Hi-Def Upgraditis

[Morbii]

7000, wow.

I lay claim to around 1700 myself (incl. HD-DVDs, but that collection is small). I will rebuy things that I really like - but I wouldn't rebuy every single title for a better version (particularly since some of them I wouldn't even rebuy as they are after collecting for 9 years). A movie I really like I would definitely upgrade to an anamorphic transfer if I had the jones to watch it (maybe even if not). I double (some even triple) dipped on a number of my Argento's just BECAUSE (and I sure hope the new Tenebre and Phenomena discs will have anamorphic transfers). I think at the start of my HD-DVD collecting I did rebuy a few that I may not have considered really had HD-DVD had a much larger catalog (and interestingly the best HD-DVDs that I bought that were well worth the purchase A/V quality wise I didn't even have yet).

I think I'm babbling... But yeah - I will double dip, but I don't have to replace EVERYTHING.

I almost feel like I didn't really answer your question

As an aside, you did just get me particularly interested in checking out Gertrud soon. I have watched both Day of Wrath and Ordet and thoroughly enjoyed both but for some reason still haven't watched Gertrud strangely (it's been probably a year or two also - though actually did consider it recently).

[Luke M]

I would probably end up double dipping on more titles than I'd like to do. Price is a big factor. I can't really see myself paying $35-$40 for Criterion blu-rays. Perhaps a couple here and there but not very many.

[HerrSchreck]

Depends on how visual the film is, and if anything is to be gained by the new transfer vs the old transfer. Would I upgrade an old Andrei Rublev to a new anamorphic Blu? You bet your nips I would. Would I upgrade the beautiful HD CC transfer of Spirit of the Beehive to a Blu just to see the extra stitches of fabric and strands of hair? Probably not. Beyond stuff that's sitting in cruddy alpha transfers (think Big Combo) that I'm fanatical about seeing properly I couldnt see myself upgrading all that much of my pre-existing library that are in "good enough" editions.

Sometimes I look at HD images and I feel something filmic is lost-- on some films. They have a hypernuclear glow to the colors and a rabid sharpness to background detail that in certain cases doesn't look like film to me... an element of detail and sharpness that's just not there in the cinema when a 35mm print is blown up thru projection to the size of a three or 4 story building. There's a smooth warmth and glow thats present in the cinema, an almost impressionistic generality and painterliness that can sometimes be stunted by the excess of HD.

Take a negative, print it, make an interneg. Make dupes for projection from them onto film. Blow them up hundreds of times the size. There's going to be a certain amount of generality to the image.

On the other hand, take a negative, run it thru a HD pass of telecine. Encode it for HD or BRay and show it on a flatscreen HD plasma etc. The character of the image that has not been generationally printed to celluloid and not had a light blasted thru it and blown up a hundred fold is not going to have the same look as what was seen in the cinema.

There are some films that I never even upgraded from vhs. Some films like (for example, using 2 filoms I really love) Naked City, Brute Force-- when transferred in hi def and transferred to SD dvd by cc-- I experienced no increase in viewing pleasure. Unless there's a bad pre-existing transfer, or improper aspect ratio involved, or a huge amount of neccessary color correction vs the previous edition, I can't see upgrading many vintage films from SD to HD. Even the hd CC pass on Bicycle Theives provided no supervisible increase in image quality vs the previous Image disc.

Of course, enough long awaited titles receiving their global home vid premeire on HD will see me reaching for the wallet.....

[dx23]

To me it all depends on price and if it really worth to upgrade. Thanks to many Gamestops around, I have been able to get a lot of Blu-Ray discs for less than $10 each. I have 1700 dvds too and I know that many of the films I have are not going to be re-released in hi-def in the near future. So I enjoy them and play them as much as I like.

What I've been doing for the past several month is purchasing the new releases in either Blu-Ray or HD DVD. Thanks to the incredible deals that occured during these format war, I was able to get many new releases in either format for $15-$20. Now that HD DVD croaked, we will be able to get a ton of stuff for bargain bin prices.

[Morbii]

Sometimes I look at HD images and I feel something filmic is lost-- on some films. They have a hypernuclear glow to the colors and a rabid sharpness to background detail that in certain cases doesn't look like film to me... an element of detail and sharpness that's just not there in the cinema when a 35mm print is blown up thru projection to the size of a three or 4 story building. There's a smooth warmth and glow thats present in the cinema, an almost impressionistic generality and painterliness that can sometimes be stunted by the excess of HD.

