The New DVD and Blu Thread

[Baree]

What randall said. Its a very unique dvd case. Made of cardboard (or something similar), nice artwork on the cover. Rather delicate. Looks almost as if someone just photoshopped a bit and flung something together, but in my opinion it really works. I love how it looks.

There is also an English voicetrack on the DVD, so you can watch it in English. Comes with a (very simple) booklet with some information about the movie in German, and several (maybe all) of the song lyrics in English. Very thin DVD case too. I have yet to watch it actually, but one of the extras in an interview with the director apparently. No other extras worth writing home about.

I was very surprised myself when I found out, but it apparently was released back in 2007. No idea how I missed that, I had been waiting for a DVD release forever

[Ben]

Nice!

I'll keep to my VHS-to-DVD|R for the moment, though, and hope for a US release. It really is a very funny little movie; the voices crack me up every time: Shearer doing a lot of the stuff he'd later be lauded for on The Simpsons, for instance.

[Baree]

The main future for me are the songs. There are some very enjoyable ones, and one I think is an absolute gem.

[Baree]

Whilst at the supermarket I saw Ponyo. Now, as a general rule I try to stay away from anime. Its is not really my thing and usually there are to many things in an anime that annoy me to enjoy it. This is especially so for series. However, I saw Ponyo a while ago and actually enjoyed it, so I decided to pick it up.

[American_dog_2008]

Belka i Strelka is out on DVD in Russia, and I wish for a Scandinavian release.

http://www.ruslania.com/language-1/enti ... -4284.html

[eddievalient]

Hey Baree, Ponyo isn't Miyazaki's best film (I felt the film lacked a proper climax and the resolution came too easily), so if you liked that, check out The Castle of Cagliostro sometime.

[Baree]

Well, so far I have seen two other studio Gibli movies. Spirited Away witch I found watchable but not much more, and Howl's Moving Castle which was way to weird for me. I don't know if they were both from Miyazaki or not, regardless, I am unlikely to ever go out of my way to see any anime.

[GeorgeC]

I'd love to see Animalympics on disc. Despite originally being made as a couple of TV specials, the feature-length version really does work as an animated feature, and many big names today made their animation debuts on that project, hence the actually amazing animation for what was a TV project (it's not over selling it to say that, whatever the budget, they made it look like a proper feature, and the voices were some of the comedy cream of the day).

(Underlined emphasis my own.)

A number of those voices were Saturday Night Live performers in their heyday.

I remember seeing this feature on either HBO or Disney Channel in the 1980s.

The one voice I recognized was Gilda Radner.

According to the entry at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animalympics , in addition to Harry Shearer (short-fused guy in real life), Billy Crystal and Michael Fremer (no idea who he is) did voices in the feature, too.

Radner was most famous as an original cast member of SNL during its first five seasons. Radner was one of the most famous comedic actresses on TV during her SNL years. She walked away from the spotlight after she left SNL and did a few movies with second husband Gene Wilder before she passed away from ovarian cancer in the late 1980s.

Harry Shearer was a cast member in the disastrous fifth season of SNL and its 1984-1985 season before making his mark as a member of Christopher Guest's demented acting troupe and a voice artist in The Simpsons. Shearer's most famous role is in the mockumentary, "This is Spinal Tap."

Billy Crystal missed becoming a cast member of SNL in its first season but came back as both a stand-up comic in a later first season episode (he got cut from the very first SNL episode!) and later as a guest-host. Crystal became a cast member of SNL for the 1984-1985 season where he introduced audiences to his impersonations of Sammy Davis, Jr. and Fernando Lamas. Crystal had a few notable roles in some live-action features (The Princess Bride, City Slickers, When Harry Met Sally) before he voiced "Mike" in Monsters, Inc and has seemed to slip into voice acting in recent years. Crystal holds the second spot (8) for emceeing the Academy Awards after Bob Hope (18).

***********

Animalympics was originally intended to air on NBC as two features during its coverage of the 1980 Olympics, Those of us alive back then know what happened to the Summer Olympics after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Soviet-Afghan plans sealed the specials' fates on NBC and they got sold as edited-together feature to Warner Brothers.

It's very much a cult film like some of the early 1980s theatrical features are now -- examples: Heavy Metal, Rock & Rule, The Smurfs Movie, and early experiments in dubbing anime into English.

According to Wiki, only Germany has seen an official DVD release. All other releases were in VHS and are long out-of-print.

