD soon, they never will be. Now, that may or may not be the reality, but I do believe it's a perception among many of us. I certainly feel that way.

I only started collecting media about 4 years ago and now have over 400 BD's and I only collect films that I love. I never "collected" DVD's because I thought there would always be a "bigger and better" home media format just around the corner. I had a few of my faves (Where Eagles Dare, The Guns of Navarone, Ben-Hur, LOA, the Bond films, Disney for my kids) on DVD but not a "collection" by any means and I upgraded those to BD as soon as they became available.

I've now come to believe that BD is the last mass-market physical format we'll see. Oh, 4k might be a niche market for some but it will have even less market than BD does and correspondlingly fewer older titles will ever be released in 4k physically. So, just recently I've started collecting DVD's of many of my favorite catalog titles that I feel (rightly or wrongly) will never see the light of day on BD. I just ordered George Washington Slept Here, The Gazebo, Above Suspicion, The Horn Blows at Midnight, Operation Crossbow, The Heroes of Telemark, The Shop Around the Corner, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo because I've come to doubt that they will ever see a BD release. Better to have them in the best possible version than not at all. And in my hands, not in the cloud.

 

[SWFF]

DRAGONSLAYER (1981), Paramount, this is LONG overdue for a blu-ray release.

 

[Will Krupp]

Ok, well we could say what if your boss or end users of your product or service told you every time you did something "Will, this is ok but it could have been better. I don't know why you did not do this perfectly and I really think you should be making less money for doing this."

Well I would probably either learn to do my job flawlessly or leave

All kidding aside, I get what you're saying but, as much as you are tired of hearing people complain about releases, my back goes up because I am also tired of this relatively recent trend of people complaining about the membership here. It seems to be happening more and more in threads as though people are somehow morally inferior for not taking everything and anything that's handed to them. There are members here that drive me right up a wall (and vice versa) but I get very defensive of them when it's suggested they should just shut up and eat their ice cream (which, of course, is NOT what you said at all I'm lumping the general tone of the trend into one.)

We here at HTF are a crazy bunch of lunatics to the last and we are maddening and wonderful and awful and sophisticated and childish and kind and rude and often we are all of these things at the exact same time (myself included) but we are all joined here by the same passion. Basically we are all good people (with one or two exceptions but don't get me started

 

[Eastmancolor]

Problem is the cost to get these films up to Blu-ray quality. Scanning is easy. The rest can be extremely difficult and expensive, as to do thing properly, it's a return to the nitrate on the earlier titles.

Budgets can easily top 80k per b/w title just to get it prepared, on top of compression, authoring, and the costs of VAM.

All of this adds up, and we've not discussed the exigencies of color.

RAH

I personally don't need every scratch, ding and piece of dirt digitally painted out of the image, so if it will speed things up to release Blu-rays without a ton of digital cleanup, I'm all for it.

There are many titles on the Warner Archive Instant site that are in HD but haven't gone through frame by frame restoration, so HD masters do exist that haven't been digitally scrubbed. While it's nice to have super-clean images, I'll gladly take titles that are "rough around the edges" if that will expedite things.

That should keep costs down a bit and move things along a little quicker.

 

[Alan Tully]

This just goes to show what an awkward bunch we are. I disagree with Jim. I don't think enough clean-up is done. I think the worse studio is MGM (United Artists), maybe followed by Universal. After a working lifetime of checking for sparkle (as we used to call it in the film lab), I really do notice it, & it really does show up in HD. There's a review of The Train online that says there's fine sparkle in nearly every shot, that would drive me made. A good de-spot session should be part of every HD transfer.

 

[Jari K]

"I personally don't need every scratch, ding and piece of dirt digitally painted out of the image, so if it will speed things up to release Blu-rays without a ton of digital cleanup, I'm all for it. "I assume that the studios want to do it "right" for the first time (well, or the 2nd, or the 3rd.. Anyway!). I don't believe that you can really "speed things up" when it comes to film restoration. It's slow, complicated work.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

Just a hope and prayer that they remember the older classic fans and those that enjoy the historical epics. Even if it's only a very few, could we hope for the likes of HELEN OF TROY, LAND OF THE PHARAOHS, THE SILVER CHALICE, SCARAMOUCHE, AUNTIE MAME, IVANHOE and the '53 JULIUS CAESAR. Among the wonderful Paramount titles they have, could one dream of THE ROSE TATTOO, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, THE NAKED JUNGLE, LADY IN A CAGE and GOODBYE LITTLE SHEBA as blu-rays? As for fans complaining about BD releases, for me there is one and only one that really is truly upsetting, Universal's SPARTACUS. Keep 'em coming WB!

 

[Rob_Ray]

"I personally don't need every scratch, ding and piece of dirt digitally painted out of the image, so if it will speed things up to release Blu-rays without a ton of digital cleanup, I'm all for it. "I assume that the studios want to do it "right" for the first time (well, or the 2nd, or the 3rd.. Anyway!). I don't believe that you can really "speed things up" when it comes to film restoration. It's slow, complicated work.

Film restoration is something else entirely. There's film restoration, the work that Mr. Harris and others do, and there's creating high definition transfers for bluray. One is by necessity, slow and complicated. The other is as slow and complicated as your budget allows. Not every title needs to look like LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Using the results of a film restoration for a bluray transfer is wonderful, but I'd love to see many more films come to bluray from the best available existing print materials, as is, looking as fresh as a 35mm theatrical print would look, no more no less. As a case in point, I'm very happy with most Olive releases and look forward to what's coming from Kino.

 

[Will Krupp]

I'm not even worried that THE BAND WAGON won't be in the lineup. I'd be willing to bet money it is and it makes me VERY happy!