We have not seen this disc. But we have viewed this full-frame transferred program in its laserdisc edition. Based on that quality of that laserdisc, we recommend this DVD edition.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This budget edition of Way Down East. from Alpha Video has been mastered from a 16mm reduction print of good quality, but the print is flat, with plugged shadows and grayed highlights, and has the usual problems of older 16mm prints: tight cropping, a slightly jittery picture, dust, speckling, print scratches, and soft image details. The dark full-frame, natural-speed video transfer is passable, and the disc’s video compression is higher than usual — that being the result of squeezing a film of this length onto a single layer DVD — resulting in some artifacts that will be seen by the eagle-eyed viewer, especially on an HD monitor. That being said, we have seen worse discs than this one. And, with a little adjustment of a television’s brightness and contrast controls, this edition is at very least watchable.

Alpha Video has taken the initiative on its 2004 releases of silent films (unheard of from other budget disc producers) to begin including custom music scores by Paul David Bergel. And while the synthesizer scores are not impressive (they sound like off-the-cuff improvizations), they are better than listening to cobbled-together music soundtracks taken from preexisting recordings.

If we were choosing an edition to purchase, we would of course choose the older Image edition above. If a collector is budget conscious, this edition (soft and dark as it is) is viewable.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print, with an orchestral music score.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc is available directly from Reel Classic.

Other silent era Lillian Gish films available on DVD home video:
The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1914)
Biograph Shorts (1909-1913)
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
D.W. Griffith, Years of Discovery (1909-1913)
Intolerance (1916)
Orphans of the Storm (1920)
Romola (1924)
True Heart Susie (1919)
The White Sister (1923)

Other silent era Richard Barthelmess films available on DVD home video:
Broken Blossoms (1919)
The Drop Kick (1927)
The Love Flower (1920)
Snow White (1916)
Tol’able David (1921)
Way Down East (1920)