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Criterion Considering Movie Downloads
Posted by Adam Frucci at 3:15 AM on September 30, 2008
Last week, while visiting Criterion Collection headquarters to observe their transition to Blu-ray, I brought up the subject of digital downloads. To my surprise, they let slip a little detail that sheds light on how a master disc maker like Criterion will manage in an all-download future.
As we've seen, even "HD" digital downloads are far from the quality of Blu-ray, so there's a hesitance to offer up their restorations in a format that doesn't live up to their very high standards. Lee Kline, Criterion's Technical Director says "I would be depressed if we just went from standard-def DVDs to standard-def downloads."
David Phillips, who works in DVD development at Criterion, explained further:
When you're talking about a dual-layer Blu-ray disc, you're talking about 50GB of data. Now, a lot of our films might not necessarily take up all that space, but even if they're taking up 25GB on a single layer disc, you're still talking about a heck of a lot of data to download. Now, the way that broadband infrastructure is in this country, any films you're downloading aren't going to have the data rate or resolution of Blu-ray.
When you work on the mastering part of it and the restoration and you see how good that image looks, it's really hard to say, OK, we're going to squash this down to the point where it'll fit through everybody's pipe.
However, according to Kline, digital downloads are on Criterion's radar.
We're pretty close to figuring out what we want to do with downloading, and I think our new website will cover that, which you'll see in a few months. I don't want to give any details yet, but we're not dismissing that as a viable option right now. But until it's faster and we're sure that we're going to give people a download that works in an acceptable amount of time, we'll go there when we need to go there. We're not scared of it, but we're also not ready to do it yet.
There'll be some sort of downloading and some sort of information regarding... OK, I'm going to stop, I'm giving away too much.
My guess is that there will be downloading of some sort, but it may or may not be full films. Who knows? Maybe it will be short scenes from classic movies, shown at higher-than-ever-before bitrates.
Would you be interested in downloading Criterion's restorations even if the quality wasn't that great? Or does that kind of go against everything that Criterion is about?
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Meursault
Posted 3:49 AM 30/9/08
I have a few Criterion disks and every last one of them is top notch. You'll love their hard to find classics and the extras with the more contemporary classics. You really do get what you pay for, and trust me pay you do. So you better really want to watch that movie more than once (or conversely have money to light you Cuban cigars with).
Meursault
Duke
Posted 3:36 AM 30/9/08
Not for Criterion, their reputation is the quality and treatment of the films.
Duke
Jeff Martin
Posted 3:33 AM 30/9/08
Good luck to any subscribers of a service that's going to cap bandwidth.
Oh wait, that's me.
Crap.
Jeff Martin
september11th
Posted 3:30 AM 30/9/08
we need japanese internets
september11th
speakerwizard
Posted 3:29 AM 30/9/08
I waited WAY to long for that image to 'play'!! lol bastards
speakerwizard
MichaelBrazell
Posted 3:27 AM 30/9/08
I saw... "The New Criterion Collection Website..." and I was like "what the hell is the TNC up to now?"
FYI, the New Criterion is a popular journal on arts and culture.
MichaelBrazell
Skorpius
Posted 3:24 AM 30/9/08
Quality first, for films AND music.
Skorpius
jabber
Posted 4:39 AM 30/9/08
I hope they get the rights to John Woo's "Hard Boiled" and "The Killer" back.
jabber
up2l8
Posted 4:36 AM 30/9/08
Hmm... with my new comcast caps I can now watch a grand total of 10 full HD movies / month with no other usage! Yay Comcrap!
up2l8
itchytooth
Posted 4:34 AM 30/9/08
I would prefer to have the option to choose how compressed the video is, according impatient I'm feeling.
itchytooth
reddingofish
Posted 4:25 AM 30/9/08
I think that it should be instant downloads for new and popular releases but if you want something that isn't that popular then they will either send you a disk or stick it on a server for a couple of days when it is requested. They will send you an email and you can go get it. If you forget then they take it off the server and move on to the next customer.
reddingofish
RoboChop
Posted 5:00 AM 30/9/08
Whats the point if its not full quality. We're talking Criterion here. A problem for the Criterion people I would think is that not enough people know about their product. Having transitioned from Laserdisc where the prices were already high opting for the Criterion version wasn't as painfull on the billfold as it is these days. It was easy to see you were getting the better product and it was worth extra money. Also the Criterion presence in the laserdisc section at stores was highly visible. I don't think I've ever seen a Criterion DVD in a store today. With BluRay I hope they get some market share back.
RoboChop
Zomb
Posted 4:55 AM 30/9/08
yeah if we had ISPs that didn't suck (Verizon gets an A for effort) they wouldn't be worried.
Zomb
hhaller
Posted 6:19 AM 30/9/08
@RoboChop: You've never seen Criterion in a store, where do you live? They even sell them at freakin' Best Buy where I'm at...
hhaller
dharmag
Posted 6:18 AM 30/9/08
Criterion is the shiznit, tons of sick cult films. They should simply wait until the kinks get worked out of the internet's bandwidth/compression quality crisis before trying to F with HD downloadable flicks.
dharmag
DavinVatia
Posted 6:55 AM 30/9/08
Personally, I think that goes against what Criterion is all about. If nothing else the only thing I'd like to see from them is offering the films up optimized for portable units like the iPhone/iTouch or PSP. At least for people who just want to see the films and aren't looking for a home theater experience.
DavinVatia
Jordan Lund
Posted 9:44 AM 30/9/08
My guess is that there will be piecemeal HD downloads. i.e. You'll have a choice to DL the movie in HD with a 5.1 soundtrack which will work in 99% of the home theaters out there. For folks willing to wait a little more you'll have the movie in HD with 7.1 uncompressed PCM soundtrack... etc.
Oh, and downloading the bonus features will be extra.
Jordan Lund
madog
Posted 10:28 AM 30/9/08
@up2l8: The cap has always been there, but know you just know it's there.
For some reason I'm reminded of a Futurama episode where, 1000 years into the future, the main character accidentally flies into the Great Wall of China creating a gap, and the instant that happens mongols with swords and spears on horseback jump through to invade.
I don't know what the hell that has to do anything but it's pretty hilarious. Who wants a sandwich?
madog
madog
Posted 10:37 AM 30/9/08
With the amount of people in the outskirts of my town that still use AOL, and the fact that Comcast is the only source for high speed internet [dsl is around, but let's face it] I'm not holding my breath for any sort of actual HD content available for download. This nation needs some old fashion Capitalist competition for some huge revolution of our pipeline before I would invest in something normally regarded as high-quality, like the Criterion Collection, to be internet based.
madog
edosan
Posted 4:51 PM 30/9/08
@RoboChop: You're not looking very hard then. They are in the stores.
edosan
VachelSagat
Posted 7:58 AM 30/9/08
What if we do live in japan and have 100+ mbit fiber line? I would love to see some sweet, sweet, full HD movies for download. I say let early adopters in on it if they dare, and let the rest demand better internets! I would be so willing to pay for a streamed blu-ray quality film especially since in japan we have the internet but not the full distribution of blu-ray, not to mention netflix.
VachelSagat
Mactacular
Posted 3:43 AM 30/9/08
The way that providers are about to be sticking it to us, it seems hardly the point right? If we don't have the ability to download or stream more than one a month, I can hardly see trading my everyday use for a copy of Chasing Amy where I can see the gap in Ben Affleck's teeth all the clearer.
Mactacular