Criterion and UHD

News on Criterion and Janus Films.
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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#201 Post by tenia » Fri Oct 04, 2019 5:13 am

I do plan on keeping my BDs for a long time.

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Lowry_Sam
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#202 Post by Lowry_Sam » Fri Oct 04, 2019 10:28 am

tenia wrote:
Fri Oct 04, 2019 5:13 am
I do plan on keeping my BDs for a long time.
I do too, but for someone who has been around for awhile & has become upgrade weary, the prospect of another format to upgrade to has made me more hesitant to upgrade, particularly with streaming being more readily available. I picked up Apocalypse Now (3rd time for it) and I am quite impressed with it. So the guessing game of what might be eventually available on UHD or not, has me a bit hesitant to buy anything unless it’s on UHD now.
Last edited by Lowry_Sam on Fri Oct 04, 2019 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#203 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Oct 04, 2019 10:52 am

So long as disc media continues to become more of a format for AV enthusiasts and people who consider collecting films for at home consumption a hobby, I don't see how Criterion can't move to UHD at some point. Would people with a big vinyl collection have been okay with, say, Drag City (trying to think of a nicely curated smaller record company with a lot of clout) never pivoting from CDs just because they don't think enough people have record players? Of course not - people want their media in the best format available. I'm glad LPs are out there even though I haven't yet taken the plunge, because it's an indicator that physical media is still alive and well, and that those who want the highest quality way to consume an album have that. I don't see how UHD discs (or whatever superior format comes along) are any different.

With streaming services having 4K all but be a default for new restorations of older films, it feels right now as though, to use the earlier analogy, a legendary record company with an eye toward a market of enthusiasts is releasing mp3s, FLACs, and CDs - and leaving it at that. And in Criterion's case - their streaming service is even capped at 1080p, even if they restored a film at a higher resolution than that!

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fdm
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#204 Post by fdm » Fri Oct 04, 2019 1:57 pm

And capped with low resolution audio as well.

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movielocke
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Criterion and UHD

#205 Post by movielocke » Fri Oct 04, 2019 2:21 pm

The streaming cap at 1080 is probably two things

1) a limitation of the off the shelf VHX solution

2) a deliberate strategic decision with multiple components:

A) don’t cannibalize / undermine your disc sales business plan by offering a better product in the subscription service

B) Netflix and amazon have functionally unlimited resources and its competitors are burning money like it was pretend currency, neither one are impacted by the bandwidth costs they incur in offering 4k streaming. Increasing criterions bandwidth costs by 4x to offer 4K is probably a very bad move for the bottom line

C) the trump administration ended net neutrality, Netflix et al can pay an infinite amount of newly legal bribe money to avoid throttling, but companies like criterion could be very hurt by the throttling bribe racket, offering 4k would require significant bandwidth increases which would put them more at risk to get fundamentally destroyed by the new regulatory regime and extortion racket.

In other words, offering 4k streaming probably isnt worth putting their entire streaming business model at risk of failure
Last edited by movielocke on Fri Oct 04, 2019 2:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#206 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Fri Oct 04, 2019 4:14 pm

Vimeo OTT (which is what VHX became after it got bought out) supports 4K, but only on the web interface and Android (plus the Android-based Fire OS).

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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#207 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Oct 04, 2019 11:19 pm

I'm not suggesting they offer only 4K streaming, just that it be an option - not a single streaming service offers 4K without having a lower quality level for those without the bandwidth, seems like a strange argument against it unless I'm missing something

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TwoTecs
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#208 Post by TwoTecs » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:07 pm

Since a Roma UHD didn't materialize, Grand Budapest Hotel seems like the most reasonable title to be the first UHD from Criterion (based on what is rumored/expected at this point). It has the mainstream appeal to be profitable and with its colorful cinematography, it will be a good showcase of the format's potential.

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swo17
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#209 Post by swo17 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:10 pm

What will be your prediction after that doesn't happen?

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TwoTecs
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#210 Post by TwoTecs » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:15 pm

swo17 wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:10 pm
What will be your prediction after that doesn't happen?
Lol.

Its not a prediction. I am saying it would be a good decision assuming they have the rights for a UHD. But anything sufficiently popular like that. Mean Streets could be one if Warner gives them the rights for UHD. There might be a couple in the New Year's Clue.

