A representative of John Sirabella has told me that Media Blasters/Shriek Show has officially licensed this underrated slasher classic and it should be ready to be unleashed on an eagerly waiting audience by summer 2005! Great job, John! I knew that Shriek Show was going to be delivering some A+ discs in 2005, and after your turnaround this year, I'm anticipating this with baited breath!

Huh, I was under the impression that Don May and Synapse had the inside track on licensing/releasing JUST BEFORE DAWN, and the only thing holding him back from actually announcing it was his on-going search for acceptable film elements to do a new transfer off of.

Vincent

I would rather hear an MB annoucement that they fixed the problem of skipping chapters and issued corrected editions of WARLOCK MOON,HELL HIGH,etc(and WEREWOLF WOMAN!) before they tackle any new desirable titles.

Don't want to seem rude, but an annoucement from Synapse would garner a better response from me.

I seem to recall that title popping up on a bunch of supposed release schedules over the years. It will be interesting to see if this doesn't become another Zombie situation, with one or more people claiming license to the film, and multiple releases appearing on the market. As long as MB are able to gain access to the materials (and prevent anyone else with a claim from getting to them -at least until a compromise is reached) they should be able to negotiate a release of one sort or another. As long as it looks and sounds good, I don't care who puts it out, as long as it has been legitimately licensed. I'd love to be able to toss that Paragon tape I've had since Junior High.

I don't care who puts it out either-long as it's not defective.

Isn't another reported long-standing problem with Shriek Show DVDs that none of them are flagged for progressive-scan playback, leading to those awful "sawtooth" artifacts when the DVDs are played back on progressive displays? Have they ever addressed/corrected this serious mastering flaw?

Vincent

How did this thread go from the excitment being expressed about an upcoming shiny release of an excellent backwoods terror flick to complaints about glitches and technical flaws?

Sometimes I think discussion of the films themselves take a backseat to this kind of thing too often. Sure, dissect it all you want if it does come out not to your satisfaction, but it hasn't even happened yet!

How about the film itself? To me news of a cleaned-up JUST BEFORE DAWN is enough to overshadow any negative skepticism - I think this will be a long anxiously awaited wish answered for many fans of the film.

"How did this thread go from the excitment being expressed about an upcoming shiny release of an excellent backwoods terror flick to complaints about glitches and technical flaws?"

Because the company that's announced they are releasing the DVD of the excellent backwoods terror flick in question has a history of releasing title-after-title that are loaded with glitches and technical flaws, and as far as I know, they have yet to release a single DVD that's been correctly flagged for progressive-scan playback, which renders their ENTIRE catalogue unwatchable to those of us with progressive displays, no matter how "cleaned up" some of those titles may be.

Given Shriek Show's track record, I think the questions being raised in this thread are entirely justified, and if anything, getting these questions out there before work has started might entice SS to make extra special-sure that they don't mess this title up, and that the final result is properly mastered for correct play-back on progressive-scan displays.

Vincent

I believe their last few releases have actually been glitch free and has been praised by many former SS complainers.

vincent, I do not know what progressive-scan thing is. Can you please fill me in on it, for I have a regular TV, and I think you complained about some BU DVD in the past about the way widescreen is presented (ghosting or edge enhancement?), but I had no problem with them as well (except for SUSPIRIA's mix, which I agree with you on).

I've never encountered any "saw tooth" effects on any of the Shriek Show DVD's I own. I don't think this is as widespread a problem as you report, Vincent, but it does strike me as an odd occurrence.... John Sirabella, please post here! I'd like to hear your input on this matter, and put fears to rest.

I've always found the incorrect flagging irritating too: that was the main reason I opted for BU's version of ZOMBIE.

However, Shriek Show's recent releases of THE NEW BARBARIANS and MAN FROM DEEP RIVER both appear to be correctly flagged ... so I'm hoping they have finally realized the importance of this.

:unsure:

I thought both labels used the exact same master? :o

Same master, perhaps, but different authoring (which is the stage where the flagging would take place).

The only Shriek Show DVDs I have are ZOMBI 3 and recent THE THRILL KILLERS, and both of them saw-tooth like mad whenever there's motion in progressive-output mode. Also, here's a thread from the hometheaterforum re: the Media Blasters/Shriek Show and ZOMBI 2 saw-tooth artifacting:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum/sh...ghlight=zombi+2

I also hope they've started to correctly flag all of their film-sourced DVDs, but isn't THRILL KILLLERS a VERY recent release, as well as the two you mention, Andrew*?

Vincent

* Previously mentioned "Aleck" by mistake

I think Vincent and Roger made fair points regarding the history of this company, that should be taken into account before you buy any of their titles. I personally never had a problem with a MB/SS release, but there's been enough problems just in the past year or two that I wouldn't buy one of their titles until a couple of weeks into release, after the reviews come out on the sites or forums. Incidentally, doing that is probably *why* I never had a problem with them.

I do agree that for my taste there is a bit too much nit-picking of individual releases for flaws that only affect a minute portion of the disc's audience, but well, so what? I think this kind of discussion is an important part of this forum, because there's enough people here with substantial knowledge of how dvds are made that I regard it as an important resource.

Actually, it was Andrew further up the thread that mentioned titles, as I haven't brought any examples up. My point was that even if the BU and SS ZOMBIE releases were sourced from the same master, that SS could indeed manage to flag the release improperly in authoring.

But to your point, yes, THRILL KILLERS is *very* recent, and would most likely be indicative of how they're handling more recent projects, which is not encouraging (especially taking into account the missing footage at layer changes that seems to be happening on a somewhat regular basis as of late).

I'm closing this thread, as it has deteriorated into a conversation that could more appropriately be conducted through private e-mail.

(Some previous posts on both sides have been deleted at my discretion)

I rarely publicly comment on this kind of garbage, but I've learned Walter Olsen is spreading rumors that he was banned from this forum because he criticized Synapse. I want to clearly state that Walter is incorrect about this (oh, the joys of running this forum).

We have a policy at this forum that requires posters to fully disclose their financial and/or creative interest in any product they may post about so our readers know if they're being marketed to by someone who benefits from the information they're posting. We also have a policy that discourages the posting of information without sources to limit underhanded and shill marketing at our forum and stop the spread of false or unconfirmed information.

Given Walter's lack of disclosure in his postings on this thread about his involvement with JUST BEFORE DAWN, which went against our forum policy, and the fact that he didn't disclose he was Casey's source in his follow-up posts on this thread (which he later deleted), Walter's posting privileges were temporarily disabled. I contacted Walter privately through email to explain our policy to him, direct him to our FAQ where the policy is stated, and asked him to confirm that he re-read and understood our policy and that he would honor it in the future, at which point I would gladly restore his posting privileges and move forward.

This had nothing to do with Synapse, and, contrary to Walter's allegations, we have absolutely no problem with anyone posting constructive criticism about Synapse or Synapse products.

To date, I have not received a confirmation from Walter, so his posting privileges remain disabled.

I just wanted to set the record straight. If anyone has any further questions, feel free to email me.

What a swell couple of weeks: In the last 10 days, we've been accused by various parties of showing favoritism towards Synapse, Media Blasters and Subversive; and, at the same time by different parties, showing bias against Synapse, Media Blasters and Subversive. When really we have no interest in partisanship whatsoever -- we just want our posting policy honored, and we want exchanges at this forum to be respectful.