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Since they've done joint projects with Arrow in the past, I wonder if that's on the cards here? It would certainly make a huge amount of financial/logistical sense.

I'm not sure whether this would work with the lack of region-coding on UHD BDs, but Arrow's film noir collaborations with Flicker Alley resulted in them both releasing exactly the same disc in terms of the machine-readable side - but if it's played in a Region A player, it serves up Flicker Alley branding and menus, and if it's Region B it delivers Arrow ones. I think the pioneering disc in this respect was The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, reflecting the fact that it was Arrow Video in the US and Arrow Academy in the UK.

And of course if multiple labels release exactly the same physical disc, that goes some way to addressing the economies-of-scale challenge.

Arrow allegedly has the Terminator, which I imagine would be a no-brainer film to test out what the maximum UHD sales for the label could be

According to the Kino Insider, RoboCop and The Terminator are with different labels and we know Arrow has RoboCop.

I guess that means Shout

Considering there's a sequel coming this year, that certainly says a lot about the state of the home video industry. Hopefully at the very least, whoever has it can finally produce an HD release with the original mono soundtrack and colour timing. I'd take that even if the disc had nothing else on it.

Blue Velvet as a trial?

Just out of curiosity does someone know how many UHD players have been sold so far?

FrauBlucher wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:53 pm Just out of curiosity does someone know how many UHD players have been sold so far?

It's difficult for the general audience to find consistent trustful figures that would also be clear if they include or not X Box One S and X, but it is said that by the end of 2018, about 4.5M players were sold (since inception), without the Xboxes.
If I'm not mistaken, this is lower than what was originally expected and projected, just like the discs figures which are also lower (projections for 2019 have also been adjusted from 16M to 14.4M, 10% lower).

Then what would be the rush for CC or some of the other boutiques to release UHD discs?

You mean, financially speaking ? Pretty much none, I guess. UHD currently has about 10-15% MS of the BD, which itself has a 15-20% MS. At best, it means UHD currently holds less than 5% of the physical video market, knowing that the industry itself is expecting a 25+% drop by 2022 but believes in a stagnation for 2019-2020 (which is very unlikely to happen).

But we could say that BD never went over 25% MS, and yet, we all love it here, so there most certainly is somewhere a cluster of customers available, but it's never going to take off sales-wise, and is going to be even worse than BD. The only possibility is if the technical niche happens to coincide with the last remnants of the physical market consumers, then maybe, there might be some business to be done there.

On the topic of labels making the jump, Carlotta is planning their first UHD release later this year: https://www.dvdfr.com/news/4691-carlott ... ncour.html

Discussion of KL's UHD of Hannibal moved here

3 Criterion movies included in Sony's UHD survey:
The Devil's Backbone
It Happened One Night
The Age of Innocence
https://secure.sonypictures.com/movies/ ... 08=4KU003D

That’s one sorry excuse for a survey.

Adam Grikepelis wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:45 am That’s one sorry excuse of a survey.

You're not kidding.

I don’t think UHD takes off unless TV hardware and HDR/DV color grading and 4K mastering develop to the point that the gap between DVD/Blu-ray and UHD becomes as visible as the gap between VHS and DVD.. and it’s more likely Criterion streams a 4K/Dolby Vision image before they press a disc..

Adam Grikepelis wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:45 am That’s one sorry excuse for a survey.

Why?

onedimension wrote:I don’t think UHD takes off unless TV hardware and HDR/DV color grading and 4K mastering develop to the point that the gap between DVD/Blu-ray and UHD becomes as visible as the gap between VHS and DVD.. and it’s more likely Criterion streams a 4K/Dolby Vision image before they press a disc..

The mass acceptance of DVD likely had far more to do with the convenience of disc vs. tape (no rewinding, less storage space, etc) than image quality.

david hare wrote:Even with Lady from Shanghai on it, it’s more an ultimatum than a survey.

I like how they say it *may* be released in a gift set. Not even a standalone release.

David M. wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2019 12:26 am

Adam Grikepelis wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:45 amThat’s one sorry excuse for a survey.

Why?

Well, yes, technically it’s a (very limited) survey, and they’ve actually at least doubled the number of titles listed for Question 2 since I originally looked at it; but it just that, really. It’s more of a marketing gimmick than an actual attempt to gain information from their potential customers. It reads like a list of titles Sony already has ready to go, and they want to know which ones you’d be more likely to buy if they released those first. It’s also such a random sampling of titles that it speaks as much to Sony’s lack of a plan as it does to selling this like they’re giving the customer an opportunity for input.

It brings to mind Warner Archive’s ultimatum of “if you guys don’t buy this collection of old cartoons, we won’t be releasing any more of them”...

(I’m having a bad time of it lately, so if this post comes off as angry or dismissive, I’m sorry, I was just trying to answer your question, & I don’t have the energy to fine tune it - I’m actually totally ambivalent about Sony’s UHD plans.)

I don't know. I would not be so cynical about it. Criterion had a similar poll in the early days of Blu-ray (the one that Howard's End won).

I'm thinking kinda like adam : Sony has tons of 4K masters available, has no idea how to prioritise those, so is doing a poll to try and get a grasp at what might sell most and thus should be released first. I'm not sure there is any more to take from this.

No one has even begun to truly experience the movie Stripes until they've seen it in 4K UHD.

Brian C wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2019 12:32 am

onedimension wrote:I don’t think UHD takes off unless TV hardware and HDR/DV color grading and 4K mastering develop to the point that the gap between DVD/Blu-ray and UHD becomes as visible as the gap between VHS and DVD.. and it’s more likely Criterion streams a 4K/Dolby Vision image before they press a disc..

The mass acceptance of DVD likely had far more to do with the convenience of disc vs. tape (no rewinding, less storage space, etc) than image quality.

Yeah, fair point - plus the longevity of discs.. bodes better for UHD streaming than disc, unfortunately..

I really don't see Criterion doing a deep dive into UHD. They have spent much resources on upgrading much of their catalogue on bluray. The home market just doesn't warrant it at this time. What I could see them doing is releasing select titles in UHD, like they did for 3D with the special edition of Pina