The Criterion Collection

[BluPix]

Originally Posted by DLizzle

I noticed that the email mentioned Le Havre getting a Criterion release in 2012. Was this already known?

If I remember correctly Le Havre was released theatrically by Janus Films -- Criterion's corporate sibling. Pretty much all pictures distributed by Janus receive the Criterion treatment, though not always on Blu (but then again I would bet that Le Havre will be released on Blu). Anyway, given Janus' involvement, I'm not really surprised.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by ikms

Nobody is asking for restoration. AVC on a BD-25 at 1080p (as their masters surely are hi-def) is not a stretch when they are releasing them on DVD-9 with modern mpeg-2. Anyone here could create their own competent BD masters on a modern PC given a couple hours with the source master. No menus, no frills!

Given how much time and effort they've put into developing their brand this would be a huge risk for them with little or no upside.

You say nobody is asking for restorations. Even if that's true for the small subset of consumers who get excited about Eclipse sets (and I seriously doubt it would be true for all of them) it's certainly not true for consumers in general. If anything BD consumers not only expect every release to be meticulously restored, they expect perfection and they expect it to be cheap.

Look at the hits Universal takes for generally decent releases. Can you really imagine Criterion being held to a lower, more reasonable standard? They could stamp 'This Disc Sucks: It Hasn't Been Restored: Buy At Your Own Risk: Seriously, It Sucks' all over every unrestored release and the reaction would still be 'Wow, Criterion is really slipping'.

And for what? Criterion wouldn't be able to charge much more (if any more) for these than they're charging for the DVD Eclipse sets and consumers wouldn't be getting much out of them anyway. Would an unrestored 1080p transfer really be that much better than an upconverted DVD? Classic Media thought so when they released Gojira but reviewers and consumers responded with a resounding 'eh'. Film Chest did restore The Stranger and that landed with a pretty similar thud.

I dunno, this seems a lot like a solution in search of a problem.

[BluPix]

Originally Posted by TylerDurden

I had the pleasure of viewing my copy of The Rules of the Game tonight. It's a very clever film, perhaps the cleverest ever made. One can see how the irony was lost on a 1939 Parisian audience. Never has a film so boldly displayed a group in society with pure satirical irony. It's unfortunate that the 35mm negatives were destroyed during a bombing in WWII. It's amazing what they have restored with what was left of the production. The picture is amazing in most of the scenes. The problems start to occur when black levels appear or night time shots. Lots of grain and film scratches, not sure if I'm describing that right, but I believe it is the best CC has to offer. I'm thinking Gojira will have a similar look, as this film was also taken from a fine grain master. This picture comes highly recommended.

Your comments are encouraging. I came so close to picking up The Rules of the Game during the Barnes & Noble sale, but opted to buy titles that had been on my wishlist longer. But I definitely want to see Rules and it's prioritized very high on my wishlist.

[JonMoisan]

Originally Posted by jacobsever

Just out of curiosity, how many people in this thread have studied film at a collegiate level? Majored?

And what did you go on to do with the degree?

Film major here. I edit comic books now.

[ikms]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

Recordable CDs and DVDs are cheaper than the discs used for their commercial counterparts so I imagine the same is true for BD.

I would love to get an actual price quote on that outside of broad internet speculation. The plastics are in similar quantity, so aluminum stamped vs dye embedded process is the only difference we are talking here. If 30-yen a disc can still net a profit at retail...

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

Overall Blu-rays still aren't manufactured in the volume that DVDs are, which means they are still more expensive per disc to manufacture.

I am sure there are fewer BD capable pressing plants because Bluray has not (and will likely never) reach the sell-through potential of DVD at its height. Still, the processes involved are much the same, and if anything smaller runs (Criterion, and Eclipse by its very nature) will always be priced higher than mass market films just because there is no in-house production, and no studio to leverage their commodity orders. Coming back to Criterion after a couple decades I am amazed at how big their once-niche operation has become. Clearly these leaner digital prices (I was paying $125 a pop on LD, $150 for Brazil!) were more than enough to create a powerhouse.

