TWILIGHT RELEASES LACK OF INTEREST (1 Viewer)

[FoxyMulder]

But I haven't heard a peep from any of the major studios that they are interested in the prospect of 4K on disc, and that silence is almost like a statement that they are fully committed digital.

You could be right but i think at least one studio will release 4K titles, that studio is Sony/Columbia, they need to support their 4K televisions/projectors and they already do this with titles given away on a hard drive for those buying their expensive 4K sets thus they will release some discs. It's going to be a small marketplace for many years, ultimately inferior streaming will kill 4K discs off.

 

[schan1269]

Wait...

We are all whining about 4K TV and no content?

So they are supposed to sell a 4K BD player before you can buy a disc?

The Yamaha 377 is the first "fully committed" 4K AVR.

Do we need a repeat of "twin HDMI" for 4K?

 

[Brandon Conway]

Don't some countries have government subsidies for supporting film as art inclusive of video availability? That may be one reason non-US markets get certain titles while the US does not.

 

[jcroy]

Looking at this from a UK angle, regardless of the economy I don't think sales of blu-ray will experience a great deal of further growth because, at the risk of igniting old debates, Blu-ray was introduced at the wrong time - either "too late" or "too soon". "Too late", because most film enthusiasts had already obtained their favourite films on DVD and were loathe to buy them all over again. Many people I know, had only recently converted from VHS to DVD when Blu-ray was introduced and so there was no way they were going to embrace a new format, which in any case they saw as having only a marginal improvement on picture quality. And "too soon", because if the format had been introduced some years later. sufficient time might have passed for more people to accept it as a new format when, in Europe at least, consumers began to replace their smallish TV sets with larger screens which would show off the format to better effect.

(Tangentially related).

Even if the big movie companies and electronic hardware manufacturers had wanted to introduce bluray (or hd-dvd) earlier, most likely they would not have been able to do so.

Purportedly, the type of blue lasers required for something like hd-dvd or bluray, were tied up in patent disputes and litigation for many years back in the 1990's.

http://optics.org/article/9657

Nichia and Toyoda Gosei begin talks 13 Aug 2002 Japanese LED makers Nichia and Toyoda Gosei have agreed to open negotiations towards a settlement in their long-running patent dispute.

The long-running patent dispute between Nichia and Toyoda Gosei concerning blue LEDs could at last be drawing to a close.


According to a joint statement published on both companies' websites, Nichia and Toyoda Gosei "have agreed, on technology of III- nitride semiconductors such as blue LEDs, to respect any and all patent rights etc. which the other party owns."


The statement continues to say that the parties will "enter into negotiations in good faith in order to come to an end of any and all disputes and suits in and outside Japan between the parties which lasted for several years."


Over the six years since the dispute began in August 1996, the two companies have each filed numerous lawsuits claiming that the other company was infringing on its patents. The courts in Japan have also been occupied by attempts by each company to have the other's patents declared invalid.


Although Nichia won two patent infringement cases against Toyoda Gosei in 2000, many recent rulings have not gone in Nichia's favor. Toyoda Gosei won two cases in February 2002 to the effect it had not infringed on two separate Nichia patents.


A number of rulings made by the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) concerning the validity of patents have been overturned by the Tokyo High Court. The rulings, with one exception, were in favor of Toyoda Gosei; several patents owned by Toyoda Gosei and declared invalid by the JPO have recently been declared valid, while three of Nichia's patents have been declared invalid.


Nichia consistently stated that it had no intention of negotiating a cross-licensing agreement with Toyoda Gosei, but its firm policy of not working with other companies was broken in June 2002, when Nichia and Osram Opto Semiconductors agreed to cross-license all their patents relating to the manufacturing of white LEDs.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090719051927/http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/interview/engineer05.html

Initially Sony tried to develop a semiconductor laser using materials based on zinc selenide, and in 1996 we succeeded in maintaining continuous oscillation for 100 hours. However, Sony changed its development strategy after Nichia Corporation succeeded in developing a gallium nitride semiconductor laser with a shorter wavelength. It was a difficult decision to abandon development of the materials that we had previously been researching. However, we wanted Sony to maintain its leading role in the advancement of optical disc technology, and we saw this as the best decision in terms of ensuring that Sony would be the first to develop next-generation products based on BD technology.

Yet at this stage, we had simply selected the material that we would use. There were still many challenges to overcome before we could turn this into a semiconductor laser that could be used in commercial products. The first of these was the solution of problems surrounding Nichia Corporation’s patents relating to gallium nitride. In the second half of the 1990s, there was a patent lawsuit between Nichia Corporation and Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. concerning a blue LED made using gallium nitride. There was extensive media coverage about the blue LED that couldn’t be marketed because of the patent dispute. Urgent steps were needed to resolve this problem so that Sony could introduce its blue-violet semiconductor laser. However, Nichia Corporation took the position that it would sell products but not the technology, and that it would opt for licensing if there were complementing technologies. Fortunately, Sony had laser manufacturing patents, expertise and commercialization experience dating back to the CD era. We also had manufacturing facilities with world-class technology, including Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor Inc. (Sony Shiroishi), the Sony’s Group’s semiconductor laser manufacturer.

