Criterion Blu-ray

[Awesome Welles]

Hopefully they'll get the rights to all (or most) of Wong Kar-Wai's films for Blu-Ray (and this may be the way Criterion gets around Kino... maybe they'll release Blu Tarkovsky!)

That is a good point to bring up regarding a possible loophole of releasing films of existing standard DVDs from other companies to releasing Blu-Ray DVDs by Criterion. Any experts out there can comment if such a loophole legally exists?

Great, great news! I will have to spring for a Blu soon. What is the deal with region encoding do old rules apply? I haven't looked into this so am not sure whether there are multi region blus out there. With regards to the legal loop hole that can't be right can it? Isn't that too good to be true?

[Rupert Pupkin]

I'm sure they've tested all these films already, and they must look pretty damn good. I'm unbelievably excited for The 400 Blows in 1080p, but a little surprised no Kurosawa, Bergman, or Fellini made it. A little less of their basic stock films and more of the cult appeal titles seems to be their tactic.

I have the HD transfer by MK2 of Les 400 Coups : it's disappointing. I really hope that Criterion will do better (and they can).
But I'd be more happy to see Domicile Conjugal (which is my fav movie by Truffaut with La Sirene Du Mississippi (Mermaid....) and Stolen Kisses (I'm in love since years of Claude Jade )

I own about 70 % of all Criterion releases. That's a lot of titles. Most of them were really interesting for me, but I won't buy everything on HD. And not each film that I've loved.
For instance Clean Shaven is a film that I loved and watched something like 10 times. Since the transfer is excellent (like 99% of Criterion releases) and bonus are great, I'd feel no need to buy a Blue-Ray version.
I just bought the Varda box set, her movies are fantastic, the copy of Le Bonheur is fantastic
I think that it will be more for me a question of "love-matter/affair with a movie or an actress or the photography : I want to see Debbie Harry in high res in Videodrome.
I want to see the stunning photography of Walkabout. (without mentionning the Mrs. in this movie oops: )
I want to see in high-def Veronika Lake...
etc...etc...
Brazil or Playtime (with all those details...), Tarkovski's movies, Fassbinder BRD, I can't wait to see these in high-def...

Regarding the number of discs, if this was a 2 DVD set (like most of big-single-title) I think that regarding the capacity of a single Blue-Ray, they will fit all the bonus on a single Blue-Ray disc (if the original title was a 2 DVD set).
If they say : for the need of the movie we had to full a full Blue-Ray disc, I don't think this will be a technical necessity, rather than a publicity matter, because a 1h45 movies doesn't need a whole single Blue-Ray disc for itself.

Thus I won't buy every title that I own already on DVD SD since Criterion did some incredible good jobs, most of the times.
Films in cinemascope ratio such as Short Cuts will get a significantly improvement in terms of resolution (it's not enough detailed for me on a DVD SD) not mentionning Julianne Moore naked apparition hum

but another problem arrived for European customers (and I think that we are a lot of non US/Canadian Criterion fans here) : the zone problem.
I know that PAL is a problem for US TV, and was not a problem at all for Europe with a stand-alone DVD we can read both NTSC/PAL and z1 and zone all.
Sometimes for a Criterion release the (c) makes that the film was zone all and the bonus DVD was zone 1 (because they were exclusively licensed) sometimes that was the contrary.
But with Blue Ray, if they put the bonus on the same disc than the movie and if they don't change their policy regarding the zone, we have really to hope then that in a next so distant future it becomes easy to dezone a stand-alone Blue Ray player or we will cry....

Perhaps if we are a lot to ask Criterion to not zone their Blue Ray it could be great. Some company took the choice to not zone their titles.

[Tomas]

It good news, but I'll wait until a good region free blue-ray player is available for purchase. Today I don't see any on the market.
I'm hopping that Criterion will release their blue-ray discs without regional coding.

[Richard]

It good news, but I'll wait until a good region free blue-ray player is available for purchase. Today I don't see any on the market.
I'm hopping that Criterion will release their blue-ray discs without regional coding.

I am hoping the same thing, but I doubt it is going to happen. Most of Criterion's releases of Kurosawa's films where region coded because of legal restrictions imposed by Toho. I would say that this kind of practice is probably going to continue with Blu-ray which would be bad news for us Europeans.

[Feast on me]

Unfortunately I would think that Criterion would be mandated to have region coding on their BD because of rights issues between different Countries /Continents since some pictures have different rights holders in different regions. Having Criterion's region free could hurt future sales for companies in other countries and Criterion could face some legal problems.

[Narshty]

I'm amused at the perversity of picking three 16mm documentaries (two of which feature almost exclusively grainy/low-light photography) to premiere the glories of high definition.

Other than that, exciting news. I'm particularly intrigued by the news of Chungking Express - that's still in print from Disney/Miramax.

