Criterion and UHD

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mfunk9786
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#76 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:22 pm

Then why does anyone release films in this format? Criterion is already remastering films in 4K in a lot of cases, you mean to tell me if they were releasing The Tree of Life in a UHD+Blu-ray dual format there wouldn't be a market for that?

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#77 Post by knives » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:25 pm

Futures investments?

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#78 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:26 pm

Because for big budget movies with a large home video market, the money is there enough that 2-3% of sales is still worth pursuing, or these releases were contractually required to release in UHD, or these were early releases made to test the waters and are not necessarily indicative of future release patterns

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#79 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:31 pm

Criterion has always been marked by being ahead of the curve when it comes to home video. It took a while for Filmstruck to get there, but the Hulu channel was pretty revolutionary for what it was.

Laserdisc had less market share than UHD does, and it didn't make Criterion suddenly turn around and put out VHS tapes instead - they released LDs for $100 and let enthusiasts go find them.

If I can go into Target and buy both John Wick films in UHD, I just don't think we're far off from being able to order at least some higher profile Criterion films in the format, unless the company decides they're at the beginning of the end with regard to their desire to innovate and move forward with technology. Which might very well be the case. But that would spell the longer-term death of physical releases from Criterion.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#80 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:33 pm

Betamax was a better format than VHS, but it still lost. UHD not being adapted does not necessarily indicate a death of home media, and Blu-rays are not an even remotely insufficient method of watching films in high quality in the ways every other format before has been

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#81 Post by tenia » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:34 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:22 pm
you mean to tell me if they were releasing The Tree of Life in a UHD+Blu-ray dual format there wouldn't be a market for that?
There wouldn't. Or rather : there would, but too small of a market to make it financially sound.
Currently, studios are the ones releasing movies on UHD, but that's mostly because they're operating on a global scale. Criterion and all independants would have to absorb the oncost of producing a more expensive product for a again smaller market on a local market.

Criterion might be a niche, and I don't doubt the general figures might not be fully representative of what is exactly the picture for independant labels, but still : UHD currently is about 3% of the market.
Moreover, with the marketing (and technical reviews) about UHD having switched from 4K rez to HDR and WCG, I'm not sure UHDs of catalog movies that might not have been HDR-graded for their restorations might be harder to sell (because, you know, people).

Note also that it took 2.5 years for Criterion to adopt Blu-ray, so if this leadtime is to be reproduced with UHD, that'd put the first Criterion UHDs for December 18. We'll see. I'd certainly love to future-proof some Criterion releases, but I'm also quite certain only a small % of people would be in this case with me.


And, in a way, people were happy enough with DVD not to upgrade to BD, so how can we expect the diminishing returns of UHD upgrading to be particularly appealling ?
Last edited by tenia on Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#82 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:38 pm

And I'm contending that we won't even see it until maybe a year or two later than that.
domino harvey wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:33 pm
Betamax was a better format than VHS, but it still lost.
Not sure about this comparison having relevancy here since most UHD releases still come packaged with a Blu-ray disc. The formats aren't competing with each other, one is a logical evolution of the other as televisions are improving.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#83 Post by tenia » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:39 pm

I would too go for 2019-2020. If ever, of course.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#84 Post by McCrutchy » Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:50 pm

I think it's pretty obvious that Criterion will go for UHD BD. It's just going to take longer, because the physical media market is different than in 2008 (when Criterion went to Blu-ray, after the format war ended), and also because the UHD BD rollout has been complicated. For example, by 2008, there were many BD-50 releases, and Criterion could afford to use BD-50 for virtually all of their discs. But in 2018, most UHD BD releases are 66 GB, even though 100 GB discs also exist. 100 GB discs would give Criterion the opportunity to maximize bitrates on longer films, as well as potentially letting them put HD and 4K-quality extras on the same disc as the feature films, so I expect a big factor in why Criterion are waiting is for 100 GB disc replication to become more standardized than it currently is.

One thing I don't think is an issue is the three formats. DVD will continue to be sold on its own, probably eventually fading into library/institutional use only, but UHD and Blu-ray could easily be bundled together, especially if Criterion opts to copy the majors by at least initially only using the UHD disc for the feature. I feel like there is a lot less resistance to UHD/BD combo packs than there was to BD/DVD combo packs, so I can't see a lot of people complaining as long as we can get each release in a Scanavo case.

