Warner Archive Discussion Thread (FEEDBACK) (2 Viewers)

[Mike Frezon]

When it comes to high pricing for video product, I've been one of the most vocal critics on this forum.

The last thing Robert needs is anyone rushing to his defense, but when I read Thomas' (I'm guessing tongue-in-cheek) comment, I couldn't help but think back on the countless times I've read Crawdaddy's comments railing against the high price of software product--especially in the context of keeping the hobby mainstream.
For someone like me who is on the lower end of the hobby spectrum (in terms of dollars invested in hardware), I am rather sensitive to the pricing patterns of software product and know that Robert has always been a voice of reason in terms of "keeping it real."
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Regards the $20 pricepoint on these Warner titles: This is, without a doubt, an exciting program for those who have yearned for years for particular catalog titles buried in the Warner vaults. And it is very interesting now to watch the reviews as product starts to make it out to purchasers.
Like anything else, the market will decide the value of what people are willing to pay for ANY product. But, my guess is that after an initial enthusiasm (easily gauged by how difficult it is to keep up with this thread!), people will decide that $20 is going to be a bit too high to fill their collection with all those long-desired films. This will vary, of course, from enthusiast to enthusiast but I hope the $20 price doesn't doom the future of the program. Of course, it may just be that Warners is feeling that $20/title is barely covering the cost of offering the program and they don't dare go any lower.
In any event, it IS, without a doubt, a great opportunity. An opportunity which must seem overwhelming to many of the regular participants on this board!

 

[Jon Martin]

A bit off topic, but to those fans of the film BRIGHT LEAF, if you haven't already seen it, look for the documentary BRIGHT LEAVES. It is Ross McElwee's look at the film that he believes was based on a family member of his. Great film.

As for the Warner site, I have to agree the Flash on the site is very distracting. I was at it this morning and kept having all sorts of annoying animations popping up that made it difficult to even open the title to read more details.

 

[Jon Hertzberg]

As for quality, three of the five titles I ordered to my knowledge have never been shown on U.S. TV in Crisis/Grant, Room for One More/Grant and Bright Leaf/Cooper, so I think I'll be more than happy to get the best that WB has to offer for them.

CRISIS has shown on TCM in recent months. I know, as I had it sitting on my DVR for awhile.

 

[Brandon Conway]

About 110 minutes seems to be WHVs usual cut off for dual layer discs. This suggests Warner tries to keep the bitrate at around a 6 Mbps average.
Bombers B52 (106 minutes), Sex and the Single Girl (110), An American in Paris (114), Gigi (116), and The Stalking Moon (109) are all under 2 hours yet are on dual layer discs. Paris and Gigi have most of their bonus materials on the second discs. Pete Kelly's Blues is on a dual layer disc, and that's only 92 minutes.
I agree that it depends on the nature of the film, but 2 hours on a single layer disc would mean a bitrate average below 5.4 Mbps, which is lower than the Forbidden Hollywood set (5.6 Mbps), which includes 2 films + extras per dual layer disc.

I'm not sure of the specifics, but the additional menus, as well as multiple menu languages, probably take up some extra space on regular releases.
I guess we wont know until someone looks into the tech info on these titles.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Just placed my first order. I got "One Trick Pony" (which I saw years ago on cable) and "Countdown" (which I've never seen, but is the kind of sci-fi film I usually get a kick out of). Pretty good experience with the website, no problems there. The $20 price tag was a little on the high side, but considering that they're selling small quantities and can't make up the cost by selling tons, it's reasonable under the circumstances. That, and the code posted on here was a nice little help. Between that and free shipping, two movies for $30, no complaints here. I'm definitely bookmarking the site and checking back often!

 

[Vegas 1]

I give Warner a thumbs up for a least making these films available, but for me I would rather rent many of these titles from Netflix as I don't want to spend $20 or so on each dvd. There are some I would buy, but most I would just like to see once.
Happy viewing all

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I will change my entire perspective on this situation if an when Warners:
A. Adjusts their pricing to a more reasonable standard for their offering.
B. Initiates a program in which any releases in the "Archive Collection" later issued to commercial/retail DVD are offered as trade-in to customers who've previously purchased.
C. Offers these catalog titles in a more efficient manner by actor/director/genre groupings and box set collections. How do they plan on tackling their short subjects and theatrical animation if restricted to this overpriced single-disc format? I can already pick out dozens of films on WHV's website which could be packaged (not necessarily physically!) and sold in groupings at discounted cost. Which is just good business and should be a given. Especially if the studio intends to target people like OURSELVES; classic film aficionados and loyal collectors who've supported Mr. Feltenstein and the studio's classic output throughout...

 

[John Hodson]

From another forum:

So, I JUST got my package of titles I bought...

They all look OK, but the cover arts (front/back) are kinda ugly, with only one pic on each side. The printing of the covers looks OK, but the quality (of the slipcover printing) DOES look like a bit of a step down from a normal DVD. Small text looks a bit rough and pixelated on the back. Honestly, to me, it looks like they were printed very cheaply... almost like with a higher-end laser printing instead of, say, a professional 4-color offset process.

The discs themselves were nice, clean and devoid of any fingerprints that I could see, but they are indeed a "manfactured DVD-R". There is a notice on the back of each DVD case that says:

THIS DISC IS EXPECTED TO PLAY BACK IN DVD VIDEO "PLAY ONLY" DEVICES, AND MAY NOT PLAY BACK IN OTHER DVD DEVICES, INCLUDING RECORDERS AND PC DRIVES.

Well, my discs play in my iMac office computer, at least, so far.

