Criterion Blu-ray

[Peacock]

I wonder if Criterion will ever put out another non-BR mainline title? Will Eclipse become the place to put films that they can't justify an HD release for?

Think I may have already said this previously somewhere, so sorry if I'm repeating myself, but surely Ne Change Rien will be a DVD only mainline?

[Jun-Dai]

I wonder if Criterion will ever put out another non-BR mainline title? Will Eclipse become the place to put films that they can't justify an HD release for?

Isn't is still cost/materials/time prohibitive for them to put out projects on the level of the von Sternberg box and the War Trilogy on Blu?

I think at this point if they released the War Trilogy or The Human Condition on DVD with no Blu-ray, the level of disappointment would be much higher than it was when they did. That doesn't mean that they won't, but that the cost/materials/time bar is probably going to be much higher that it was then.

There was a time when Criterion wouldn't hesitate to put a title on the mainline with no special features and a sub-par transfer. As the expectations around mainline releases got built up, they created the Eclipse line to handle the "disappointing" releases of quality films (there's obviously much more to the story than that, but it fits my narrative better this way). I'm wondering whether the time has already come when they won't lavish attention on something without putting it out on Blu-ray, and Eclipse will be where non-Blu-ray titles end up. I suspect the number of people that only buy Blu-rays (while still renting DVDs) is an order of magnitude higher than it was when The Human Condition came out.

There are of course some titles that seem unlikely for BR, but also seem unlikely to be barebones. I guess only time will tell whether they (a) start putting out BRs of less-than-great film prints, (b) start putting out more flushed-out Eclipse editions, or (c) release an occasional DVD set without a Blu-ray version.

What was the last non-BR mainline title they put out? L’enfance nue? I'm pretty sure that 12 months ago, The Mikado wouldn't have gotten a BR release.

[captveg]

For completest sake, here's the only other 4 releases for pre-50s feature films in the US on Blu-ray

The Wizard Of Oz comes to mind as another one not being listed.

True. That's the only one I can find that was not mentioned earlier. That makes 8 releases for WB from that era.

[eerik]

Amazon.com has listed Sherlock Holmes collection which should have 14 films from 30s and 40s. If it turns out to be true then MPI is the clear winner here.

[captveg]

Amazon.com has listed Sherlock Holmes collection which should have 14 films from 30s and 40s. If it turns out to be true then MPI is the clear winner here.

That's pretty snazzy.

[Jeff]

Amazon.com has listed Sherlock Holmes collection which should have 14 films from 30s and 40s. If it turns out to be true then MPI is the clear winner here.

Ooooooooh. I almost picked that up on DVD at Costco recently, thinking it would never make it to Blu. So glad I waited. Don't fuck it up, MPI.

[Minkin]

UGH. Less than six months after buying the UK set. Is anything safe from Blu upgrades? I'm done with DVD (other than Filmmuseum/BFI COI/etc), so there. Even Rick Steves has made the Blu jump. At least the first few years of Blu was methodical: Wizard of Oz, Seven Samurai, Metropolis... but now it's open season.

[captveg]

Less than six months after buying the UK set. Is anything safe from Blu upgrades? I'm done with DVD (other than Filmmuseum/BFI COI/etc), so there. Even Rick Steves has made the Blu jump. At least the first few years of Blu was methodical: Wizard of Oz, Seven Samurai, Metropolis... but now it's open season.

The smaller the distributor, the less their viable catalog. If there's a middle tier title available from Universal on DVD it is far less likely to get an upgrade because Universal has a large catalog of A-list titles. However, what does MPI have? They have the Rathbone Sherlock Holmes and little else (they've already released their "big" titles like Baraka, Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer).

It's all a matter of context.

[movielocke]

As for why there are so few, I think it comes down to 4 key factors:

1. Condition of materials. Most films from this era simply are not ready for HD releases at the high quality people expect.

