criterionforum.org

Steady on now, I wouldn't go that far

LavaLamp wrote:4K PQ is superior to 1080p - however, you need a very wide/large TV to see the difference. Also, though the difference is notable if you have a very large TV, it is not as obvious as, say, the superior PQ distinction when comparing BD's (or most BD's) to regular DVDs.

Regarding BD, it has also been agreed everywhere that if your TV is smaller than 40 inches, you might not be able to see a big difference between a DVD and a BD, because the pixel density is already high with a DVD. The same should be done here, and you would need a big TV to see the difference between 2K and 4K.

I'm quite sure if your have a 65" screen, or maybe even a 55", the difference might already be noticeable.
From what I've seen, in video projection, the improvement is very noticeable, even at a simpler upscale stage (a BD upscaled in 4K).

David M. wrote:

The higher the res the more of a chance the grain can overwhelm the picture.

Not really. A low-light scene shot on high speed film is going to have a lot of grain regardless of the resolution it's been scanned at. Higher resolution scanning will give you higher resolution details, and that also means higher resolution grain - but not more of it.

You might be thinking of old SD telecine transfers where the grain was reduced as a matter of routine (in part because older telecine designs themselves added their own noise). Fortunately that isn't the way any more.

Thanks David, after I posted I remembered that I saw Dr Strangelove (I think Sony's first transfer) in 4k screened in a theater. It looked great. Grain was lovely. As to your first point, made me think about The Third Man blu ray (Criterion). The grain was a bit distracting for my taste. Many dark, low lit scenes. Got it. Thanks again.

David M. wrote:You would certainly enjoy seeing Taxi Driver in 4K. Maybe not *that* much more than in 1080p. I don't understand why anyone would have a vested interest in fighting or saying 'no' to technological progress though.

Sorry if I'm coming across as grumpy here, but I sat through the exact same discussions when 1080p was up and coming and I'm surprised at how short sighted the AV press in particular can be: "what's the point", "we'll need huge screens", "720p is good enough" etc etc. It's coming and will one day be the standard, and you'll surely own a 4K display some day.

Yeah, I'm right with you there, and appreciate all of this info. It took me a while to be convinced that BD was worthwhile - when it was first released in the late 2000's, I thought it was just a money-grab for the BD companies to sell consumers a product that wasn't much better than regular DVD's. Now that I actually own a BD player & have seen many BD's, I am extremely impressed at how much better BD's look (with some exceptions).

tenia wrote:Regarding BD, it has also been agreed everywhere that if your TV is smaller than 40 inches, you might not be able to see a big difference between a DVD and a BD, because the pixel density is already high with a DVD. The same should be done here, and you would need a big TV to see the difference between 2K and 4K.

I'm quite sure if your have a 65" screen, or maybe even a 55", the difference might already be noticeable.
From what I've seen, in video projection, the improvement is very noticeable, even at a simpler upscale stage (a BD upscaled in 4K).

Yes, very true - large flatscreen TV's are becoming more advanced & have gone down significantly in price, so the differences here are more evident than they would have been in the past. I remember considering getting a large, widescreen TV in the early 2000's, and not doing so because of both the extremely high price & it being very obvious that the larger the set was, the worse the PQ was. Obviously, these days they have solved this PQ issue....

I recently read an opinion article that suggested that BD players will be obsolete in the next five years. Note this is not my opinion - here is the link:

http://techland.time.com/2014/01/02/5-t ... ?hpt=hp_t3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Personally, I truly hope that BD's are around for a long time to come. I'm familiar with streaming, but it's definitely not my preferred way of watching films/TV shows. I like having the physical BD (or DVD) to watch films, and having a High-def BD is, IMHO, far better than having to stream something.

That all being said, I understand why streaming has become (and is becoming) attractive to so many. First of all, you don't have to worry about going out and renting/buying a BD/DVD. Secondly, you don't have to worry about a BD/DVD being potentially scratched or otherwise defective & therefore not working properly.

That also being said, I have yet to see a stream that is of BD PQ. I'm not saying they aren't out there, I'm just saying I haven't seen this.

What do others think about this? Thanks in advance for any input here...

All of the numbers linked in that piece seem deceptive- it claims blu-ray discs are slipping, and then uses numbers like North America's market share of discs relative to the rest of the world, and decreased revenue from all discs (we all know that DVD sales are slipping, and have been for years.) Sure, blu-ray players are going to keep selling at the same rate, but that's a matter of market saturation, not of obsolescence. Criterion never reports specific numbers, but they've said that their disc sales revenue has grown steadily for the last few years- and they've got streaming options that are at least as attractive as Netflix's.

