Criterion Blu-ray

[Matt]

It's idiotic thinking Criterion will inevitably upgrade all their catalog.

no it isn't.

Hey, they did it when the switched from laserdiscs to DVDs, right?

[Blood Pie]

So we agree! Perkizitore's statement was erroneous. Thank you for doing the math.

Ooookaaaay...but by the time Criterion finally gets around to releasing, say, Human Condition on Blu-ray in 20 years, won't you have already proclaimed your undying zealous allegiance to whatever might be the prevailing format of the time, at which point Blu will have taken DVD's place as the "inferior," undesirable format?

Personally, BD is good enough for me. No doubt 2K and/or 4K technology will eventually become a mass produced reality but a high quality 1080p BD is close enough to the level of information of a 35mm print (I believe its around 70-80% depending on production and film stock choices and some sites and sources will roughly convert 35mm to a line rating that I'm too lazy to look up).

As great an improvement over VHS as DVD is it still pales in comparison to a quality 35mm print at theater even back in the late 90s when it was mind boggling how awesome a technology it was.

And I know you aren't attacking me but for the record as I said earlier I have no issues with people collecting DVDs and I still rent almost 100% DVD.

[aox]

It's idiotic thinking Criterion will inevitably upgrade all their catalog.

no it isn't.

Hey, they did it when the switched from laserdiscs to DVDs, right?

rights issues aside.

[Blood Pie]

What do people think will be the first Ozu to go Blu for Criterion? Is Tokyo Story too obvious? I am kind of hoping for An Autumn Afternoon.

Neither film has first-rate elements, even by the relatively low standards that applies to the surviving Ozu films. And (so far as I know) Shochiku hasn't even hinted at doing Japanese Blu-Ray releases of Ozu yet.

I wouldn't hold my breath for Ozu BRDs.

I'm likely in the minority but if I had to pick one B&W Criterion release that I would love to get the Blu treatment I would pick Sword of Doom.

[Matt]

I'm likely in the minority but if I had to pick one B&W Criterion release that I would love to get the Blu treatment I would pick Sword of Doom.

Hey, we've got a good argument going here. Let's not turn this into yet another random speculation thread.

[aox]

I'm likely in the minority but if I had to pick one B&W Criterion release that I would love to get the Blu treatment I would pick Sword of Doom.

Hey, we've got a good argument going here. Let's not turn this into yet another random speculation thread.

Sorry about that. That's actually my fault. I was trying to lighten up the thread with the Ozu speculation. Everyone likes Ozu speculation.

My apologies.

[Blood Pie]

I'm likely in the minority but if I had to pick one B&W Criterion release that I would love to get the Blu treatment I would pick Sword of Doom.

Hey, we've got a good argument going here. Let's not turn this into yet another random speculation thread.

You had me at hello.

[Cinephrenic]

Next Blu classics...

The Red Shoes
Jules and Jim
The Rules of the Game
L'avventura
Seven Samurai
M
Pickpocket
Breathless
Amarcord
Army of Shadows

[aox]

Next Blu classics...

The Red Shoes
Jules and Jim
The Rules of the Game
L'avventura
Seven Samurai
M
Pickpocket
Breathless
Amarcord
Army of Shadows

oh please let this happen...

[zedz]

no it isn't.

Hey, they did it when the switched from laserdiscs to DVDs, right?

rights issues aside.

But doesn't this make this entire argument way too abstract? Rights issues are never going to go away, and such concerns (along with your basic commercial realities) are exactly the sort of things that can make the current DVD release of a given title the best you're ever going to see. We've already seen any number of DVDs of important films disappear off the face of the earth, with no upgrade or reissue on the horizon - why should BluRay be some kind of archivist's panacea?

Criterion's rights to something like The Human Condition are likely to expire long before there's enough potential demand to justify a Blu upgrade, and a project on that scale is unlikely to attract many other companies (particularly if the materials, as they stand, aren't yet up to a BD release). Another possible scenario is that Criterion do retain the rights to the films and have the capability to produce a Blu version, but that the commercial performance of the initial release was so mediocre that such a release is not economically justifiable.

