Many threads on this site have brought up the concern about re-releasing DVD's. Should I sell my old disc and buy the new one, or wait til a new special edition comes out is one of the most common questions I see.

First of all let me explaine the importance of Anamorphic Widescreen. If you dont know what it is TheDigitalBits.com or many people in this room can explain. There are enough DVD's on the market in Anamorphic Widescreen to keep most Americans happy. I only purchase films in AW and there are enough I want to buy, coming soon or even available, to keep my pockets lean for years to come. The point I would like to make, with the future of HDTV coming, most Americans will have these sets by 2010. Besides re-puchasing a film on a new HD-DVD format, a regular AW DVD looks beutiful at 480p. Not all films really need an HD transfer. Newer ones that are CGI driven will always look better in HD, but older films dont look all that better. I purchased The Hunt for Red October recently in AW and dts, by the way it rocks. In the same week HD-HBO was showing this in their lineup in OAR to my surprise, and I tried an experiment. I had them both going about the same time and switched back and forth to look for a difference. Let me say at first I didnt see one, it didnt jump out at me. After looking closely though I could see more detail, colors more solid, ect. Im going to be very happy with this DVD for years to come and may re-purchase the HD version when it comes out. On the other end of the spectrum, one of my favorite films of all time is John Carpenter's The Thing. Sadly to say this is not in my collection because its not Anamorphic Widesceen. I may be waiting til HD-DVD comes out to purchase this one, but oh well, there's still too many I want to buy now that are Anamorphic.

Why should I purchase a re-release? IMO, I only purchase a DVD because of the movie itself, never for features. My first priority is the best picture quality and sound. If a re-release will improve these factors, I usually double-dip. Example, Superbit release's. I sell each disc I own that is replaced by a Superbit disc. A chance for the best Pic and Sound a DVD has to offer sells me every time. If I could have every DVD I own a Superbit, what a beutiful world it would be. Star Wars Superbit, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, I wish I was Bruce Almighty now. Anyway, another struggle I recently had was T2 extreme vs. Ultimate. What sold me on the Extreme re-release was picture quality. Hands down its the best looking T2 on the market. The Ultimate at 480p looked aweful, sounded wonderful, but looked bad. DTS was hard to give up, but DD-EX can sound very good too, examples are Signs and Resident Evil. Not that I like to give up the dts track the Picture is another world and the DD-EX track is still impressive, Im sure I made the best desicion.

Should I wait til another version comes out? Considering many studio's double-dip and Triple, its hard to decide when its a good time to sell the one you have and wait for a new version. DVD's can also have value that can help your DVD library. Example is Prince of Darkness and They Live. We all now that Universal would re-release these disc eventually. The new ones will be priced at only 14.99. I sold my disc for over $100 on e-bay. It doesnt bother me too much if they dont have Special Features like the R2 and R4 versions. I hate Snapper cases so one reason to sell. The menu's sucked on the last one, second reason to sell. Plus a chance to make a little cash, Im sold. So years ago I purchased the origional disc. Just sold them for a profit, finally purchased the Godfather Trilogy I've been wanting, and have money left over to buy the new ones in October, what a deal.

I would like to finish on a few notes that hopefully will help some people with these questions. First of all remeber, you will have a Widescreen HDTV one day. Maybe not now but by the end of the decade you probably will. Purchase only Anamorphic Widescreen DVD's. There are so many DVD's in AW on the market to build a wonderful collection. Remember that those few films that are not in AW will be one day, Im looking forward for The Thing, Armageddon, Trainspotting, Event Horizon and Star Wars. They will come one day dont worry. When studio's get the hint that no one wants the other crap they may change there tune. Til then enjoy what we have now, there's enough I promise.

A round of applause, ladies and gentleman.

Well said. I too discard the idea of double dipping simply for the special features. It's good to see that you can make some extra cash through dvds and bolster your collection as well. If only i were so lucky...

