Cultcine DVDR's

It should have been out already I think

Don’t know why it’s taking so long

And when it finally arrives maybe it’s a bit of a let down like the Navajo Joe DVD?

And speaking of Navajo Joe…

Scherp you had the French release of Navajo Joe, was the picture quality good even if it was a little soft looking?

Were the night scenes dark enough like they should be?

Was the intro with the yelling and music correct?

I can’t be sure about the French disc, so Scherp can confirm it, but I’m quite certain it is basically exactly like the US, UK and Koch discs (except Koch fixed the audio at the beginning… and the UK disc is cut :stuck_out_tongue: ). I would think they all got the exact same print from whoever owns the rights. Although I guess they may have made some filtering on their own as far as sharpness or grain or something goes.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Koch disc of Mercenary will be almost identical to the French one as far as the image goes, and maybe the film will also be released in the UK and USA as well someday (or not… :stuck_out_tongue: ).

[quote=“Sundance, post:57, topic:1678”]I can’t be sure about the French disc, so Scherp can confirm it, but I’m quite certain it is basically exactly like the US, UK and Koch discs (except Koch fixed the audio at the beginning… and the UK disc is cut :stuck_out_tongue: ). I would think they all got the exact same print from whoever owns the rights. Although I guess they may have made some filtering on their own as far as sharpness or grain or something goes.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Koch disc of Mercenary will be almost identical to the French one as far as the image goes, and maybe the film will also be released in the UK and USA as well someday (or not… :stuck_out_tongue: ).[/quote]

The French Navajo Joe probably used the same source as the Koch media disc, but it seems filtered a bit more. Therefore it looks softer, but the color scheme is a slightly different, so it looks a bit darker too. I found it a bit more pleasant to watch than teh Koch disc (which was a dissapointent to me)

I saw screenshots of the French Mercenary disc, it looks as if it’s comparable to the Navajo Joe disc or the O’Cangaceiro disc: a bit soft, but otherwise very pleasant to watch. I’ll wait for the Koch disc this time, and will then decide which one I’ll buy.

i’m curious to know what exactly you mean when you say your discs are Remastered… because you give the impression that your company is remastering films from the original negative and it seems to me all you are doing is finding releases from other countries and converting them to NTSC, stripping the menu and extras off the disc, and then selling it as your own product

and I think the below sections out of your “About Us” make it pretty clear you’re not doing any real remastering as you’ve never even obtained the rights to release the films…

1# Is Cultcine an illegal pirate operation? The section of American copyright law known as “The Berne Act” clearly states: films unreleased in the United States, including original version of films altered and/or edited for release in the United States, are not protected by American copyright; thus, they are considered public domain. The entire purpose of our company is to provide (otherwise unavailable) films to the serious video collector. We do not offer videos owned by American releasing companies. If a film should become available domestically, we immediately stop offering it to our clients.

5# Do all DVD-Rs come in standard DVD cases?
All of our catalog comes with no DVD cases or cover art, that’s what
makes shipping so cheap.
We do have some DVD covers available for printing, you can download them
and print them yourself here.

BTW your copyright info is incorrect, what you’re doing is not legal and you’re misinterpreting The Berne Act…

i say if you’re going to buy a disc, buy the original release that deserves it- ie Koch, Wildside, XRated, etc

besides, your prices are awfully high for a bootleg copy of a disc with no label and no case/cover art… plus the video quality goes down in the PAL → NTSC conversion… for the price of your discs, I could buy the originals and have all the extras, cool menus, best quality and all the disc/case artwork…

/end

By the way Cultcine are you watermarking all your releases or just some of them? I came across this in the Sonny and Jed thread:

If you’re tampering with prints and watermarking is exactly that then no way would I buy anything like that. I don’t think that directors of these movies intended to have Cultcine plastered all over the credit sequences.

If this is true, does that mean people who buy the DVDs can get in trouble, too?

I’m not sure about that. the US is to my knowledge the only country where “companies” such as CultCine etc operate under the gray area left by the Berne Act. increasingly however, DVDs of movies get released in that gray area where I clearly ask myself “isn’t that available on a regular retail DVD?”.
not sure if you can get in trouble buying the stuff (as non-US customer)… that’s a good question.

I’d really like to know, because I didn’t even know what the Berne act was until I found cultcine, so I thought it was legitimate.

I’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with buying them. but if you’re from a country where the same movie is available on a “real” DVD, the other might legally be considered a bootleg - and why not buy the real one then in the first place

I don’t think there is a gray area left under the Berne act.

I have probably mentioned it several times before but the USA at first didn’t apply the Berne act into works that had already been released when they joined (1989) but apparently because of the international pressure they gave up and Clinton signed the URAA in 1994 (which I think came in effect in 1996) which clearly states that all foreign works that had entered the public domain in the USA before, got their copyright automatically back (and there doesn’t have to be anything in the Copyright Office, so if you can’t find the movie there doesn’t prove anything at all) just as long as they were still copyrighted in their country of origin at the time.