2. 1.33:1 aspect ratio. People don't like unused space on their TVs, and now that they have 16:9 TVs they want widescreen films.

3. Color vs. Black & White. People have a bias against Black & White, and they also don't understand the benefit to the greyscale that HD provides. Kudos to WB for putting out so many B&W 1.33:1 films. No other major studio has bothered to touch a pre-50s B&W film without a colorized version alongside it. Also notice that the one and only releases from Fox, Paramount and Legend have Christmas tie-ins.

4. An aging demographic. I'm 31 and grew up seeing these old films on TV. My nieces and nephews are 5-11 and never see old movies on TV. The only way they see any of these films is if I sit them down to watch them specifically.

1 is bullshit the studios sell classic movie fans. They sell us this shit because classic movies don't move very quickly in big box stores, so the big boxes don't want to stock them. I've seen many classic titles play back in 1080p/24 on HDCAMSR tape and they look phenomenal in HD. Films that were readied for DVD in the last eight years had, at a minimum, 2K scans done and were mastered at 1080p/24. You don't have an eye-popping detail jump from the DVD to bluray of films made from the exact same tape because they were scanned at 2k. To see the massive jump in detail for bluray the initial scan needs to oversample at 3k or 4k and downrez to 2k/1080p. The oversampling and downrez process will result in a superior end product than simply sampling at the 2k/1080p resolution in the first place. It is easier to make a bluray of a color classic film because the bluray codec handles color much better than DVD. Because the color looks 'better' it creates the optical illusion of a more detailed image. For the most part, any film that got a fine DVD release has, generally, an outstanding HDCAMSR Master that would result in a perfectly acceptable bluray that quite outstrips the DVD.

2-4 are very true.

[HistoryProf]

from criterion's fb page....kind of speaks to the heart of what I was referring to earlier:

Hey...can anyone help me out. I have tried playing Black Narcissus, The wages of fear, gimme shelter bluray on my bluray player. However, there are black bars on left and right side of the TV screen which is very annoying. Is the aspect ratio wrong on these disc? I am not facing this problem with my Days of Heaven Bluray. I have Samsung Bd-6900 and Sony 32" Lcd TV.

[mfunk9786]

Wow.

[willoneill]

from criterion's fb page....kind of speaks to the heart of what I was referring to earlier:

Hey...can anyone help me out. I have tried playing Black Narcissus, The wages of fear, gimme shelter bluray on my bluray player. However, there are black bars on left and right side of the TV screen which is very annoying. Is the aspect ratio wrong on these disc? I am not facing this problem with my Days of Heaven Bluray. I have Samsung Bd-6900 and Sony 32" Lcd TV.

He/she's gotta be bullshittin'

[Minkin]

He/she's gotta be bullshittin'

Sadly, I don't think so...

Thanks a lot! guys. I wish I could watch these films on the whole screen.

Everyone has been rather friendly to the guy on the Facebook page, all things considered.

[AquaNarc]

The only thing that makes that remotely surprising is the fact that the person is apparently a big Criterion/cinema fan.

[HistoryProf]

The only thing that makes that remotely surprising is the fact that the person is apparently a big Criterion/cinema fan.

well that's kind of what i was saying earlier - i don't think he is, rather, he's a blu-ray fan and people seem to love these Criterions and they have spine #s so I should collect them all!

[aox]

or there is the unlikely chance that the person coincidentally likes all of those films and has no idea what Criterion is.

[Roger Ryan]

I think the move to widescreen televisions and obtaining a Blu-ray player has gone hand-in-hand for a lot of people...who automatically assume all Blu-rays present a 16 X 9 image.

[eerik]

from criterion's fb page....kind of speaks to the heart of what I was referring to earlier:

Hey...can anyone help me out. I have tried playing Black Narcissus, The wages of fear, gimme shelter bluray on my bluray player. However, there are black bars on left and right side of the TV screen which is very annoying. Is the aspect ratio wrong on these disc? I am not facing this problem with my Days of Heaven Bluray. I have Samsung Bd-6900 and Sony 32" Lcd TV.

