My Two Cents
Hey guys, this is Bill. I’ll be back with our usual news post shortly—including my non-spoiler thoughts on Dune: Part Two—but first I wanted to pop in here with this message…
My friend John Schuermann is the owner of one of the best home theater dealers around, The Screening Room A/V in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and he’s also the person who helped me select my new JVC projector for The Digital Bits’ HQ theatre.
You might recall that John and I also did this video podcast together back in November, along with Kris Deering of Deep Dive AV and Steve Crabb from TSRAV: Is Physical Media Dead?
He’s got some great deals on B-stock JVC projectors that might interest some of you. Here’s John to explain (comments below the break)... [Read on here...]
Well, yesterday was kind of a big day in terms of industry news, but as it happens, there have been quite a lot of interesting 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray announcements in the last 24 hours too!
But before we get to those, we have a few more new disc reviews for you...
I’ve just taken a look at John Sturges’ Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) in 4K Ultra HD from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, as well as Ron Maxwell’s cult classic Little Darlings (1980) in 4K UHD from Vinegar Syndrome’s new Cinématographe Films label.
Stephen has turned in his thoughts on Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels (2023) in 4K Ultra HD from Marvel and Disney, along with Yoshimitsu Banno’s Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) on 4K UHD (sans English subs) from Toho Studios in Japan.
Dennis has given Ted Kotcheff’s Split Image (1982) a look on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, along with Vincente Minnelli’s Madame Bovary (1949) on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection.
And Stuart has reviewed Andrew V. McLaglen’s The Devil’s Brigade (1968) on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics and Steve Zaillian’s Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) on Blu-ray from Imprint Films.
Many more reviews are forthcoming, including Footloose, Conan the Destroyer, and Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One in 4K, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for them.
Now then... in terns of title announcements, Paramount’s just dropped a couple of big ones starting with confirmation of a title we’ve mentioned here at The Bits recently: Alex Proyas’ The Crow (1994) officially streets on 4K Ultra HD and 4K Steelbook on 5/7. The 4K disc will include Dolby Vision and HDR10 high dynamic range. [Read on here...]
Regarding the Disney/Sony physical media news that we broke this morning on The Digital Bits (link here), we’ve learned the following additional information from our industry sources:
- Once again, we’ve confirmed that Disney is indeed in the process of transitioning to a licensed physical media distribution model via an agreement with Sony Entertainment.
- As part of this deal, Sony will market, sell, and distribute new Disney releases plus catalog titles on physical media (4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, etc.) to consumers through retailers and distributors in the U.S. and Canada.
- This shift is consistent with other strategies that Disney is working to implement company-wide, as exemplified by the company’s recent transitions in other markets.
- Per usual, Disney regularly evaluates their approach to the physical media market as the home entertainment business and industry at large continue to rapidly evolve alongside consumer behavior.
This update is continued below the break... [Read on here...]
There are some significant developments happening within the home video industry of late, developments that I’ve been spending a lot of time investigating and really digging into these past few weeks here at The Digital Bits.
And I can now confidently report that one of them is this:
Disney and Sony have just inked a major deal for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to take over all of Disney’s physical media production going forward.
This means that Sony will handle and oversee the actual authoring and compression of discs, that they’ll work with the replicators and packaging vendors, and that they’ll oversee the titles as they go out to the distributors and on to retailers.
I first received word of this deal about two weeks ago, apparently within twenty-four hours of the ink drying, and I’ve now confirmed it with multiple independent sources within the industry—people that I trust and have known and worked with for many years.
This deal makes sense for Disney for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Sony is far more efficient and cost effective at producing their discs, whereas Disney’s physical media operation has been subject to no small amount of internal/organizational turmoil recently. [Read on here...]
We have two more new disc reviews for you here at The Bits today, including…
Stephen’s thoughts on Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort (1981) in 4K Ultra HD from Vinegar Syndrome, as well as his take on another of Toho’s recent Godzilla 4K UHD releases, in this case Ishirō Honda’s Destroy All Monsters (1968). Once again, this is a region-free Japanese import release, but with no English subtitles.
The big announcement news today is that our friends at the Criterion Collection have officially unveiled their May release slate, which is set to include an upgrade of A Story of Floating Weeds/Floating Weeds: Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu (1934/1959) (Spine #232 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/7, followed by an upgrade of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) (Spine #58 – 4K UHD + Blu-ray and Blu-ray) on 5/14, Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène (Spine #1217 – Blu-ray and DVD)—which includes Emitaï (1971), Xala (1975), and Ceddo (1977)—on 5/21, and Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall (2023) (Spine #1218 – Blu-ray and DVD) and Karyn Kusama’s Girlfight (2000) (Spine #1219 – Blu-ray) on 5/28.
You can see the cover art for Peeping Tom at left, and all of them below the break. We’ve updated our Criterion Spines Project listing here at The Bits accordingly. [Read on here...]