This announcement is a month old but I didn’t see it here. Thought some of you would be interested.
http://www.criterion.com/blu-rayannounce.html
Yay!
Now if only they would release them in other regions…
Criterion releases, as far as I know, are region-free. They say they’re region 1, but I never had a problem playing any of them on my R3 DVD player while I was in Korea.
I was under the impression that only the earlier ones are region free, I’m pretty sure some even have RCE protection, but maybe I’m wrong. I’ve only ever tried my Criterion releases on a multi-region DVD player, so it hasn’t been that big a deal.
I was also thinking more about retail release in other regions though, they can be a bitch to import. It seems odd to me that they’ve never published outside of the US (and their own store doesn’t sell to international customers), though they must have their reasons behind it.
I would love to pick up a blu-ray player, but they’ve got to come down to something more sensible price-wise. $200 and I could probably talk myself into it.
Well, w/ the walmart deal ps3s are around $300, so if the game portion is worth $100 to you, there you go.
That would involve me shopping at Wal-Mart.
Seriously, though, I haven’t seen anything from the PS3 that is so ridiculously compelling game-wise over my 360. I can’t really justify having two consoles + a PC economically, so I’d really be much happier replacing my current not-terribly-great DVD player with a Blu-Ray player.
Edit: Actually, according to the walmart.ca site, the 40GB PS3 is still $400 CDN.
yes, but it has a $100 giftcard. I mean, you’d need some bluray movies anyways. don’t get me wrong, I’m not buying one for the same reason - but when I do get a bluray player, it’ll be a ps3, as it is the best one, and it is more or less the same price as the rest of them.
It’d be the second thing ever I bought at walmart if I bit on that deal. (and the first thing was a ‘loaner’ 360 that I returned once my repair came back)
Criterion, and the work of Antoni Gaudi, give me hope.
Dude, you misspelled “armageddon”!
-Tom
Wow. I didn’t even realize that they’d done a Criterion Armageddon.
Two Michael Bay movies. How utterly flabbergasting.
That’s theoretically awesome (the Criterion news I mean… not the Michael Bay movies) but knowing Criterion’s DVD pricing, they’ll probably charge $50 for each Blu-ray transfer.
Criterion doesn’t own the vast majority of the movies in their catalog – they license them from other companies, which is why they don’t distribute their titles outside of North America (it would be way too expensive and complicated to clear the worldwide rights). This is also why their region-coding policy is inconsistent: they don’t like region-coding, but sometimes the licensor demands it. As a general rule, any title that’s licensed from a major U.S. studio will be region-coded, along with anything from Toho. For everything else it’s a crapshoot, but if it’s region-coded it’ll have a little logo like this on the back of the box.
Per the link in Mike’s post, their Blu-rays will be priced the same as their DVDs. So they’re only going to be charging $50 for a Blu-ray if that’s what the DVD cost.
Criterion doesn’t own the vast majority of the movies in their catalog – they license them from other companies, which is why they don’t distribute their titles outside of North America (it would be way too expensive and complicated to clear the worldwide rights). This is also why their region-coding policy is inconsistent: they don’t like region-coding, but sometimes the licensor demands it. As a general rule, any title that’s licensed from a major U.S. studio will be region-coded, along with anything from Toho. For everything else it’s a crapshoot, but if it’s region-coded it’ll have a little logo like this on the back of the box.
Oh, I overlooked that “priced to match” statement. That’s great news. Now where are my Kurosawa re-editions?
edit: Whaaaat, all Toho movies must be region-coded? That sucks, I don’t have a region-free BD player. :(
In all seriousness, if you’re going to give the Criterion treatment to Michael Bay, well, those are the two movies to do it for.
Also, the Disney/Touchstone Blu-Ray release of The Rock has pretty much the same features list as the Criterion issue, so you can already get a HD version of Criterion-Rock.
Now I’ll go back to my normal day of somehow either fitting “clever girl” from Jurassic Park or The Rock’s “airstrike approved” into a conversation.
Yes, but do you know unix or get to fuck the prom queen?
Oh, Criterion…
It’s a good thing I’ve held out on upgrading from my old, non-anamorphic Brazil box set. Eventually they’ll put out a nice Blu-ray edition, and I’ll pick it up and stare at it lustily until such time as I have a Blu-ray player.
That and Picnic at Hanging Rock, if they’re doing a complete catalog reissue. One can hope…
Well, they might, but their licenses are typically for one form of media and the materials they produce are only for that media and may even be limited to that particular print run. Many of the cool Criterion laser discs never made it to DVD (I’m looking at you, The Lighthorsemen). I fully expect quite a few titles not make it to Blu-Ray (or if they do, don’t expect the same extras).
— Alan