The Official Eureka / Masters of Cinema (MoC) Thread

[pro-bassoonist]

Thank you for the update.

Pro-B

[rezpekt]

The restoration of Metropolis won't be complete until January 2010 and they plan to screen it at Berlin Film Festival in February.

And the release date for Sunrise is September 21st.

Oh, and Nick from the Masters of Cinema has made some strong statements about the Blu-ray support at criterionforum.org:

Personally, I'd like to be releasing titles on Blu-ray only right now, but it's going to take a year or two before we can do that comfortably, I think.

Non-major labels are reporting upto a 50% split in sales between DVD and Blu-ray for titles released on both formats. This figure is quite amazing, really. The sooner this increases in favour of Blu-ray, the sooner we will solely focus on Blu-ray.

At the moment, huge amounts of our time and resources are being spent on releasing both DVD and Blu-ray editions of the same title. We could simply release more titles if we focused on one format.

I believe the main reason that Blu-ray sales are so initially strong is that DVD sales have been irretrievably hammered for years by copying and filesharing, something which is not affecting Blu-ray releases yet, and which will probably not affect Blu-ray releases for a number of years.

It's clear that Blu-ray sales are going to grow at a fair lick over the next few years, hardware prices will come down, region-free players too. On the other hand, DVD sales will stagnate further.

Releasing titles on Blu-ray only will quicken the hardware migration amongst our fanbase, whilst at the same time understandably annoy a whole bunch of people who have no intention of buying new equipment.

We're biting the bullet and pushing forward. It's a difficult transitionary period for everyone, but if we don't embrace Blu-ray, I don't think we'll be able to grow over the next 5 years.

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/...hp?f=15&t=1582

[pro-bassoonist]

Eureka/Masters of Cinema are set to release Rudolph Maté's The Black Shield of Falworth (1954) on September 21. For a short period of time the disc will be exclusive to Moviemail, then it will be sold at Amazon.UK.

n one of his earliest and most dashing performances, a young Tony Curtis pursues his real-life bride Janet Leigh, while defending the British throne in this swashbuckling saga filled with jousts, jests and medieval super heroics

The time is England in the reign of King Henry IV, Miles (Curtis) is a headstrong, handsome peasant determined to learn the name of his slain father and discover his true heritage. His fiery ambition and swift sword lead him to the majestic MacWorth castle. There he must compete for both knighthood as well as the hand of the fair Lady Anne (Leigh), but her love is claimed by the evil, conniving Sir Walter Blount. All the while the English throne is being challenged to the death – from sinister forces within

Soon the fate of the realm, and his beloved Lady Anne, will depend upon his martial skill, but not before Miles must unlock the secret of his own shocking, mysterious identity. With its outstanding supporting cast and dazzling set design this is truly an epic tale of which legends are made!

Starring the ever charismatic, multi-award winning Tony Curtis (Some like It Hot, Smell of Sweet Success, The Defiant Ones), the OSCAR® nominated Janet Leigh (Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate) and directed by the OSCAR® nominated cinematographer Rudolph Mate.

French poster:



Pro-B

[Eureka Entertainment]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Eureka/Masters of Cinema are set to release Rudolph Maté's The Black Shield of Falworth (1954) on September 21. For a short period of time the disc will be exclusive to Moviemail, then it will be sold at Amazon.UK.

Hi from everyone here at Eureka HQ

To clarify a few points from the above post, THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH will be a normal Eureka Blu-ray it won't be part of the Masters of Cinema series.

The Blu-ray will NOT be a Moviemail exclusive, it will be available from all major retailers/etailer from release date, it should be live to pre-order on Amazon.co.uk in the next 24-48 hours.

Here's the cover art:



Thanks,

Kevin - Eureka

[pro-bassoonist]

Hello Kevin,

First of all, welcome to the forum!

Second, thank you for clarifying that the disc will be available at Amazon.UK on September 21.

Pro-B

[Eureka Entertainment]

Originally Posted by Hugh K. David

We don't have anyone from Eureka here on the forums do we?

Hi Hugh,

You do now

[Hugh K. David]

Hi Kevin,

Welcome sir! Nice to see you here. Look forward to future discussions.

My recommendations for available BD masters worth licensing is probably going to be similar to yours, but certainly I'm sure you're already aware of what's out there, so I'll try and make it brief and to the point when I post it.

Back to work....

Cheers!

[Pyoko]

Hi Kevin,

I have a question I hope you won't mind answering (if you are able to). Are all Eureka/MoC Blu-rays going to be encoded at exactly 24.000fps, or does it simply depend on the master? Virtually all major studio movies are encoded at 23.976fps for example (Criterions too).

The reason I'm wondering is because with 23.976 being the far more common frame rate, I've heard that 24.000fps can actually cause slight sync problems on some 24p equipment (because it assumes a 23.976 frame rate). I don't have any 24p equipment yet, but it would be nice to know that when I do get it I won't have to worry about any compatibility issues (I guess I just feel more comfortable with 23.976fps, since you know that will always be perfectly supported.)