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movielocke
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Criterion and UHD

#211 Post by movielocke » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:31 pm

Ima predict criterion UHD 0001 will be Citizen Kane :-p ;)

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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#212 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:24 pm

Seems like such a strange bet that Criterion won't eventually move on to a superior format that smaller boutique labels have already embraced. Doesn't have to be with some splashy film, but it's going to happen.

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Luke M
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#213 Post by Luke M » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:25 pm

No predictions here. I was trying to imagine Criterion simultaneously releasing titles in DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD, and I couldn't.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#214 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:28 pm

I'm trying to imagine Criterion simultaneously releasing titles in laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-ray and can't imagine that, either. But time moves along.

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ShellOilJunior
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#215 Post by ShellOilJunior » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:33 pm

There was plenty of resistance to blu-ray in 2008/2009. Blu-ray adopters routinely called for a DVD release to be offered in Blu-ray when it was initially DVD only (Remember Close-Up and Summer Hours?). The home video industry is like a shark. It needs to keep moving and eating to survive. Once Criterion releases a favorite on UHD there will be converts.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#216 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:55 pm

It's also improving. UHD is just as much of an improvement over Blu-ray as it was over DVD - a quadrupling of resolution. The idea that Criterion would be embracing of the initial format change and then resistant to this one doesn't make much sense. Just because this hasn't happened yet is no evidence that it's never going to happen. I've beaten this same drum in this thread before, but if you consider yourself a skeptic of this inevitability, take a look at the first few pages of the thread on Criterion and Blu-ray before you recycle any of the same talking points from a decade+ ago
ellipsis7 wrote:
Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:41 am
Like recent enhanced audio formats such as SACD, HDCD & DVD-Audio, it will be slow to take off at all... There will be a few high profile studio releases in the new formats with lots of a knobs on (but also probably backwards compatible to standard DVD-Video) but, as Nick says, we're not likely to rebuy all our Criterions et al. in new format...
Jun-Dai wrote:
Tue Mar 29, 2005 1:23 am
I think the format is doomed to a light-to-moderate adoption (say, 5-15%), and I would be sorry to see Criterion go all-aboard on the new format(s) and end up even more of a niche product than they currently are.
domino harvey (sorry Dom, ilu) wrote:
Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:41 pm
I maintain we will not see Criterion Blu-Rays possibly ever and at best not for several years-- the returns are simply too small for Criterion to invest in until the players saturate more households.
Also worth noting that it's now been confirmed that both the new Xbox and new Playstation, which will be released next year in October or November, will have an on-board UHD drive (and right now, the Xbox One already does for the refreshed S and X models).

All of this being said, I still think it's almost as likely that Criterion abandons physical formats altogether in the same time frame it'll take before we see UHD, though that'd surely be a financial consideration if disc sales altogether begin to tank. The one thing they're absolutely not going to do, though, is continue to release 1080p Blu-ray discs ad infinitum without any advancement.

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swo17
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#217 Post by swo17 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 5:19 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:55 pm
It's also improving. UHD is just as much of an improvement over Blu-ray as it was over DVD - a quadrupling of resolution. The idea that Criterion would be embracing of the initial format change and then resistant to this one doesn't make much sense. Just because this hasn't happened yet is no evidence that it's never going to happen.
I think the fact that it just didn't happen with an obvious contender (Roma) is good evidence that it won't happen with another soon-to-be-released contender (Budapest). That's all I was getting at with my post.

For a while BDs cost, what, 6x DVDs in terms of manufacturing? That certainly kept away labels like Second Run for many years. I don't know what those metrics are for UHD currently but no way Criterion seriously commits to this format until the manufacturing costs come down to the point where it makes sense financially, if that happens at all (the superiority of the format doesn't guarantee that it will). It would be nice to think idealistically that Criterion is committed to the absolute best presentation of every film above all else, but then consider all of the questionable color timing and compression decisions that have affected many of their releases, old and new (granted, some of which are more the fault of another party)

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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#218 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 5:25 pm

swo17 wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 5:19 pm
mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:55 pm
It's also improving. UHD is just as much of an improvement over Blu-ray as it was over DVD - a quadrupling of resolution. The idea that Criterion would be embracing of the initial format change and then resistant to this one doesn't make much sense. Just because this hasn't happened yet is no evidence that it's never going to happen.
I think the fact that it just didn't happen with an obvious contender (Roma) is good evidence that it won't happen with another soon-to-be-released contender (Budapest). That's all I was getting at with my post.

