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Just received volumes 8 & 9 of Forbidden Hollywood from Deep Discount and both were pressed. For some reason I thought I'd take a chance on picking up 4 the only one of these I had skipped and it was not pressed. The difference in quality between pressed and non pressed discs is stark. Amazing they charge you the same price for such an inferior product.

Black Hat wrote:Just received volumes 8 & 9 of Forbidden Hollywood from Deep Discount and both were pressed. For some reason I thought I'd take a chance on picking up 4 the only one of these I had skipped and it was not pressed. The difference in quality between pressed and non pressed discs is stark. Amazing they charge you the same price for such an inferior product.

When did you place your order for 8? When it was confirmed earlier on this page that 8 was still pressed from Deep Discount, their listing for 8 said it was on backorder. When it was available again, its price had risen to the same rate as 4-7 (and it's still currently there), which makes me wonder. I realize this must sound silly since I'm sure you just ordered it a few days ago but, well, it doesn't hurt to double check.

I just got 9 in as well today and while the discs were pressed, each disc featured a lighter, discolored blob area around the center. I'm sure they'll still play just fine but I'll find out soon enough.

Placed the order last weekend.

Black Hat wrote:Placed the order last weekend.

Awesome. Thanks.

Class Act (1992) is going from MOD release to pressed DVD from Warner in June. I think this is the first stand-alone title to get such treatment... Wish the choice was better...

Well thanks to this forum for not letting me know sooner that WB has finally released Traveltalks on DVD....R. I have finally ended my self-imposed ban on all DVD-R products, as this is something I could never pass up. Volume 1 came out in May and Volume 2 came out a couple weeks ago (there's enough shorts to fill four volumes, so I really hope they do all four, and not just kill the series like WB is so apt to do... Looney Tunes blurays).

Each volume has three discs and 60 shorts. Although it looks like Glimpses of Australia is repeated on both sets by mistake, that's a rather amusing short - as Fitzpatrick (the narrator / etc) really hammers in that Australia is some kind of "white man's paradise".

For any of you who haven't seen any Traveltalks (they play as filler on TCM between films) - they are astounding travelogues made between 1930 through the mid 50s. Seeing a Pre-WW2 world in technicolor is certainly a highlight. Its also incredible how much modernization has taken place in such a short span. The Netherlands films are one strange example - as it seems like everyone was still stuck in the 1600s there: even in 1950 (wearing traditional clothes, living off the sea, etc - and its not just some tourist act).

Of course Fitzpatrick can be terribly overly sentimental and very belittling of his subjects ("those native have no concept of a higher being like God"), but its part of the charm. He always ends the short "with reluctance we leave" and typically a shot of a sunset. He also really loves Niagara Falls for some reason.

A few highlights:

Romantic Nevada - A trip to Reno, which instead focuses entirely on the whole divorce culture that has arisen there.
Paris of Parade - a visit to the world's fair with some impressive architecture created by the various nations
Land of the Quintuplets - Some Canadian family gave birth to quintuplets which became a huge tourist attraction, its like a baby zoo.
Any of the National Parks shorts are fantastic as well.

So I can't recommend these shorts enough. It helps that I love travelogues, but there's enough charm and historical intrigue in these for anybody. I just don't know why it took WB so long to release them (other than a Kino VHS, or one added as a bonus feature here and there). Hell, they even released the Dogville shorts several years before this! Now if only we could get a Pete Smith collection.

Thanks for the tip, as I'd overlooked these releases as well.

Minkin wrote:Well thanks to this forum for not letting me know sooner that WB has finally released Traveltalks on DVD....R. I have finally ended my self-imposed ban on all DVD-R products, as this is something I could never pass up.

If you avoid ordering them from Amazon, the initial runs of each set should be on pressed discs, like other WAC multi-disc sets, right?

Minkin wrote:Now if only we could get a Pete Smith collection.

Been waiting for this for years.

Minkin wrote:Well thanks to this forum for not letting me know sooner that WB has finally released Traveltalks on DVD....R. I have finally ended my self-imposed ban on all DVD-R products, as this is something I could never pass up. Volume 1 came out in May and Volume 2 came out a couple weeks ago (there's enough shorts to fill four volumes, so I really hope they do all four, and not just kill the series like WB is so apt to do... Looney Tunes blurays).

Each volume has three discs and 60 shorts. Although it looks like Glimpses of Australia is repeated on both sets by mistake, that's a rather amusing short - as Fitzpatrick (the narrator / etc) really hammers in that Australia is some kind of "white man's paradise".

For any of you who haven't seen any Traveltalks (they play as filler on TCM between films) - they are astounding travelogues made between 1930 through the mid 50s. Seeing a Pre-WW2 world in technicolor is certainly a highlight. Its also incredible how much modernization has taken place in such a short span. The Netherlands films are one strange example - as it seems like everyone was still stuck in the 1600s there: even in 1950 (wearing traditional clothes, living off the sea, etc - and its not just some tourist act).

