MovieChat Forums > Canyon River (1956) Discussion > DVD now available directly from Warner's...

DVD now available directly from Warner's webpage!


Warner Home Video is selling this film exclusively on their webpage:
http://www.wbshop.com/Canyon-River-+MOD/1000088068,default,pd.html?cgid=ARCHIVE

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At last, I wrongly thought...I'll be able to buy brand new CinemaScope transfers of three of my favourite 1950's Westerns...Canyon River; Wichita and The Oklahoman. Well, I've just tried to order one of their DVD's and went through the whole process of registering and giving Warners all my details and chose United Kingdom as the country to post it to from their huge list of countries, only to be told that I wasn't allowed to buy it because I live outside the United States. Bloody marvelous!

Perhaps the ones I wanted to buy will eventually be made available through amazon, like those Warner Best Buy exclusives usually are.

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Warner Home Video just said on a chat with www.HomeTheaterForum.com (the transcript will be up in a few hours) that MOST of the titles will be available to international buyers in a few days time. The site only went officially live TODAY.

They are not allowed to sell films overseas that they don't own the international rights to. I am HOPEFUL that they own the world-wide rights to Allied Artists films, but I don't know at this stage. I am in Australia so I have the same issues as you.

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Thanks, Simon. As long as the three Allied Artists films I want will be made available internationally, that'll do me fine. As for their owning the rights to old Allied Artists films, last year, Warners released a CinemaScope DVD of the 1956 Allied Artists classic World Without End, which, although originally was only for sale in the United States through Best Buy stores, was made available internationally a month later.

At present, it seems that the DVD's listed on Warner's site are DVD-R's, which are burned and not stamped like a normal release DVD. But if they are given a proper release, they will hopefully be DVD copies that are stamped and not burned.

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[Warners released a CinemaScope DVD of of the 1956 Allied Artists classic World Without End, which, although originally was only for sale in the United States through Best Buy stores, was made available internationally a month later. ]

Yeah I got a friend in the U.S. to buy a copy of that double feature from Best Buy and post it to me. It hasn't been released in Australia.

[At present, it seems that the DVD's listed on Warner's site are DVD-R's, which are burned and not stamped like a normal release DVD. But if they are given a proper release, they will hopefully be DVD copies that are stamped and not burned. ]

Yes that is correct, it is the only way they can make so many films available in a way that is economic. Consider that they only release catalog films on pressed DVD in the usual way if they estimate it will sell at least 20,000 copies (see here: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/17352.cfm )

The Warner Archive program means they are willing to make available official versions of films - in their original aspect ratios - even if they only think the film will sell a few thousand copies. They want to have their entire library (6000+ films) available in ten years time.

I agree that DVD-Rs aren't a perfect backup medium, but they did say in the HTF chat:
"The discs are of the highest quality. They are manufactured via proprietary MOD process which is very different from home-used DVDRs on one's computer....we guarantee the quality of these discs and will stand by them."
Full transcript here: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/032409htfchat.html

Of course, you can always use DVD Decrypter to back up your discs to a computer, so if they ever do fail you will have a digital copy of them.

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