From: gerry 

On Jan 10, 1:06 pm, weary flake  wrote:
> There seems to be some mistakes by journalists about the Warners
> Archive DVD project.  They are DVD-Rs, they say "Download" on
> the DVD-R itself, and the hype, of course, is all about downloading,
> exclusiveness of the website, etc.  Not true.  The DVD-Rs seem to
> be showing up directly at amazon.com/dvd after a few months or so,
> though I've seen no reports about this anywhere.  Does anyone know
> if there is an explicit policy to release *all* the Warner Archive
> DVD-Rs to Amazon, and how long it is scheduled to take?  I'm
> talking about fulfillment directly by amazon, and not by third
> parties.  For instance, the Warners Archive DVD-R Who's Killing
> The Great Chefs Of Europe (1978) and The Sea Hawk (1924) can be
> bought direct from amazon.com/dvd, which wasn't true just a
> few months ago.  Amazon is more reliable (for titles they stock)
> than ordering directly from Warners, which is slower and doesn't
> do returns in a jiffy.  This is all vital information for our
> sweet, sweet friends from Britain, Germany, and all the other
> non-american countries because Warner Archive refuses to ship
> outside of the USA.
>
> Haven't watched the Sea Hawk (1924) yet, but have seen the
> chefs movie, which is a funny "foodie" movie, and I don't recall
> problems with the video quality, despite what some of the amazon
> reviewers say.  (related subject matter, The Simpsons season 11
> episode where Homer becomes a fat food critic.)
>
> The Four's a Crowd (1938) Warners Archive DVD has transfer errors
> in it, starting about half way through the movie (i forget the
> exact timings) and shows itself as movement showing itself as
> if there were frames dropped and the previous frame repeated,
> "robot movement", I don't know what the exact technical term
> for this sort of distortion, but there is a mild case of it
> here; it is exclusively a transfer fault, not a source fault, and
> is super retarded.  The movie itself is of interest, for instance,
> with the character who is sort of the "Mr. Burns type" and his
> favorite statement is "release the hounds" and then the snapping
> hounds chase away the rascally errol flynn.
>
> By the way, an inferiority of the amazon.com/dvd website compared
> to the amazon.co.uk/dvd website is the "advanced search" on the
> UK website allows search by Studio, while the domestic amazon
> forbids searches by studio.

Having bought the 1924 version of The Sea Hawk and also several other
movies from the WBShop,  the quality of all the movies I got was
subpar compared to a conventionally mastered DVD.  The DVD-Rs sold
under the Warner Archives name are in some ways comparable to some A&E
DVDs sold under the History Channel label, except that the History
Channel DVDs I bought have a more consistent and higher video
quality.  The Quentin Durward DVD I bought from the WBShop had pretty
good video quality and was anamorphic.  But no closed captioning,
which the Warner Archive mastering process stripped from the digital
print used by TCM when it broadcasts the movie.

As a side note, I did not think The Sea Hawk was a good movie, even
for 1924.  Wallace Beery steal the show.  Frank Lloyd's ponderous
direction and a slow moving script did not help matters.  For
comparison, see the great job Allan Dwan did directing the 1917
Douglas Fairbanks film A Modern Musketeer.  The older film looked more
modern.  Well, it did have that title to live up to.

Quentin Durward, even with only 10 minute chapters and a print that
could have used some image fixing up on the day for night scenes, was
great as usual.

--- Internet Rex 2.29