Thanks for the info on Sci-Fi Station. I’ve been to their site and they have some rare titles I’ve been looking for, but I was hesitant to purchase because I’ve been burned a few times before by bootleggers, either print quality-wise (Trash Palace, who I refuse to buy from any more) or financially (ripoff artists Brutallo.com, which thankfully looks like it’s defunct). Maybe I’ll try a few titles from SFS and see how it goes.
I’ve had mostly very good luck with Sinister. At least if their print is a bit subpar, they’ll let you know in the description. And some of their stuff looks great.
Thanks also for the heads-up on the FCA line. I haven’t seen any of those yet, but I’ll make sure to research them in depth before I buy any. Pan-and-scan in 2012 is inexcusable. I’ve had the conversation a few times before online about why Fox, Universal, MGM, etc., have been so stingly with their less prestigious titles, and have had several self-appointed “experts” tell me that unless a title will sell in excess of 100,000 copies, it’s not worth it financially to put it out on a commercial DVD. Which is given the lie by Twilight Time’s 3000-edition Blu-rays, some of which are already out of print, and the numerous mom-and-pop or boutique labels like VCI, Synapse, Blue Underground, Mondo Macabro, Media Blasters, etc., who seem to be doing alright with quality, feature-packed DVDs and Blu-rays of many obscure and cult titles that can’t possibly be selling 100,000 copies. Maybe not getting rich, but they’re all still in business after 10 years or more.
I realize that MGM in particular has been dealing with financial difficulties over the last few years, but their situation illustrates my argument perfectly. When they were putting out all the Midnite Movies DVDs, they were doing (usually) double-features and typically MSRP'ing them for $14.99, often discounted to $10.00 or less by retailers. Then they essentially gave up on the MM line, citing the fact that they weren’t making enough money on them (I had some correspondence with one of their VPs of something-or-other). They were obviously selling well since many of them are now OOP. But I personally would have been happy to pay $20 to $25 for those double-feature discs if it meant keeping the releases coming. I think $10 to $15 per title is a fair price for a decent transfer and a few extras. I’ll never understand their marketing and pricing strategies if I live to be 100.
Then there’s Universal, who seem to be determined to let as few of their movies out onto the market as possible, other than the Hitchcocks, as you mentioned, and their classic monster titles (although a number of those are still MIA 14 years after the introduction of DVD, and most of the rest have been double-, triple-, or even quadruple-dipped now). I had read a few years back that they were invested in some video-on-demand venture and were hoping that would take off and they could just skip the Blu-ray format, which would explain why they were so late to the BD party. I haven’t been able to find any confirmation of this since I read it, but it seems like they finally decided that they need to get with it, and have actually done a great job on the few BDs they have released.
What kind of screwed-up business model do these companies follow? I’m dying to give them my money if they’d just release some new titles, but they don’t seem interested. Frustrating. Thank god for Warner, Sony, Image, Kino, Shout! Factory, Redemption, etc.
Anyway, good chatting. See ya’ around the boards.
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hobnob53
11 years ago
Just a couple of quick notes about a couple of things you mentioned....
If you do order from scifistation.com, perhaps you could post here and tell me your opinion. Last I looked they had widescreen versions of both Hercules and Hercules Unchained, which seem otherwise unavailable (no: Sinister now has the latter), which I've thought of getting. I really don't know why I've been so hesitant about ordering from them. They seem perfectly legit and do have some titles I'd be interested in. Some inner quirk of my own, I guess.
About Sinister Cinema, one good thing about them is that they take back any defective disc, anytime, plus they run great sales and get some interesting titles.
I'm a bit unclear if you know this (I assume you do as you're very well informed on most of this stuff), but just in case, you can get a list of the films available on Universal's MOD line by entering "Universal Vault" on Amazon's search. As always with Amazon, you'll get a lot of extraneous stuff mixed in with the Vault titles, but you'll get them all. Of course, the Vault series is an Amazon exclusive. Universal has been very fitful in issuing many titles on this label but there are some good titles, including a few Paramounts. Several good films owned by Universal have also been issued (usually in sets) exclusively through TCM.com and Movies Unlimited, including a pair of hitherto unreleased Billy Wilder 40s films, Five Graves to Cairo and A Foreign Affair.
One outfit I have to differ with you about is Twilight Time. I've had some contact with the people who founded it and I have to say they have almost no clue about the video market. They came from the record side of the business and got into this after retiring.
They first struck a deal with Fox to put out limited editions of some of their films, but the titles they've chosen from that studio are mostly esoteric and poor movies in little demand and with almost no built-in audience. They have a few good Fox titles (Violent Saturday, Fate is the Hunter, The Egyptian, a couple of others), but most are pretty lame -- The Kremlin Letter, Stagecoach (1966), The Sound and the Fury and many others. Symptomatic of their utter lack of judgment is a movie called Woman Obsessed, a little-known and poorly received film both in its day (1959) and ever since, which for some reason this clueless duo thought would be huge. The boss now admits he misjudged the market and is stuck with most of the discs they struck, but this is true with almost all their titles.
When they branched out and began issuing Blu-rays of Columbia titles (easily arranged because Fox handles Sony's DVD output), they chose only titles already out on standard DVD, so there was a niche market for Blu-rays of these films. (By contrast, only a couple of their Fox Blu's had already been released on regular DVD.) But in fact so far only three of their titles have sold out their 3000 limit, all of them horror or sci-fi films which are always much in demand and, again, have their special niche market. Every other title is still in stock and will likely be for years.
