The Criterion Channel -- Technical Issues and Questions

[Lowry_Sam]

Some nice selections for this month, though with a few glaring omissions.

"Yearning" is missing Brief Encounter, Love Affair, Beauty And The Beast, Woman In The Dunes, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Cat People, A Room With A View, The Lovers...and I could go on, but do the curators really not know what's in the collection? (And what's with Pandora And The Flying Dutchman? It seems to be perpetually on the channel and frequently highlighted since the channel started despite not being in the collection.) It's also interesting that they would do this theme the one month Body Heat is not on the channel.

"Stunts" is missing Bullitt, The Great Escape, & The French Connection....and couldn't they get The Stunt Man for this?

[andyli]

"Yearning" is missing Brief Encounter, Love Affair, Beauty And The Beast, Woman In The Dunes, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Cat People, A Room With A View, The Lovers...

One should think a program calling itself Yearning should by default have had Naruse's Yearning, one of the best films about, eh, yearning?

[LastMinit]

"Stunts" is missing Bullitt

Bullitt is there, I watched it for my opener. First time since the VHS days, and it got me this time. It shines as a very steady police procedural, and I like the plot a lot, it has a good measure of intrigue for me.
Ben Hur, meanwhile, is a fancy-pants Commando, where God has Arnie's back. Wtf.

Talking about omissions, they couldn't get any more versions of Wuthering Heights? A collection for two and no more? I remember being affected by the Ralph Fiennes one, which was the current version when I had to read the book for uni.

[LastMinit]

Anyone else having trouble with the channel? I can't get anything to play. It just goes to a black screen.

EDIT: Nevermind, posted too soon, apologies.

[Matt]

Anyone else having trouble with the channel? I can't get anything to play. It just goes to a black screen.

EDIT: Nevermind, posted too soon, apologies.

Anyway, I used to have this problem as well until I figured out the film started paused and I had to select play to get it going. It doesn't do that anymore.

[Lowry_Sam]

Is anyone having problems over Roku? Whenever I select a square, it just goes to a fuzzy muted color backdrop, not quite a blank screen & no choices (ie. trailer vs film). Even the Live channel doesn't work. No such problems streaming over any other app & I can stream the channel in a browser on my ipad.

[Lowry_Sam]

Now it's working again....didn't do anything, just tried again a few hours later.

[Roger Ryan]

Now it's working again....didn't do anything, just tried again a few hours later.

I had the exact same problem intermittently for months, hoping each new Roku update would fix it. The best I could do was shut Roku off completely and reboot which fixed the issues about 50% of the time. I haven't had the problem for the last few weeks, so fingers crossed.

[Lowry_Sam]

The trouble is you don't know when Roku updates its own software in the background and the only way to deal with problem apps is delete them and re-add them. So for an app to intermittently not work and no problem with other apps, it would seem to be something in the service itself.

[dwk]

Someone in line at the closet van in Portland posted on Blue Sky that he was told by someone from Criterion that they are moving the Channel off of Vimeo. (The other bit of news they posted is Deliverance is coming next year, but we already knew that was in the works.)

[Matt]

Well it's definitely not going back to Hulu because Hulu won't exist soon.

[HardNight'sDay]

Someone in line at the closet van in Portland posted on Blue Sky that he was told by someone from Criterion that they are moving the Channel off of Vimeo. (The other bit of news they posted is Deliverance is coming next year, but we already knew that was in the works.)

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/shutdown

With this news in mind, who will be the new home of the Criterion Channel (and Don Hertzfeldt)?

[Matt]

The VOD service (which allows independent creators like Hertzfeldt to sell rentals and downloads) is not the same as the OTT service (which is for streaming services and which does not appear to be shutting down). But the VOD service shutting down completely in four months is shockingly fast. I'm sure Criterion still plans to move, because nothing about Vimeo's acquisition and layoffs inspires confidence that they'll continue to exist.

[HardNight'sDay]

Honestly it wouldn't shock me if OTT is next on the chopping block.

It's pretty disgusting what the new owners are doing to independent creators who depend on VOD for income. But hey, that's basically private equity 101.

[HardNight'sDay]

Has anyone noticed the major update Criterion did on the Channel? I guess they left Vimeo for a new software. I wonder who is behind the new improvement?

[Elmyr]

The update scrambled my watchlist which is annoying as I had films grouped by director and tried to keep the expiring titles up top.

[pzadvance]

Hm... doesn't seem to work on a browser from Europe anymore. Never had this issue before. Will have to check my apps when I get home!

EDIT: Also geoblocked on my iPhone app. They apparently beefed up security so it can't be used abroad anymore even if your account was started in the US. Guess I'm unsubscribing?

[dwk]

Sucks that it is geoblocked now.

Also, any notice a way to tell if something has been watched by your account?

[fdm]

Haven't logged in or tried the apple tv app, but I see no sign at the website of my favorite category, the listing of the films that are expiring at the end of the month… Is that gone? (Edit: I did just now log on at the website and still not there…)

Pretty sluggish web interface, by the way.

[criterionsnob]

A bit hard to find, but Leaving Soon is at the bottom of the "New" page.

[criterionsnob]

My list also got jumbled, and some things seem to have been removed. I guess that will be a fun project to go through the All Films page, which is currently 3010 films.

[Elmyr]

I updated the channel on my fire tv stick and can't find any trace of the watchlist. First it gets scrambled on the web and now it's gone from the app?* You're killin me here!

*Of course, it could be right in front of my face and I'm just missing it.

[Elmyr]

My list also got jumbled, and some things seem to have been removed. I guess that will be a fun project to go through the All Films page, which is currently 3010 films.

I didn't even notice if some films had been removed from my list. I need to lie down.

[Lowry_Sam]

My Roku app deleted my account & the QR code goes to a page not found.

[HardNight'sDay]

I guess I was one of the lucky ones with a somewhat smooth transition. A couple of films were taken off my watchlist, but thankfully my watchlist was low always so it was easy for me to restore.