Amazon Prime High value Warner movies on Prime Video.. (1 Viewer)

[Bartman]

By value I mean HD movie purchases that I don't own on Blu-ray, that are only slightly more expensive than a rental or far cheaper than Blu-ray. I have most of these movies on DVD so I can vouch for them. If anyone has streamed these feel free to comment on picture quality (degree of upgrade from DVD?):
A Night At The Opera
Badlands
Barry Lyndon
Blow Up
Captain Blood
Coma
Easter Parade
The Friends Of Eddie Coyle
The Magnificent Ambersons
Mildred Pierce
Night Moves
Out Of The Past
Papillon
The Sea Hawk
Straight Time
To Have & Have Not

I checked with Amazon, if you drop Prime membership in the future, your purchased movie library is still accessible.
Most of these are NOT available on HBOmax.
Feel free to post your own list. Cheers!

 

[Mark-P]

Rule of thumb, if they originally came out on Blu-ray through Warner Home Video, the HD streaming version will be the same master, but if the Blu-ray debut was through Warner Archive Collection, the streaming version will be an older master. There are exceptions of course. However with HBOMax pretty much all their streams are the newest masters.

 

[Bartman]

Rule of thumb, if they originally came out on Blu-ray through Warner Home Video, the HD streaming version will be the same master, but if the Blu-ray debut was through Warner Archive Collection, the streaming version will be an older master. There are exceptions of course. However with HBOMax pretty much all their streams are the newest masters.

OK, thanks for that info, I'll do some cross checking tomorrow and report back.

 

[Robert Crawford]

OK, thanks for that info, I'll do some cross checking tomorrow and report back.

Didn't I tell you that same thing in another thread?

 

[Robert Crawford]

By value I mean HD movie purchases that I don't own on Blu-ray, that are only slightly more expensive than a rental or far cheaper than Blu-ray. I have most of these movies on DVD so I can vouch for them. If anyone has streamed these feel free to comment on picture quality (degree of upgrade from DVD?):
A Night At The Opera
Badlands
Barry Lyndon
Blow Up
Captain Blood
Coma
Easter Parade
The Friends Of Eddie Coyle
The Magnificent Ambersons
Mildred Pierce
Night Moves
Out Of The Past
Papillon
The Sea Hawk
Straight Time
To Have & Have Not

I checked with Amazon, if you drop Prime membership in the future, your purchased movie library is still accessible.
Most of these are NOT available on HBOmax.
Feel free to post your own list. Cheers!

From your list above, I own what's in bold. Anything not in bold, I do not own. Example, Badlands, I own the Criterion Blu-ray which is why it's in bold. The iTunes HD Digital I never purchased, thus it's not bolded. Many of my Warner Archive Blu-rays that I purchased came after I already purchased the iTunes HD digital beforehand. The same with some of my Criterion Blu-rays. As you can see, I own all of the Blu-rays.

A Night At The Opera (Warner Archive Blu-ray, my iTunes Digital derived from older scan)
Badlands (Criterion Blu-ray, iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
Barry Lyndon (Criterion Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
Blow Up (Criterion Blu-ray, iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
Captain Blood (2005 Warner DVD, my iTunes HD Digital derived from same scan)
Coma (2012 Warner Blu-ray, iTunes HD Digital derived from same scan)
Easter Parade (2013 Warner Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from same scan)
The Friends Of Eddie Coyle (Criterion Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
The Magnificent Ambersons (Criterion Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
Mildred Pierce (Criterion Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
Night Moves (Warner Archive Blu-ray, iTunes HD digital derived from older scan)
Out Of The Past (Warner Archive Blu-ray, iTunes HD digital derived from older scan)
Papillon (2011 Warner Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from same scan)
The Sea Hawk (Warner Archive Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
Straight Time (Warner Archive Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)
To Have & Have Not (Warner Archive Blu-ray, my iTunes HD Digital derived from older scan)

 

[Bartman]

Didn't I tell you that same thing in another thread?

Yes you did but I did not want to corrupt that thread further by going way beyond its scope.

 

[Bartman]

Many thanks, that's excellent info. You appear to be an avid collector and I assume had DVDs prior to HD. Were there any iTunes streams that were a disappointment in comparison with DVD?

 

[Bartman]

I purchased the Out Of The Past and To Have & Have Not WAC Blu-rays, they are a definite and worthwhile upgrade from DVD. I missed The Big Sleep in my original list, I have the DVD and it's very good but the DVD and Blu-ray screen captures at DVDBeaver don't show much of an upgrade, does anyone know better?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I purchased the Out Of The Past and To Have & Have Not WAC Blu-rays, they are a definite and worthwhile upgrade from DVD. I missed The Big Sleep in my original list, I have the DVD and it's very good but the DVD and Blu-ray screen captures at DVDBeaver don't show much of an upgrade, does anyone know better?

Read this thread to your heart's content as I think it covers everything about "The Big Sleep" Blu-ray.

 

[Bartman]

Read this thread to your heart's content as I think it covers everything about "The Big Sleep" Blu-ray.

