MGM classic films get video-on-demand release (1 Viewer)

[walter o]

Originally Posted by PODER

Does anyone know when more titles will be announced for this program? TRAPEZE and THE
GROUP just arrived, and they appear to be good copies, altho I've only had time to check out
the first few minutes of each. By the way, on the box for THE GROUP it says "full screen",
but at least the beginning appears to be a moderate widescreen. Does anyone know how it
was released? (DREAMCHILD is on order, and should arrive in January. That one title alone
completely made my day!!)

Does it even come with a sleeve with art work of any kind?

THE GROUP should be presented in 16x9 widescreen, as it was a theatrical feature.

 

[PODER]

Walter:
Nope, no artwork whatsoever. A generic grey cover design of film reels, with the MGM logo and the spine in gold. The titles are in black. I replaced the black DVD cases with gold ones, and that spiffed them up a bit. (I also replace all the WB Archive DVD cases with white ones, which I prefer. I'm puzzled as to why, with rare exceptions, only kids' DVDs are released with white or colored DVD cases. Shouldn't the Amaray color be a part of the total design?
Also, thanks for the info on The Group ...
Poder

 

[Brandon Conway]

Got my copy of Dreamchild today, which I ordered through amazon.com.

The cover art has a picture from Dreamchild, and generally look similar to a Warner Archive release, though with a generic MGM "film reel" background white/grey/gold background that is far more subdued than the WA deep blue. The amaray case seems to be a better plastic than the brittle Warner Archive ones. Generally, a nice looking, if basic, DVD package.

The disc is indeed a DVD-R, with nice disc art that matched the color scheme of the packaging.

The disc has no menus whatsoever. It simply starts with a MGM logo and then the film. Chapter spots are every five minutes.

I've only watched a total of 7-10 minutes of the film at various spots, and to my eyes it's an adequate transfer. 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widecreen, decent colors. It's a bit heavy on digital noise, but I expected as much. It's a definite step-up from the Pan and Scan bootleg I acquired about a year ago.

A quick check on the computer does confirm that this disc is, unfortunately, interlaced. Fortunately my normal viewing display handles interlacing quite well, but this really is subpar authoring. Even a MOD disc should be able to be made 480p.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Watched it fully the other day while at my parents house for the holiday weekend. Overall, my initial impressions proved true. Unfortunately my copy has a slight skip at the 10:40 mark, where some frames are missing and the sound goes out. 99% sure it's a burn issue. I'm gonna look into the customer service options later tonight.

 

[Finn]

We should be announcing more titles soon.

 

[Finn]

press release can be found here

 

[Bob Cashill]

I got my DREAMCHILD today, and second what Brandon Conway said. No problems here, though, with skipping. The VHS-era Thorn EMI logo at the start did give me pause, but it's a decent transfer.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Thanks for confirming that the skip is just my copy. I didn't get around to contacting MGM yesterday, but I will tonight.

 

[DaveM4964]

Does MGM own the rights for The Town That Dreaded Sundown?. I would love to see this one in widescreen someday.

 

[DeWilson]

Originally Posted by DaveM4964

Does MGM own the rights for The Town That Dreaded Sundown?. I would love to see this one in widescreen someday.

Yes, it's an AIP Film

 

[Dick]

Well, it appears a number of you hace received copies of DREAMCHILD, yet today (01/03), the Amazon site still lists it as "Available For Preorder." Where are your copies coming from?

 

[Bob Cashill]

Wonderland.

But seriously I'd just place the preorder and try my luck.

 

[Van594]

Just watched Late for Dinner from them and it looked really good. Had a picture of the two leads on the front of the case and a blurb about the movie and another picture on the back. Very pleased with my first purchase from this program I would order more.

 

[ahollis]

I received four of the titles today. It appears that TWO FOR THE SEESAW and THE GROUP while they are presented in proper OAR, they are not anamorphic. TRAPEZE is anamorphic widescreen. I am very disappointed that the first two film were produced as if it was 1999 and not 2010. The other film, RETURN TO PARADISE, was 1:33 as filmed.

All the transfers looked very good with sharp color contrast on GROUP and PARADISE. They were very clean and the Black & White cinematography on SEESAW was very satisfying, to the point that I almost forgave them for not transferring the film properly. TRAPEZE color & picture was soft and you could tell it was shot in Deluxe Color. Sound was clear and crisp on all four.

