Blue Underground has no new releases announced for 2013, and are re-releasing bargain bin packs of unsold DVDs for the foreseeable future. Until further notice, I think we can put a fork in BU... they're done.
Synapse's only upcoming Blu-ray is a "Limited to 1,500" edition of DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD explicitly based on Twilight Time's 'website only' $30 business model. They're also going DVD-only on BASKET CASE 3 despite there being a UK Blu-ray just on the horizon. Hardly a reassuring sign.
Olive
who? Oh yeah, the guys who did a hard-subtitled transfer of LOVE EXPOSURE and a release of 1900 that looks pretty terrible. Look, I wish these guys the best of luck, but they've released a few discs that are
not worth getting excited over...
Criterion charges
more than Twilight Time - $40 MSRP for a typical release, and up from there if it's a two disc set! At best they're comparably priced, though I'll give them that they typically produce releases overflowing with bonus content. Criterion also does their own in-house mastering, which includes encoding, authoring and (source depending) independant restoration work, although most of their HD materials are provided by the producers who actually own the film; for every GODZILLA they hunt 35mm prints down themselves for, there's got to be at least two Universal titles where most of the expensive work was actually done for them.
Shout Factory is more or less in the same boat; they license an HD master, play around with it as they see fit, and create new bonus features. They're a bit cheaper than Criterion (street prices included), but their model is quite similar. They've only just begun, though... I'm curious exactly how many copies of THE VIDEO DEAD they think they can sell? I'm in on
principle, but man, when SEASON OF THE WITCH is your flagship title...
