MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

[Tommaso]

In this case, I'm REALLY happy that most silents are slower than 24 fps so that I can still watch them in MoC editions....

[James]

Nope.

As someone who has only a DVD player, this seems like a pretty bad business idea. Of course, as you say, there's no telling really whether I'll have a Blu-ray player in two years, but economically, I really can't foresee that at all right now, especially considering how much money and time I've spent on DVDs. (In fact, while I haven't gotten anything from your company yet, I was probably going to put in a fairly large order in a few hours.)

[bearcuborg]

Make a medium order, and get a blu-ray player.

[James]

Make a medium order, and get a blu-ray player.

Just got a new region-free DVD player a few weeks ago. Besides, that's not the point. I already have a bunch of DVDs and I don't really want to switch to Blu-ray right now (not all of us have disposable incomes, remember!).

[James]

But to be clear, Nick, I will do my best as a movie lover to support your company. I have great respect for anybody such as yourself who goes to great efforts to put out movies to the general public in such an admirable way.

[Finch]

Nick knows from previous exchanges that I'm not too eager to convert to Blu-Ray either so if MoC switching to a Blu-only business model is a given, I'd hope (for all that's worth) that at least the move doesn't happen for another two or three years. It isn't just the economy, I've got other expenses to consider (my US partner and I are getting married before Christmas) and I'd rather not double (or in some cases even triple) dip on so many titles all over again. In fact, if Blu wasn't guaranteed to stay around for a long time still, I'd have happily skipped a generation to whichever format eventually succeeds Blu-Ray. I'll continue supporting MoC but I do not plan an upgrade to BR for the foreseeable future.

[James]

In fact, if Blu wasn't guaranteed to stay around for a long time still, I'd have happily skipped a generation to whichever format eventually succeeds Blu-Ray.

Yeah, that's another thing worth considering. How long is Blu-ray going to be around and will it and DVD exist together until the next generation of home moviegoing? Isn't there talks of a new format already?

[eerik]

Nowadays I buy only Blu-ray discs. MoC-s support is very appreciated.

Isn't there talks of a new format already?

Nothing serious.

["membrillo"]

question answered

[Perkins Cobb]

Maybe things will look a lot different in a year, but BluRay-only releases strike me as elitist and needlessly exclusionary. Particularly in terms of the worldwide audience. Would MOC fork over the dough to license all its BR-only titles worldwide? I'm guessing no, in which case it's a big eff-you to any non-Brits who haven't spent $350 (or more) for a region-free player.

Although, I'll concede that if the region barrier becomes more affordably and reliably penetrable, the reasons not to invest in a BR player (especially after next Christmas) will look pretty feeble.

[James]

Would MOC fork over the dough to license all its BR-only titles worldwide? I'm guessing no, in which case it's a big eff-you to any non-Brits who haven't spent $350 (or more) for a region-free player.

Are you talking about region-free Blu-ray players? My region-free DVD player only costed around $75.

[Tommaso]

Although, I'll concede that if the region barrier becomes more affordably and reliably penetrable, the reasons not to invest in a BR player (especially after next Christmas) will look pretty feeble.

Yeah, that's the greatest problem I'd say. While Blu players are available now at only 200 Euros or so, REGION-FREE players easily cost more than double. And if I make the jump to Blu, there's no way I would want to be limited to R2-land (or region B or whatever it's called). Add to this the cost of a new TV which can make use of the higher resolution, and I'd have to churn out about 1000 Euros, which would be quite an investment for me at the moment (or even in two years probably). I'd die to see "Red Shoes" in Blu, of course, but there are not so many other films that would instigate that desire. On the other hand I can see Nick's point, not just from a technical standpoint, but also economically. It simply costs more to release a film in two different formats than in one. But as long as Blu isn't really the most widely accepted standard, with prices for region-free players being more or less the same as for region-locked ones (as it is now with standard DVD), I'm not sure whether his proposed business model isn't likely to lock out more MoC customers than it is worth.

[peerpee]

Non-major labels are reporting upto a 50% split in sales between DVD and Blu-ray for titles released on both formats. This figure is quite amazing, really. The sooner this increases in favour of Blu-ray, the sooner we will solely focus on Blu-ray.

At the moment, huge amounts of our time and resources are being spent on releasing both DVD and Blu-ray editions of the same title. We could simply release more titles if we focused on one format.

