Petition Genius for a US Laurel & Hardy DVD collection?

[p***@verizon.net]

With their upcoming release of the Little Rascals Collection and their
ties to Weinstein-Artisan-Hallmark-RHI, doesn't Genius have the fast-
track to put out L&H in the US now? (and if anyone out there is in
the know, please correct me on those ties I mentioned - I'm making
assumptions?

If Genuis is the company in the best position to put out L&H on DVD,
maybe we should be petitioning them to put out the Roach shorts and
features... using the Kirchgroup prints. I think it's worth a letter-
writing campaign or email petition. Anyone agree?

I envision either one box set with all the Roach shorts & features
they have the rights to, or two box sets - one of just the shorts, the
other of just the features. The selling point here would be to point
out how many chronological and "complete collections" have sprung up
over the past couple of years - the Stooges, Popeye, the huge complete
Abbott & Costello Universal set that's coming, their own Little
Rascals set, etc. may make a strong case for the viability of the
Laurel & Hardy sets from a sales perspective (which after all is
Genius's bottom line - they want to be sure they can make money off
something they release).

Anyway, let's hear from everyone - is this a plausible idea? They are
readily accessible via email. If you reply, include your name, city/
town and state and maybe I'll gather all those names together into a
nice email to send along to Genius.

[Derek Gee]

Post by p***@verizon.net
With their upcoming release of the Little Rascals Collection and their
ties to Weinstein-Artisan-Hallmark-RHI, doesn't Genius have the fast-
track to put out L&H in the US now? (and if anyone out there is in
the know, please correct me on those ties I mentioned - I'm making
assumptions?
If Genuis is the company in the best position to put out L&H on DVD,
maybe we should be petitioning them to put out the Roach shorts and
features... using the Kirchgroup prints. I think it's worth a letter-
writing campaign or email petition. Anyone agree?

One potential problem - I don't think the Kirchgroup restorations exist in
NTSC video. RHI has the same film source materials and could pay for new
transfers and restoration of them, but I doubt they will. If they weren't
willing to make and send new transfers to TCM, why would they spend the
money for home video? Would they even earn their money back? I wonder how
well the Lions Gate DVD's sold?

You could convert the PAL restorations back to NTSC, but then you have the
speed up issue and possible motion artifacts to deal with.

Derek

[Jimmy Fin]

That's the problem with the Chaplin MK2 DVDs.

While released in NTSC, they are copies of the PAL versions and sped up.

Check the running times of all the PAL L&H DVDs. They are shorter than the
official running times. A 65-minute move becomes 60 minutes, etc.

Post by Derek Gee

Post by p***@verizon.net
With their upcoming release of the Little Rascals Collection and their
ties to Weinstein-Artisan-Hallmark-RHI, doesn't Genius have the fast-
track to put out L&H in the US now? (and if anyone out there is in
the know, please correct me on those ties I mentioned - I'm making
assumptions?
If Genuis is the company in the best position to put out L&H on DVD,
maybe we should be petitioning them to put out the Roach shorts and
features... using the Kirchgroup prints. I think it's worth a letter-
writing campaign or email petition. Anyone agree?

One potential problem - I don't think the Kirchgroup restorations exist in
NTSC video. RHI has the same film source materials and could pay for new
transfers and restoration of them, but I doubt they will. If they weren't
willing to make and send new transfers to TCM, why would they spend the
money for home video? Would they even earn their money back? I wonder
how well the Lions Gate DVD's sold?
You could convert the PAL restorations back to NTSC, but then you have the
speed up issue and possible motion artifacts to deal with.
Derek

[Brian]

Post by Derek Gee
You could convert the PAL restorations back to NTSC, but then you have the
speed up issue and possible motion artifacts to deal with.

The speed up issue one can live with--I'm from a PAL territory and it
is only very slight and one gets used to it after a short while,
especially with these movies and their thin soundtracks. The motion
artifacts -- converting PAL to NTSC -- that is the killer -- it made
the otherwise perfect Chaplin collection almost unwatchable, for me
anyway. One would have to use the original materials to get anything
half decent.

[g***@yahoo.com]

Post by Brian

Post by Derek Gee
You could convert the PAL restorations back to NTSC, but then you have the
speed up issue and possible motion artifacts to deal with.

The speed up issue one can live with--I'm from a PAL territory and it
is only very slight and one gets used to it after a short while,
especially with these movies and their thin soundtracks. The motion
artifacts -- converting PAL to NTSC -- that is the killer -- it made
the otherwise perfect Chaplin collection almost unwatchable, for me
anyway. One would have to use the original materials to get anything
half decent.

Warner just took a lazy approach to the Chaplins in their conversion.
Plenty of small companies (such as Synapse, which has one one-
trillionth of the capital available as Warner) have a track record of
doing excellent PAL-NTSC conversions with no motion artifacting; it
just takes more time and trouble and a willingness to do it. After
all, if a Chinese DVD player selling for under $100 can convert PAL to
NTSC on the fly flawlessly, Warner ought to be able to manage it.