Herb Alpert Is... Documentary Viewing, Renting and Purchasing Options

I'm getting old, and my status is doubtful on my best days, but those AARP discounts have been worth the price of admission. 😁
 
I joined AARP a few years ago but I never had time to read the magazine, and didn't really ever use any of the other benefits so I let it lapse. Now that I really am into the dreaded 60s, maybe I should re-instate myself. I'm still holding out for the BR on Herb's documentary though.

Maybe the Sergio one will come out around the same time and I can have myself a double feature! :D
 
I joined AARP a few years ago but I never had time to read the magazine, and didn't really ever use any of the other benefits so I let it lapse. Now that I really am into the dreaded 60s, maybe I should re-instate myself.

I had the same experience as Mike. Finally gave in and signed up at 57 and within two years realized I was getting one more magazine I didn't read and nothing else. Dumped them. Now, at 64, all I have to deal with is constant "come back!" mailings (which seem to have quieted down from every other week to every other month).

Truth be told, there's not that much they offer that can't be had at the same or similar prices via other means. And many seniors object when they find that AARP's lobbying includes support for causes they themselves don't agree with.
 
I'm in it for the discounts. 🤷‍♂️ The mailings go straight to recycling (they have a magazine and a newsletter now). I don't care for their lobbying either, but my own personal lobbying to keep dollars in my pocket appeals to me more. (The first year I had it, we travelled to Maine and it saved us the cost of the subscription four times over with one of our hotel reservations. It saved a lot of money on my prescription glasses also, again probably four or five times over subscription cost.) What's really dubious is that some of their discounted services, like auto insurance, are way more expensive than what I can get on my own and their roadside assistance, administered by Allstate, has complaints.

Maybe we need a separate "Get Off Our Lawn!" thread. 😁
 
I saw that the DVD is now officially on Amazon, with plenty in stock. Price is under $20. (I think it was $17-ish when I saw it earlier today.)
 
Manufacturer: Herb Alpert Mod

Which stands for Made On Demand, so...DVD-R.
 
HERB ALPERT IS... THE DVD

Right after the documentary "aired" on YouTube, I spotted a DVD listed on eBay. Taking a chance, I placed the order. A couple days later, I got a note from the seller that it was not available, and my money was refunded. A bit bummed, I did a few more searches and found something on Amazon that was a third-party seller but looked legit, placed another order, and it arrived this afternoon.

I'll probably look for a Blu-ray too, once they start surfacing, but this will do in the meantime.

A few notes: The DVD is actually a DVD-R. It's made on demand. I knew that going in, so it didn't matter to me. I don't know if "pressed" media will ever surface. These days that's getting tougher to come buy as program suppliers, be it video or music, would rather stream their product or sell files. But being the luddite I am, I'm still a fan of physical media.

The DVD just starts - there's no menu structure. You put it in the player and up comes the ABRAMORAMA logo and on goes the movie. This fact doesn't give you any choices for "setup", but there are only two choices for audio. The disc defaults to Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. If you use your remote's audio button, you can switch to audio track #2 which is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. I think the surround sounds best on my main system even though it's only coming out as 3.0.

So, for those that missed the stereo with the YouTube stream, it's here on the DVD - and probably the Blu-ray too when that surfaces. For now, the DVD looks and sounds really good. It's better than the YouTube stream which was choppy and occasionally stuttered.

Hi Harry~ Proper Blu Ray's will be coming but I am not sure exactly when they will be released. I decided to release DVD's on demand after I saw that there were a lot of people on social media that wanted videos so about a month ago we looked into getting DVD-R's made. I really liked the quality of these DVD-R's so before we did a proper Blu Ray, I felt we were good to release these DVD's. Be safe and Be Well!
 
Thanks Randy, for the confirmation. It really is a stellar DVD. Looks and sounds great. I'm sure the Blu-ray will be even better.
 
