If you have ever paid over the odds for an out of print Warner Archive disc, there is a thread worth bookmarking. Someone over at Home Theater Forum keeps a running list of catalogue titles where the HD digital appears to come from the same scan Warner Archive used for the Blu-ray, and nothing goes on it until it has been checked either by Robert Crawford or by at least two other members.
Current entries include Westward the Women (1951) on iTunes, Vudu and Movies Anywhere, Pride and Prejudice (1940) across the same three, The Sea Wolf (1941), The Law and Jake Wade (1958), In the Good Old Summertime (1949), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), and A Little Romance (1979), that last one iTunes only.
Why this is worth anything: Warner Archive spends real money on restorations and then presses them made to order, so titles go out of print and used prices get silly fast. If the digital is genuinely the same master, that is a legitimate way to see the restoration without paying collector money for a disc.
Two caveats I would hold onto. Digital is compressed, so even off an identical scan you are not getting disc bitrate, and on grainy catalogue titles that is exactly where it shows. And digital masters get quietly swapped. A title verified as the good scan two years ago can be replaced with something older at any point, with no announcement and no way to roll back. That is the whole argument for owning the disc when you actually care about a film.
Is anybody tracking the reverse case, titles that were verified good and later got downgraded? That list would be more useful than this one.
Current entries include Westward the Women (1951) on iTunes, Vudu and Movies Anywhere, Pride and Prejudice (1940) across the same three, The Sea Wolf (1941), The Law and Jake Wade (1958), In the Good Old Summertime (1949), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), and A Little Romance (1979), that last one iTunes only.
Why this is worth anything: Warner Archive spends real money on restorations and then presses them made to order, so titles go out of print and used prices get silly fast. If the digital is genuinely the same master, that is a legitimate way to see the restoration without paying collector money for a disc.
Two caveats I would hold onto. Digital is compressed, so even off an identical scan you are not getting disc bitrate, and on grainy catalogue titles that is exactly where it shows. And digital masters get quietly swapped. A title verified as the good scan two years ago can be replaced with something older at any point, with no announcement and no way to roll back. That is the whole argument for owning the disc when you actually care about a film.
Is anybody tracking the reverse case, titles that were verified good and later got downgraded? That list would be more useful than this one.