I believe the main reason that Blu-ray sales are so initially strong is that DVD sales have been irretrievably hammered for years by copying and filesharing, something which is not affecting Blu-ray releases yet, and which will probably not affect Blu-ray releases for a number of years.

It's clear that Blu-ray sales are going to grow at a fair lick over the next few years, hardware prices will come down, region-free players too. On the other hand, DVD sales will stagnate further.

Releasing titles on Blu-ray only will quicken the hardware migration amongst our fanbase, whilst at the same time understandably annoy a whole bunch of people who have no intention of buying new equipment.

We're biting the bullet and pushing forward. It's a difficult transitionary period for everyone, but if we don't embrace Blu-ray, I don't think we'll be able to grow over the next 5 years.

[Cinetwist]

Thanks for the info Nick. It never really ooccurred to me that the frame rate of silents would be an issue, but I suppose it should have done. That's a bit of a blow for the format.

Anyhoo, I look forward to watching Tokyo Sonata today. And I'll continue supporting you both dvd and blu.

[ellipsis7]

This is very interesting - Nick, will you be revisiting the MoC back catalogue with a view to releasing Blu Ray versions of existing DVD packages?...

[Tommaso]

I am very curious about silent film speeds and HD transfers. Presumably the forthcoming full resto of Metropolis will have to be HD ready, i.e suitable for 60 hz and potentially 24 fps playback. So surely Transit has or will have some technical solution to this?

They'll use the same 'solution' as for their current resto, I suppose. Simply run the film at 24fps and don't care if anyone complains that it obviously runs too fast.

[Finch]

Non-major labels are reporting upto a 50% split in sales between DVD and Blu-ray for titles released on both formats. This figure is quite amazing, really. The sooner this increases in favour of Blu-ray, the sooner we will solely focus on Blu-ray. (...) It's clear that Blu-ray sales are going to grow at a fair lick over the next few years, hardware prices will come down, region-free players too. On the other hand, DVD sales will stagnate further. (...) We're biting the bullet and pushing forward. It's a difficult transitionary period for everyone, but if we don't embrace Blu-ray, I don't think we'll be able to grow over the next 5 years.

Nick, I appreciate that you are so upfront about MoC's future plans. Other companies may not have warned their customers about the planned changes at all. I'm also sympathetic towards the argument that prepping a DVD and Blu-Ray for the same title eats away at your resources. If CC (and Warner and Paramount) decide to follow suit and Oppo release a reasonably priced multi-region BR player that also plays DVDs regardless of their region code within the next two years, I might just be tempted to upgrade.

[peerpee]

This is very interesting - Nick, will you be revisiting the MoC back catalogue with a view to releasing Blu Ray versions of existing DVD packages?...

Case by case, and it's going to be very slow, but it's early days for the format, and we need to look very closely at what we're releasing. We're probably going to focus the Blu-ray love on titles that are new to us rather than older catalogue titles.

[Cinetwist]

Nick, I don't know whether the UK film distribution world is particularly close or whether you talk to people at other companies. But do you know if any other smaller labels are going to adopt the format in the near future? People like Soda, who release newer stuff I suppose. I can see how it would be impossible for someone like Second Run.

So far the only non-studio labels to adopt in the UK (that I'm aware of) are Network, Optimum, Aritificial Eye, BFI and yourself of course. I hope others are planning to.

[akaten]

Anyway, to cut this long story short - surely there must be some digital means of scanning different silent frame projection rates of 18 or 20 or 22 frames in some sort of algebraic multiple to suit the native scan rates of HD??? Just as most players and displays handle 24fps as an integer from 72 hz.

I seem to remember on here people proposing the use of a quicktime type approach, I wonder if Blu Ray could be used for that as a storage medium or if its a case of digital download needing much faster broadband speeds to make it viable. Very frustrating how Pal Ntsc issues are gone but frame rates remain on home release as it never was given any thought when conceiving a new format.

Anyways I'm surprised Peerpee saying they'd prefer to focus on the higher quality format warranted so much concern, just as I'm sure MOC would like to put out more Mizoguchi if the sales were there. I'd be more worried if a DVD producer was happy with having to take high def restorations and downsize them for standard def home comsumption when its more a case of neccssity, material wealth, materials for the likes of Second Run.