Oh, and i watch all my movies on a 13" tv with a 500 watt surround sound system. Image quality, for now, isn't on the top of my list of things to look for, but i plan on getting myself a nice 40" widescreen tv in the next year.

Mjarina, your sentiments are echoed in the sentiments I, and most people here, have about DVD collecting.

Picture and sound are paramount, not special features (no pun intended with the 'paramount'). However, some features are not to be underestimated, and some of the Superbits are downright disappointing.

While I understand your motivation, I disagree with you on only buying Anamorphic Widescreen DVDs, and never buying Letterbox.

The Thing for example, is an excellent movie and a fine DVD. According to your scheme, you always upgrade when a better transfer comes along. Why not apply this logic to non-AW DVDs and simply upgrade when a new AW release comes along?

I'm not trying to offend you, but it seems some people get caught up in "Anamorphic snobery". In fact, there are many Anamorphic releases that have horrible transfers compared to a well done Letterbox transfer.

I own an 65" HDTV Widescreen, top-notch sound system, etc. etc. and I prefer anamorphic DVDs of course. But I sure as hell bought movies like The Thing, Armageddon Criterion, and The Abyss on DVD because (a) I love the movies, and (b) they are great DVDs.

...just my opinion of course...

Once upon a time I owned a laserdisc player. I miss it from time to time but its time to move on. I tried hooking up the LD player to the HD and tried out Star Wars SE and Origional, had both. Sorry just looked too bad. I have HD cable and enough HD channels now to keep me busy. I know more are coming, so is HD-DVD. My rutine during the day, i turn the cable on, flip through the HD channels, if nothing on, there's always a DVD to watch. For the past year I have watched nothing but Anamorphic DVD's and HD cable. Its very difficult to watch something thats different. I love to watch Star Trek Enterprise and Monk. I enjoy these shows alot, but cant wait til there over and can watch something that looks good again. Im just spoiled I guess, but not a rich man by no means.

As much as I would like to buy the SE of The Thing, there is always another Anamorphic disc that stops me. I would only like to buy a movie once. Doesnt work out all the time though. Once I purchase a DVD thats Anamorphic, the only way it would be replaced is better video transfer, better sound. My Resident Evil Superbit DVD will be with me til the HD-DVD comes out. Many DVD's I have now will Never be replaced by an HD counterpart. When I own all the American Pie movies, thats it for me. Not visualy driven movies to begin with, dts sound available, so why upgrade for a little better picture. But I'm all over Lord of the Rings in HD. If these come out one day in HD and DTS-ES with no special features, fine with me. Cant wait to see these in HD.

Anyway, for those who are only watching on a 13" tv right now, still only buy Anamorphic Widescreen. When you finally break down and buy your HD set in 5 years from now, you will be pretty busy watching all your DVD's again to see what you've been missing. Otherwise, your selling all your full-frame disc and rebuying the widescreen editions, too much cash for me.

While I agree with some of what you have to say, I think you've fallen prey to the Columbia Tristar marketing machine that would have us believe that their trademarked "Superbits" always have superior picture quality. The bitrate is only part of the equation, and upping it won't improve flawed elements or a shoddy transfer. It won't get rid of edge enhancement. (In fact, it may magnify the flaws.) Personally, I rely on websites like DVD Beaver and The Laser Examiner to sort out whether a re-release is truly an upgrade in quality and not just a marketing gimmick.

Mjarina, I agree with you about the anamorphic widescreen. Even thought I own a crappy 17' TV all DVDs I buy must have an anamorphic transfer (if the movie is widescreen) and the theatrical cut. When I buy a house I will upgrade to a killer system and I buy my DVDs with that in mind.

Picture quality is very important to me; I check the online reviews and boards to make sure a transfer is good before I buy.

I'm still watching movies on my 13" tv, but i do understand the importance of a good/great transfer. I have the 13 inch in my room, but the tv in my family's living room is a 60" widescreen HDTV. I only buy movies in OAR, and if at all possible, get anamorphic. To me though, the anamorphic-ness of a movie is not enough to sell me. The way i see it, you can change the picture size on all new hdtvs, so it's really nothing to fret about. A good sound mix on the other hand...

