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BOUTIQUE LABEL REVIEW | Quality & Prices | CRITERION, ARROW, VINEGAR SYNDROME, SCREAM, SEVERIN, MORE
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2024
- Hello everyone! Today we are back with a deep dive into a cornerstone of Physical Media collection - Boutique Labels. We dissect our US favorites including Criterion, Arrow (US), Scream Factory, Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, & Kino Lorber, reviewing their products, prices, and catalogue. We have an international label video in the works, so make sure to recommend some for our review down below!
If you are new or old to the game, hopefully you find some value in this video and enjoy our discussion of these great labels.
What is your favorite label? Did we miss any? Let us know below!
00:00 Intro
01:31 ARROW VIDEO (US)
06:28 CRITERION
15:34 KINO LORBER STUDIO CLASSICS
19:17 SHOUT/SCREAM FACTORY
24:34 SEVERIN
28:09 VINEGAR SYNDROME
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What is your favorite label? Did we miss any? Let us know below!
00:00 Intro
01:31 ARROW VIDEO (US)
06:28 CRITERION
15:34 KINO LORBER STUDIO CLASSICS
19:17 SHOUT/SCREAM FACTORY
24:34 SEVERIN
28:09 VINEGAR SYNDROME
Eureka in the UK are my favourite and they have started releasing in America. Also second sight are expensive but are the best out of all the boutiques.
Flicker Alley
Vestron Video.
Flicker Alley
Warner Archive
Radiance
Deaf Crocodile
Don't sleep on Synapse!!! Their output is small but mighty!!!! I'm a VS subscriber as I enjoy the vast majority of their releases. Severin, Arrow, and Scream Factory get loads of cash from me monthly as well. Great time to be a physical media collector!!!!
Big Criterion and Arrow fan here. My issue with Criterion is that they don't use the top dog encoding company. It usually means that arrow and second sight have better transfers.
You beat me to the punch. What do you think, though? Their transfers have improved in the past two years -- no more micro blocks.
Don't forget about Eureka and 88 Films when you talk about overseas labels!
Vinegar Syndrome and Severin are the labels that are the most fun to me. They release a mix of gems and shlock, but there is something creative about the films they select and how they present them.
I love Vinegar so much! Severn is rad -- but, so expensive.
Severin focuses more on horror than Vinegar Syndrome but their demographic is very similar
Umbrella in Australia has a few interesting releases and by imprint here in Australia and I ordered a few recently from arrow in 4K
Knew you guys would pay respect to Criterion.🙏
I like their clear cases with no 4k banner or labels. It's the best way to showcase the cover art with no distracting bs.
They do so many things right, but they could stand to improve their encoding quality a little bit. It's not a dealbreaker but sometimes I wonder why they don't have top tier compression.
Arrow are a firm favourite, and I plan on stocking up on some of the US-only titles when I visit from the UK later this year.
Second Sight are head and shoulders my favourite label right now, so looking forward to hearing what you have to say about them...and for their releases of The Hitcher and Dead Man's Shoes 🤌
88 Films from the UK you should cover too 👍🏻
I’ve grown to like Kino Lorber a lot for going after classics of their time that maybe didn’t get as much love as a filmmaker’s other stuff, like Sam Peckinpah’s “Junior Bonner” or “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” Eastwood’s “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,” or stuff like Sydney Pollack’s “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” which has never gotten much of a release past VHS. Plus, as you mentioned, they’ve really stepped it up on the extras.
Last year Kino Lorber took the most of my money by a wide margin. I love their 4Ks and their slipcovers.
Criterion is still king, but man they had a weak release lineup in 2023. I only bought Thelma & Louise (which was excellent.)
Nice job highlighting the boutique labels -- def got more into this game during the pandemic and lately Arrow has been taking all of my money!
What I love about Criterion, they include both 4K and BD unlike Arrow. Kino has become my favorite boutique label. Just slip covers but releasing some classic movies on 4K.
A vinegar syndrome store opened up here in Toronto Canada. It sells all the other Boutique labels as well. Going to go check it out soon it's about an hour from where I live.
That's so cool! I follow The Archive on Instagram, which is their Connecticut location. It looks so awesome I wish I was closer.
Some Criterion titles originally came as digipaks and then later got the standard amaray plastic case treatment like Repo Man, Night of the Hunter, The Leopard, Foreign Correspondent and I’m sure some others. These are ones that I can think of on the top of my head.
Any reason why certain titles are selected for this treatment?
@@4K_Kings I’m not sure but my guess would be that it might have been cheaper to make the switch. But looking at A Hard Day’s Night, they kept the 4K packaging the same.
Maybe they like messing with us haha.
Great video guys. How did I not know that Zavvi owned Arrow?
Ps - The editing on this is on point!
Thanks, Rich!!
Criterion doesn’t do “limited edition” packaging, but I do notice that sometimes a move is issued in the digipack, but later on, re-printed in the regular clear case. “The Last Emperor” is an example. Some titles also do go out of print, like “Rosemary’s Baby”.
I've only got 3 Criterion releases. That netflix movie The Irishman, Thelma and Louise and that big Godzilla set. Most of my boutique collection is Arrow
Arrow also do sweet steelbooks too. The Robocop 4k Steel was the nuts.
They do, and we touched on that briefly, but didn't include it since steelbook releases have been pretty infrequent. If you check out our Arrow or Steelbook Collection video, you'll see RoboCop Steel in all its glory!
It looks so good. The pictures didn't do it justice. I was blown away when I finally got it in hand.
