The Further Adventures of Ron in Skanky and Slaggy Amazon Land

Every so often one is reminded of just how skanky and slaggy Amazon is. One of the things that I used to like about Amazon was that it was, to some extent, global and that it offered services around the world. One could, for example, compare and contrast the cost of product at Amazon, Amazon.CA, Amazon.UK, and Amazon.De and buy product from one and all.

Given how greedy mammon worshipping Amazon is, however, they eventually realised that customers were engaging in comparison shopping, and they recently made it either impossible or prohibitively expensive by increasing postage, to order items from Amazon beyond ones constructed Amazon "shores". They made it impossible for me to buy,  because they won't ship it to the US, for example, the thirteenth season of Heartland from Amazon.CA at a cheaper price than for what it or its marketplace flunkies and sycophants sell it at Amazon or for me to buy less expensive Doctor Whos from England (I have an all region DVD and blu ray player) because of the cost of postage. Additionally, and this says volume about this gilded corporation, Amazon established its Amazon Global service to sell items one used to be able to buy at a more reasonable cost from Amazon.CA or Amazon.UK. 

Interestingly, since I can no longer buy product sold by Amazon.CA or from Amazon.UK I decided to cancel my Amazon.CA and Amazon.UK accounts. Not surprisingly, however, I can't. Amazon may not allow one to buy globally but they have a global (and increasingly mediocre) digital information system so if I want to cancel Amazon.CA and Amazon.UK I must also cancel my Amazon account. That I can't cancel my Amazon.CA or Amazon.UK accounts, neither of which I use anymore because of the reasons cited above, shows just how skanky and slaggy Amazon is. Skankyness and slaginess, in other words, are in Amazon's cultural DNA. I think it is time once again to contact the office of the Attorney General of New York State.

The Books of My Life: Movie Crazy

In chapter seven of her excellent Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity (New York: Palgrave, 2001) historian and now lawyer Stephanie Barbas explores the moral panic surrounding film fandom between the 1910s and the 1950s and its relation to the rise of the narrative film and the star system within the Hollywood studio system. Though many social scientists, politicians, and writers, like Nathanael West, saw film fans, and particularly female film fans, as dangerous infantile hysterics who were too intellectually challenged to be able to distinguish reality from the fictional "reality" on screen and thought that the "riots" that occurred at Rudolph Valenitino's funeral and the increasing numbers of film fan stalkers proved it, the reality of film fandom, as Barbas tries to argue in the earlier chapters of her book, was, different from the caricatured and stereotyped picture of fans social scientists, politicians, moral reformers, and even a Hollywood fearful of government regulation, painted. 

The vast majority of film fans, males and females, Barbas argues, were not the enthralled to the fictional worlds of the cinema its critics painted them as. Instead, Barbas argues, film fans, impacted as they were by a late modernity and early postmodernity of increasing consumer capitalism, increasing urbanity, the decline of naturalist and puritanical notions of sex, and increasingly tactile and "realistic" media like film, "realistic" media which made it difficult to distinguish reality from fiction and to distinguish the real lives of film stars from the propaganda of the Hollywood star making system and the film fan magazines that grew up around them, actually tried to discern the difference between reality and fantasy and actor and celebrity. Film fans, Barbas argues, particularly in the 1910s, were not the morons of their critics sensationalistic fantasies. Instead, Barbas argues, they were pushing back against the simulations of late modernity and early postmodernity. They tried to distinguish the Barnum like hokum of the Hollywood star making machinery from the reality they wanted to know about. They wanted to know whether the stars they came to admire, adore, and even emulate--some began to dress like, speak like, and purchase the consumer goods their favourite celebrities shilled for--were as they appeared to be on the big screen.

Hollywood and the flm fan magazines, claims Barbas, tried to answer the question of whether Hollywood stars and celebrities were like the characters they played on the screen. In general, they answered that question in the affirmative. Hollywood fans, however, were, as Barbas notes, quite aware of the fact that Hollywood was manipulating them for profit, but that didn't stop them from trying to distinguish fantasy from reality and they lobbied, via letters they wrote to film magazines, and formed film fan clubs to try to get at what the celebrities they saw on the big screen were really like.

