Wetherby Pond

But what isn't theoretical is the fundamental difference between analogue and digital media, which makes the latter superior when it comes to long-term preservation.

Analogue copies (whether film or tape-based) will deteriorate come what may, because the quality and consistency of the information contained on them is inextricably linked to the chemical composition of the medium.

But with digital media, the original information can survive in perfect condition provided steps are taken to ensure that it's cloned at reasonably regular intervals to ensure its survival.

paulsroom

I've bought two British films recently - "The Rocking Horse Winner" (1950) and "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" (1968). Both of these came on DVD and from America with varying quality. "The Rocking Horse Winner" was a clean digitally remastered copy that played absolutely fine (came with some interesting but not essential extras). "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" was from an 'official' site, but was clearly a copy from some other source. Although it did have the odd dropout during playback, it was generally fair quality and is the only way I know of watching these films.

The problem with a lot of these films is that of course they were released when home videos didn't exist, and many of them were never issued on video. So getting any copy is a bonus, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like top quality all the time, but getting a copy at all is better than nothing. I've bought some poor quality videos, but they're films that I couldn't watch anywhere else, so they've still become treasured possessions.

Occasionally a gem surfaces, such as "The Lodger" (1927). This is a film that I kept seeing references to in many of my film books, and developed a real curiosity about it. But I had to wait many years before it finally arrived on DVD.

I would love to get hold of "Ring of Spies" (1963) which I thoroughly enjoyed when I first saw it at the cinema. What made this film even more interesting was that I knew someone who lived in the same street as the Krogers.

Rob Compton

paulsroom

Ring of Spies has been on TV in recent years, the last time about a year or two ago, on C4 (possibly? seems the most likely). I'm sure someone on this site has a copy (aphra?) I'm pretty sure I have one myself, if I could only find it!

rgds
Rob

smudge

I have one, but I wish they'd release it commercially. It's a cracking film.

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

fantomas 2

I bought a DVD-recorder 18 months ago. It's a Philips, not a Panasonic, and to be more precise, the reference is DVDR-75.
It's totally inexact to tell that the DVD+R (and RW) are "unreadable" on other machines than Philips. I have made more than 350 DVD to date, and all of them works perfectly well in any DVD machine, as well as on my own PC DVD-reader (Power DVD). And ANY DVD made by friends having other machines than Philips are perfectly read on the Philips - including the DVD-R/RW.
I also transferred some of my VHS on DVD. Of course, only for "rare" movies, as I have a subscription to Canal Satellite, and each week dozens of movies are proposed, including some very rare titles. As an example, "Footsteps in the Fog", "The Bespoke Overcoat", and "Return to Glennascaul" were among the titles shown in recent months.
To cut off commercials from DVD is very easy. You can use a re-writable DVD, you make a complete copy (from television, or from a VHS). Then you have a way to remove the commercials, it's explained in the manual, and it's very easy. Then you can re-copy the DVD+RW (or DVD-RW) via a PC on a VCD+R (or VCD-R). There is no loss of quality, as this system "clones" the files.
My own choice for a British lost movie ?

1937's DARBY AND JOAN, directed by Syd Courtenay, with Tod Slaughter among the players...

Steve Crook

Two problems with that.
One is that by recording it digitally to begin with you are losing information, unless you record at a very high bit rate, which DVDs can't support. Try stepping through a DVD frame by frame and compare that with stepping through a video frame by frame.

Second, when you copy from a digital recording it isn't always a perfect copy every time. It is possible for the medium it's recorded on to degrade, whatever medium that is. That only means losing a bit or two every so often in a film. But if you make copies of copies of copies enough times it will begin to show up. That's why serious digital recording like computer memory includes checksums & CRC techniques. But they didn't bother to build that into DVDs.

Don't get me wrong, I love DVDs, they are very useful. But they don't all that much information so all sorts of processing is done which generally lets them anticipate the next scene. But that means you can't do a sharp cut in a single frame, you get ghosting on either side of the cut.

