MetaChat - Warner Bros. Archive

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21 April 2009

Warner Bros. Archive makes old films available on DVD-R. →[More:]Only 150 movies so far, and they're understandably obscure (these being movies nobody has considered worthy of a mass DVD release), but I think the concept is REALLY exciting. And I already see four or five movies I'm curious about... hmm. This could prove to be dangerous to my budget.

post by: BoringPostcards at: 07:13 | 4 comments

This is exciting to me also. There are some gems, and also some new "Plan 9's" out there to be had.

posted by danf 21 April | 11:05

Sunrise at Campobello! Oh yes.

posted by JanetLand 21 April | 11:52

I think the $19.95 price is too high for what you get. According to Slate, "There are no extras except the trailer, if it's available; there isn't even scene-by-scene chaptering."

posted by kirkaracha 21 April | 12:53

kirkaracha, that may be true but the fact remains that any print-on-demand process is inherently more expensive than mass production, due to the economies of scale. There's also costs to recoup in restoring these old prints to watchability and mastering the soundtracks to the new format. I think it's fantastic that Warner Bros. seems to actually grok that there is a lot of content they're sitting on which people want to watch.

I can't help but think that online distribution would reduce the distribution costs and not having that option would relegate this exercise to a small few who absolutely must have the physical artifact. Hmmm... I expect that this might result in a secondary market for the discs themselves, though.

posted by ooga_booga 22 April | 00:02

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