From my perspective, the percentage of films that I'm really interested in that are also likely BluRay releases in the next five to ten years (even generously allowing for a mighty expansion of capacity from Criterion and MoC) is so small that a Stalinist hard line like aox's seems incredibly self-defeating - as is being content to limit your viewing choices to discs that can be rented in your own region. A lot of the most exciting releases around the world nowadays are marginal films, from marginal companies, transfered from marginal elements - things nobody's going to touch with an HD bargepole in my lifetime. But who cares? I can see them right now, and for me the film's much more important than the format.

[swo17]

No doubt 2K and/or 4K technology will eventually become a mass produced reality but a high quality 1080p BD is close enough to the level of information of a 35mm print (I believe its around 70-80% depending on production and film stock choices and some sites and sources will roughly convert 35mm to a line rating that I'm too lazy to look up).

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but Blu-ray has 1080 horizontal lines of resolution. 35mm film can be reasonably replicated at around 4K resolution. That's four times more lines of resolution. When you square that, it puts a 4K scan as having about 14 times more information than Blu-ray. Or in other words, a Blu-ray frame retains only like 7% of the info from a 35 mm frame. Granted, that's a huge improvement over the roughly 1% of DVD, but it still leaves plenty of room for improvement. And that's precisely the kind of improvement you're going to be wanting in 20 years when everyone who's anyone has 300" Ultra-HD flat panels in their living rooms.

[perkizitore]

One votes with one's dollars on a constant basis -- whether one "wants to" or not.

How are the Haydn performances? ;~} (I still rely on my old Dorati LPs).

Good point. I guess that while I don't deny that one votes with one's dollars, but I do think that voting with one's dollars is very rarely worth even thinking about, unless it's part of a recognized and organized boycott. Voting with one's dollars as a personal decision is about as effective

That's the same excuse people use for voting one of the two major political countries in every western democracy. You don't know if something works until you see the result, but negativity doesn't lead anywhere. If people weren't buying everything from Amazon, they would have saved money and take prices down in general. But, some people can never be happy whatever the price they pay if their DVDs become 'obsolete'. So, bitching still takes place each time a sales takes place. :-k
Aox:
I thought you already had thought the amount of time and resources required for Criterion to upgrade all their titles. For the moment, it seems that it will take a while because they are still releasing only SD titles as mentioned above.

[Blood Pie]

Hey, they did it when the switched from laserdiscs to DVDs, right?

rights issues aside.

But doesn't this make this entire argument way too abstract? Rights issues are never going to go away, and such concerns (along with your basic commercial realities) are exactly the sort of things that can make the current DVD release of a given title the best you're ever going to see. We've already seen any number of DVDs of important films disappear off the face of the earth, with no upgrade or reissue on the horizon - why should BluRay be some kind of archivist's panacea?

Criterion's rights to something like The Human Condition are likely to expire long before there's enough potential demand to justify a Blu upgrade, and a project on that scale is unlikely to attract many other companies (particularly if the materials, as they stand, aren't yet up to a BD release). Another possible scenario is that Criterion do retain the rights to the films and have the capability to produce a Blu version, but that the commercial performance of the initial release was so mediocre that such a release is not economically justifiable.

From my perspective, the percentage of films that I'm really interested in that are also likely BluRay releases in the next five to ten years (even generously allowing for a mighty expansion of capacity from Criterion and MoC) is so small that a Stalinist hard line like aox's seems incredibly self-defeating - as is being content to limit your viewing choices to discs that can be rented in your own region. A lot of the most exciting releases around the world nowadays are marginal films, from marginal companies, transfered from marginal elements - things nobody's going to touch with an HD bargepole in my lifetime. But who cares? I can see them right now, and for me the film's much more important than the format.

But you are assuming that we are saying the format is more important than the film which it never is. Speaking for myself I just don't feel the need to spend money on permanently owning something that MIGHT get released as a blu down the line. If it never gets released and I want it that bad I'll buy it on DVD. But for me Criterion releases are nice little slices of film history preservation and if I'm going to own any of them I want them on Blu.

It really has nothing to do with a lack of love for the content itself.

And it is odd that a site based around a company who puts so much time and care into how they PRESENT the films seems so ok with DVDs instead of pushing for BD treatment on all new titles.

I mean, I sold my Fox-Lorber copy of the 400 Blows the day the box set was announced by Criterion. Same with Breathless. By your logic why should I have done that if I had the content already?

