Criterion Co. sitting out format war... for now.

Hmm, nice post. And while it's sort of disappointing that they won't be getting involved ASAP, it's good to know that they will be ready when the time comes...


To me, things like new HD Criterion Co. releases are excellent reasons to get into the new formats and start re-buying your collection. These titles are very rare on DVD but now most of us will know to grab them up big time as we get a second chance with their HD releases. I can't wait.


I'm looking forward to new HD CC versions of Robocop and Hard-Boiled, among others.

I have a feeling Sony probably won't let Robocop out of house now that they aquired it through the MGM sale.

Criterion lost the rights to the MGM owned titles years ago. You'll never see them from Criterion again in any format.


Personally, I would kill to have their Bergman titles in HD.

Kurosawa!


come on Criterion


-Gary

So now, we will have a good indicator as to who is winning the format war in the future. Criterion will join the winning side when it becomes obvious to them who will win. I am pro hd dvd myself, but I would have thought: with lots of extras as their signature, criterion would lean towards blu-ray.

Well for what it's worth I sent them an email in support of HD DVD.

me too.

me three.

Criterion is owned by Image now, and Image has complained that authoring in HD is too expensive and they have no plans to do it for either format until the costs drop dramatically.


It isn't about waiting for a victor in the format war. It's about their parent company being too cheap.

I've heard this excuse from Image before, but cost doesn't seem to be keeping Magnolia, BCI Eclipse and Goldhil out of the game, not to mention some of the porn studios. Image needs a better excuse.

I'm cool with them waiting. Wouldn't you if you were a small independent company and didn't want to blow resources learning the tricks to author an HD format that could potentially lose out in just a year's time?


IMO, they should wait a year, and then see if one format is "better" at that time over the other. 1.5 year's max.

the most important thing RIGHT NOW is that Criterion master and do all their film-digital transfers at the 1920 x 1080 level or higher for any new projects. That's what costs them money and those transfers can be used for whatever HD media choice they end up using in the months/years to come.

From his response, I assumed they have HD masters of everything that is already released on DVD and they only have to encode. If anyone else emails to plead with them to start releasing in hi-def (I would prefer HD-DVD myself )... I would also be sure to specific VC-1/.264 over MPEG.

-Matt

I'd buy more Criterion titles if they didn't cost so damn much.


Here's hoping that when Criterion does finally start making HD titles, they won't be twice as much as discs from other companies.

A year from now VC1 on 50 gig BD could produce some stunning SE criterion special editions...

Quote:
VC1 won't take up any more space on BR than it will on HD.

I didn't say or imply that it would. I'm supposing that since Criterion specializes in special-editions loaded with special feature content, that naturally a 50 gig platform would work to a great advantage for them.


With BD having a bit rate 1.5 times that of HD DVD, Criterion could record video commentary or work-in-progress video streams in VC1 that parallel the feature film...alowing the viewer to switch back and forth seamlessly. And when it comes to their loaded special editions, it would be great to have that added space for documentaries and other standard SD-fare.

Quote:
If you look at the liner notes of any recent Criterion DVD, most of them say that they're mastering in HD.