Public Domain Film Preservation

[Tubes]

http://www.archive.org/details/feature_films

Would making "Special Edition" DVD's (with menu's, chapter selections and the like) be kosher to post her? There are several classics that have passed into public domain and are avaliable there (Night of the Living Dead and DOA, for example) and I think they deserve to have a good DVD representation for people to download, as opposed to just a stream they can play on their computer.

What does everyone think?

 

[joebshmoe]

i don't see why not (legally) and i definitely think it's a good idea

could even get some cool menus/artwork/etc.

 

[boon23]

I have no problem with legally free custom DVDs. Please post them there.

 

[Aztek463]

Geez, that avatar looks EXTREMELY familiar. Am I right?

(not that I'm insinuating anything, of course)

 

[Tubes]

*Changed avatar to avoid comparison to David79*

The only problem is I have no ways to compare the public domain version and commercial ones to compare if it's worth it or not. I also suspect that some are SVCD instead of DVD (The 39 Steps, for instance, is only 2CD's in size). Still others have only Divx releases.

I'm surprised with what I run into while surfing the site (All's Quiet on the Western Front and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, for example).

Good to see that there is a market for this. I'll probably end up creating single movie DVD's for some and compilation DVD's for the ones with releases at lower resolutions. A good "off day" thing to work on when my fanediting juices just aren't running at full blast.

 

[Tubes]

Here is a list of the films I would like to include:

-The Birth of A Nation
-Rashamon
-All Quiet on the Western Front
-Night of the Living Dead
-DOA (Dead On Arrival)
-Reefer Madness
-Sex Madness
-Nosferatu
-The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
-The Last Man on Earth
-The 39 Steps
-Battleship PotemkiN
-Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Films may be cut if the transfer is exceptionally bad (The 39 Steps might be under this).

I will accept requests for preservation.

 

[Philfrog]

I believe that the Legend Films has already put out excellent restorations for Reefer Madness and Night of the Living Dead, which have both color and black and white versions, plus Mike Nelson commentary. Legend, being an offshoot of Fox, has the better sources for many public domain films that have been released numerous times (Carnival of Souls, March of the Wooden Soldiers), so you may want to look at their catalogue before doing your own preservations, to avoid redundancy.

 

[Tubes]

I'm not sure about the legal qualities of using commercial transfers of public domain films. I'll be sticking to the public domain transfers for the time being, which means that quality may be hit or miss. The downfalls of getting a movie for free.

Here are the movies that are all set to go for DVD:

Reefer Madness
Sex Madness
DOA
Night of the Living Dead
Nosferatu (VCD)
The Last Man on Earth
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Most of these should get their own single disc transfer, with the Madness movies bundled together on one disc and Nosferatu bundled with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The Birth of a Nation and All Quiet on the Western Front both where only avaliable to download as .avi's in their highest quality. Birth will get it's own DVD due to it's long runtime (nearly 3 hours!) and All Quiet will likely be bundled with another movie (possibly The 39 Steps).

All the others where encoded in non DVD native resolutions and will require reencoding. It's something I hoped I wouldn't have to do, but it looks like a necessary evil.

 

[tranzor]

A few years bback Elite entertainment restored and made a super special edition for the original night of the living dead using the best soruces possible. This was an "official" release and I doubt any version released since thn comes even close to their transfer