[CSM126]

Of course this is excellent news, but... Gimme Shelter? A run-and-gun doc shot on 16mm? Why that one for the inaugural batch?

The sounds of the Stones in Hi-def audio.

[Darth Lavender]

Best news of all (might have been mentioned earlier)

"and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions," Criterion said.

Personally, my biggest concern with Criterion HiDef was that they'd do a "Bandai Visual" with the pricing.

As it is, I am now pretty darn enthusiastic about this...
(Been meaning to get a combo drive, in case anything happens to my HDDVD player, anyway)

Man Who Fell To Earth is one that I'd been considering upgrading to the Criterion for a while, but always held off on the chance someone would release a Blu-Ray...
Chungking Express, I still haven't seen (but heard remarkable things about a new R3 DVD, taken from a restored High Def master)
Walkabout, I still don't own, so that's a pretty likely buy.
The Third Man, I'll have to wait on the reviews (my Studio Canal DVD looks pretty darn spectacular, upscaled, already)
The others there, I, embarassingly, haven't watched (400 Blows, Contempt (DVD on my shelf,) Gimme Shelter...) or haven't even heard of (The Wages of Fear, For All Mankind, El Norte....)

But, once again, I'm really relieved about the prices, here : =D>

[Phillip Reeves]

For the Europeans amongst us worried about region coding, why not do what I've been doing for years with DVD, and simply buy an American region A player? Yes, that limits some purchases, but I generally find that I'd rather guarantee Criterions will work that occasional UK/French releases.

Bear in mind that many of the European Blu-ray art-house titles are region free anyway (Tartan, Studio Canal, etc.)

I've played UK editions of Seventh Seal/Oldboy/Kubricks on my US Blu-ray player with no difficulties.

I still suspect that some Criterions will be region free, on a title-by-title basis, much as they are for DVD. But generally I'm finding thus far on Blu-ray that a greater proportion of titles are region free when compared with their DVD counterparts.

[EDIT] Oh, and I completely forgot - THANK YOU CRITERION for releasing on Blu-ray! I've been holding off on your releases for the last year in anticipation of this (which has been VERY hard!) - and in one case this has already paid off (The Last Emperor). Brilliant news. But you will have to be clear to people which titles will get the HD treatment if you're to avoid consumer confusion/annoyance. If all new DVD releases had an accompanying Blu-ray that'd be great, but you'd still have to indicate which of your catalogue are on the way, even many months in advance. I, for one, will be purchasing 5 of that initial list without thought, and possibly 4 more... not a bad start!

[fdm]

Head's up. BR players are expensive-ish. Before jumping in you should wait for the profile 2.0 players to arrive. (PS3's are already there, most others aren't (Panasonic and Sony are coming out with profile 2.0 players soon, probably others too), and even some of the brand new not even out yet ones won't be.)

(And yeah, you may not need/want extra memory or an ethernet connection for your BR player now, but who knows, maybe they will somehow manage to come out with content that you wish you could get to...)

Or at least don't settle for a profile 1.0 player at this point (unless you get it really really cheap). Minimally profile 1.1 would be my recommendation. (And then there's all that internal decoding of the hi-def codecs to consider...)

[And I know just about everyone who responds to this post will be saying to just get a ps3... but in case you want to look at other options, be careful out there.]

[Bryant Frazer]

I understand that there will always be the next latest, greatest video format, but gosh, I'd like to think that 1080p Blu-ray hits a sweet spot for home viewing for the forseeable future. I have a 47-inch screen that I sit pretty close to (small living room), and while I can clearly see the improvement when I'm watching 1080i/p material, 720p is by no means a dealbreaker, especially for noncritical viewing.

I suppose that people with very large screens and projection set-ups will notice the difference between 1080p and 2K, and maybe even 4K (although there's a significant contingent inside the industry that believes 4K is a waste of pixels even on standard-sized movie-theater screens!), but for the vast majority of home viewing 1080p is really the stuff. My list of wished-for home video improvements would include a lot of fixes to current display technology, especially LCD shadow detail and refresh rates, before I'd start asking for 2K or 4K source material.

And, yes, I know the guys at Red say they're going to be able to make a $1,000 device that can play back a movie at 4K resolution from a standard dual-layer DVD. I say: awesome. (But also I say: I'll believe it when I see it.)

[Darth Lavender]

I understand that there will always be the next latest, greatest video format, but gosh, I'd like to think that 1080p Blu-ray hits a sweet spot for home viewing for the forseeable future. I have a 47-inch screen that I sit pretty close to (small living room), and while I can clearly see the improvement when I'm watching 1080i/p material, 720p is by no means a dealbreaker, especially for noncritical viewing.

