The Criterion Collection and the Deep Blu Sea
With its first batch of Blu-ray DVDs set to hit store shelves, classic cinema and home video god The Criterion Collection has updated its FAQ to address a few consumer concerns.
The biggest issue for most folks will likely be whether to buy a standard DVD or wait for the Blu-ray. Criterion of course says you should buy now, their logic being that it’s going to take a long time before some of your catalogue favorites turn up in the new format.
They’ll also be offering an exchange program where you can send them your old DVD and for $20 (plus shipping and handling), they’ll replace it with a shiny new Blu-ray version.
Now if only they’d offer a program for all those old Laserdiscs I have…
Filed under: DVD
Tags: Blu-ray, The Criterion Collection
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You gotta love the fact that Criterion is going WAY out of their way to avoid double-dipping their customers on the upgrade to Blu.
Craig I sold off my complete Criterion laserdisc collection years ago, and used the money to invest in the DVDs. I have in the range of 400 in the collection, and I am missing only 11 titles, including such uninteresting stuff like MARTHA GRAHAM ON DANCE and FISHING WITH JOHN (I expect my good Criterion pal, Jeff McMahon to soon rib me on the FISHING slight, ha!!)
That offer to trade in our existing titles for the right to pay $20 for the new blu-ray is admittedly tempting.
But first I have to buy a blu-ray player.
That said, I currently have no plans to abandon my fanatical (and finantially draining and irresponsible) habit of buying virtually all four Criterion titles released every month (sometimes 3) and every single Eclipse box. I do the same with the UK’s MASTER OF CINEMA series (which is England’s Criterion) and just bought VAMPYR this week (again) even though I bought the Criterion weeks back. You never know when guests will stop buy, and you never have enough copies of the Dreyer masterpiece in the house.
When the family starves, we can always eat the DVDs.
Agreed Joel…and they’re not waiting for customers to be pissed off at them.
Sam that’s spectacular and admirable in a strange sort of way.
I still have my laserdiscs, though there are only a few that have any value to me: Criterion Taxi Driver and Silence of the Lambs with commentary tracks unavailable on DVD plus the un-Lucased versions of the Star Wars trilogy. Other than that, I probably should just toss them.
Sam, no words from me. I haven’t ever seen Fishing With John, and your collection is roughly eight times bigger than mine.
I was too late for laserdiscs, but I do have about 150 movies on VHS, mostly stuff that isn’t available on R1 DVD like The Exterminating Angel or The Crowd or Island of Lost Souls or Where is the Friend’s House, or stuff that I just don’t feel like owning on DVD, like Wayne’s World or Soylent Green.
Cloak and Dagger was awesome…yet I can see not ever getting it on DVD even if it was available (is it?)
Sorry, I edited my post but that was one that I have on VHS - and I don’t think it ever has been put on DVD and I would guess because it would be considered hard to market since it puts a kid in real danger against real terrorists.
Compared with the ’80s, Americans are wussies today.
With Spielberg turning guns into walkie-talkies, I agree.
Jeff, you do have some great stuff there!!!
I read recently that distributors have chopped The Exterminating Angel up because they thought a sequence was a ‘mistake’ (it was really an intentional bit of surrealism by Bunuel) so I hope I have the right version. But either way, it’s a somewhat crummy old VHS.
That’s too bad Jeff, but there is a superb Australian Region 4 of it–I own it–and it will hold me over until the legit Criterion appears as many are saying it inevitably will. The trick is to have an all-Region player, but I’m sure you have this. People tell me that are selling for as low as $40 now.
I don’t have one - while it’s tempting, it would only enable me to buy more DVDs, and I can barely afford the R1 ones that I’m buying anyway.
Not to be the devil on your shoulder Jeff, but you could always rent them from Cinefile…
I hear ya, Jeff. The player wouldn’t cost anything, but it would lead to yet another addiction, which yyou don’t need. There is a serious curse upon those who collect just to collect.
Until I have enough money to burn, I’ll probably never bother upgrading most of my DVDs to Blu-Ray. Sure, once I get a player, I’ll probably make a point of buying them from this point forward, but the difference in quality has never been enough that I feel like spending thousands of dollars retracing my footsteps.
alynch, you said that perfectly. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Heh heh…you say that now. I said that when I first saw Blu-ray, but then the more I watched Blu-ray disks on my 720p 37″ LCD I became aware of how much of a difference I could see. If I can see the difference that clearly on a lower res TV that small, then when I eventually get a larger plasma (or preferably a projection screen) then it will be really pronounced.
Granted, my girlfriend wasn’t all that impressed…until she saw Pixar’s Blu-ray for Ratatouille. She couldn’t stop talking about how impressive that looked but she’s still not sold on the difference.
You may not be like me, but I was pretty adamant that my upscaling DVD player was all I needed and that PS3 would be mostly playing video games and new releases. That hasn’t wound up being the case but thankfully, there’s always Netflix.
You are killing me Joel, you’re killing me!!!! LOL!!!!
I wasn’t interested in blu-ray until I got a PS3. On my smallish TV, the difference is not enormous, but I still wanted to lick the TV screen.
Having said that, the jump from DVD on a regular TV to DVD upscale to HDTV was bigger than upscaled to Blu-ray.
I won’t be replacing any of my DVDs for the time being, but future purposes I’m happy to get the blu-rays.
I have that disease where I’m attracted to bright and shiny things. I hope none of you are stricken with it, but I second Craig’s point that the big “Oh Boy” moment for me was HDTV and upscaled DVD. Blu-ray is just icing on the cake.
“Heh heh…you say that now. I said that when I first saw Blu-ray, but then the more I watched Blu-ray disks on my 720p 37? LCD I became aware of how much of a difference I could see.”
Ditto, Joel. The jump to HDTV was massive, and greater than the jumpt o Blu-ray, but I do think the jump to Blu-ray is quite considerable as well.
That said, to quote Craig, “I won’t be replacing any of my DVDs for the time being, but future purposes I’m happy to get the blu-rays.”
somebody teach me the Dark Art of upconverting.
You’re not using the sarcasm font, Ryan, so I assume you’re serious. Upconverting means I take this low-resolution DVD and do a bunch of fancy math on it on the fly to make it appear higher resolution for an HDTV. Done well, and it’s pretty impressive. It’s not actually making the picture look better as much as its hiding the picture’s lack of resolution and detail.
These days, get a good HDTV and it probably won’t matter. Most of the name brands do this for you pretty well and the player itself has become less important but the nerds (ie, me) are still fond of them because they usually do a better overall job than the TV can.
But since the PS3 does a fairly good job of playing regular DVDs and upconverting them to higher resolutions plus it’s an excellent Blu-ray player, you could just get that and be done with it. Oh, and it play these video game things the kids are talking about.
If you have an HDTV already and your old DVDs look pretty good on it from your old DVD player you paid $50 for at Target, chances are your TV is doing this for you already and you don’t need to worry about it. If they look like non-HD channels, soft and grainy, then I would get the player.
Until Criterion releases their SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE LD again with the deleted therapist scene, I won’t give up my LD’s. I love my ALIEN set.
The other thing I love about LDs is the album sized artwork.