WB Archive Collection: Discs On Demand!

[GeorgeC]

You would hope as a storage medium that BD-R would be more stable and durable than DVD-R.

Apparently, that may not be the case as I was led to believe earlier... => http://forums.adobe.com/thread/459484?tstart=1

People are experiencing failures on BD-R's, too. The safest medium to store ripped films and home-created DVD-R's/BD-R's is still a magnetic drive -- ie, a portable hard drive or large internal drive that hardly gets touched by your computer. Those can last well past 8 years. Most main drives -- the ones with your operating system on them -- will fail due to mechanical fatigue within 8-9 years. There's only so many cycles they can be used for before the drive fails. Usually one of the moving parts within the drive's reader falls off or gets loose. Generally not much can be done except taking the drive to a store for a temporary fix so that you can at least recover data. You generally have to buy a new HD (IF you're going to keep your old computer) from that point on..... Yeah, it means re-installing ALL the programs that were on the old drive onto the new one!

I have just not heard good things about manufactured DVD-R and I've experienced many of these problems with homebrew DVD-Rs, too.

A couple of years back, ImaginAsia did DVD-R releases with three anime series, two of which I was interested in. (Never got around to getting them....) The program didn't last long due to problems with the DVD-R pressing company going out of business and I don't think the sales were good enough for ImaginAsian to bother looking for a new DVD pressing company... Not long after those ImaginAsia discs were out-of-print, reports and comments surfaced about failures in those DVD-R's.

I just don't have the faith to risk $15-$20 on too many DVD-R's. The dye technology used in those recordable DVD's and recordable BD-R's is just too sensitive to environmental conditions and starts wearing out once you start playing them!

(Light is supposed to be horrible for DVD-R's. Keeping them out of direct light in a dark and dry spot is supposed to be the best way to store them... They'll still eventually fail... Sooner than you'd like!)

I knew CD-R's were bad, but to find out that the newer recordable formats are just as bad...!

Folks, we're being sold a really poor bit of goods here. The home video industry isn't admitting that BD-R's and DVD-R's probably have a much shorter shelf-life than videotape did! (I have videotapes on the order of 20-years-old that haven't been played much and still look pretty good.) Doesn't matter even if you DO get higher-quality DVD-R's and BD-R's. I've had quality DVD-R's fail, too. Again, the only digital medium for storing recordings that I'd trust at this point in time would be removable hard drives or large (mostly unused) internal hard drives on the order of TB's.

DVD-R's and BD-R's seem to be only good for short-term convenience sake. They're horrible as archiving media!

[GeorgeC]

P.S. -- The above post was intended as a warning... Granted, I don't think the bulk of what any studio has put out on DVD-R has been great.

Still, people need to be aware that they are not great as long-term investments.

[EricJ]

And staying on the Hanna-Barbera. but getting off the 70's series for a moment--
New this week, Gene Kelly taking another turn with MGM characters, in "Invitation to the Dance":
http://www.wbshop.com/on/demandware.sto ... 1WACNRcEml

[Ben]

FINALLY!

This is an excellent film (made in my "back yard" when the MGM British Studios was here in Borehamwood). It's made up of three half-hour sequences, the middle one (if I recall correctly) being the animated/live one. The opening circus story is very strong, too, and a heartbreaker. There's some truly wonderful combination stuff going on in the animated segment (lots for Richard Williams to take inspiration from for Thief) and really good work from Hanna-Barbera on top theatrical form. The final segment is slower and more dull...I can see what Kelly (who directed) was trying to achieve, but it doesn't always work. But Invitation To The Dance is well worth owning just for the animated sequences.

NOW...it's again such a shame that this has gone to DVD-R, which is how I already have it off-air (albeit with a TCM logo in the corner). But this is a minor, undiscovered classic that I think they've missed a trick on. I'd have loved for a remaster for one thing (and not WB's Archive remasters, but a proper commercial one) and a double-bill pairing with Kelly's also animated/live Hanna-Barbera collaboration of Jack And The Beanstalk, which I have a 16mm print of as well as a well worn VHS. From 1966, it was a one-hour-plus TV special, again with above par animation and some hummable songs. What a great "family friendly" double bill that would have made!

Funny, going on what George was saying: that Beanstalk VHS, though worn, still plays good as new, unlike some DVD-Rs from around three/five years ago that stubbornly won't load now. I'm thinking of ripping all my important DVD-Rs to a solid state drive to try and protect what I can, since since the demise of VHS, I've "taped" a lot of good documentaries and rare stuff that sometimes get TV airings but are still unavailable on disc.

[EricJ]

While I don't have too many Warner Archive movies to judge by (their specialty's been TV and old vintage 4:3's so far), I've gotten enough of some other studio's Archive titles to know that "Remastering" still beats the pants off of VHS--
It may not always mean "Restoration", but it does often mean an anamorphic widescreen print and a scan directly from the film source.

