250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

[criterion10]

I hope there aren't any problems with the Cassavetes set being on only 5 discs.

I guess that means that the 3+ hour documentary A Constant Forge will have to be squeezed onto the Opening Night disc.

And not on Shadows, which is much shorter? Perhaps it won't be in HD either?

I mean, it would seem odd to put a documentary on the 5 films in the set on the same disc as the first film in the set, though I suppose it's possible.

[CSM126]

I hope there aren't any problems with the Cassavetes set being on only 5 discs.

I guess that means that the 3+ hour documentary A Constant Forge will have to be squeezed onto the Opening Night disc.

If IMDb is to be believed (I know), this film was a shot-on-video production, which, given the time frame in which it was made, could very well mean it's entirely SD video. SD files, even for a film that long, aren't terribly large and can fit on a BR comfortably at about 9gb (out of BR's total 50gb). Not a big deal.

[Moe Dickstein]

I hope there aren't any problems with the Cassavetes set being on only 5 discs.

I guess that means that the 3+ hour documentary A Constant Forge will have to be squeezed onto the Opening Night disc.

Possible that ACF might be broken up in parts too and spread amongst the discs.

[Jeff]

Blu-ray available October 2013

[Gregory]

Very glad to see this coming. I held off on the BFIs hoping to upgrade them all at once like this. But now I wish even more than before that I hadn't been too lazy to sell my "Jimmy Crack Corn" set for serious loot on eBay back when I still had the chance.

[MichaelB]

Since the BFI licensed Criterion's HD masters in the first place, it's likely that the main features will be as near identical as makes very little difference.

[zedz]

Very glad to see this coming. I held off on the BFIs hoping to upgrade them all at once like this. But now I wish even more than before that I hadn't been too lazy to sell my "Jimmy Crack Corn" set for serious loot on eBay back when I still had the chance.

Do people actually pay more for the 'Jimmy Crack Corn' edition?

[alvareo]

Since the BFI licensed Criterion's HD masters in the first place, it's likely that the main features will be as near identical as makes very little difference.

Does this mean the Criterion reissue will use the same transfer of the BFI BDs?

[tenia]

I'm just seeing this, but it seems that the set is going to be 5 discs only. So, I'm wondering about A Constant Forge, which is rather long : how are they going to make it fit with another movie on a single disc ?
200 minutes alone are already enough to take a full BD, sometimes even 2. Even if they bundle it with Shadows, the shortest film of the set, it would still be enough to justify a dedicated BD. Here, except if they choose not to upscale it (I suppose it was not done in native HD), or if they settle for a quite low bitrate for ACF, I'm quite worried about another Criterion "overloaded" disc leading to compression issues.

[CSM126]

They are most likely recycling the same transfer from the DVD, which would put it at 9GB of data, tops, which is negligible on a 50GB blu ray disc.

[mfunk9786]

I'm just seeing this, but it seems that the set is going to be 5 discs only. So, I'm wondering about A Constant Forge, which is rather long : how are they going to make it fit with another movie on a single disc ?
200 minutes alone are already enough to take a full BD, sometimes even 2. Even if they bundle it with Shadows, the shortest film of the set, it would still be enough to justify a dedicated BD. Here, except if they choose not to upscale it (I suppose it was not done in native HD), or if they settle for a quite low bitrate for ACF, I'm quite worried about another Criterion "overloaded" disc leading to compression issues.

As often as we worry about this, how often does it actually become an issue? They always do a pretty smart job fitting things on Blu-ray discs despite our concerns.

[tenia]

They are most likely recycling the same transfer from the DVD, which would put it at 9GB of data, tops, which is negligible on a 50GB blu ray disc.

I don't recall them having done this a single time with any upgrade. They always upscale everything to HD, and a 30 min doc' ends up taking several Gbs, when it was only takes 1.5 Gb on the DVD.

As often as we worry about this, how often does it actually become an issue? They always do a pretty smart job fitting things on Blu-ray discs despite our concerns.

They have a tendency to fit a lot of stuff without problem, yes, but in fact, there's not so many releases with too many stuff on a single disc.
However, each time they had a disc reaaaally loaded (The Last Emperor, Fanny & Alexandre, Carlos, now Shoah), they had compression problem. You can see it usually with the video bitrate of the main movie : each time the video bitrate goes below 20 Mbps (or even 22 with Carlos), compression issues. So, as far as I'm concerned, it's a 100% failure rate from Criterion on each disc too laded.

