Criterion and UHD

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bluesforyou
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#276 Post by bluesforyou » Thu Apr 23, 2020 10:33 pm

I wasn't talking about the format war but more about people actually buying Blu-ray players and BDs. PS3 put a BD player in many households that otherwise wouldn't have bought a standalone player.

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MichaelB
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Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#277 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 24, 2020 2:52 am

Yaanu wrote:All the headlines back then told me it was the porn companies that did in HD-DVD.
Can you cite an actual example of one of those headlines? Because the impression I’m under is that porn took a very long time to migrate to Blu-ray, and that Sony’s initial licensing requirements for the format posed a significant obstacle.

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domino harvey
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#278 Post by domino harvey » Fri Apr 24, 2020 3:11 am

Porn has long wielded power in home media. The adult industry is responsible for the (mostly) successful adherence of manufacturers/studios to plastic disc holders versus slots or sleeves on DVDs/Blu-rays. In fact, one of the most popular sites on the internet is devoted to celebrating this packaging contribution

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MichaelB
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#279 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 24, 2020 3:22 am

I don’t disagree with that in the abstract, but this is honestly the first time I’ve heard porn cited as a primary reason for Blu-ray winning the format war, which didn’t chime with my impression that Sony’s licensing actually made it quite hard for porn distributors to take advantage.

I could be completely wrong about this (and obviously the licensing situation has changed, otherwise Vinegar Syndrome’s catalogue would look somewhat different), but I’d like to see some contemporary evidence.

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dwk
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#280 Post by dwk » Fri Apr 24, 2020 3:27 am

I'm obviously misremembering, but I could've sworn that one of the reasons that some people were saying that HD-DVD had a leg up on Blu-ray was because it was friendlier to porn than Blu-ray.

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MichaelB
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#281 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 24, 2020 4:49 am

Now that rings a much louder bell!

Not least because it matches my own memory of events - which is that Blu-ray won the format war despite, not because of, the attitude of porn distributors. The tougher (and more expensive) licensing regime for Blu-ray was very attractive to major studio rightsholders, but distinctly less so to independents, many of whom didn't adopt the format for many, many years. (Second Run being a case in point: it was just too expensive for a label that relied on people's willingness to blind-buy and who therefore had to keep prices low.)

In other words, it's a wholly atypical situation from the norm. So much so that this may be why people are now under the impression that it was the other way round.

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tenia
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#282 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 24, 2020 5:11 am

bluesforyou wrote:I wasn't talking about the format war but more about people actually buying Blu-ray players and BDs. PS3 put a BD player in many households that otherwise wouldn't have bought a standalone player.
I'm quite sure most of these PS3 owners never used its BD player ability.

In France, about 20% of the households have dedicated BD-players. There also was in 2013 about 4.5m PS3 sold, which accounts for about 18% of the households. On top of that, one of our major internet supplier has a quite standard box equipped with a BD-player.
If you tally all these, France probably has at least a 40% equipment rate.
Yet, BD discs sales have pretty much always been around a 15-20% MS vs DVD.

This means all these households would have never bought a stand-alone player... but PS3 never acted as a player anyway. Because, well, the issue isn't owning a BD player but caring about movies on BD.

The same calculation can probably be done with X Box One S & X.

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Ribs
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#283 Post by Ribs » Fri Apr 24, 2020 9:13 am

I’m sorry, the idea that the inclusion with the PS3 wasn’t crucial to adoption seems completely unreasonable to me. The point isn’t that everyone who used one was aware or used it as a player, but if even 5% of those people did that means a gigantic shift in the install base. I work in the film industry and people I know and work with who are big home video enthusiasts have been waiting to buy an Xbox or Playstation at the end of the year to get a UHD player because they can’t justify spending $100+ on something a console they’ll get will do anyway. I consider myself an enthusiast and used consoles as players for several years out of an interest in streamlining the amount of inputs I had; the PS3 and PS4 are likely the single most popular Blu-ray players in the world, as the PS5 will be for UHD. It doesn’t mean it’ll fix the apparent problems the format has in being adopted but it definitely seems likely there will be at least a little increase in overall sales with the vast increase in UHD capability in homes.