Here we go again. It is pretty simple. Sony/Columbia should be putting out the best looking discs the first time around. Not after a Special Edition, then a Deluxe Edition and then a SuperBit. Spiderman? As a "discerning" home theater buff you should demand (and vote with your pocketbook as you seem to do on The Thing) that Sony put out its best looking disc first.

I understand releasing older titles under Superbit line, but to release a movie that came out in 2002 in multiple versions in less than 2 years is a joke. You should demand better, SuperBit or not.

And I didn't upgrade my UE, it looks OK to me, and I would rather buy a different movie than re-releases of the same movie.

NO DTS=NO SALE
NO ANIMORPHIC=NO SALE
LESS THAN 2 DISCS=NO SALE

I should also point out another myth: not all anamorphically enhanced DVDs have better picture quality than their non-anamorphic counterparts. Examples (with screenshots) from DVD Beaver:

Picnic at Hanging Rock
Charade
Blood for Dracula

Superbit titles are only and example to a point i was trying to make. Sony is not the only company that uses the whole disc for the transfer. Paramount is another company that releases a DVD with hardly any features, similar to Superbit, minus dts. Anyway, i also agree with a previous comment that if its a bad tranfer from the film stock, a Superbit may enhance a defect.

I would just like folks to demand the best video and sound transfer first before thinking about what extra's to include. Extra's will never make a movie any good if the movie sucked to begin with. A hero turned enemy of mine George Lucas, has tormented me over the past few years. One major concern of releaseing Star Wars on DVD years back was the lack of time to put extra's on the disc. Who cares, I want to watch Star Wars, not the Extra's.

Lastly I would like to again stress Anamorphic importance. Another comment i read was about the special features on HDTV to crop images to fit your screen. Trust me if this actually looked any good, I wouldnt be ranting now. When I cropped the Star Wars Laserdisc to fit my 16x9 HD so it would look the same as a 2.35:1 DVD, it wasnt pleasing to look at. Granted it was the best image I have seen at home, it still falls short of what a decent Anamorphic transfer could look like. For those who have HD, progessive DVD, and set it up right using Video Essentials or something, can appreciate good video quality. A few DVD i have totally rock for video quality. The Usual Suspect comes to mind. Many close up shots of Kevin Spacy face are scary. You can see little hairs on his face and every dimple. Thats what im talking about. Thats why Anamorphic rocks.

For those who dont have a HD set yet, again read reviews and you can usually pinpoint the good transfer without equipment to tell yourself.

Now I want to complain about George Lucas, kinda off subject but related. Star Wars changed my life as a kid. When I was 6 I saw the first film many times, bought all the toys (still have them). I looked up at the stars then and decided to be an Astronomer. I also ejoy writing Science-Fiction on the side as well. Not that Im a Star Wars nut or something, Trekkies scare me, it opened my mind at a young age. It very nice to see my son involved in the new trilogy as well. Seeing him reliving the childhood I had.

Granted we have episode 1 & 2 on DVD, whats up with the OT or the SE. I keep being told by GL that Star Wars will be HD-DVD when it comes out, which means it should miss the regualr DVD format totally. I would love for my son to have all 6 films on regular DVD while daddy has the HD-DVD versions. A whole pirate market has exploded from this as well. Why not release both SE and OT on DVD, and your new SE on HD-DVD? This would terminate the pirate market, make all kinds of fans happy. How bout this as a Extra for now: a 2-disc version of each film with the OT and SE. That would be enough Extra's for me.
I know what GL would say right now though, he would like to tell his story all over again. Well my son has been exposed to the Origional Trilogy already so it makes no sense to withhold the DVD's. In some way I tried it George's way and tried to keep him from watching them, but his friends and relatives couldnt shelter him like I tried, I give up, George lost. Hopefully a regular DVD and HD-DVD versions will be available so my son can have his set and I can have mine. Im going to scream bloody murder though if I wait all this damn time, 2006, Star Wars finally come to DVD, HD-DVD should have been out at least a year or two and we only get regular DVD versions. I can forgive him for just releasing them on HD-DVD and not regular DVD, would be nice to have both, but will not settle for just 480p DVD.