Like so much historical research grounded in archival analysis Barbas's archival research adds colour, tangibility, and vitality to her argument. However, like a lot of research and writing grounded in archival research, one is left wondering, given that such research is generally not based on a random sample, how generalisable Barbas's data and the conclusions she draws about film fans from it is. One of Barbas's conclusions one might want to question for instance, is her argument that film fan practises were grounded in an attempt to uncover and ascertain how Hollywood was suckering them. Barbas makes the case that film fans tried to deconstruct and, in the process, understand the propagandistic manipulations of late modernity and postmodernity, propagandistic simulations that would also be used to obtain American support for World War I and to buy the products of the new consumer society. But film fans were, as Barbas notes, also, simultaneously, manipulated into emulating the fictions the new consumer industries and cultural industries were trying to "sell" them. The reality, if I can still use this word in the empirical sense, is that in late modernity and early postmodernity the utilitarian empiricism of industrial late modernity met the manipulations of the new media and produced individuals who were both empirically oriented while at the same time  interpellated or drawn into a fantasy world in which buying product was also buying into, often unconsciously, a certain "reality" or meaning system and certain identities that were consistent with the brave new world of consumer capitalism and culture, a conclusion Charles Eckert came to earlier in his seminal articles on Hollywood, Hollywood stars, and consumerism.

Life as Crisis Management: The Kiss My Face Technological Malfunction Kiada

Dear Kiss My Face I am writing to tell you a little story about what happened to me today. Some backstory first: I work at a Food Coop and it was there that I purchased your Patchouli Shaving Cream which was on sale. Anyway, today I ran out of the shaving cream I had been using so I reached for your Kiss My Face shaving cream. I tried to open the pump and make it pop up as it is supposed to using the directions you provide on the top of it but guess what, the pump wouldn't open. I tried and tried but the pump wouldn't open. Finally I took the pump out, something made easier by the fact that in trying to open the pump I actually succeeded in unscrewed the entire device. I took the pump out, tried to open up, and after being unable to get the pump to pop up spent twenty minutes or so transferring the shaving cream from its original bottle to another pump bottle that actually does work. Needless to say, given the consistency of the product, this was a messy twenty minutes and I must say it was a joy to clean up the mess from the floor and the bottle I used as a replacement bottle.

Dear Kiss My Face, I don't want you to think that I have technological problems with things I buy far too often than I would like. I guess this is one of the joys of living in a world where vampire capitalism cuts and cuts corners in everything, including labour costs, to make more and more profit. You are simply the latest in a long line of technological malfunctions, a long line of technological malfunctions that have finally prompted me to write this blog. A word of advice, use a squeeze bottle. There is less that can go wrong with them. Oh, will I buy your product again? I have to be honest and say I don't know. At this point in time I seriously doubt whether I will use your product in the future given the technological problems I had with it and the mess taking care of this technological malfunction brought with it.

Life in a Mass Consumer World...

Walmart, the company that drove wages down and in the process helped destroy American companies and American wage levels. Walmart, the company that made money by driving prices and wages down and enriched its owners. Walmart, the company which doesn't enrich its workers and whose workers often end up on the public welfare rolls because they don't get a living wage. Walmart, the company whose workers often end up on Medicaid because they don't earn enough to get decent health insurance from their employer. Walmart the company subsidised by American taxpayers who whinge about welfare all the while benefiting from it. Walmart, the company that uses "illegal" labour because it just loves low wage labour. Walmart, the company that played a leading role in moving American jobs to China and enriching the Chinese economy in the process. Walmart, the company that looks the other way while workers are put in danger in places like Bangladesh thanks to a lack of regulation, something companies like Walmart like, of course. Walmart, the company that once touted its we sell American which now rarely sells American. Walmart, the epitome of wealthfare, limited globalisation to increase corporate profits (why not free movement of labour?), and bah humbugism, yes you gotta "like" em, particularly since the popularity of Walmart seems to prove that Americans prefer cheap mass produced goods (the god of mass consumption) even to American nationalism (the god of ethnocentrism).

A Consumer's Guide to Indoor HDTV Television Antennas

I have, since the United States made its transition from analog to digital television in 2009, had the unfortunate experience of trying out various HDTV indoor antennas in search of the rarest of rare species, a digital television antenna that works and works well.

