«

On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 16:55:59 -0400, Steve
<> wrote:

>Well I guess they would try to make HD transfers of the film material,
>for some titles that's already been done for pending DVD release; but
>there's nothing much to do with PAL video except try to upsample,
>create intermediate scan lines etc. It CAN be improved no doubt.
>Ironically the oldest interview segments, such as of Harold Lloyd,
>shot on 16mm, could gain the most from a new master.
>
>.. Steve ..

Not gonna happen. I don't think you understand the magnitude of what
you're suggesting. It's simply enormous. The expense would be an
order of magnitude greater than the project would ever generate.
Countless hours of footage would have to be located (around the
world), cleared for rights, physically inspected, cleaned, telecined,
speed-adjusted, color-corrected, digitally cleaned up, synchronized,
and, of course the entire 9 hour (or whatever) show would have to be
reedited from scratch. In other words, all of the time and effort
that went into the original would have to be duplicated, except that
it would cost far more today. Take whatever the original budget was
and multiply it by at least 5, and maybe 10. How many copies do you
think they'd have to sell to recover all of that? (Plus money for the
discs themselves, plus advertising.)

And of course then there's the issue of all of the clips where the
film no longer exists.

No sir, the best we can hope for is that the video master is in good
shape and looks good.

"Fred" <> wrote in message
news:...

> No sir, the best we can hope for is that the video master is in good
> shape and looks good.

Apropos of that why do they keep doing remakes of perfectly good movies with
excellent prints? Why not remake "Flame over India" - I've never seen a good
copy of that and I assume the masters are all shot. But I suppose they'd
hire horrible actors - Paris Hilton? - and totally screw it all up.


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On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 18:32:32 -0700, Fred <> wrote:

>On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 16:55:59 -0400, Steve
><> wrote:
>
>>Well I guess they would try to make HD transfers of the film material,
>>for some titles that's already been done for pending DVD release; but
>>there's nothing much to do with PAL video except try to upsample,
>>create intermediate scan lines etc. It CAN be improved no doubt.
>>Ironically the oldest interview segments, such as of Harold Lloyd,
>>shot on 16mm, could gain the most from a new master.
>>
>>.. Steve ..
>
>Not gonna happen. I don't think you understand the magnitude of what
>you're suggesting. It's simply enormous. The expense would be an
>order of magnitude greater than the project would ever generate.
>Countless hours of footage would have to be located (around the
>world), cleared for rights, physically inspected, cleaned, telecined,
>speed-adjusted, color-corrected, digitally cleaned up, synchronized,
>and, of course the entire 9 hour (or whatever) show would have to be
>reedited from scratch. In other words, all of the time and effort
>that went into the original would have to be duplicated, except that
>it would cost far more today. Take whatever the original budget was
>and multiply it by at least 5, and maybe 10. How many copies do you
>think they'd have to sell to recover all of that? (Plus money for the
>discs themselves, plus advertising.)

You didn't read my previous, original comment, that it WAS going to be
the original master. I was playing Devils Advocate to Gerry's remarks.

Actually I think the DVD will sell very well considering the current
interest in pre-talkies and the many discoveries of previously lost
films.

... Steve ..
>
>And of course then there's the issue of all of the clips where the
>film no longer exists.
>
>No sir, the best we can hope for is that the video master is in good
>shape and looks good.

On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 22:39:43 -0400, Steve
<> wrote:

>You didn't read my previous, original comment, that it WAS going to be
>the original master. I was playing Devils Advocate to Gerry's remarks.

OK, sorry.

>Actually I think the DVD will sell very well considering the current
>interest in pre-talkies and the many discoveries of previously lost
>films.

Well, it'll sell very well to its tiny niche market. It won't be but
a little blip on the radar compared to a regular (i.e. current)
release. Believe me, I wish it were otherwise, but it's not.

If a release date for the region 2 DVD was announced, that implies that
Network had all the clearances it needed for a UK release of the 12
hour series. Since the series is already on laserdiscs, a cheap, fast
way to make the DVDs would be to port the LD image to a digital
recorder, insert chapters and create a menu, then stamp out DVDs.
Geoge Lucas did that with the Star Wars DVDs he just released. There
must be another complication to the release delay, a rights issue that
may not involve the clip copyrights of the old films. Maybe the lawyer
for David Gill's heirs is asking for more money for DVD rights, or
something else out of left field. It is unusual for a DVD with a
release date to be pulled off the market a few months before its
release date.

Fred wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 22:39:43 -0400, Steve
> <> wrote:
>
> >You didn't read my previous, original comment, that it WAS going to be
> >the original master. I was playing Devils Advocate to Gerry's remarks.
>
> OK, sorry.
>
> >Actually I think the DVD will sell very well considering the current
> >interest in pre-talkies and the many discoveries of previously lost
> >films.
>
> Well, it'll sell very well to its tiny niche market. It won't be but
> a little blip on the radar compared to a regular (i.e. current)
> release. Believe me, I wish it were otherwise, but it's not.

On 23 Sep 2006 21:18:06 -0700, "gerry" <> wrote:

>If a release date for the region 2 DVD was announced, that implies that
>Network had all the clearances it needed for a UK release of the 12
>hour series. Since the series is already on laserdiscs, a cheap, fast
>way to make the DVDs would be to port the LD image to a digital
>recorder, insert chapters and create a menu, then stamp out DVDs.
>Geoge Lucas did that with the Star Wars DVDs he just released. There
>must be another complication to the release delay, a rights issue that
>may not involve the clip copyrights of the old films. Maybe the lawyer
>for David Gill's heirs is asking for more money for DVD rights, or
>something else out of left field. It is unusual for a DVD with a
>release date to be pulled off the market a few months before its
>release date.