Thanks.

[Eureka Entertainment]

Originally Posted by Hugh K. David

Hi Kevin,

Welcome sir! Nice to see you here. Look forward to future discussions.

My recommendations for available BD masters worth licensing is probably going to be similar to yours, but certainly I'm sure you're already aware of what's out there, so I'll try and make it brief and to the point when I post it.

Back to work....

Cheers!

Hi Hugh,

Recommend away, We have a list as long as our collective arms as to what we think would be good Blu-ray, fingers crossed we can beat Tartan to a few of those gems

[AnimeOnBlu]

Welcome Kevin. Glad to have you here.
I was wondering if I could throw this out there. Just curious

[Eureka Entertainment]

Originally Posted by Pyoko

Hi Kevin,

I have a question I hope you won't mind answering (if you are able to). Are all Eureka/MoC Blu-rays going to be encoded at exactly 24.000fps, or does it simply depend on the master? Virtually all major studio movies are encoded at 23.976fps for example (Criterions too).

The reason I'm wondering is because with 23.976 being the far more common frame rate, I've heard that 24.000fps can actually cause slight sync problems on some 24p equipment (because it assumes a 23.976 frame rate). I don't have any 24p equipment yet, but it would be nice to know that when I do get it I won't have to worry about any compatibility issues (I guess I just feel more comfortable with 23.976fps, since you know that will always be perfectly supported.)

Thanks.

Good question.

The short answer is, a lot of it depends on the company we licence it from and how we go about obtaining masters.

Our recent release of JUNEBUG is 23.976, as is the forthcoming BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH (more on that one in a minute). I'd have to go back to the masters to completely confirm our others, but I will check and come back to you on those in the next few days. We are often limited by the source material we are provided, having a brand new telecine made is ridiculously expensive but we do strive to find the best possible masters for our releases.

THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH has come from a brand new telecine Universal made for us from a negative that was to them unknown (it looks great by the way!). So we're happy with the way that one is progressing.

The bonus with 23.976 is it very nicely progressively encodes for NTSC DVD so we dont have to spend a lot of time and money doing conversions to PAL.

[Eureka Entertainment]

Originally Posted by AnimeOnBlu

Welcome Kevin. Glad to have you here.
I was wondering if I could throw this out there. Just curious

Hi,

Another very good one.

We did look at it... Personally, I thought it was a very good film with a great cast, was it worthy of an Oscar? my personal opinion would be no, there were other films in the Foreign Film category that I think would have been a clear winner, but (as my signature will soon reflect) this is just my opinion, not that of the company I work for.

However I don't think it will be gracing our catalogue in the immediate future. I think it may have been picked up for distribution in the UK, I know it showed recently at an Asian event in London. If I hear anymore I will report back with info for you.

Sorry to disappoint.

[Eureka Entertainment]

BTW feel free to ask questions about any of our previous or forthcoming releases, I'll answer all I'm able to.

Thanks,

Kevin

[AnimeOnBlu]

Originally Posted by Eureka Entertainment

However I don't think it will be gracing our catalogue in the imitate future. I think it may have been picked up for distribution in the UK, I know it showed recently at an Asian event in London. If I hear anymore I will report back with info for you.

Sorry to disappoint.

No disappointment. Thanks for the reply

[rezpekt]

What's the SRP price for "Sunrise"? When are the preorders up?

Any information about spines #4 and #6?

Thanks and best wishes!

[DJANGO]

. . . I believe I read Eureka's Masters of Cinema Blu-ray releases (such as SUNRISE) will always try to be Region Free - they have all worked well over here in Region A so far . . . will Eureka's THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH Blu-ray also be Region Free (fingers crossed) . . .

[Eureka Entertainment]

Originally Posted by rezpekt

What's the SRP price for "Sunrise"? When are the preorders up?

Any information about spines #4 and #6?

Thanks and best wishes!

The SRP of the Blu-ray is £24.99, the listing is live at Amazon so you should be able to pre-order it there shortly.

Sorry, I can't disclose anything about spine numbers 4 and 6 at the moment.

Originally Posted by DJANGO

. . . I believe I read Eureka's Masters of Cinema Blu-ray releases (such as SUNRISE) will always try to be Region Free - they have all worked well over here in Region A so far . . . will Eureka's THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH Blu-ray also be Region Free (fingers crossed) . . .

Where possible we will always try and release non-region crippled releases in both the Masters of Cinema series and our normal releases

[Hugh K. David]

Kevin, hi,

You're on sir! I suspect in the long run we might be in competition, but not for the sort just yet.

Cheers!

[AnimeOnBlu]

Kevin,
Was curious about "For All Mankind". MoC version is virtually identical to the Criterion version with the exception that it does not have the 21 minute "On Camera" Interview. Any reason for this particular extra missing?

[rezpekt]

Amazon has added Sunrise to it's database but no preorder yet.