Fox Catalog DVD's (From New Label - Twilight Time) (1 Viewer)

[Jon Hertzberg]

The reason they're selling Sony's is because the Fox titles aren't selling as well as expected and Screen Archives is a relatively unknown company as far as DVD goes. Most people who know them is due to their soundtrack CDs. If they let Deep Discount and other companies sell them, most titles limited to 3000 would sell better or sell out.

I believe the reason why they are not also selling these discs through other vendors such as DD or Amazon is because they would have to share a significant chunk of sales with those "middle men." Bruce Kimmel, who sometimes posts here can speak to this with much more authority than I can. Also, Screen Archives has years of experience dealing with limited edition niche items such as the soundtracks produced by Film Score Monthly.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by Roger Cee /t/306804/fox-catalog-dvds-from-new-label-twilight-time/390#post_3875610
The reason they're selling Sony's is because the Fox titles aren't selling as well as expected and Screen Archives is a relatively unknown company as far as DVD goes. Most people who know them is due to their soundtrack CDs. If they let Deep Discount and other companies sell them, most titles limited to 3000 would sell better or sell out.

I'm not sure that is correct. I think that Sony and Twilight Time got together because they have been successful with the niche product from Fox. Sony could have just expanded their Image Entertainment deal to include the TT titles but they didn't. Twilight Time is not about trying to sell to the mass audience but to the small number of collectors there are. Most collectors of soundtracks are also collectors of movies it was and is a perfect fit for SAE and Twilight Time. Any collector of movies has been watching TT for the past nine months and either bit at the titles wanted or not.

If anything is preventing larger sales of the Blu-ray titles it is the price point and not the need of a separate web site or including them on other sites. But I have resigned myself to the fact that the price is what it is and if I want the film, I will have to pay that price.

 

[Roger Cee]

So why can't TT put out 2 or more Fox titles per month, instead of making us wait forever at only 1 per month? They've released no more than 10 of the 100 they have access to, and like I said, certain titles could take 8 years at this rate, making waiting for them ridiculous when many of them could be had Region 2 from small companies in Europe where interest in them is a lot less than here at home.

 

[Bob Cashill]

Maybe they'll ramp up; it's only been a year. Or what's left of the never-big catalog market will collapse into streaming...

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by Roger Cee /t/306804/fox-catalog-dvds-from-new-label-twilight-time/390#post_3875672
So why can't TT put out 2 or more Fox titles per month, instead of making us wait forever at only 1 per month? They've released no more than 10 of the 100 they have access to, and like I said, certain titles could take 8 years at this rate, making waiting for them ridiculous when many of them could be had Region 2 from small companies in Europe where interest in them is a lot less than here at home.

They said this past August that they were going to start releasing more titles per month this coming year. Not sure if it was a comment on their FaceBook page or a comment they made here in the Forum. They said the reason was because of the steady sales. But again, time will tell.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by Roger Cee /t/306804/fox-catalog-dvds-from-new-label-twilight-time/390#post_3875561
I was real excited about Twilight Time when they first started, but with them still putting out only 1 Fox title per month, it's ridiculous. They say they have Fox 100 films, and at the rate of only 1 per month it could take 7 years before the ones I want to ever appear.
I suggested that they do 2 (or more) per month (ala Olive) as it creates more of a buzz, but they claim sales have been slow. 3000 of most titles will sell out over a period of time, but did they really expect it to happen right away? They have no website and only Screen Archives sells their titles, so no wonder sales are slow. They should do a better job promoting their label/titles, start a website, stop keep us waiting forever and do 2 or more per month.

In the next week or so we will be releasing an interview we did with Nick from Twilight Time where we talk about all sorts of things including their model. I think things will make more sense once you get the opportunity to read it.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I believe the reason why they are not also selling these discs through other vendors such as DD or Amazon is because they would have to share a significant chunk of sales with those "middle men." Bruce Kimmel, who sometimes posts here can speak to this with much more authority than I can. Also, Screen Archives has years of experience dealing with limited edition niche items such as the soundtracks produced by Film Score Monthly.

Yes. Some titles are being sold via Screen Archives on Amazon, but the price is higher because of the cut Amazon takes. Selling through distribution or through multiple stores adds a pile of headaches. Considering the limited number of discs produced I can understand why they are doing it just through Screen Archives.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by borisfw /t/306804/fox-catalog-dvds-from-new-label-twilight-time/390#post_3869289
I have no problem with Twilight going Blu . As long as they keep putting them out on dvd also .
I've bought most of their classic releases so far on dvd . I will not buy them on Blu .

Frank-
I'm really curious as to why you will only buy them on DVD and not on Blu-ray.

