International THE ALAMO (John Wayne's extended cut) (1 Viewer)

[jayembee]

Not a good investment because there is a general lack of interest in older films among most of the general public.

MGM's catalog would be Prime's catalog. As soon as existing cable and streaming contracts are over, all of those films would be exclusive to Prime. And, again, IP, which gives them the ability to create original streaming series based on any IP owned by MGM.

For Amazon, $9B is pocket change. Bezos himself is worth $187B.

 

[Douglas R]

MGM's catalog would be Prime's catalog. As soon as existing cable and streaming contracts are over, all of those films would be exclusive to Prime. And, again, IP, which gives them the ability to create original streaming series based on any IP owned by MGM.

For Amazon, $9B is pocket change. Bezos himself is worth $187B.

Presumably the end of physical media for the MGM catalog?

 

[jayembee]

Presumably the end of physical media for the MGM catalog?

Maybe, maybe not. They could continue to license out to folks like Kino.

 

[Robert Crawford]

MGM's catalog would be Prime's catalog. As soon as existing cable and streaming contracts are over, all of those films would be exclusive to Prime. And, again, IP, which gives them the ability to create original streaming series based on any IP owned by MGM.

For Amazon, $9B is pocket change. Bezos himself is worth $187B.

Regardless to what Amazon and Bezos is worth, it's still $9B as such corporations still are careful with such acquisition expenditures. Anyhow, as I previously stated beforehand, their complete cost analysis probably supports this possible purchase.

As to MGM's catalog, who knows what Amazon is planning as we can only hope they do invest in it. Perhaps more likely, they're interested in the library for other purposes like remakes and such.

 

[Les Mangram]

The LD is also 202 minutes so that seems in line with the length of the Blu-ray. I would expect that UK VHS to not really be 202 minutes at 50 Hz after all. Most likely is some kind of typo regarding the length or the tape was really NTSC and not PAL. The German version is indeed 720p 23,976 Hz and most of the other versions probably mainly differ because the overture, intermission and exit music can make quite a difference through their absence or inclusion either separately or as a whole.

I transferred the VHS tape to DVD-R, it definitely runs 202 minutes. The VHS label clearly states that it is PAL. They would not be able to describe it as such if it was NTSC as that would be an illegal product description and anybody who bought it and couldn't play it because of equipment incompatibility would have reason to complain (not all VCRs/TVs in those days were multi standard). In fact I would not have been able to record it onto DVD as my machine will not transcribe NTSC tapes.
The Overture, Entr'acte and exit music total 10 minutes and 15 seconds (3m 6s, 3m 42s, 3m 27s respectively).

 

[B-ROLL]

I transferred the VHS tape to DVD-R, it definitely runs 202 minutes. The VHS label clearly states that it is PAL. They would not be able to describe it as such if it was NTSC as that would be an illegal product description and anybody who bought it and couldn't play it because of equipment incompatibility would have reason to complain (not all VCRs/TVs in those days were multi standard). In fact I would not have been able to record it onto DVD as my machine will not transcribe NTSC tapes.
The Overture, Entr'acte and exit music total 10 minutes and 15 seconds (3m 6s, 3m 42s, 3m 27s respectively).

I believe M-G-M was many of many to employ the magic of MACROVISION which might also lead to difficulties trying to copy a commercial tape using video out ...

 

[OliverK]

I transferred the VHS tape to DVD-R, it definitely runs 202 minutes. The VHS label clearly states that it is PAL. They would not be able to describe it as such if it was NTSC as that would be an illegal product description and anybody who bought it and couldn't play it because of equipment incompatibility would have reason to complain (not all VCRs/TVs in those days were multi standard). In fact I would not have been able to record it onto DVD as my machine will not transcribe NTSC tapes.
The Overture, Entr'acte and exit music total 10 minutes and 15 seconds (3m 6s, 3m 42s, 3m 27s respectively).

No idea how they did it then. It would be cool if you could check if there is any additional footage on the VHS version compared to the longer cut on the new Blu-ray - if you are getting it.

 

[David Norman]

I believe M-G-M was many of many to employ the magic of MACROVISION which might also lead to difficulties trying to copy a commercial tape using video out ...
View attachment 97560

Not evenremotely difficult to remove the Macrovision protection though -- even in 1990's terms

 

[RolandL]

Would that cause the end of the MGMHD channel?

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Would that cause the end of the MGMHD channel?

It was a nice channel and they did have one commercial break in the middle of the film and now it's every 30 minutes and the channel shows the same bunch of movies over & over again. I will give them credit that it's the first time i saw The Alamo in HD.

 

[Reed Grele]

Now the green leaves of summer
Are calling me home.

 

[Reed Grele]

The back cover has the poster art. Nice.

 

[Reed Grele]

The 2.0 "surround" when output direct to my receiver, reports it not as Dolby ProLogic, but simply a left and right audio signal. Doesn't even sound like stereo.

The 5.1 laserdisc audio, to my ears anyway, has a fuller, richer sound. Especially the bass. When the canons fire, my walls shake!... The 5.1 BD audio sounds fine... But doesn't seem to pack the same wallop as the LD.

The picture quality of the "Directors Cut" is a huge improvement over the Laserdisc. Why they stopped there and didn't include the 5.1 mix is a mystery.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The 2.0 "surround" when output direct to my receiver, reports it not as Dolby ProLogic, but simply a left and right audio signal. Doesn't even sound like stereo.

Is it DTS-HD MA by chance? My receiver has this weird quirk where it’ll run anything you want through prologic except DTS-HD MA 2.0 tracks - they come through as L/R stereo no matter what. For those titles I have to set my Oppo to decode rather than bitstream.

 

[Reed Grele]

Is it DTS-HD MA by chance? My receiver has this weird quirk where it’ll run anything you want through prologic except DTS-HD MA 2.0 tracks - they come through as L/R stereo no matter what. For those titles I have to set my Oppo to decode rather than bitstream.

Yes. The player is set to output HDMI RAW. And my Onkyo receiver says It's "DTS-HD Master 2.0". I'll tinker with it some more and see if anything changes.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Sounds exactly like my Onkyo. What player output options do you have for audio?

 

[Reed Grele]

Sounds exactly like my Onkyo. What player output options do you have for audio?

Just turned everything off after I finished watching the shorter version. But I believe the players HDMI audio out options were: RAW, LPCM, and OFF.

 

[Vern Dias]

The 5.1 laserdisc audio, to my ears anyway, has a fuller, richer sound.

Which LD version do you have? I have the box set and it is labeled as "Dolby Surround" which is 2 channels (L&R) matrixed out into 5.1, not discrete 5.1.

 

[Reed Grele]

Which LD version do you have? I have the box set and it is labeled as "Dolby Surround" which is 2 channels (L&R) matrixed out into 5.1, not discrete 5.1.

Mine is the second version released with the discrete AC3 5.1 surround track which requires an outboard decoder or a Pioneer receiver with the decoder built in. I have both.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Just turned everything off after I finished watching the shorter version. But I believe the players HDMI audio out options were: RAW, LPCM, and OFF.

Perfect - so what worked for me on other similar mixes (I don’t have this disc yet and not even a good reason for why not), switch your player to LPCM. It’ll decode from DTS-HD MA to PCM on your player, and your Onkyo should have no problem applying ProLogic to the PCM signal.