Full steam ahead for Blu Ray for me, and region coding be damned a lost sale for the Criterion For All Mankind is a gain for MOC. I suspect this is the thinking behind Optimum launch of a new Blu Ray collector's editions in late September, to claw back market share - pity then that Second Sight didn't try its arm with Wise Blood and Lola Montes.

Regarding back catalogue I'm curious, at the risk of naval gazing what would be the three films you'd want to buy again on Blu Ray, not the same as favourites but rather that print conditions permitting you'd like to upgrade. Right now for me (bearing in mind I've taken Metropolis for granted) I'd like to see the following:

Tabu - ideally with the features from the Milestone disc.
Kwaidan - same reason as For All Mankind.
La Vie de Jesus - some might see this as an odd choice perhaps but a real pleasure to have been exposed to Dumont by MOC and hope a Blu Ray would help others who have still yet to discover this wonderful film do so.

[Ted Todorov]

Non-major labels are reporting upto a 50% split in sales between DVD and Blu-ray for titles released on both formats. This figure is quite amazing, really. The sooner this increases in favour of Blu-ray, the sooner we will solely focus on Blu-ray.

At the moment, huge amounts of our time and resources are being spent on releasing both DVD and Blu-ray editions of the same title. We could simply release more titles if we focused on one format.

I believe the main reason that Blu-ray sales are so initially strong is that DVD sales have been irretrievably hammered for years by copying and filesharing, something which is not affecting Blu-ray releases yet, and which will probably not affect Blu-ray releases for a number of years.

Funny, I just posted some speculation saying similar things here: http://criterionforum.org/forum/viewtop ... 43#p247943
It is good to see it backed up with actual figures. There are two cautions though:
Blu-ray player market penetration is still alarmingly low. So if you go BD only. you will be cutting off a large population of renters (whether they rip or not).

Secondly I'm not sure how long BD ripping will remain rare -- with 3.5" HD capacities currently at 2TB and probably 4TB in the next 18 months or so, file sizes are not that important, even less so if they are further compressed/transcoded via HandBrake or similar. With iTunes "HiDef" file sizes at 1.5GB per hour, it is not unreasonable to expect higher quality BD rips be size at 8GB per two hour movie -- the same size as a regular DVD. About the only thing working against mass BD ripping right now is Steve Jobs' antipathy to all things Blu-ray, which means that no Macs are sold with pre-installed BD hardware, thus it is pretty much a PC only endeavor. (Third party hardware and software for Mac BD ripping do in fact exist).

[peerpee]

There are two cautions though:
Blu-ray player market penetration is still alarmingly low. So if you go BD only. you will be cutting off a large population of renters (whether they rip or not).

Bluntly put, the rental market means very little to us - the rental companies exploit the law and make all the money. We'd prefer it if nobody rented our titles. So this is not a concern for us at all.

Secondly I'm not sure how long BD ripping will remain rare -- with 3.5" HD capacities currently at 2TB and probably 4TB in the next 18 months or so, file sizes are not that important, even less so if they are further compressed/transcoded via HandBrake or similar. With iTunes "HiDef" file sizes at 1.5GB per hour, it is not unreasonable to expect higher quality BD rips be size at 8GB per two hour movie -- the same size as a regular DVD. About the only thing working against mass BD ripping right now is Steve Jobs' antipathy to all things Blu-ray, which means that no Macs are sold with pre-installed BD hardware, thus it is pretty much a PC only endeavor. (Third party hardware and software for Mac BD ripping do in fact exist).

Indeed, it's a race... but consider this: (these figures are not scientific, but they're close) --- 90% of households in the UK have access to some form of DVD player. Less than 1% of households in the UK have access to a Blu-ray player....... and our sales are split 50/50 between DVD and Blu-ray. This speaks volumes.

[James]

Maybe MoC should release some Rivette if Criterion won't. I want to see Duelle (une quarantine), so maybe they can put that out along with Noroît like France did.

[Tommaso]

Seconded. And of course "L'amour fou" and "Pont du Nord". Not to speak of...ahm..you know what.

. Less than 1% of
households in the UK have access to a Blu-ray player....... and our
sales are split 50/50 between DVD and Blu-ray. This speaks volumes.

Indeed, but I fear it speaks volumes about how much of a niche interest the sort of films that most members of this forum care for really are.

[sidehacker]

Is it true that MoC will be releasing The Black Shield of Falworth as mentioned here?