The Future of Home Video

[Drucker]

Speaking only for myself, streaming as a either a compliment to a home video collection, in instances as Michael has described or for the many films available on Criterion's streaming channel which once upon a time would have been released on Eclipse, makes perfect sense.

But I do think there is validity to the argument that streaming and physical media cannot coexist. It is simply a fact that the commercial viability of home video releases gets worse every year, and that's in large part or entirely due to the ubiquity of streaming as a replacement. On top of that, streaming itself is barely a commercially viable product, as most streaming services lose money or have historically lost money for their parent companies.

You extend the timeline far enough and there end up being four or five major streaming services and home video is extinct due to the pressing plant closures MichaelB has referenced could conceivably be a possibility if the majors get out of the home video business altogether.

[rrenault]

What I find ironic is that as home video is increasingly on life support we nonetheless have a much larger quantity of specialty fare available on home video than was the case 20-odd years ago when physical home video was at its peak.

Also, keep in mind that relying on physical media as one’s primary mode of film viewing can be quite costly and inconvenient if you live outside the world’s 3-4 largest media markets. It’s not like with music where you can walk into a store in Prague, Istanbul, or São Paulo and find most of the same albums you’d find at a well-stocked record shop in New York or London. Film distribution doesn’t work that way.

In short, a lot of physical media zealots where cinema is concerned forget not everyone lives in the U.S., UK, or Japan.

[Drucker]

What I find ironic is that as home video is increasingly on life support we nonetheless have a much larger quantity of specialty fare available on home video than was the case 20-odd years ago when physical home video was at its peak.

The advances in technology that have enabled and made easier digital film restoration have also been used for consumer electronics like TV. I'd argue it's the opposite of ironic!

[rrenault]

But there is something to be said in the anti-streaming argument in that the vast majority of people no longer collect physical media and instead rely on streaming platforms for their home entertainment. So by whole heartedly supporting streaming it makes physical releases less urgent for the rightsholders.

If the streaming/VOD model somehow imploded enabling physical rentals to make a comeback and fill the gap, I wouldn’t shed any tears(granted, I’m not sure which hypothetical sequence of events could precipitate such a development), although, again, I don’t think cinephiles living outside the main media markets like the U.S., Japan, etc would reap the benefits of a return to physical rentals, since film releases vary so much from country to country unlike with music. A country like Hungary or Slovenia isn’t getting Blu-ray releases of Rivette films if you get may drift.

[MichaelB]

I can't speak for Slovenia, but Hungary is barely getting Blu-rays of anything!

The sad fact is that in many, many countries it's only ever been an expensive niche format aimed at the well-heeled, and the last time I was in a branch of Empik in Poland I couldn't find any Blu-rays at all, whereas five years ago there'd have been an entire wall of them. And while I'm keen to buy the 4K UHDs of Pharaoh and The Promised Land that were released late last year, I've yet to get round to actually ordering them because I like to order a dozen or so discs in one go to keep postage per item down, and there's very, very little that I don't already have—and my last bulk Polish order was well over a year ago. These days, there's a lot more popping up on Netflix than there is on Polish home video labels.

[dwk]

Sony to delete 550 StudioCanal titles that people in the UK "bought" from their digital store

and

Sony to phase out discs for the playstation by 2028

[Finch]

Mifunefan transcribed some of Arrow's James Flower's comments on 4K sales from the recent podcast and the gist of it mirrors what Indicator have been saying for a while:

The extent to which the audience has embraced UHD is quite extraordinary now. Arrow doesn't do dual-format releases for the most part. Only does UHD and it only does Blu-ray..sort of, which is something that I was quite against when that decision was made at the company but I've actually come around to it quite a lot...Although for a minority of customers a dual-format disc is kind of very convenient, it also leads to a lot of wastage in terms of the amount of discs that are being pressed. So, ecologically, financially it's not something that makes a ton of sense for us to do a bunch of discs that wind up being coasters for the most part.

And you know, one of the interesting things about that is being able use that to track the shift in adoption, and how people have gradually adopted 4K more and more through the years. And you know for a while UHD was very much in the minority. Then..a couple of years later it was sort of more 50/50 and now we're at a point where it's really like 90-10 in favor of UHD.

It's really, to the point where some titles, we've done recently where we have not done Blu-ray editions where we've done UHD because of rights issues. But it's going to come to the point, I'm sure, where we do it because we're not selling enough Blu-rays for it to make sense for us to kind of spend the equal amount of time authoring and QCing a Blu-ray disc. So..I can see that being a future thing where, although in an ideal world, we would make sure that we're doing a Blu-ray as well, so that everyone has access to the content, business reasons may make that.. less feasible for some titles.

[Drucker]

90/10 in favor of UHD makes complete sense, and as someone that has not yet adopted the format makes me aghast at how behind the times I've been! This may be the post to push me over the edge.

[domino harvey]

When and if releases go UHD only, that will be the end of my buying physical media I guess. Also, these numbers make more sense for Arrow’s specific use case. What percent of Arrow UHD releases already have a Blu-ray from someone else? Why would a Blu-ray consumer constantly be expected to upgrade for marginal improvements anyways? All this is doing is shrinking the future output pool even further to titles that can sustain sales in UHD AND have materials allowing for UHD. This isn’t a good thing!

