MGM Limited Edition Collection (Burn-On-Demand)

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#1 Post by **domino harvey** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:55 pm

Exclusively through Amazon. Carol Reed's forgettable Trapeze is the first on the block, to be followed by
Return to Paradise
Two For the Seesaw (

Thank God for the R2 )
Rich in Love
Chains of Gold
Welcome to Woop-Woop
A Fish in the Bathtub
Far North

Well, great

GaryC · #2 Post by **GaryC** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:22 pm

If anyone wants to watch Welcome to Woop Woop, it's available in Region 4 - though in 4:3 (open-matte from Super 35 AFAIK).

Frankinho007 · #3 Post by **Frankinho007** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:06 pm

There's an OOP RC 2 DVD of Trapeze + it's in print in Spain + it will be released through Wild Side's "Les Introuvables" line in France on the 24th of February.

kidc85 · #4 Post by **kidc85** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 6:43 pm

Excuse my ignorance (I've never even heard of it before), but what's wrong with BOD?

#5 Post by **domino harvey** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 6:44 pm

It's a DVD-R

MoonlitKnight · #6 Post by **MoonlitKnight** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:00 pm

Better DVD-R than nothing at all, no?

(Providing it's still presented in its OAR.)

planetjake · #7 Post by **planetjake** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:11 pm

MoonlitKnight wrote:Better DVD-R than nothing at all, no? (Providing it's still presented in its OAR.)

I'd be in total agreement with you if the standard pricing went down. Spending $20 for a DVD-R which may or may not be a new transfer has always seemed absurd to me... Though I am placing my first Warner Archive order pretty soon...

Gregory · #8 Post by **Gregory** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:23 pm

In addition to the high price, the biggest problem with these DVD-Rs has been quality control, only part of which is the tendency for many of them to crap out after 5-10 years. And yet Feltenstein at Warner Home Video openly calls fans "myopic" who protest the turn toward this type of release at the expense of pressed DVDs. As for the here and now, people elsewhere on the forum have commented on flaws with many of these, including crappy, interlaced transfers. Feltenstein has already admitted the the quality of some of the early Warner Archive releases was so bad they should not have been released. Really nice to hear after having ordered a bunch of them!

#9 Post by **domino harvey** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:26 pm

And MGM's standard list price for regular DVDs was $14.99, meaning these cheapies cost more than even their best regular titles at MSRP. I refuse to believe that pressing 5000 regular DVDs is that much more expensive than offering these burnt POSes

Ben Cheshire · #10 Post by **Ben Cheshire** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:20 pm

I wouldn't say the Scooby Doo reference is justified (Ruh-roh?). Aren't BOD just a way to ween DVD out of the market to be replaced by Blu Ray and Digital Copies? Isn't this a good thing?

#11 Post by **domino harvey** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:27 pm

hangman · #12 Post by **hangman** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:29 am

Ben Cheshire wrote:I wouldn't say the Scooby Doo reference is justified (Ruh-roh?). Aren't BOD just a way to ween DVD out of the market to be replaced by Blu Ray and Digital Copies? Isn't this a good thing?

How did you jump to THAT conclusion

Its hardly a way to ween the DVD market onto Blu Ray, especially considering the quality of the prints so far of a similar and earlier enterprise as the Warner Archive. Its more like a quick way to cash in on pipe line titles to try and fill in the niche demand, with minimal costs and apparently it seems to be a business venture that studios find interesting. While I can't say whether the MGM burn on demands have had their prints restored, but most likely they haven't, its hardly a way to Blu Ray with the care they've given certain titles which could've had a more packed release or yes a restoration and a Blu Ray release. And in a sense it is good that we're getting some long time titles sitting in the vaults but also bad since as noted the titles aren't given the care or release they deserve, thats especially a slap considering that these studios would have more capital than MoC or Criterion so theoretically they could have restored these or sold the titles off to some other interested party that could have given better care for the titles.

So Ruh-roh definitely sums this one up as it may be that other studios may follow trend. If by lowering product quality is what you'd see a way to ween the market out of DVD I'm very scared by your customer suggestions...

#13 Post by **domino harvey** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:48 am

Basically I had hoped that the Warners Archive lunacy was limited to WB, but it appears to be spreading. I've been so relieved lately to be researching an unavailable movie and discovering it is a Fox or Columbia property. God help us if they too start to think this DVD-R shit is a good idea. These releases so completely ghettoize the films they "liberate" that it's hardly a victory for fans of the film.