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

$5 BDs are a bad example, especially in a Criterion context.

Its a fine example The point being: BD production lines (stampage) are cheap enough to allow $5 BDs to exist at retail - and those aren't necessarily big-selling Hollywood blockbusters either - we are still talking small runs. To justify Criterion not selling Eclipse BDs because the back-end manufacturing is "much more expensive than DVDs" flies in the face of the market reality.

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

If you had to pay the same price as the DVD set for a single BD of standard def content, would you buy it?

If it were standard def, I would prefer the DVD because it will work on more devices (well, actually less in my case since Japan is region A and region 2... so for Eclipse playback I have to get creative) unless the content is AVC and anamorphic DVDs masters were instead presented with 1:1 pixels, 874x480.

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

I just don't think the effort would produce much more in the way of quality than what is available on DVD.

Its all subjective. I have seen DVDs of older films that "can pass" for HD masters (Imitation of Life, anyone? ) because the source material was so shoddy to begin with. Without a true remastering, I suspect it would be hard to see any improvement going to HD. But even with noisy sources, the grain pattern gets muddled with DVDs and mpeg-2, and even in the worst case, I have never seen an AVC-encoded BD that I couldn't tell was better than the DVD in my collection on side-by-side inspection. A few botched mpeg-2 releases, yeah (American Psycho comes to mind), but we all have different thresholds.

Originally Posted by octagon

They could stamp 'This Disc Sucks: It Hasn't Been Restored: Buy At Your Own Risk: Seriously, It Sucks' all over every unrestored release and the reaction would still be 'Wow, Criterion is really slipping'.

That is why it is called "Eclipse." Criterion has already preemptively disowned the series before you get it into your hands. I didn't even know Eclipse existed until it was mentioned online in several of these threads.

Originally Posted by octagon

And for what? Criterion wouldn't be able to charge much more (if any more) for these than they're charging for the DVD Eclipse sets and consumers wouldn't be getting much out of them anyway.

If you feel there isn't "getting much out of them" then I guess the sets wouldn't appeal to you. Criterion is mastering them in HD however, they say as much on their site:
"Criterion's Blu-ray editions will generally be priced to match our DVDs. It makes sense to us: High-definition mastering and restoration has been a part of our DVD production standard for years. "
So the final image quality bottleneck is on the delivery mechanism. Just got done watching Amarcord and it looked fine to me, not as good as a "made for HD from the ground up" release of late (Sweet Smell of Success), but the 2006 DVD master was substantially better looking on Blu than the anamorphic DVD could manage - even with their before/after comparison without the scene-by-scene scratch removal.

Originally Posted by octagon

Would an unrestored 1080p transfer really be that much better than an upconverted DVD?

If its the same price? Why limit it? Not as though these movies are going to get a second-go round at this rate. Part of my falling out with Criterion (or I suppose Janus Films) during the DVD era was the lack of releases to match their formidable VHS library. I had to settle for Ozu and Kurosawa classics on crappy video tape for years before they realized it was never going to happen in our lifetime, relented, and started Eclipse to shovel the backlog out bare-boned and cheap enough to sell through.

Originally Posted by octagon

I dunno, this seems a lot like a solution in search of a problem.

If these were being mastered in SD, or sourced from SD (like TV series, silent films rotting to pieces, whatnot) then I agree. They are being telecined in HD however, mastered in an HD environment, and with BD being priced what it is (in line with DVD certainly, and miles better than LD releases 15 years ago) going to DVD in 2011 with mpeg-2 encoding out of 1994 seems, frankly, short sighted. It was always going to be niche, and it has always been niche.

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by jacobsever

Just out of curiosity, how many people in this thread have studied film at a collegiate level? Majored?

And what did you go on to do with the degree?