The other issue is audio. In 2008, Criterion chose DTS-HD MA for their stereo and multichannel audio films, but in 2018, audio for UHD is all over the place, and the dominant format appears to be Dolby Atmos. Certainly, most Criterion UHD BDs will use LPCM or DTS-HD MA for anything from 1.0 to 7.1 channels, but, eventually, Criterion will either run into a film or two that was released originally with Atmos or DTS:X (e.g. Zhang Yimou's Coming Home), or they will be compelled by the expectations of consumers to offer remixes on certain Hollywood films, so they need to decide how to proceed with these new audio formats. Do they stick with DTS:X and its DTS-HD MA core, even though Dolby Atmos is more popular? Or, do they begin working with Atmos and TrueHD audio, and paying both license fees? Again, certainly a lesser issue, but possibly a concern, all the same.

Then, there is the whole HDR/Dolby Vision thing, which is still settling itself out now. I'm sure once the dust settles, Criterion will utilize whatever is best, but until then, there is no point in releasing a UHD BD. I'm sure the last thing Criterion want is inconsistency in their UHD BD discs, with pressure to remaster and re-release titles that did not offer certain format features.

And finally, there is the region coding issue. With Criterion more or less unable to enforce region coding on UHD BD, that means their discs threaten to cannibalize sales in Europe and elsewhere, which may make licensors very nervous. UHD BD is going slow and steady internationally, but there isn't enough of a foothold that there are many competing releases yet. For example, in Japan, domestic exclusives so far have been largely anime or anime-related films, prices are high, and UHD discs are not always released with bundled Blu-rays.

But still, all these issues are going to be solved in a matter of time. Most importantly, Criterion will likely go UHD because their audience expects it, and because they are being shown up by other boutique labels. Shout! Factory has released IMAX documentaries on UHD BD since 2016, and Kino is planning to announce their first UHD title in the fall, and that is just in the US and excludes labels in Germany, Hong Kong and Japan who are releasing titles overseas. Do we really think Criterion are simply going to sit back and let the likes of Kino, who have built up a surprising amount of loyalty in the past couple of years by releasing hundreds of deep catalogue titles on Blu-ray, upstage them by releasing titles on a better format? I don't. Whether UHD BD makes up 2-3% of sales or not, the fact is, many of those buyers (myself included) are likelier to buy Criterion titles in the first place. So from my perspective, it really is just a matter of time.

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Re: Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 7

#85 Post by Brian C » Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:08 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 12:39 pm
This is sort of like the whole Dual Format discussion: why does anyone begrudge the option being there for people who want it and would use it? If Criterion began releasing films in separate UHD and Blu-ray editions, who would it be hurting?
The Dual Format analogy isn't really apples-to-apples, though. In that case you're just talking about packaging together two things that already exist. But with UHD, providing that extra "option" means devoting extra resources to a whole new format.

And as such, I think there's actually a good argument for begrudging that option. Far fewer titles have been released on Blu-ray than were released on standard DVD, and without looking it up to confirm, it's my understanding that far fewer titles were released on DVD than on VHS. It stands to reason that even fewer titles will therefore be released on UHD. And the industry being what it is, what that means is most likely resources being diverted from new titles on DVD and Blu and towards UHD, which for catalogue titles anyway, means that a lot of people will be asked to buy a title on their third, fourth, or even fifth format.

Maybe for you the quality upgrade is worth it, and obviously that's your right as a consumer. But it's also not hard to imagine that most people might find diminishing returns with yet another format upgrade, and at any rate, you make it sound like there's no strings attached, which I suspect is not the case.

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Re: Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 7

#86 Post by McCrutchy » Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:48 am

Brian C wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:08 am
And as such, I think there's actually a good argument for begrudging that option. Far fewer titles have been released on Blu-ray than were released on standard DVD, and without looking it up to confirm, it's my understanding that far fewer titles were released on DVD than on VHS. It stands to reason that even fewer titles will therefore be released on UHD. And the industry being what it is, what that means is most likely resources being diverted from new titles on DVD and Blu and towards UHD, which for catalogue titles anyway, means that a lot of people will be asked to buy a title on their third, fourth, or even fifth format.