While that obviously wouldn't benefit "Beanstalk", it would seem to be a plus for a good non-letterboxed copy of "Invitation".
I'm no sentimentalist for my own VHS collection, and would gladly see them all upgraded/expunged, as soon as Warner knows who owns the MGM Cineramas. Until then, any title not commercially released or Archived is just one more obstacle keeping me from selling my old VCR.

[Ben]

Well...it would benefit Beanstalk, actually...as it was shot on film (HD would have been nice too!)

Invitation wouldn't have been widescreen. Although it wasn't released until 1956 (from memory), it was actually shot in the pre-wide days of 1952 (and finished in '54), when MGM then shelved it as they didn't know how to sell it. The animation went on for about a year, after which Kelly had to lobby to get it shown. It was always "Kelly's personal project" that MGM, while indebted to their star, didn't want to bother with, hence why it was shot over in the UK to begin with (as an early-ish tryout for their British Studio, then still only a few years old).

Even then it only had a limited release, seen as an arthouse picture and, though it perhaps predictably did very well in Europe, it's otherwise been mostly forgotten, unfortunately. The first I knew about it was either from a glimpse of it in the Roger Rabbit special The Secrets Of ToonTown (where Kelly inadvertently suggests Walt Disney helped complete the sequence) or from a scene shown in That's Entertainment Part III, both from around the same time. I marveled at what I was seeing and did a bit of pre-net research, but it was years before I stumbled across the whole thing on TCM.

[droosan]

Yay!! Warner Archive has finally announced a title from my H-B 'wish list'..!

Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles .. coming next month!

[Randall]

This was high on my wish list as well. All I have ever seen of the show is a crummy VHS tape I got from another collector. (Though I do also have the hardcover Big Little Book!) The Impossibles don't interest me quite as much, but I love the look of FJ.

The only title higher than FJ&TI on my wish list is still Herculoids.

[Randall]

Jabberjaw review:

http://animatedviews.com/2011/jabberjaw ... te-series/

Space Kidettes/Young Samson next!

[EricJ]

Jabberjaw review:

It's hard to watch this series today (well, like it was easy in the first place) without trying to wipe away memories of CN's single-minded obsession with using this series as one of the three key historically-reviled propaganda symbols for "Why Hanna-Barbera Reruns Were Evil And Should Die (And You Should Really Be Watching Johnny Bravo)":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn1pf0Xi3nU
You would think Jabberjaw, Aquaman and Quick Draw McGraw had all run over CN execs' dog in the same car.

[droosan]

The only title higher than FJ&TI on my wish list is still Herculoids.

The Herculoids was among a slate of cartoon titles announced by Warner Archive as possible 2011 releases, last month. It doesn't have a 'formal' release date yet, however.

-----------

Gotta love a cartoon show whose plots are variations on:

*unknown alien/monster appears*

ZANDOR: "Let's KILL it..!"

*the Herculoids kill it*

[GeorgeC]

You guys do realize there were two runs of The Herculoids and an additional series of Space Ghost episodes in 1981-1982.

They were paired up with Teen Force which debuted at the same time as the revivals.

Uglor, a new villain created to menace Teen Force (mainly), was a combination of an ugly evil Hawkman and Darth Vader-like character with fly-like eyes.

Those segments, along with Astro (Jetsons) and the Space Mutts, were all part of an umbrella series called Space Stars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Stars

[Randall]

Well, Herculoids is a no-brainer, but I'm glad to see confirmation. I hadn't heard this news before, so thanks for the link, droo.

Even cooler, though, is news of The Wonderful World of The Brothers Grimm, maybe my top pick for most-wanted live action film (with some Puppetoon animation, of course). The other H-B titles mentioned are a mixed bag, but I look forward to Captain Caveman and The Teen Angels!

Yes, G, I do know of those newer series, and would be very happy to see them out, too. The 1980s Jonny Quest revival would be good to see again, too.

[EricJ]

Even cooler, though, is news of The Wonderful World of The Brothers Grimm

...WHOWHATWHEREWHENHUH????
(reads article)

I managed to snap a few screenshots (at the bottom of the page) of some posts that the WAC made, in response to questions on their wall.

Extensive restoration is required to release Grimm properly, as we did with HTWWW. We are hopeful that such an initiative will eventually be available at some point in the not-too-distant future.

...Aw, frap.
I hate amateur blogs that jump to conclusions and land on the front page...Don't raise my hopes like that.
"We have to restore it, whenever we get around to it" (meaning "As soon as we can find a sales avenue that will pay for the restoration", which sort of leaves out the Archive) is the exact same default answer we've gotten for the past ten years, which means nothing's in production yet. I can't even guess how the blogger mistook that for a real response.
At least we know Warner's equating it with HTW3's Smilebox, which shows what they have in mind for "real" Cinerama features. (And didn't know about Wiki's list of missing scenes from the VHS, which I still carefully play every Thanksgiving, like our local station used to.)

[Randall]

Gee, you're right. I didn't actually read the Facebook post. It looks like they do plan to do it, but there's no actual promise of a 2011 Grimm release.