(Does anybody even buy blank VHS tapes anymore??? I know I still see them in stores but I'm asking if anybody uses VHS other than to dupe to digital nowadays???)

[Ben]

Thanks George...you managed to say in four paragraphs what I hinted to in one line!

The Smurfs movie was 1974/6, but I get what you're saying. I still have my VHS of Animalympics. And I have a few VHS blank spares too, for whatever occasion. It's still being used as a format by those that haven't gone to DVD, like with some senior citizens, or those that still have an archive to copy over and probably won't ever get to it so are just keeping their tapes (guess who!?).

[GeorgeC]

Ben,

I'll probably never record to VHS again.

For the last 4 years, I've been using my DVD Recorder (which has a hard drive) to record everything off TV and to archive programs I want to save from VHS (unprotected) and laserdisc.

With my recent camcorder purchase, I'm convinced solid state/removable card media is the wave of the future. Manufacturers have already discontinued most disc burners in consumer equipment and I'm convinced we're at the middle of the end for most tape media.

Lately, I've been using my DVD-Recorder to record episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold as well as anything else that strikes my fancy. I recorded a few Hammer Dracula films a week ago off of TCM and sat down and watched two of them before I erased them...

I still have to buy one of those "video crackers/stabilizers" to preserve my pre-recorded VHS tapes. They're not cheap -- cheapest thing I can find is $35 and is sold by a company that makes the product available for backing up educational programs.

There are several good things about the DVD Recorder I bought -- A) it's very easy to mod and install higher-capacity IDE drives on it; I went from 80GB OEM to 500GB after finding information about my model of Recorder online;
B) the remote is easily replaced by universal multi-machine remotes; and
C) if I want to, I have an option of buying more hard drives, installing them in an external array, and running out an extended connector (or soldered) line out to them. You can set up HD's for specific types of programs or just run through them and max them out as you use up HD space. People have been doing this for years with this particular DVD Recorder. You can also set up an external DVD+/-Burners if you can find models compatible with my particular Recorder.

The hard drive array is definitely something I've been pondering as I consider the age of some of my laserdiscs and the problem of rot. HD's just get less expensive as time goes by; I've also gotten a lot better with figuring out homebrew electronics over the past year. Most of what you need to know is online and you really don't need an electrical engineering degree for 95% of this stuff. The hard part is practicing with basic power tools (Dremel, hand drill) and soldering irons and trusting yourself if you have steady hands and common sense (aka "safety sense"). I'm less concerned about the VHS tapes since they ironically hold up better than most other media. I've had one LD rot to the point that I broke it to save myself some mental anguish and I've had a few that definitely displayed some manufacturing defects or rotting (but otherwise still playable) already.

I have too many programs that I like that are discontinued on both LD and VHS that look like they'll never be re-released on home video in DVD (let alone Blu ray) and quite a few that never aired on TV past the 1980s.

[Ben]

I've basically got the same thing, but with the VHS inside the box (HDD, DVD, VHS machine), so I can easily dub things over. But DVD-R is not a solid enough format and I worry about not being able to access some of the most precious stuff I've taped over the years, so keeping the VHS is the only option. Some of it I dub to DigiBeta for a bit more security, but I agree that solid state is probably the way to go.

[droosan]

Today I received Dexter's Laboratory: season 1 and Night Court: season 4 in the mail.

I couldn't find the former in any stores around the Burbank area (not too surprising, since Cartoon Network Studio is based here) .. and the latter is only available online, via the Warner Archive program.


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Well, so far I have seen two other studio Gibli movies. Spirited Away witch I found watchable but not much more, and Howl's Moving Castle which was way to weird for me. I don't know if they were both from Miyazaki or not, regardless, I am unlikely to ever go out of my way to see any anime.

At the risk of taking some flack from diehard Miyazaki fans, I feel that his first five Ghibli films are far more 'accessible' to western audiences than anything he's made in the last 15 years, or so. All of his films are gorgeous works of art .. but his more recent films are much more prone to venture into 'weird' territory (which is not, of course, in itself, a 'bad' thing).

For those who have never seen any Miyazaki films, I will generally recommend Kiki's Delivery Service or My Neighbor Totoro as a starting point .. then -- if they like those -- Castle in the Sky and Porco Rosso. Of his more recent movies, I'd suggest Spirited Away (but I see you've already 'panned' that one).