Saying simply that Netflix is going to destroy physical media is lazy and stupid- Netflix simply doesn't carry everything, and it's been bleeding libraries of titles ever since everyone else found out how valuable streaming can be. I'd be a little more convinced if Netflix had a lot of strong competitors and people seemed willing to subscribe to five streaming services at once to get everything they wanted, but I haven't seen that.

Even if that were the case- laserdisc survived for a decade or more on the basis of a small market of people willing to pay premium prices for superior movie experience, and it's difficult to believe that the same won't happen with blu-ray. Streaming means you don't get to keep the title forever, they still haven't gotten around to adding special features to nearly all streaming experiences, it sucks for anyone with a less than stellar internet connection, and it doesn't have the physical commodity that appeals to collectors. I'm sure it will get bigger for a few years, but I don't see it destroying physical media, at least not for a good long while.

And just the fact that the latest generation of games consoles has just been released, trumpeting downloads and focused heavily on on-line interaction, yet still including Blu-ray players (the Xbox for the first time and the new Xbox having to pull back on some pushes to being even more on-line focused after a backlash), means that some of the biggest tech companies aren't ready to junk the disc format yet.

It is likely going to come down to the joy of statistics - who is collecting the data, what is being collected and how that data is interpreted. You can justify anything you need to from that.

(I also just got my dad a stand-alone in-car GPS unit for Christmas )

Well, Playstation is obviously going to hold onto blu-ray since it's Sony's baby, and I think X-box got some flack for not supporting the format in the last generation (I know a lot of X-box gamers who grumbled about having to buy and make room for another box to play Blu-rays when the PS3 could do it all with a single player)

I think there will always be a demand for physical media, but my big fear is that even with that demand, studios will see enough benefits in streaming to override that demand. I mean, why sell something when you can rent it? Streaming gives them much more control over the product than sales do, and I think the whole idea of unlimited streaming at a monthly rate will eventually give way to some sort of pay-per-view "premium streaming" for popular titles similar to what cable companies already do.

Every once in a while this topic rears its ugly head. I don't buy it, don't see it, not happening anytime soon. Five years my derriere! Yes, there will be many people around the world that will rather stream. They are pedestrian movie fans. They'll watch a movie on a night they have nothing to do. There are many of these folks. But there are also many folks that collect, love and follow the art of film. It doesn't matter what genre one likes they will want to collect it. The big studios and the little labels know it. That is why they are spending millions of dollars to restore and release films that many people have never heard of, except for the serious filmphile, and there are many of them. You think SONY is spending lots of green stuff to restore The Lady From Shanghai hoping someone will stream it because they have a couple of free hours to watch a MOVIE<?> Clearly not. It is to protect the film and to release on hard copy it for the vast number of collectors.

BTW...You always see these skewed numbers in some tech geek's column. But then the manufacturers and electronic retailers shoot the numbers down with there own numbers of units flying off the shelves. I remember hearing this same nonsense 2 to 3 years ago and blu ray has only gotten more ingrained in the movie public eye. For crying out loud vinyl has made a return. Granted, it's a niche but the point is the medium is still around and available for those that want to spin records. And many of the collectors 78s are young people. Ironic.

Frau's comment about vinyl is one I was going to bring up. All my friend's bands release vinyl, not only buy it.

I could rant but I'll just say this: I never owned an iPod, but all of my friends that have owned iPods have at one point lost everything because the thing dies. My wife's laptop crashed and there went many of her photos and much of the music she collected. Same with her external hard drive.

If you take care of your physical media collection this stuff just won't happen.

Well that seems uncompelling- one could just as easily prove the superiority of digital media by talking about scratched CDs and that time someone broke into your car. Back up your digital media and that will never happen.

Thanks for all of the responses, everyone. I agree with you all. Hopefully BD's will be around for long time.

To make an analogy, I'm also a big fan of Music CD's, and have collected them for years. I've never got into I-pods, I-tunes, etc. Having a physical CD in-hand with the artwork, liner notes, etc. is much more interesting to me than having songs on a device. However, like streaming, I do see the attraction here.

Re: vinyl, it is interesting that it's making a come-back these days; much of this is probably fueled by nostalgia, but it seems a lot of those into vinyl these days weren't even around when records first existed...