I don't disagree with this. Strangely, I always thought of it as "it looks so real that it looks fake", as odd as that sounds.

[Cinesimilitude]

I got into the game late when it came to criterion dvds. as a completist, I can guarantee that when criterion goes blu, I'll buy everything they release.

[Morbii]

I got into the game late when it came to criterion dvds. as a completist, I can guarantee that when criterion goes blu, I'll buy everything they release.

Hear, hear!

[Gigi M.]

This is very hard to answer, but after owning close to 5,000 DVDs and about 20 some Blu Rays, I can honestly say that I will only replace the films I really love. Blu Rays like Blade Runner, Searchers, Wild Bunch to name a few, are fine upgrades in my opinion.

Last night I was watching the marvelous The Member of the Weeding and though, DVD is still strong.

[Cabiria21]

someone brought up Spirit of the Beehive and that made me think what I wouldn't give for a Blu-ray edition of Erice's El Sur!

[Gigi M.]

someone brought up Spirit of the Beehive and that made me think what I wouldn't give for a Blu-ray edition of Erice's El Sur!

Ditto. El Sur is a better film that Beehive, an absolute masterpiece of a film.

[colinr0380]

Well I'm about to hit to 2,000 mark on DVDs and still have a collection of just under sixty pre-recorded VHS tapes and a couple of thousand tapes of television recordings on VHS (in long play to fit more on each one!)

For me there would have to be a pressing reason to get a film again, especially as money is not unlimited and I have the constant battle between wanting to get my very favourite films in the best possible format and wanting to get a copy of a new, unseen film. My main concern is with getting a copy of a film in the first place, then after that I can fiddle around with different versions if I want to. There are many great films that I'm perfectly happy with on VHS at the moment - most of my upgrades have either been widescreen films that were pan and scanned on my TV recordings, or were edited. I know people complain about the importance of them but the next factor that decides whether I re-purchase a film is the extra material a DVD contains (for example I bought Naked Lunch because I liked the film but more importantly because I felt the commentary and documentary could give me a greater insight into the film!)

There is also the benefit of my VHS tapes containing films that I might rewatch some day if I feel like it but don't particularly love enough to have rushed out to buy the DVD of! Sure they are available in much better quality but to be honest I never felt the drive from VHS to DVD as strongly as some (though I agree there is an improvement) so have the same feelings about DVD to HD!

The same will happen if/when I finally go Blu-Ray. I'll mostly pick up films new to my collection and if I do re-buy things there will have to be an enormous difference akin to getting a widescreen over a pan-and-scanned version or extra material (though the extra material thing is a double-edged sword as it can seem pushy to have a HD only commentary when it could easily have been placed on a DVD, as with Ocean's Thirteen)

My main issue with Blu-Ray at the moment is, as with davidhare, the region coding one.

[GringoTex]

Sometimes I look at HD images and I feel something filmic is lost-- on some films.

I keep on trying to picture what a Criterion Blue Ray of Rules of the Game would look like, and I can't wrap my head around it.

In my own experience, a film like The Searchers benefited greatly from HD treatment, while the upgrade of The Wild Bunch added nothing for me. I'm not sure why.

[Gigi M.]

In my own experience, a film like The Searchers benefited greatly from HD treatment, while the upgrade of The Wild Bunch added nothing for me. I'm not sure why.

How big is your screen/tv? and how far do you sit?

[GringoTex]

In my own experience, a film like The Searchers benefited greatly from HD treatment, while the upgrade of The Wild Bunch added nothing for me. I'm not sure why.

How big is your screen/tv? and how far do you sit?

I don't mean that I didn't notice the increased resolution in The Wild Bunch- just that the increased resolution didn't greatly impact my viewing experience.

[Belmondo]

The story of my life from youth till yesterday:

A huge collection of LP's ultimately replaced by audio tapes and then CD's
A huge collection of VHS tapes ultimately replaced by DVD's and then double dipped as special editions come along.
Years of psychotherapy to determine why this relentless pursuit of perfection never brought me contentment.
Realization that the endless pursuit is in fact the goal, and acceptance of the fact that I am the perfect tool of the imperialist robber barons and their running dog lackey swine.

