Warner Brothers Archive Collection (DVDs only)

[Perkins Cobb]

Ladybug Ladybug was available for streaming on Netflix as of sometime last year (not sure if it's still there), which means it should have some chance of also emerging as an MGM MOD.

[rockysds]

Lou Lumenick talked with George Feltenstein about the two upcoming Forbidden Hollywood sets, which you'll might want to get sooner rather than later:

The Warner Archive Collection, which introduced major studio MOD releases and has steadily become more sophisticated in its approach to the classics, today revives its 25-year-old Forbidden Hollywood label (introduced in the VHS era) with a pair of four-title sets of pre-code goodies (which are not co-branded with TCM like their three retail DVD predecessors). Warners' George Feltenstein told me these sets will initially be available as pressed DVD discs, at least until the initial limited run is exhausted and they're switched over to WAC's normal burned-on-demand DVD-R format.

These are the first theatrical features that WAC has made available on pressed discs, which had previously been used only for some TV collections and the recent set of "Crime Does Not Pay'' shorts. Feltenstein indicated this would only be used for "selected multi-disc sets'' as a manufacturing efficiency and that most releases will continue to be released on burned discs. "The whole MOD model is designed to avoid excess inventory, which is a real problem in the DVD industry.''

Volume 4 of "Forbidden Hollywood'' is comprised of William Dieterle's wonderful "Jewel Robbery'' (1932) with William Powell and Kay Francis; Dieterle's "Lawyer Man'' (1932) with Powell and Joan Blondell; Dieterle's "Man Wanted'' (1932) with Francis and David Manners; and Thornton Freeland's "They Call It Sin'' (1932).

Volume 5 includes Mervyn LeRoy's "Hard to Handle'' (1933) with James Cagney and Mary Brian; Howard Bretherton and William Keighley's notorious prison drama "Ladies They Talk About'' (1933) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Preston (S.) Foster; Roy Del Ruth's "The Mind Reader'' (1933) with Warren William and Constance Cummings; and Lloyd Bacon's "Miss Pinkerton'' (1932) starring Joan Blondell and George Brent. Some of these titles were briefly announced as single pre-orders back in May, but they're only available in sets at this time.

[swo17]

Warners' George Feltenstein told me these sets will initially be available as pressed DVD discs, at least until the initial limited run is exhausted and they're switched over to WAC's normal burned-on-demand DVD-R format.

Hopefully they start doing this more often. It seems like a no brainer as a business decision, as long as the initial run is limited enough that it's guaranteed to sell out:

1. People who adamantly oppose burned discs will now buy your product.
2. They will buy it sooner and for more money than they might otherwise out of fear for the pressed discs running out.

[domino harvey]

The idea of DVD-Rs being the "normal" format makes me cry. I'm waiting to hear from someone actually ordering them though, because they still say Made on Demand on their website

[headacheboy]

I'll keep you posted Dom because I just ordered both sets of the new volumes of Forbidden Hollywood. I didn't much like shelling out $80 at the moment (fresh off a Criterion 50% raid & the two newest Elvis Costello's on MFSL) but if I can get them on pressed discs then I'll buy it now, family budget be damned!

[Max von Mayerling]

A couple people on the HTF have posted that they have received their Forbidden Hollywood sets from the archive and they are pressed discs. Mine shipped on July 11 and, like headache boy, I will post when I get them.

[vsski]

I took the plunge as well and hope for the best that they are pressed discs. The website doesn't say so, the customer service reps don't know anything about it, however, I was told that for Archive titles Warner changed its return policy and if any discs are unsatisfactory they can be returned, in other words if they turn up as DVD-Rs I will simply return them (still a hassle but at least worth the try for me).

[fdm]

Last order, a few months back's sale, I had to return the case and dvd-r for the ones I wanted replaced. One was a pretty scratched up disc, maybe if they see enough of them returned they might figure out why that happens sometimes. Have noticed that most of their more recently burnt discs don't really look all that great, lots of smudges or little scratches on a number of their play sides, but they typically play okay on the Oppo (can't return all of them, else what's the point, but did return a few). Didn't use to be the rule rather than the exception, but I suspect their manufacturing facilities could use a cleaning and/or maintenance crew coming in every once in a while.

