Criterion Blu-ray

[Richard]

Here's the gen from the horse's mouth (Criterion's newsletter)...

Are Criterion's Blu-ray discs region-encoded?

Yes. Criterion is licensed to sell most of its editions only in North America.

This is good news for North American customers, but Criterion's wider non-US fanbase will be disappointed and disadvantaged unfortunately...

That is putting it mildly. It is very disappointing but not surprising news that puts a big fat cross through my plans of going Criterion HD. Actually: I won't be buying any Criterion for the time being as I plan to sit it out until region free players become available at a normal price.

[Cinephrenic]

They're new strategy is to profit from their exchange program. They don't want their DVD sales to cease with the expectation of consumers holding off on their favorite titles until it comes in Blu-ray (may take years!), so ultimately you are fixing to get screwed even further with the $20+ for exchanging.

[jaredsap]

Good point, but to be honest, I rarely ever watch extras more than once and I'm certainly not going to choose a SD version of the film because the disc might have an extra that the BD lacks. The presentation of the film will trump all else (for me, anyway).

Me too, but it's still infuriating we have to make that choice. I understand when Criterion is upgrading older releases to HD there are complicated rights issues and hence some extras might have to be cut, but why the hell is there a difference between the supplements on CHUNGKING SD and Blu?

[dx23]

There is really no reason not to buy the Blu titles.

Other than the fact that a few extras are conspicuously missing from the Blu specs.

Really? Which releases?

[anvilscepe]

Well, the Blu version of The Man Who Fell To Earth will not include the novel. That's off the top of my head, but I suspect other titles will lack some extras too.

[swo17]

These specs from the SD editions do not show up on the Blu-rays:

Bottle Rocket:
no difference

Chungking Express:
no difference

The Third Man:
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing*
Essays by Charles Drazin and Philip Kerr
A web-exclusive essay on Anton Karas by musician John Doe (though if that's on the web, I guess anyone can access it?)

The Man Who Fell to Earth:
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing*
Walter Tevis’s original novel
An appreciation of Tevis by novelist Jack Matthews

The Last Emperor:
Restored high-definition digital transfer of the extended television version
Interviews with production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and actor Ying Ruocheng, a reminiscence by Bertolucci, and an essay and production-diary extracts from Fabien S. Gerard

Some of these (English subtitles?) seem like odd exclusions. I don't know how literally we are meant to take it when a spec doesn't show up on the Blu-ray. Then again, someone had to have copied, pasted, and consciously removed these specs...

* EDIT 8/25/08: Per email from Mulvaney to cgray, all Blu-rays will in fact have English subtitles.

[Cold Bishop]

Another positive for ILL: Can buy the blu-ray, check-out the sd for extras.

Then again, not an option for everyone.

[dx23]

Thanks for the list swo17. It is strange that extras don't transfer over to the Blu Rays when the format has more space for storage. I can understand the novel from The Man Who Fell to Earth, but the other extras taken out, specially, the Last Emperor TV version, don't make sense at all.

[domino harvey]

The TV episode was probably only licensed for standard definition releasing

[kekid]

I do not understand why Criterion would eliminate English subtitles from some of the Blu Ray editions. They are at pains to tell their consumers they will not have any features in Blu Ray editions that are not replicated in standard editions. Clearly the converse is not true, and it cannot be explained away simply as a rights issue.

[dx23]

Add to that the pissed deaf consumers.

[Svevan]

I do not understand why Criterion would eliminate English subtitles from some of the Blu Ray editions. They are at pains to tell their consumers they will not have any features in Blu Ray editions that are not replicated in standard editions. Clearly the converse is not true, and it cannot be explained away simply as a rights issue.

They're running out of space.

[hammock]

I do not understand why Criterion would eliminate English subtitles from some of the Blu Ray editions. They are at pains to tell their consumers they will not have any features in Blu Ray editions that are not replicated in standard editions. Clearly the converse is not true, and it cannot be explained away simply as a rights issue.

They're running out of space.

The subs are approximately 1MB per language so I seriously doubt that is the reason. Actually this single information will stop me from buying their BD's and another PS3 (US edition) to be able to play them. What a bummer!

[swo17]

I'm sure there is a perfectly rational explanation for all of these omissions. Someone should ask Criterion. (I would, but they don't ever seem to respond to my emails.)

[JHunter]

These specs from the SD editions do not show up on the Blu-rays:

Chungking Express:
Episode excerpt from the British television series Moving Pictures featuring Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

This is no longer listed on the Criterion website for the SD version. Maybe it was a planned extra that was removed at the last minute, which was reflected in the Blu-ray list and they forgot to remove from the initial SD list.

[swo17]

Interesting. I will edit the list above to reflect this.