Ultimate satisfaction in knowing that the movies I really like are in no danger of being released on hi-def in my lifetime and in knowing that this little game is over.

[Gigi M.]

Wild Bunch 1080p transfer is a big improvent over SD 2 disc edition. However, I wouldn't recommend anybody to upgrade, at least not yet. The 5.1 mix and the extras are exactly the same and in 480p. The same goes to The Searches.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Ultimate satisfaction in knowing that the movies I really like are in no danger of being released on hi-def in my lifetime and in knowing that this little game is over.

Amen. Whenever I sense myself falling into this corporate trap, I remind myself that just 12 years ago I was watching movies on a crappy 16" TV with a VCR held together by electrical tape. Ahh, nothing like pan&scan blurrovison tapes of cinemascope classics! Now I have an Optoma DLP projector throwing a 92" picture that is as sharp as a tack from anamorphic DVD's that respect the OAR and 90% of the time looks every bit as good as it did originally on the big screen. Is this not enough for us?!? I might (repeat, might) get into Hi-Def when a 1080p projector can be had for around $900, Blu Ray players are around $100, and movies I have an interest in begin to appear in abundance. When Hi-Def Ozu, Ray, Godard and Lang titles begin to hit the shelves wake me up. Until then, Blu Ray, The Transformers, Planet Earth, and Walk Hard can all go jump off a cliff. But my prediction is Ozu and Godard will never see the light of day on Blu Ray so why should I even bother worrying about it all?

[manicsounds]

I also have to say that I won't be buying Blu-Ray until after some Region Free machines start to appear.

[MichaelB]

I think the things that will be most likely to push me into Hi-Def are external factors like:

1) The BFI releasing stuff on Blu-Ray (and specifically reissuing my Quay Brothers disc - not at all implausible as it was mastered on HD to begin with);
2) Sight & Sound and other publications I write for making high-definition discs into such a big deal that I would be actively disadvantaged by not to be able to play them.
3) My 43" rear-projection set giving up the ghost.

Otherwise, there's not much point just yet. Especially as the region-coding situation is currently such a headache - for professional reasons, I'd have to favour European discs over everything else, but that's not much help if the best stuff's coming from elsewhere.

[zone_resident]

The dilemmas that we are facing with Hi-Def, Blu-Ray, etc..

I see all this as part of a bigger "symptom", that I would call the collector's great fatigue.

I am approaching the 2000 mark, and even if I completely stop buying DVDs, the time I typically have to watch DVDs shows that it would take another six or seven years to watch all my DVDs.

There are also non-trivial "storage" problems that need to be mentioned: there are also books and CDs that need space (and time!). Should I stop then? Of course not: collecting, by
definition, is a gentle madness. However, I tend to "upgrade" only the films that I consider "really essential" now, and I am sure that I'll be more and more selective about what is "really essential" in future.

Given this, it should not be surprising that I am not that excited about Hi-Def.. in particular, when the players for the "winner format" are neither cheap nor region-free, and that the number of "essential" films available for an upgrade in Blu-Ray is really tiny... I was much more excited when I read about the upcoming Melies or early Russian silents collections, recently.

But, on the positive side: if someone had told me (say, in 1995) that by 2008 I would have such a large collection with Tarkovsky, Bergman, Ozu, Dreyer, Kurosawa, Murnau, Lang, etc.. along with many others that I was not aware of at all at that time; well, I would consider it just a JOKE.

We are really living in best times ever (almost, heaven!) for cinephiles and I feel that the contribution of any new technology to this is bound to be marginal. Well, at least for me.

[MichaelB]

Two things are in play for me here. One is slowing down dramatically the new purchases - most of what I'veb bought last 12 months are DVDs that actually replace old VHS and Laserdisc versions of things. There now really a finite limit to what one wants to buy. Very very little new material is likely to be essential, even though there are big gaps in my collection (Asia and Eastern Europe particularly.)

Conversely, my Eastern European collection must be one of the biggest on the South Coast of England - the Polish, Czech, Hungarian and Russian titles alone must amount to well over three or four hundred. But I stopped counting years ago.

But I've watched two friend sin particular with collection addictions who now passed the 7000 mark and simply cant stop. One of them retired (now 64) two years ago but has had to go back to full time work to pay for the addiction. This surely defeats the purpose of retirement?