I kind of doubt Herb would cheap it out and go with DVD-R for a release, and a third party offering it before Amazon and others officially offer it seems fishy. They went to a lot of expense with the CD and LP box sets--a DVD-R for the documentary just doesn't sound right to me.

But, there's always the chance that DVD and BluRay sales have pretty much evaporated thanks to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and others who stream directly to the home, and this might only be an on-demand title on DVD-R or BD-R. If it's some third party pirating a stream (which is possible) and burning their own DVD-Rs, they'll be in a lot of hot water over this.

Maybe @badazz can shed some light on it.

I'm still waiting for a source where I can download it and keep it on my server. Anything I've seen so far ties a "purchase" to an app, like Amazon. About I can probably hope for is an official BluRay and rip it myself, and stick yet another video product into storage that I'll never look at again.

Hi Rudy~ I make it a point NOT to release ANYTHING cheap or of substandard quality. We were not planning to release a DVD or Blu Ray at this time as we were really pressed up against the wall getting vinyl pressed and the CD & vinyl books created and manufactured. The virus situation has decimated everything. CD & vinyl manufacturing, printing and binding services are way, way behind in production due to sick employees, unsafe working conditions and lack of high quality paper, inks and other materials. So I pushed back the Blu Ray until I knew that we could make a top quality product. In the mean time I found a great DVD-R manufacturer and ran through 8 tests with them and really loved the on-demand product that they were able to make. And just so you know,,, The DVD-R video that we are making is quite a bit more expensive then if we manufactured them ourselves. I saw on social media that people wanted DVD's so I decided to move forward with the DVD-R's being that the quality was great and knowing that people wanted them now. Be well & Be safe!
 
I saw on social media that people wanted DVD's so I decided to move forward with the DVD-R's being that the quality was great and knowing that people wanted them now.
That's a good move--striking while the iron is hot. 👍👍 I'm glad to hear the DVD-Rs are the real deal--when I heard that a third party Amazon seller had it before Amazon, that threw up a red flag, as I've seen other items sold that way which turned out to be pirated. I'll look forward to the BluRay version when it's ready. Stay safe!
 
For you guys that have a copy of the DVD--I know it's over an hour--but how many total minutes for the entire documentary?
 
Well there are definitely 3 sales for the BluRay already..... me, Harry and Neil! :D

I never had a problem with MOD products - there have been a few old favorite movies that I've ordered that way because it was the only option, but never a problem with any of them. The only "complaint" I ever had was, they usually had pretty minimalist packaging, but I attributed that to the relative obscurity of the product making it not worth spending a lot on developing a fancy package, or maybe a lack of availability of the original graphics and such.
 
It's 1:53:05, according to my player.
Thanks for the info Harry. Due to its long duration--that would make for a very in-depth documentary--longer than many on PBS. As the saying goes, you would get your money's worth.
 
Well there are definitely 3 sales for the BluRay already..... me, Harry and Neil! :D

I never had a problem with MOD products - there have been a few old favorite movies that I've ordered that way because it was the only option, but never a problem with any of them. The only "complaint" I ever had was, they usually had pretty minimalist packaging, but I attributed that to the relative obscurity of the product making it not worth spending a lot on developing a fancy package, or maybe a lack of availability of the original graphics and such.

That's been my experience as well. I read a lot of whining about DVD-R's being somehow inferior, but I've had some for a number of years without any issues.
 
Some recordable discs do have issues being played in some of the older DVD players out there. Just like older CD players would have a problem reading the occasional CD-R. Most recent players shouldn't have a problem though.

I don't even have disc players in my systems anymore, so I don't have to worry about it. 😉 That's why I'm hoping this is eventually a 1080p or 4K download somewhere in the future--saves me a step, and one less thing to put into storage. If not, it's not a huge deal.
 
That's been my experience as well. I read a lot of whining about DVD-R's being somehow inferior, but I've had some for a number of years without any issues.
From the perspective of archival longevity, DVD-R's and CD-R's are generally inferior to pressed discs. Depending on the quality of the blank media used, the speed at which the disc is burned, and the conditions under which the purchased disc is stored, there is the possibility that the disc may become unplayable after a number of years, as the organic dye breaks down. Some of the first CD-R's that I burned 20 years ago still play fine, while others became unreadable after only a few years, especially ones that I burned onto cheaper generic blanks.