I studied networking and security back in college but I took film classes as fillers. My original idea was going into arts (I really enjoy to write and such) and was looking forward to litteratures classes. Don't ask me how I ended up in computers

[DLizzle]

Originally Posted by ikms

If these were being mastered in SD, or sourced from SD (like TV series, silent films rotting to pieces, whatnot) then I agree. They are being telecined in HD however, mastered in an HD environment, and with BD being priced what it is (in line with DVD certainly, and miles better than LD releases 15 years ago) going to DVD in 2011 with mpeg-2 encoding out of 1994 seems, frankly, short sighted. It was always going to be niche, and it has always been niche.

You're at a bit of a disadvantage in this discussion, for the fact that the company we're discussing has much more information than any of us and is still releasing the Eclipse series on DVD. What do you think their reasons are?

[drbikeshorts]

Originally Posted by *DrStrangelove*

What do you guys think of Army of Shadows? Is it Melville's best film? I've only seen Le Doulos and thought it was great. I need some Melville in my collection so might get it.

I blind-bought Army of Shadows and think it's an amazing film.

[drbikeshorts]

Originally Posted by jacobsever

Just out of curiosity, how many people in this thread have studied film at a collegiate level? Majored?

And what did you go on to do with the degree?

I did my Honours and then Masters studying cinema. I wrote a 120-page thesis for my Masters on superhero films.
I also wrote and edited film reviews for a few years, but it just never paid.
Now I'm a cog in a corporate machine. My team leaders and managers are morons and incompetent, the work is slightly soul destroying, but the pay is good, so I can afford lots of Criterions

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by *DrStrangelove*

What do you guys think of Army of Shadows? Is it Melville's best film? I've only seen Le Doulos and thought it was great. I need some Melville in my collection so might get it.

I'll let you know as soon as I watch it. I just got it.

Originally Posted by monque

I do. What a great addition to Criterion collection that would be.

I meant what Studio owned it, but it's great you own it. It looks like Universal has it, so who knows if Criterion would get it. It's one of the few films that makes me cry.


For my undergrad, I did a major in History, minor in English. A few of my English classes had film analysis in them. For my Masters, I studied Library and Information Science. I now work for an engineering company managing technical data.

Change of subject, but any Canadians have any luck with exchanging stuff from B&N? I ended up getting two copies of Dazed and Confused, rather the single copy I ordered and Kuroneko. I called customer service, and they told me to expect a e-mail in 24-48 hours before I do anything.

I'm a wee bit disappointed, but I'll still order from B&N again as this was the first major screw-up I've had with them. I did have a "missing" box set, but that was a Canada Post issue, not theirs.

I was looking forward to watching HD Kuroneko. Guess I'll have to make due with the other 8 Criterions I received from B&N and Amazon this week.

[ikms]

Originally Posted by DLizzle

What do you think their reasons are?

I can only speculate (like everyone else in this thread) but the main reason is because, well, they started it on DVD and since it is still selling... why bother? If there were people clamoring for BD, the issue might be different. Criterion is notorious for being dragged screaming and kicking into these format changes (sitting on the fence for BD/HD-DVD of course, but they publicly questioned the importance of anamorphic encoding for the first several years of DVD, variable bitrate video implementation, and of course the odd practice of windowboxing 4:3 DVDs to this day, to cater to some supposed group of un-optimized CRT stalwarts )

Originally Posted by drbikeshorts

I blind-bought Army of Shadows and think it's an amazing film.

Le Cercle Rouge is pretty good through the first half of the film (after that I am take it or leave it), but when I saw Army of Shadows on DVD last X'Mas, I just had to get the Blu-Ray. Watched it back-to-back with Black Book (another great resistance film) and felt it was nearly flawless. Well worth a blind buy if you like similar "dark" WW2 fare (Soldier of Orange and even aspects of Das Boot come to mind).

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by octagon

If anything BD consumers not only expect every release to be meticulously restored, they expect perfection and they expect it to be cheap.

Plenty of people can't tell much difference between a recently restored film from 4K scan and an old master that's 'just' HD. Say on the packaging that it's been restored, and problem solved (as long as the source actually is HD.) It already works for many of Criterion's regular releases.

Would an unrestored 1080p transfer really be that much better than an upconverted DVD? Classic Media thought so when they released Gojira but reviewers and consumers responded with a resounding 'eh'.