I made my own transition to digital television a year before the federally mandated date for the transition to take place. I lived then as I live now in Albany, New York, Albany is a market served locally by several television channels most of them with broadcast antennas in the Helderberg's 15 miles south, southwest, of Albany including Channel 6, CBS, Channel 10 and Channel 19, ABC, Channel 13, NBC, Channel 17, PBS, Channel 23 Fox, Channel 45, the CW, Channel 51, MyTV, Channel 54, a Christian channel, and Channel 55, Pax. Before the transition to digital I could pick up 6, 10, 13, 17, 23, and 45 and, rarely, 51 and 55 on my analog TV with the help of an added VHF and UHF antenna. When I switched to digital TV, and I did this before the federally mandated transition date, I was able to regularly pick up 6, 10, 17, and 19. After the transition I lost 6 but gained 45 and eventually, with antenna switches, I was able to get 13 and 23. Eventually I was able to get 6.1 at 45.3, 45 is the CW affiliate in the Capital District and which is partly owned by CBS. It took the braniacs at Channel 6 several months to realise that many in Albany could no longer pick up the channel since they switched the channel they transmitted on but that they could use one of their 45's, 45.3, to broadcast 6.1 on and reach, as a result, some of the houses in the Albany area which could no longer get 6. Unfortunately, the idiots at local CBS did not use one of the 45's to broadcast this TV, the MGM movie channel, the only 6, 6.2, I am at all interested in watching. After another antenna switch I was able to get the 51's including the wonderful Antenna TV.

What follows are is my rating guide for the digital television antennas I have used over the last several years. My ratings for each antenna are based on putting the antenna in exactly the same spots and taking them for a test run over a period of several months.

Initially I exclusively used Philips antennas to pick up digital TV signals. I felt a certain loyalty to Philips because that is where my father worked in the 1960s and 1970s. I know, I am an idiot. I shouldn't let my heart govern my head. The first antenna I tried was the Philips High Performance Amplified Indoor UHF/VHF/FM/HDTV antenna, the one with LED signal level monitor and two poles. Rating: good. I couldn't get 6, 23, 45, or any of the 50s on it. Next I tried the Philips SDV 2740/27. Rating: good but not really any better than the High Performance antenna. I next decided to switch to an RCA ANT1450 BR flat antenna. Rating: good, but really not any better than the two Philips's I used previously. I then switched to the Philips SDV 313227. This swivel top antenna wins the award for the best antenna I have used so far. I could, by moving the circular swivel clockwise and counterclockwise pick up 19 channels regularly and 24 on rare occasions. The major downside of this antenna, as it was for every one I tried before it, was picture stability. Any time a car or truck went by on the fairly heavily travelled road in front of the apartment I lived in, the picture faded out. Rating: Very Good. I next decided to give the Philips SDV 15122/27 a try. This antenna is hands down the worst I have ever used. I could only pick up 10 TV channels with it. On the plus side, the stability of the picture was the best of any antenna I used. Rating: Poor. The next digital antenna tested is the Mohu Paper Thin Leaf Indoor HDTV antenna, and it is paper thin. It has some of the highest ratings of any indoor HDTV antenna on the Amazon website. Rating: Excellent. I can pick up everything I picked up with the Philips SDV 313227 except the 55's, which I only picked up briefly with it, and, in addition, I can pick up, if limitedly, the 55's. And I don't even have to fiddle around with it. Picture stability is fair. When a car or a truck goes by or a helicopter flies over the signal weakens. I guess this is the nature of the digital TV beast.

I want to close by saying that in my experience digital TV may produce a superior quality video and audio but the signals themselves are highly variable in terms of how strongly the come in and in terms of their stability. If cars, trucks, helicopters can take my signal out what does that say about ideologies of progress? We definitely do not live in the best of all possible TV signal worlds. Call me annoyed, frustrated, and sometimes angry.

Oh the Joys of Shopping at Amazon...

I have almost had it with Amazon. Recently I ordered a copy of the Bernstein/Kostelantz/Previn Gershwin collection. I ordered it because the photo of the back cover of this CD indicates that it was made in Europe. I try to avoid buying American product given how this nation has been taken over by ubercapitalist gamblers who don't care about this country and don't care about the citizens of this country. I have stopped buying Naxos classical product entirely given that they now assemble and print some of their product in the dixiefornicated anti-union state of Tennessee. Germany, Austria, and Holland, on the other hand, where most classical CD's are produced in the EU, have placed breaks on speculative casino capitalism and still have strong unions. As a consumer I prefer to "vote" for the latter and not the former.

Now back to Amazon and its practises: The question has to be asked how this muckup, if it was an accident, occurred. One could, I suppose, read this use of a photo of a European edition of Gershwin/Bernstein/Previn instead of the American edition (the one I was sent), by Amazon as yet another example of Amazon laziness. Presumably they can't be bothered to get the photos right particularly when they can borrow one from their cousins European at Amazon.uk, Amazon.fr, and Amazon.de.