Simple solution is to not buy full-frame in the first place. Done and done.

K

Paramount's transfers are good and their 5.1 remixing isn't bad at all, but it's not mandated due to no features. Paramount's transfers are pretty much on par with other companies that take care with the transfer. I'm not saying that more features on a disc don't affect the PQ, becase it can if the space is constricted. But there's a lot of empty space on your average Paramount disc.

What about Criterion? A good number of their DVDs are pretty featureless, but they still provide the best possible picture with the transfer they have to work with. Not to mention that their nonanamorphic letterboxed DVDs are still head and shoulders above some anamorphically enhanced discs.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Was it that you zoomed in on the picture?

Also, Lucas simply releasing the films won't terminate the pirate market, sadly. I wouldn't mind a try, though.

Ah - the truth comes out. This was a thinly disguised "George Lucas raped my dog and murdered my mother and made me watch while I was tied up in a chair" post.

Got it. Thanks.

[bumps to ignore list]

People seem to care more about the dvd picture and sound quality than they do about the quality of the films they purchase.

I could give a rats-ass if Resident Evil gets a HD transfer or if its in AW or letter box. To me its just not a good movie (this is MY personal opinion, I am sure there were people who liked). I don't care if they come out with a 6-disc HD-DVD version that has 14 days of extras, the best quality ever, and is rated the best dvd in dvd history. I still won't buy it.

I think some of you are so caught up in the dvd addiction you pay no attention to the quality of movies that you are purchasing from what I think are the most important features of a dvd like the content of the movie (and others area related to it).

I don't post much on this forum, I usually sit back and read what people have to say... So please don't take offense to anything I have said or am about to say. But, it is becoming more and more apparent that people on this forum care more about how many dvd's they own, or how many OOP dvs they own, or how many criterions they own, or how they bought Adaptation just for the insert and the clear case, or how they repurchased a movie to get a better case.

I will admit I have sometimes bought a dvd because there was something about it other than the quality of the movie, or that it was on sale for very cheap, but a majority of the dvd's I own I bought for a reason. And usually it is was because I enjoyed watching the movie and being able to throw that movie in my dvd player when I saw it was showing on TBS is what mattered the most. It didn't matter how many discs of extras it had or what the aspect ratio, it was the fact that at that moment I was able to watch the movie, pause it if need be, avoid commercials, etc...

I collect DVDs because I like movies, not because I like DVDs.

This is all pretty much a contrived scenario (holding out for Anamorphic transfers) at this stage of DVD's life. There are very few that are released as non-Anamorphic that are then later re-released.

A major factor in these re-releases is that the bar of quality has been raised significantly with DVD versus VHS. VHS quality was a closer match for the source material that was present for many esoteric films. For DVD releases, these same source materials would be unacceptable.

That means either an inferior release now and try to use the sales of that release for seed money for a higher quality re-release. Or not releasing it at all and hope to convince the beancounters that there is a solid business case for the development and release of a high quality release.

A prime example is "Sixteen Candles". People who profess that it is their favorite film refused to buy the disc 2.5 years ago for $8 because it didn't meet their expectations.... so they'd rather go without that film for 3 years than have in their collection, viewable on-demand. I don't understand that.

I agree with the "do it right the first time" post. All of the studios have the technology to make the picture the absolute best the first time around. Re-releasing a movie is their way of saying "our first version wasn't good enough, we know that, so this is our way of saying we're sorry. BTW, cough up another $20 please. Thank you."


As far as Paramount goes, I think their transfers of movies are as good as anyones. Very rarely have I seen a Paramount dvd that didn't have excellent audio and video. They seem to put more effort into the technical (and most important) merits of a dvd than the features. Features shouldn't sell a dvd for a studio, the quality audio and video should always be the deciding factor. Not some "HBO First Look" nonsense.