I thought we had a Strand thread but I guess not: Mysterious Skin coming in March

The Hollywood Reporter....
DECE, the consortium behind UltraViolet, is looking at 4K, as well as high dynamic range, wider color space and higher frame rates.
LAS VEGAS--Ultra HD is a huge story at the International CES. But many also believe that resolution alone is not enough to entice consumers to make the switch from their current TVs.

Many in Hollywood’s engineering community believe it will also take a wider color gamut, higher dynamic range and higher frame rates to make the most noticeable improvement over today’s HD. Dolby, Technicolor and Sony are all presenting their plans to move the industry in this direction, this week at CES. Meanwhile Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the consortium behind the cloud-based Digital HD service UltraViolet, is looking into adding support not just for 4K but for higher dynamic range and related features. “4K (Ultra HD) is on our roadmap, and this will need to be a standard since it needs to work on a variety of devices and platforms,” DECE general manager Mark Teitell told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re also looking at high dynamic range, color space and frame rate. It’s likely to be a combination of those attributes that will represent the next generation. We are looking at what we need to do and take the best combination.” Asked if DECE could end up adopting a proposed system such as Dolby Vision, he responded, “We don’t adopt things that are propriety, but it may well be a spec that Dolby Vision meets.” The 85 member of DECE include Hollywood studios such as Lionsgate, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros. and Universal; as well as video retailers and other technology companies. According to Teitell, there are now an estimated 15 million UltraViolet account holders in supported countries, and 12,000 supported movies and TV programs. Meanwhile, Blu-Ray Discs with 4K support could be a reality by the end of the year, according to the Blu-Ray Disc Association’s global promotions committee chair Victor Matsuda. Talking to THR at CES, he noted that the BDA board recently approved work to extend Blu-Ray to include 4K and will be exploring the best possible technical blueprint. Driving this work are members of a task force made up of representatives from 17 companies including Sony, Technicolor, Dolby, Fox and Disney.The target for completion is year’s end.

FrauBlucher wrote:Many in Hollywood’s engineering community believe it will also take a wider color gamut

Translation: both teal and orange will now go one louder.

Drucker wrote:I could rant but I'll just say this: I never owned an iPod, but all of my friends that have owned iPods have at one point lost everything because the thing dies.

Unless your iPod and the drive where you store your music files crash simultaneously, that shouldn't happen - I don't know anyone who stores files exclusively on an iPod.

I redact my statement, fair points. I just greatly prefer physical media.

The risk of rightsholders pulling content since deals have expired is probably the bigger threat.
Netflix US lost all the Viacom stuff recently because their contract wasn't renewed. And New Year's Day 2014 saw more stuff vanish.

David M. wrote:The risk of rightsholders pulling content since deals have expired is probably the bigger threat.
Netflix US lost all the Viacom stuff recently because their contract wasn't renewed. And New Year's Day 2014 saw more stuff vanish.

Exactly! Though, at least the consumer isn't out a specific purchase (they can stream other content)

This story proves why you should probably never buy a digital copy of a movie (at least off of Amazon).

Edit

Previous link is still relevant, but this is the story I meant to link. It seems that Amazon's use of the word "buy" should be changed to "extended rental." Though, imagine you had bought the movie the day/week before it was pulled?

I would guess that Amazon will eventually get hit with some kind of class action suit, or at least a flurry of indignant Buzzfeed articles and the like, over "purchased" movies that disappear. And then they'll make it go away by changing the terminology to something more fungible than "buying."

I've always been surprised they've done it that way, no matter how much fine print they bury in the T&C. Most people are clearly fine streaming content without owning it, but buying something means you can throw it in the trunk of your car or leave it to your kids when you croak, and Amazon and the like are just needlessly waving a red flag by "selling" you content that you can't do that with.

Svankmajer's Alice (1988) on 4/15/14, but listing doesn't state distributor. The US DVD from First Run Features appears to still be in print, though.

Hard to see any reason to avoid the BFI region-free dual-format with some nice short films and a fine booklet.

Gregory wrote:Hard to see any reason to avoid the BFI region-free dual-format with some nice short films and a fine booklet.

Agreed, although if this release actually happens, I will be extremely impressed that the film is getting a Blu-ray release in the U.S. at all. But I won't be giving up my BFI edition for anything.

It's definitely happening, and it's the same transfer as the BFI disc - but I don't know about extras.

I put them in touch with a BFI contact with regard to the five shorts on the BFI disc, and also recommended contacting Švankmajer's company Athanor on the off-chance that HD versions of the shorts that didn't exist in 2011 have since been created, but your guess is as good as mine as to what they'll end up including.

(I got the impression that their extras budget was pretty tight.)