Steve

paulsroom

Can I just say that if anyone is interested in providing dvd copies of films (at a consideration), then I would be very interested! I'm not trying to circumvent the law, but I lend videos and dvds out to friends (more in the hope that they will enjoy the selection I've made for them), so I don't see commercial violation.

fantomas 2

quote:

"Try stepping through a DVD frame by frame and compare that with stepping through a video frame by frame. "

Sorry, but I made this kind of comparizon many times, and the DVD image is always infinitely superior to VHS cassettes, frame by frame or otherwise. This is valuable for DVD & VHS made by you or me, and remains valuable for DVD and VHS of a same film pre-recorded in both supports. Recently, a friend of mine showed us a VHS of the French movie "Le bossu", with Daniel Auteuil, then the DVD version of the same sequence. It was almost a different movie.

Steve Crook

They must have been particularly badly recorded VHS tapes. I always find the opposite is true, a DVD misses many of the frames that can be seen when stepping through a video. Maybe the equipment used for each should be taken into account as well.

Steve

fantomas 2

Sorry, Steve, but I desagree totally!
I'm speaking of VHS videos recorded with JVC and Panasonic tri-standard VCRs, the films themselves being taken from satellite channels like Canal +, Canal Satellite, etc. (and in Pal, not in Secam). The tapes were brand new, and the labels were Memorex, TDK, Sony, etc. Nothing was "badly recorded" as you seems to think... and the VHS were made at Standard Play - of course.
When you "capture" an image from these tapes, and you make the same thing with images from DVDs of the same movie, the DVD image is always better.
Furthermore, when I mentioned the differences between the VHS and the DVD of the movie "Le bossu", I was talking of pre-recorded, commercial DVD and VHS, and manufactured by the same company. Their VHS was not "badly recorded", it was simply a "normal" VHS, so it was inferior to their DVD.
In fact, you are the first person, at my knowledge, who prefers the VHS to DVD !!!

Icon0

Hello to SteNottingham22 and everyone. I think it very kind of you to go to the trouble of recording the great old British movies on to DVD-R and offering them to people at a small charge. However Would it not be better for you to up load them on the net as torrents so that anyone can download them free of charge with out a loss of quality. See http://www.bittorrent.com

DB7

I've often thought it would be a good idea if we could collate all our film lists into an anonymous library perhaps using usernames for people to peruse what rare titles are available. And likewise, a database made up of everybody's wants lists.

sanndevil

The administration of such a database would be a complete nightmare - that's if people would be bothered to keep their entries up to date! Also, I'm assuming that there would be a mechanism for one person asking for a copy of a movie from another. It is not inconcievable that some individuals would be inundated with requests. Then we are in the territory of mass duplication which would soon attract the attention of copyright holders!

The idea of filesharing is a non-starter too. For example, I have about 1000 DVDs / DVD-Rs; if we estimate 2.5GB per recording (very low) then that is 25000GB disk requirement to get it all on-line - that's if I could be bothered to do such a thing. Then there's bandwidth - I have a 2MB broadband connection, but even without contention issues, the upload / download times would be prohibitive I'm afraid.

Just wait a few years and every movie will be stored on line by the copyright holders, and available for download on super-fast Internet connections for a small fee. It'll come along sooner rather than later.

penfold

Analogue doesn't mean just VHS though...despite all the advances in digital technology, the most safe way to archive a film for decades or more is still 35mm film...

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

MarkG

I read an article a few years back about the 'Babylon 5' people's experiences of re-cutting their pilot episode for a re-release. They'd given the negatives back to the financiers for safe storage, and discovered that during the 'safe storage' the room had been flooded and some of the negatives had been eaten by rats :). Similarly, the 'Wicker Man' negatives are reportedly safely stored in a pit under the M3 motorway...

So if you're going to safely store your movies on 35mm film, make sure the film is really stored safely :).