Why doesn't Australia get Criterion Blu-ray releases?

[fuddwupper]

I know I can import, but does anyone know why we dont get Criterion blurays here? Is it because they dont get enough sales or is it a distribution/rights thing?

Theres a stack of Criterions I want to buy but I dont own a region free player (I have a fat ps3). I'm fairly sure criterion dvds can be bought at shops in Australia so is there any chance Blurays being distributed in Australia in the future?

[LordCrumb]

I guess they just don't have a distributor over here.. I've never seen a Criterion DVD here in NZ unless its at a second hand store like Real Groovy.

[gettodamoofies]

Well Criterion isn't a studio as such. They obtain rights to release select titles and give them high-class treatment so they're basically a label. Any rights they obtain appear to be US only, potentially because to licence certain titles worldwide would be extremely cost prohibitive as you'd be (in some cases) dealing with multiple studios.

That's not to say their work doesn't show up locally though. The local and UK release of The Thin Red Line is based on the Criterion transfer and only differs very slightly in terms of picture quality.

If you're desperate but don't have the coin for a more expensive region free player like an Oppo fork out $99 for a Soniq B100. It's region changeable by remote and would solve your issue making any title watchable.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by atexp80

That's not to say their work doesn't show up locally though. The local and UK release of The Thin Red Line is based on the Criterion transfer and only differs very slightly in terms of picture quality.

You sure about that, atexp80? There are miscode errors in the Criterion transfer that couldn't have been corrected without making a brand new encoding, and they still appear in the US Criterion release but not in the UK/OZ release.

[nitin]

I dont know what the miscode errors are but it's at the very least the same master.

As for why they arent in Australia, its a rights thing because as someone pointed it out they buy US distribution rights from other studios. MoC does the same for Region B.

Some stores sell criterion dvds because dvd region coding isnt a big issue here. Generally though they are sold at least twice the price.

[sean19]

One thing that I've noticed about Criterion releases is that they are all considered masterpieces by this site's reviewers. Apart from The thin red line which I own-locally, surely they're not all spun of gold are they???

[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

You sure about that, atexp80? There are miscode errors in the Criterion transfer that couldn't have been corrected without making a brand new encoding, and they still appear in the US Criterion release but not in the UK/OZ release.

Yep, it's the same. The Criterion has the two shots which go to GIF-like 8-bit colour whilst the UK/AU release by Fox is ever so slightly softer in some parts which appears to be the result of some extremely light filtering. Both are based on the same master though as A/B comparisons show exactly the same framing and colour, the only differences are the above mentioned observations which are by-products of the respective encoding processes by Criterion and Fox.

sean19: Regarding Criterion's status, generally their releases are well received because they select unique and/or critically & popularly regarded films, give them new scans or source the best available master, perform excellent work on audio restoration and remastering (not to mention including the original audio track - mono, stereo etc) and then include a wealth of supplements including exclusives created solely for their releases. Generally they are well regarded and well reviewed because unlike many other studios where quantity is often the priority Criterion focus instead on quality.

[sean19]

Yeah, I understood all that but sometimes I feel that the reviewers give all the Criterion releases 5 stars because of the high brow nature of having them in your collection. If I could watch them all maybe I'd change my view, but, I don't have a region free player. And, if I was wrong and agreed with their scores, then, I'd be the first to put my hand up.

[nitin]

As a Criterion fanboy (I have over 400 on dvd and blu ray) I can easily say that not all movies Criterion release are 5 star (or even 4 star films). But I do think that at least all of them are an interesting watch.

Same goes for MoC releases.

[rubixqube]

Originally Posted by nitin

Same goes for MoC releases.

For the uninitiated, what does MoC stand for?

[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by rubixqube

For the uninitiated, what does MoC stand for?

Masters of Cinema - a label Eureka Entertainment (UK) gives their top tier releases.

[Supernaut]

Masters of Cinema.

[fuddwupper]

So its a rights and distribution thing? I see thanks for clearing that up

[Bad Sandwich]

Originally Posted by atexp80

That's not to say their work doesn't show up locally though. The local and UK release of The Thin Red Line is based on the Criterion transfer and only differs very slightly in terms of picture quality.