Anyway, I'll probably be ordering the two Forbidden Hollywood sets at some point sooner rather than later. Been holding off on getting any more archive titles until I get through the (thankfully down to a) few I've yet to get to.

[buskeat]

I got them in the mail today. They're pressed all right. Only watched "Lawyer Man" so far and it looks good.

[Max von Mayerling]

Yep. I received mine today - pressed.

[vsski]

Thought I'd post this for the entertainment value - although I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry over the ineptitude of Warner's customer service.
I send them an e-mail explaining the situation with the pressed discs of the Forbidden Hollywood sets and clearly asked since the website never showed anything but MOD for these discs, if or how they can tell whether what's available is still pressed or already MOD. While I would have expected to get a we don't know or have no information type answer (which is what I was told on the phone), here is the e-mail I got:

"Thank you for contacting WBShop.com. If you view the item detail it will tell you about the product." ](*,)

[vsski]

For those that haven't seen this yet, the Digital Bits just posted this as part of their wrap up from Comic Con where WB's George Feltenstein talked about WB's upcoming plans:

Warner is in the initial stages of investigating the possibility of BD-R MOD releases in high-def, although many obstacles remain as the current BD-R spec isn't universally supported.

So much for hoping that when the Archives expand to BD that it would be pressed BDs insteads of BD-Rs.

[Max von Mayerling]

The notion of a BD-R barely makes any sense. Premium treatment with a throwaway tinge. I would think they'd be better off following the Twilight Time model and just producing a limited pressing.

[captveg]

The notion of a BD-R barely makes any sense. Premium treatment with a throwaway tinge. I would think they'd be better off following the Twilight Time model and just producing a limited pressing.

My guess is that this is how they eventually go. The AACS issue on PS3's for BD-R is a major hurdle to overcome. I doubt they'd want to do as many as 3000 copies, though. Probably more like 100-500, then order another batch if those sell out.

There's also the issue of BD-Rs being FAR more susceptible to scratches because they lack the "hard coating" of pressed BDs. The information on BD/BD-Rs is far closer to the surface of the disc than DVD/DVD-Rs.

[fdm]

When I went to buy a few blank BD-Rs a couple years back, seems like many amazon reviews of them mentioned that they didn't even seem to last a year before going bad. (Haven't really done much with the ones I bought, so couldn't confirm or deny.)

[headacheboy]

I finally got both sets of Forbidden Hollywood and they are indeed pressed discs. Warner Archives actually made pressed DVDs! They can make it if they try!

[triodelover]

Has anyone actually watched either Forbidden Hollywood set yet? I received both today and just sat down to watch Lawyer Man. Every single one of these has been reformatted for 16:9 displays. The back of the keep case says "Full Screen 1.37:1 Aspect Ratio". It's not correctable by resetting the display to 4:3 because it crops the stretched image exactly as you would expect it to. I can go into the settings menu of the Momitsu and changer the display type to "16:9 pillarbox" and that works. But if your player doesn't have that capability, I'm not sure there's another workaround. Just though everyone would like to be forewarned.

[JPJ]

No english subtitles on Forbidden Hollywood vol. 4 & 5? Audio is not perfect on pre-codes and there's usually fast moving dialogue, so someone whose first language is not
english would need those subs.

[Matt]

Has anyone actually watched either Forbidden Hollywood set yet? Every single one of these has been reformatted for 16:9 displays.

You've got to be kidding. Have you tried a different player or your computer's optical drive? I can't imagine Warner Archive would eff up on such a colossal scale.

[triodelover]

Has anyone actually watched either Forbidden Hollywood set yet? Every single one of these has been reformatted for 16:9 displays.

You've got to be kidding. Have you tried a different player or your computer's optical drive? I can't imagine Warner Archive would eff up on such a colossal scale.

The night before we watched MoC's BD of Ruggles. The player reproduced the correct AR with no display adjustment (default setting is 16:9), as it has for every BD in the collection. The computer-based system (which has since disappeared due to a Lion/XP incompatibility and an upgrade to the latest version of the Mini w/o an optical drive) also had no problems with varying ARs. I should add that approximately 75% of the collection (around 1200 titles) are Academy ratio or less (1.2:1, etc). This is the very first time I've experienced this. Sure, I can adjust the display or the player/software to force the full display, but everything previously has always come up in the AR specified.

