Criterion update

[Grubert]

The staff from Sound and Vision magazine are helping the Criterion studio design and build their new screening room. There's a nice article here.

The 23-year-old company has yet to jump into high-def, by the way, shunning both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD for standard DVDs. "We're waiting for the formats to figure themselves out," says Lee. "If we wind up liking Blu-ray but Casablanca is only on HD DVD, we don't want people to have to choose. And we also don't want to confuse them by siding with one format over the other, because it's not our place to decide. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray have merit to us, and both look really good."

Criterion, though, is all for taking the resolution of its releases to the next level. "We're ready to go," says Lee. "We've mastered in high-definition for years now. We just have to take the tapes and compress them in an HD codec. We did a Blu-ray test of one of our titles, and we're really happy with the results."

[nhaase]

I like that last sentence.

[bhampton]

Knowing Criterion,.. I edit-ed thier quote for truth.

We've upconverted our old LaserDisc masters into high-definition for years now. We just have to take the tapes and compress them in an HD codec. We did a Blu-ray test of one of our titles, and we're really happy with the results."

I hate how they act so concerned with quality and some of their best movies and non-animorphic single layer ported right from the LD. (Check out Walkabout for example... there's plenty of others too. A few titles were redone because they were just plain old too crappy like Brazil but for the most part they just talked about quality while charging top dollar for craptastic PQ.)

-Brian

[DaViD Boulet]

Criterion has set a standard for special features and bringing forgotten, esoteric films to live on home-video.

But after the days of laserdisc, they've been backwards in terms of image quality. Yes, their insistance (they actually INSISTED!!!) on avoiding 16x9 anamorphic encoding well into DVDs life-cycle was one of the most rediculous positions a "videophile" studio could take. I exchanged several emails and phone calls with them where they staunchly refused to take up 16x9 encoding and kept on blabbing about "4x3 downconversion artifacts" and other backwards-thinking logic.

Now, if they have indeed been making top-drawer HD transfers as of late, I'd love to eat my words. But given the atrocious amount of edge-ringing on many of their DVD titles, I'm not hopeful that we'll see anything approaching videophile picture quality with HD content from this studio. It looks like their monitoring equipment is a 19" screen.

[Rustmonsteru]

If they were to release in HiDef it would hopefully force them to change their ways. Nobody's going to pay $75.00 for mediocrity (guessing at a Criterion hidef price) . The first title they release is going to get scrutinized to hell.

[Seretur]

And let's not forget their insistence on windowboxing in this day and age, when overscanning TV sets are fast becoming a thing of the past.

Much as I like their style (and they do have the best designed DVDs on the US market right now), I'm also cautiously skeptical about their expertise. The UK Masters of Cinema label has consistently shown more care and achieved better results in their presentation of forgotten classics than Criterion -- even if they operate on a fraction of the budget. (And they've already hinted that their future is Blu.)

I don't know whether to laugh or weep at that Casablanca comment. Once Warner release it on Blu-ray, they'll see how well an old catalog title can sell in high definition!

[Rustmonsteru]

Originally Posted by Seretur

And let's not forget their insistence on windowboxing in this day and age, when overscanning TV sets are fast becoming a thing of the past.

Much as I like their style (and they do have the best designed DVDs on the US market right now), I'm also cautiously skeptical about their expertise. The UK Masters of Cinema label has consistently shown more care and achieved better results in their presentation of forgotten classics than Criterion -- even if they operate on a fraction of the budget. (And they've already hinted that their future is Blu.)

I don't know whether to laugh or weep at that Casablanca comment. Once Warner release it on Blu-ray, they'll see how well an old catalog title can sell in high definition!

I agree on Masters of Cinema. I replaced my Criterion Kwaidan with the MoC version and I've never been happier. I nabbed some other goodies along the way like Face of Another and Pitfall. They take a lot of care with their stuff.

[pro-bassoonist]

Criterion coming on board would be an event of Paramount proportions. They will draw a great pool of supporters who currently are still on the outside.

Pro-B