Originally Posted by atexp80

Yep, it's the same. The Criterion has the two shots which go to GIF-like 8-bit colour whilst the UK/AU release by Fox is ever so slightly softer in some parts which appears to be the result of some extremely light filtering. Both are based on the same master though as A/B comparisons show exactly the same framing and colour, the only differences are the above mentioned observations which are by-products of the respective encoding processes by Criterion and Fox.

Pretty sure Fox actually supplied the master, from which Criterion (and Fox for their international release) did their own respective encodes. Criterion didn't actually do the scan. What you said implies either Criterion scanned the film themselves or that Criterion's encode was licensed by Fox for other territories. It's the same as with Criterion's recent Universal titles, which are clearly just new encodes (with negligible color/sharpness differences from the Universal BDs) of masters provided by Universal.

[gettodamoofies]

^ Perhaps. I'm not sure as to which was it was done, though the info in the Criterion booklet states (as per the Bllu-ray.com review):

Supervised and approved by director Terence Malick and cinematographer John Toll, this new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit 4K Datacine from the original 35mm camera negative in 4K resolution. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS system and Pixel Farm's PFClean system.

Although that says nothing regarding who this was primarily initiated by it wasn't an existing master like some other Criterions (e.g. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and it was a 4K scan. That's something that Criterion is well known for doing and, to my knowledge, something which Fox hasn't really been doing with regards to catalogue titles. It would, at least to me, indicate that Criterion may have had more involvement in the process than Fox. Yes it's all speculation but it seems to fit with the circumstances, not to mention the truncated special features of the Fox release (complete versions on the Criterion) and Fox's later release dates in UK and other countries.

[Supernaut]

Originally Posted by atexp80

Yep, it's the same. The Criterion has the two shots which go to GIF-like 8-bit colour whilst the UK/AU release by Fox is ever so slightly softer in some parts which appears to be the result of some extremely light filtering. Both are based on the same master though as A/B comparisons show exactly the same framing and colour, the only differences are the above mentioned observations which are by-products of the respective encoding processes by Criterion and Fox.

Does this mean the local release also suffers from these two GIF-like anomalies?

[mophious]

Originally Posted by fuddwupper

I know I can import, but does anyone know why we dont get Criterion blurays here? Is it because they dont get enough sales or is it a distribution/rights thing?

Theres a stack of Criterions I want to buy but I dont own a region free player (I have a fat ps3). I'm fairly sure criterion dvds can be bought at shops in Australia so is there any chance Blurays being distributed in Australia in the future?

That's why I bought oppo bdp 93. I bought from oppo website at that time
Australian dollar is 1.10 us doallar.
As soon as I order oppo I shop reign free kit from bluraychip.da.
Installation is not that hard it take 30 minutes.
Since then I bought bluray from us and uk because price is so much
cheaper than Australia.
I'm looking for more criterion bluray when they drop price.
Criterion's bluray is always expensive when it come out but after
6 or 12 months later is going to sale.

[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by Supernaut

Does this mean the local release also suffers from these two GIF-like anomalies?

Nope - that's an encoding error unique to the Criterion.

[backslashio]

Its a shame that they force Region A on all of their range Makes importing slightly more annoying, I've only got 3 of their bluray titles so far (Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, Sanjuro) and I absolutely love their packaging & bluray quality presentation

Next title for me will probably be Godzilla 1954 although I'm being tempted for the packaging alone rather than the movie

[Bad Sandwich]

Originally Posted by atexp80

^ Perhaps. I'm not sure as to which was it was done, though the info in the Criterion booklet states (as per the Bllu-ray.com review):

Although that says nothing regarding who this was primarily initiated by it wasn't an existing master like some other Criterions (e.g. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and it was a 4K scan. That's something that Criterion is well known for doing and, to my knowledge, something which Fox hasn't really been doing with regards to catalogue titles. It would, at least to me, indicate that Criterion may have had more involvement in the process than Fox. Yes it's all speculation but it seems to fit with the circumstances, not to mention the truncated special features of the Fox release (complete versions on the Criterion) and Fox's later release dates in UK and other countries.

Good point. Could be that Criterion did in fact handle the scan on this one, with Fox having international rights to that master per agreement. Or could be it was a joint venture and they split the costs.