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tenia
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#284 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:55 am

I'm not saying it didn't have an impact at all or trying to build some kind of ad nauseam argument ("not EVERY PS3 buyer used it as a BD player so you're wrong"), but that looking at the figures, the impact looks marginal at best considering how many PS3 were sold and yet how comparatively few BDs were.
As you wrote, PS3 and PS4 are extremely popular consoles that allowed dozens of millions of households to get equipped and yet, BD sales were what they were. I'm certain it helped, that's mathematically a certainty, but there's a difference between helping and speaking of an "adoption" pushed by PS3.

It just seemed to me that this argument keeps popping in mirror of what happened with PS2 and DVD. But PS3 and BDs clearly have been in a different situation, and we're now decades later in a market which has considerably shrunk.

We'll also see what happens with PS5 and UHDs but I doubt the format will suddenly soar as if it was all it was waiting for.
Last edited by tenia on Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Forthcoming: Parasite & Memories of Murder

#285 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Apr 24, 2020 11:02 am

Let me add that my first BD player (and still to date the only BD player many people I know ever purchased) was a PS3. And economically it made sense - I never played a game on it, but there were so many features that it was essentially a souped up BD player at a bargain price given how much regular BD players were going for.

But besides the lack of a region-free hack (at the time, maybe things have changed) there was one big catch - a manufacturing flaw that resulted in the dreaded "flashing red light" error. Some got these earlier than others, but after two years of regular usage, my player would only beep and blink red instead of turning on. Apparently the paste in the heat sink eventually dries up and shrinks away, allowing your unit to slowly overheat, and none of the ridiculous fixes posted online were guaranteed to work for very long. That's when I got an Oppo, which cost twice as much but has lasted far longer.

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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#286 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 24, 2020 11:55 am

My first and still currently main BD player is a PS3.

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PfR73
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#287 Post by PfR73 » Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:39 pm

Same here. And since buying a PS3 in 2008, the only game I've bought & played is Red Dead Redemption.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#288 Post by cdnchris » Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:54 pm

My PS3 drive died. I plan on replacing the drive but it ended up pushing me to buy a UHD player before I ended up getting the 4K TV (which I got last summer). Still the best player I had.

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Ribs
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#289 Post by Ribs » Fri May 29, 2020 10:35 am

So, being there are now 4K releases from Blue Underground, Kino, Shout, and Arrow all coming... is it still not cost effective?

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Cash Flagg
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#290 Post by Cash Flagg » Fri May 29, 2020 10:57 am

..Not to mention releases from Synapse and Vinegar Syndrome. Which leaves Criterion as, unless I’m mistaken, the only major US boutique label left who hasn’t entered the UHD market, other than Severin. (Have there been any rumors/hints coming from MoC?)

Although as far as hoping for a label to upgrade their format goes, I’d much rather Edition Filmmuseum went BD than Criterion go UHD!

bluesforyou
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#291 Post by bluesforyou » Fri May 29, 2020 11:04 am

Criterion is the also the most prestigious and well known boutique label, probably has better marketing and promotional resources than any label, and sitting on a title like The Irishman.

I wonder if they will still tell us to listen to that non-answer from that interview given by Kline a long time ago (relatively, considering all that has happened since).

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Ribs
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#292 Post by Ribs » Fri May 29, 2020 11:15 am

I don’t feel like Eureka are particularly the sort of label I expect to go UHD anytime soon - don’t really know why I get that feeling. Would be good if they did obviously but I feel like the vast preponderence of their output is not the sort that I think would cross over well sales-wise. (I guess what they’ve released as LEs over the past year - African Queen, Once Upon a Time... The Revolution, High Noon - but those seem like exceptions). It will be interesting to see if Arrow does any upgrades of recently released titles like Robocop or Oldboy - surely the releases of Inglorious Basterds and Wolf of Wall Street will be UHD now we know they are able to (I would be intrigued if Mohicans or Ace Ventura will be also...)

