Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles
From Criterion's Blu-ray e-mail sent out today:Quote:
| Dear Criterion viewers, It's been a week since we officially announced our first Blu-ray releases, and people have been writing in with a lot of questions. As we inaugurate a new Blu-ray section of our FAQ, we thought we'd share with you the five most common questions about our Blu-ray launch. On another front, there are only three days remaining in our current special promotion. Any film in the Criterion Collection that has a spine number ending in 8 will be discounted an additional 10 percent off the regular Criterion store price. (This doesn't apply to out-of-print titles or those that can only be purchased in box sets without spines that end in 8.) Click here for a list of titles. Sale ends at midnight on Sunday, August 24. Happy viewing! Are Criterion's Blu-ray discs region-encoded? Yes. Criterion is licensed to sell most of its editions only in North America. Why should I buy regular DVDs when I don't know if Criterion will release a Blu-ray version six months from now? If you love these films, keep buying DVDs. It is going to be quite a while before the Blu-ray marketplace can support many of the titles Criterion releases on DVD. For new releases, if we think a title has a shot of succeeding on Blu-ray, we aim to put out both editions at the same time, so you can make an informed choice. Where classics from our catalog are concerned, to give you a little extra comfort we'll be offering a $20 Blu-ray upgrade program for customers who have already bought the equivalent edition on DVD. You send us the movie disc from your DVD edition, and for $20 (plus tax and shipping) we'll exchange it for the Blu-ray version, simple as that. For more on how this works, click here.* What is the packaging going to look like? Our Blu-ray packaging will be similar to our DVD packaging, only in the smaller Blu-ray size. As with DVDs, we'll use a range of paper and plastic packaging, and we'll bring the same care and attention to the design. Where we're upgrading an existing release, the design will match right down to the disc labels, so if you want to take advantage of the $20 Blu-ray upgrade program, your replacement disc will fit right into the design of your existing Criterion DVD edition. In the store, if you want to be sure you're buying the Blu-ray edition and not the standard-def DVD version, you'll know it by the smaller size and the blue Blu-ray sticker on the front. Will there be spine numbers? Spine numbers on our Blu-ray discs will match the existing DVD editions. Our Blu-ray releases represent a significant upgrade when it comes to audiovisual quality, and many of our customers will want to take advantage of that, but we're not starting over at number 1, and we're not expecting our longstanding DVD collectors to do so either. Where content is concerned, we aren't planning on publishing anything on our Blu-ray editions that won't also be available on DVD. Whether you collect only DVDs or only Blu-ray discs or a mix, it's all part of your Criterion collection—and they'll all line up in spine-number order. What will Criterion Blu-ray discs cost? Criterion's Blu-ray editions will generally be priced to match our DVDs. It makes sense to us: High-definition mastering and restoration has been a part of our DVD production standard for years. And for our customers who might be on the fence about whether to buy DVD or Blu-ray, we thought the best thing we could do was take price out of the equation. |
But unfortunately, I'm sure that's not gonna happen. 
) but I would hope that Criterion is going to at least present those missing extras in some format (pdf files, or even just on their website (for the essays))
