anyone else buy lots of discs from companies like "platinum disc corporation", "diamond entertainment" and "brentwood communications"?
these companies put out a lot of straight-from-vhs dubs. some look okay, others are less than stellar.
platinum in particular puts out a lot of discs that contain 4 b&w movies per package. since they're not in color, and a lot of the films are shorter than modern films, they don't look so bad due to the compression.
take a look into the products, as much as you can, before buying them, though. i hear it's not unheard of for incomplete versions of films to make their way onto these discs, some missing endings. also, sometimes the summaries on the packaging will be incorrect, or double-disc sets might not have markings on the discs, or listings for which movies are grouped together, at least.
Ah like cheap DVDs. (:
I do have several of the Alpha, Diamond, Platinum, and Brentwood DVDs. A lot of them look better than VHS, but you do get occasional ones which are pretty crappy.
I have some of the Platinum Horror and Western collections with 4 movies on a DVD. On average, they are no better than VHS and sometimes worse. They do have a tendency to have an occasional film with a missing scene or two which they never bothered to notice or care.
Brentwood runs the gamut from excellent to real crap. I have a set with THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE on it, and it is the same cut which is on the Redemption DVD, including the intro with the Countess, but at a lot less cost. The same cut of THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE is also available on a Platinum Horror Collection DVD. Both are pretty much as good of quality as the Redemption DVD.
Diamond seems to have a little better edge on quality, but they more frequently get their summaries incorrect with regard to film information. On a DVD of KISS ME, KILL ME, their summary on the back cover is from SO SWEET, SO PERVERSE. Both films starred Carol Baker, but Erica Blanc is not in KISS ME, KILL ME as credited on the DVD.
Some might consider it a crap shoot with the cheap DVDs, but it is not necessarily any better when spending $10-20 on a DVD and being disappointed. With cheap DVDs, when I am disappointed, I spent less; and when I am not, I got a lot more for my money.
I too am familiar with the sordid lure of less than perfect quality cheap dvds. The other day I got a Vincent Price collection of three vhs dubs of House on the Haunted Hill, The Bat and Shock.
No matter how bad the dub is or the quality [I have only watched House on the Haunted hill so far] I still am satisfied with buying movies I wanted to watch but was too cheap to dole out some decent cash for.
I try to stay away from the cheapie DVDs, partially because of quality issues and partially because they usually aren't in widescreen. However, I will buy them occasionally for movies that were not filmed in a widescreen format.
I have had some success with Alpha. You can buy their DVDs for about $5 each and they are often decent quality. The best one I bought from Alpha was BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA. The picture and sound are surprisingly sharp for a cheapie DVD. The worst one I bought from them was KILLERS FROM SPACE. Don't get me wrong . . . it is very watchable and definitely worth $5 . . . but there are sections of the movie where the picture is scratchy.
I also have a few Simitar DVDs in my collection. They are about equal in quality to VHS tapes.
When it's a movie I have a vague interest to see, but not to buy a good quality copy, I'll usually pick it up, but otherwise I'll leave it [or I'd have too many!]
I read somewhere that the real cheap DVDs are'nt going to be carried by the major stores anymore. I hope it is'nt true, but last time I was in Walmart and Walgreens the $1 DVDs were gone.
We'll be recalling the days: " Remember when you could buy a DVD for a dollar?".
It seems, though, that it still should remain the province of the dollar store. Of course, that depends on the availability of cheap DVDs and if the companies making them consider it to still be worth the effort.
I kind of enjoy the cheapos and the $1 DVDs. My expectations are low with most of them, so I don't feel too bad a bite if I get a real stinker. I mostly hate it if the disc is so bad that it will freeze up if you try to rewind a scene or fast forward at more than 2X speed (this happens a lot) or if there are few or any chapter stops.
The last real cheapo disc collection I bought was a "War Classics" collection from Platinum I got for $8 at Wal-Mart. 16 movies on 4 discs. half in B&W, half in color. It's a mixed bag of cheapo action flicks, a couple of TV movies, some patriotic WWII b-movies and a couple of probable A-listers of the time (Go For Broke and North Star). There's even a Wheeler and Woolsey comedy from 1930. I just hate that the Platinum logo appears as an onscreen "bug" on most of the films. For some it is onscreen for the whole film, for others it appears every 10 minutes or so, others don't have it at all. Odd.
I've also gotten some fun discs of some old TV shows like Jack Benny and "The Third Man". The Benny shows are funny anyway but the vintage commercials in front of the shows and the way they make a joke out of working them into the middle of the show is kind of grimly funny considering the restrictions on tobacco ads now. The Third Man is fun in a quaint Cold-War nostalgia way, the dialogue is kind of witty, although you can see the limits of the show since it rarely has more than 5 speaking roles per episodes. Michael Rennie plays Harry Lime kind of like Roger Moore would later play the Saint. Lime is a dashing hero who skirts the law for the common good, rather than the charming but soulless scoundrel only out for himself in the original film. The disc I have only has 3 episodes, but some discs have a fourth episode, these seem to be the only episodes for sale. There were about 77 episodes made over a six year period. I would actually buy a box set of them if the turned up. But at this point there can't be too much market for a mostly forgotten half hour B&W Cold War espionage series based on a classic film and later radio series.
I love those Treeline 50 movie mega sets. I've got the Horror and Sci-Fi sets, both that I managed to pick up on sale from Deep Discount DVD for about $16 each. That's like 30 cents a movie. You can't lose on a deal like that. The quality is no worse than I've seen from Alpha, Platinum Disc or Diamond and in some cases just as good or better.
I've bought a number of cheap kung fu collections. Bought the 50 pack you'll see floating around. It was worth the money, at about $30.