We negotiated persistently with Nichia Corporation for four-and-a-half years, with strong backing from the Patent Department and other units. This hard work eventually paid off, and we reached the conclusion that the quickest way to bring commercial products to market was to link Sony’s semiconductor laser manufacturing technology with Nichia Corporation’s basic patents for gallium nitride. In late 2002, the two companies began to collaborate on the development of a blue-violet semiconductor laser for use in optical disc applications. In April 2004, we signed a cross-licensing agreement relating to patents for a blue-violet semiconductor laser.

 

[Persianimmortal]

I don't know if this is the right place to bring this up, but I'll ask anyway.

I'm going to use a personal favourite as an example - Amicus' Tales from the Crypt. Small film, cult following, but not a huge demand, you'd think.

Now this has been released on a pretty decent Blu-ray Disc in Australia.

AUSTRALIA!

That's a country with a population of just over 20 million.

Now I know some of those discs will be exported, but I doubt it's many.

And yet neither this film, nor its sequal have been released on the US (population over 300 million) or Europe (effectively 1 market with the same disc used throughout - population over 500 million).

If Tales from the Crypt can sell enough - even if it didn't but was released on the probability that it would - in a country of just over 20 million, how come similar small titles apparently can't sell enough to make money in the US or Europe.

If Tales from the Crypt made money in Australia, surely not releasing it in the US is like the owners of the rights setting fire to a large pile of dollar bills every year it's not out there.

I just don't get it.

Steve W

Australia! And we don't even have running water or electricity, yet we can release Tales from the Crypt here! Just goes to show, huh

Sorry, I thought it unintentionally funny that you sound so shocked, I know it's not your intention to belittle Australia. The reality is that Tales was probably released here because of much lower licensing costs, and also because the Australian economy is very strong relative to most other advanced nations right now. So if they print a limited run of a Blu-ray at low cost with minimal effort, I'm sure they can recoup their investment here fairly easily with the few sales they get. I wouldn't take it as indication that there is any real demand for this or any other niche title. The vast majority of floor space in our largest chain movie/hi-fi store (JB Hifi) is still dedicated to DVD. I was in my local store a couple of days ago and while there's a fair few Blu-rays stocked, most of it is recent releases, or post 80's catalog stuff. The older classics are virtually unavailable in local Australian editions, so I import almost everything. Occasionally we get locally licensed classics, like Shock's Hollywood Gold series.

As much as we may scratch our heads and look on with disbelief, the reality seems to be that classics on Blu-ray are universally poor sellers. I agree with Jason's point that the biggest problem is that in their haste to get people to adopt the Blu-ray format, the studios dropped BD prices to such a low level that it etched that unsustainable price point into consumer brains, making it a poor business proposition for most companies to release classics on Blu. Any low volume product needs higher prices to make it viable. At least TT is up front about this by setting a firm limit on how many copies they produce, and pricing them accordingly. While I wouldn't be thrilled if all BDs suddenly shot up to $30, realistically we should have had a $20-25 price point for almost all but the biggest selling BDs from the start.

I've already spoken at length about 4K Blu-ray in the relevant threads: it's basically dead in the water in terms of catering to classic movie enthusiasts, and probably won't even get a high adoption rate from general consumers either. I predict streaming and download (legal or otherwise) will cater to most 4K TV owners' needs, once again due to overwhelming convenience.

 

[bruceames]

As much as we may scratch our heads and look on with disbelief, the reality seems to be that classics on Blu-ray are universally poor sellers. I agree with Jason's point that the biggest problem is that in their haste to get people to adopt the Blu-ray format, the studios dropped BD prices to such a low level that it etched that unsustainable price point into consumer brains, making it a poor business proposition for most companies to release classics on Blu. Any low volume product needs higher prices to make it viable.

The notable exception being Disney, I believe in no small part due to them limiting their production runs, letting them go out of print, in order to keep price erosion from running rampant on their titles, like it does all the other major studios. I wish the other majors had followed their model and not have price wars which created the mess we're in now.

 

[jcroy]

How much did the bluray vs. hd-dvd format war contribute to this price erosion of today's blurays?

 

[bruceames]

How much did the bluray vs. hd-dvd format war contribute to this price erosion of today's blurays?

Little if any. There really weren't any price wars between them, and although their were sales on catalog movies, they probably would have had them anyway if there were no format war. Prices back then were pretty high anyway.