There is some merit, I suppose, to the laziness argument. Why? Because there are other examples of Amazon sins that appear to be the product of just plain laziness and sloppiness. Amazon, for instance, has a tendency to carry over the reviews of a previous DVD transfer of a film and television programme to a new DVD transfer. Take a look at the various DVD releases of the BBC 1984 where the reviews from the various releases of this TV broadcast version have been rolled into one making it virtually impossible to judge the quality of the various releases on the basis of the various reviews. Apparently Amazon simply can't be bothered to weed out reviews for DVD's when a new transfer of a film has come out. They seem to assume that once you have seen one transfer you have seen them all. This assumption, of course, is not true. Any Criterion release, as a general rule, is far superior to any Echo Bridge release.

Of course, not everyone is willing to give Amazon a laziness, sloppiness, or stupidity pass here. Recent Amazon behaviours--its membership in the nefarious ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), its offering of those who enter information about the price of a book in a brick and mortar bookstore into their smart phone a discount, their attempt to do a Standard Oil and gain a monopoly on electronic books by underpricing competitors--raises questions about whether Amazon's mistakes are sins of slopiness and stupidity or intentional acts of commission. Clearly such behaviours are deliberate attempts by Amazon to gain market share and as such they are not sins of laziness and sloppiness. Amazon instead appears to operate by the standard operating practises of corporations, practises that are inherent within modern capitalism, practices that seek to monopolise the marketplace. As a result Amazon is rather like John D. Rockefeller's Gilded Age Standard Oil who pioneered in running their competitors out of business by underpricing them and gaining a monopoly as a result. Speaking of economic bureaucracies and their monopolistic and cartellistic practises, isn't it curious that your standard anti-government libertarian and tea partier don't seem to see these practises as a threat to human freedom when they clearly are?

As to the Bernstein/Previn Gershwin CD, it is not bad. As commentators have noted, however, Bernstein makes cuts in the score (boo) and these performances seem more Bernstein than Gershwin (boo).

So to sum up three stars for the Bernstein/Previn Gershwin performances and 0 stars for Amazon.

An Old Person's and Young Person's Guide to DVD Companies...

Ok, so I am a film, documentary, and television junkie. I have probably close to a thousand DVD's that I have bought over the years. I thus have a lot of experience with DVD's and DVD companies. Here is what I have found.

Criterion Collection. Along with Masters of Cinema the Gold Standard of DVD and Blue Ray Companies. Criterion does the highest quality transfers of the best cinema has to offer. Its packaging is sometimes an art form in itself. Outstanding and informative booklets. Lots of extras with informative content on releases. Stands by its product. I had a bad package for Monsoon Wedding once and they replaced it. Of the almost 500 plus Criterion's I own I have had problems withonly four discs.

Masters of Cinema. Along with Criterion the Gold Standard in DVD's. Highest quality transfers of the best cinema has to offer. Like Criterion MoC does great booklets and puts lots of informative extras on their releases. And like Criterion it stands by its product. I once had a bad booklet which they replaced immediately. Of the almost 100 MoC's I have I have had only three discs arrive damaged.

CBS/Paramount. Mediocre in its transfers. Some like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners are good, very good. Others, like Dragnet, are clearly not restored and are mediocre at best. Purveyor of some very poor to awful packaging. With MGM has a tendency to design packages in which the discs are stuck into very tight cardboard slats meaning that they scratch easily on the way in or on the way out (e.g., Beauty and the Beast). Another thing to beware of with CBS, particularly with respect to their TV releases, is incomplete episodes of TV series. Many of CBS's TV programmes are the shortened syndicated versions (e.g., some episodes of Lucy), some are shortened for some reason that is unfathomable (e.g. Holocaust), some have been cut for copyright issues (usually music the costs of which the megacorporation that owns the television programme doesn't want to pay while the megacorporation who owns the music wants megabucks for). Surprisingly, CBS/Paramount does note that a programme may be cut or doesn't have its original music in tiny print at the bottom of the information on the back of their keepcases. Another problem: CBS/Paramount sometimes puts content on both sides of their discs leading to scratching. Some of their product has limited if any extras. They do stand by their product, however. My Dragnet season one double sided disc one was scratched to kingdom come and they replaced it at their cost.

MGM. Mediocre in transfer quality. Some quite good. Many, most of them, quite mediocre. Purveyor of some poor to awful packaging like CBS where DVD's are stuck into cardboard slats and damaged as a result (e.g., Star Gate, Hitchcock collection). Why do these companies spend tons on box design and, at the same time, stick disc into tight cardboard slats. Can you say very stupid? Variations in number and quality of extras.