Maybe for you the quality upgrade is worth it, and obviously that's your right as a consumer. But it's also not hard to imagine that most people might find diminishing returns with yet another format upgrade, and at any rate, you make it sound like there's no strings attached, which I suspect is not the case.
I would find these arguments more convincing if they weren't essentially exactly the same as those had several years ago about the jump from DVD to Blu-ray. People whined about things like "diminishing returns" and buying again, although eventually, Blu-ray became the standard format. The same thing might not happen with UHD BD, but Criterion/Voyager has released titles on every sustained format from VHS and LD to DVD and Blu-ray, and they even saw enough benefit to release just one title on Blu-ray 3D, in spite of that format being something of a bust and having extremely limited crossover with Criterion's catalogue (they basically released the one 3D title they've acquired thus far). There are obstacles, yes, but there are also benefits to releasing titles on UHD BD. Criterion LD titles like Blade Runner, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey are either announced or already on the UHD BD format, and plenty more have 4K masters available. And again, the biggest sore point for Criterion is going to be when other US boutique labels begin releasing films on UHD BD, which with Kino's announcement is probably going to happen sooner rather than later. Arrow have been pestered for months about releasing on UHD BD, and I'm sure that Shout! is hearing murmurs from fans about putting their Scream Factory titles on UHD, too.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#87 Post by tenia » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:45 am

Blu ray NEVER became the standard format. As said above, at best, it has a 30% Market share but usually rather has a 15 to 20% one.
Now, since DVD people never particularly adopted BD, there's no specific reason to suppose they're going to massively adopt UHD, which from what I see around will rather be a BD to UHD adoption.
So even if 25% of the BD market adopts UHD, this is going to have at best a .25 x .3 = 7.5% market share.

And yes, there is diminishing returns simply because the uptick in resolution is way more limited than it was for DVD to BD (because the masters arent up for it to begin with). This explains why the industry has shifted fears and now mostly promote UHD for its HDR and WCG.

I'll answer later to some of your previous posts' points.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#88 Post by McCrutchy » Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:06 am

tenia wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:45 am
Blu ray NEVER became the standard format. As said above, at best, it has a 30% Market share but usually rather has a 15 to 20% one.
Blu-ray is the standard format for Criterion. This isn't about the industry at large, tenia, but about one particular company dealing with a very particular catalogue.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#89 Post by dwk » Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:13 am

When Criterion went dual-format for that brief time, they said they tend to sell 60% Blu-ray and 40% DVD

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#90 Post by tenia » Thu Jul 05, 2018 4:30 am

dwk wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:13 am
When Criterion went dual-format for that brief time, they said they tend to sell 60% Blu-ray and 40% DVD
And not even a year later, they estimated that this proportion showed that "a fairly large proportion of our audience" that "has not made the leap to Blu-ray yet."
In the end, this doesn't seem very different from what happened when MoC's tried to go BD-only only to find out they couldn't do without the DVD market. However, what Criterion completely missed was the price point. It’s no surprise most independent labels chose DF : it combines both sales market with a single reference. Providing you price it right, you’re going to hit 2 birds with one stone, allowing steady “BD” sales through actually selling BDs to people who are never going to play them. I wouldn’t be surprised, for instance, if Masters of Cinema DF sales are mostly going to DVD-users. But Criterion had to price their DF like their expensive BD-only releases, meaning DVD-users definitely had to pay more to get their DVD plus some stuff they never asked for.

The real question probably has more to do with how quickly DVD sales are falling vs the BD ones. They might hit some low point that mechanically gives BD a higher market share, but BD sales are falling too, so it might never be the case. In France, both formats are falling so even with much lower DVD sales, BD still only has a 15% MS.
I’m thus very curious about labels like Indicator (or, to a lesser extent, Arrow) recently going BD-only, and am eager to see if they go on like this over time or if they’ll have to revert back to the DF system.

So, is BD the standard Criterion format ? I don't think so. It certainly is their flagship and most respected one, but for all we know, DVD-users were strong enough to strong-arm Criterion into revising their whole selling strategy and going backwards to exactly where they were before, showing it definitely remains a driving force. Otherwise, Criterion wouldn’t have cared when they went DF.

This being written, if they still have this 60/40 split, it definitely put them above the average market, true.


Now, on previous points :
McCrutchy wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:50 pm
The other issue is audio.
It probably won't be. Except for multi-channels movies that might call for it, I don't see people complaining about Manila, Moonrise or Heavean Can Wait not being released with a remixed Atmos track, just like nobody complained in France when Les tontons flingueurs was released on UHD with a mono track.
Many movies mixed theatrically in Atmos have been released on BD in DTS soundtracks, including in some cases Atmos mixes getting released through DTS:X BDs. The point mostly is to offer a vertical sound experience along with one of the latest sound codec, but people don’t seem to care which it is exactly.