Actually, since you're a bit of a 'furry' fan .. you might wanna check out the TV series Sherlock Hound (aka Meitantei Holmes), on which Hayao Miyazaki was a co-creator. It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like: the Sherlock Holmes mythos, in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic dogs.



Miyazaki even directed six of the episodes himself:

The Little Client
The Abduction of Mrs. Hudson
The Blue Carbuncle
Treasure Under the Sea
The White Cliffs of Dover (personally, my favorite episode)
Where Did the Sovereigns Go?



The other 20 episodes are also enjoyable -- but these six are definitely a cut above the rest .. featuring Miyazaki 'trademarks' such as breathlessly-paced chase scenes, fantastic flight-related sequences, and strong female characters.


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As for VHS .. I never really got into it in a big way (I made the switch to Laserdiscs in the mid-1980's, since they were much more durable). But I do still have a dozen or so pre-recorded tapes .. and one of them is Animalympics (which I am now considering replacing with that german DVD release..!)

My primary use for VHS, though, was recording TV shows over-the-air .. some of which I keep around, because they've never seen disc releases. Stuff like 2 Stupid Dogs, Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon! shorts, Ralph Bakshi's Tattertown specials, etc. Although, come to think of it .. my VCR has been in storage for the past five years.

[GeorgeC]

I'm still using my VCR in a roundabout way.

One of the technical shortfalls of my particular DVD-Recorder is that it only records in mono from coaxial cable!

(DVD-Recorders are generally useless for editing, too. The remotes just aren't accurate enough on many models to do much more than 'general editing.' You definitely can't do frame-specific editing with MPEG video let alone chop commercials out of recordings. You use MPEG-specific editing software to cut out commercials on your computer.)

However, if I set to record off TV through my VCR (using traditional composite cables = L/R stereo audio, yellow video cable) I can record in stereo then.

Weird but at least it provides a use for the VCR which would otherwise be boxed up!

(I stack my PS3 on top of the VCR which can take the weight...)

The DVD-Recorder does a fairly good job recording off TV this way. I generally leave it in highest recording mode to record off TV. I've had incidents in the past where it dropped frames of animation from some fast animation sequences.


P.S. -- Sherlock Hound never sold that well in the US during the brief time it was licensed for R1 sale and actually on the shelves. I can't recall ever seeing all the volumes of that show in one store at any time.

For that matter, Streamline Pictures (long defunct) once had the rights to episodes of Lupin III (first series) that were directed by Hayao Miyazaki. They issued these episodes on DVD shortly before their rights lapsed. That DVD has to be a collector's item now since so few copies were pressed... (Ditto for the Streamline DVD of Castle of Cagliostro with the original English dub.) It's a near-sure bet that DVD was English-only. Streamline never sprung for subtitles even on the dual-language laserdiscs they issued.

(Not that anything Streamline released on DVD sold particularly well. Streamline never had its act all together after 1992/1993 and got scooped on more recent vintage anime by the likes of ADV Films and CPM back in the day. Streamline's picking on DVD were fairly dry to be honest... By that time, Streamline pretty much sold its catalog and licenses to Orion Pictures which quickly headed down the tubes in the late 1990s.)

[droosan]

The Streamline english dub is included on the recent japanese Blu-ray of Castle of Cagliostro, as it happens.

I was unaware that Miyazaki's Lupin the Third TV episodes were ever released to region-1 DVD. I do have them on japanese Laserdisc (in japanese language only, though).

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I just learned that Castle in the Sky (personally, my favorite of Miyazaki's Ghibli movies) will be released on Blu-ray in Japan this December..!

Though, I'm not too crazy about the spartan stylized cover art they've been using for these releases ..

[Randall]

We have a PVR with our TV service, so i don't record to VHS anymore; but I still have a few dozen VHS tapes. At this point, it's largely Hanna-Barbera shows that haven't made it to DVD, some Jim Henson specials, and some of the typical collector's items bought years ago at comic book shows or traded with other collectors (Star Wars Holiday Special, JLA pilot, The Spirit TV movie, Captain America TV movies, the Superboy/Superpup pilots, etc.). I even have a few silent or cult sci-fi films yet on VHS.

I love to retire every tape I can, recently including a Plastic Man tape, and soon The Legends of the Superheroes. Due to space concerns, I generally don't keep multiple copies of films around, with some exceptions. I still have most of my Disney LDs, and three versions of Hellboy on DVD and Blu-ray.

Trivia: First film I owned on four formats (VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray): Batman (1966), followed by Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.