How The West Was Won, Errol Flynn, Warner Westerns - 26/08/08 (1 Viewer)

[Doug Bull]

It maybe disappointing to many, but unfortunately I believe that Warners, in their own business interest, made the correct decision, in regards to the Smilebox issue.

The vast majority of DVD buyers would not have a clue what Smilebox is and probably couldn't care less.
They would be left scratching their heads and cursing Warners for this strange looking image. ( Think of those still with 4:3 TVs )

At the end of the day Warners had to satisfy their shareholders, while still trying to please the consumers.
Warners would have discussed this issue many times before making the final decision.

Adding another disc to the set or adding to the number of different editions would not necessarily add to the overall sales of this title, but would result in stock and pricing issues among the retailers, the public and it would also mean that costs would escalate. ( printing, packaging, marketing, disc authoring and higher staff costs as a result of this )

The fact that Warners have given consideration to the smaller number of genuine movie buffs by going the extra step and giving them a really nice Special Edition DVD is to be applauded and not given the criticism seen here.

Warners, rightfully or wrongly, thought that the Smilebox would be accepted better among those that are in a position to use it to it's maximum effect.
Blu-ray with it's greater information storage space was a financially better solution for the shareholders of Warners.
To help push Blu-ray would not do them any financial harm either.

To even consider Smilebox, Warners should be congratulated by all.

I guess that I too would be very disappointed, had I not already gone to Blu-ray.
Believe me, I know how frustrated you must feel.
It's because of these same business decisions that I have to grin and bear it when I see all these wonderful classic titles appearing on Standard DVD only.
I would have been more than content just to get a restored HTWWW on standard DVD, smilebox or no smilebox, but the fact that it got to Blu-ray has got me over the moon.

I guess one day we will all be satisfied, but just when and how - who knows?

Just as long as they keep releasing these wonderful Classic Titles for all to enjoy- be it DVD or Blu-ray.

Warners are still the best.

 

[Simon Howson]

Sure most DVD buyers won't know what Smileboxing is, but the same is true for Blu-ray buyers, most of which won't be buying a 1962 film on Blu-ray.

Smileboxing may be new, unfamiliar and unusual, but isn't that to be expected? There has never been a full film released in Smilebox on any home video format.

I really don't think the cost of releasing a 4 DVD rather than 2 DVD UCE is prohibitively expensive. Pressing two extra discs would cost about $2, then they need to modify the packaging somewhat to hold 4 DVDs. If that was such a concern they could've lifted the SRP by $5 to cover those costs.

If retailers didn't want to stock all 3 or 4 versions then they wouldn't have to. So I can't see how that is a problem.

I still don't accept the argument that DVD is somehow unsuitable for Smileboxing. It is actually preferable instead of letterboxing a film to 2.89:1, which by my rough estimation involves a loss of 38.5% of the vertical resolution of the image to letterboxing. Smileboxing would recover at least some of that, especially at the sides of the image.
But surely you expect there to be many more DVD releases than Blu-ray releases at this stage? You are an early adopter, and expect things to trickle out slowly when the format is still in its over-priced infancy.

 

[Doug Bull]

Pressing two extra discs would cost about $2?? hmm?

I worked many years in an industry that involved marketing, printing, packaging plus distribution and believe me, costing against projected sales was never that cheap and simple.
It's so easy to say that it could be done when you are unaware of the actual cost involved and the actual result on the final sales figure.

If the retailers didn't stock all 3 or 4 versions, then surely that alone kills your argument, as Warners in that scenario would be the big losers.


As someone else said, Smilebox is really only suited to super wide curved screen images such as Cinerama.
So it is highly unlikely that we will ever get to see much of it anyway.

Several single strip features shown on the curved Cinerama Screen had a slight image squeeze towards the edges of the film frame to compensate for the curvature of the screen.
Examples of this can be seen on the extended sections of Laserdisc's It's Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Would I like to see Smilebox on the standard DVD?
Of course I would.
But I understand, probably, why it isn't , just as I understand the same money problem exists for the current lack of Classics on Blu-ray.

My passion to see more Classic titles on Blu-ray is not only brought about by the huge difference in quality, but also, probably because I'm not getting any younger.

 

[Simon Howson]

Pressing discs is the cheap part of releasing a DVD. It is transferring the film to HD video itself which is the expensive part. It is quite possible that Warner have archived this film to 4K or even 6K. If that is the case they have spent hundreds of thousands on this release, which pales compared to the expense of pressing another couple of discs for the UCE version.

Setting aside the investment for the actual factories, the cost to press a DVD even in 1997 was about $3, and given the speed of duplication, was actually less expensive than the cost to make VHS tapes. That was one of the huge benefits of the format in the first place. Given we are 11 years into the format, it would cost far less now to press discs than it did when it was first introduced. Pressing Blu-ray discs would cost a lot more than pressing DVDs, and they were willing to put two in the Digibook version.

My point is that Warner have already spent all the money preserving, packaging, marketing, and making a HD transfer of this film. It wouldn't cost much more to add two more DVDs to the UCE with a Smileboxed version of the film. In fact, I can't see how they can call it an Ultimate Edition when we know that 3 strip Cinerama films just aren't designed to be viewed as a flat image.