The issue most likely will rather be how to create these mixes and obtain a satisfying results but again, movies released by Criterion that call for this kind of stuff are extremely rare anyway. And even some studios are passing on doing Atmos or X mixes for movies calling it and I don’t see a major backlash against those (see the recent Mission Impossible UHDs) (though I obviously don’t have the sales figures).
McCrutchy wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:50 pm
Then, there is the whole HDR/Dolby Vision thing, which is still settling itself out now. I'm sure once the dust settles, Criterion will utilize whatever is best, but until then, there is no point in releasing a UHD BD.
There is actually a technical point in doing so, notably because HDR in restoration seems subtle enough (1) yet useful already (2) to avoid having to ponder about Dolby Vision, but also because we had in France a catalogue B&W movie released on SDR UHD and trustful reviewers were very happy with it already. However, HDR needs to be used as much as possible in the very earliest stage of the restoration (at scanning), and I doubt what Criterion is sourcing has been done this way, which probably is a current bottleneck.
McCrutchy wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:50 pm
And finally, there is the region coding issue.
This will be the funniest part indeed, and it actually might be the main reason why independent haven't gone in there yet : because it's a contractual problem yet unsolved.
McCrutchy wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:50 pm
For example, by 2008, there were many BD-50 releases, and Criterion could afford to use BD-50 for virtually all of their discs. But in 2018, most UHD BD releases are 66 GB, even though 100 GB discs also exist. 100 GB discs would give Criterion the opportunity to maximize bitrates on longer films, as well as potentially letting them put HD and 4K-quality extras on the same disc as the feature films, so I expect a big factor in why Criterion are waiting is for 100 GB disc replication to become more standardized than it currently is.
The first UHD-100 came out 4 months after the first UHD releases, and the first BD-50 was released… 4 months after the first BD releases.

David M would certainly know better but so far, except for TV Shows or very long movies (anything shorter than 120 minutes already get a 50Mbps+ AVB that seems enough), UHD-66 seem already plenty enough for movies to be correctly encoded. Since there currently are pretty much no extras on UHDs and that disc space mostly is almost completely used, UHD-66 usually dedicate 92% of their total disc space to the movie. That wasn't the case (IIRC) with BD at its debut, and isn't now the case because of the extras it usually contains along the movie.
I actually wonder if UHD-100 is going to become more widely used or if it will remain dedicated to specific cases.

The issue rather might be handling the extras (especially the non HDR ones), and I suspect that's actually the other main reason for studios bundling the BDs with the UHDs (to just bypass the whole Extras handling point).

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Re: Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 7

#91 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jul 05, 2018 11:51 am

Brian C wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:08 am
But it's also not hard to imagine that most people might find diminishing returns with yet another format upgrade, and at any rate, you make it sound like there's no strings attached, which I suspect is not the case.
Yes, people found diminishing returns with Blu-ray as well, and that's well documented on our site. It certainly wouldn't be for everyone. But we are now at the phase that Blu-ray was at right around when HD-DVD was starting to disappear - people are finding themselves with UHD televisions and Blu-ray players without even seeking them out (the budget priced Xbox One S supports the format, and standalone ones are less than $100 now).

And not for nothing, tenia makes a great point regarding region coding. If anywhere on the internet should be heralding this particularly format, it should be us - there is no region locking whatsoever, which means no extra efforts to purchase expensive modded players. If in the long term, Criterion, MoC, and Arrow (say) were to adopt the format, it'd be so much easier for enthusiasts around the globe to purchase titles with much more flexibility than with Blu-ray.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#92 Post by tenia » Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:02 pm

Scratch that : the industry might actually have ditched region coding simply because they realised that people are mostly buying their own domestic releases anyway and that import / export is quite a small fraction of business anyway. It might disturb rightholders by placing them in a not-so-split market anymore and will mechanically increase the possibility to compare releases from region to region, but for importers like many of us on dedicated boards, it will indeed ease things a lot (and I've already seen this on some dedicated boards).

I just hope that the lack of region coding won't be compensated by a massive surge of independent releases having forced subtitles.


About video games consoles being compatible : PS3 was a known widespread BD player but I doubt it did much for BD sales. It helped, sure, but it's very likely that most PS3 users are still mostly using DVDs. In fact, BD-compatible video stations (PS3, X Box One, etc) often aren't even taken into account by the industry or census company as BD-players, which says (to me) a lot. So X Box One S certainly is a quite cheap UHD player, but I doubt it's significantly boosting the format, at least not on the longer run anyway.
Addendum : as of 2017, combined sales of PS3 are about 6M in the UK and 5.4M in France, which might be more than the number of combined sales for stand alone players.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#93 Post by David M. » Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:22 pm

Scratch that : the industry might actually have ditched region coding simply because they realised that people are mostly buying their own domestic releases anyway and that import / export is quite a small fraction of business anyway.
The pressure mostly came from CE companies, as I understand it. Presumably managing different firmware versions and various combinations of allowed region codes is extra time spent for them in testing.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#94 Post by McCrutchy » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:01 pm

In terms of dual-format, I suspect the split is more in favor of Blu-ray now than it was in 2013 or 2014. And I think, tenia, that you're ignoring the other side of the dual-format argument as well, that Blu-ray buyers resented having to get releases in digipaks, which often contained two essentially useless (to us) DVD discs and made each release considerably bulkier and more susceptible to damage during shipping.

