The Criterion Collection

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Somebody here on this forum (I think that it was Pro-B) said it best...

"If I don't own something on a disc, then I don't own it at all."

That's the way I look at it. I have almost 1,000 CDs, and that's after my collection has been pared down to the essentials over the past few years as I've been increasingly minimalist at my place. It's quite a commitment in terms of storage space, just as my movie collection is, but I dislike the idea of entrusting the music and movies I grew up enjoying to some ephemeral "cloud" or to a hard drive susceptible to problems.

This makes me think of an unfortunate friend who sold his entire CD collection after putting the songs on an iPod several years ago. His iPod was stolen shortly after he sold his physical collection.

I would never sell my CDs...but I just don't buy them as frequently anymore. Back in high school, I would drop about $100 monthly on them...now, I don't. It's pretty much all digital for me now...got a 2 Terabyte Harddrive to back up all my stuff too

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Sherlock_Jr

Just like the Apple app store, studios could keep records of what you purchased, so you could always download it again. Simple fix. Its no different than disc rot, or discs getting cracked, or scratched, and skipping. Nothing is 100$, but I'd rather be able to re-download something I lost than have to re-buy it again because the disc went bad.

Bottom line is this: we have 3-D printers coming out at Staples this year. We've already 3-D printed a human liver. We have solar panels on cars and completely electric cars with ONE moving part. If we can't get past cumbersome and antiquated physical media, then we have more problems than we thought.

You make some good points here.

Funnily enough, I received an email from Amazon.com a few months back notifying me that they had compiled mp3s of every CD that I had ordered from the site over the years with my user account and had them stored on a cloud for me for free. That was pretty cool of them. It won't replace my CDs, though.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Somebody here on this forum (I think that it was Pro-B) said it best...

"If I don't own something on a disc, then I don't own it at all."

That's the way I look at it. I have almost 1,000 CDs, and that's after my collection has been pared down to the essentials over the past few years as I've been increasingly minimalist at my place. It's quite a commitment in terms of storage space, just as my movie collection is, but I dislike the idea of entrusting the music and movies I grew up enjoying to some ephemeral "cloud" or to a hard drive susceptible to problems.

This makes me think of an unfortunate friend who sold his entire CD collection after putting the songs on an iPod several years ago. His iPod was stolen shortly after he sold his physical collection.

I agree 400%.

Media is always going to be a tangible thing to me. It doesn't matter if its stored on an analog tape, a digital disc or a vinyl record. Data might be more efficiently stored in one gigantic hard drive but the chances of losing everything at once is far greater than having the data stored on thousands of single passive objects. So for my 800+ CDs, I'm still holding on to them.

Originally Posted by Sherlock_Jr

Just like the Apple app store, studios could keep records of what you purchased, so you could always download it again. Simple fix. Its no different than disc rot, or discs getting cracked, or scratched, and skipping. Nothing is 100$, but I'd rather be able to re-download something I lost than have to re-buy it again because the disc went bad.

Bottom line is this: we have 3-D printers coming out at Staples this year. We've already 3-D printed a human liver. We have solar panels on cars and completely electric cars with ONE moving part. If we can't get past cumbersome and antiquated physical media, then we have more problems than we thought.

Still, who knows if Apple will even exist some day or if any businesses or corporations will if the planet suffers a global economic collapse and all records are lost or destroyed. I won't rely on some big company to keep records and backups of purchases. In the future it will come down to "every man on his own". Whoever is lucky enough to have his/her possessions to barter and trade will have an extra advantage over everyone else (even if the possessions, such as Blu-ray discs are worthless).

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by lordmorpheus72

I imagine that a Criterion music release would be something like the Immersion box sets they've done for The Wall, Wish You Were Here, and Dark Side of the Moon (or the Classic Albums dvd series). I'd love to see some classic, and new classic albums given that treatment.

Funny, I was just thinking of the music equivalent of Criterion being Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs with their half-speed master LPs and goldplated Ultradisc CDs.

[jw007]

And hey everyone, today is my birthday too by the way!

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jw007

And hey everyone, today is my birthday too by the way!

Hippo, birdie, two ewes.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

I would never sell my CDs...but I just don't buy them as frequently anymore. Back in high school, I would drop about $100 monthly on them...now, I don't. It's pretty much all digital for me now...got a 2 Terabyte Harddrive to back up all my stuff too

I do not buy CDs nearly as often now. I used to spend $100 or $200 a month on CDs for years, but I've spent less than $100 total on CDs so far in 2013, and it's almost September.

I usually only buy a CD now after listening to the music online for a short while to decide if I like it enough to bother.

The CD that arrived in the mail today, Marnie - Crystal World, is one that I spent a couple of weeks listening to via YouTube, where all of the songs are posted for listening. After several listens, I decided that I liked it enough to buy a physical CD copy to play in my truck during work commutes and road trips.

If I like something enough to want to play it in my truck, then I'm going to bu it on CD.

I occasionally write album reviews for a friend's local music website (Blu-ray.com is not the only place besieged by my long-winded writing.), and this friend gets a lot of free promo music via zip file uploads. If I find something that I want to review favorably, I'll sometimes make the upgrade.

[UNCMT9]

Originally Posted by jw007

And hey everyone, today is my birthday too by the way!

Happy day of birth, you filthy animal! And a Happy New Year!

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by jw007

And hey everyone, today is my birthday too by the way!

[Show spoiler]

Have a great one!

[jw007]

Thanks ya'll!

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by jw007

And hey everyone, today is my birthday too by the way!