DVD though has forced a lot of downward price pressure on Blu-ray over the years. The fact that consumers still like it (which is reinforced by the sheer volume of what still gets released on the format) doesn't help pricing for Blu-ray one bit.

 

[Jason_V]

Granted, the chart referenced in this article is (a) about five years old and (b) talking about players, not discs...but BD players were dropping in price quicker than DVD.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

It's weird that Disney's model (keeping a degree of exclusivity around their titles) hasn't convinced them it's worthwhile to release their legacy live-action titles. There must be a market for Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday etc....

 

[Yorkshire]

Australia! And we don't even have running water or electricity, yet we can release Tales from the Crypt here! Just goes to show, huh

Sorry, I thought it unintentionally funny that you sound so shocked, I know it's not your intention to belittle Australia.

Yeah, it was purely the size of the population.

No offence intended.

Steve W

 

[Persianimmortal]

No worries. The Australian armed forces (two blokes who have to share a gun between them) have been called off red alert, crisis averted.

Anyway as I said, I think the small population works to our advantage when it comes to movie licensing arrangements.

Funny thing is, I should check our local releases more often. I only recently imported the Paths of Glory Criterion Blu-ray, and it turns out that last year we had a local release of the BD which uses the same UCLA restoration for its transfer at a cheaper price.

 

[Matt Hough]

It's weird that Disney's model (keeping a degree of exclusivity around their titles) hasn't convinced them it's worthwhile to release their legacy live-action titles. There must be a market for Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday etc....

There are many of us who don't understand Disney's reticence on releasing Blu-rays of their classic live action catalog. Many of us baby boomers crave those films of the 1950s and 1960s that we grew up with, and while the DVDs are OK (well, The Moon Spinners isn't), we'd like them on Blu-ray.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I've heard that Disney was turned off by the weak sales of catalog titles like Babes in Toyland (1961) and Adventures in Babysitting (1987), which is what led them to outright cancel plans for other such catalog releases like The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and While You Were Sleeping (1995). Frankly, I'm stunned they are releasing their Spike Lee films in a couple months, even if the oldest one is from the mid 90s.Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk

 

[Ed Lachmann]

It's weird that Disney's model (keeping a degree of exclusivity around their titles) hasn't convinced them it's worthwhile to release their legacy live-action titles. There must be a market for Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday etc....

Or, for the religious audience, how about THE BIG FISHERMAN. It's been getting rotation on TCM around the holidays. What an odd thing to end up being controlled by Disney, but I do hope they consider releasing it. The film has its detractors, but it's an interesting take on the story of Saint Peter, which would be interesting for church going folks. It was a large format roadshow picture, too, so if there are any decent elements left it could look great in HD.

 

[OliverK]

Or, for the religious audience, how about THE BIG FISHERMAN. It's been getting rotation on TCM around the holidays. What an odd thing to end up being controlled by Disney, but I do hope they consider releasing it. The film has its detractors, but it's an interesting take on the story of Saint Peter, which would be interesting for church going folks. It was a large format roadshow picture, too, so if there are any decent elements left it could look great in HD.

The negative of The Big Fisherman should be in very good shape as Disney is known for taking care of its assets. With not even a DVD release out there I wonder if they do even consider a release to be worthwhile.In any case I would love to watch it - on Blu-ray it will at least look and sound very good even though not too many seem to like it that much as a movie.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Many of us would be be happy with DVD releases of their Live Action films that were remastered and in their proper widescreen aspect ratio of 1.75:1 instead of the aweful 1980's VHS transfers that they released of most of their live action films. The poor sales of their live action films on DVD were a direct result of poor quality, non-oar releases. At least they have corrected the ratios on their animated films on blu even though they still messed them up with overuse of dnr.

There are many of us who don't understand Disney's reticence on releasing Blu-rays of their classic live action catalog. Many of us baby boomers crave those films of the 1950s and 1960s that we grew up with, and while the DVDs are OK (well, The Moon Spinners isn't), we'd like them on Blu-ray.

 

[ahollis]

Twilight has hinted that they are talking with another film company. I think the general thought was that Universal is the one, but maybe it's the Disney live films. It would not be the first time Disney leased out some if those titles.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Twilight has hinted that they are talking with another film company. I think the general thought was that Universal is the one, but maybe it's the Disney live films. It would not be the first time Disney leased out some if those titles.

That could be interesting. A lot of classic Disney and Touchstone/Hollywood Pictures titles are available, and Mill Creek's releases seem to have ended.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Twilight has hinted that they are talking with another film company. I think the general thought was that Universal is the one, but maybe it's the Disney live films. It would not be the first time Disney leased out some if those titles.

I think they could ruin their reputation by taking what Universal give them, i wouldn't expect Universal to do it right with catalog, the odd title maybe but mostly not right, of course if they have the power to tell Universal to lay off the DNR and Edge Enhancement then it's all good but i doubt they have that power. Universal and catalog are usually not good with regards quality.