[78-L] A word of warning concerning playback of Warner "Big Band" set Re: They are practically Giving away the Vitaphone DVD set!

[Jeff Sultanof]

I gotta say, I am so thrilled to have these as one boxed DVD set. I had the
laser disc boxed sets that had the great majority of them, so it is great to
have them again. I've been watching this set on and off since it came on
Friday, and I love what I see and hear. It was an incredible thrill to see
the 1945 Jan Savitt Orchestra, one of the great big bands with strings of
that period, which is very poorly documented.

I hope sales are good on these sorts of items, because I'd love some
Vitaphone shorts sets from the films that have been restored by UCLA thanks
to The Vitaphone Project. The Ben Pollack short that can be found on YouTube
would be wonderful to have. There is a Vitaphone Fred Allen short that I saw
years ago at the Museum of Modern Art that I'd love to see again, etc. etc.

Jeff Sultanof

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com> wrote:

> I brought this exact thing up last week, although not in the message you
> reprinted.  I found it would not play in the Sony drive in my computer
> nor in my Discmaker copier (which we use to duplicate Leah's
> documentary), but would play in a Magnavox recorder, and a Philips
> player.  I did not test it in my Ilo or LiteOn recorders because I do
> not trust them anyway.   They obviously do not want them being ripped in
> computers, and this might affect how a stand-alone recorder's drive see
> them, but it makes no sense to purposefully disable their playback in a
> recorder, since it is the recorder you would use to take the signal from
> a player!!    Actually, the copier's play-only input drive did read the
> disc but said it was RCC protected and would not proceed.  So that is
> the answer of the other question about what would happen if you do get
> it to play in a computer.
>
>
> Frankly it would be a pain for some people if they can't play it in
> their computer because that is some people's entertainment center.  The
> RCC copy protection should be enough to protect ripping by most ordinary
> people, so why did they have to go the extra step.  In the past there
> have been threats by the disc authorities to demand trademark removal
> from discs that have things that restrict PLAYING, such as when the CD
> authority threatened Columbia when they put in some programs that
> damaged computers that merely played certain CDs a few years ago.  Note
> that these discs contain a DVD "Download" trademark.  This must have
> some allowance for how these discs act.
>
>
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
>   -------- Original Message --------
>
>  From: "Martin Fisher" <wmfisher at mtsu.edu>
>
>
>  Just a note concerning the playability of this set.
>
>  The back of the box is flagged with this statement, verbatim.
>
>  "This disc is expected to play back in DVD video "play only" devices,
> and
>  may ot play back in other DVD devices, including recorders and PC
> drives."
>
>  So far, disc 1 plays back in a Coby and Toshiba DVD player and Plextor
> DVD
>  PC drive. Other PC DVD drives come up as not recognizing the region
> code.
>  I also have a Sony DVD recorder that will not load the discs.
>
>  Martin
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
>  To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>  Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 9:31 PM
>  Subject: Re: [78-L] They are practically Giving away the Vitaphone DVD
> set!
>
>
>  > From: "Steve Shapiro" <steveshapiro1 at juno.com>
>  >> When you order the 6 dvd set, a code comes up which says MOD.
>  >> The company says that MOD dvds are not mass-produced, but Made On
> Demand.
>  >> I presume this is each time someone orders such items.
>  >
>  > Yes, this was discussed when the Warner Archive series was first
>  > introduced back a year or two ago. I mentioned in my discussions here
>  > that these are DVD-Rs but are nicely printed so that you wouldn't
>  > notice. It is designed to allow for items of limited interest without
>  > having to warehouse quantities or distribute them to stores. This is
>  > similar to what Greenwood Press is doing for some of its
> discographies,
>  > and what the Smithsonian does with the Folkways and Cook recordings.
>  >
>  >> Perhaps our business is keeping someone in job./steve
>  >
>  > That is a nice thought in this economy, and I am happy to support
> this
>  > end of the commercial disc business because it is giving the company
> a
>  > clear denotation of what materials ARE of interest. Each sale here is
> a
>  > definite sale, while sending them to stores can often result in
> returns
>  > from the store. If films like these sell well enough to support their
>  > production, hopefully more will be released. I have a feeling that
> this
>  > set is partially a result of the interest in the Jazz Singer box,
> both
>  > in sales and in word of mouth/internet.
>  >
>  > Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com
>
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