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City Girl (MOC) (UK BD) in February - Updated
15-12-2009 11:20 | 1695 views | Dave Foster | Show Backlinks
Eureka Entertainment have announced the UK Blu-ray Disc release of of F.W. Murnau’s City Girl as part of their Masters of Cinema Series on 22nd February 2010 priced at £24.99 RRP. The director’s penultimate film is this vivid, painterly study of an impulsive and fragile marriage among the wheatfields of Minnesota.
Originally expected to arrive on DVD and Blu-ray, City Girl is now Blu-ray only. Here is the official line from MOC on this:
“Instead of releasing two editions of every title, we have decided to release Blu-ray only editions of select titles where we have HD 1080p masters. It does not make sense for us to continue producing two formats for each title, which is a great strain on our production capabilities, and sees the two formats competing with each other. Quantities sold of each format have been similar, and we believe the time has come to make the bold move.
DVD, as a format, has been around over 12 years and is extremely easy to copy and download now -- this has been another factor in our decision. In order for us to remain competitive and to grow, we have decided to act earlier rather than later, and focus on the superior format, Blu-ray.
We will be freed up from working on duplicate DVD editions to release more films on Blu-ray, where future sales projections are much rosier and the quality of the product is much greater.” - Nick Wrigley, The Masters of Cinema Series
A recent tweet on the MOC twitter feed suggested as much and I'll ask the same question they did for you to comment on below - is this a good thing?
Features include:
Originally expected to arrive on DVD and Blu-ray, City Girl is now Blu-ray only. Here is the official line from MOC on this:
“Instead of releasing two editions of every title, we have decided to release Blu-ray only editions of select titles where we have HD 1080p masters. It does not make sense for us to continue producing two formats for each title, which is a great strain on our production capabilities, and sees the two formats competing with each other. Quantities sold of each format have been similar, and we believe the time has come to make the bold move.
DVD, as a format, has been around over 12 years and is extremely easy to copy and download now -- this has been another factor in our decision. In order for us to remain competitive and to grow, we have decided to act earlier rather than later, and focus on the superior format, Blu-ray.
We will be freed up from working on duplicate DVD editions to release more films on Blu-ray, where future sales projections are much rosier and the quality of the product is much greater.” - Nick Wrigley, The Masters of Cinema Series
A recent tweet on the MOC twitter feed suggested as much and I'll ask the same question they did for you to comment on below - is this a good thing?
Features include:
- Restored high-definition transfer of the silent version by 20th Century Fox
- A new score, composed and arranged in 2008 by Christopher Caliendo
- Full-length audio commentary by film scholar David Kalat
- 40-page illustrated booklet with new writing and reprints
Comments
Member
Posts: 369
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Frankly, my dear, I don`t give a damn!
Administrator
Posts: 2301
The Duck
Posts: 726
From a business perspective, surely they're closing out a lot of potential revenue? I seem to remember reading that MoC has a higher percentage of BD buyers than average, but that still leaves a significant number on DVD.
From the perspective of the customer, there are a number of drawbacks. People who can't afford or don't want to upgrade are shut out, obviously, but also the more casual/curious buyer, who could be put off trying out a more obscure title because of the higher price point/their lack of Blu-ray. Perhaps the latter are insignificant in terms of sales (I don't know), but in terms of accessibility to films for all isn't this a step in the wrong direction?
It'll certainly be interesting to see how this pans out.
Administrator
Posts: 2301
On another note, we had a press release yesterday saying that MOC were named 'Label of the Year' in the Feb 2010 edition of Home Cinema Choice, and that Sunrise on BD was chosen for 'Best Remastering'. Kudos.