Good news for the handful of you that subscribe to Hulu Plus (and live in the US): there are now over 150 pristinely restored, culturally important Criterion films now available on the subscription service, with over 800 titles – everything in Criterion’s library – slated to appear exclusively on Hulu in the next few months. That’s actually pretty damn incredible. More »
The wonderful Criterion Collection launched its new website today, and it does in fact feature streaming movies as rumoured. There are a small number of movies available as high-quality streams at the moment, with more to come. To view them, you need to pay $US5, which is pretty steep for a stream, but that $US5 counts towards your purchase of the film on DVD or Blu-ray. There are some free streams, however.
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.
Lee Kline, the Technical Director at The Criterion Collection, was in Italy. He had tracked down and original print of Il Posto, the classic 1961 Ermanno Olmi film, and he needed a digital master of it. The problem? It was far too valuable and delicate to ship to the States, so he had find a local studio to handle the transfer for him.
Sitting down in the lab, the local technician started the process of loading the film up, running it through the incredibly expensive machine to create a 2K super-high-def digital copy for Lee to take back to the States with him. The technician was deftly handling the irreplaceable film and the machine with both hands. All the while, a cigarette dangled from his lips. Lee, neither the owner of the print nor an employee of the lab, could only sit back and bite his tongue, hoping no wayward chunk of smoldering ash would find its way onto the decades-old piece of film. You could call it one tense moment in a film nerd’s life.
The folks at the Criterion Collection know a thing or two about movies. They restore classic films for release on DVD and, starting later this year, Blu-ray. So when they set up their screening rooms, you’d expect them to have some crazy US$1,000 Blu-ray player, right? Nope. The Criterion Collection people rock a PlayStation 3 for use as their reference Blu-ray player. If you needed further proof that the PS3 is the best Blu-ray player out there, now you have it. [CNET]
When it comes to the fine art of presenting movies on discs, Criterion’s treatment of films, in quality and extras, finds itself unparalleled. And that’s why it is amazingly good news that they’re finally going Blu-ray.