Warner Brothers. Clearly and easily the best of the big boy corporate home entertainment companies. Some outstanding transfers with lots of extras. On occasion, normally with TV product, WB produces very poor quality product with double sided discs which easily get scratched and poor transfer quality (e.g. The Waltons). Also on occasion WB releases, inexplicably, widescreen films solely in standard format (Stand and Deliver and Running on Empty), usually they release them in both. Heresy.

LionsGate. Mediocre. Sometimes releases high quality films and TV programmes though in mediocre to fair transfers. Beware of their TV releases. Some contain syndicated versions (e.g., Little House on the Prairie) though this isn't entirely the fault of LionsGate and Imavision, the Quebec company that originally released Little House, since both companies released what they were given by NBC (see below). Caveat emptor: LionsGate doesn't stand by their product. I bought their Mad Men season one which came poorly packaged in a plastic skin that I had difficulty getting off and found it was defective when I finally got it off. They refused to replace this meaning that they don't stand behind the product they produce. Unfortunately LionsGate has acquired some films formerly done by Criterion. Boo. Hiss.

Universal/NBC. Mediocre in every sense of the word. Their Will and Grace release contains syndicated versions of some of the episodes though in decent unrestored transfers. On the other hand their releases of the first two seasons of Beaver were quite good. And then they stopped releasing any further seasons presumably because sales didn't meet their expectations (reasonable or not). Yes Virginia we live in an age in which everything is a commodity with a dollar sign plastered in front of it. By the way, I have been happier with the British Universal Playback releases (including that of the wonderful BBC All Creatures Great and Small) then with US Universal releases.

Shout Factory. Good though not Criterion or MoC. Some great releases in good to excellent transfers. As a company that licenses product from other sources they are prisoners to what they are given by the megacompanies that own the films or TV programmes they release. Their box set of Leave it to Beaver is excellent but contains some versions of episodes that aren't in their original transmission form. Who do we have to thank for this? I think NBC/Universal. Shout deserves credit for their Corman releases, Max Headroom, and Beaver. Shout also responds to customer concerns: they did away with that stupid and unnecessary hard to get off tape (as did Criterion, by the way; European releases have never had it in the first place) at the top of their releases.

Timeless. Mediocre but they deserve extra points for trying. Timeless releases a lot of American television Westerns like the excellent Laredo, the brilliant Alias Smith and Jones, Wagon Train, and The Virginian in decent transfers. Unfortunately, Timeless has also released British and Australian TV programmes like To the Ends of the Earth and The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant in incorrect aspect ratio transfers. Buy these from the UK if you can.

HBO. Generally very good. Some of their releases, like the original box set of The Sopranos and The Wire, are very poorly packaged: the dreaded DVD's stuck into the dreaded cardboard slats. As such HBO is rapidly catching up with MGM and CBS as the DVD company with the stupidest designers.

2 Entertain/BBC. Some excellent releases (Dr. Who, Quatermass). Transfer quality can vary given the condition of the original material. The BBC didn't start to archive and preserve until the 1970s. Some of their keepcases, the ones that have DVD on both sides of the box, have a tendency to lose their discs which, as a result, get scratched while floating around free range in the keepcases. Apparently it requires a Ph.D. in physics to make good keepcases unless you are Criterion of MoC.

I have contacted 2Entertain on a number of occasions about the problems with their keepcases. Sadly, it was a waste of time and energy. Each time I contacted them about their poor quality keepcases I received essentially the same reply: it's not our fault. What I gained from dealing with BBC/2Entertain is this: there is perhaps no more arrogant institution in the English speaking world than the BBC and no institution I know of which has less reason to be arrogant given their poor their poor keepcases. That the BBC is as bad as American corporations like Universal, MGM, and Paramount says volumes about this public institution. I guess we should be thankful that one of the few megacorporations that cares about product, the WB, does some of the BBC's American releases. Someone, after all, has to save the BBC from itself.