This does include movies which were never released in the USA, or which had somehow failed the copyright process there or even forgot to renew the copyright.

But isn’t the Mercenary and the Big Gundown for example definitely owned by somebody in the USA anyways. (Mercenary by MGM or whoever it is now? and the Big Gundown is by Sony/Columbia… sure their version is the shorter one but if they or someone else don’t own the longer one then the original Italian owner has the US rights for that now)

There is one part in the Berne/URAA which probably applies to some situations as it says that works that previously were public domain but got their copyrights restored can be sold until the copyright owner gives a “notice of intent to enforce the copyright” (or something like that) to the Copyright Office. When that has been done, the sellers of these works have 12 months to stop their business with these works or face the consequences. So basically as far as I have understood they could sell the works as longs as the copyright owner doesn’t make that notice (the work is still copyrighted though). And only one notice is needed even if they decide to act upon it 10 or 20 or something years later.
And as I have said before, the first Trinity movie actually has this notice of intent at the copyright office and it has been there since 1996 if I remember correctly.

But it still doesn’t help those who sell works that have always been copyrighted in the USA. And even if the longer version of Big Gundown isn’t copyrighted, the shorter version English soundtrack definitely is so it can’t be used legally without buying rights for it. Right? :stuck_out_tongue:

yeah I think you’re right there. if I said gray area, I meant what you said in other words, basically a lot of people think the Berne Act is a license to bootleg, which it isn’t, and lots of stuff is being sold quoting that piece of law even though upon closer inspection almost half of the titles would probably not make the cut, or even more… it’s a gray area type of thing in as sofar as it is usually not easy to find out whether a title qualifies or not, and even if there are rights holders, usually they don’t do much about it, except if they have a release in the US as well, which would make the publication of such DVD-Rs moot in the first place

Oh yeah, I understand now what you meant and you’re of course right. :slight_smile:

Sundance is correct in his posting. This whole interpretation of the Berne Act is a sham, and the Berne Act does not apply to these films. I did a lot of research on the subject several months ago and even went as far as looking up the copyrights on titles that are commonly released as public domain on those cheap $1 bargain DVDS. Turns out they are all copyrighted, if the government records I viewed were correct.

Pistolero08- no you will not get in trouble. But please, do not buy these discs… if you absolutely cannot get them from the real companies that deserve the money, then please go outher routes instead of supporting a shady business

And even aside from a release like The Mercenary or The Big Gundown- Cultcine has a bootleg of Death Rides A Horse for sale… and as we all know, MGM has that release out in the UK. I sincerely doubt that MGM’s rights on DRAH do not apply here in the US…

but also Sebastian is right in his posting that most of the copyrighters aren’t going to pursue any action, but i think at this point the legality issue has been covered enough…

My main issue here is someone selling bootleg DVDRs as some kind of remastered version they had a hand in creating, and selling them at high prices. In addition to the stuff I’ve already said about no packaging or labels, these are DVD5s- they are not even burning onto DVD9s- which means the video has been compressed and the video quality is not as good as the original releases they are copying. On top of this, they are converting the video from PAL to NTSC, which further detracts from the quality of the video… and by this I’m not referring to just the framerate or whether PAL is inherently better than NTSC. Performing a NTSC conversion on a consumer PAL DVD results in lower video quality as the original video must be re-encoded and altered.

So the customers are paying nearly the same price for an unpackaged product, with a substantially lower quality of video, none of the extras or menus included in the original discs…

Anyway that’s all I will say about this subject for now as I don’t want to continue ranting about it, just wanted to add those 2 bits, as I see them being fairly important pieces of information that most people will not be aware of when it comes to the quality of product

Oh, do rant on my friend

Well ok, I did forget one thing :wink:

Screenshots don’t mean jack when it comes to the ultimate quality of video… the screenshots do not show artifacts created from motion in the video- and this will be the main thing you notice when you watched a compressed movie and movies converted from PAL to NTSC

It would seem that trading these fan dubs amongst ourselves would be the best way to remedy this problem.

that’s what they are for… no one’s trying to make money off of the beautiful hard work of a company like Koch, who shows a true appreciation for the films we love… well… except for Cultcine :smiley:

I’m very naive about this whole subject but if its of any worth, I have some info about one film released by CultCine:

China 9, Liberty 37, though it has been released in the US, I believe is public domain but is still sold by Warner who have refused to remaster the film, actually refused. Hellman and Criterion are trying t acquire its rights but Warner won’t give it up. And Hellman bought CultCine’s disc. Approved by the director.

For what it’s forth. :-\