I have the same problem. The Wages of Fear also don't have any colours.

[movielocke]

I think the move to widescreen televisions and obtaining a Blu-ray player has gone hand-in-hand for a lot of people...who automatically assume all Blu-rays present a 16 X 9 image.

And for the vast majority of people with widescreen televisions, any 4x3 television show is automatically stretched to fill the frame so they never see the pillar boxing outside of a 4x3 bluray.

My family members don't even notice or profess to prefer the stretched image, they're always annoyed when I point it out, "How can you tell?" they ask in exasperation.

[vanWarmerdam]

from criterion's fb page....kind of speaks to the heart of what I was referring to earlier:

Hey...can anyone help me out. I have tried playing Black Narcissus, The wages of fear, gimme shelter bluray on my bluray player. However, there are black bars on left and right side of the TV screen which is very annoying. Is the aspect ratio wrong on these disc? I am not facing this problem with my Days of Heaven Bluray. I have Samsung Bd-6900 and Sony 32" Lcd TV.

Jeez, Criterion is very meticulous about mentioning the aspect ratio and how it looks on a television in the booklet, and he still doesn't know?

[TheDoman]

Hi all. I have gradually been building my Blu-ray collection, and find that a lot of the films I purchase are now on BD. I see Criterion are doing a great job on Blu-ray, but it has slightly put me off buying many of the older Criterion DVDs, as I'm not quite sure how many of the titles on DVD will be reissued on Blu-ray. I don't want to lose out on purchasing DVDs that might never be released on Blu-ray, but I also don't want to spend a lot of money and then have to shell out double, when a Blu-ray appears. I'm curious how you all feel, and cope with the problem? I wish money wasn't a concern, and I could buy all the DVDs I wanted but sadly that isn't the case. What percentage of the catalogue do you think will get reissued on Blu-ray, in the next 5 years or so?

Cheers

[zedz]

If Criterion maintain their current upgrade pace (about 38 titles over two and a half years, by a quick count) of approx. 15 titles per year, it will take them another 27 or so years to get around to all of the pre-Blu titles, by which time all of the present formats will likely be long obsolete. And if Criterion step up the upgrade pace and become a tail-eating serpent, neglecting new titles in favour of regurgitating old ones, they're not going to retain their market position for long.

So I think you've got plenty of wiggle room in terms of buying up older DVDs. Nothing Is Certain At This Time, but the most likely candidates for Blu upgrades seem to be:

- Tentpole arthouse classics (Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini - yawn)
- Very early spine numbers (we've had seven out of the first twenty already)
- Already upgraded titles (like M, The Wages of Fear, Playtime, Amarcord, Seven Samurai, 400 Blows, Charade, The Third Man - probably the closest to a dead cert category, given this track record)
- Films with good elements (the recently restored or recently made, films already issued overseas in good HD presentations)
- Films with straightforward rights clearances (e.g. Janus titles)

[swo17]

They do seem to have consciously increased the number of upgrades this year though to more like 2 per month, which I take to be a sign that the upgrades are selling very well. And without the production of new titles slowing down considerably. So maybe we get 20-25 each year, but then it would still take almost 20 years to upgrade the entire mainline.

[Alphonse Doinel]

The dvd's are still a pretty good investment. As long as you're not paying ridiculous prices, you should be able to make most of your money back (maybe more) selling them if a Blu is announced.

[aox]

If Criterion maintain their current upgrade pace (about 38 titles over two and a half years, by a quick count) of approx. 15 titles per year, it will take them another 27 or so years to get around to all of the pre-Blu titles, by which time all of the present formats will likely be long obsolete. And if Criterion step up the upgrade pace and become a tail-eating serpent, neglecting new titles in favour of regurgitating old ones, they're not going to retain their market position for long.

I have a list of about 120 I want upgraded.. they don't have to do the rest.