[rrenault]

90/10 in favor of UHD makes complete sense, and as someone that has not yet adopted the format makes me aghast at how behind the times I've been! This may be the post to push me over the edge.

I’m guessing this is specific to Arrow, which makes sense given the types of films they release. I seriously doubt the split is 90/10 in favor of UHD for Radiance.

[rrenault]

When and if releases go UHD only, that will be the end of my buying physical media I guess. Also, these numbers make more sense for Arrow’s specific use case. What percent of Arrow UHD releases already have a Blu-ray from someone else? Why would a Blu-ray consumer constantly be expected to upgrade for marginal improvements anyways? All this is doing is shrinking the future output pool even further to titles that can sustain sales in UHD AND have materials allowing for UHD. This isn’t a good thing!

I’m inclined to guess we haven’t gotten Criterion releases of films like Il Grido and Four Nights of a Dreamer yet, because they’re not deemed fit for UHD in terms of sales potential and there’s no discernible hook for including them in a themed Eclipse set.

[Drucker]

90/10 in favor of UHD makes complete sense, and as someone that has not yet adopted the format makes me aghast at how behind the times I've been! This may be the post to push me over the edge.

I’m guessing this is specific to Arrow, which makes sense given the types of films they release. I seriously doubt the split is 90/10 in favor of UHD for Radiance.

I'm sure. And I'll also assume the titles in question are mostly related to films I'm less interested in, like the modern action or horror films. Still eye-opening how far behind I am on some. It feels like only yesterday I got my Plasma!

[tenia]

90/10 in favor of UHD makes complete sense, and as someone that has not yet adopted the format makes me aghast at how behind the times I've been! This may be the post to push me over the edge.

I’m guessing this is specific to Arrow, which makes sense given the types of films they release. I seriously doubt the split is 90/10 in favor of UHD for Radiance.

In France, Le chat qui fume stopped doing DVDs altogether years ago.
Meanwhile, our market in general still is 65% DVD.
Those 90/10 figures are absolutely specific to certain crowds, and certain labels. Good for Arrow to have such a crowd, though, but it clearly isn't the same one than, say, the BFI and Radiance. It's also interesting to note that Le chat qui fume is also a genre label, which Arrow has mostly been until recently.

[CSM126]

When and if releases go UHD only, that will be the end of my buying physical media I guess. Also, these numbers make more sense for Arrow’s specific use case. What percent of Arrow UHD releases already have a Blu-ray from someone else? Why would a Blu-ray consumer constantly be expected to upgrade for marginal improvements anyways? All this is doing is shrinking the future output pool even further to titles that can sustain sales in UHD AND have materials allowing for UHD. This isn’t a good thing!

I’m inclined to guess we haven’t gotten Criterion releases of films like Il Grido and Four Nights of a Dreamer yet, because they’re not deemed fit for UHD in terms of sales potential and there’s no discernible hook for including them in a themed Eclipse set.

Criterion still does blu-ray only releases for mainline titles when UHD isn’t a viable option. I think they just have a huge backlog and haven’t gotten to those titles yet. And they probably will get UHD (assuming they weren’t restored in 2K).

[TMDaines]

When and if releases go UHD only, that will be the end of my buying physical media I guess. Also, these numbers make more sense for Arrow’s specific use case. What percent of Arrow UHD releases already have a Blu-ray from someone else? Why would a Blu-ray consumer constantly be expected to upgrade for marginal improvements anyways? All this is doing is shrinking the future output pool even further to titles that can sustain sales in UHD AND have materials allowing for UHD. This isn’t a good thing!

I've learnt over the years, especially through following you on Letterboxd, that we have quite similar areas of interest, but I don't agree with your conclusion. Blu-rays still seem to sell well when no UHD is released alongside them, even if they don't get hoovered up by format fetishists. Both labels and consumers can still be films first (as opposed to format), buying/releasing what films most interest them in the best format available/viable. Then again, I have increasingly little interest in what Arrow puts out. The releases I have been and am most looking forward to are mostly BD only, but I'd buy UHDs if they were made available.

Why would you not adopt UHD? I held out until 2025 because my projector only supported 1080p and SDR, but the house move provided a good opportunity to rectify that. I somewhat agree the gains are marginal, especially in terms of resolution, on non-large TVs, but HDR is quite impressive at times. Obviously once we get our new projector room sorted we are going to trade the benefits of increased resolution for less impactful contrast/HDR.

I'm probably still buying as many DVDs as I do UHDs, albeit the vast majority are now second hand of 2000s titles unreleased in HD.

I’m guessing this is specific to Arrow, which makes sense given the types of films they release. I seriously doubt the split is 90/10 in favor of UHD for Radiance.

I think Indicator were surprised at how much UHD outsold BD for twin releases, hence look at their current print runs for such releases. It doesn't seem they've got the balance quite right though, as the BD LEs are often selling out far quicker than the UHD ones.

