The Auteurs is a new web site (in beta) for film lovers--and, for those film lovers, Criterion has relaunched their site. Now with the ability to watch (some of) their films online for $5 (good for a week's worth of watching one title). The viewing cost is also applicable to the cost of buying the same title on DVD.
posted by Manhasset on Nov 25, 2008 - 22 comments

Eric Skillman, art director / designer of many of Criterion's DVD packages, has a design process blog. There, he often discusses his work for the company.
posted by Manhasset on Nov 2, 2008 - 6 comments

Blasphemy on a train. We've talked all about the movie epic of our generation, Snakes on a Plane, before, but now that its within a month of opening, most of us can't even sleep at night. What to do? Placate your anxieties with the direct-to-DVD low budget rip-off from The Asylum. What better testament to capitalism than a company like this succeed riding on the coat-tails of real movies about codes, pirates, and gorillas.
posted by allkindsoftime on Jul 28, 2006 - 24 comments

How to Sell Your Book, CD, or DVD on Amazon [From Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools: he has a knack for asking the best questions]
posted by iffley on Feb 28, 2005 - 14 comments

241 titles on 282 disks, just $4,995 (after discount). It's the Criterion Collection Holiday 2004 Gift Set, exclusive from Amazon, all of the series' published DVD's through October*. One wonders who has the money for such a thing. (Not many -- current sales rank 26,154). Heck, for that kind of dough you can get one of these contraptions. Or, alternatively, you could feed 72 third world children for a year. Now, Criterion does great work, but as the comments point out, this supposedly complete collection does not include its out of print titles like John Woo's "The Killer" (current eBay bid: $148) and, sadly, the beloved This is Spinal Tap (High bid: $61). (At least it's a good investment). So, subtract the ones I already own and love, like The Third Man and some that are simply awful you could probably save scads with some selective shopping. Sure, it would be satisfying to own so much great film, but I find more and more I have no use for re-watching movies, unless I am joined in my satellite of love by some good companions. Anyway, happy consumer month!
posted by Slagman on Dec 10, 2004 - 34 comments

When technology falls into the wrong hands ...After 48 hours, the DVD expires and turns black. "The viewing window begins when the consumer opens the package and exposes the Flexplay DVD to air. A Flexplay DVD can be watched as many times as a consumer wants during the pre-set viewing window." More here, here, and here.
posted by thisisdrew on Dec 2, 2004 - 76 comments

With the DVD of Walking Tall hitting stores today, it might be nice to read the legend of the real sheriff Buford Pusser, six-feet and six-inches of Alabaman, two-by-four wielding, vigilante justice. Actually, it's not the first time this story's been told. The 1973 version of Walking Tall is now considered a classic (in some circles).
What's cool is that Alabama-bred country rockers Drive By Truckers have devoted not one, but two songs on their new album The Dirty South to debunking the myths surrounding this folk hero
posted by UncleDave on Sep 27, 2004 - 8 comments

Masters of Cinema is a film blog 'for discerning cineastes the world over,' with news on directors, films, dvd releases, aspect ratio controversies, and many links to director tribute sites. They also have sites dedicated to Robert Bresson, Carl Dreyer, Ozu Yasujiro, and Andrei Tarkovsky. (The last two previously posted by hama7 and I, but it's nice to see everything together)
posted by carter on Mar 8, 2004 - 11 comments

Feds rule that DVD X Copy is now illegal. What will become of other DVD burning software? The MPAA considers a major victory, but are the people who may use it legitimately getting the shaft, or will we see an increase in recovery outfits?
posted by JakeEXTREME on Feb 22, 2004 - 19 comments

It's the equivalent of "You can play the CD on three designated CD players that support the DRM. Like, it will play ONLY on xyz brand cd player and only three of those that you pick. Yes, you have to stick to that brand of cd player (the iTunes player, the supported OS of iTunes, no unix support in sight) and too bad if you have a fourth one in the bedroom. It's not gonna play in your second car's player either. Nor in the kitchen. Nor on your neighbor's player. Nor can you trade it on the used market when you're tired of listening to it. "
"They finally found a way to sell you some wind. Even better, they will restrict the direction and force in wich the wind will blow, how often and where it will happen..."

As "DVD-Jon" Johansen goes to retrial, a backlash is rising in the media & community towards Apple's DRM (digital rights management), a week after this same kid created an open-source program that lets users copy the songs that they bought onto other sources.
posted by omidius on Dec 2, 2003 - 28 comments

DVD Easter Eggs ... 1182 of 'em.
posted by crunchland on Oct 3, 2003 - 12 comments

DVDs are bad for business? They are, according to the producer of "Attack of the Clones." Although it seems to me that every week I hear about a new box-office record being shattered, Rick McCallum says such things as: "I don't think there's a single movie that can survive on box office gross alone; it just doesn't exist anymore" and my favorite: "Literally, our very lives are at stake now. George and I are just praying that we can finish 'Episode III' in time, before it's all over." What do you think? Legitimate concern, or more ridiculous whining by millionaires lobbying to place restrictions on technogy?
posted by eas98 on Oct 22, 2002 - 56 comments