[Insert lyrics and Youtube video for Aimee Mann's "31 Today" here]

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

This is the thing that many of us "enthusiasts" and BD addicts often seem to forget. Ordinary people do not care much about stuff like enhanced resolution etc. They just want convenience.

I am sorry, but I definitely disagree with you. And I am not forgetting anything.

However, I have pointed a number of times a fact stated by a man who does actually understand the market and knows its trends, Craig Kornblau, the top brass man at Universal. The home video market is driven by approximately 10% of heavy collectors. Fact-check what I have written here.

So, whether the mass consumer does like convenience is virtually irrelevant because the primary targets for the studios are not these people. This is why they have restructured old content and channeled it to buffet-type services like Netflix.

As I said before, the future of the market will not be one or the other. It will be a large pool of variety of different options for the consumer and revenue streams for the studios.



Pro-B

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by jw007

I think that Criterion's decision to release in Dual Format is a great marketing strategy and is a sign that DVDs will eventually be no longer part of Criterion's future plans.

Eventually is a long time to lock in a discussion, but I am not anticipating to see Criterion dropping DVD any time soon. What they have done here is a smart business move. That's all.

Originally Posted by jw007

I'm getting this information from personal opinion. I guess I should have noted that CDs aren't popular anymore (in my life) but I forgot to add that.

Claiming that something isn't popular based on getting information from a personal opinion is pretty strange.

On a side note, what the music companies are doing regularly with Vinyl albums is what the Hollywood studios are doing with film - plenty of bundles. Vinyl albums frequently come as CD/Vinyl combos, which is why I have purchased quite a few.

As far as CD purchases go, just last week I imported the re-pressed soundtrack of The Conformist on CD. I've also started looking at re-pressed LP soundtracks, though some of the ones I want are quite pricey. (You should see the coverwork they are doing for these....)

These guys:
http://www.dustygroove.com/

Pro-B

[TJS_Blu]

Originally Posted by 14728

Imagine if criterion started releasing albums.

You want criterion treatment for music? Check out Bear Family Records, Mosaic, Rhino Handmade, Hip-O Select, even the Legacy & Deluxe editions (if you can take brickwalled sound). I'm sure there are other labels that apply.

[KRW1]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

As I said before, the future of the market will not be one or the other. It will be a large pool of variety of different options for the consumer and revenue streams for the studios.



Pro-B

I've been saying this for years. The idea that even one country, never mind the entire world, is going to switch, en masse, to one way of watching something, ditching everything else, and sticking to it forever is laughable in this day and age. We like choice, we get choice.

[hoytereden]

My daughter's care package came today with the following:
Band of Outsiders
Vivre Sa Vie
Breathless
The Seventh Seal
Fanny & Alexander
Orpheus
Lord of the Flies

And for good non-Criterion measure:
Oblivion

Good times ahead!

[Tin Drum]

Originally Posted by mrjohnnyb

Three Colors: White is also my favorite of the trilogy.

[Show spoiler] I am claustrophobic and was greatly uncomforted by Karol's voyage back to Poland. It is a great film with great themes (humiliation, love, revenge.)

I am right there with you. I just watched another film with the dreaded

[Show spoiler]person in luggage

and that one involved stairs..


The style of this film just bowled me over. It had a whimsy feel to it even in the depressing circumstances.

[Beta Man]

My movie room had an "Accident"

Sparing you the details, I find myself less one 135" Screen, and down to just my 6-7 year old 37" 720p LCD that bangs out netflix for the kids etc....

Because of this, I've found the urge to unwrap things that I truly want to get engrossed in that have come in recently, diminished.

All of my speakers pre-pro/etc. are in the room that housed the projector screen too.... so it's basically the equivalent of watching a film on the T.V. you keep in the kitchen to watch the morning news while you make your morning coffee (not that I have one of those, this is my only other screen in the house, but the analogy works)

Other circumstances/moving/life/etc. prevents me from replacing the screen immediately, so I'm stuck here with an influx of films, and little desire to watch many of them for the first time (and all for the first time on Blu-ray) on my less-than-to-be-desired conditions.


Rant over.... Watching disney movies with the kids anyway until they go to bed.... then back to streaming Netflix with TV series I never watched.


I have 25+ Criterion BDs I need to catch up on, and of those, 10 or so are films I've never seen

[14728]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

My movie room had an "Accident"

Sparing you the details, I find myself less one 135" Screen, and down to just my 6-7 year old 37" 720p LCD that bangs out netflix for the kids etc....

Because of this, I've found the urge to unwrap things that I truly want to get engrossed in that have come in recently, diminished.

All of my speakers pre-pro/etc. are in the room that housed the projector screen too.... so it's basically the equivalent of watching a film on the T.V. you keep in the kitchen to watch the morning news while you make your morning coffee (not that I have one of those, this is my only other screen in the house, but the analogy works)

Other circumstances/moving/life/etc. prevents me from replacing the screen immediately, so I'm stuck here with an influx of films, and little desire to watch many of them for the first time (and all for the first time on Blu-ray) on my less-than-to-be-desired conditions.


Rant over.... Watching disney movies with the kids anyway until they go to bed.... then back to streaming Netflix with TV series I never watched.


I have 25+ Criterion BDs I need to catch up on, and of those, 10 or so are films I've never seen

A 135" screen? And now it's gone? I can't express with words how sorry I am for you.

[14728]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

My daughter's care package came today with the following:
Band of Outsiders
Vivre Sa Vie
Breathless
The Seventh Seal
Fanny & Alexander
Orpheus
Lord of the Flies

And for good non-Criterion measure:
Oblivion

Good times ahead!

Lucky, if only I had a daughter.