Warnerarchive.com has released the DVD

I have bought 3 of these Warner DVD's, including 'Hot Millions' and 'The Sergeant', and the quality is perfect, just like any other studio release. I'm not saying they would all be perfect, but the 3 I got looked stunning.

I have "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" on DVD from Warner. I don't live in the U.S. and Warner will not ship outside of the U.S., so I had to buy it via eBay, but it is the official release.

The DVD looks like it is a burnt DVD-R, because the dye is much darker than you see on a regular DVD.

Here's what I've found about the disc:

- Book Type: DVD-ROM
- Single-layer (in fact, not all the disc space is utilized; only ~3.9 GB)
- Regions: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
- Audio: AC3 2-ch English
- Subtitles: none

Also:

- there is no menu to select the chapters, but (according to what the "main menu" screen says) you can use the >>| and |<< keys to jump forward or back by 10 minutes (there are 8 chapters in the title)
- there are a few artifacts visible (eg. hairs) at the beginning, but it does look pretty good overall for the age of the original print

However, while my PC seems to play it OK, my Toshiba SD-1800 player had a bit of trouble and I'm not sure if it is the player, an anomaly with my disc... In the player, it kept hanging at the 11-second mark during the anti-piracy warning (Title 2), but all normally-operable keys on my remote still functioned. Of course, the "skip" chapter and "menu" keys are disabled during the warning no matter what, but a workaround I found was to use the remote to pause the warning and then enter Title 1, Chapter 1, and the movie played right from the beginning just fine.

That's completely ridiculous that they're selling a DVD-R; I wouldn't think any legitimate company would do that.


Even the highest quality DVD-R can only last so long before the dye begins to wear out.
Even if they're burnt at the lowest possible speed & stored in ideal conditions (cool, completely dry, etc.), they'll last no more than 8-10 years. Usually they last around 5 years.

The whole reason to purchase a DVD is to have a permanent & concrete media for a film, otherwise it can just be downloaded. Regardless of which company released it, I'd never consider a DVD-R to be an official release.
I would love to have this film on DVD, but I would never pay for a DVD-R release.


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My IMDb vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=36039624

Just to let you know, I also checked it out and found it'll play in regions 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8.

Warner will not ship outside of the U.S., so I bought it for around $19.50 U.S. ("Buy It Now" price) + $3 shipping on eBay from Movie Magic USA. It's Warner's official release, although it does seem to be a DVD-R; see my other comment regarding the disc in this same thread. Looks like Movie Magic USA regularly puts it up for sale.

Warner Archive really needs to address the DVD-R issue...
I still find it very unprofessional that a company owned by Warner Bros. would release movies on DVD-R format; it's not like this is a small company (such as Vanguard Cinema, for example, who also engages in the same practice, however ONLY after their original stocks of factory-pressed DVDs are depleted) who is doing so for financial reasons.

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My IMDb vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur5998197/ratings