Apple doesn't seem to think the DMCA bites Apple is using their interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent third party dealers from providing software to Apple users enabling them to burn DVDs on external drives. They have no problem with them burning DVDs on Apple drives, naturally. And to think I was just about to switch, too. Um, yeah.
posted by John Smallberries on Aug 29, 2002 - 38 comments

So what? Jeez, the media's all up in arms about the multiple editions of Fellowship of the Ring being released. Really, is there not enough in the world to legitimately gripe about? Are Rings fans really being ripped off? It's not like anyone's putting a gun to your head and forcing you to buy any of these discs. Isn't more choice better than less, even in the disposable DVD world?
posted by WolfDaddy on Aug 16, 2002 - 44 comments

Homer Simpson: Hack your DVD player. It seems in countries in which the DVD Copy Control Authority doesn't own the government, even the giants of corpmedia don't like the "protection" features the platform foists on consumers. On Fox's Simpsons UK DVD release FAQ page, Homer himself says "I have no idea whatsoever what regional coding means. But it is essential that you buy a multi-regional player. Do it now." Is the DVD region-coding system really only relevant in the United States?
posted by Vetinari on Jul 11, 2002 - 25 comments

"Blockbuster requests that you rewind your DVD." Why? What are you going to do? Fine me? [from Dumb Warnings, via Sore Eyes]
posted by feelinglistless on Jun 24, 2002 - 29 comments

Of the 9 Windows XP updates I needed, this was one of them. I've updated once before. And mind you, nor do I use my XP partition, but to grab photos off my camera and the rare must-see Quicktime experience. This is what an "update" entails in Microsoft territory apparently.
posted by crasspastor on Apr 29, 2002 - 11 comments

Regional Coding of DVDs is a common practice among the large movie studios. Mostly American companies putting into place regional coding "to protect American interests" in many cases. But then why does content vary so much between the US and the European counterparts of the home entertainment industry. The industry claims it is to protect themselves from piracy, but is it really the control of content that they want? And whether they've created that content or not, is it collusion and unfair business practices to give one region completely different availability than another, or just business as usual?
posted by benjh on Feb 17, 2002 - 22 comments

Ardent Twin Peaks fanatics are rallying behind Operation: Creamed Corn, in efforts to convince New Line to release the deleted scenes hand-picked by David Lynch from Fire Walk with Me. Will it work? I sure hope so.
posted by brittney on Aug 28, 2001 - 15 comments

Amazon is essentially going against the will of the MPAA by offering (followed the link from the Thirteen Days dvd) information regarding a work around to RCE (which prevents Region 1 dvd's from being played on region free dvd players). It's funny how the MPAA has taken 2600 to court because they posted links to DeCSS but they haven't made any moves against Amazon. CSS isn't protection against copying, it's really just used to prevent people from importing dvd's.
posted by dave on Jul 12, 2001 - 6 comments

A modern Dr Bowdler... (yeah, I know it's Salon, but...) A video-rental store in Utah offers "cleaned up" versions of modern films. First thought: is it legal? Post-DeCSS, one would think not: after all, the MPAA has done its best to protect its right to control the manner of reproduction. But are the studios not jumping to litigate, because they're happier to alienate Linux users with DVD drives than the LDS contingent in UT?
posted by holgate on Jan 11, 2001 - 31 comments

I wanna easter egg
After seeign the Spider-man easter egg on my new X-men DVD, I was excited to see what other easter eggs my DVD collection has. Well, thanks to the good ole' Web I found this page wich documents them all!
posted by DragonBoy on Nov 23, 2000 - 7 comments

More Amazonian sneakery - Depending on a number of factors, among them the type of browser you are using, Amazon will charge you a different price for the same DVD. According to Amazon it's all in an effort to better serve the customer.
posted by Nyarlathotep on Sep 6, 2000 - 16 comments

A new era in movie piracy . These guys managed to hack Microsoft's MPEG 4 codec, and have provided a means of ripping DVD movies to this new format (check the readme file). The little program they have on their site will "update" your Windows Media Player to be able to play the new divx format. The compression is comparable to current .avi and .mpg formats, but the image quality is near-DVD. Wow. I just watched "Disturbing Behaviour" in this new format and I must say I'm very impressed. No ugly chunky blocks like with MPEG. I dunno if I'd ever pay to see movies in the theatre again. Heh, sure sounds familiar eh? (*cough* MP3 *cough*) Looks like there might be some big new players joining the RIAA real soon. :)
posted by PWA_BadBoy on May 8, 2000 - 4 comments

So the DVD copy protection was cracked, and it's interesting to hear the comments from the industry. The DVD Forum's release makes the hackers sound awful. The DVD folks feel like they've been ripped off. Can't these motion picture and DVD industry folks see this as a good thing? A couple hackers decrypted what was supposed to be a secure format and they're horrified? They should be horrified at the idiots that created the weak 'protection' in the first place. These hackers just did the industry a great service. They found a gaping security hole before good recordable DVDs ever came out! I'm surprised hackers are vilified instead of being offered lucrative positions as security experts.
posted by mathowie on Nov 3, 1999 - 0 comments