The Criterion Channel

[cheez avenger]

We are incredibly touched and encouraged by the flood of support we’ve been receiving since the announcement that FilmStruck will be shutting down on November 29, 2018. Our thanks go out to everyone who signed petitions, wrote letters and newspaper articles, and raised your voices to let the world know how much our mission and these movies matter to you.

Well, if you loved the curated programming we’ve been doing with our friends at FilmStruck, we have good news for you. The Criterion Collection team is going to be carrying on with that mission, launching the Criterion Channel as a freestanding service in spring 2019.

We’ve been trying to make something a little different for the past two years—a movie lover’s dream streaming service, with smart thematic programming, where the history of cinema can live and breathe, where a new generation of filmmakers and film lovers can explore the classics or revel in rarities, where adventurous cinephiles can champion films that have never gotten their due, and newcomers can easily find guidance from major filmmakers, top scholars, curators, and other experts from all walks of life.

The Criterion Channel will be picking up where the old service left off, programming director spotlights and actor retrospectives featuring major Hollywood and international classics and hard-to-find discoveries from around the world, complete with special features like commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, and original documentaries. We will continue with our guest programmer series, Adventures in Moviegoing. Our regular series like Art-House America, Split Screen, and Meet the Filmmakers, and our Ten Minutes or Less section will all live on, along with Tuesday’s Short + Feature and the Friday Night Double Feature, and of course our monthly fifteen-minute film school, Observations on Film Art.

Our library will also be available through WarnerMedia’s new consumer platform when it launches late next year, so once both services are live, Criterion fans will have even more ways to find the films they love.

We will be starting from scratch, with no subscribers, so we will need all the help we can get. The most valuable thing you can do to help now is go to Criterion.com/channel (https://www.criterion.com/channel) and sign up to be a Charter Subscriber, then tell your friends to sign up too. We need everyone who was a FilmStruck subscriber or who’s been tweeting and signing petitions and writing letters to come out and to sign up for the new service. We can’t do it without you!

[bdmckinl]

Anyone know if this will be available in Canada?

EDIT: Never mind, I didn’t read the release closely enough. Initial launch in the US and Canada woo-hoo!

[Poya]

Sweet! Does that mean they’ll have the films that FilmStruck had or just Criterion films only?

Our library will also be available through WarnerMedia’s new consumer platform when it launches late next year,

I assume that will be like when Amazon Prime allows CBS, HBO, etc to stream on their service via “channels”?

[billygreen23]

complete with special features like commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, and original documentaries.

Very excited about that.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by billygreen23

Very excited about that.

Filmstruck had that too, no?

[Jar Jar Stinks]

So, this is going to cost the same as the old FilmStruck + Criterion option?

[ChromeJob]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

So, this is going to cost the same as the old FilmStruck + Criterion option?

Less than the Filmstruck + Criterion $11.99 price. It will NOT include TCM content, apparently only Criterion.

It WILL apparently carry all the extras and features that made Filmstruck such a deal.

Early adopters can get $1/month or $10/yearly rate discounts. => https://www.criterion.com/channel


FYI, if you have TCM in your cable package, you may qualify for access to the Watch TCM on Apple TV, other platforms. Films are available for a week or two, and the software is a little better developed than Filmstruck's (tvOS, that is).

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by ChromeJob

Less than the Filmstruck + Criterion $11.99 price. It will NOT include TCM content, apparently only Criterion.

It WILL apparently carry all the extras and features that made Filmstruck such a deal.

Early adopters can get $1/month or $10/yearly rate discounts. => https://www.criterion.com/channel


FYI, if you have TCM in your cable package, you may qualify for access to the Watch TCM on Apple TV, other platforms. Films are available for a week or two, and the software is a little better developed than Filmstruck's (tvOS, that is).

And that's just the a la carte price of month to month. If you buy the year all at once it comes down even more in terms of price and they will be giving folks a free 30-day trial, as well.

[hanshotfirst1138]

Originally Posted by ChromeJob

Less than the Filmstruck + Criterion $11.99 price. It will NOT include TCM content, apparently only Criterion.

It WILL apparently carry all the extras and features that made Filmstruck such a deal.