Of course Fitzpatrick can be terribly overly sentimental and very belittling of his subjects ("those native have no concept of a higher being like God"), but its part of the charm. He always ends the short "with reluctance we leave" and typically a shot of a sunset. He also really loves Niagara Falls for some reason.

A few highlights:

Romantic Nevada - A trip to Reno, which instead focuses entirely on the whole divorce culture that has arisen there.
Paris of Parade - a visit to the world's fair with some impressive architecture created by the various nations
Land of the Quintuplets - Some Canadian family gave birth to quintuplets which became a huge tourist attraction, its like a baby zoo.
Any of the National Parks shorts are fantastic as well.

So I can't recommend these shorts enough. It helps that I love travelogues, but there's enough charm and historical intrigue in these for anybody. I just don't know why it took WB so long to release them (other than a Kino VHS, or one added as a bonus feature here and there). Hell, they even released the Dogville shorts several years before this! Now if only we could get a Pete Smith collection.

I believe the reason is twofold, 1) tcm relies on old airmasters, long ago ingested into a broadcast server. The transfers and the originating airmasters are probably obsolete. WB archive doesn't want to release obsolete masters (not after the first year of archive releases, at least).

2) asset management produces new masters to fulfill insurance requirements and there's a physical limit to how many new masters warner can produce in a year, given the number of film scanners they have, one frame goes through each scanner at a time, whether it is benhur or Pete smith. And basically, warner archive doesn't have a lot of input into which projects asset management prioritizes for new masters.

Gregory wrote:Thanks for the tip, as I'd overlooked these releases as well.

Minkin wrote:Well thanks to this forum for not letting me know sooner that WB has finally released Traveltalks on DVD....R. I have finally ended my self-imposed ban on all DVD-R products, as this is something I could never pass up.

If you avoid ordering them from Amazon, the initial runs of each set should be on pressed discs, like other WAC multi-disc sets, right?

For anyone else interested in the Traveltalks Shorts sets, I just received Vol. 1 from Deep Discount and the discs do appear to be pressed.
Looking forward to "Glimpses of" Austria, Kentucky, Guatemala, Florida, Java, Ceylon, etc.!

Gregory wrote:

Gregory wrote:Thanks for the tip, as I'd overlooked these releases as well.

Minkin wrote:Well thanks to this forum for not letting me know sooner that WB has finally released Traveltalks on DVD....R. I have finally ended my self-imposed ban on all DVD-R products, as this is something I could never pass up.

If you avoid ordering them from Amazon, the initial runs of each set should be on pressed discs, like other WAC multi-disc sets, right?

For anyone else interested in the Traveltalks Shorts sets, I just received Vol. 1 from Deep Discount and the discs do appear to be pressed.
Looking forward to "Glimpses of" Austria, Kentucky, Guatemala, Florida, Java, Ceylon, etc.!

That's good to know. I have a hard time being 100% sure either way (probably because I've never bought a DVD-R before). I'll have to double check now.

As to Fitzpatrick's creative titles: He uses "Glimpses of __" 18 times, "Colorful __" 9 times, and "Picturesque __" 5 times. Based on title alone, the three I've most wanted to see are:

Papua and Kalabahai, Weird Haunts of Strange People (1933)
Land of the Ugly Duckling (1953) (though this might just be about Denmark)
Fiji and Samoa, the Cannibal Isles (1933)

These are all great and I highly recommend everyone looks into these sets.

@Movielocke - I fully understand the problems of Warner Archive and that they probably don't want to release masters (that based on the Turner indent on TCM) are probably from the early 90s. The Traveltalks discs must be a huge undertaking with 60 shorts each and about 8-10 minutes per short. Still, I can't understand or forgive a company who puts out the Dogville shorts before their silent features or Oscar winning shorts, etc.

Excellent!

I'm glad to see that these are selling. There should be a 4th volume and then every Traveltalks will have been covered. I just really hope that they don't pull a typical WB/Disney and abandon the series before the last volume gets released. Is there any precedent for such in the Archive?

This also reminds me of my annoyances with TCM. At some point in the last year+ they stopped listing Extras on their website schedule/ my DVR. They still air the Extras, but you'd have to record the entire film / wait for it to end and hope that there might be an Extra between the next film showing (and it seems that less than 50% of the time there's an Extra). Thus my happiness with these DVDs.

From WB's newsletter concerning the Traveltalks:

Fitzpatrick Traveltalks: V3 - To paraphrase the peripatetic producer of these Technicolor® travelogues, it is with this third volume that we reluctantly say farewell to the “voice of the globe,” James A. FitzPatrick. And as a final treat, two supersized travel specials are included – James A. FitzPatrick’s Mighty Manhattan: New York’s Wonder City and the non-FitzPatrick production Rome, The Eternal City, which gives us a glimpse of Cinecittà (and Deborah Kerr!) during the production of Quo Vadis.

