Archived Criterion Streaming Discussion

[Zot!]

Sorry but a Hulu stream is never going to look as good as an Oppo-upscaled Eclipse DVD projected onto a 100+ inch screen.

Is this still the case? Even the HD streams? I understand it is more compressed, but still...

The barebones early Bergman blue and Mizoguchi sets that AE released in the UK make nice forays into what HD Eclipse sets could be. Actually that Bergman set had a doc on it...but whatever, leave off the doc.

[rrenault]

With respect to issues relating to the Eclipse line, even if physical media will always trump streaming, which I agree with, people don't blind buy films en masse the way they blind buy music. How many people are willing to spend $50-60 on a set of five films, none of which they may have seen?

[albucat]

Anyone else find it strange that the Hulu transfer of I Married a Witch isn't in HD? I know it's difficult to follow what they're upgrading and when, given how there's no way to search for just HD within the collection, but has anyone seen a pattern as to when they upgrade these? Or are they just letting the SD transfers linger forever, even when they have HD ones readily available?

[EddieLarkin]

With respect to issues relating to the Eclipse line, even if physical media will always trump streaming, which I agree with, people don't blind buy films en masse the way they blind buy music. How many people are willing to spend $50-60 on a set of five films, none of which they may have seen?

Me. I like to see new films in the best quality possible. If I really don't like, I can just sell them (especially with Criterions, which hold their price very well). I have about 20 Eclipse sets and I'm sure I had never seen a single one of the films included beforehand.

[Props55]

The streaming versions of both IMaW and GHOST GOES WEST look to be fairly ancient SD transfers and they've both been up for at least 12+ months. I've never noticed an HD transfer appear via Hulu simultaneously with the release of a physical disc (although I don't generally follow current cinema) and I doubt it would be in Criterion's best interest to allow it. That said the recent addition of those dozen or so Fassbinders (prior to the announcement of the Eclipse box) looked amazingly sharp and clean though I can't recall if they were actually in HD.

[Gregory]

I don't see what rrenault is getting at because people who don't like to blind buy will typically rent or stream at least one of the films first and then decide whether or not to own the set, so the fact that they're multi-film sets isn't much of an obstacle. Also, many of the Eclipse sets have been devoted to really familiar auteurs or popular genres such as Japanese noir. The others (Shepitko, Shimizu, Klein, etc.) probably sell far fewer but still enough to warrant Criterion in doing them in smaller runs. The only one I've blind-bought and then sold was Sacha Guitry, which I bought cheaply at B&N and then sold at Amazon for easily enough to break even. I even found a cheap used DVD of the one film in the set I liked fairly well from a set that had been broken up, so I've had nothing but positive experiences with Eclipse.
I like watching things on a large screen and my internet isn't good enough for HD streaming, or any kind of streaming really, and agree with domino that it's a shame they're slowing down so much on putting out SD masters on DVD.

[zedz]

My personal theory is that Shoah and Pierre Etaix were both slated for Eclipse but bumped to the mainline; if you treat them both as Eclipse sets then it's been a decent enough year (4 so far and likely a fifth before January)

Etaix is very plausible (and I'm glad they didn't go that route) but Shoah: noah way. It had had a reasonably high-profile re-release and it's a major prestige title for them, as well as one which demands the context of a book / disc supplements. The supporting films might have worked on Eclipse, but it would have been bizarre to divorce them from their raison d'etre.

[mfunk9786]

Am I blind? All these complaints about image quality of streaming compared to DVD, what am I missing? I have a 50 inch TV and most HD streams look as good as or better than their DVD counterpart.

[domino harvey]

I don't see what rrenault is getting at because people who don't like to blind buy will typically rent or stream at least one of the films first and then decide whether or not to own the set, so the fact that they're multi-film sets isn't much of an obstacle. Also, many of the Eclipse sets have been devoted to really familiar auteurs or popular genres such as Japanese noir. The others (Shepitko, Shimizu, Klein, etc.) probably sell far fewer but still enough to warrant Criterion in doing them in smaller runs. The only one I've blind-bought and then sold was Sacha Guitry, which I bought cheaply at B&N and then sold at Amazon for easily enough to break even. I even found a cheap used DVD of the one film in the set I liked fairly well from a set that had been broken up, so I've had nothing but positive experiences with Eclipse.

Criterion/Eclipse is also set up well for blind buys. Even with today's shrinking home video market, Criterion remains one of the most stable labels as far as resale goes-- 9/10 I can get back exactly or more than what I paid new for selling a title used, a figure almost untouchable outside of OOP titles

[EddieLarkin]

Am I blind? All these complaints about image quality of streaming compared to DVD, what am I missing? I have a 50 inch TV and most HD streams look as good as or better than their DVD counterpart.

All I see on streams, especially when blown up to the big screen, is chunky blocks floating everywhere, and noise about 3 times too big. Resolution is not the be all and end all of picture quality. Full screen any 1080p Youtube video and it looks like an ugly mess to me.

[matrixschmatrix]

Am I blind? All these complaints about image quality of streaming compared to DVD, what am I missing? I have a 50 inch TV and most HD streams look as good as or better than their DVD counterpart.

It may vary somewhat with your internet connection- streaming generally looks like garbage and has to pause to refresh every ten minutes at my house.

