I wish I had waited. I refuse to double dip. I hope you are listening Criterion staff! All new releases on Blu-ray now! Get with the times!
“Days of Heaven” is a natural for Blu-ray. I think it’s one of the best looking movies ever filmed on 35mm. It’s also an all around very good film, although conventional, American film audiences of today may not like the tragic storyline. Hopefully the new digital transfer will capture as much of the color and detail of the exquisite Oscar winning cinematography into 1080p as possible.
I hope the audio listing on the tech details about the Blu-ray is a typo. Only lossy Dolby Digital 5.1? Even if the audio track is over 30 years old it needs to be encoded in a lossless format (Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master Audio) or uncompressed Linear PCM.
I’m definitely not happy about the blu ray delay. Criterion should offer some sort of rebate like Disney does. This tactic is shameful.
Have you noticed something truly distressing about the Criterion releases lately? I’m a deaf Blu-Ray collector.
DAYS OF HEAVEN on DVD has English subtitles for the Deaf and hard of hearing. But as far as I can tell, DAYS OF HEAVEN on Blu-Ray does NOT have English subtitles. And BIGGER THAN LIFE on BD doesn’t seem to have English subtitles at all!
This is rather shocking for several reasons.
1. The DVD of DAYS OF HEAVEN has subtitles. Can’t they be transferred over to the BD?
2. There are approximately 25 million Americans with hearing loss, and that number is sure to rise when more and more of the baby boomers lose more of their hearing.
3. Many Criterion DVDs have English subtitles, but for some inexplicable reason (money?), they seem to have stopped with providing subtitles on their English-speaking BDs. Given how Criterion has always traditionally charge premium prices for their titles, I find this rather inexcusable. I have paid a lot of money for their titles since their laserdisc days (mid-1990s). The lack of subtitles has made their BDs far less of a value at their premium prices (typically $40 full retail). Never mind the fact that so many of their extras are rarely subtitled in the first place.
Please do yourselves a favor. Email Mr. Mulvaney about this situation directly at mulvaney@criterion.com. Please be nice about this, but I think he should need to hear from you about how subtitles have helped you even if you have normal hearing.
Thank you so much.
Chris W: Criterion will exchange your DVDs for BDs for $20 per disc and $5 shipping and handling.
http://www.criterion.com/help#q28
Chris W:
Thank you for this notice, but my question about whether the subtitles will ALSO be on the BD hasn’t been answered.
Hopefully Mr. Mulvaney will respond.
Raymond
Cal Engime, thanks for the info. Unfortunately, it looks like their rebate program is pretty terrible. $25, and you don’t even get a blu ray case? If I’m patient, I’ll be able to get the blu ray for $20 from Amazon w/o trading in my BD.
Hi Raymond,
I’m happy to tell you that there are English subtitles on the Blu-Ray.
Just look at this picture of the back of the case where we can see the SDH symbol (Subtitled for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) :
http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?item_id=1512672&tab=5&back=1&anchor=1#topoftabs
or read this review that states that ‘’there are optional English subtitles’’on the Blu-Ray :
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews9/days-of-heaven.htm
Being a native French speaker, I must say that I’m glad too that there are subtitles.
It helps me sometimes when I don’t understand a word that is said.
So, I agree that Criterion must really continue to put subtitles on every movie for the benefit of the deaf and hard of hearing people and also of the non-native English speakers.
Mathieu
Mathieu:
Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. I’m very grateful!
Best,
Raymond
just seen the blu ray
its has subtitles…but then again after seen the movie quite a few time before this blu ray was all for the picture and sound
but wasnt really blow away by the transfer…was anything amiss?
or it s not really a very good transfer, by criterion standard?
a big improvement over the dvd release by paramount (have not seen the 2007 dvd edition)
a Smith
I have had to restrain myself from purchasing the DVD hoping for this on blu despite the relatively recent CC DVD. I’m glad I did. Several eagerly awaited CC blus these early months 2010.