Here's another thought I had. (And pardon my ignorance in advance on some of these technical matters.) It's my understanding that HDTVs in general do not have any overscan, which would mean that Criterion's sometimes practice of pictureboxing would be completely unnecessary for the Blu-ray format. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this.) If a hi-def transfer of a film already exists, is the pictureboxing a part of the transfer that cannot be removed?

[domino harvey]

Do you mean pictureboxing?

[swo17]

Yes, sorry.

[fdm]

Interesting. I will edit the list above to reflect this.

Here's another thought I had. (And pardon my ignorance in advance on some of these technical matters.) It's my understanding that HDTVs in general do not have any overscan, which would mean that Criterion's sometimes practice of pictureboxing would be completely unnecessary for the Blu-ray format. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this.) If a hi-def transfer of a film already exists, is the pictureboxing a part of the transfer that cannot be removed?

Most of them don't. I think some of the rear projection HDTV sets (which seem to be going the way of CRTs) still do have overscan (to hide the convergence issues that would be obvious without it).

When I paid attn to the pictureboxing, it seemed as if they just put a border around the DVD picture by blacking out the picture information at the periphery. They shouldn't need to do this for HD, and hopefully they didn't actually master them in HD that way. One of those FAQs I'd like to know the answer to as well. I would guess they won't, but won't know till somebody's popped one them into their player...

[Svevan]

I do not understand why Criterion would eliminate English subtitles from some of the Blu Ray editions. They are at pains to tell their consumers they will not have any features in Blu Ray editions that are not replicated in standard editions. Clearly the converse is not true, and it cannot be explained away simply as a rights issue.

They're running out of space.

The subs are approximately 1MB per language so I seriously doubt that is the reason.

sarcasm

[Darth Lavender]

It's my understanding that HDTVs in general do not have any overscan, which would mean that Criterion's sometimes practice of pictureboxing would be completely unnecessary for the Blu-ray format. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this.) If a hi-def transfer of a film already exists, is the pictureboxing a part of the transfer that cannot be removed?

Most of them don't. I think some of the rear projection HDTV sets (which seem to be going the way of CRTs) still do have overscan (to hide the convergence issues that would be obvious without it).

When I paid attn to the pictureboxing, it seemed as if they just put a border around the DVD picture by blacking out the picture information at the periphery. They shouldn't need to do this for HD, and hopefully they didn't actually master them in HD that way. One of those FAQs I'd like to know the answer to as well. I would guess they won't, but won't know till somebody's popped one them into their player...

In the case of 'The Third Man,' the non-picture-boxed R4 edition and the pictured-boxed Criterion are both taken from exactly the same HD master. Suggests the picture-boxing is done later.

[MichaelB]

There is really no reason not to buy the Blu titles.

There is if you live outside Region A - and I'm hearing worrying rumours that Criterion's Blu-Rays are going to be region-coded as a matter of policy.

I hope I'm wrong, but there certainly won't be any pre-orders from this quarter until it's been confirmed in triplicate.

This is the first time I've ever been region-locked, and it's taking some getting used to (I was multiregion on SD DVD from the day I bought my first player). While I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of US Blu-Rays that aren't region-coded, I was rather hoping that Criterion would take a leaf out of Warner Home Video's book.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Salo is region 1 encoded on DVD SD (as well as the reissue), same for the Nicolas Roeg movie with Bowie (DVD is zone 1); so I suppose that according to Criterion's policy The Man Who Fell On Earth will be Blue-Ray zone A. Same for Salo when they wil release it.

But it would be a good "test" to say what will happen with "Walkabout" which is announced on Blue-Ray. Because the DVD SD release of "Walkabout" is zone all / free. Consequently, unless some bonus have some legal issues which obliged them to zone the Blue-Ray, they should release "Walkabout" on Blue-Ray zone free (not zone A). If they choose zone A for Walkabout, I'm afraid then that all their Blue-Ray will be zone A, whereas with the DVD catalog it really depends (sometimes you can find some DVD zone 1 sometimes it's zone all). For instance, Contempt, le Mepris is region free on DVD. It would be a good test too to see what will happen with this title on Blue-Ray.

But for Naked Lunch, we have the tricky situation : the movie DVD itself is region free whereas the bonus DVD is zone 1 encoded. If they intended to release Naked Lunch on Blue-Ray : do you think that they will encoded it zone A because of the bonus only ? (if this was a single Blue-Ray release ?)

[MichaelB]

Maybe it's a coincidence, but just about every Criterion I've bought in recent months has been Region 1 - whereas in the late 1990s/early 2000s, region-free was more likely.

[Narshty]

No, they're doing it automatically to everything nowadays and have been since about 2006 (even to Janus titles).