In terms of availability and releasing, Blu-ray has only hurt and never helped the home video market. I'm sorry, but it's becoming more and more true. What's worse, its willing enablers are among us and boastful to boot. Sure, Blu-ray's great if your idea of an old film is Falling Down, but it's killing the already fragile niche classic cinema market. I, underline, think Blu-ray is a good idea, am not opposed to those who want to see films in a hi-fi way, and the format may at one time have been able to co-exist with regular DVDs. But zealots and loyalists are refusing to buy regular discs, which means that 2/3 of the films in the vaults will remain unseen. The bubble has burst for older studio films and there was still so much that didn't get a chance.

This is in all seriousness a pretty scary thing to me.

MichaelB · #14 Post by **MichaelB** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 5:41 am

domino harvey wrote:But zealots and loyalists are refusing to buy regular discs, which means that 2/3 of the films in the vaults will remain unseen. The bubble has burst for older studio films and there was still so much that didn't get a chance.

This is in all seriousness a pretty scary thing to me.

What's needed is an awareness campaign of some kind - because the simple fact is that most films just won't come out on Blu-ray because the materials aren't in a good enough state or because the resolution was only ever SD in the first place.

Thanks to that rather premature announcement on Amazon, I'm still seeing people asking about the Blu-ray of Terence Davies' Of Time and the City, which doesn't exist and will never exist - the film was largely sourced from and entirely edited on SD video, so there's no point. Same for the vast majority of pre-2000s television - the 35mm-sourced The Prisoner is a freakish exception rather than a general rule (especially with regard to British telly - even if it was shot on film, the chances are it was edited on analogue PAL videotape and that that's the only master available). Even when the BFI very sensibly split Ron Peck's back catalogue onto Blu-ray (for film-sourced stuff) and DVD (for the SD video material) for its dual-disc release of Nighthawks, idiots complained about it.

More seriously, if the original mastering materials aren't in great condition, it's much harder to justify an HD remaster, as the flaws will just be magnified. Which makes it much less likely for niche titles to come out on the format.

In other words, anyone who refuses to buy DVDs on principle any more is just cutting off their nose to spite their face - the fact is that it's still a perfectly adequate medium for a huge number of films, and in many cases it's about as good as it's ever realistically likely to get.

colinr0380 · #15 Post by **colinr0380** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:02 am

I agree with both of the above posts. DVD has been made into a victim of its own success in many ways. Its ubiquity, and relatively easy ability for region coding to be circumvented and for its products to be torrented seems to have drawn anger from both sides - so the little studios for whom piracy is more of an issue want Blu-Ray to destroy DVD so they can retain more legitimate control of their product. The studios want that plus region coding plus see a way of dumping their DVD product onto poorer quality DVD-Rs to muddy DVDs general reputation still further (not to mention getting out of having to produce expensive and time consuming extra features for all but their top notch Blu releases). Worryingly these DVD-Rs seem to actually be legitimising and reinforcing the numbers of torrenters, since there appears to be an assumption taking place that films on DVD will be shared anyway so why bother with quality control or taking care over a decent release to make an actual 'pressed' disc more significant than an illegally downloaded one? Aside from an official Warners label on your purchased DVD-R only the ethical issue remains to distinguish, and lots of people seem to have proved to be more than willing to set that aside over the years.

Coming along at financially troubling times it is a cynical but no-brainer decision for the big studios I guess. No one can whine about the quality or the cost because they should just be glad to actually have access to the films. Yet for anyone who cares about the dumped films, they'll be devastated at the implicit value judgement (or as domino eloquently put it, 'ghettoisation') placed on a whole slew of films.

The market has been polarised between 'cheap' DVD-R and 'hi-tech' Blu-Ray – the one thing that seems to link the two extremes together, and this is where I see some relevance with with MichaelB’s post, is that they both rely upon consumer ignorance about the films themselves – DVD-Rs are a decrease in quality from pressed DVDs and Blu-Ray is not really the correct option in certain circumstances (plus, as great an improvement Blu-Ray is compared to DVD for audio especially, in terms of picture quality it will still never compare to a native resolution of a theatrical print. That possibility is still a few formats away).

While I understand the potential of Blu-Ray and am looking to fully upgrade in the future, I’m still very unsure about this becoming the next player that gains wide adoption – I think it may do better than Laserdisc (the prices having a lot to do with it), but don’t see it becoming a success unless DVD is destroyed altogether and people are forced to move, which is what I assume is occurring at the moment. It is a shame, particularly from the point of view of variety of titles being reset back to a zero sum point - I’ve continued to pick up titles on DVD that I sincerely believe will never get released on Blu-Ray before the next format replaces it (even if every company goes Blu-Ray only from tomorrow), just as there are many films were never released in twenty years of VHS. Even with their Archive collections Warners are just scratching the surface of their ‘uncommercial’ material.