I suppose that people with very large screens and projection set-ups will notice the difference between 1080p and 2K

This is getting a little off topic, but just to clarify, as I understand it "2k" refers to the pixel width (not the height) and as such is practically identical to 1080p (1080p has a width of 1920 pixels, 2k has a width of 2000)

As for seeing the difference, I think the bigger issue becomes "how close is too close"?
I think the art of cinema relies, in part, on a 'framed' image that we observe from an adequate distance.
Once one gets into the 'IMAX' type scenario of being so close one can't see the edge of the screen, then that's a slightly different artform. And, while it works magnificiently for something like "Chronos," I think it's a basically inferior way to view something like "Seven Samurai" which was obviously framed to have the whole image seen as a 'picture'
And, it's on that "how close is too close" question, that I think division really exists on the question of resolution... Most people will probably agree that, say, from an adequate distance, 2k and 4k is identical. The point of 4k would really be to shorten that distance (raising the question, again, of how close is too close)

[PillowRock]

When the theatrical screenings totally dry up - which they will outside perhaps half a dozen cities in the next ten years

I don't see that happening. Purely from the social aspect of people wanting to go out (somewhere ..... anywhere) together, I think that movie theaters will stay in business for a very long time yet.

On the subject of spine numbers of BD vs. SD:
Purely a guess on my part, but ......
I would expect something along the lines of:
Same spine number, but with a "-b" appended so that they have unique product ID's.

[Bryant Frazer]

This is getting a little off topic, but just to clarify, as I understand it "2k" refers to the pixel width (not the height) and as such is practically identical to 1080p (1080p has a width of 1920 pixels, 2k has a width of 2000)

Yes, that's correct. In this realm, "1K" is 1024, so 2K would be 2048. And 4K is 4096x2160. You're not talking about a big difference in number of pixels between HD and 2K, but there's a big jump to 4K.

And, it's on that "how close is too close" question, that I think division really exists on the question of resolution... Most people will probably agree that, say, from an adequate distance, 2k and 4k is identical. The point of 4k would really be to shorten that distance (raising the question, again, of how close is too close)

Well, the comeback to the argument made about 4K being a waste of pixels in movie theaters is that, with the recent ascendancy of stadium seating, more people are sitting closer to more movie screens than ever before — specifically, at distances where the human eye can make out the extra resolution.

So if you sit close enough or have a big enough screen at home that it pretty much fills your entire field of vision, you would be likely to notice any bump in picture resolution from HD/2K to 4K. For everyone else, probably not so much.

[Ted Todorov]

This is fantastic news, of course -- but:

Criterion really needs to let us know about their BD plans (or lack there of) for all upcoming releases. Otherwise you will end up with two problems:

People halting all Criterion purchases OR people buying DVDs and then being very upset when the BD is announced months later.

Maybe Criterion can give us three categories:

1) We don't hold the BD rights for this title.

2) Are planing a BD release in the next 12 to 24 months.

3) Have BD rights but no plans for BD release at this time -- meaning you would have to wait at least two years.

That would go a long way towards placating the customer base.

[Darth Lavender]

Well, the comeback to the argument made about 4K being a waste of pixels in movie theaters is that, with the recent ascendancy of stadium seating, more people are sitting closer to more movie screens than ever before — specifically, at distances where the human eye can make out the extra resolution.

So if you sit close enough or have a big enough screen at home that it pretty much fills your entire field of vision, you would be likely to notice any bump in picture resolution from HD/2K to 4K. For everyone else, probably not so much.

Good point about the stadium seating, and I suppose that does pretty much justify 4k in theatres (after all, moviegoers are not exactly known for their pursuit of "ideal" viewing conditions. Only bigger is better.)

For home theatres, though, I think it really does depend on the "if you sit close enough..." Home theater owners will put a lot more thought into the proper viewing distance, etc. and the usefulness of 4k really relies upon the viewer actually choosing to have a screen that fills the field of vision.
I'm certain there'll be a market for 4k, of course. Lots of people with far more money than sense will just say "bigger is better" and want a screen that fills the field of vision (were 4k or even 8k would offer a clear advantage)

But, for serious cinephiles, the importance of 4k is still preceded by a very important and very debatable question of how much field-of-vision should the screen fill? (And, that really is a debatable point. I lean towards the "far enough to be aware of the frame" idea, but one could certainly argue the other way, too.)

On a related note, I think that in the future, with the upcoming 'ultra HD' we'll see a development in cinema comparable to b&w vs color (or, at least, Academy Ratio vs Widescreen) with newer films eventually being composed for that sort of "IMAX" effect, were the goal is to completely fill viewers vision (so, there'll be whole different ideas of mis-en-scene and framing) while older films will remain 'properly' viewed on a smaller screen (just as, even now, there's problems with some studios cropping 1.37:1 films and tv shows, to fit the 'standard' 1.85:1)

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

You're aboslutely right, but it's the time frame that's difficult.

