Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by octagon

Sure, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hits can bring even the best of server setups to its knees but is it really all that unreasonable to expect an online merchant to be able to weather several hundred or even few thousand hits at once?

One also has to wonder why they moved to scale their server capability after 'an extremely limited quantity of a signed edition of the MOST popular title' went up for grabs. Did they really not see the increased traffic coming?

ok, so then several hundred people are able to maneuver on the site, fill their carts, and get to the checkout screen. with 150 (? is that how many) available, you still have more people walk away with nothing than lucky ones. so, what's the difference? like you said, more powerful server setups experience the same kind of difficulty. why would you expect a smaller one to be different?

if you buy something on eBay and put it in your cart, you have to log in to paypal and whatnot... there is a message that tells you that someone else can still buy your item until you are completely checked out. same thing happened at SAE

of course they knew there'd be increased traffic, but 150 titles are moving regardless... unless you are being told that an actual order confirmation is not valid, I can't see ANY unlucky experience as justified complaining.

[atfree]

Originally Posted by dragon53

BLU TITAN:

What war movies would you like to see released by TT?

I would chime in with The Heroes of Telemark, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, The Victors, The Bridge at Remagen, and Sahara (Bogart version). All are either Columbia or MGM/UA films (and have had DVD releases) that TT has access to.

[CrushOfTheDark]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

ok, so then several hundred people are able to maneuver on the site, fill their carts, and get to the checkout screen. with 150 (? is that how many) available, you still have more people walk away with nothing than lucky ones. so, what's the difference? like you said, more powerful server setups experience the same kind of difficulty. why would you expect a smaller one to be different?

if you buy something on eBay and put it in your cart, you have to log in to paypal and whatnot... there is a message that tells you that someone else can still buy your item until you are completely checked out. same thing happened at SAE

of course they knew there'd be increased traffic, but 150 titles are moving regardless... unless you are being told that an actual order confirmation is not valid, I can't see ANY unlucky experience as justified complaining.

The difference is that people would rather know about their bad luck after 5 minutes of trying rather than an hour. I tried to order La Bamba a few months ago and missed out on the title by 4:04 because the site was slow loading for a few minutes.

So because they've only ever had that one sale, people get frustrated because they know this is their only opportunity to get these titles at a more reasonable price point.

The interesting part is that the people complaining were actually going to purchase something they wanted. What are you getting out of complaining about the complainers?

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by CrushOfTheDark

The difference is that people would rather know about their bad luck after 5 minutes of trying rather than an hour. I tried to order La Bamba a few months ago and missed out on the title by 4:04 because the site was slow loading for a few minutes.

So because they've only ever had that one sale, people get frustrated because they know this is their only opportunity to get these titles at a more reasonable price point.

The interesting part is that the people complaining were actually going to purchase something they wanted. What are you getting out of complaining about the complainers?

(In red)I haven't the faintest idea what point you are trying to make here.

If there are 150 copies and you don't have one after 10 minutes due to raining frogs, bad servers, or whatever, then common sense should tell you that you're not getting one.

edit: apparently, due to your own experience.. after 4 minutes. so, you made your own point invalid.

[JWilliams85]

That was fun yesterday . I had the signed Fright Night promo in my cart 3 different times and confirmed it 3 different times. However, after each time I confirmed and waited 5-10 minutes I was either logged out or the server crashed.

So, I wasn't able to get one. What a pleasant experience that was.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

ok, so then several hundred people are able to maneuver on the site, fill their carts, and get to the checkout screen. with 150 (? is that how many) available, you still have more people walk away with nothing than lucky ones. so, what's the difference? like you said, more powerful server setups experience the same kind of difficulty. why would you expect a smaller one to be different?

if you buy something on eBay and put it in your cart, you have to log in to paypal and whatnot... there is a message that tells you that someone else can still buy your item until you are completely checked out. same thing happened at SAE

of course they knew there'd be increased traffic, but 150 titles are moving regardless... unless you are being told that an actual order confirmation is not valid, I can't see ANY unlucky experience as justified complaining.

The problem is not missing out. This was a very limited offer and only a few were going to get it. The problem is the site crashing and becoming unusable for almost 30 minutes and then missing out on the item due to the functinonality of the site.

I lucked out and got the item, in prior occassions I had missed out due to the issues mentioned above. It has been years and this problem should not continue to happen.

SAE does a nice job fulfilling orders...they ship fast and respond to emails very fast. They are a small retailer and their ability to handle a decent volume of visitors is poor. Lets face it, they probably had a few hundred trying for the item and not thousands...

It is what it is...lets see what happens next time .

[JoeDeM]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

The problem is not missing out. This was a very limited offer and only a few were going to get it. The problem is the site crashing and becoming unusable for almost 30 minutes and then missing out on the item due to the functinonality of the site.

I lucked out and got the item, in prior occassions I had missed out due to the issues mentioned above. It has been years and this problem should not continue to happen.