Feego wrote:From WB's newsletter concerning the Traveltalks:

Fitzpatrick Traveltalks: V3 - To paraphrase the peripatetic producer of these Technicolor® travelogues, it is with this third volume that we reluctantly say farewell to the “voice of the globe,” James A. FitzPatrick. And as a final treat, two supersized travel specials are included – James A. FitzPatrick’s Mighty Manhattan: New York’s Wonder City and the non-FitzPatrick production Rome, The Eternal City, which gives us a glimpse of Cinecittà (and Deborah Kerr!) during the production of Quo Vadis.

To paraphrase my reaction:

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking bastards.

Why can't WB ever finish anything? Wither Looney Tunes / Tom & Jerry Blus while we're at it.

Minkin wrote:This also reminds me of my annoyances with TCM. At some point in the last year+ they stopped listing Extras on their website schedule/ my DVR. They still air the Extras, but you'd have to record the entire film / wait for it to end and hope that there might be an Extra between the next film showing (and it seems that less than 50% of the time there's an Extra). Thus my happiness with these DVDs.

TCM now lists some, if not all, of the Extras they air on the monthly schedule. Tonight (actually tomorrow morning), there's a FitzPatrick Traveltalk about Washington, D.C. and an incredible MGM Technicolor short called "Hollywood Party."

Is general Warner Archive talk ok here, or specifically just Blu-rays? The other Warner Archive thread I see last had activity in 2016, so hopefully I'm posting in the correct place.

Does WB ever do their "pressed initial run in anticipation of demand" thing for Warner Archive DVDs that previously had retail releases? I thought absolutely not (save for those random Paramount reissues a few years ago, e.g., Jonathan Livingston Seagull), but I just stumbled upon a weird case. I had ordered Forbidden Hollywood vol. 1 from a 3rd party Amazon seller, expecting it to be the retail digipack version due to the cover art, release date, and price. I was extremely annoyed to receive the amaray Warner Archive re-release. I opened it for the heck of it and found... pressed discs. IFPI KK5J, Mexico. The shrinkwrap was a fairly professional looking y-fold, not the sloppy reshrinkwrap people often use when passing used discs off as new - certainly not proof, but relevant in context I believe. The discs appear to be in new condition.

Weird case of someone reselling retail discs in a MOD case? Or did WB actually press more discs of this when switching it over to Warner Archive?

I think it's an exception for multi disc sets because stocking them is for some reason cheaper with a normal press run initially (perhaps a manpower/automation issue?)

I'm familiar with that happening for new multi-disc sets that never had a retail release, such as Forbidden Hollywood vols. 4-10. But I've never seen it done for ones that DID have a previous retail release (I personally got burned on a few such purchases, expecting them to be pressed and instead receiving DVD-Rs even though I was buying directly through WBShop and had preordered to ensure first pressing).

bevilacq12 wrote: Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:25 pm I had ordered Forbidden Hollywood vol. 1 from a 3rd party Amazon seller, expecting it to be the retail digipack version due to the cover art, release date, and price. I was extremely annoyed to receive the amaray Warner Archive re-release. I opened it for the heck of it and found... pressed discs.

Your post made me check my Warner Archive “Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume 1”. As previously noticed this release comes in a two disc amaray. The printing on the DVDs themselves have a new look compared to the original release (they actually say MOD on the outer ring) and, like yours are pressed, not burnt. I ordered it some time late 2018 from wdwow.com. So add this one to releases that are available pressed from WAC.

Although like you guys I obviously prefer pressed DVDs, I am not a fan of digipacks and I especially hate the types used on the forbidden Hollywood collections. So for me this current state of affairs is a perfect situation.

I’m hoping that new multi sets that I want to buy will be the same like “Danny Kaye: The Goldwyn Years”, “Porky Pig: 101”, the rest of the Forbidden Hollywoods and the repressing of “Popeye the Sailor: Volume 2” and “3”.

Does anyone here have experiences with these WAC releases regarding their pressed/unpressed status?

I ordered my copy of Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 1 from Import CDs (who are part of the same group as WOW HD) late in 2018 and can confirm that mine was also pressed!

A few questions:

Is there any indication that the new Popeye 1938-40 and 1941-43 sets (which are just re-releases of the old DVD sets) are pressed DVDs, at least for their initial run?

Also, was the Porky Pig 101 set pressed, and if so, what are the odds pressed sets are still available?

They were if you bought them through Warners. If you bought them third party ala Amazon they were DVDr.

Thanks knives.

So Warner Archive is releasing A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS on March 5 -- and I'm very glad! Long overdue.