First - yes - Capitalism keeps recycling the same stuff. That has in fact been of huge benefit to us as cinephiles because, as I argued somewhere long ago, DVD was the best thing to happen to Film Culture in 50 years. And the internet.

Next the gradual incursion of higher end technology into "ordinary" people's homes is the key. At the moment BD is still a tricky medium because, simply it it's too expensive. The US is going into a huge recession, so folks aint gonna buy this shit.

Interesting points along with all the subsequent mentions of 2k and 4k coming soon. Personally my DVD budget has been scaled back to nil. In May I've budgeted for the two Godard's on Koch Lorber, the MST3K Movie, Fall of the Roman Empire, and I'll continue to get the MoC Mizoguchi sets as they become available and that's it. Food and fuel are so inflated that getting a 1080p device, a BluRay player is just way too much of an expense. The American economic system was run into the ground by bank controlled morons with short term thinking. Things are gonna get tighter before they start to loosen up. We must remember that Criterion has deep corporate pockets behind them so they afford this venture. But can the consumers afford to keep up with them? Not many would be my guess.

[Tommaso]

It good news, but I'll wait until a good region free blue-ray player is available for purchase. Today I don't see any on the market.

I would say that this kind of practice is probably going to continue with Blu-ray which would be bad news for us Europeans.

Don't worry folks; instead of buying an American Blu-Ray player (which would be difficult anyway unless you buy it directly in the States), try www.dvdplayer.de . They have at least three different regionfree Blu-Ray players for sale, and should be allowed to sell to anywhere in the EU, I think.

Bought my last normal codefree player from them, very quick and reliable service.

Anyway, as my TV set doesn't support the full Blu Ray resolution,I'm not in a hurry to get me such a machine. Though if CC managed to get out "Nostalghia" and the other Tarkovskys (which would mean no SD releases probably, for Kino has the rights for them), I might get weak... Might.

[tavernier]

Interesting points along with all the subsequent mentions of 2k and 4k coming soon. Personally my DVD budget has been scaled back to nil. In May I've budgeted for the two Godard's on Koch Lorber, the MST3K Movie, Fall of the Roman Empire, and I'll continue to get the MoC Mizoguchi sets as they become available and that's it. Food and fuel are so inflated that getting a 1080p device, a BluRay player is just way too much of an expense. The American economic system was run into the ground by bank controlled morons with short term thinking. Things are gonna get tighter before they start to loosen up. We must remember that Criterion has deep corporate pockets behind them so they afford this venture. But can the consumers afford to keep up with them? Not many would be my guess.

As our beloved president might say, you misunderestimate the continued stupidity of Americans - gas is nearly $4 a gallon, but all I see are SUVs and Hummers lined up at the pump; and walk into a Best Buy or Circuit City any weekend and see how many people are buying plasma TVs - all on nearly maxed-out credit cards, no doubt.

People will keep buying stuff--including BluRay discs--don't worry about that.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

(sigh) You're probably right. Imagine how much that flat screen LCD will cost these idiots after they pay it off via their mastercard years in the future. Compounding interest month after month at a whopping interest rate! They'll walk out of circuit city saying "Wow, only $1800 to join the HD revolution". But after years of carrying it on their card they'll pay 5k for that crap. Only pay with cash people!

[psufootball07]

Why are they not lowering prices of Standard and making people who would still buy in that format pay the same as the Blu-Ray purchasers? That is messed up.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Why are they not lowering prices of Standard and making people who would still buy in that format pay the same as the Blu-Ray purchasers? That is messed up.

Had not thought of that. Damn right! If SD is the inferior format then give us a discount. Their $39.95 retail price category should now drop to around $24.95 for SD because it's the "lesser" format right? Is anybody from Criterion reading this? Why should I pay the same price as the BluRay customer when I'm getting less pixels?

[Awesome Welles]

Hopefully as BR begins to take over the prices will drop. Hopefully. We still have to wait til October though...

[Jeff]

I'm amused at the perversity of picking three 16mm documentaries (two of which feature almost exclusively grainy/low-light photography) to premiere the glories of high definition.

For All Mankind is 35mm, isn't it? Either way, 16mm film is still a higher resolution medium than Blu-Ray can replicate, so all of those films should look closer to their source material than ever.

Audiophiles and space nerds are always among the earliest adopters of new technologies, so I'm not surprised that Criterion is starting with those titles.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Hopefully as BR begins to take over the prices will drop. Hopefully. We still have to wait til October though...

Actually, the more I think about this, the more it stinks. As a SD consumer am I going to be subsidizing the BluRay early adopters? If the BluRay formart is so great than let them pay more for it. Or discount the SD. One or the other because I don't wanna subsidise those early adopters - let them buy at their own risk. The SD and BluRay shouldn't coincide in price for any amount of time!!!!!!!