SAE does a nice job fulfilling orders...they ship fast and respond to emails very fast. They are a small retailer and their ability to handle a decent volume of visitors is poor. Lets face it, they probably had a few hundred trying for the item and not thousands...

It is what it is...lets see what happens next time .

I'm glad you got yours.

This was a very desirable OOP title, so I'm sure there were many more people than usual trying to get this than the other times when they have a promo. I'm also sure that it brought the scalpers out in full force. In December when the pre-order went up, it was the same the servers were locked up for nearly 2 hours, and that was with 5000 copies available.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by JoeDeM

I'm glad you got yours.

This was a very desirable OOP title, so I'm sure there were many more people than usual trying to get this than the other times when they have a promo. I'm also sure that it brought the scalpers out in full force. In December when the pre-order went up, it was the same the servers were locked up for nearly 2 hours, and that was with 5000 copies available.

Good points . I understand the frustration but it is not the end of the world. Probably it is not cost effective for SAE to get and maintain additional servers since they only need the added capacity a few times a year...buying/leasing servers is VERY expensive.

I am pumped about my order .

[jcs913]

I think what people are forgetting is that SAE is a very small company. Why would they upgrade(meaning spend money) or frankly even think they need to upgrade, for less than an hours worth of heavy server traffic throughout the whole year. Seems beyond silly and not cost effective for their business and some of the complainers should realize this. If TT was not giving away OOP freebies, no one would ever care about SAE's web traffic (hint, not SAE's fault). Other larger retailers have to deal with holiday sales and so forth, so they need to upgrade their servers at the pace of web growth. When Best Buy's servers crashed last holiday, they lost millions and deservedly so, as they are a major player and should have been prepared. SAE is fine in what they are doing. They packaged items great and usually always ship priority mail, which even almighty Amazon does not do most of the time. I am happy that I got one and was frustrated that the site was slow, but some members were saying they would never buy again, etc..(we all know that will change when there is another high profile giveaway ) That is stupid, as people, YET AGAIN, seem to forget they are getting something for NOTHING. Let's move on from this and start complaining about the fact that SAE seems to never ship the titles before street date anymore....

[baheidstu]

Originally Posted by jcs913

I think what people are forgetting is that SAE is a very small company. Why would they upgrade(meaning spend money) or frankly even think they need to upgrade, for less than an hours worth of heavy server traffic throughout the whole year. Seems beyond silly and not cost effective for their business and some of the complainers should realize this. If TT was not giving away OOP freebies, no one would ever care about SAE's web traffic (hint, not SAE's fault). Other larger retailers have to deal with holiday sales and so forth, so they need to upgrade their servers at the pace of web growth. When Best Buy's servers crashed last holiday, they lost millions and deservedly so, as they are a major player and should have been prepared. SAE is fine in what they are doing. They packaged items great and usually always ship priority mail, which even almighty Amazon does not do most of the time. I am happy that I got one and was frustrated that the site was slow, but some members were saying they would never buy again, etc..(we all know that will change when there is another high profile giveaway ) That is stupid, as people, YET AGAIN, seem to forget they are getting something for NOTHING. Let's move on from this and start complaining about the fact that SAE seems to never ship the titles before street date anymore....

This. For any of the other freebies, even last month's Oliver Stone signed copy of Heaven and Earth which sold somewhat briskly, there are no problems whatsoever, and seeing as there likely won't be another instant sell-out for a while, I doubt this problem is going to even arise any time soon.

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by jcs913

I think what people are forgetting is that SAE is a very small company. Why would they upgrade(meaning spend money) or frankly even think they need to upgrade, for less than an hours worth of heavy server traffic throughout the whole year. Seems beyond silly and not cost effective for their business and some of the complainers should realize this. If TT was not giving away OOP freebies, no one would ever care about SAE's web traffic (hint, not SAE's fault). Other larger retailers have to deal with holiday sales and so forth, so they need to upgrade their servers at the pace of web growth. When Best Buy's servers crashed last holiday, they lost millions and deservedly so, as they are a major player and should have been prepared. SAE is fine in what they are doing. They packaged items great and usually always ship priority mail, which even almighty Amazon does not do most of the time. I am happy that I got one and was frustrated that the site was slow, but some members were saying they would never buy again, etc..(we all know that will change when there is another high profile giveaway ) That is stupid, as people, YET AGAIN, seem to forget they are getting something for NOTHING. Let's move on from this and start complaining about the fact that SAE seems to never ship the titles before street date anymore....

You raise some good points. From both a business and technology perspective, in my opinion, SAE should be thinking about infrastructure scalability, particularly as their business grows, in order to meet the need to have the capacity to handle the needs of a growing business. It would make more sense to invest in that now, then scramble later when they have no choice but to meet the business / technology need. Just my two cents.

[schlock]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

(In red)I haven't the faintest idea what point you are trying to make here.

If there are 150 copies and you don't have one after 10 minutes due to raining frogs, bad servers, or whatever, then common sense should tell you that you're not getting one.

edit: apparently, due to your own experience.. after 4 minutes. so, you made your own point invalid.