[Blood Pie]

No doubt 2K and/or 4K technology will eventually become a mass produced reality but a high quality 1080p BD is close enough to the level of information of a 35mm print (I believe its around 70-80% depending on production and film stock choices and some sites and sources will roughly convert 35mm to a line rating that I'm too lazy to look up).

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but Blu-ray has 1080 horizontal lines of resolution. 35mm film can be reasonably replicated at around 4K resolution. That's four times more lines of resolution. When you square that, it puts a 4K scan as having about 14 times more information than Blu-ray. Or in other words, a Blu-ray frame retains only like 7% of the info from a 35 mm frame. Granted, that's a huge improvement over the roughly 1% of DVD, but it still leaves plenty of room for improvement. And that's precisely the kind of improvement you're going to be wanting in 20 years when everyone who's anyone has 300" Ultra-HD flat panels in their living rooms.

Well, I could be wrong, but 35mm was roughly converted as few hundred lines more than 1080p according to most of the info I could find which was minimal.

I'll look for the information nd post it when I find it.

[perkizitore]

Hey, they did it when the switched from laserdiscs to DVDs, right?

rights issues aside.

But doesn't this make this entire argument way too abstract? Rights issues are never going to go away, and such concerns (along with your basic commercial realities) are exactly the sort of things that can make the current DVD release of a given title the best you're ever going to see. We've already seen any number of DVDs of important films disappear off the face of the earth, with no upgrade or reissue on the horizon - why should BluRay be some kind of archivist's panacea?

Criterion's rights to something like The Human Condition are likely to expire long before there's enough potential demand to justify a Blu upgrade, and a project on that scale is unlikely to attract many other companies (particularly if the materials, as they stand, aren't yet up to a BD release). Another possible scenario is that Criterion do retain the rights to the films and have the capability to produce a Blu version, but that the commercial performance of the initial release was so mediocre that such a release is not economically justifiable.

From my perspective, the percentage of films that I'm really interested in that are also likely BluRay releases in the next five to ten years (even generously allowing for a mighty expansion of capacity from Criterion and MoC) is so small that a Stalinist hard line like aox's seems incredibly self-defeating - as is being content to limit your viewing choices to discs that can be rented in your own region. A lot of the most exciting releases around the world nowadays are marginal films, from marginal companies, transfered from marginal elements - things nobody's going to touch with an HD bargepole in my lifetime. But who cares? I can see them right now, and for me the film's much more important than the format.

Very valid point, i don't live in the US, so i have to buy the Criterion BDs. The most important thing it's not the format, it's the transfer quality. Sometimes even this cannot be helped when the interest is small and the print in bad shape. Many discs have such inferior presentation, that you would hardly notice any difference if you download them.

But, the point remains:
Support the small companies the best way you can. If someone is only interested in Criterion discs, he shouldn't be using one of the best and most wealthy DVD production companies in the world to make such an argument. Even Criterion understood that they have to release SOME films in the best quality available which is not up to their usual standards. Other smaller companies have not yet the technological not to mention the economic resources to release blu-rays and if you are not even buying their DVDs you are condemning them to technological dinosaur land, which is very contradictory to the quality purity you promote.

[swo17]

And it is odd that a site based around a company who puts so much time and care into how they PRESENT the films seems so ok with DVDs instead of pushing for BD treatment on all new titles.

I do secretly wish that every title (that I'm interested in) would be put out on Blu, just as I also secretly wish that every year, Criterion would ask me which 50 movies I would like for them to put out. But I also recognize that they are running a business, and when something like the War Trilogy doesn't qualify for Blu, I can fully understand their motivation for making this decision, and realize that it does not necessarily correspond to their estimation of the films' worth per se.

[aox]

that a Stalinist hard line like aox's seems incredibly self-defeating

I don't believe in region coding and I think region free Blu Rays should spread throughout the world, so I would say I am more of a Trotskyist.

[perkizitore]

And it is odd that a site based around a company who puts so much time and care into how they PRESENT the films seems so ok with DVDs instead of pushing for BD treatment on all new titles.

