New Ealing releases from Optimum

[MrT]

I've only recieved two of these so far:



Where no vultures fly (1951) - reasonably good transfer, not digitally remastered with the occasional speck and line on the picture. Good quality colour



Out of the clouds (1954) - very poor quality colour and generally the print looked very washed out with poor contrast. The quality of the C4 version shown in the last year or two is far better so I would say give this one a miss if you have a good copy from C4.



Neither of these start with the BBFC certificate, and neither disc has any extras.



The rest of the new releases are in the post and I'll comment on quality when they arrive.



Generally I do not rate Optimum as a company. Retail price for these in the shops is £16.99 although they can be bought much cheaper on line (£11.99). This seems like a real rip off when you consider that Odeon's Best of British releases sell for about half as much. Pity that odeon are not handling the Ealing releases - I think they'd be doing a much better job with them.



Mike (MrT)

[batman]

name='MrT']

Generally I do not rate Optimum as a company. Retail price for these in the shops is £16.99 although they can be bought much cheaper on line (£11.99). This seems like a real rip off when you consider that Odeon's Best of British releases sell for about half as much. Pity that odeon are not handling the Ealing releases - I think they'd be doing a much better job with them.

Mike (MrT)

I think Odeon's releases are excellent .... I have loads of them and have found the quality to be good on all of them.

[MrT]

Optimum's dvd of Will Hay's The goose steps out arrived today.



Sound and Vision quality are good BUT the print used is CUT - approximately 6 minutes is missing including a large chunk of the first session between Will and his pupils in which he instructs them about English place names - so the print runs for only 66.5 minutes.



Also A run for your Money - the picture is slightly jerky all the way through, similar to how an NTSC tape/disc can sometimes look when played back on PAL equipment



What is wrong with this company??????



Alec Guinness box set - disc in set labelled as Kind Hearts and Coronets played The ladykillers;

George Formby box set - sound out of sync on Turned out nice again; Come on George last 6 minutes missing;

The Long Arm - very low audio level;

Out of the clouds - washed out colour;



And these dvd's are not cheap. Optimum should be doing a lot lot better than this.



Mike (MrT)

[Brief Encounter]

I hope you've written to complain!

[darrenburnfan]

No one at Optimum gives a toss and that's why they'll probably go under during this recession. Complaining is no good, as they never reply. I complained about their DVD of Swallows and Amazons, which, although having excellent picture and sound quality, was completely missing the cast and credits and Swallows and Amazons Forever! logo on the end of the film. These were all on the film when it was originally released in 1974 and are certainly on my Warner Home Video VHS release of the film. So, what happened to the cast and credits and logo on the Optimum DVD? If you can get an answer out of them regarding that, you'll be very lucky.



Another gripe is that they released a DVD of Far From The Madding Crowd (1967) in the wrong aspect ratio. It should have been 2.35:1, but was actually 1.85:1.



As for the terribly low sound on The Long Arm, you'd think that they would have recalled all the faulty copies and issued new ones with proper sound...but no. They must be having a lot of returns and losing money hand over fist with their attitude. But are they bothered if the company folds because of their carelessness and lack of customer relations? It would seem they're not.

[marker]

When Networks 40% off sale was on I bought upwards of a £100 of DVDs one set being The Complete Adventures of Robin Hood when the carton arrived They had sent me Set 1 set 3 and set 4 and these 3 sets were in fact listed on the delivery note but no mention at all of set 2 being out of stock or whatever.

I phoned them up and was promised they had in fact got this in stock and this set wold be in the post the very next day, and despite emailing them as well, that was over a week ago also they never even had the decency to apologize.

I am not very amused by all this as now I have to waste time and money phoning them again, when Firms treat me like this I just never buy from them again.

[julian_craster]

Could the reason be that these DVD companies employ young graduates in 'Media Studies' to prepare their DVDs, and these young trendies think that any film made in the last century is a load of old ........ so they couldn't care less....

[mariocki]

name='MrT']

Sound and Vision quality are good BUT the print used is CUT - approximately 6 minutes is missing including a large chunk of the first session between Will and his pupils in which he instructs them about English place names - so the print runs for only 66.5 minutes.



And these dvd's are not cheap. Optimum should be doing a lot lot better than this.



Mike (MrT)

Their release of Robbery, whilst very welcome, was also cut. And in 4:3.

[JamesM]

Optimum are owned by Studio Canal so an investment in re-mastering and extras would be worthwhile but, as Darren points out, they haven't got a clue.



Releasing The Goose Steps Out at 66 mins when a full length print can be obtained from the BFI shows what a joke the company are.

[Dandelion]

name='JamesM']Releasing The Goose Steps Out at 66 mins when a full length print can be obtained from the BFI shows what a joke the company are.

What on earth did they cut out?

[Brief Encounter]

name='julian_craster']Could the reason be that these DVD companies employ young graduates in 'Media Studies' to prepare their DVDs, and these young trendies think that any film made in the last century is a load of old ........ so they couldn't care less....