Thanks Robert, good to know my DVD is not redundant. There is very little discussion of video & audio quality, more emphasis on versions and plot details. I assume the picture quality is the best it will ever be!

 

[Bartman]

Read this thread to your heart's content as I think it covers everything about "The Big Sleep" Blu-ray.

I've just watched The Big Sleep DVD again. There is a lot of print damage and it's not discussed in the link. Does the Blu-ray improve upon the DVD when it comes to damage?
P.S. I noticed a big improvement with To Have & Have Not but Out Of The Past didn't need much cleanup!

 

[Bartman]

I've just watched The Big Sleep DVD again. There is a lot of print damage and it's not discussed in the link. Does the Blu-ray improve upon the DVD when it comes to damage?
P.S. I noticed a big improvement with To Have & Have Not but Out Of The Past didn't need much cleanup!

I've just watched The Big Sleep Blu-ray and I'm happy to report that the print damage that showed up on the DVD has been eliminated. The Blu-ray has slightly improved resolution however there a couple of short scenes that came from a lower generation print (IMHO not a big deal). In summary a nice upgrade!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

FWIW, if you're buying HD digitals, you're usually best off buying from iTunes, not Amazon, because Apple has a policy of providing free upgrades to 4K if they become available for purchased titles... although it's looking like Warner might be trying to prevent that from happening for new 4K releases going forward (based on recent history of 4K releases since early summer)...

Still, in general, you're best off buying from iTunes instead of Amazon -- and iTunes do generally have the best prices in most cases... plus you can sometimes get pretty good deals on Apple/iTunes gift cards for that purpose.

And if you somehow prefer to watch your digitals via Amazon anyway (even though AppleTV/iTunes is usually better, especially if you have an AppleTV 4K), Warner participates in Movies Anywhere, so (your rights to) their digitals purchased on iTunes can also be transferred and viewed on Amazon (or Movies Anywhere, Vudu, et al) as long as you connect your accounts across them...

_Man_

 

[JPCinema]

All of those titles have been available on iTunes as well. There have been sales where those titles were available to purchase for $4.99

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Yeah, pretty much the only (rare) times I buy digitals from Amazon is if/when I happen to have some limited time promo digital credits to spend (usually from "no rush" rewards I accumulate during short stretches of Prime subscription around year-end holiday shopping season)...

In fact, I just did that and bought Gandhi 4K and Bridge on the River Kwai 4K that way... and of course, both qualify for Movies Anywhere -- I have absolutely no intention of actually watching them via Amazon since their UI is pretty awful on top of usually much lower bitrates than iTunes and Movies Anywhere (and probably also Vudu)...

IF interested, here's a good (though not completely foolproof), quick way to check to see what 4K deals are available via Amazon, particularly ones that qualify for Movies Anywhere:

Best Amazon Prime Deals

www.blu-ray.com

Unless you're buying a recent release that you definitely want to see asap, I'd recommend waiting for the title to hit ~$5 before buying -- most non-Marvel/Pixar/animated-Disney titles inevitably drop to that level at some points on iTunes for comparison...

_Man_

 

[Bartman]

OK, lots of good advice here. I have never used iTunes or Movies Anywhere only: Netflix, Prime & Vudu. The prices at Vudu were significantly higher than Amazon. I assume Warner provides the same version (transfer, encoder & bit rate) of these movies to all vendors (unless it's advertized as different) because the cost to customize would be enormous.
Where there is doubt regarding the provenance of the version, I elect to buy the well reviewed Blu-ray. iTunes free upgrade to 4K is a big selling point, as long as it's really new and not simply an upscaling. Is anyone at HTF reviewing the upgrades?

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

OK, lots of good advice here. I have never used iTunes or Movies Anywhere only: Netflix, Prime & Vudu. The prices at Vudu were significantly higher than Amazon. I assume Warner provides the same version (transfer, encoder & bit rate) of these movies to all vendors (unless it's advertized as different) because the cost to customize would be enormous.
Where there is doubt regarding the provenance of the version, I elect to buy the well reviewed Blu-ray. iTunes free upgrade to 4K is a big selling point, as long as it's really new and not simply an upscaling. Is anyone at HTF reviewing the upgrades?

Unfortunately, you would be wrong in that assumption.

The transfers may most often be the same (though not always), but the encodes and actual bitrates are often different/inferior (often enough even vastly different/inferior)... and Amazon's customer service for streaming seems poor enough to be of no help other than to allow you to quickly request a refund perhaps, if you're not happy.

Vudu also seems to offer solid streaming quality generally competitive to iTunes, but their customer service seems much worse (than both iTunes and Amazon) largely because they're very lacking in responsiveness, especially during this pandemic.

Again, your best bet will usually be buying from iTunes for all the various reasons I mentioned. And yes, their 4K streams will generally come from the same transfers as corresponding 4K disc releases and in some cases (like some recently released Paramount catalog titles along) there aren't even any 4K disc releases, but we're getting 4K on digital nonetheless.

_Man_