DVD from Warner Archives


"The Warner Archives Collection currently has a number of titles up for pre-order which will be of great interest to DVD Drive-In readers. Up for pre-order now is a widescreen, anamorphic edition of Hammer Films’ SHE (1965) starring Ursula Andress, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee; the 1950s camp monster fest FROM HELL IT CAME; the highly demanded 1973 TV terror pic DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK; Russell Mulcahy’s 1983 creature feature RAZORBACK and the 1974 sci-fi thriller THE TERMINAL MAN with George Segal. All can now be purchased on DVD for $19.95 or $14.95, depending on the title."

http://www.wbshop.com/

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The $14.95 price is for on-demand discs. Only some Archive titles are available both in standard DVD-R releases and on demand. Every title found at the $14.95 price is also available as a better-quality, higher-price ($19.95) disc.

Movies Unlimited is the only other outfit to carry the Warner Archives line. The $19.95 discs cost $17.99 at MU, but the titles don't become available until 90 days after they're released at WBshop. Both sites normally charge shipping and handling costs.

I love bad movies as much anybody, but frankly, with so many better films controlled by Warner, why they'd release something as genuinely crummy as From Hell It Came before most of their other sci-fi films is unfathomable to me.

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Warner has the rights to many interesting classic titles both from their own studio vaults and from Allied Artists. However,I was really disappointed to see that titles such as "From hell it came" and "This woman is dangerous" (and lots of others to come,I'm sure) will be released in second rate DVD-R editions instead of proper DVD ones. Also,if you read a note below the description of each of these archive titles,it says very clearly that none of them has been remastered for DVD, yet they're charging $19.99 for a crummy DVD-R copy made from old masters... What's going on? Major studios decided to rip us off giving us third rate material at regular prices ?

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From Amazon review:

http://www.amazon.com/Razorback-Bill-Kerr/dp/B002KAMSGC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1254503461&sr=8-5

I gave this title a one star rating due to the manufacture quality
of the disc(s), not based upon the actual content of the disc(s).
I recently purchased five Warner Archive titles from [...]
Titles purchased were: All The Marbles, Bermuda Depths, Carny,
From Hell It Came and Razorback. On the back cover of each disc it states,
Discs are for use in playback only devices. All five of these discs would
not function correctly. What I mean is that the menu would not come up
on any of them. The screen would just show black with no picture until
I skipped forward to approx 30 to 50 minutes into the film. Then I had
to fast reverse search back to the start of the movie. Upon doing this
the films/discs then played through the films. Quality of the films
themselves I feel is very good. I attempted playback on five different
brands of DVD players with the exact same result. It would seem these M.O.D.
(Manufactured On Demand) titles are either so heavily encrypted with
Macrovision or just so poorly manufactured that playback is very frustrating.
Cover art is extremely lacking in photos and design layout.

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I've purchased about thirty of the Warner created upon demand ARCHIVE COLLECTION titles and I am very pleased with their playability and their quality. Of course. some of the films are flat terrible, but that's why we love them.

Moreover, I have not paid over $10 for a DVD-R. Simply subscribe to their email list and they'll send you specials including the 5 for $50 special that I've used three times.

:-)



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[deleted]

In the years since then they remaster or work on practically everything they release now. Mostly due to the success that came from those earlier ones that didn't have next to anything if at all worked on.

Some of also stems from the huff and puff of certain internet minorities. While not a perfect process a lot of those weasels have had to keep pushing back their "Those cheap dvd-r discs are only going to last X years" after each year they pass and still survive quite well. In all my time, I've only gotten one bad burn from order, and none of mine have croaked yet. (I post this after finding one regular dvd today was toast)

But on the other point if by 2015 you haven't realized you're in a minority if you care that much about picture quality, you aren't going to ever get it. Most of the unworked on titles (barring a few) i'd guarantee you wouldn't bother the majority of the people that would buy them.

Some people have a very bad projection problem in terms of what collecting is these days. The Warner Archive program started as a way to move smaller quantities of shows that while had money to be made, aren't big boomers. It's sicne starting taking in lots of things that past went to retail, but got discontiued. As in this modern era most people buying stuff are either A. people who want a large library or B. people that just want copies of their favorites. You never know just how many people are Type B's of some of this smaller stuff. They should be made available in the format that won't tank the studios if they don't sell millions on millions and go OOP.

Communities left for being out of touch: Gamefaqs, Home Theater Forum
Also left a group on Flickr

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