 

[borisfw]

Frank-
I'm really curious as to why you will only buy them on DVD and not on Blu-ray.
 

Adam,
To be honest with you , I have been through so many formats i'm just reluctant to go to the next one (Blu-ray) . I guess i might have been a little hasty saying i will never buy a Blu ray . I'm just hesitant . But I have thought it through and with Blu ray players now pretty cheap and the fact that they do play Dvds . I guess you could say i'm starting to shine up to the idea of buying a Blu-ray player .
Wow what a cop out . Just ate my own words .

 

[Roger Cee]

My point is this... WB is the biggest and they release 300-400 catalog films per year (that's about 30 per month. Sony releases 12 per month, Universal thru Amazon about 30 per quarter (which is about 7-8 per month), MGM releases about 25 per month. Paramount (thru Olive releases usually 2 or more per month). Even taking into consideration WB owns their own films and Twilight Time does not, Fox, which is the 2nd biggest studio, is only worthy of 1 catalog title per month? That's ridiculous. There should be at least 2 per month.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Adam,
To be honest with you , I have been through so many formats i'm just reluctant to go to the next one (Blu-ray) . I guess i might have been a little hasty saying i will never buy a Blu ray . I'm just hesitant . But I have thought it through and with Blu ray players now pretty cheap and the fact that they do play Dvds . I guess you could say i'm starting to shine up to the idea of buying a Blu-ray player .
Wow what a cop out . Just ate my own words .

Thanks for the response. I was just curious.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by Roger Cee /t/306804/fox-catalog-dvds-from-new-label-twilight-time/390#post_3875798
My point is this... WB is the biggest and they release 300-400 catalog films per year (that's about 30 per month. Sony releases 12 per month, Universal thru Amazon about 30 per quarter (which is about 7-8 per month), MGM releases about 25 per month. Paramount (thru Olive releases usually 2 or more per month). Even taking into consideration WB owns their own films and Twilight Time does not, Fox, which is the 2nd biggest studio, is only worthy of 1 catalog title per month? That's ridiculous. There should be at least 2 per month.

I don't think that's a fair comparison (with the exception of Olive). All those other studios are doing MOD--I don't think you can count that as a release--they are just making a DVD-R for anyone willing to pay for it (NOTE: I have NOTHING against MOD). How many "real" classic releases are they doing to DVD or Blu-ray? Thanks to 100 year anniversaries from Universal and Paramount this year we should see an increase, but overall it has slowed to a trickle. All of this is moot though, as Twilight Time and Fox agreed that they would do one title a month together, so I don't see them increasing that.

 

[Bob Cashill]

For some pressed disc die hards, WB, Universal, MGM, and Columbia aren't releasing any catalog titles, given that they're predominantly DVD-Rs. Three years into MODs, and despite my own concerns with these programs, I find that attitude difficult to justify (for US buyers anyway), but these pockets of pressed discs are welcome. As someone who resisted Blu till last year I say upgrade and enjoy the best of all worlds.

 

[JoHud]

I certainly wouldn't mind if Fox went MOD if it actually meant getting rare stuff out there (with proper quality control, of course). Not the half-hearted Universal MOD effort. Of course the Olive Film route would be ideal, since it is releasing a larger volume of titles on both DVD and Blu-ray. Twilight Time's release of Blu-ray titles and new-to-DVD titles are certainly welcome, as are whatever gets to Shout! Factory and Criterion. However they are hardly making a dent in the huge library and will mostly skim what's on the top. I don't see a whole lot lot of 1930s or silent features coming through especially.

 

[Jobla]

I'm another who doesn't have Blu Ray. The rare films I collect aren't being released in Blu for the most part. I also cringe when I hear anything like "firmware upgrade," because I am a technophobe. My standard DVD players (one 12 years old, one 4 years old) play fine without the need for "firmware upgrade" and other BS I cannot comprehend.
I think the difference in image quality between DVD and Blu is no more pronounced than, say, the slight difference between Beta and VHS. Nothing like the quantum leap from VHS to laserdisc, for example.

 

[Nebiroth]