ITV. Virtually a carbon copy of BBC/2 Entertain. No difference between the public BBC or private ITV here though I think 2 Entertainment is a for profit enterprise partly owned by the Beeb. That said their restroratons and remasterings of Lean's and Powell's and Pressberger's films are quite nice

On the downside ITV's transfer of some of their TV shows is an absolute and unmitigated disaster. The wonderful Raffles, for instance, was, like so many shows in the 70s shot on videotape. Some gumby at ITV, however, (the same ones perhaps who turned the 4:3 World at War into a widescreen disaster epic) has decided that it was best not to release Raffles in its original form, defacing history in a manner almost akin to what happened to photographs in Stalinist Russia. Instead ITV apparently has chosen to transfer the video portions of Raffles onto film changing the look of the programme, not to mention its contrast, in the process. Americans are the lucky ones here for the Acorn US release of Raffles contains the show as originally broadcast (though I don't recall whether it has the Yorkshire idents and act breaks). Shame on ITV. Who would have thunk (well me because I know that capitalists and commies all love their history whitewashed) that a capitalist corporation would have Stalinist tendencies that led it to, in this instance, change history for economic rather than political reasons.

Acorn UK. Licenses product largely from the Beeb and ITV. Good transfers though the quality varies due to the quality of the original material. Like 2 Entertain and ITV there are problems with discs staying on the spindles of Acorn's double disc sets for the same reasons as 2 Entertain/BBC and ITV. The Foyle's War (great ITV series) complete set had a lot of scratching and buffing problems.

Acorn also has a branch in North America. I have purchased their DVD's of the excellent Canadian shows Da Vinci's Inquest and Intelligence. Both were very good in terms of quality and packaging. Acorn's release of Upstairs Downstairs and the 35th anniversary edition of I Claudius are outstanding in every way.

Channel 4 DVD. Generally good transfers of some great stuff. Channel 4, originally established of offer more innovative fare than the Beeb and ITV, played a major role in the renaissance of British cinema in the 1980s and 1990s and in bringing innovative shows to the small screen in the 1980s and 1990s. 4DVD has released great cinema in good to very good transfers like Bill Forsythe's Local Hero and My Beautiful Laundrette (the US release of this seminal film by MGM is mediocre). It has released great and seminal TV shows like Spaced in a very good transfer. Given 4's support for innovative films and TV programmes, at least at one time, I like to support 4DVD.

Second Run. Not quite in the Criterion and MoC league but close. Great library of seminal Eastern European films (such as Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) and documentaries (such as In the Land of the Deaf). Excellent booklets, good extras.

E one Entertainment. Like Second Run not quite in the Criterion and MoC league but close. Great releases in fine transfers of TV shows like the Ellery Queen Mysteries, Sondheim's Evening Primrose, and Studio One teleplays. Nice releases of Canadian shows like Being Erica and Republic of Doyle and classic BBC shows like Anne of Avalon. The problem with Being Erica is the original aspect ratio. Most of the E one season one of Being Erica is in the standard TV ration (4:3) while the British edition on Channel 4 is in widescreen (1:66 or 1:78). The show, as far as I know, was originally in widescreen. Why the standard frame in most of season one of Being Erica E one?

Recently my appreciation for E one declined thanks to their very poor release of the complete series of what is in my opinion the best American television spy show and one of the best American TV shows ever, It Takes a Thief. The remastering is poor. The box the set it comes in is awful. The discs are stuck into cardboard slats though they weren't terribly damaged upon arrival. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that Universal, the owner of It Takes a Thief, and one of the worst DVD companies in the business, from whom E one licensed It Takes a Thief, is probably responsible for most of the problems with the transfer quality of this set? Because that is the Universal way. Apparently the German transfer of the first season and a half of the show is vastly superior.

BFI: Like Second Run and E1 not quite Criterion or MoC but pretty close. A great library of releases of seminal films (and once upon a time a few TV programmes) from around the world in generally very good quality transfers. Now releasing wonderful combo DVD/Blue Ray packages of great directors like Ozu and Bunuel.

Network. It is hard not to like Network because of what they release. Network by and large re-releases classic British television. They also release the best transfer of the wonderful Canadian show Due South. Most of their releases are not restored but a few, like The Prisoner, are. Since they are simply mastered the quality of the transfers are not always spectacular. But then the quality of the original material is not always particularly good either. Some of the early keepcases were flawed allowing discs to pop off the spindles and get scratched in the case as a result. Recent releases have much superior keep cases. It is nice to see a company in today's world respond to complaints about their product and improve them. Too bad that this is an anomaly in the modern world dominated by take it or leave it megacorporations. Sad that more consumers don't complain about poor product and avoid buying it. But then we live in a gotta have it and gotta have it now Western world, don't we?.