It would seem that extras are king and content is secondary in most peoples minds - and yes, I have indeed bought a disc that I very well may not have otherwise because it was loaded down with all kinds of extras. However, I am not above picking up a bare bones crappy transfer of a Godzilla movie because A) I want that film so bad I can taste it and B) Satan will be ice skateing to work before I see a subbed letterboxed version from Toho.

You know what - I went ahead and bought the films anyway. My love for the movie overrides the quality and extras and all that other crap.

Given the option I'll certanly pick up something that looks nice, but it's not the only factor involved - and its by no means the primary factor.

Who is this guy that started this thread? I am not even sure I know where this is going now. It seems like he just stood up and started spouting some stuff off. I know this is a discussion forum, but his post seemed like it needed to be in the statement forum instead...(do we have one of those?)

I'm all about someone saying that they want the best quality available, but to say that everything needs to be superbit is like saying Criterion could do a better Fight Club or Se7en DVD. Also, if you stick strictly to anamorphic widescreen (anamorphic snobbery...I LOVE IT...very quotable), you are knocking out ALOT of great films. Citizen Kane and The Wizard of Oz come to mind simply b/c I know those are two that I have in my collection.

And to say that anamorphic WS is the best possible way to view an image, I'm gonna second FilmFanSea's call on DVD Beaver as a place to check out screen-cap comparisons. Charade was a good example...glad I snagged my copy a few wks ago!

Again, thanks for enlightening us all, but please spare us the preachy attitude about things most of us here already know.

I'm not double dipping on Lawrence of Arabia. I spent too much money on it the first time around and think the transfer is great.

I would have to say that I like both, but I agree that the film is primary.

For the record, I mostly own classic, foreign, and indie films. From guzzlefish I learn that over half my collection (nearing 400 DVDs) is of films made before 1970; a third of the titles are foreign; 10% are silent; and over half of my films have an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. I don't have a 16x9 HD display or progressive scanning, just a typical Sony 36" set that meets my needs for now. My subwoofer rarely gets a workout. My Top 10 DVD priorities are:

1-5. Film quality
6. OAR
7. Picture/Transfer quality
8. Meaningful supplements (not studio fluff)
9. Audio quality (incl. 5.1, DTS; but I prefer the original mono tracks on older films)
10. Anamorphic enhancement (I know someday I'll upgrade to 16x9 HD)


So I recognize that my priorities differ from those of the vast majority of this board. I do own quite a few Criterions (85 or so), but I buy them selectively (again for the quality of the film), never as a collectible or an investment (alright, I did pick up a used copy of the OOP Criterion Robocop recently . . .).

That said, one of my major concerns is the studios' marketing departments. They're very good at creating demand through repackaging, "gimmicks" such as SuperBit, and adding an hour's worth of empty supplements which does nothing more than promote the Studio or tie-in with a current film (are you listening, Disney?). These boards feed into the frenzy by trumpeting the studio-generated press releases & specs, and encouraging people to pre-order titles which may have no merit. As long as people continue to double-, triple-, quadruple-dip, these kind of practices will continue.

I agree with a previous poster who said that the studios should get it right the first time. As consumers, we have the power to resist the Tricked-Out, Definitive, SuperMegaBit, Ultimate Plus Edition. Let the studios rechannel their energies into their back-catalogs, into producing the ultimate edition right out of the gate. They're gonna hit us with HD-DVD soon enough (the marketing departments are already thinking up ways to get you to re-purchase your beloved collection in HD), & I have my doubts that it's gonna be a huge improvement over what we have now. Resist the urge to re-consume! Power to the people!

Only excuse for double dipping is if it's an older title from a few years ago when anamorphic and special features weren't very common on DVD's.

But in 2003, there is no excuse for releasing a bare-bones, then putting out a special edition 6 months later.