If it was a decent transfer. Gojira wasn't.

Film Chest did restore The Stranger and that landed with a pretty similar thud.

No they didn't, I think they just used MGM's source and slathered it in noise reduction until it had less detail than the DVD.

With that said, many of the titles in the Eclipse sets are clearly not from HD sources, so none of this matters. Upscaling is not worth it. Creating the sets around which titles have HD transfers is probably too bothersome, and releasing the titles that are in HD separately in simple $15-20 MSRP editions would probably be too much to keep track of and not worth it.

[blkhrt]

Originally Posted by jacobsever

Just out of curiosity, how many people in this thread have studied film at a collegiate level? Majored?

And what did you go on to do with the degree?

Took a lot of film classes as an undergrad, but my degree is in Chemistry. For one thing, the school I was at didn't have a film major, for another, I wasn't sure what I wanted to study. Then I got a PhD in English...now I teach.

[TJS_Blu]

In case you missed it, someone posted a list of Universal titles with release dates based upon "very good authority" in the Criterionforum that is being discussed on BR.com here.

There are a some OOP CC titles, planned for DVD release (Charade, The Last Temptation of Christ, My Man Godfrey, & Sullivan's Travels-OOP) in March. It is just a rumor, but I'm wondering if, assuming it's accurate, do you think Uni would license those titles to CC for HiDef releases?

(Charade, obviously, is already on blu in the collection)

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

$5 BDs are a bad example, especially in a Criterion context. Is a Trabant comparable to a Mercedes? Everyone knows those $5 discs are garbage with no investment put into them. Photoshopped covers that most 7th graders could manage. Licensing costs for Tyrannowalrus vs. Your Mama probably a bit less than a Bergman or Kurosawa film. The low price point attracts curious buyers, so they sell a fair number of them just because they are so cheap, and more still as loss leaders. Much different scenario from Criterion, even for their Eclipse stuff.

You go, Joe! BIG difference between something on Blu-ray, and in Blu-ray. These boards are awash with debate coming from these two fundamentally opposed points of view:

• those who feel existing 2k scans and masters for DVD are 'good enough'; just shovel them onto Blu-ray so that...well...they're on Blu.

• those who want minimum 4k scans and remasters, otherwise, why bother doing a Blu? Just stick with the DVD if that's where your head is at, and your vision has stalled.

Personally, I wish BD25 didn't even exist. During the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD *war*, the mastering and authoring specs of the former were often capped to accommodate release via the latter. And so we now have bargain bins full of these 'high-ish' rez DVD/HD-DVD-redux catalogue titles on Blu-ray, especially from Universal, Warners, and Paramount.

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

I know this is blasphemous to say on a Blu-ray site, but plenty of people are perfectly fine with DVD, the format is ubiquitous, and frankly it's better than the alternative (no release)...

...and the catch-22 is that thanks to the higher def rescanning and remastering for Blu-ray, most DVDs look better than ever. So with every new end-to-end overhaul for Blu-ray, DVD holdouts have even less reason to migrate.

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

In fact, I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about the quality of an Eclipse set.

Blu-ray is still stalled at 20% to 25% of the market, and diehard collectors are above all pragmatists. We know that some of the works we treasure most are pretty esoteric and will never attract a mass audience regardless how well restored, rescanned, and remastered.

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

I think some people miss the whole point of Eclipse, which is that they are a way for Criterion to release films without the extensive production efforts they put into their mainline titles.

I just don't think the effort would produce much more in the way of quality than what is available on DVD.

Island of Lost Souls is probably the finest example so far of the law of diminishing returns that sets in when the source content is in dodgy shape as a result of indifferent preservation, and reconstruction is necessary from a mosaic of mis-matched elements. Of course, it was great to see this forgotten classic once again in some semblance of its original form, but Criterion achieved nothing unique with it in the Blu-ray format. Bet it looks just dandy on DVD.

