Comparisons between the recent James Bond set and the previous releases... (1 Viewer)

[Tom Brennan]

I completed my Bond DVD collection last year, so I had no interest in the new Box set released by MGM. I was however curious; as many others were to see if there were any changes. First and foremost I wanted to see if the audio sync problem was fixed on "Licence To Kill".

After reading previous threads, I found out that "Licence To Kill" was fixed (however no word on whether MGM will offer replacements for those of us who have the original disc).

I still wanted to see for myself just how these new discs looked as compared to their older counterparts. My friend brought over his new set that he got for Christmas and I had a chance to do some A/B comparisons.

First off, I did not notice any difference in picture quality on any of the discs. Although, my comparisons were brief. However, there are considerable differences between the discs themselves.

The older discs have a gold-ish tint to them, where as the newer discs have more of a silver tint to them. I thought that silver looking discs meant that the disc was single layered and that gold discs meant that it was dual layered. I am not that educated on the subject, so I could be wrong. Regardless, I did notice the layer changes in the usual spots on two of the new discs. Just thought I would mention the slight color difference.

On the inner ring of the older discs, it reads “wamo”, which I assume is the name of the plant that made them. One the new disc, there is no “wamo” name. There is simply a series of numbers “F1M1S2”, “IFPI LP88 020515007 L1” and “908129.SE.2.B.MGM.1.U.E”. I have no idea what they mean, but obviously they were made by a different place.

Also, the disc art on all the discs are bolder and slightly darker in color then my originals. In fact, the fine print on the bottom of the discs are almost too bold and dark to read. They almost appear blurred. My originals have the text very light and easy to read. This is extremely minor, and probably due the use of a different manufacturer, but I figured I would mention it anyway.

So, has anyone noticed any other major differences? I wonder what changes, if any they will make to future sets.

 

[David Lambert]

Tom, for more than a year now there's a process available - WAMO is the manufacturer that uses it the most - that produces silver-colored dual-layer discs. Just FYI.

The first disc I saw this used on was Charlie's Angels. Seeing two sets of ID #'s on the hub ring - an outer circle of numbers, and a usually-fainter inner circle of numbers - is the quickest "eyeball" way of spotting these. The sure way of knowing what you've got is to use a PC DVD-ROM drive.

 

[Matt DeVillier]

FYI, WAMO = Warner Advanced Media Operations

 

[Tom Brennan]

Interesting...thanks for the info guys.

Matt, was there a problem with WAMO a while back where people thought the discs they were producing would eventually lead to DVD rot? I think the Matrix was the title that came up in that discussion.

 

[David Lambert]

Tom, that "DVD rot" thing was on titles mostly produced in 1997-early '98, and the most-talked-about one was Contact, not Matrix. In fact, I've never heard of Martrix brought up in a DVD rot conversation (Matrix's problems were *compatibility*, due to all the new hi-tech supplements it had, like the "follow the white rabbit" thing - many players didn't follow DVD forum design specs, and so couldn't handle it without a firmware upgrade).
On the other hand, my copy of Contact still works great!
The whole thing was due to a long-since-fixed issue where the glue that held the data layer to the backing apparently had a weak mixture up for a long time (probably to try to save money) and that glue would break down and the DVD would separate. Noone's had to worry about that for a looooong time (unless you grab a cheap old disc in a bargain bin and it happens to be from one of those runs...but I image that the glue would have broken down by now, and the disc will be defective right out of the package!).

 

[Tom Brennan]

Thanks for the info David...I wonder where I got the Matrix idea from...

Glad to hear its a thing of the past...I have a ton of Laserdiscs from the 80's that suffer from major Laser Rot.

For some reason I just had the idea in my head that there was something wrong with WAMO.

 

[David Lambert]

You're welcome. BTW, "Laser Rot" is definately not the same thing as "DVD Rot".

Also note that I hate that term "DVD Rot", because it's not a general condition across all DVDs from all companies like Laser Rot is...it is a specific short-term (albeit months-long, the timeframe is a drop in the bucket of the long-term life of the DVD format, and early on in its timeframe to boot) issue from just one single manufacturer.