But, yes, if Criterion can’t make the math work for Parasite or the Irishman something seems off.

bluesforyou
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#293 Post by bluesforyou » Fri May 29, 2020 11:38 am

Hadn't considered the possibility of The Wolf of Wall Street coming on UHD from Arrow. It would also explain why Paramount hasn't cashed in on a recent hugely popular film like Wolf (while releasing Shutter Island from the same director/actor combo). Very exciting.

The other three would also be instant buys from me and many others (although Robocop and Oldboy will draw some ire having being released so recently).

I might get one of the Arrow 4K releases just as a vote for the format.

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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#294 Post by tenia » Fri May 29, 2020 12:01 pm

I'm wondering if the issue isn't coming from Criterion somehow wanting to do like they did with BD, ie switching only when they'll quickly be able to release everything on UHD. Which then becomes not only a financial issue (UHDs remain 3-4 times more expensive than BDs to produce, and that obviously won't be recouped through the amount of sales), but also a technical one, as I doubt all the 4K restorations they have been using were HDR.
It seems like a silly thought (you'd expect Criterion to realise they won't ever be able to output everything on UHD, so why blocking on such a point ?), but who knows ?

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dwk
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#295 Post by dwk » Fri May 29, 2020 12:03 pm

Ribs wrote:
Fri May 29, 2020 11:15 am
...
But, yes, if Criterion can’t make the math work for Parasite or the Irishman something seems off.
I think the question with a title like Parasite is that there already is a UHD in the US that is available for at least half what Criterion's MSRP would be, and likely will drop even more in price. So is the UHD market in the US big enough for Criterion to bother with releasing it on UHD? They'd be better off doing Memories of Murder on UHD.

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RSTooley
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#296 Post by RSTooley » Fri May 29, 2020 12:26 pm

To be fair, haven't most boutique Blu-ray companies only dipped their toe into the 4k UHD market? Kino has Hannibal, Shout has The Deer Hunter, Synapse has Suspiria, Arrow has Pitch Black, Blue Underground has Maniac and Zombie; and Vinegar Syndrome has Tammy and the T-Rex and Rad.

I'm sure they are planning a one-off 4k UHD release in the near future, but I wouldn't expect Criterion to release 4k UHD titles on the regular for another year or so. It will be interesting to see what they plan to release first. Otherwise, I'm okay with the fact they haven't released one yet. They probably just want to make sure they do it right.

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kcota17
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#297 Post by kcota17 » Fri May 29, 2020 12:34 pm

Well it would’ve been ideal for Criterion to at least dip their toes in for a title like Roma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Grand Budapest Hotel or Parasite but hopefully they finally do with The Irishman eventually

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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#298 Post by tenia » Fri May 29, 2020 12:37 pm

If you put all US indie UHDs together, it indeed probably just amount to 2-3 months of Criterion releases. I don't think a single indie label has released more than 5 UHDs, let alone 10 (except Shout with those IMAX docs). Le chat qui fume in France will have released 4 by July, but their first was SDR only and I believe the next 3 will be too.

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domino harvey
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#299 Post by domino harvey » Fri May 29, 2020 12:38 pm

I think Criterion knows the moment they announce a single UHD title, a large contingent of their customers will sit out every subsequent Blu-Ray release waiting for a UHD that’s never coming. I just don’t seem them doing it unless the numbers justify it being policy for all their releases, which I def don’t see happening. But who knows

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dwk
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#300 Post by dwk » Fri May 29, 2020 12:40 pm

RSTooley wrote:
Fri May 29, 2020 12:26 pm
To be fair, haven't most boutique Blu-ray companies only dipped their toe into the 4k UHD market? Kino has Hannibal, Shout has The Deer Hunter, Synapse has Suspiria, Arrow has Pitch Black, Blue Underground has Maniac and Zombie; and Vinegar Syndrome has Tammy and the T-Rex and Rad.

I'm sure they are planning a one-off 4k UHD release in the near future, but I wouldn't expect Criterion to release 4k UHD titles on the regular for another year or so. It will be interesting to see what they plan to release first. Otherwise, I'm okay with the fact they haven't released one yet. They probably just want to make sure they do it right.
I think Blue Underground are pretty committed to UHD, they announced that they are doing either six UHDs over the next eight months or eight UHDs over the next six months.

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