I collect Boris Karloff. I broke down & as much as I'm not a fan of Alpha, ordered the Karloff Before Frankenstein as part of a larger order in late November. Finally arrived today. Though not advertised as such, it is a mod.

The good news it's a Taiyo Yuden. The bad news is it's a value line.

The worse news is the "Nero Score" is 90 with 4808 pi failures. (I consider 95/ & less than 200 failures acceptable for a burned disc)

Off to rip it to a better blank....................

Most of these DVD-R releases are made with little concern for reliability. They really should get digitally backed up upon purchase.

I couldn't agree more. And the ONLY decent current manufacture dvdr's I'm aware of are TY 8X Pro +'s. And only the one's with the "shiny silver" top surface. Why a printing surface should make ANY difference in burn quality is beyond me, but with current manufacture it makes a huge difference, at least on the ones I've purchased.

Everything else (except "New Old Stock") that I've tried the last 2 years has been garbage.

http://www.oldies.com/product-view/1074D.html

Seems like it's advertised as a MOD DVD-R to me?




Anyway, I buy a lot of Alpha DVD-Rs (pretty much all the silents they release, plus TV drama, usually ~5 discs/month or so)... haven't had a problem yet (fingers crossed).

Good thread for the DVD Talk section...

I missed the "DVD-R" line if it was there a month ago.

2 comments:

1. Learned the hard way years ago that mediocre media goes bad over time.

2. Burned dvdr's do not handle scratches at all well.

Oldies sent me an MOD of "Unknown World" as part of an order I made back in the summer (?). I complained and received an email and a free pressed copy from their shipping manager. They still had a few original copies in stock. (FYI, no security seal on a Alpha = MOD.)

When I recently placed a BF order, I noticed that "Unknown World" was still listed as as DVD and contacted him again. There was no reply, and the listing remains unchanged. My best guess is that he uncovered enough pressed copies for Oldies to make the decision to shelve these MOD's for the time being. As they've obviously chosen to be honest about their DVD-R program (a move I highly commend), there doesn't seem much point in doing it selectively.

The release date for "Karloff Before Frankenstein" is September 2012, so I'm thinking it has always been MOD. (I believe Alpha switched to 100% MOD for new releases.) Sorry.

As an aside, I assume you haven't found a better copy of Karloff's "Juggernaut"?

I haven't watched it yet, so no comments on the print quality.

Juggernaut isn't on this! It includes "The Utah Kid" & "Phantoms Of The North".

I have 2 copies of Juggernaut. One is on a "Platinum" 4 film set with House Of Mystery. I don't remember what the quality is, if I can find it, I'll let you know. I also have it on an Echo Bridge 25 film 5 DVD Set (which I'm coincidentally watching parts of at the moment). Haven't gotten to Juggernaut yet, but if the rest of the set is any indication, it's probably a lame print.

I just checked my 2 Juggernauts for you. They're both dreadful. The better of the 2 is on Horror Classics V18: 096009405991. Oddly the cover art is labeled Echo Bridge, but the disc is labeled Platinum & has the Platinum Logo. It's almost watchable. The version on the 5 disc set isn't even watchable.

The good news is if it's better than the version you own (not sure what version that is) it's as low as 1 cent + shipping:

http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Classic...s=096009405991

Actually, I don't own a copy at all, lol. The only version I knew is Alpha's, and thought I was putting 2+2 together. Thanks for checking. Somebody called it Karloff's worst film from the 30's, so I'm in no hurry to make a purchase, Alpha's or otherwise. (For several years, I've been buying stuff faster than I can watch it.)

I am a huge BK fan, but see my review of a 20 film PD Karloff box here; it's starting to look like he did more absolute bottom of the barrel stuff than Lugosi.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R132SJ3...cm_cr_rdp_perm