This looks like a hit and miss on the anamorphic issue and we will not know if it is a miss until we look at the back of our copy. By the way, the backs of the DVDs say widescreen for SEESAW, full screen for GROUP (there are black bars at the top and bottom of picture) and PARADISE, and 16:9 for TRAPEZE.

 

[jdee28]

It's really sad what the Warner Archive has ushered in, an era now of $20 a pop for one classic movie, unrestored, barebones, on DVD-R. Now there's a simple gladness when the movie on disc doesn't look too bad instead of expecting it to look great. How far we've fallen, not only in accepting low standards, but in accepting these silly prices. Looks like the time of getting classic movies at reasonable prices is done. While Warner might have sales for its archive titles on its site, does the TCM site, where the Universal Made on Demand discs are sold, ever have sales, or will Amazon have them on on these made for order barebone MGM titles?

 

[RickER]

Originally Posted by jdee28

It's really sad what the Warner Archive has ushered in, an era now of $20 a pop for one classic movie, unrestored, barebones, on DVD-R. Now there's a simple gladness when the movie on disc doesn't look too bad instead of expecting it to look great. How far we've fallen, not only in accepting low standards, but in accepting these silly prices. Looks like the time of getting classic movies at reasonable prices is done. While Warner might have sales for its archive titles on its site, does the TCM site, where the Universal Made on Demand discs are sold, ever have sales, or will Amazon have them on on these made for order barebone MGM titles?

I couldnt agree more. While everything doesnt need to be restored, and look like it was made today. Not everything needs extras, for that matter. $20 for a DVD-R will never happen in my house! Hell, i dont spend $20 for most of the Blu-ray's i buy! Why would i spend that much for a "disposable" disc!

 

[jdee28]

The press release for this program at www.createspace.com/Special/PRArchive/2009/20091130_FOX_MGM_Press_Release.jsp has Peter Bogdanovich saying, "The idea of having these titles made on demand exclusively by CreateSpace allows classic films to be discovered by a new audience that may not otherwise be exposed to them."

But the underlying assumption behind all the made on demand programs is that the films will be selling to less people, a smaller audience; hence, MOD so as to not to lose the producer any money in producing too many of them. These films are now in a position to be discovered or exposed to hardly anyone but a very small niche. They will get out to less people now than they could have if they had been released regularly. That's why the MOD companies can get away with the lower quality and the higher prices; less people will be buying them anyway. It's sad.

Again, the current MOD programs are not for mass consumption. They are there to tap into the group that loves older movies and would be willing to pay for whatever.

Until these programs start adopting the standards of mass products, ie restoration, durable media, reasonable prices, etc, I won't support any of them.

If they want to reach a bigger audience, they're going to have to apply these higher standards. The question is whether they want to eventually reach a mass audience with these MOD programs or keep them niche.

 

[Van594]

Well, we can bitch and moan but I'll tell you right now it won't make much of a difference. The golden age of classic releases is gone and won't be back. Only the most known titles like Casablanaca etc..will get nice treatment. I agree with everything all have said but it doesn't matter. Just look on ebay for an example...there are sellers re-selling the WB archive titles for anywhere from $28 to $38 and I checked feedback on these sellers and they are actually getting sales off and on. People are so clueless they will buy whatever without even knowing what they are getting or the fact they can buy them cheaper from the source. How long before Sony just says heck with it and does the burn on demand as well.

Part of me hates the fact that classic movies are getting this treatment(considering most are better than the crap we get today) but on the other end I remember how many classic titles never made it over from VHS and how few will make it to Blu-Ray in this next transition. The other part of me also says that if the studios completely open up the faults there will be hundreds upon hundreds of titles that would have never seen the light of day unless they used the burn on demand method. Let's face it; it's a new world...once Blu-Ray came along classic titles were doomed from having regular releases. It's just not cost effective to clean these up enough to make them Blu-ray presentable except for the major titles. At this point I'll just look for the titles I've been waiting years for and buy them...I mean really who are you hurting if you don't buy them at this point(with burn on demand)...just yourself from watching them I guess.

 

[kingfish]

I wonder what new titles they are working on?

 

[Van594]

Originally Posted by kingfish

I wonder what new titles they are working on?

good question...one thing I don't like about the way they are doing it is they have no dedicated website to keep track.