For cinephiles, the news last week from Criterion that they were coming out with thirteen Blu-ray titles was a mixed blessing at best. With four-hundred-some Criterion titles and counting, the question becomes how many titles will come out in the format and how fast? What will the announcement do for sales of their non-HD titles? Will fans who were contemplating a Criterion purchase now wait in hopes it’ll come out in Blu-ray? What about the titles scheduled for release in SD between now and October? When will they arrive in HD?
For the real fanatics, this move might mean a double dip of monumental proportions. If you talk to the folks at criterionforum.org or their arch-enemies at criterionforum.com, you’ll see that many of them take collecting Criterions seriously. So seriously, in fact, that some of them display the ones they own at the bottom of their posts.
The major problem with Blu-Ray is start-up cost. As of this writing, if you go over to amazon.com and check out their prices, the cheapest standalone player you’ll find is the Sony “Spiderman 3 Limited Edition” at $329. Considering you can get a good SD player for $50, and the number of people with HD TVs is still miniscule, the odds against Blu-Ray gaining a foothold would seem daunting.
But though HD television hasn’t penetrated far into the U.S. market, the percentage of U.S. households with some form of broadband internet recently reached 57% (source: Leichtman Research). Because of this, some see the internet as significant competition for Blu-ray as a distribution medium for high definition films. But even at broadband speeds, these films can take hours to download, which mitigates against internet distribution in a culture obsessed with speed, convenience and on-demand. In addition, there are significant numbers of fans who collect films — see the denizens of the Criterion Forums above — and for them, a permanent storage medium is essential.
Still and all, the mass-acceptance of Blu-ray seems at least dependent upon getting the price of players down in a hurry. When Toshiba threw in the HD-DVD towel several months ago, it was thought that Blu-ray sales would rise. Instead, they fell by 4%. With rumors that stand-alone players will drop to only $200 by Christmas, that number may not change anytime soon.
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I have yet to give in to the HD mania. Not because I wouldn’t love to, but because of the money.
My brother has had a Blu-Ray player since day one, and I must say, watching movies on his 60 incher, in glorious HD is pretty amazing for a film fan.
I just don’t know, like you say, if it’s worth plunking down the money so early, when the machines and the discs themselves will be considerably less by X-mas.
(sidenote) I would literlly kill to have HD versions of THE THIRD MAN, WAGES OF FEAR and CONTEMPT. When I got the newsletter from Criterion I have to admit I was on Amazon looking for a player about 30 seconds later!
It is ridiculous, I cannot afford that kinda stuff.
Standard DVDs and players are just fine for me.
Joe — I came that close to buying myself “Contempt” last week. I’m now glad I waited; it should look great on Blu-ray (I bought “Tokyo Story” instead). Unfortunately, I bought “The Third Man” at Christmas, and already own “The 400 Blows,” but both look pretty great even on my 50″ HDTV. Another factor I didn’t mention is that with some films, Blu-ray won’t matter as much, although I probably will double-dip the Truffaut … it’s one of the most beautiful films ever made, imho.
Nick, I know what you mean. I may go ahead if they indeed drop to $200 at Christmas. But equally important for me is that the players play SD disks well (the Toshiba HD-DVDs did that), and at the moment, that’s not apparent. Oy!
I haven’t seen anything on Blu-Ray yet, but I heard on the radio this morning that it’s the difference between color and b & w.
I’ve seen stuff on HBO HD, and I love it … but I’ve also heard that some folks can’t tell the difference between Blu-ray and SD … I find it hard to believe, but a lot of it may be the source. A crappy original in Blu-ray won’t look any better, of course.
I’m one of those people who “can’t tell the difference.” That is, I can *see* a difference, but it’s not enough to get me excited about spending ten times as much for an HDTV and Blu-ray player. I like a clear picture as much as anyone, but seriously. Wake me up when 3D hologram TVs are on the market.
You know, if an SD DVD is recorded at a high enough bit rate, they look pretty good on an HD set … it really depends on the de-interlacer and scaler in the set or the DVD player.