[vsski]

Criterion/Eclipse is also set up well for blind buys.

I completely agree even aside from the resale point being made, especially for cinephiles. Now blind buy is of course a relative term, as for me it means I'm buying a set of films I haven't seen before. Although in most cases I will have heard of the director and probably even read something about the films, so it's not like I have no clue whatsoever of what to expect. The Eclipse line for me was a great way of seeing films I otherwise had no access to (and no I don't have streaming yet for numerous reasons and I don't do Netflix rentals either) and knowing the number of titles CC sits on, I can only assume that economics must have played a major part in them not releasing more this year and now even re-releasing the OOP Fassbinders in the knowledge that they will sell, even if it goes counter to the original intention of the Eclipse line.

[matrixschmatrix]

If you define blind buy strictly as buying a movie you've never seen, I would say a minimum of 2/3rds of my non-upgrade purchases (and sadly, some of my upgrades) qualify. Even more broadly, though, I think you're right that Eclipse is a great way to go in knowing nothing or virtually nothing and get an interesting experience- I mean, the odds that you'll wind up with something like the Mailer set have to be like 1 in 50, right?

[vsski]

If you define blind buy strictly as buying a movie you've never seen, I would say a minimum of 2/3rds of my non-upgrade purchases (and sadly, some of my upgrades) qualify. Even more broadly, though, I think you're right that Eclipse is a great way to go in knowing nothing or virtually nothing and get an interesting experience- I mean, the odds that you'll wind up with something like the Mailer set have to be like 1 in 50, right?

At least when it comes to CC titles I have to admit that I have seen many of them previously, but that doesn't mean that I'm not excited of getting them in what usually is a quality edition and be able to see them again. And maybe because of having seen so many of the mainline movies before, Eclipse was particularly meaningful to me. And sure there is always the chance to get something you absolutely dislike (personally my Mailer set is still in shrinkwrap on my shelf, but from the glowing endorsement here, I better not open it while I'm sober ), but at least in my case it has been few and far between, so I agree with you the odds are slim. And even if it happens, to Domino's point, you can always sell them and in the end probably don't pay more than you would have, had you rented or streamed them.

[jindianajonz]

If you define blind buy strictly as buying a movie you've never seen, I would say a minimum of 2/3rds of my non-upgrade purchases (and sadly, some of my upgrades) qualify. Even more broadly, though, I think you're right that Eclipse is a great way to go in knowing nothing or virtually nothing and get an interesting experience- I mean, the odds that you'll wind up with something like the Mailer set have to be like 1 in 50, right?

Technically 1 in 39.

[mfunk9786]

Wow, I am officially going to stop complaining about the speed of my internet connection - I've never experienced any of this. Comparing a YouTube video at 1080p to the quality level of a Hulu Plus stream seems crazy to me, YouTube does indeed look awful, but the Criterion streams on Hulu look consistently great in my experience. Maybe I should just thank my lucky stars that I have enough bandwidth to make this the case.

[jwd5275]

I have absolutely no problems with Hulu on my roku either and fully I agree the Eclipse films that are on HD on Hulu (like the Oshimas and the Nikkatsu Noirs) look better than dvd. It makes me suspicious that not all paths to streaming are created remotely equal...

[rrenault]

Does anyone ever experience choppy playback with Hulu on their laptop, because I do on just about every browser except Google Chrome.

[albucat]

You can lock the bitrate for hulu+, and after doing so everything for me has looked great and been in HD. That being said, because there are so many films out there, though, and only a limited amount of time in life, I've also only watched HD films after trying a few others and finding their transfers severely lacking--semi unwatchable. So I wonder if that's part of the problem in some cases. Again, though, I find myself complaining that there's no way to tell what you're getting until you open a film up and check what the transfers was in.

[rrenault]

how do you lock the bitrate?

[albucat]

If you're playing it on your computer, go to privacy and settings and then select HD for the player settings. If you're doing it on the ps3, you have to change it on the player's settings, but it's pretty easy there, too. I have no idea for other systems, as that's all I use.

[Moe Dickstein]

Not that anyone really cares, but there's an insert advertising the Hulu Criterion service in The Lord of the Flies Blu, first time I've seen an insert in a long time...

[rrenault]

If you're playing it on your computer, go to privacy and settings and then select HD for the player settings. If you're doing it on the ps3, you have to change it on the player's settings, but it's pretty easy there, too. I have no idea for other systems, as that's all I use.

That won't do anything. I think I just tampered with it too much, refreshing, pausing, rewinding, unplugging and plugging in my computer while the video was playing, etc. And now it won't recover.

[Roger Ryan]

For those streaming to large-screen televisions via a Blu-ray player, I recommend reducing the output resolution to 720p. HD streaming, as well as anamorphic DVDs, tend to look appreciably better at the lower setting. I'm not sure if Hulu uses the same kind of buffering system as Netflix, but I never stream anything on the latter without pausing for a minute or so at the very beginning of the programming to give my internet connection enough time to buffer the maximum amount of data Netflix allows - this helps to keep the stream consistent with less buffering stalls. Again, a lot of this depends on your broadband speed or lack thereof.

[rrenault]

I think the problem is my antivirus software keeps blocking Adobe Flash from functioning properly, but I don't know how to temporarily disable my antivirs software.