Scream Factory Blu-ray Discussion Thread

[DetroitSportsFan]

Looking like no Black Friday sale at the Shout Factory store. From Facebook....

Ramon Acuna: I guess you guys aren't having a Black Friday sale.

Shout! Factory: You will still be able to buy everything over the weekend, it just won't be shipping until Monday.

[Undeadcow]

Never one to discourage sales, if ever there's a company that gets a pass it would be Scream Factory given their epic Shocktober blast and just before that Shout's site re-launch promo.

[CthulhuSaves]

They should give us a BF sale as an apology for the new website. :P

[BLUgrass]

Quick question.

I need Alligator (1980) on blu ray. It seems perfect for SF. I recall reading that there was at least one studio/company that won't licence out to SHOUT! Factory. Is this perhaps why we haven't gotten Alligator from SF or any other distributor? It seems like a title that is often requested in polls on this forum

[fuzzymctiger]

Originally Posted by BLUgrass

Quick question.

I need Alligator (1980) on blu ray. It seems perfect for SF. I recall reading that there was at least one studio/company that won't licence out to SHOUT! Factory. Is this perhaps why we haven't gotten Alligator from SF or any other distributor? It seems like a title that is often requested in polls on this forum

Last I heard that was Lionsgate, who yes don't lisence to others and are sitting on a vault of great horror.

However, I've heard whispers of them losing the rights and the owner potentially having them now, so it could be on the card.

If you're desperate, the Germans put out a blu, albeit upscaled and awful

[BLUgrass]

Originally Posted by fuzzymctiger

Last I heard that was Lionsgate, who yes don't lisence to others and are sitting on a vault of great horror.

However, I've heard whispers of them losing the rights and the owner potentially having them now, so it could be on the card.

If you're desperate, the Germans put out a blu, albeit upscaled and awful

Thanks for the info. I hope the rights did revert back.

My collection OCD won't allow me to import. Ridiculous, I know, but it is what it is. It drives me nuts that I have a couple Canadian blus and a UK blu as well. Ill just have to wait and hope for a release

[dsman71]

Originally Posted by BLUgrass

Quick question.

I need Alligator (1980) on blu ray. It seems perfect for SF. I recall reading that there was at least one studio/company that won't licence out to SHOUT! Factory. Is this perhaps why we haven't gotten Alligator from SF or any other distributor? It seems like a title that is often requested in polls on this forum

I have heard and read Alligator is no longer with Lionsgate..

[Member-222782]

Lionsgate is indeed sitting on a gold mine of horror titles but odds are many of them don't have useable materials for HD, which is why I'm not sweating it too much. Saving myself the heartache of Shout (or another label) making announcements like this: "some bad news to report, unfortunately the original elements to _______ no longer exist so we're unable to release this title on Blu-ray. We might do a six pack on DVD".

[Lucy Ashton]

Originally Posted by cine74

Lionsgate is indeed sitting on a gold mine of horror titles but odds are many of them don't have useable materials for HD, which is why I'm not sweating it too much. Saving myself the heartache of Shout (or another label) making announcements like this: "some bad news to report, unfortunately the original elements to _______ no longer exist so we're unable to release this title on Blu-ray. We might do a six pack on DVD".

Shock Waves wasn't transferred from the original elements, but it's still a step up from the DVD, and I'm grateful to BU for working with what was available. I'd rather have an imperfect "best possible" release of an old favourite (like Deathdream or Shock Waves), than a pristine release of something I never really cared for anyway.

[RickWJ324]

My apologies if this has already been asked, but does anyone know of an update on the supposed DOG SOLDIERS release from Scream/Shout? I really want this movie on blu-ray but can't bring myself to pay for the one that's currently out there after all of the negative things I've read.

Thanks! Rick

[rickah88]

Originally Posted by RickWJ324

My apologies if this has already been asked, but does anyone know of an update on the supposed DOG SOLDIERS release from Scream/Shout? I really want this movie on blu-ray but can't bring myself to pay for the one that's currently out there after all of the negative things I've read.

Thanks! Rick

Nothing yet, only that it's been pushed back to 2015.
Just speculation on my part, but unless Scream does some extensive tinkering the PQ of their release might be only marginally better than the current transfer. I don't expect a landmark achievement here. Hopefully they can clean it up a bit, add some nice extras and sport that awesome artwork and I'm good to go.
I suspect we might hear more after the new year, once the Holidays are over, of course I hope I'm wrong about that as I'm waiting for news on several of their announced titles due in early 2015.

[CthulhuSaves]

Originally Posted by rickah88

Hopefully they can clean it up a bit, add some nice extras and sport that awesome artwork and I'm good to go.

New extras would be great, but honestly I'd be happy if they finally just ported over the extras from the R2 DVD release that never saw the light of day in the States. The commentary with Neil Marshall and cast/crew (actors Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, and Liam Cunningham, plus director of photography Sam McCurdy and co-producer Keith Bell) is awesome and fun, if a bit difficult to understand in places (multiple severely thick accents, which I've wondered was the reason for the track's absence in the US).