Heheh, happens quite often actually. To this day I'm ****ed off about
a release going back to the laserdisc days, "Noah's Ark" (1929) was
announced by MGM and even given a catalogue number, I ordered it; yet
the week of its due date it was cancelled. Maybe that will finally
come to DVD, eventually.

As I say, it seems that they are looking for a simultaneous Region
1/Regon2 because of the obvious issue of North Americans, (Hollywood
happens to be in the US after all) ordering a lot of Region 2 DVDs
when the rights have not yet been secured for North America. I think
it may be related to the label also, while TCM or Warner would handle
the Region 1 release, they would obviously have nothing to do with the
UK issue, so there's some negotiation...

The one certain thing is that some Big Shots ARE trying to get the
Hollywood set out for sale, and A&E released a Region 1 DVD of the
followup of "The Unknown Chaplin" with little fanfare, so it CAN be
done..

... Steve ..
>
>Fred wrote:
>> On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 22:39:43 -0400, Steve
>> <> wrote:
>>
>> >You didn't read my previous, original comment, that it WAS going to be
>> >the original master. I was playing Devils Advocate to Gerry's remarks.
>>
>> OK, sorry.
>>
>> >Actually I think the DVD will sell very well considering the current
>> >interest in pre-talkies and the many discoveries of previously lost
>> >films.
>>
>> Well, it'll sell very well to its tiny niche market. It won't be but
>> a little blip on the radar compared to a regular (i.e. current)
>> release. Believe me, I wish it were otherwise, but it's not.

gerry wrote:
> If a release date for the region 2 DVD was announced, that implies that
> Network had all the clearances it needed for a UK release of the 12
> hour series.

Or it could mean that they thought by that date they would have them
all out of the way but it didn't turn out that way.

In article <>,
Steve <> wrote:
>On 21 Sep 2006 22:12:42 -0700, "gerry" <> wrote:
>
>>I think Brownlow and Gill's 13 part "Hollywood" series will eventually
>>be released on DVD. As to the picture quality being better from an old
>>source, either tape or laserdisc, than on any new DVD release, IMHO I
>>doubt that. The HBO videotapes of this series probably have Macrovison
>>copy protection, so you cannot feed the video directly into a DVD
>>recorder, you need a unit like the Sima or Grex to clean the VBI. As
>>to using a laserdisc source to make DVD-Rs, I did that, a time
>>consuming project done because laserdiscs do not last forever.
>>
>>Lucasfilms just released DVDs of the first three Star Wars movies in
>>their original form, using laser masters as the source for the DVDs.
>>Reviews of these DVDs indicate that the video quality is better than
>>that of bootleg recordings, altough the reviewers complain that
>>Lucasfilms should have made anamorphic DVDs of these widescreen movies.
>>
>>
>>Using digital processing methods available now, any production company
>>transferring "Hollywood" to DVD could do a far better job of it than
>>someone using an old Pioneer laserdisc player and a Panasonic consumer
>>DVD recorder.
>>
>>There may be problems getting clearance for some of the film clips in
>>"Hollywood," but I think the bigger problem is the cost of digital
>>restoration to do a first rate job. The BBC is now a pinchpenny outfit
>>that is more interested in releasing another series of Dr. Who
>>episodes. HBO Films concentrates on releasing its own major cable
>>productions. Thames Television, that is another company with a film
>>library owned by a bigger corporation, but probably has a staff limited
>>to accounts receivable.
>>
>>In other words, there is no money to be made on low sales volume DVDs
>>like "Hollywood" or "Cinema Europe." "Art for art's sake" was MGM's
>>motto and MGM now is gone completely. Unless TCM decides to show a
>>restored version of "Hollywood" when TCM goes HD, and then release the
>>HD version through Warner Bros., this fine documentary series will
>>remain in the shadows, with no R1 release for at least another year.
>>
>>
>> wrote:
>>> Homer J Simpson wrote:
>>>
>>> > I'm more interested in his other series, "Hollywood: The Early Years". I
>>> > have a copy on tape but I'd like a copy on DVD.
>>>
>>> Since this probably will never be released on DVD (thanks to various
>>> copy-right regulations), you might as well convert what you have to DVD
>>> (you won't be the first). Divided and indexed, it will be much more
>>> useful than those original tapes. The picture quality will never be
>>> better and how could you ever expect extras in a long documentary like
>>> "Hollywood"? It's filled with extras already.
>>>
>>> "Cinema Europe" is a worthy addition to "Hollywood," with much
>>> information on Able Gance, and Hitchcock, just to name two well known
>>> directors who helped invent the motion picture. Without it, you cannot
>>> really understand film history. But don't pay hundreds of dollars for
>>> something that you can rent.

>Brownlow's "Hollywood" is or will be released in Region2 this year.

Make that 'was to be released'. It was moved from a date around
March this year, to August, to December, and just two weeks ago it
was cancelled.

I had it on order since the first announcment early this year.

I'd give you the exact link but my DSL is down. [I have my own
news-server so interuptions like that don't spoil my newsgroup
reading, and my post will just sit here until connection resumes].

Bill

Bill

--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com