I do secretly wish that every title (that I'm interested in) would be put out on Blu, just as I also secretly wish that every year, Criterion would ask me which 50 movies I would like for them to put out. But I also recognize that they are running a business, and when something like the War Trilogy doesn't qualify for Blu, I can fully understand their motivation for making this decision, and realize that it does not necessarily correspond to their estimation of the films' worth per se.

If that was released 2 years later it would be Blu-Ray only. When a lower quality DVD exists (Dinner with Andre, Z) they know people will buy it anyway. If a film is not in circulation or their schedule permits it they release the title in both formats. But, probably until 2011-2012 they will only be upgrading their extremely popular titles (Kurosawa, Fellini, Bergman etc.)

[zedz]

Putting this another way, the 'holding out for an ideal release' is something that applies as much to DVD / DVD comparisons as to DVD / Blu comparisons. Here are a couple of examples:

Ideally, I'd like my incredible complete Yoshida set from Carlotta to have English subtitles. How long do you reckon I'll have to wait to see this eventuate? How long until they come out on BluRay? I'm betting that the Carlotta / Pompidou restrospective tie-in will be the Halley's Comet of Yoshida releases. We might see Eros + Massacre and a few other titles licensed to the UK or US, but this will remain my only bite at this particular apple for the foreseeable future.

How about Hou Hsiao-Hsien? Are you going to entirely avoid his pre-2000 films, one of the most important bodies of work in modern cinema, simply because they've never been released in decent transfers? So far we've been waiting about twelve years since the first mediocre releases, we've got all the way through the supposed 'DVD boom', and none of these films have got first-rate releases. I guess it's time to call it quits and resign yourself to the substandard discs. It's better than not seeing the films at all, right? Now, if only any of them were still in print. . .

I don't believe in region coding and I think region free Blu Rays should spread throughout the world, so I would say I am more of a Trotskyist.

Nicely put!

[Kirkinson]

One votes with one's dollars on a constant basis -- whether one "wants to" or not.

And it's for this reason that I'm surprised to find myself on aox's side of the argument, entirely by default. I think the only home video release of any kind I've bought this year is Chungking Express on Blu-ray. There were many other releases I wanted very badly on both DVD and BD, but this one just happened to come out during a brief window of time in which I had a tiny bit of extra money to spend. I simply haven't been able to afford such luxuries the rest of the year -- even the cash I got for my birthday was spent on food. And if I can buy anything else, it will probably be Last Year at Marienbad.

However, if I had a lot more disposable income, this would definitely change. And even with a little more money, I would definitely make exceptions for some titles I can think of that are impossible to rent, like Ruscico's Pirosmani, which will likely not ever make it to Blu-ray anyway. I'm shocked enough it's finally out on DVD. If I could have mustered $300 (hah!) I would have also bought that glorious Iosseliani box, but luckily Facets stocks it. Of course, I also had to cancel my Facets subscription for financial reasons, so I'm a total non-contributor to the home video market right now.

At least I support my local libraries.

[Perkins Cobb]

How about Hou Hsiao-Hsien? Are you going to entirely avoid his pre-2000 films, one of the most important bodies of work in modern cinema, simply because they've never been released in decent transfers? So far we've been waiting about twelve years since the first mediocre releases, we've got all the way through the supposed 'DVD boom', and none of these films have got first-rate releases. I guess it's time to call it quits and resign yourself to the substandard discs. It's better than not seeing the films at all, right?

Well, no, actually. I'm quite content to wait another 12 years to see these, or 20, or 30.

In 30 years, I'll be 62, at which point it might be time to start thinking about settling for substandard transfers before I, y'know, die. Until then, why settle for a shitty Fox Lorber DVD when MoMA could program a Hou retro next month or, less likely, Criterion could decide to release something other than new IFC movies? Especially as long as my kevyip remains in the low three digits and my potential Netflix rentals (just of movies I've never seen) in the mid-four digits.

I'm a patient man ... and I'm always surprised when other cinephiles are willing to settle for something really inferior.

[Jun-Dai]

No doubt 2K and/or 4K technology will eventually become a mass produced reality but a high quality 1080p BD is close enough to the level of information of a 35mm print (I believe its around 70-80% depending on production and film stock choices and some sites and sources will roughly convert 35mm to a line rating that I'm too lazy to look up).