[rickah88]

Originally Posted by CthulhuSaves

New extras would be great, but honestly I'd be happy if they finally just ported over the extras from the R2 DVD release that never saw the light of day in the States. The commentary with Neil Marshall and cast/crew (actors Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, and Liam Cunningham, plus director of photography Sam McCurdy and co-producer Keith Bell) is awesome and fun, if a bit difficult to understand in places (multiple severely thick accents, which I've wondered was the reason for the track's absence in the US).

This will be a blind buy for me, so you know much more than I do about all the various releases out there. Hopefully we get some good news soon!

[RickWJ324]

Originally Posted by rickah88

Nothing yet, only that it's been pushed back to 2015.
Just speculation on my part, but unless Scream does some extensive tinkering the PQ of their release might be only marginally better than the current transfer. I don't expect a landmark achievement here. Hopefully they can clean it up a bit, add some nice extras and sport that awesome artwork and I'm good to go.
I suspect we might hear more after the new year, once the Holidays are over, of course I hope I'm wrong about that as I'm waiting for news on several of their announced titles due in early 2015.

I hope it gets some kind of clean-up/better encode/etc.... I really love this movie. I dumped the steelbook dvd of it quite a while ago to get the blu only to find out how lousy the blu-ray was.

[zbinks]

Originally Posted by cine74

Lionsgate is indeed sitting on a gold mine of horror titles but odds are many of them don't have useable materials for HD, which is why I'm not sweating it too much. Saving myself the heartache of Shout (or another label) making announcements like this: "some bad news to report, unfortunately the original elements to _______ no longer exist so we're unable to release this title on Blu-ray. We might do a six pack on DVD".

Originally Posted by Lucy Ashton

Shock Waves wasn't transferred from the original elements, but it's still a step up from the DVD, and I'm grateful to BU for working with what was available. I'd rather have an imperfect "best possible" release of an old favourite (like Deathdream or Shock Waves), than a pristine release of something I never really cared for anyway.

Kind of an apples and oranges comparison. The film elements used for Shock Waves, while far from ideal, are still such that additional detail can be extracted over an SD transfer. cine74 is likely referring to the fact that many Lionsgate transfers for their DVD releases seem to be sourced from NTSC tape masters. The effective resolution of an NTSC video source is significantly less than HD with roughly 480 scan lines visible. There is basically no extra detail that can be extracted from an HD master of NTSC source than what could be accomplished with an SD master of the same NTSC source.

[Member-222782]

Originally Posted by zbinks

cine74 is likely referring to the fact that many Lionsgate transfers for their DVD releases seem to be sourced from NTSC tape masters. The effective resolution of an NTSC video source is significantly less than HD with roughly 480 scan lines visible. There is basically no extra detail that can be extracted from an HD master of NTSC source than what could be accomplished with an SD master of the same NTSC source.

Yes, that's what I meant . I'm just speculating but I believe there's a high probability that Lionsgate does not have original negs for many of the titles in their library. Even higher-profile films, relatively speaking, like Narrow Margin (1990), Angel Heart and much of that Carolco catalog are probably only kept as tape masters. They're just not the kind of company that cares anything about film preservation, only their bottom line. BTW, Shock Waves looks great in high-def. Got my copy today and I'm very pleased. Nice embossed slip, too

[TripleHBK]

Originally Posted by cine74

Yes, that's what I meant . I'm just speculating but I believe there's a high probability that Lionsgate does not have original negs for many of the titles in their library. Even higher-profile films, relatively speaking, like Narrow Margin (1990), Angel Heart and much of that Carolco catalog are probably only kept as tape masters. They're just not the kind of company that cares anything about film preservation, only their bottom line. BTW, Shock Waves looks great in high-def. Got my copy today and I'm very pleased. Nice embossed slip, too

While this may or may not hold true for some of the more obscure cult titles, Lionsgate has already released a a bunch of titles in Digital HD that look more than adequate given their small file size. Each and every one of these could easily be pressed up and released on Blu Ray putting a small dent into the Lionsgate Horror goldmine. With that said, I'm slightly more confident that it will happen given enough time. The Leprechaun release was well done and I think a sign of things to come. I wouldn't put it past Lionsgate to release more multi-movie releases and potentially a few more box sets.

[Lucy Ashton]

Originally Posted by zbinks

Kind of an apples and oranges comparison. The film elements used for Shock Waves, while far from ideal, are still such that additional detail can be extracted over an SD transfer. cine74 is likely referring to the fact that many Lionsgate transfers for their DVD releases seem to be sourced from NTSC tape masters. The effective resolution of an NTSC video source is significantly less than HD with roughly 480 scan lines visible. There is basically no extra detail that can be extracted from an HD master of NTSC source than what could be accomplished with an SD master of the same NTSC source.

Thank you for explaining. Do you happen to know what the Blu-ray for Shock Waves was transferred from? I assumed - but may be wrong - that it was the same 16mm they used for the DVD.

[Sleazeaddict]

Who can le me know which titles got a slipcover and which not ?

The Island
The Final Terror
Death Valley
Terror Train
The Nest
Town that dread sundown
Body Bags
Final Exam
Slumber party massacre
Crawlspace

[demonknight]

Originally Posted by Sleazeaddict

Who can le me know which titles got a slipcover and which not ?

The Island
The Final Terror
Death Valley
Terror Train
The Nest
Town that dread sundown
Body Bags
Final Exam
Slumber party massacre
Crawlspace

Terror Train and Body Bags had one. The rest, no.