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

[David Lennick]

Remember when we'd pony up hundreds of bucks for those laserdisc sets? I still 
have my discs and the player was repaired a year ago (it got zapped by too many 
power outages) but I haven't even plugged it in.

dl

Jeff Sultanof wrote:
> 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
>>