I agree with domino that at one stage both formats might have had the chance to co-exist, especially if DVD continued on releasing ‘lesser’ (i.e. non Hollywood blockbuster) catalogue titles in decent quality to an appreciative audience that gave DVDs a unique quality. Instead, besieged and undermined at both ends, it is entirely possible that the golden goose has already been kneecapped, if not yet killed off.

MichaelB · #16 Post by **MichaelB** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:48 am

colinr0380 wrote:(plus, as great an improvement Blu-Ray is compared to DVD for audio especially, in terms of picture quality it will still never compare to a native resolution of a theatrical print. That possibility is still a few formats away).

Actually, I'd disagree with that - I've seen quite a few 16mm-sourced Blu-rays of late, and I'd say that those transfers compare very well indeed to a native resolution of a theatrical print. This was reinforced when I sat in on the telecine of The Other Side of the Underneath and got to compare zoomed-in images of the original camera negative with what was being recorded on the HD master - and if there was any difference at all, it was so negligible as to be irrelevant.

colinr0380 · #17 Post by **colinr0380** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 8:49 am

Many apologies, I was thinking there more of 35mm and higher films that while they improve on a DVD image still involve some forms of compression and should have added that to my comment, but I'm not the most technically proficient person in these matters myself! As you say at least 16mm is well encompassed by the new technology but then that creates new problems of unaware consumers expecting all films to be improved by the technological advances when they would be just as well served by an existing format. I'm sure when a future format comes along there will be similar complaints about lack of image 'upgrade' for 16mm titles released on Blu as there were for the SD titles you mention!

Though the above is a point in favour of Blu-Ray in at least being able to start to encompass such material for the first time on a home viewing format, compared to the complete lack of merit of these DVD-Rs in comparison to pressed DVDs and their sacrifice of image quality for title availablility in a "that's the best you can expect in terms of our resources" move. And as with the argument on the MoC thread about production for DVD having been the factor that was limiting the potential titles that could be released, I don't buy it as the primary factor the prevented their appearance before now.

HerrSchreck · #18 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:54 pm

I forget where, but elsewhere in another thread the resolution of 35mm film was laid against the high end of Blu in 1080, and the Blu came up short by a not-so-insignificant percentage, though it wasn't neccessarily a gigantic gap between the two. Of course 16mm poses a smaller reproductive challenge to Blu-- in terms of detail and resolution-- than does 35... this is true, nicht wahr?

As for the thread topic, it seems inevitable that the rest of the majors are going to follow suit w WB & MGM, and the days of pressed SD DVDs of all our most beloved less-than-classic arthouse not on the CC's/Kino's/MoC's/Milestone's/Flicker-A's of the world are going the way of the Dodo... Those of us with large arthouse libraries, particularly of silents and boxsets likeTREASURES/MORE TREASURES, UNSEEN CINEMA, etc, should feel grateful to have had the funds to act when the iron was hot. I seriously doubt that even when Blu finds it's own glory days, the library will not come close to mimicking what was available in the SD days.

And yes, Michael's right-- I'm going to keel over with laughter when stuff like BD's of SANFORD & SON, and the classic SNL come out on BD... shows which were shot on analog video and will receive no bump whatsoever by going to Blu.

MichaelB · #19 Post by **MichaelB** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:59 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:I forget where, but elsewhere in another thread the resolution of 35mm film was laid against the high end of Blu in 1080, and the Blu came up short by a not-so-insignificant percentage, though it wasn't neccessarily a gigantic gap between the two. Of course 16mm poses a smaller reproductive challenge to Blu-- in terms of detail and resolution-- than does 35... this is true, nicht wahr?

It's impossible to accurately compare a digital and a chemical medium in terms of resolution, but my understanding is that 35mm is probably somewhere between 4K and 8K, depending on the stock, film speed, grain, etc.

On the other hand, 16mm seems to be around 2K (possibly a bit more if it's particularly fine-grained), so it's reasonable to say that a well-encoded 16mm-sourced Blu really does reproduce pretty much all the detail.

Those of us with large arthouse libraries, particularly of silents and boxsets likeTREASURES/MORE TREASURES, UNSEEN CINEMA, etc, should feel grateful to have had the funds to act when the iron was hot. I seriously doubt that even when Blu finds it's own glory days, the library will not come close to mimicking what was available in the SD days.