Blue Underground. Cut from the E1, Second Run, and BFI cloth. Very good but not quite the gold standard of Criterion and MoC. Blue Underground releases a lot of "classics" from the European and American gore underground along with art film classics like My Brilliant Career, Newsfront, and the Alan Bennett collection. I did have a problem with the Newsfront keepcase. The disc fell off the spindle and arrived scratched so I exchanged it for another. It had the same problem so I returned it. Blue Underground promised to replace any such occurrence in the future. And they did. When I bought a third copy and the disc was off the spindle and damaged Blue Underground replaced it promptly.

Park Circus. One step down from Criterion and MoC. They recently released Peter Greenaway's Pillow Book in a fine quality transfer.

Optimum. Generally good transfers of some great films including those of the great Godard. Optimum also releases some interesting Asian film and some past and contemporary horror classics. Optimum's Bergman releases are generally excellent.

Arrow. Generally good transfers of some classic and contemporary cinema. Arrow does a good box set of Rohmer's wonderful Comédies et Proverbes.

Artificial Eye. Generally good transfers of some classics and some good contemporary cinema. I treasure my two Rohmer box sets from Artificial Eye and have been eying the Resnais box set.

Zeitgeist. I don't own any of their DVD's but hear excellent things about this company that releases highly critically regarded films on DVD.

Raro Video. An Italian company that has just arrived in the US market with several releases including Fellini's The Clowns. Good transfer. Some have complained about Raro quality and lack of response to quality concern issues.

VCI. Generally good and sometimes very good transfers. VCI's release of Joseph Losey's famous noir The Prowler. That disc has been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and so looks quite nice.

BFS. What is it with BFS. Their recently released Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, a great ITV adaptation of Defoe's starring Alex Kingston and Daniel Craig. Unfortunately, BFS's transfer does not appear to do this superb show justice. There is no information on the BFS website about the aspect ratio of the transfer. The original is widescreen (1:66 or 1:78). The BFS transfer is, if Amazon is accurate (not always the case, by the way) 1:33. So if you don't mind missing a significant part of the show buy it. As for me I will stick with the ITV release in the correct oar I purchased some time back and will remain annoyed by the BFS tradition of not telling consumers anything about the oar on the packages or on their website and their tradition of transforming a widescreen film or TV programme into a TV screen box oar. Pathetic and sad. I expect more but I never get it from BFS. In fact, I still haven't figured out whether the BFS transfer of the superb BBC docudrama about Arthur Conan Doyle and his mentor Dr. Joseph Bell, one of the inventors of modern forensics, The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle is in the correct oar. There is certainly no indication on the package what the aspect ratio of the transfer is. The only thing I do know is that it is not in the 1:33:1 format Amazon claims. There should be as any consumer respecting DVD company knows. By the way Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle was the pilot for the superb BBC series Murder Rooms which is available in the States from MPI in a good quality and correct aspect ratio transfer.

Mill Creek. Bargain basement quality at bargain basement prices. Some of their public domain unrestored transfers are, however, sometimes more than passable. Their Ozzie and Harriet collection actually contains, in most cases, the original broadcast releases rather than the syndicated versions something which can not be said of the Shout release of the official versions licensed from the Rick Nelson Company. Now releasing some stuff with Shout, megacreator Stephen Cannell (Cannell was too cheap to pony up for music rights so his stuff is absent the original music as it was on the Anchor Bay releases), Freemantle, the British production and rights megacorporation, and NBC/Universal (Howdy Doody).

Echo Bridge. An echo of Mill Creek. Bargain basement transfers at bargain basement prices of stuff in the public domain. Echo Bridge recently cut a deal with Miramax and is now releasing, in generally poor transfers, Miramax product.

Olive Films: Olive Films, an independent producer of DVD's, has recently released a version of the Migenes, Domingo, Maazel, and Rosi realisation of Bizet's great opera, Carmen. On the plus side: the transfer looks pretty good and appears to be in or close to its original aspect ratio. On the down side: the subtitles are in white and yellow and unremovable. Unremovable subtitles are unforgivable as any self-respecting quality DVD company should know. The extras contained on the new restored Second Sight British DVD are absent from the Olive. Unfortunate.I may, after purchasing Olive's transfer of Carmen, never buy another DVD or Blue Ray from this company again. If you have an all region DVD, and every film and opera buff should, get the two DVD Second Sight transfer. You may get the PAL speedup with the Second Sight version and you cannot remove the subtitles, apparently you can on the French Gaumont version, but at least you will have the two extras. So for those of you who do have an all region DVD player you have a choice between the bare bones Olive, the more fulsome Second Sight, and the superior French version. I really wish I had chosen the last.

