Warner Bros opening its vaults

(Novecento) #1

Now this is interesting. Unpublished DVDs on demand for $19.95:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-warnerbros23-2009mar23,0,4288760.story

(Col. Douglas Mortimer) #2

Interesting! I wish all the other major companies would do the same.

(Dillinger) #3

El Condor could be interesting.

(Bad Lieutenant) #4

El Condor is already out on dvd in Spain. English friendly too.
http://www.starscafe.com/es/pelicula/el-condor.aspx?hi=el+condor

(Novecento) #5

Yes, would be great if MGM and Paramount followed suite. Do Warner Brothers hold the distribution rights to any SWs?

(korano) #6

I think a Roman copany did the same thing. Opening the vaults. So says Blue Underground.

(R-T-C Tim) #7

Not such good news I’m afraid.

  1. The titles are going to be burnt DVD-Rs
  2. The titles will not be for sale to customers outside the US. So watch out for eBay vultures!
(Sebastian) #8

the price is also very high. why not do bare bones dvds? fuckers…

well i’m waiting for THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS!

(Spaghetti Monkey) #9

Actually i think $20 is fair for something that probably will never get released any other way, they are in anamorphic widescreen where appropriate. I think it’s great news.

(Novecento) #10

I concur, great news indeed! It may be the only way to get quality releases of many obscure titles. Hopefully the whole industry will follow accordingly.

[quote=“R-T-C Tim, post:7, topic:1672”]Not such good news I’m afraid.

  1. The titles are going to be burnt DVD-Rs
  2. The titles will not be for sale to customers outside the US. So watch out for eBay vultures![/quote]

This should allay any such concerns: http://goldenageofhollywood.ning.com/profiles/blogs/warner-brothers-home-theater

(R-T-C Tim) #11

And the bad news:

Quoted from a user on the CHFB - of course not necessarily applying to all the titles, but it suggests that quality control is not high on WB’s priority list.

I got ON BORROWED TIME today! I was amazed at how fast it came...so ready for the bad news?

It LOOKS PRETTY BAD. It’s clearly just an old video master - has the old Turner “blue lozenge” logo. It may be passable on a small crt monitor, but projected it looks like a laserdisc, as Muttsparks says above. I for one AM NOT SATISFIED. Honestly, I could have copied this off of Turner and except for not having the preview (which actually looks BETTER than the feature) and a few minutes of TCM bug in the corner it would be no different, oh yeah, except it would have cost me a FRIGGIN’ QUARTER! Soft, video looking - not even up to the basic release quality we’ve come to expect from the bare bones Best Buy stuff, etc.

SHAME on George Feltenstein if this is the kind of crud he’s going to pawn off on “serious collectors” for 20 bucks a pop plus tax.

Now I bet some titles will look OK, it will totally depend on what masters they have lying around but that’s clearly what’s happening here - they’re just porting over whatever they’ve got to DVD-R’s (which these purple back babies most definitely are) and sticking them out there at more than twice what they’re worth. I have honestly bought boots that look this good, and I’m not kidding when I say it looks just about like a laser or dvd recorder copy.

I for one will NOT be buying any more of these at this price - about a 5 dollar quality product at best.

What a mess. Oh well, you’ve been warned…

(Spaghetti Monkey) #12

Honestly LaserDisc quality is about all i expect of these. They’re not gonna restore prints for a made to order DVD service. They’re going to transfer the best print they have to make a master and burn them as ordered. I’m sure some will look better than others, perhaps they should grade the prints so no one is suprised.

(Phil H) #13

That would be a good idea

(Sebastian) #14

yeah like they would voluntarily give their own products bad grades. face it guys, this is warner brothers