ADDENDUM: Just tried it in the iMac with VLC. On that machine, it starts in 1.37:1 without modification. That's truly peculiar. So I went back and tried again with the Momitsu and the Panny plasma. Same result as before. Plugged in the Ruggles BD and it opened in the correct ratio. But...I then plugged in the RugglesDVD and it came up stretched for 16:9. I've never seen that before with SD DVDs. So it apparently is some sort of issue with the Momitsu BDP-799 and DVDs but not BDs. The Momitsu offers 4 choices for the display AR: 16:9, 16:9 pillarboxed, 4:3 P&S and 4:3 letterboxed. I've just started using this as my main player after the Mini upgrade and I just realized that this is the first time I've used it to play a DVD. Up until now, it's always been BDs - two nights ago the Gaumont BD of French Cancan played flawlessly. It appears that for SD DVDs, one needs to set the desired AR before playback. Sorry to alarm anyone.

[Matt]

Well, it's no consolation to you and other Momitsu BDP-799 owners, but I'm happy to hear it's not an issue with all players.

[SternDiet]

Has anyone actually watched either Forbidden Hollywood set yet? Every single one of these has been reformatted for 16:9 displays.

You've got to be kidding. Have you tried a different player or your computer's optical drive? I can't imagine Warner Archive would eff up on such a colossal scale.

The night before we watched MoC's BD of Ruggles. The player reproduced the correct AR with no display adjustment (default setting is 16:9), as it has for every BD in the collection. The computer-based system (which has since disappeared due to a Lion/XP incompatibility and an upgrade to the latest version of the Mini w/o an optical drive) also had no problems with varying ARs. I should add that approximately 75% of the collection (around 1200 titles) are Academy ratio or less (1.2:1, etc). This is the very first time I've experienced this. Sure, I can adjust the display or the player/software to force the full display, but everything previously has always come up in the AR specified.

ADDENDUM: Just tried it in the iMac with VLC. On that machine, it starts in 1.37:1 without modification. That's truly peculiar. So I went back and tried again with the Momitsu and the Panny plasma. Same result as before. Plugged in the Ruggles BD and it opened in the correct ratio. But...I then plugged in the RugglesDVD and it came up stretched for 16:9. I've never seen that before with SD DVDs. So it apparently is some sort of issue with the Momitsu BDP-799 and DVDs but not BDs. The Momitsu offers 4 choices for the display AR: 16:9, 16:9 pillarboxed, 4:3 P&S and 4:3 letterboxed. I've just started using this as my main player after the Mini upgrade and I just realized that this is the first time I've used it to play a DVD. Up until now, it's always been BDs - two nights ago the Gaumont BD of French Cancan played flawlessly. It appears that for SD DVDs, one needs to set the desired AR before playback. Sorry to alarm anyone.

I also had a Momitsu and I think it's pretty standard for these machines to play BD in the correct aspect ratio, but not SD. But as I seem to remember, there is a setting which automatically chooses the correct AR, but I forgot what it was - it's been a while. But it should be there.

[swo17]

Aren't a lot of BDs for 4:3 films encoded with a 16:9 image that has built-in black bars on the sides? That way a player is forced to play the image correctly.

[triodelover]

I also had a Momitsu and I think it's pretty standard for these machines to play BD in the correct aspect ratio, but not SD. But as I seem to remember, there is a setting which automatically chooses the correct AR, but I forgot what it was - it's been a while. But it should be there.

Thanks. I'll take a look and see if I can find that. It's not that big a deal to change the setting (and then change it back), it's just that you have to remember to do it - which you usually do when a 1932 film comes up stretched to hell and back for 16:9.

Aren't a lot of BDs for 4:3 films encoded with a 16:9 image that has built-in black bars on the sides? That way a player is forced to play the image correctly.

If that's true (and it makes sense), that explains a bit. Does the same hold true for ratios larger than 16:9 to force correct letterboxing?

[TMDaines]

Aren't a lot of BDs for 4:3 films encoded with a 16:9 image that has built-in black bars on the sides? That way a player is forced to play the image correctly.

All are. There's no such thing as a 1080p 4:3 image on a BD, I think.

Edit: Typo