With the Cassavetes box, except if they keep a healthy place by putting ACF with Shadows, and leaving half the BD-50 to Shadows, it would then mean that you would have 200+ min of upscaled material, crushed in half a BD-50. And then, in both ways : what's the point ?

I'm also quite afraid for Autumn Sonata, likely to share the same disc with 4hr of extra material.
It's nice from Criterion to present all this amount of extra material, but I wish they wouldn't uselessly upscale everything, jeopardizing the encoding of the main movie.

[movielocke]

Perhaps it's a typo and they intend to make it six discs since ACF has its own spine in the DVD version?

[Moe Dickstein]

Won't be the first time that Blu dropped a DVD spine - Fanny & Alexander is only one spine and should be 3

[alvareo]

Perhaps it's a typo and they intend to make it six discs since ACF has its own spine in the DVD version?

I really don't think it's a typo, but it would be ideal

[zedz]

With the Cassavetes box, except if they keep a healthy place by putting ACF with Shadows, and leaving half the BD-50 to Shadows, it would then mean that you would have 200+ min of upscaled material, crushed in half a BD-50. And then, in both ways : what's the point ?

I'm also quite afraid for Autumn Sonata, likely to share the same disc with 4hr of extra material.
It's nice from Criterion to present all this amount of extra material, but I wish they wouldn't uselessly everything, jeopardizing the encoding of the main movie.

At the table in the kitchen, there were three Criterion BluRays. Goldilocks was hungry for pithy commentary and contextual extras. She looked at the bonus content from the first disc.

"These extras are too scanty!" she exclaimed.

So, she looked at the bonus content on the second disc.

"There are far too many extras on this disc!" she wailed.

So, she looked at the bonus content on the last disc.

"Ahhh, this level of extras is just right," she said, "but the cover art sucks!. Good thing I didn't have to pay for any of this."

[Matt]

Perhaps it's a typo and they intend to make it six discs since ACF has its own spine in the DVD version?

I really don't think it's a typo, but it would be ideal

As was mentioned earlier, ACF was made and mastered on video (almost certainly in standard definition) and thus is very unlikely to be included in the BD set in HD.

[Moe Dickstein]

But when haven't they upscaled SD material to HD?

[Matt]

In supplements, all the time.

[tenia]

At the table in the kitchen, there were three Criterion BluRays. Goldilocks was hungry for pithy commentary and contextual extras. She looked at the bonus content from the first disc.
"These extras are too scanty!" she exclaimed.
So, she looked at the bonus content on the second disc.
"There are far too many extras on this disc!" she wailed.
So, she looked at the bonus content on the last disc.
"Ahhh, this level of extras is just right," she said, "but the cover art sucks!. Good thing I didn't have to pay for any of this."

(I knew something like this was coming ).

I don't want to sound ranty or whatever. As I actually wrote "It's nice from Criterion to present all this amount of extra material, but I wish they wouldn't uselessly upscale everything, jeopardizing the encoding of the main movie." And I think I'm not the only one to think this.
It's simply a question of optimizing disc space for the movies encoding VS disc space for the extras, and it seems that, when they're simply "too much", Criterion doesn't know how to properly encode the movie without having compression issues.

I'm not saying there are too many extras, far from it. On the contrary, it is wonderful, and probably what Criterion has done best in their whole catalog. But I admit to find it a bit silly to compromise the main movie PQ just to uselessly upscale something which will never be HD quality.

And I've never said anything about the cover, so that was a bit easy.

Anyway. It has already been discussed above so I'll stop there.

[andyli]

In supplements, all the time.

I checked a few recent releases and everything in the extras was either 1080i or 1080p. And I believe they have been doing this for years.

[MichaelB]

In supplements, all the time.

I checked a few recent releases and everything in the extras was either 1080i or 1080p. And I believe they have been doing this for years.

...although there are plenty of obvious upscales! I was surprised to hear that Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius was in 1080i, since it was originally made for British television in the late 1980s - and, sure enough, it looks exactly as you'd expect, and was clearly sourced from analogue PAL videotape. Which absolutely isn't a complaint.

[Roger Ryan]

In supplements, all the time.

Certainly the new "restoration" extra on the MARKETA LAZAROVÁ Blu-ray would have benefited from actually being in HD instead of upscaled SD.

[alvareo]

This forum is depressing me, I always thought Criterion issued everything at its best possible quality, and would've never thought they frequently upscaled supplements. :(

[MichaelB]

In supplements, all the time.

Certainly the new "restoration" extra on the MARKETA LAZAROVÁ Blu-ray would have benefited from actually being in HD instead of upscaled SD.

I suspect it's the same one that appeared on the supplementary DVD in the Czech edition.