Let me close this guide with a few more words about packaging. I have noted some of the problems with the fancy box sets put out by MGM, Fox, HBO, and others, those box sets that are gorgeous on the outside but have their DVD's stuck into cardboard slats on the inside. The result of this is almost always scratched discs. There are other problems with DVD packaging in the US in particular, however. WB and HBO originally had these hybrid plastic and paper keepcases that didn't fit well next to the other plastic DVD keepcases on the shelf and occasionally were damaged when one tried to take that security and name tape plastered on, in some cases, three sides of the keepcase. And then there is the issue of what to do when the spindle is damaged in these keepcases since it is not easy to replace a damaged one with one that isn't damaged. But back to the security tape. The security tape, particularly on older DVD's, also on occasion damages the plastic of the keepcases themselves as well. I find this tape along with those black plastic meets metal security devices annoying because they are totally unnecessary. European DVD's manage to get along without either. Kudos to Criterion and Shout Factory for doing away with the tape on the top of their keepcases.

The packaging of DVD's and the fact that many DVD's don't stay on their spindles far too often raises questions about the intelligence of whatever species designs these keepcases. Given that there are so many unnecessary faults with DVD keepcases and packaging has led me to wonder whether DVD companies need to consider hiring PhD's in Engineering to design keepcases. Given the track record of far too many DVD companies at present my answer to this query is yes.

Postscript, 4 December 2011:
Thoughts on BBC/2Entertain and Acorn.UK Product. From my Amazon.UK review of the new Upstairs Downstairs

I give four stars for the show and no stars for the keepcases BBC/2Entertain uses to store their product in. That gives us two stars.

I am going to skip reviewing the show since others have written about the quality of the show better than I could. Suffice it to say that this is more Upstairs Downstairs than Downton Abbey, the most recent semi-rehash of the old Upstairs Downstairs. History and the relationships between upstairs and downstairs have always been at the heart of Upstairs Downstairs and they remain so here. Downton Abbey, of course, has played with these classic elements of the subgenre as well.

Now to the keepcases. No company, in my experience, does keepcases or buys keepcases as bad as BBC/2Entertain (save for Acorn UK, more about that later). It almost seems that the BBC's/2Entertain's lack of interest in quality control for their keepcases rivals that, on occasion, of their transfers and that both express their cynicism about consumers, a cynicism that seems to be the fools will buy anything. Nothing reflects this cynicism more than the Beeb's and 2Entertain's release of Only Horses and Fools in a sliced and diced transfer that no company that cares about its customers let alone any self respecting company would release unless they were cynical or simply operating on greed. And nothing expresses the cynicism and contempt the BBC and 2Entertain must have for their customers than the keepcases they use.

To put this into context. I have purchased over five hundred discs from the Criterion Collection. Only three of the discs have wiggled off their keepcases and been damaged as a result. I have purchased around one hundred discs from Masters of Cinema. Only three have had discs loose in the keepcase and damaged. I have purchased some seventy five DVD's from BBC/2Entertain and fully one-third if not more of the double disc sets have arrived with discs off their spindles and were seriously damaged as a result. The BBC's response to this when I contacted them was to blame Amazon.UK's packaging of product. Interestingly other discs I have ordered and received simultaneously from Amazon.UK, including ITV product, have not had this problem. The only other UK DVD corporation whose keepcases regularly have the same problem as the Beeb, as I mentioned earlier, is Acorn. Not surprisingly Acorn regularly uses the same brand or type of keepcases BBC/2Entertain does for its two disc sets. Will the Beeb and Acorn get this rather obvious connection here, a connection that even someone as limited in deductive powers as the Gumby's could get? I doubt it

One would hope that the BBC and Acorn would recognise this problem and fix it. The BBC has an easy fix. Use the same keepcases you use for the Dr. Who double disc sets. That neither BBC or Acorn switch to these sets I am afraid says something about their sense of quality control and their cynicism about consumers who, I am sure they believe, will buy any piece of crap as long as they feel they have to have it.

By the way, I think that the fact that so many of the DVD products of so many corporations are so bad or at best mediocre says something not only about corporate quality control but also about global capitalism and corporate cynicism in general. It also tells us something about how corporations, via advertising propaganda, have created consumers that so "need" to buy product that many will buy the product regardless of how poor or how bad it is. Ah, life in the modern world of consumer capitalism.