I think that Criterion would have really alienated a large part of their audience by releasing the same titles with different spine numbers. The move from Laserdisc to DVD seems (at least in hindsight) big enough to warrant restarting the series since DVDs caught on in a big way that LDs never really did. But now DVD collections are a staple of many people’s home libraries and I think it just makes a lot more sense for them to maintain continuity with the current collection since they will continue producing regular DVDs for the foreseeable future. With their new website, I also get the sense that they are hedging their bets a bit on Blu-ray and preparing for the emergence of downloading/streaming media as a preferred format for cinephiles of the future. I have a bit of that completist bug in me so I get what you’re saying but economic reality means that I probably will not be able to acquire the full series of CC discs (even those still in print) any time soon. If you are Blu-ray only at this point, I think you can take some satisfaction in owning all the CC B-r discs and leave it at that, even if the numbers don’t form a clear consecutive series!
well i think u shouldn’t worry about it because ur blu-ray player should upconvert ur regular DVDs to hi-def.
One of the nicest things about Blu-Ray is capacity; therefore, it would be nice to see a company like Criterion put out director collections on one blu-ray disc. And re-releasing Walkabout and 400 Blows on Blu-Ray is great only if the disc is packed with more extras than the original releases. I can see Walkabout looking great in hi-def, but 400 Blows wouldn’t bring that much to the LCD screen. Companies really need to utilize capacity if they want Blu-Ray to grow.
For Example: Miramax released Kill Bill 1 and 2 on 2 separate Blu-Ray discs. Why is this necessary? More money for the distributor. Well, I’m not buying it knowing that they could have easily fit both movies on one disc with plenty of room for standard extras. Bologna.
“If you are Blu-ray only at this point, I think you can take some satisfaction in owning all the CC B-r discs and leave it at that, even if the numbers don’t form a clear consecutive series!” - That’s actually not a bad idea. . . .
“. . .re-releasing Walkabout and 400 Blows on Blu-Ray is great only if the disc is packed with more extras than the original releases.” – That’s another thing. I got the impression that Criterion is that enthusiastic about their Blu-rays when DVDs like “The Last Emperor” have more materials in their discs and booklets than in their Blu-ray counterparts.
Regarding the capacity…
The reason that shouldn’t be done is because the capacity is used up by the quality (High bit rate video, Loseless audio) if you cram 2, 3 or 4 films on a double layer 50Gb blu-ray each film will look like a regular DVD. This is why when Lawrence of Arabia is released by Sony it will be spread across two discs just like the better DVD releases of the film to keep up the quality of a long film.
However, once the 100 GB and 200 GB discs which have been developed get through testing and everything else I as well think that it should be used to put box sets on a single disc. The reason they won’t use all 200Gb of room to make the quality even better is because after around 50Gb there isn’t much room for improvement because Blu-ray is capped at close to 48 mbps including audio.
Even though you have a great idea it would be pointless if you spent 3 times the price of a DVD, 4 times the cost of a player, and thousands for a HDTV to get DVD quality films.
i too was slightly dissapointed that the spine numbers werent restarted with the blu-rays, but thats nowhere near as annoying as the fact that the blu-rays are region encoded, meaning that, with blu-ray’s more stringent region coding i cant watch any of the discs unless i buy a US player. needless to say, should blu-ray take off and subsequently become the primary format i will probably pick up a US blu-ray player.
Are you from the UK, Adam?
Well, Adam? We’re waiting.
divineM
I only possess a handful Criterions, and I’m a completist so imagine my frustration. When the Criterion Blu-rays were announced, I was so glad because I thought that I was finally going to have the chance of starting the collection from #1 (this announcement happened to coincide with the time I stopped buying DVDs and shifted to Blu-rays). But I was wrong, and it appears that Criterion is not really that enthusiastic about releasing Blu-rays. . . . However, I do have the entire Masters of Cinema Series from Eureka!, and they’ve even started releasing Blu-rays (beginning with spine #1 at that. I’m still going to get their future DVD releases along with the Blu-rays. As for collecting Criterions, I really don’t know what to do. Any words of consolation, advice, thoughts?