So do I - because the materials just aren't there. With many of Kino's more obscure releases, it was clearly a struggle even getting up to SD NTSC quality (no reflection on them, merely on the rarity and the lack of decent materials), so there's absolutely no point in putting them out on Blu.

And yes, Michael's right-- I'm going to keel over with laughter when stuff like BD's of SANFORD & SON, and the classic SNL come out on BD... shows which were shot on analog video and will receive no bump whatsoever by going to Blu.

On the other hand, I'd love to see a Blu of Ken Russell's Elgar - shot in 35mm, and the original neg still survives. Even the DVD was a massive improvement on the original 405-line TV broadcast in 1962.

brendanjc · #20 Post by **brendanjc** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 6:49 pm

I think MichaelB is correct about the resolution comparisons. As a short-hand way to remember it, you step up roughly 4 times in resolution from DVD to Blu-ray and from Blu-ray to 35mm, with 16mm being roughly equivalent to BD. As far as TV goes, I imagine that as Blu-ray adoption picks up, the costs of manufacturing the disks will drop. I can see shows produced on SD video showing up as upconverted BD releases, and there's some value in that (less worry about compression artifacts - remember Superbit editions, fewer discs, perhaps the production company could bake in a upconverted version that looks better than what many TVs or players could do, etc). I predict it will be awhile until we see any releases like that, though. On the other hand, there still is quite a bit of TV that was shot on film where the advantage is clear, like the aforementioned The Prisoner, which looks fantastic, and the recently announced BD releases of The Twilight Zone. In the latter case it'll be interesting to see if they encode the handful of videotaped episodes as upconverted HD; I imagine they will.

GaryC · #21 Post by **GaryC** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:10 pm

MichaelB wrote: It's impossible to accurately compare a digital and a chemical medium in terms of resolution, but my understanding is that 35mm is probably somewhere between 4K and 8K, depending on the stock, film speed, grain, etc.

FWIW the IMAX-shot footage in The Dark Knight was scanned at 8K when they combined it with the rest of the film (shot in 35mm anamorphic) to make the 35mm release versions. What the result looked like I couldn't say, because I saw the film in IMAX - given that half an hour of it was shot in that format, I wasn't going to see it any other way.

unclehulot · #22 Post by **unclehulot** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 10:10 pm

Another reason the burned dvd thing sucks is that Netflix won't rent them.

Perhaps they offered FULL dvd image downloads for something less than $10, I'd be interested, but $20 for a burned disc....not for me.

manicsounds · #23 Post by **manicsounds** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:28 am

on top of this burn-on-demand debacle, Universal wants to do Bluray / DVD Flipper discs as they did with their old HD-DVDs. Good God, they should have learned their lesson by now. BUt history tends to repeat their mistakes....

aox · #24 Post by **aox** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:41 am

manicsounds wrote:on top of this burn-on-demand debacle, Universal wants to do Bluray / DVD Flipper discs as they did with their old HD-DVDs. Good God, they should have learned their lesson by now. BUt history tends to repeat their mistakes....

Is this just general hatred towards the flipper concept or were there other problems? Claiming ignorance on this.

HerrSchreck · #25 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 12:24 pm

david hare wrote:This last page of the discussion seems to be completely ignoring the expanding number of DVD commcerical releases in Europe and even in Oz. Thus the Wild Side Nick Ray double and the Carlotta four pack 30s Sirk next year for beginners. And the Oz Madman label seems to be collecting every second BFI and Criterion (and Carlotta/Universal) title that's ever been previously put out. I think there's still some sort of market for DVD outside the US but I don't doubt the US and possibly even the Oz markets for SD are declining - if you look at the ever reducing number of titles in stores, and the most common releases now seem to be those endlessly recycled reissues, SEs and re pacakged mutli packs. The whole marketing of old catalogue has taken a turn backwards but I don't think Blu Ray has been the driving force, it's simply starting to grow, as the effects of the last economic downturn taper off. And - again in Europe, how can you stick with Domino's ascription of Blu catalogue releasing as commerical pap when we're about to get Senso, LadyKillers, A Bout de Souffle, Lola Montez, Femme Mariee, M, City Girl, Stagecoach, etc etc in the early New Year.

Sure you're no doubt right. Labels I was mentioning were the big studios here in the US. Home Vid co's will have no choice but to keep on keeping on or go under-- here's to Keeping On! >clink<