By Jason Apuzzo. There is some great news today, which is that Turner Classic Movies will be showing the newly restored, ‘complete’ version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis on the evening of Sunday, November 7th – along with a documentary associated with the restoration process. Make sure to catch this important piece of cinematic history – I assure you, you won’t regret it. To read more about this special screening, visit the TCM website.
Incidentally, you can read LFM Contributor Jennifer Baldwin’s review of the newly restored, ‘complete’ Metropolis here, and you can also read my long-ago review of the ‘original’ cut of Metropolis here.
Posted on October 20th, 2010 at 5:05pm.
One of my faves! I’m also looking forward to the “Moguls and Movie Stars” documentary series they’ll be putting out, soon.
The only problem I have with TCM is that, recently, stuff I’ve DVR’d I can’t put on DVD’s It’s copy protected. Has anyone else run across that? I don’t have an issue with it, per se. There’re probably vid-pirates out there who would make copies and try to make $$, but I’m just a film fan who’s trying to collect stuff that’ll probably never show up on video. (& I don’t want other stations to follow suit.) Thanks for your responses.
Get yourself a DVD recorder, CR. Something that records to DVD-R or DVD+R. There are fewer of them left on the market, but you can always find one at Best Buy or Fry’s.
Sorry for any mis-communication. I’ve been using a DVD recorder (a Panasonic DMR-EZ47V & a JVCDR-MV80) for a couple years and had no problem recording stuff off of TCM from my Comcast DVR, until recently (last 2 months, or so). And, there’s no problem with recording stuff from other stations from my DVR.
LIBERTAS TECH SUPPORT LINE: This may mean they’re putting some funky encrypting into the video feed, sort of like what used to happen years ago when the studios put anti-piracy encoding onto VHS cassettes. My suggestion? Forget the DVR and record on the DVD recorder directly.
Thanks, I’ll try this and keep you guys posted. There’s also the complication that we have 2 TCM’s: a regular and an HD one. And we have 2 TV’s with 2 different inputs: one directly from the cable with a digital antenna converter box and the other hooked up with a digital DVR/HD box (the one I’ve been having problems with TCM on.).
LIBERTAS TECH SUPPORT LINE: Wow, I didn’t even know TCM was available in HD! I’ll check with my provider about that. Here’s the thing: if you’re going to record TCM directly into the DVD recorder, you’re probably going to have to do that off the regular (NTSC) signal. The DVD recorder won’t know what to do with an HD signal.
And keep coming back to Libertas with all your tech support questions ..
C/D — I was having this problem myself a few months back. I investigated and it turned out that TCM wasn’t sending the blocking signal, it was my cable provider. I thought my days of recording to DVD were over, but then a few weeks later, things went back to normal and I could record to disk. I can only assume that other people complained to the cable provider, or the provider realized they were sending a blocking signal out for TCM when they shouldn’t have.
If I were in your place, I would maybe make a call to your cable/dish company and see what’s up. Maybe they’re sending out the signal in error and don’t realize it, or maybe you can raise a stink and they’ll unblock TCM. As far as I know, TCM itself does not block DVD recorders from recording.
11/3/10–Update: TCM-HD is no longer blocked @ my house. (Yay!) I just successfully recorded part one of the excellent “Moguls & Movie Stars” documentary. Peace (thru Strength) …Curtin/Dobbs
Great news!!! If you don’t mind my asking, how did you record it? I’d love to know the details …