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but Blu-ray has 1080 horizontal lines of resolution. 35mm film can be reasonably replicated at around 4K resolution. That's four times more lines of resolution. When you square that, it puts a 4K scan as having about 14 times more information than Blu-ray. Or in other words, a Blu-ray frame retains only like 7% of the info from a 35 mm frame. Granted, that's a huge improvement over the roughly 1% of DVD, but it still leaves plenty of room for improvement. And that's precisely the kind of improvement you're going to be wanting in 20 years when everyone who's anyone has 300" Ultra-HD flat panels in their living rooms.

Well, I could be wrong, but 35mm was roughly converted as few hundred lines more than 1080p according to most of the info I could find which was minimal.

I'll look for the information nd post it when I find it.

You're both wrong. For starters, 1080p is, as you say, horizontal lines of resolution, but 4K is not. 4K is horizontal pixels (vertical lines) of resolution. So 1080p (1920x1080, or 2.1MP) is pretty close to 2K (2048x1152, depending on whose 2K you're using. 2.35MP), which is quite a bit less than 4K, but not 14x. 4K is typically something like 4096x2048 (2:1) or 4096x2304 (Redcode RAW), which puts it in the ballpark of 8-9.5 MP. Roughly 4x 1080p, which is roughly 4x 480p (though it gets more complex with anamorphic DVDs).

That said, 2K is what almost all movie theaters project when they are projecting digitally. 4K projectors are still pretty uncommon (I don't know of any in NY theaters). Up until a few years ago, most digital film restorations were being at 2K (I think Alien was 2K), and the results in the theater were good enough for most people (not so great if you sat in the front row).

That said, film's detail doesn't resolve as pixels, so it's sort of a sliding scale. If you take a 2K image and put it on film, film can mostly handle the level of detail present. If you take a 4K image and put it on film, you're going to start to lose a lot of the detail in the video, even if it captures more detail than the 2K image. If you move to 6K, you'll still gain detail on the film stock, but it won't be nearly as dramatic a difference as going from 4K video to 6K video.

There's a link around somewhere to a 6K still from the 6K restoration of Yojimbo. Looking at that you can see that there's a ton of detail that would get lost in a 1080p, 2K, or 3K transfer. Whether that detail is important is another question.

Personally, I would prefer a format that not only renders the fact of grain (as DVD can do with a grain film), but renders the texture of the grain as well. 1080p isn't really enough for that.

If I recall correctly, standard 35mm film stock is about half as much film area (a little less for 1.85 films, a little more for Super 35) as still 35mm photography. What that means is that you can look for comparisons between digital and analog still photography, and expect that most motion picture film stock will register detail at about half the digital-resolution-equivalent as an equivalent still photography film stock. VistaVision (In the Realm of the Senses) and 65mm (The Leopard) are, I believe, comparable to 35mm still photography (65mm is a little bit bigger).

The "resolving power" of film stocks vary greatly depending on the ISO, the contrast of the image, B&W vs color, and the stock itself. It's really just a measurement of the point at which lines become indistinct when you have so many in relation to the area physically taken up on the film. This isn't exactly comparable to digital, where a line is a line. But I believe a good resolving power is ~120 lines/mm whereas a very poor resolving power is more like ~33 lines/mm. Keep in mind that a "line" here is really a line pair. If we pretend that it's an apples-to-apples comparison (it's not), that would translate to 5300x3840 (>5K) versus 1452x1056 (closer to BD than DVD) for an anamorphic or academy film.

[Jun-Dai]

Right, speaking of voting with one's dollars, assuming you have a limited money supply for these purposes, it's a little ambiguous to me which would encourage Criterion to release a Blu-ray of film X more:
* Buying film X on DVD (indicates support for the film)
* Buying film Y on Blu-ray (indicates support for the format)

[Blood Pie]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but Blu-ray has 1080 horizontal lines of resolution. 35mm film can be reasonably replicated at around 4K resolution. That's four times more lines of resolution. When you square that, it puts a 4K scan as having about 14 times more information than Blu-ray. Or in other words, a Blu-ray frame retains only like 7% of the info from a 35 mm frame. Granted, that's a huge improvement over the roughly 1% of DVD, but it still leaves plenty of room for improvement. And that's precisely the kind of improvement you're going to be wanting in 20 years when everyone who's anyone has 300" Ultra-HD flat panels in their living rooms.

