Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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In the Days of the
Thundering Herd
(1914)
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This early Selig feature western stars Tom Mix, Bessie Eyton and Wheeler Oakman.
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 Alpha Video
2011 DVD edition
In the Days of the Thundering Herd (1914), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, with Going to Congress (1924), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 6490D, UPC 0-89218-64909-6.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 31 January 2011.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm or 8mm reduction print.
Probably not ideal, but the editions noted here will probably be a push visually. Which disc you purchase may come down to which of the supplemental films you will want in your edition.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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 Harpodeon
2010 DVD edition
In the Days of the Thundering Herd (1914), black & white, 35 minutes, not rated, with The Girl at the Cupola (1912), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated.
Harpodeon, no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; 7 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $6.99.
Release date: January 2010.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 6 / additional content: 5 / overall: 5.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from an abridged, good quality 8mm reduction print that is soft of image details but features a reasonable range of greytones. The slightly windowboxed video transfer will appear as full-frame on most television monitors, and is tightly framed, with many intertitles cropped-off on the right side, and the whole picture is slightly turned counter-clockwise.
The technical quality of the transfer leaves a bit to be desired, with a pattern of dots rather than smooth greytones rendering the picture details — a quality less likely to be detected on a standard television than it is on an HD system. The DVD mastering also could have employed less data compression to retain more visual detail, especially with the disc’s short running time. A DVD-R disc is capable of containing more than four gigabytes of data. Why not fill the disc with low-compression or no-compression data to ensure the best possible picture?
The film is presented with three optional music scores compiled and performed on MIDI digital piano. The music, here, is better than a score of preexisting recordings that has been cobbled together on the cheap.
Not exactly ideal, but reasonably priced.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from HARPODEON.
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Other silent era TOM MIX films available on home video.
Other WESTERN FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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