Also, their decision last year to switch from DVD exclusively to Blu-ray shows a complete disregard for their customers. Releasing the Sony discs only in Blu makes sense since they're all available on standard DVD. But most of the Fox titles are new to disc, and I dislike not having a choice of format (in general I'm satisfied with DVD and don't care much about Blu-ray, or want to spend more for it). They could have split each run between the formats and reached a bigger audience.
TT is, in my view, a textbook example of not knowing your market, or even your business.
Anyway, it's nice to chat with someone basically on the same page about these issues and experiences, and I also look forward to speaking again, here and elsewhere. Take care, and thanks!
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surfink
11 years ago
At the risk of beating this thread to death . . .
If I get around to ordering anything from Sci-Fi Station, I'll give you a heads-up on my experience.
Yes, Sinister is a great resource. I've been ordering from them since the days of VHS in the early '80s (yes, I'm that old), and have had no problems getting a few defective discs replaced when necessary. Also like to take advantage of the great sales on occasion.
Thanks for the tip on searching Universal Vault on Amazon. I've got a couple of the Vault titles, and picked up their excellent Universal Cult Horror Collection from TCM a while back.
The background on Twilight Time is interesting. I have thought that some of their selections seemed a little off-the-wall myself. Thanks for confirming that it's not just me! My point, however, wasn't that they were such a great operation, just that the "experts" who told me that anything less than a 100,000 run of pressed DVDs wasn't economically viable were talking out of, well, not their mouths exactly. That might be true of fully restored high-profile titles with loads of extras, but I'm not expecting that kind of production on many of the rarer movies I seek; I just want a halfway decent print on a disc so I can watch the damn thing. Perhaps the other companies I cited are better examples since they have all been at it for far longer and apparently are more savvy at what they're doing. And, vis a vis my comments on MGM (or Columbia Tristar before Sony took over), TT isn't the only company that doesn't seem to understand their market.
I feel your pain about the apparent abandonment of DVD by TT and others. While I do like picking up Blu-rays of certain titles, especially if I can get a good price on them, there are plenty of movies I'm perfectly content to own on DVD and appreciate having the option. Personally, I think the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack is a great concept, I wish more stuff was available that way. I get the feeling that the big media companies would like everyone to just stream or download everything so they can eliminate the expenses associated with physical media, but I prefer to own a hard copy. I don't like streaming for a variety of reasons, and like to get the extras that come on disc. Plus, when everything resides in the cloud, it's too easy for titles to be withdrawn arbitrarily (remember how long Stagecoach was unavailable because of the inferior remake?). I just don't trust the big media conglomerates to keep this stuff freely available, and at reasonable prices. DVD has been such a financial boon to the movie companies, and now they seem intent on obsoleting it (didn't they ever read that story about the goose that laid the golden eggs?).
I talk to a lot of people who feel the same way. They like to actually own a movie, book, etc. I can see the argument for digital newspapers and TV shows that you're likely to read or watch only once, but I don't want to have to pay again and again to read or view a favorite book or movie. I just want to buy it, add it to my library, and be done.
On a related note, I read an article a few years back by another "expert" saying that since VHS had about a 20-year lifespan, and DVD a little less than 10 before Blu-ray was introduced, that Blu-ray would only be around for about five years and then everything would be streamed or downloaded. Well, we're at the six-year mark for Blu-ray and it just seems to be hitting stride. And if what I read about Universal and their VOD plans is true, the streaming thing doesn't seem to be working out as well as the media companies would like. Streaming seems to have cannibalized much of the rental market, but last time I checked it was still a tiny fraction of "packaged media" sales. Which suits me fine. It will be a sad day indeed if they ever succeed in getting rid of physical media (DVDs, paper books, magazines). That's one of the things I like least about Apple, even though I've owned a number of their computers over the years; they seem intent on pushing the "everything in the cloud" concept, regardless of the very real drawbacks involved.
Well, I'm off on a tangent now, so I think I'll end it here.
Good evening!
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hobnob53
11 years ago
surfink, I'll say just this about your thoughts on physical media, owning and collecting, preferring DVDs over Blu-ray, streaming, corporate philosophies and so forth: I agree with every word you say. No exceptions.
I'm probably around your age, maybe a bit older (I say this since you've been ordering from SC since the early 80s; I never came to them until late VHS days in the late 90s), so perhaps we share a similar affinity for certain media formats owing to having lived through the transformation of so much media.
I keep hearing about the death of physical media but in my view that's still a long way off, for the reasons you cite. As for studios having to press 100,000 copies of something (nonsense, mostly), the advent of quality DVD-R (Warner Archives, the MGM and Columbia lines, even the far-from-perfect Universal Vault and Fox Cinema Archive) has negated that issue, to everyone's benefit. Certainly outfits such as Criterion wouldn't still be busily issuing DVDs and Blu-rays if physical media were in the dire straits advertised. (Although they are on hulu, which holds no interest for me at this point.)
Of course, the Twilight Time guys came up with that name as a way of marking the imminent demise of discs -- they felt their work would be among the last in such formats, hence their farewell, as such things ride into the twilight. Yeah, that makes sense.
Thank God there are people like us to uphold some standards!
Stay in touch.
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