[rrenault]

When and if releases go UHD only, that will be the end of my buying physical media I guess. Also, these numbers make more sense for Arrow’s specific use case. What percent of Arrow UHD releases already have a Blu-ray from someone else? Why would a Blu-ray consumer constantly be expected to upgrade for marginal improvements anyways? All this is doing is shrinking the future output pool even further to titles that can sustain sales in UHD AND have materials allowing for UHD. This isn’t a good thing!

I’m inclined to guess we haven’t gotten Criterion releases of films like Il Grido and Four Nights of a Dreamer yet, because they’re not deemed fit for UHD in terms of sales potential and there’s no discernible hook for including them in a themed Eclipse set.

Criterion still does blu-ray only releases for mainline titles when UHD isn’t a viable option. I think they just have a huge backlog and haven’t gotten to those titles yet. And they probably will get UHD (assuming they weren’t restored in 2K).

True, but they do seem to have dialed back blu-ray-only titles in the main line far more than other labels like Radiance, Carlotta, Eureka, BFI, and so forth have.

But also, vintage non-genre arthouse and world cinema (I know a lot of cinephiles understandably dislike the term ‘world cinema’) doesn’t seem to sell as well on UHD as even B-tier genre cinema from the late 20th century.

[Drucker]

I’m inclined to guess we haven’t gotten Criterion releases of films like Il Grido and Four Nights of a Dreamer yet, because they’re not deemed fit for UHD in terms of sales potential and there’s no discernible hook for including them in a themed Eclipse set.

Criterion still does blu-ray only releases for mainline titles when UHD isn’t a viable option. I think they just have a huge backlog and haven’t gotten to those titles yet. And they probably will get UHD (assuming they weren’t restored in 2K).

True, but they do seem to have dialed back blu-ray-only titles in the main line far more than other labels like Radiance, Carlotta, Eureka, BFI, and so forth have.

But also, vintage non-genre arthouse and world cinema (I know a lot of cinephiles understandably dislike the term ‘world cinema’) doesn’t seem to sell as well on UHD as even B-tier genre cinema from the late 20th century.

I would imagine "world cinema" films sell more poorly than B-tier genre cinema on any format though, right?

[The Curious Sofa]

Like TMDaines, I held out until last year before making the jump to UHD, when a house move also prompted me to upgrade. I replaced a 1080p projector with a 4K/UHD model. While some releases show only a modest improvement, others, particularly recent restorations, are simply breathtaking and have made me appreciate these films anew. This is especially noticeable when a title receives a new 4K restoration years after its original Blu-ray release. And yes, while each successive home-video format has delivered smaller gains than the last, the benefits of UHD can still be substantial. The higher resolution allows the film grain to be resolved far more naturally, giving the image a convincing sense of texture and tactility. Combined with HDR and wider colour gamuts where available, UHD can also reveal far subtler gradations in colour, highlights and shadow detail and often it looks like a veil has been lifted.

Particular highlights so far have been Blow Out, Chinatown, Don't Look Now, Alien, The Tenant, Suspiria, Charade, I Know Where I'm Going!, Daughters of Darkness, Blue Velvet and many of the Universal Hitchcock films. And who knew that Starship Troopers could look this good!

[Finch]

I'd add Lost Highway as a huge upgrade.

[The Curious Sofa]

I'm sure there are plenty more, and Lost Highway is definitely on my wish list. But after burning through money on essentials in my first upgrade frenzy, I now look out for bargains. Here in Germany, 4K discs are especially expensive, and we have to pay a lot extra for exclusive media book releases (which I hate as they don't even fit on my shelves). Importing has also become more expensive in terms of shipping and duty. At least one cost saving benefit is that they aren't region coded anymore

[rrenault]

Criterion still does blu-ray only releases for mainline titles when UHD isn’t a viable option. I think they just have a huge backlog and haven’t gotten to those titles yet. And they probably will get UHD (assuming they weren’t restored in 2K).

True, but they do seem to have dialed back blu-ray-only titles in the main line far more than other labels like Radiance, Carlotta, Eureka, BFI, and so forth have.

But also, vintage non-genre arthouse and world cinema (I know a lot of cinephiles understandably dislike the term ‘world cinema’) doesn’t seem to sell as well on UHD as even B-tier genre cinema from the late 20th century.

I would imagine "world cinema" films sell more poorly than B-tier genre cinema on any format though, right?

Yeah probably. For the record (and slightly off topic, granted), I do sometimes wonder why cinephiles, especially online, get so wound up over terms like “World cinema” or “arthouse film” when employed in an earnest manner, since I have friends IRL who will you use said terms when discussing films beyond “typical Hollywood fare” (I.e. “Satyajit Ray is one of the great masters of world cinema”, or “I watched a film called Last Year At Marienbad last night. It’s this weird but interesting French Arthouse film from the 1960s”).

[Michael Kerpan]

I can watch UHDs (thanks to compatible players) but have to do so on our vintage Samsung Plasma. So while I will spring for dual release sets, buying UHD only seems more iffy.