I don't think they were worried about upsetting retailers with multiple versions. They released 4 versions of Bladerunner, 5 if you include the HD-DVD. I see this as just being a cost cutting exercise given that DVD sales continue to fall because of the tanking U.S. economy. As far as I know, these rectified prints were only made for films shot in anamorphic processes, i.e. those that had to be put through an optical printing step before release prints were made. It wasn't worth the quality degradation for films photographed in spherical formats like Todd-AO and Super Panavision 70.

 

[Guido Bibra]

I beg to differ! As someone who's still happy with a 4:3 28" Sony Trinition, I can't understand that... especially because the smileboxed version would make MORE use of the available 16:9-frame than the letterboxed version. I don't know from what sources the smilebox-examples in the Merian C. Cooper Documentation on the King Kong disc use, but they actually use the full 16:9-frame on the sides and the smallest ratio in the middle is 2.5:1 (which should actually be 2.65:1).

Even on 4:3 sets (with a proper 16:9-squeeze!) the image on the smilebox-version would be significantly bigger than the full 2.65:1-ratio. Warner surely knows that, and the simple reason for the unavailability of the smilebox-version on SD-DVD is to get more people to buy the Blu-Ray, plain and simple. Which I really can understand, but it doesn't help me and lots of others who won't be upgrading to Blu-Ray for some time...

 

[Doug Bull]

Whatever,
This discussion is going around in circles.

Whether it was costs, or a push to Blu-ray, only Warners know the real answer.
The final decision was made, for better or worse.

For Warners to give us a new, fabulously restored anamorphic DVD of HTWWW should be reason enough for all loyal fans of his title to rejoice.

 

[Jim_K]

Here's a sample of the smilebox technique someone generously posted in the thread in the HD area. I'm now convinced HTWWW smileboxed is going to look spectacular on my HD display.

The Cinerama Adventure - "Smilebox" Process

The screenshot is from Search For Paradise.

 

[Simon Howson]

I think it would look spectacular Smileboxed even on a non-HD display.

3 strip Cinerama films just aren't meant to be viewed flat.

 

[John Hodson]

Good grief! I don't think I can hold out much longer...I can feel myself turning Blu...

 

[Richard--W]

Yeah ...

 

[CineKarine]

According to Barrie Maxwell on the Digital Bits:

Personally, I don't mind - I have always found Silver River very boring despite the stars who are both great favorites of mine!

 

[CineKarine]

Some potentially good news from the Movies Unlimited website :

 

[Brian Borst]

2001: A Space Odyssey was just released, sounds a bit too soon for yet another release. Will the smilebox-feature be included on this one? And (since it wasn't technically a real Cinerama-production) how would it look? Has anyone here seen 2001 in Cinerama?
I think it's great that Warner will release more Cinerama movies, but I think it's sad that they won't release the smilebox on SD-versions.

 

[Richard--W]

Yes, I would urge Warner Home Video to reconsider this decision and release the smilebox editions to both formats.

 

[Brian Borst]

Well, you had better teachers at your school than I did. My history teacher showed us the 'Dawn of Man' sequence, for evolutional illustration. Everyone was laughing at the apes, while my teacher advised everyone not to see this movie. It was very boring, was his opinion. I had already heard of it, and I very much wanted to see the rest of it. I went home and rented it, and it has been a favorite ever since. Too bad that cinematic classics are almost never re-released over here, I hope to see it in a cinema somewhere sometime.

 

[RolandL]

I would be very surprised to see The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm on DVD as Warner has said there would be a great deal of work to restore it.

The 70mm Cinerama films would look distorted in the smilebox process as you are taking a 2.2:1 image and stretching it to 2.6:1 or 2.89:1 as they say in the specs for HTWWW.

 

[Richard--W]

If I were a history teacher I'd study a film first before I showed it to students. 2001 is partly about evolution, but not in the sense your teacher was looking for. I believe my teacher was also disappointed. She said she thought it would be more educational -- Cinerama films were educational entertainments -- "like FANTASTIC VOYAGE" she said, which was not a Cinerama film at all, though a very important and educational film (that field trip must have been before my time or I'd have been on it). Educational or not, 2001 was a wonderful film for young minds to be exposed to.

I do remember checking the newspapers every Sunday to see when 2001 would play closer to home, but it stayed at the Capitol in NYC and the Dome in Syosset for the longest time. The Cinerama logo was on all the posters and ad-mats for years. It wasn't dropped until the re-releases. 2001's association with Cinerama was not forgotten until the home video age. In my mind 2001 will always be a Cinerama film regardless of how it was shot because that's how it was shown and that's how I saw it for the first time.

As for seeing 2001 as a rental for the first time in the home video age ... I can't relate to that. There is something so ... marginalizing about watching 2001 for the first time on a small TV screen in video quality. I can't imagine it, and I don't want to think about it.

 

[Douglas R]

I didn't think 2001 was entirely satisfactory shown in Cinerama. I saw it in London at the Casino Cinerama when it first opened and there was considerable distortion of the picture, mainly of the outside scenes of spacecraft.

 

[Doug Bull]

As a teenager, I got to experience all of the original three strip Cinerama releases (most more than once) at Melbourne's Plaza Theatre.
I have never forgotten, nor experienced any thing like it since.

I also saw all of the single strip follow ups, including 2001.
The result, sadly, was never the same.

2001, even with the slight edge distortion, still looked good on the giant curved screen, but alas it was not a match for the spectacle that was three strip CINERAMA.

 

[Simon Howson]

There are many shots in 2001 that have a lot of wide-angle lens distortion. I wonder if the curved screen actually corrected some of that distortion, or exaggerated it further?