Another point in favor of declining DVD sales is the break in the Eclipse sets. Yes there have been two this year, but the last one prior to 2018 came out in November 2015, and there aren't any more on the horizon. I suspect the series is closer to the end of its life than the beginning, and that it will eventually be phased out. It's also worth noting that the dual-format Zatoichi box was apparently reissued only on Blu-ray and without a DVD edition, and that the 100 Years of Olympics box set offers no further discount for DVD buyers, either.

Personally, I don't know anyone who collects Criterion and doesn't buy the Blu-ray editions at this point, except perhaps as a rare gift purchase for an elderly relative. Again, I expect most of their DVD sales in 2018 go to libraries and schools, which can make up a surprising amount of sales in this country. Having said that, I should think that especially with the 50% off sales, we are pretty much at ratios that mirror a Marvel or a Star Wars film, if not better than that.

In terms of audio, we agree that it is a minor consideration, but it still is a consideration for a company like Criterion going UHD. There are more and more films using object-based audio, and while I don't expect it to become as standard as 4K will be for video, I do expect that eventually, Criterion will cross paths with films that are mixed for Atmos or DTS:X, and I don't expect they will want to eschew those formats. And just as we have Jabberwocky on Blu-ray with only a DTS-HD MA 5.1 remix, or The Game on Blu-ray with two different DTS-HD MA 5.1 mixes, or sex, lies and videotape on Blu-ray with high-res 96/24 DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, I expect that occasionally, Criterion will bow to a filmmakers request or demand to use Atmos/DTS:X, either as an existing option, or by producing a supervised remix.

I'm not sure I agree about HDR, either. Sure, Gaumont released Les Tontons flingueurs on UHD in SDR (and just for the record, it's a 100 GB disc), but so far, SDR releases have generally been poorly reviewed in this country. Obviously, with Logan Noir the only other example of a "black and white" movie on UHD, the jury is still out on them, and perhaps SDR makes more sense for black and white films, but for color films, at least, I should think that HDR is a must, and Criterion will want to use whatever tools are best for that, possibly including Dolby Vision.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#95 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:05 pm

Don't use "us." There is nothing I understand less than people who hated dual format releases, which were, despite the above claim, the same fucking thing except maybe a MM thicker than the usual case and cost you not a penny more. I don't know where the claim that all the dual formats came in digipaks comes from, but it's demonstrably wrong, and likely would have had the same packaging with or without DVDs thrown in...

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#96 Post by McCrutchy » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:34 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:05 pm
Don't use "us." There is nothing I understand less than people who hated dual format releases, which were, despite the above claim, the same fucking thing except maybe a MM thicker than the usual case and cost you not a penny more. I don't know where the claim that all the dual formats came in digipaks comes from, but it's demonstrably wrong, and likely would have had the same packaging with or without DVDs thrown in...
My memory is that most or all of the three-disc dual format releases (1xBD, 2xDVD) came in thick digipaks, and I didn't "hate" them, I just had no use for the DVDs, and as I recall it was difficult to keep them from creasing or, in my case, keep the booklets from falling out (I have CP). The Scanavo cases are much easier for me to use, and more practical, in my opinion.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#97 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:36 pm

Judex didn't

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#98 Post by swo17 » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:40 pm

All the 3-disc sets came in digipaks from Nov 13 to May 14. After that they introduced the 3-disc Scanavo cases which were a MM thicker than the standard ones. The same week that they did this, they announced that they would be abandoning dual-format releases, so the new cases never had a chance to catch on. They were only used for All That Heaven Allows, L'eclisse, Judex, and Love Streams.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#99 Post by Roger Ryan » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:56 pm

swo17 wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:40 pm
All the 3-disc sets came in digipaks from Nov 13 to May 14. After that they introduced the 3-disc Scanavo cases which were a MM thicker than the standard ones. The same week that they did this, they announced that they would be abandoning dual-format releases, so the new cases never had a chance to catch on. They were only used for All That Heaven Allows, L'eclisse, Judex, and Love Streams.
All That Jazz featured this kind of case as well.

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Re: Criterion and UHD

#100 Post by swo17 » Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:07 pm

Whoops, looks like I also missed The Big Chill and Hearts and Minds.

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