Well, I could be wrong, but 35mm was roughly converted as few hundred lines more than 1080p according to most of the info I could find which was minimal.

I'll look for the information nd post it when I find it.

You're both wrong. For starters, 1080p is, as you say, horizontal lines of resolution, but 4K is not. 4K is horizontal pixels (vertical lines) of resolution. So 1080p (1920x1080, or 2.1MP) is pretty close to 2K (2048x1152, depending on whose 2K you're using. 2.35MP), which is quite a bit less than 4K, but not 14x. 4K is typically something like 4096x2048 (2:1) or 4096x2304 (Redcode RAW), which puts it in the ballpark of 8-9.5 MP. Roughly 4x 1080p, which is roughly 4x 480p (though it gets more complex with anamorphic DVDs).

That said, 2K is what almost all movie theaters project when they are projecting digitally. 4K projectors are still pretty uncommon (I don't know of any in NY theaters). Up until a few years ago, most digital film restorations were being at 2K (I think Alien was 2K), and the results in the theater were good enough for most people (not so great if you sat in the front row).

That said, film's detail doesn't resolve as pixels, so it's sort of a sliding scale. If you take a 2K image and put it on film, film can mostly handle the level of detail present. If you take a 4K image and put it on film, you're going to start to lose a lot of the detail in the video, even if it captures more detail than the 2K image. If you move to 6K, you'll still gain detail on the film stock, but it won't be nearly as dramatic a difference as going from 4K video to 6K video.

There's a link around somewhere to a 6K still from the 6K restoration of Yojimbo. Looking at that you can see that there's a ton of detail that would get lost in a 1080p, 2K, or 3K transfer. Whether that detail is important is another question.

Personally, I would prefer a format that not only renders the fact of grain (as DVD can do with a grain film), but renders the texture of the grain as well. 1080p isn't really enough for that.

If I recall correctly, standard 35mm film stock is about half as much film area (a little less for 1.85 films, a little more for Super 35) as still 35mm photography. What that means is that you can look for comparisons between digital and analog still photography, and expect that most motion picture film stock will register detail at about half the digital-resolution-equivalent as an equivalent still photography film stock. VistaVision (In the Realm of the Senses) and 65mm (The Leopard) are, I believe, comparable to 35mm still photography (65mm is a little bit bigger).

The "resolving power" of film stocks vary greatly depending on the ISO, the contrast of the image, B&W vs color, and the stock itself. It's really just a measurement of the point at which lines become indistinct when you have so many in relation to the area physically taken up on the film. This isn't exactly comparable to digital, where a line is a line. But I believe a good resolving power is ~120 lines/mm whereas a very poor resolving power is more like ~33 lines/mm. Keep in mind that a "line" here is really a line pair. If we pretend that it's an apples-to-apples comparison (it's not), that would translate to 5300x3840 (>5K) versus 1452x1056 (closer to BD than DVD) for an anamorphic or academy film.

But thats my point. 1080p may not be perfect or as insane as using a red camera with a 35mm lens but it stacks up quite well against 2k as they are pretty close.

And correct me if I'm wrong (as I don't pretend to know a lot about 4k or 6k resolutions in terms of practical usage) but aren't most Digital projectors that are used in theaters running at 2K? I recently saw Star Trek on a DLP projector and it looked stunning. If 2K looks that good on a large theater screen and 1080p is very close I'm perfectly happy with those results.

Likewise, to see something shot and presented in a native 4k or 6k resolution would you not need a HUGE screen to really notice the fine details?

On the other hand it seems like HD masters scanned at the resolution of 4k (even with old titles like Blade Runner) then down converted to 2K or 1080p really benefit from the process.

[Blood Pie]

Right, speaking of voting with one's dollars, assuming you have a limited money supply for these purposes, it's a little ambiguous to me which would encourage Criterion to release a Blu-ray of film X more:
* Buying film X on DVD (indicates support for the film)
* Buying film Y on Blu-ray (indicates support for the format)

Precisely! Thats why I was questioning the notion that only buying BDs or only DVDs or a little of both really meant anything one way or the other.