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Optimum Catalogue Blu-ray in July/August

02-07-2009 16:57 | 5544 views  |  Dave Foster  |  Show Backlinks

Optimum Home Entertainment have confirmed the UK Blu-ray Disc release of 15 catalogue titles over July and August. These titles are vanilla, film-only discs priced at £15.99 RRP each.

20th July 2009

Captivity
Make It Happen
Redacted
The Pianist
Brick
The Grifters
Elephant
Nine Songs
Switchblade Romance

17th August 2009

Feast
Unknown
The Score
Angel Heart
Near Dark
La Haine

Comments

#1 Posted: 02-07-2009 19:23
Robert Sharp
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Posts: 158

Report this post		What the fuck? What is the point of this? The ONLY POINT of buying any of these films on Blu-ray (and I own nine of the list) would be if they exactly duplicated the contents of the DVDs I already own, extras and all.

So who, pray, is the audience for these titles? No one.

What will the sales be like? Poor.

I think Optimum Releasing must be a company in financial trouble if it's putting out shit like this. It looks desperate.
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#2 Posted: 02-07-2009 20:51
Shaun666
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Posts: 56

Report this post		Since I have hardly watched any of the extras on my DVD's I can't get overly concerned about the lack of them on Blu Ray. Maximise picture and sound quality first and if there's still room by all means put some on but never compromise pic and sound just to stick some extras on that most people probably won't even look at.
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#3 Posted: 02-07-2009 21:40
Michael Brooke
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Posts: 603

Report this post		I've barely watched any of the extras on any of my Blu-rays (I can only watch them on the main family telly, and it's hard enough clearing enough time for the main feature), so this news doesn't faze me one iota.

Especially as a £15.99 RRP will be substantially reduced online - and I'd far rather pay that than another four or five quid for extras I'm probably not going to find the time to watch.
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#4 Posted: 02-07-2009 23:48
Rossyross
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Posts: 175

Report this post		La Haine barebones?

The DVD from Optimum is packed with great extras.

They really can't be arsed, can they?
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#5 Posted: 03-07-2009 04:30
grambax
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Posts: 144

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I agree with Robert Sharp; to actually drop extras that were on the DVD is astonishing.

I appreciate not everyone is interested in them, but many are, and I suspect those are the people most likely to seek out catalogue titles. If they fitted on to a DVD, I can't believe that they would create any capacity problems on BluRay.

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#6 Posted: 03-07-2009 09:27
Noel M
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Posts: 482

Report this post		I would have thought that the people crying out for the extra features are people who already have them on DVD, and are unlikely to watch SD versions of them again if they upgrade to Blu-ray. Perhaps the real issue here is that those who want to upgrade the film to HD also want to retire their DVD copies, rather than have to keep two copies.

Either way, I cant really see a compelling need for extra features on these catalogue titles. The low-price point is clearly going to be more effective in getting people to upgrade to HD versions rather than loading them with identical extras that few people want to watch again.
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#7 Posted: 03-07-2009 10:13
grambax
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Posts: 144

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There is a limit to how many times we can be expected to re-buy. For major films or personal favourites, then fair enough; many will upgrade. But I would have thought a fair chunk of the market for these catalogue titles would be those who never got around to buying them on DVD. I'm always a little reluctant to buy bare-bones releases unless its films where special features were never realistically an option. Where I know them to already exist, personally I would never even consider buying a disc without them. And I wouldn't have space for a large collection of both BR and DVD copies of the same films, so keeping both is a lot to expect. With the extras already available, would it really be all that expensive, or difficult, to include them, even if in SD?

Even at a low price, I can't see how releasing unecessarily bare bones discs does the marketing of BluRay any favours whatsover. I've rarely found bare bones releases to remain significantly cheaper than feature packed ones. Sure these aren't absolutely top price, but nor is £16 exactly budget price either, and in the medium term they will be right alongside much better packages.

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#8 Posted: 03-07-2009 12:42
JimdiGriz
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Posts: 353

Report this post		Hmmm I cant get very excited about most of that lot.

Although I will rent La Haine, Near Dark and Angel Heart to check the quality of the transfers. If they are good I will probably buy them on blu-ray when they are a tenner or less - especially if there are no extras.

I dont always watch extras but theyre nice to have. PQ and AQ is much more important to me though. I dont understand what is so difficult about transferring the DVD extras over to the blu-ray disc though at the very least, there would definitely be room for SD extras.
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#9 Posted: 03-07-2009 13:16
badblokebob
The Duck
Posts: 707

Report this post		For my money, while picture quality is obviously very important, if there's a film I'm fairly interested in owning and I have the choice of a barebones Blu-ray or an extras-loaded DVD at a similar price, I'll go for the DVD. I think this is the kind of thing that can put some people off -- "why upgrade to a new format when I'm getting less content?" -- which is certainly a feeling I've had before.

I own several of these and, as I implied, won't bother buying any just for the higher resolution film, but equally I'm not sure I'd've bothered even if they had all the same extras (at least, not immediately). Your average viewer, who buys a DVD/Blu-ray for the film alone (and probably doesn't visit sites like this!), may well not be so fussed.
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#10 Posted: 05-07-2009 14:21
tonyleung
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The percentage of people who actually watch extras but buy DVDs/BDs is very low. So in other words this is barely hurt sales at all.

As to why they're barebones, blame the French company Studio Canal not Optimum. It's they who masters these discs. The HD-DVDs of these titles are barebones, so the BDs are going to be too.

As other have said, I barely ever watch extras anymore. So whilst I'd prefer having them I certainly don't miss them.

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#11 Posted: 05-07-2009 22:59
Gizmo
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Posts: 55

Report this post		For all it would take to dump the SD extras on the disc - most people accept that situation. Can there be licensing issues with extras tho?
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#12 Posted: 28-07-2009 21:43
Robert Sharp
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Posts: 158

Report this post		Well, tonyleung, since, as a typical internet poster, you've typically quoted absolutely nothing as a source for your assertion that "the percentage of people who actually watch extras but buy DVDs/BDs is very low", I can only assume you've been living on a different planet to the rest of us for the last 12 years of DVD. Whereas it may be true that by the time DVD became a mass product in the early years of the 21st Century, the watching of extras to DVDs purchased ratio may have dropped, it is by and large early adopters like you and me who were all excited by a Martin Scorsese commentary track, a 2 hour making of documentary, and so on in the first place. And that has not changed with the introduction of Blu-ray. As you should be able to deduce, if studios thought nobody was watching extras or listening to commentary tracks or flipping around the picture in picture options, they would not be spending the money to produce them in the first place, and would not be including them on discs. And that is not the case. Which makes it all the more incredible that Optimum are issuing these hi def discs feature-less when previous DVDs have had extra features. It is contempt - contempt for the marketplace, and contempt for consumers. And when I see a company treating me with contempt, I do not sit by and accept it, I make my feelings very clear. In fact, should anyone from Optimum be surfing the net and looking at this news piece, I hereby declare my application for the job of head of Blu-ray development at Optimum Releasing, because quite clearly, whatever dimwitted lightbulb currently has the job, doesn't have the faintest idea how to do it. Maybe it's tonyleung. That would make a lot of sense.
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