You've said this before, and you're wrong - I'm a Media Studies graduate



I could do a better job than any of the people employed by Optimum, but then I'm passionate about these films. Age doesn't matter, as long as people are enthusiastic about what they're doing.



I think record companies are the same, they employ people who have no idea what's in their catalogue...

[John Hodson]

All these wasted opportunies; awful prints, cut prints, old TV transfers of 'scope films that begin in OAR, then switch to pan and scan. Films just chucked out on to the market with absolutely no care, no love. Films that are dirty, marked, unrestored. Films which deserve special edition treatment, in some cases, the crown jewels of the British film industry, given no 'special' treatment whatsoever. Films released to knowledgeable fans who will know *exactly* what is wrong, even if those producing them don't.



All the commercial juice is squeezed out of them by these second - third - rate releases, meaning that a 'proper' release, in many cases, becomes less than viable.



I thought the French loved film?

[Steve Crook]

name='Brief Encounter']You've said this before, and you're wrong - I'm a Media Studies graduate



I could do a better job than any of the people employed by Optimum, but then I'm passionate about these films. Age doesn't matter, as long as people are enthusiastic about what they're doing.



I think record companies are the same, they employ people who have no idea what's in their catalogue...

You're a meeja studies graduate who's passionate about old films.

That makes you a very rare creature



Steve

[Bernardo]

name='Steve Crook']You're a meeja studies graduate who's passionate about old films.

That makes you a very rare creature



Steve

Y'know I am sure it is an inherited factor in the genes. Loads of my dotty aunts and even dottier great aunts were pictures mad so are some of my children, an accident of birth. Meedia studies is just an accident.

(I mean he would have the passion anyway and not mocking)

[penfold]

name='marker']When Networks 40% off sale was on I bought upwards of a £100 of DVDs one set being The Complete Adventures of Robin Hood when the carton arrived They had sent me Set 1 set 3 and set 4 and these 3 sets were in fact listed on the delivery note but no mention at all of set 2 being out of stock or whatever.

I phoned them up and was promised they had in fact got this in stock and this set wold be in the post the very next day, and despite emailing them as well, that was over a week ago also they never even had the decency to apologize.

I am not very amused by all this as now I have to waste time and money phoning them again, when Firms treat me like this I just never buy from them again.

Most unlike Network, I've bought loads from them over the years, and while occasionally their distributor cocks up, it has always been rectified very quickly.....I know we have been having trouble with the post from London here in Bristol (weather related) so I wonder if your package is delayed in transit....and without Network, I would never have heard of Frank Marker.....

[Brief Encounter]

Bernardo, I think you are right... my grandmother used to go to the pictures all the time in the 20s, 30s to see the latest Mae West, she loved Hollywood. My mum has always loved stars like Katherine Hepburn from that era too. In terms of Brit films I think she likes the 60s 'new wave' ones, which I have yet to get into! My own interest in Brit flicks was sparked when, as a fan of Petula Clark - yes, a singer! - I decided to hunt down all her films. I enjoyed many of them, and it's grown from there gradually.



I remember watching Cast a Dark Shadow (1955) with my mother last year, and she said, 'You're like me when I was your age, I wouldn't watch anything made after 1934!'



My sister (who's 18) also loves vintage films, but again, mainly Hollywood



I'm flying the flag for British film

[Bendigo]

Another media studies graduate here, well 'Media and Print Journalism' which makes me hateful twice over I suppose



Like you with Petula, I tend to get interested in particular people and try and collect all I can of theirs, and then go off on tangents from what I find. It seems to have skipped a generation with me as my parents aren't that into films but oddly enough I seem to have inherited similar tastes to my grandmother who died when I was a baby.



One of my favourite actors is Donald Houston and to get back on topic, I've finally now got a copy of 'A Run for Your Money'. It's a charming film and I don't understand why it's not been one of those films I've grown up with always being on TV in the afternoon. The TV companies' pool of films they use just seems to get smaller and smaller.



Re: DVD quality, for a couple of minutes the black and white goes a bit yellowy (I hope I'm not losing some people with my technical expertise here) but other than that it plays fine. Some extras would have been nice though.

[Brief Encounter]

We're drifting here, but I'm the same. I'm slowly getting complete collections of Margaret Lockwood and George Formby. Yes, I'm diverse

[Steve Crook]

name='Bendigo']Another media studies graduate here, well 'Media and Print Journalism' which makes me hateful twice over I suppose

I don't automatically hate all journalists. I just feel that it's a shame that most of them aren't allowed to practice their profession but have to kowtow and follow the line determined by the editor and owner of the newspaper. Especially in the UK. It seems that most of them have to leave their morals and principals at the door if they want to work on any national (and large regional) newspaper



Steve

[Bendigo]

Didn't mean to offend Steve, was just being a bit flippant before, and I agree entirely with what you have to say. I found some of my lecturer's professional morals or rather lack of them quite distasteful when I was at uni and I pretty much abandoned any ideas of a career in journalism; the realisation that I wasn't that good a writer after all also had a bit to do with it... I work in a local authority archive now and am doing a postgrad qualification to work my way up to being an archivist eventually.