MovieChat Forums > The Vault of Horror (1973) Discussion > what is it with Vipco DVD's?

what is it with Vipco DVD's?


I do applaud there commitment to releasing the more obscure and buried horror films that no other distribution company would probably touch, but would it really be too much trouble to give us better prints than this?

I have just bought "vault of horror" on dvd and the quality is very poor. Badly cropped, grainy and low sound. It's as if they have stuck a digital camera in front of a TV playing an old VHS version. I know some movies can be purchased here in the uk online from the USA on different labels, but would it be so hard for Vipco to do better than this?

Does anyone know the reason why they are of such low quality?

reply

[deleted]

They might be a really really small company, whose budget doesn't allow them to obtain quality prints or the ability to restore them.

How To Make Direct Links [url]http://www.dancingisforbidden.com[/url]

reply

If so maybe they should'nt put digitally remastered on their releases

reply

In the end waht does it matter?

How To Make Direct Links [url]http://www.feldman-haim-08.com[/url]

reply

Because in this day and age you buy a DVD because you expect half good picture quality other wise you may as well stick with vhs.Cheapo companies such as vipco release shoddy VHS rip offs because they know that these movies are hard to obtain and fans will buy them.I have been a collector of horror movies for a long time now and always avoid vipco.They may be cheap now but in the early 2000s Vipco DVDs like Vault of horror used to sell for £19.99.You also cannot say they cant arrord to remaster as Vipco has been around since the early 80's and these prints are the same ones they are releasing on DVD now exactly the same.

reply

Aspect ratio
1.85 : 1
which means contrary to being cropped, the full screen will actually show more than the widescreen (because they crop it to attain widescreen).
At least the gory scenes aren't cropped, so thank God Vipco put the only one out there is. It's still a sharp pic, from what I remember.

reply

Just an FYI:

Digitally Remastered is essentially a meaningless term now which has lost all vailidity because of overuse and abuse as a trendy advertising catch phrase.

All it really means (and has ever really meant) is that an audio or video source has been copied into a digital format.

It does not mean (although it has been mis-used to imply) that any sort of restoration has been performed on that source material.

For example, you could take your scratchy, beat-up vinyl LP of the Beatles Rarities, copy it onto CD from your turntable to CD burner and -legally- slap on the magic term "Digitally Remastered" because that's exactly what you've done. You've made a digital master copy from some other source.

The same holds true with DVD releases. Any backroom DVD producer can take a boxful of old public domain TV prints or VHS tapes, copy them onto DVD and mass market them with the term "Digitally Remastered."

"Restored," carries some legal weight, but there is so much wiggle room that it, too has lost validity. Look it up in the dictonary and you will see that there are many different definitions that a slick ad man can hide behind in order to claim that they have "restored" a film without doing anything more than putting it on the market.

'Whatta ya mean,' the PR man would say. 'It was out of print; we restored it to public view!'

See my point? Unless they give specific, verifiable, concrete details as to what they've done, don't believe that digitally restored/remastered means anything.

"If you don't know the answer -change the question."

reply

Well at least unlike the region 1 Fox release Vipco's version is uncut, The new dvd release is miles better in quality but is cut.

reply

Maybe if one owned both versions and the right software one might be able somehow to copy and 'splice' the two together. Mind you, if the Vipco is PAL and 4:3 and the Fox NTSC and 16:9 anamorphic, it might not work...? Oh well, it seemed a nice idea.

"Oh look - a lovely spider! And it's eating a butterfly!"
'' ,,

reply

[deleted]