Not trying to answer for CrushoftheDark, but your "after 10 minutes" or "after 4 minutes" common sense argument that if you didn't get one by then, you won't get one is hogwash, as seen yesterday. People were on there for close to an hour trying to get one and there were still copies left until about 4:40pm EST. If I had given up after just 10 minutes because of the servers crashing, I wouldn't have gotten one, but I persisted another 20 minutes after that and finally got one. But there were many others who spent just as much time and came up empty-handed. They have a right to ***** about their wasted time; not that that's going to change anything at SAE. As others have stated, the very few times this has been an issue for SAE are so few and far between that there's no real reason why they need to upgrade their servers. It is what it is. In the future on any super-hot title like this, we all just need to set aside an hour or so as a given and expect the inevitable crash and just try to get through it successfully, like getting up to the top level of a really hard video game. You can't win every time.

[CrushOfTheDark]

Do not mind you answering for me, schlock, as you pretty much said exactly what I would have.

As for bwdowiak not understanding my other point, sounds about right. Satisfied with that.

[Widescreenfilmguy]

I logged on at 3:45 and filled my cart so I would be ready at 4 when the promo would show, it locked and stalled for the longest time but finally got the promo in my cart at 4:15, locked and stalled again and recieved my confirmation email at 4:31. I dont remember it ever taking quite that long for any of the other promo orders but this is Fright Night

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by atfree

I would chime in with The Heroes of Telemark, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, The Victors, The Bridge at Remagen, and Sahara (Bogart version). All are either Columbia or MGM/UA films (and have had DVD releases) that TT has access to.

I'd second The Heroes of Telemark - the Columbia DVD master isn't ideal but it's infinitely better than the UK DVD which has ridiculous levels of edge enhancement - The Bridge at Remagen and The Victors - but only if it was the 175-minute European cut rather than the censored US general release version cut by half an hour that got released on DVD in the UK and turns up on TV there. There have been rumors of a restoration (possibly including one controversial scene with a child pimping his sister that was cut before the film's release), but the uncut version only turns up on extremely rare revival house screenings about once every decade or so.

[RogelioT]

Update concerning the current preorders for the March releases, from the TT Facebook page (in case anyone here missed it).

TT:

UPDATE for the March releases -- hi all, just a heads-up we have been advised by our East Coast-based replicators, Cinram, that owing to inclement weather conditions shipments of the new titles to SAE may be delayed, so consequently SAE's shipping dates to consumers will be pushed back. SAE will likely receive the new releases on a "staggered" basis, so consumers who have only ordered one or two titles will get theirs sent first - those that ordered all will be held up till everything is in. An additional note: Since THE BOUNTY required extensive music and audio restoration, it will be running approximately one week behind the others. Thanks.

From the comment section for that post
TT:

Cinram has had to close the entire plant down and send everybody home - the weather is that bad.

[PuppetMasterBlu]

Originally Posted by jcs913

I think what people are forgetting is that SAE is a very small company.

Nope, every time you see that website from 1995 we are reminded. I got one by some miracle but people shouldn't miss out because the site crashes, they should miss out because they are too slow.

[vanlutz]

I'd like to get Jane Eyre and Funny Lady. But these are fairly expensive Blu Rays. All TT blu rays are expensive.

Does anyone know-

Does Twilight Time own the rights to these films (all their others)?

I know getting classics on blu ray is taking time. But, I imagine that Funny Girl and Lady would probably end up as a double disc eventually. Unless TT owns the exclusive rights to release.

3000 expensive copies. I'd wait for other companies to release them cheaper, unless I don't have a choice.

Thanks.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by vanlutz

I'd like to get Jane Eyre and Funny Lady. But these are fairly expensive Blu Rays. All TT blu rays are expensive.

Does anyone know-

Does Twilight Time own the rights to these films (all their others)?

I know getting classics on blu ray is taking time. But, I imagine that Funny Girl and Lady would probably end up as a double disc eventually. Unless TT owns the exclusive rights to release.

3000 expensive copies. I'd wait for other companies to release them cheaper, unless I don't have a choice.

Thanks.

They don't own the rights to these films they just have a 3-year license to distribute these films in North America.

[Yojimbo68]

Originally Posted by vanlutz

I'd like to get Jane Eyre and Funny Lady. But these are fairly expensive Blu Rays. All TT blu rays are expensive.

Does anyone know-

Does Twilight Time own the rights to these films (all their others)?

I know getting classics on blu ray is taking time. But, I imagine that Funny Girl and Lady would probably end up as a double disc eventually. Unless TT owns the exclusive rights to release.

3000 expensive copies. I'd wait for other companies to release them cheaper, unless I don't have a choice.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by rdodolak

They don't own the rights to these films they just have a 3-year license to distribute these films in North America.

That's right. However, you might get lucky on an international release. Funny Girl has been released on Blu-ray in other countries. As far as a U.S. released is concerned, I'd say the chances are slim to none.