BluRay's copy protection system is dynamic - that means that every now and then, the protection on new issue discs gets updated. So the players have to be updated otherwise, potentially at least, if you buy discs they won't play.
Also, they use Java for things like the menus and stuff, and that gets updated too.
It's like the annoyance you get with PC's - "you need Java/Flash vxxx to play this content - please get the latest version"
Not updating just means you can only be sure of discs you could already play - anything you buy new might not.
I agree about the leap in quality. However, it;s true to say that if you have a really big screen, you'll appreciate Blu more because big screens tend to highlight the relatively low resolution of standard def.
Oh and of course, the constant updates allow the studios to engage in a stupid war with people who want to defeat the absurdity that if Region Coding. You;d have though they learnt the lesson with DVD, that Region Coding is counterproductive (it loses studios sales - the trade in the restof the world buying r1 discs is extensive) and the idea behind it (that theatres would lose trade because people outside of the US would buy the latest Hollywood blockbuster on DVD from the States before they local theatre was showing it) is absurdly out of date, since theatre releases are hardly staggered at all now. Unlike the old days, when it might be months before here in the UK we saw movies in theatres. Mostly because they had to be sent over as reels of film in steel boxes onboard an airplane.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Thankfuly a lot of studios don;t even bother region coding their discs, so they did get theidea, after bullying manufacturers etc to include it in the BD standards....sigh

 

[Nebiroth]

Oh yeah, incidentally, I now own a BD player. But mostly because my ancient Pioneer (from 1998!) is showing signs of wear - I suspect the laser diode is getting knackered - and BD players are so cheap now it made sense to buy in case I wanted BD discs at sometime in the futre, some "must have" release.
At the moment, there's little on BD that falls into my sphere of interest, but much that is on DVD that I want, so that gets priority. Most of what I like is never going to be on BD: it;s either old TV, that was made in standard def, or it;s niche material that requires BD to reach a sufficiently big mass market (like DVD did)
I also think many people are not consciously upgrading to BD/hidef, but are doing so because that's what their new TV's and disc players are now
My new player makes a better job of the discs I own, since processing has improved a hell of a lot over the last decade - it does a nice job of upscaling. It also used HDMI whereas the old player was SCART. The player itself is way quieter and it;s about 1/5th the size and 1/10th the weight!
But will it last 12 or 13 years? Probably not. The old player was big and clunky, but had massive build quality!

 

[Jon Hertzberg]

I'm another who doesn't have Blu Ray. I think the difference in image quality between DVD and Blu is no more pronounced than, say, the slight difference between Beta and VHS. Nothing like the quantum leap from VHS to laserdisc, for example.

I have to disagree with your dismissal of BD as only a slight upgrade over DVD; since you don't even have a player, you don't have much to go on here to make such a casual assessment. I have a full range of DVDs and Blu-rays, way too many, really. Of course, differences in quality vary depending on the age and original format of the film and the conditions and elements that went into the transfer used for the Blu-ray and / or DVD. I can tell you that even on a 40" screen, which is what I have at home, the uptick in quality from DVD to Blu-ray can be absolutely staggering. BD has a capacity to achieve a film-like texture and characteristics that DVD simply does not match. It's the closest a home format has come to resembling actual celluloid.

 

[ShowsOn]

I'm another who doesn't have Blu Ray. The rare films I collect aren't being released in Blu for the most part. I also cringe when I hear anything like "firmware upgrade," because I am a technophobe. My standard DVD players (one 12 years old, one 4 years old) play fine without the need for "firmware upgrade" and other BS I cannot comprehend.
I think the difference in image quality between DVD and Blu is no more pronounced than, say, the slight difference between Beta and VHS. Nothing like the quantum leap from VHS to laserdisc, for example.

VHS and Beta had very similar resolution.
Going from VHS to LaserDisc was slightly less than a doubling of the video resolution. Whereas going from DVD to Blu-ray means increasing the resolution by 6 times (for a NTSC DVD, and 5 x for a PAL DVD)
Blu-ray is a big leap in quality, but it requires very high quality mastering to get the full benefits out of the format.

 

[Nebiroth]

Yes, but we should separate improvements that are dramatically noticeable over those that aren't. You start to encounter human visual and more importantly perceptual limitations.
A BluRay is simply not going to look six times "better" than a DVD - and I'd argue (from viewing both) that the leap in perceived improvement is not as great as that experienced when we moved from VHS to DVD either.
Moreover, the improved experience from DVD to BD is more reliant on having the rest of the kit to do it full justice - if you have a relatively small TV, the effect is much less noticeable than it is with a big one. The bigger your screen, the more it tends to show up the relatively low resolutions of DVD and the more you'll appreciate the higher ones that BD has to offer. This is particularly true of anyone that uses a projection system.
And of course, as has been so rightly pointed out, everything is hugely dependent on the quality of the source material. Indeed, a BD can make something look worse because it will reproduce all the flaws so much more faithfully! BD cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear and there are indeed releases that simply stuff the same inferior master onto BD in the hope that punters will pick it up as "better".
And don't forget that there's UHDTV as a glimmering on the horizon, offering 16 times the pixel count of current HD - although there are intermediaries in between.
It will be relentless - mostly because the manufacturers want us to keep on buying upgrades.
UHDTV may appear a pipedream as it is so demanding, But then we'd have said that about BluRay back in 1999...