Hand on heart, I have no idea how many I have - well into four figures, certainly, but how far in I don't know. This is partly because the collection is spread across four locations - my work office, my home office, my lounge and (mostly) my attic - but also because I've also amassed a huge number of check discs and the like, most of which only come in paper sleeves so they tend to end up in cardboard boxes and drawers.

But the other is that DVD has come to supplant going to the cinema for me. A Sociophobic condition for which I now make no apologies.

In my case it's born out of necessity - I have a young family, and so going to the cinema costs a fortune when babysitting is factored into the equation: far, far more than the cost of even buying a full-price DVD. So I'm not about to apologise for that either!

As for the history of DVD - as you say who even in 1998 would have thought we'd have what we have today? Even in year 2000 there was literally only ONE Bresson available (Le Journal d'un Cure) now there's almost everything (pending Mylene.) And even things like Petite Lise or Dainah la Metisse or Nuit du Carrefour, in battered but viewable prints. Who could have ever imagined!

Way back in 1997 I wrote an essay for my Business Studies degree about the economics of distributing foreign-language films, and after several pages of pessimism I decided to at least try to conclude on an upbeat note - so I alighted on the then brand-new DVD format with its potential for multiple soundtracks and subtitles and the resulting economies of scale as a possible lifeline.

At the time, I thought this looked absurdly utopian - but it all came to pass incredibly quickly, and to a far greater extent than I ever imagined. And the real thrill isn't so much duplicating my old VHS or off-air recording collection as being able to get hold of English-subtitled versions of titles that I'd long assumed were completely off limits.

But the leap from SD to HD is far less significant for me - possibly because I still have to watch tons of stuff on timecoded VHS as part of my job! And if you're a fan of Eastern European cinema, even anamorphic transfers are a pretty rare luxury.

[Belmondo]

Yes! The leap from SD to HD is less significant for me too. It simply is not the great leap forward that DVD's and CD's were.

The superiority of DVD's over VHS is so obvious that the triumph of CD's over records may prove more instructive. It is worth remembering that CD's offered much more than improved sound quality. Every record company searched their vaults for interesting material and we quickly got tons of new stuff including "rare unreleased recordings" and "first ever stereo releases" for material that pre-dated stereo by many years. The CD soundtrack for the 1945 film "Meet Me in St. Louis" is in true stereo, to name just one example. The commentary tracks and bonus features on standard DVD's provide a comparable example, and beg the question of just what is being offered to us now.

Blu-Ray offers better quality for material which is already available and I strongly suspect that even though the format war is over, the war has been lost because a quick glance at the titles currently available demonstrates that they are being chosen by young'uns who are unfamiliar with concepts such as "classic film", "foreign film", "film noir", or "black and white".
Perhaps you assume that things will improve in a couple of years as the new format posts huge 300% gains (meaning it goes from 3% to 9% of the market.)
How very naive.

[miless]

It is worth remembering that CD's offered much more than improved sound quality.

I disagree, wholeheartedly.
Vinyl (if in good condition and mastered from Analog recordings) sounds much better than CD's (less compression and continuous sound).

[Belmondo]

It is worth remembering that CD's offered much more than improved sound quality.

I disagree, wholeheartedly.
Vinyl (if in good condition and mastered from Analog recordings) sounds much better than CD's (less compression and continuous sound).

I want to try to stay on topic by saying that I was using CD's as an example of a new format which completely dominated the music scene in a way that I feel Blu-Ray will not do for movies. We can disagree on "improved sound quality"; and hi-def is essentially offering "only" improved picture quality, instead of the rare and unreleased material that came along with many CD's.

Having said that, I love my records in a way I don't love my CD's. I have a huge collection of movie soundtracks and some of them are quite valuable. That warm analog sound is wonderful.

[Gregory]

Even though CDs dominated the market, 80-90% of the albums released on vinyl have never been reissued on the newer format (at least that's the figure I've read in a few different places and, as a longtime buyer of vinyl, I believe it).
Eventually Blu-Ray (or another medium such as downloading) will achieve a level of market saturation so great that large numbers of standard definition DVDs will drop out of print. Many of the types of films routinely discussed on this forum will be impossible to buy without paying collectors' prices. This is why I've been buying a lot of out-of-the-way titles now, while I can. I don't plan to replace most of this stuff on a new format if it ever does appear, expect for the films most important to me and in cases where I was dissatisfied with a DVD all along but settled for it temporarily.