For a while BDs cost, what, 6x DVDs in terms of manufacturing? That certainly kept away labels like Second Run for many years. I don't know what those metrics are for UHD currently but no way Criterion seriously commits to this format until the manufacturing costs come down to the point where it makes sense financially, if that happens at all (the superiority of the format doesn't guarantee that it will). It would be nice to think idealistically that Criterion is committed to the absolute best presentation of every film above all else, but then consider all of the questionable color timing and compression decisions that have affected many of their releases, old and new (granted, some of which are more the fault of another party)
I agree with all of this - speculating as to what title will kick it off seems like a gigantic waste of time, since Blu-ray arrived with titles that were ready to go at that point in time, not the flashiest films in the collection. And I don't have current UHD manufacturing figures, and there are costs associated with any kind of rebranding, so it's not as though it will ever reach a point where it isn't a hurdle - certainly not my contention that it isn't something they need to have a solid plan in place for. But it falls in the "inevitable" category, not the "maybe" category, as long as Criterion remains such a strong brand in home video.

Certainly they must be looking at something like Disney+ and wondering how they can boost their streaming efforts - it's possible they've only got resources to aim at one or the other at any given time. It's not going to happen today or tomorrow. But if you asked me to put my money on there being a UHD announcement sometime by the end of next year, I'd take that bet.

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movielocke
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Criterion and UHD

#219 Post by movielocke » Wed Nov 20, 2019 6:47 pm

I expect uhd criterion releases to be much rarer, and much pricier, but I also think a bigger problem for criterion is three skus per title, there’s a lot of staffing overhead involved expanding format stuff and putting out a new product line. At minimum taking a two sku workload and making a three sku workload is a fifty percent workload expansion, but the new format requires new training and more time that makes the workload increase more than 50% at least at first.

and that’s baseline increase, on top of that you have all the inevitable pipeline failures and self inflicted wounds of any new launch which add a lot of unavoidable unseen costs.

More left field idea: They may want to reserve uhd for a uhd only collection (the opposite of eclipse) and only for titles that aren’t getting blu or dvd releases in the main collection (for instance if they can license Kane and Kong only for uhd, but not for dvd or blu)


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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#220 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 8:04 pm

Simple: stop pressing DVDs for a title once it is released in UHD. Or, though it'll give people something to bitch and moan about anew: go back to the combo packs, which were terrific

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TwoTecs
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#221 Post by TwoTecs » Wed Nov 20, 2019 8:21 pm

I think it will be a while before they start putting out UHDs for their whole monthly slate so I don't think the workload increase will be 50%.

For combo packs I wonder if it makes more sense to package UHD and BD together then bringing back BD-DVD dual formats. People who are still buying DVDs are hopeless and they are not going to upgrade if they haven't already. Its those BD player owners that needed to pushed/enticed towards upgrading. UHD players will get cheaper and PS5 and XBox2 will put a UHD player in many households. Are 1080p TVs even a thing anymore?

This is also what major studios have been doing where they have started packaging updated BDs with UHDs without releasing them standalone. It will futureproof the buyers without forcing them to upgrade or making them anxious about double dipping.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#222 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 10:03 pm

They could literally go down to a single UHD/BD combo SKU and reduce their overall footprint and no one would say boo about it, everyone would be happy

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swo17
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#223 Post by swo17 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 11:17 pm

If they can keep the MSRP for standard releases at $40

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#224 Post by bugsy_pal » Thu Nov 21, 2019 1:21 am

I think that Criterion will only put out UHD versions for selected titles that can clearly benefit from the extra resolution, eg. Grand Budapest Hotel. I'm not sure whether it would be worth it for something like Mean Streets - not sure if the film has enough resolution to benefit, but perhaps the colour would be improved. As for Citizen Kane - I'd love to see what UHD could do for the film, but it may not be much of an improvement over the lovely Warner bluray...

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soundchaser
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#225 Post by soundchaser » Thu Nov 21, 2019 1:28 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 10:03 pm
They could literally go down to a single UHD/BD combo SKU and reduce their overall footprint and no one would say boo about it, everyone would be happy
Our library system still exclusively loans DVDs, so I suspect Criterion gets more sales from those than we’d imagine.

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