That said, it doesn't prevent me from purchasing MOD discs, if that is the only way to get the content. I treat them the same way that I do with purchased downloads - I always make a backup copy, just in case.
 
No CD-R that I've made has ever given me a problem, and I've been making them for 20 years.

I HAVE had regular, pressed DVDs and Blu-rays go bad. A favored M*A*S*H episode on DVD went south on us. I replaced it with a cheap, used set on eBay that works just fine.

Similarly, another favored episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION started acting goofy in all of my players, getting stuck at a certain point, where no actions could get it to proceed. Only a restart, and then a reverse into near the error area would allow us to continue, with about a four or five-minute loss. I fixed it the same way - went to eBay and bought a used Season 3 set and that disc is fine.

And then there was the strange case of THE LANGOLIERS, the Steven King TV miniseries movie. I went to play the pressed DVD one day - and nothing. It didn't read, it didn't start, it just flashed up "DISC NOT READABLE". That title was out of print at the time, so I was somewhat annoyed. Prices on eBay were through the roof. Shortly thereafter, though, CBS/Paramount re-issued the title with a subtle remaster, looking better than ever.
 
Some of the first CD-R's that I burned 20 years ago still play fine, while others became unreadable after only a few years, especially ones that I burned onto cheaper generic blanks.
I've had them go bad also. For one of the brands, the painted label side would start to peel up and make the disc unreadable. I didn't burn enough DVD-Rs to have much experience with them, but I remember having to use the correct recordable DVD type (there was both DVD-R and DVD+R, and then setting the booktype of the disc before burning. (Going from my defective/fuzzy memory, I believe we had to use DVD+R discs and set the booktype to DVD-ROM, so that standard DVD players could read them.)

That said, I've had a couple of regular CDs go bad, including one rare disc that cracked from the hub outward while it was sitting in the jewel case for years. (Luckily I ripped it to the server before the crack extended to the data area...it was dangerously close though.)

That is one comforting thing about having everything on a server--it's a backup for the physical copies. And a redundant, synced backup off-site prevents losing everything should a drive go bad. And the real bonus is that for video content, no more ads or menus--I want to play a movie, I select it from the list and get the movie. Menus on DVDs were perhaps the worst thing ever foisted on the video-buying public.
 
That is one comforting thing about having everything on a server--it's a backup for the physical copies. And a redundant, synced backup off-site prevents losing everything should a drive go bad. And the real bonus is that for video content, no more ads or menus--I want to play a movie, I select it from the list and get the movie. Menus on DVDs were perhaps the worst thing ever foisted on the video-buying public.
I agree and I'm thankful for my high capacity laptop which I ripped all my physical CDS And CDRs into as well as backup SD card for my tablet uninterrupted audio and video is a real blessing and that shuffle mode is wonderful because to me its like listening to my own custom radio station minus ads and banter ( unless I want to practice for my radio shows then I can do my own brief banter)
 
From November 13 thru December 13, AARP Members can view "HERB ALPERT Is"

Dang it! I let my AARP membership expire becauuse I'm getting younger, not older! OK, actually I wasn't really using any of the benefits. So now there's a benefit I can use but....

Oh well. Waiting for the Blu-Ray.
 
The Blu-ray is now available. I got mine from Amazon today. It's the same as the DVD except it's in high-definition.
 
I got my regular DVD copy quite awhile ago and on Christmas I got to share it with a couple real good friends who weren't as Familiar with Herb and now they understand more why I looked up to him most of my life. They really enjoyed the documentary
 
Just got the BluRay from Amazon, as well. Looking forward to digging into it this weekend! I'm slowly making the transition to BluRay and I'm enjoying what I'm seeing/hearing. They're amazing.
 
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