Stream all you want, but physical media lives on in the form of $40+, expertly curated discs for old films that you’re supposed to like. That is, of course, The Criterion Collection, who very recently started releasing their films—about 80-year-old, French lesbians who protect feudal, Japanese villages from bandits—in loverly, dual format packages for film buffs who simply couldn’t choose between Blu-Ray and DVD. That is, until they completely changed their mind about that.
Last November, when we announced that we would start releasing dual-format editions, we hoped that we had found an alternative that would address our concerns about packaging costs across two formats, while guaranteeing that both DVD and Blu-ray customers would still have access to an identical product. While we did solve that problem, no one seemed particularly happy with the solution. Blu-ray customers didn’t like making room for DVDs they didn’t want, and DVD customers didn’t like paying more to get a Blu-ray they couldn’t play. We soon found that we had to start releasing stand-alone DVD editions alongside the dual-format ones because a fairly large proportion of our audience has not made the leap to Blu-ray yet. And once we had separate DVD editions, what was the point of putting DVDs in with the Blu-rays? A good question.
With that in mind, when we announce our September titles at the beginning of next week, we’ll be going back to releasing separate DVD and Blu-ray editions. In most cases, the contents of the releases will be the same in both formats. This may come as welcome news to many of you and perhaps as a disappointment to some, but please know that we’ll keep thinking and listening, experimenting and exploring, so do let us know your thoughts and preferences.
So there.