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by TylerDurden

I had the pleasure of viewing my copy of The Rules of the Game tonight. It's a very clever film, perhaps the cleverest ever made. One can see how the irony was lost on a 1939 Parisian audience. Never has a film so boldly displayed a group in society with pure satirical irony

Exhibit A: Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Also cf. Dr. Strangelove.

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by TJS_Blu

In case you missed it, someone posted a list of Universal titles with release dates based upon "very good authority" in the Criterionforum that is being discussed on BR.com here.

There are a some OOP CC titles, planned for DVD release (Charade, The Last Temptation of Christ, My Man Godfrey, & Sullivan's Travels-OOP) in March. It is just a rumor, but I'm wondering if, assuming it's accurate, do you think Uni would license those titles to CC for HiDef releases?

(Charade, obviously, is already on blu in the collection)

Universal has shown so much indifference to its catalogue, and is still suffering the economic fallout from getting behind HD-DVD format in such a big way, I suspect they'll be grateful for any other licensing streams TJS-Blu. I mean, they apparently had no problem with Criterion's Blu-rays of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Dazed and Confused co-existing with their own.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by octagon

And for what? Criterion wouldn't be able to charge much more (if any more) for these than they're charging for the DVD Eclipse sets and consumers wouldn't be getting much out of them anyway.

Originally Posted by ikms

If you feel there isn't "getting much out of them" then I guess the sets wouldn't appeal to you.

I'm not talking about the films. I'm suggesting a BD Eclipse set wouldn't offer consumers much more than they're already getting from DVD Eclipse sets.

Originally Posted by octagon

Would an unrestored 1080p transfer really be that much better than an upconverted DVD?

Originally Posted by ikms

If its the same price? Why limit it? Not as though these movies are going to get a second-go round at this rate. Part of my falling out with Criterion (or I suppose Janus Films) during the DVD era was the lack of releases to match their formidable VHS library. I had to settle for Ozu and Kurosawa classics on crappy video tape for years before they realized it was never going to happen in our lifetime, relented, and started Eclipse to shovel the backlog out bare-boned and cheap enough to sell through.

You kinda lost me. Is that a yes? A no?

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

If that 2012 release list going around is accurate, I'm excited about their James Whale horror flicks coming to Blu-ray even though they probably won't be worth an upgrade.

Ditto. But it's been awhile since I've spent any quality time with those films, and don't even have the DVDs anymore. So for me, this upgrade makes sense.

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

Some of [Universal's] recent licensing at least gives me hope that they are smart enough to license out important films and let an eager third party do the heavy lifting and produce a great release. Everyone wins in those cases.

Yeah. Universal isn't Studio Canal. At least Universal doesn't seem to be freaking over the prospect of a cheaper home label Blu-ray release co-existing with a premium Criterion edition. I think Studio Canal was unnecessarily anal about taking back The Third Man, Contempt, RAN etc. Like Criterion collectors would suddenly start buying their version instead? How do they explain those $100 plus eBay and Amazon after market prices for the Criterion editions?

Just lost licensing revenue for Studio Canal. Classic case of 'foot shot while still wedged in mouth'.

[tenia]

Originally Posted by ikms

That is why it is called "Eclipse." Criterion has already preemptively disowned the series before you get it into your hands.

This is a so borderline argument that I can't not react even if I'm not a Criterion integrist.

First, it is not disowned. In fact, it is pretty clear that Eclipse IS PART OF Criterion since the full name is "Eclipse from the Criterion Collection" and is written all over the boxsets and discs. It is written 3 times on each cover, 1 time on each disc, and again 3 times on the boxset.
Also, if you look closely, you will see that at the bottom of each boxset and cover, the Criterion logo is here.

Also, as said above, the idea behind Eclipse is : releasing movies. Basically. Making them available in a decent release at a decent cost.

It is, I think, a completely different approach than the mainline, which is supposed to be "high end" releases of the movies that are in : essays, best restoration possible, extras, commentaries, etc etc.

Originally Posted by ikms

I didn't even know Eclipse existed until it was mentioned online in several of these threads.

Yeah, it's not like they have released almost 30 sets already, meaning about 100 movies.