You are more optimistic than I am in saying next 10 to 20 years of BF. Unless something changes I'd be surprised if they were still a viable operation in 5 years other than being a distributor of existing stock. To be clear, I really, really hope I'm wrong about that.
Then again, BF has such an extensive back catalog, if they could manage to keep that available, it should keep many (or most) of us busy for another 10 to 20 years... That's not going to happen either, I'm afraid.
I'm like a shark that has to constantly eat. If I stop buying definitive box sets, I'm not sure what will happen to me.
I recently got a used copy of the "Classic Everly Brothers" set, after years of wanting it. Great stuff! I'm always worried when I buy Bear Family stuff after the issues I had with the Carter Family box. I was listening to it tonight and there's some digital noise going on on some tracks. I'm still super disappointed and wishing I didn't spend all that money on screwed up discs. But the sets I've bought since then (one was new--Jimmie Driftwood, and the other two were used) have been just fine, though.
I know exactly what you mean. It's like a roll of the dice, you never know what's going to happen. The very first BF box I bought, years ago, had one track at the end of a disc that wouldn't play. That was the first of too many problems. I still don't understand what the problem is and why it's not fixed. The recent Roy Acuff box dvd is the latest example. I've never had a problem with other releases from any other companies. I still want BF releases but this is a constant pain.
Sometimes it is the CD player laser itself. If you are lucky enough to have multiple players or CD drives, try them all. The disc may still have defects or degradation, but some players might still read them.
I was thinking the same thing. I had the same problem occasionally (never with a BF release), but very few actually defective CDs. Usually, they would play fine in another player.
I'm able to try them on 3 other players and so far it hasn't made a difference with any of the discs. Has anyone heard back from BF about the Acuff DVD? I never heard back from them so I may contact again. Still not been able to listen to all the CDs yet so I hope they are ok. Haven't heard about any problems. Got another BF box coming next week. Such great collections with great sound. Pity about playing problems.
What was the problem with the DVD? Mine cuts off during Acuff's Wabash Cannonball performance at the 40:02 mark. However the song performances are all found in the Songs menu at the main menu. Edit: Looks like the full movie is supposed to be 1 hr and 7 min (and Bear Family states that "A bonus DVD includes the complete Grand Ole Opry movie from 1940")
Same problem with mine. I used software to analyze the DVD. The video data for the last half of the film is not on the disc. It is not a playback problem, it is a manufacturing error that apparently the new managers of Bear Family are not correcting
Finished reading through this entire thread over the last week or so. I appreciate all the good information here. Has anyone seen a digital text list of all Bear Family CD releases? I started putting one together for my own purposes a few months ago, but I've stalled out on it. I pulled all the information from discogs and then used some Excel tricks to figure out which releases are missing. I was manually going through all the missing releases adding information obtained from the visual catalog, but that's a time consuming process to say the least.
It's beyond disappointing that such an obvious error hasn't been addressed with replacement discs, especially when it comes to a high-end, expensive box set like this one. Many other companies manage to do so for errors on DVD sets that cost a lot less than BF's products.
I very much doubt an 'official' version exists. I worked with BF on several projects about 10 years ago, and at that point they were still sticking exclusively to their printed catalogs. They said the majority of their customers prefered printed lists, and that a significant number of their clients would not even own a computer.
Mychael posted a link that showed all vinyl and CD releases from Bear Family. Not sure if it was in this thread or one of the other BF threads. If I find it I'll repost it. May take awhile because my time is tied up today but I'll try. If anyone else remembers this and wants to repost, feel free. Hope this helps.
Do you recall if it was a text list or the graphical catalog? I looked pretty hard for a text list when reading the thread and the only discography links I saw were a link to Discogs (which is mostly complete, and what I'm sourcing my list from) and the graphical catalog.
It's rare for any record label to acknowledge their back catalog, so it's pretty remarkable that Bear Family keeps any available record of it. You certainly won't find a list of OoP Rhino Records titles on Rhino's website. To filter out irrelevant search results when Googling items from the digital catalog, I suggest looking up its full catalog ID in quotations, e.g. "BCD 12345". What information are you documenting?
I downloaded those 4 pdfs from Mychael (Bear Family - the catalog - 1975-2015_1, Bear Family - the catalog - 1975-2015_2, Bear Family - the catalog - 1975-2015_3, Bear Family - the catalog - 1975-2015_4)