Early adopters can get $1/month or $10/yearly rate discounts. => https://www.criterion.com/channel


FYI, if you have TCM in your cable package, you may qualify for access to the Watch TCM on Apple TV, other platforms. Films are available for a week or two, and the software is a little better developed than Filmstruck's (tvOS, that is).

Damn. Part of the cache of FilmStruck for me was having the TCM stuff too. I love Criterion, but I don’t know if this channel by itself is worth it...

[DVD Phreak]

Originally Posted by ChromeJob

Less than the Filmstruck + Criterion $11.99 price. It will NOT include TCM content, apparently only Criterion.

The original Filmstruck didn't have a lot of TCM stuff, did it? It did have a lot of major Warner titles such as King Kong and whatnot, which I'm sure will be on the new channel too. By "TCM stuff," I mean the more obscure titles aired on TCM late nights with maybe 5 people watching, e.g. Obsession (1949), Evergreen (1934), etc.

[antifood]

Originally Posted by DVD Phreak

The original Filmstruck didn't have a lot of TCM stuff, did it? It did have a lot of major Warner titles such as King Kong and whatnot, which I'm sure will be on the new channel too. By "TCM stuff," I mean the more obscure titles aired on TCM late nights with maybe 5 people watching, e.g. Obsession (1949), Evergreen (1934), etc.

It did.

[Corey31]

Originally Posted by Poya

I signed up for a Charter subscription when it was announced but I can’t seem to get that $1/month deal. Was there something I needed to do?

I think the way he worded it is confusing. It's not $1 / month or $10 / year. That's the discount you get for signing up early.

So instead of $10.99 / month your subscription will be $9.99 / month. Instead of $99.99 / year you pay $89.99 / year. Those discounts are for the length of your subscription.

[Peavey]

They just sent out an email to charter subscribers. Chungking Express is the movie of the week and available to watch. Must have active subscription to view.

[rollinwith26s]

A Criterion Channel, if available in Canada, will be such a blessing and a curse for me. For one, I will finally be able to afford to watch more Criterions. The downside is that I could spend WAAAYYYY too much time watching Criterions if they are all available to me at once.

[gregmtl92]

I wonder if we'll have the option to turn off the subtitles?

[coachlynn]

Darn, wish I had seen this sooner. Looks like it's @$90 a year now.

[DickieT]

Originally Posted by coachlynn

Darn, wish I had seen this sooner. Looks like it's @$90 a year now.

You didn't miss anything. It will increase for folks who sign up after april 8th to $100 annually. You can sign up starting today

https://www.criterionchannel.com/




Be a Charter Subscriber!

Sign up now and enjoy an extended 30-day free trial (beginning with the April 8 launch), along with reduced pricing and access to our prelaunch Movie of the Week series, running exclusively for Charter Subscribers between sign-up and launch of the service.

Charter subscribers pay $9.99 per month or $89.99 annually for as long as you stay active, instead of $10.99 per month or $99.99 annually for subscribers who sign up after April 8. Your official 30-day free trial will not begin until April 8, and your card will not be charged until your free trial is over.

Charter Subscribers get concierge customer service from the Criterion Collection, a dedicated e-mail address to write to, as well as a holiday gift certificate for use on the Criterion Collection website.

[erlinmeyer]

Maybe by the time they come online they will have fixed this:

My Criterion
Under Construction

no money until then

[kristoffer]

I wonder which audio codec they will use and how good the bitrate will be for both video and audio.

[Animatic33]

Originally Posted by kristoffer

I wonder which audio codec they will use and how good the bitrate will be for both video and audio.

They're using VHX as their streaming backend. Since VHX is now owned and operated by Vimeo, I am presuming the encodes will be limited to whatever VHX allows and perhaps a standard established by vimeo.

The stream of Mikey and Nicky is interesting to see, as there's a heavy grain inherit in the scan, but the streaming artifacts are currently pretty noticeable at close range. I am hoping they will tweak the settings based upon load testing up and after the launch of the service.

The upside of the matter is that Vimeo is a company that offers content creators better quality controls on how their videos are presented. So, no doubt there's some tweaking going on Criterion's end to get it up to par.