I popped in DOC SAVAGE and, while it looks a step up from the old laserdisc release, it's certainly not perfect. I'm watching it on the Mac in our office here, and I'm noticing constant, very lite (but, still noticeable) vertical lines through the picture. It's a bit soft, and DOESN'T look like any sort of new HD restoration, if you ask me. The discs I looked at briefly start with a promo for the Warner Archive collection (in 4x3), then go straight to a bland 16x9 still menu screen with a highlight for PLAY MOVIE and PLAY TRAILER, with no separate chapter stop screens (but it says you can skip forward/backward on the remove for chapters every 10 minutes or so). The trailer for DOC SAVAGE is 4x3, interlaced, and looks like dog dookie.

After looking at DOC SAVAGE, I put CAPTAIN NEMO AND THE UNDERWATER CITY in and it faired MUCH better to my eyes. The picture was colorful, clean, and quite beautiful.

NOTES ABOUT CRESCENDO

In tiny lettering on the back of the CRESCENDO box, it says: THIS UNRATED VERSION CONTAINS MATERIAL DIFFERENT FROM THE PG-RATED VERSION.

Also, the back of the box mistakenly says that CRESCENDO is in B&W.

 

[Andreas Wagner]

@ John Hodson

John, I take it "Captain Nemo" is anamorphic widescreen? Could you please verify?

 

[Don May Jr]

@ John Hodson
John, I take it "Captain Nemo" is anamorphic widescreen? Could you please verify?

That post on another forum was mine. NEMO is indeed anamorphic widescreen. 16x9 / 2.35:1
I ordered 10 discs and have spot checked five of them. So far, I am very pleased with the quality (with DOC SAVAGE being the exception... it's NOT a terrible transfer by any means... it's just not as good as some of the others I've checked). Still DOC is well worth the upgrade if all you have is the VHS or LaserDisc.
I am very pleased with my purchase from the Warner Archives and will be ordering some more soon.

 

[Steve_Pannell]

... it's just not as good as some of the others I've checked). Still DOC is well worth the upgrade if all you have is the VHS or LaserDisc.
I am very pleased with my purchase from the Warner Archives and will be ordering some more soon.

That's encouraging. Thanks.
Looking forward to seeing it.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

I just got THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS (includes trailer), THE GRASSHOPPER, SWEET NOVEMBER, THE BABY MAKER, and DREAM LOVER. I used DVD Media Inspector to check on the origin of the DVD-R media and it reported "MKM", indicating Verbatim and/or Mitsubishi. In other words, this is first class media as rated here:
digitalFAQ.com | Blank DVD Media Quality Guide
I'm very happy with what I've received so far. I'm sampling the titles now and they are as I expected. The printing on the sleeves are a bit lower in quality than I had hoped, but the kind of labeling on the discs looks very nice, like a pressed DVD. It isn't a label that can peel off at all - it looks like it was thermally printed.
I do think $14.99 is more appropriate of a price, but we'll wait and see what happens. Don't look for other languages or subtitles of any kind though.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

This is the promo that plays at the beginning of the discs.

 

[ShwetaSwaroop]

its really intersting post tnx to share..

 

[WadeM]

A poster on The Classic Horror Film Board just received On Borrowed Time via 2 day air...and he's livid at the quality. I can't easily cut and paste, but he says this looks just like something he could record himself off of TCM and about the same as making a copy off of a laserdisc. I believe he's using a front projector. Another poster got it as well and had good things to say about the packaging and from a general viewing (presumably on a much smaller display).

Uh-oh, that's one of the titles I ordered in my first batch. Haven't received notification of shipment yet. I'll decide for myself at the time I receive them. Other titles I ordered (and there's still another 10-20 I could order from the first 150):
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Adventures of Huck Finn, The
Ah, Wilderness!
Along the Great Divide
Beast of the City, The
Big House, The
Carbine Williams
Citadel, The
Close To My Heart
Dance, Fools, Dance
Dusty And Sweets Mcgee
Grasshopper, The
On Borrowed Time
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives
Room For One More
Shopworn Angel, The
Too Hot to Handle (1938)

 

[Chuck Pennington]

All 5 of the titles I got are interlaced. :-( The encoding on THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS showed some macroblocking, though minor.
I don't understand the interlaced part since these all appear to be newer masters.

 

[Bradley-E]

I'd love to see many of these films but I have to agree that $19. is steep. $10 - $14 would tempt me. I could buy Blu ray's cheaper than $19.

 

[Pete York]

Apologies if this was mentioned already but critic Lou Lumenick posted this on his blog a few days ago:
"Warner, incidentally, has revealed it will make the titles available for sale by other retailers like Amazon (and, presumably, TCM's site run by Movies Unlimited) after a 30-day period of exclusivity at the new WB Shop website."
If true this could address some of the issues folks have, like price (presumably these would be discounted by the retailer) and international shipping.

 

[Jay E]

All 5 of the titles I got are interlaced. :-( The encoding on THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS showed some macroblocking, though minor.
I don't understand the interlaced part since these all appear to be newer masters.

That is disappointing news:frowning:

 

[silentman74]

Warner, incidentally, has revealed it will make the titles available for sale by other retailers like Amazon (and, presumably, TCM's site run by Movies Unlimited) after a 30-day period of exclusivity at the new WB Shop website.

Hopefully this is true. But this might effect the price or be of much interest to international collectors. If Warner's did sell through amazon, it would probably be through marketplace, which still restrict international orders. I also do remember Disney preventing Amazon from selling some Treasures tin collections a few years back.

Even if Amazon sells these titles, you might wait much longer to receive your order. All items available on amazon give an expected delivery time. Some items say, Usually ships in 4 to 6 weeks. Not all titles will be in stock. Another problem might be that amazon might sell only select titles. Of course, this in only week one. I am sure that many changes will occur. Warner's wants to sell as many titles as they can, so we will have to wait to see what transpires over the coming weeks.