Was expecting Masters of Cinema/Eureka label to turn up too. I have some of their boxsets and they are amazing. Excellent video, btw
Thank you! When we were putting this video together we included nearly every US label we could think of, including eureka, vestron, MVD, synapse etc... but as we started to shoot it we realized how incredibly long and difficult this video could be. When we were actually putting it together we realized that that was the right call. We want to do a international boutique label review, and go back and touch on the ones we missed. It was just too much for one video. Thanks for dropping us a line!
Arrow is my favourite.
VINEGAR SYNDROME IS THE BEST
Great video, gents 😎 Minor critique, the background music got a little too repetitive for a long video, tbh. Could probably do without it just fine✌️
Love the video, but wanted to point out that many Criterion releases do include booklets of essays on the film.
Thanks! And yes, they all have a booklet, but not the 80-100 page types that come with Arrow etc... It's usually smaller, but still very informative
Kino started doing slips because they saw data on how much pre-orders skyrocketed for movies with slips.
Great idea for a video. Looking forward to pt2 !
Flicker Alley is a good boutique label for old cinema.
Great Video!
Thank you!
Recently criterion has been my favorite. Another great and very informative video. Thank you guys.
Terror Vision is another US label I recently discovered. Their packaging and transfer quality is top notch, but they are pretty obscure titles and they only have a couple 4K titles so far.
Agreed... I picked up Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout through them.
Shout out to 88 Films and Second Sight here in the UK. And a tip of the cap to Eureka.
Need part 2 asap
Great video guys!
Thanks, Dan!
The thing I hate about Arrow is no dual-format. I hate having to buy 2 copies of the same film in different formats.
I think Criterion has been skimping on extras for at least 5-6 years. Nowadays, they can get actors in the Closet but not on the bonus features.
Kino's color grading is all over the place (NOBODY'S FOOL's whites are way too blue) and I also think they crop the frame for certain titles (DEEP RISING is cropped at least 20% from the DVD version). But I've gotten Blus from Indicator for a better price and with more special features than the KL edition (HARDCORE). That said, they put out the TV version of NEEDFUL THINGS in 2K and their sales are usually very reasonable, so I can't be too mad at them.
Shout! has had enough QC issues in the last 3 years that cause me to wait for sales to buy stuff in the event of recalls. However, their 4K game has impressed me in the last year or so.
Radiance moved into my top 5 this year. Arrow is my favorite. Kino added the most titles to my collection last year. Eureka does some great things. Criterion rounds out my top 5.The next 5 are not far behind. I just got in Mean Streets from Second Sight for example. Basically I love every label and there is room for more.
Agreed. We included a tier ranking in the discussion originally, but decided they are all great and you can't rank one against another.
Arrow fan here and also Viinegar Syndrome. Scream/Shout Factory not so much and the only reason for that is that it's not regio b discs they release....
Can we get some more Carlitos way impersonations 😂
sorry but need correction Arrow 4k set of the Chucky movies is not a re release of the US discs. The UK discs use slightly different encode which has tiny bit higher bitrate and was done by FIM.
Thanks! All the press stated these were restorations from Shout Factory. Didn't see anything about different encodes, so that's good to know!
As I live in China I rely on importers to bring this stuff in. I love the boutiques. Arrow and second sight are my favorites. But i like Kino for their simplicity and range of titles. But if you don't get the slip, weirdly I will be reluctant to get it. I don't' like a cheap plastic case on display unless it has a cheap cardboard cover on it.
I'm 100% with you on the Kino cases. The slips are game changers.
I think barnes and noble in my area doing like best buy no videos at the store
As someone who owns a bunch of titles, please talk about Indicator in part 2.
Love Indicator!
Flicker Alley is missed
I love Criterion with classic film portfolio because simple with good quality is better!! and also with a very good price several times during the year. I hate KL because of the cases. Arrow films are not my taste but some releases are on the top like Bruce Lee and Psycho box sets. Severin is too expensive! but I have some titles like Blood of Dracula and Drowning by Numbers and Vinegar Sindrome is very interesting but expensive, I love Flesh for Frankenstein and I have also Vortex from Utopia partner label!
Yeah, Criterion hasn't been top of the game for a long time now when it comes to special features or encoding. Especially british Labels like Arrow, Second Sight or Indicator crush them in one or both departments.
No synapse, No Darkforce? 💿
Why the repetitive music track throughout the entire video?
Good catch. We typically use a music track but never for a video this long. Definitely taking that into to consideration for next time. Thanks for watching!
You said all your favourite boutique labels. Mine are Indicator and Second Sight but you didn’t cover them.
We mention it at the beginning of this video, but we have a Part 2 coming up soon. It will cover all of the international labels that we love including Second Sight!
I wish the community referred to Arrow, Kino, and Scream/Shout as "independent" labels rather than "boutique". What they're doing isn't on the same level as Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, or even Criterion.
Arrow is top tier quality, many of these labels can learn from what they do there. Vinegar Syndrome is not less.... Criterion also not....
Kino announces their titles too early
The last time I bought criterion and felt like it was quality was back on DVD. Many blu-rays & 4ks don’t come with the original audio only a 5.1 “director approved mix” which is a joke for what they claim to be a motto of best quality of the original theatrical release version preserved in the best quality available.
I personally go for turbine, eureka, imprint, vinegar syndrome/ OCN partners & arrow
Arrow is getting close to loosing its rights to be in the quality club if they keep doing stuff like criterion & shout studios
Criterion, hasn’t been the “gold standard” that they had been, for a long time. Second Sight, to mention one, is consistently outdoing Criterion in virtually every respect. Criterion, got *lazy,* as they know they have people who will buy every from them, regardless of whether it’s the finest version available. I also want to highlight Criterion’s awful packaging, and even worse artwork.
It’s not easy to compare Criterion to Second Sight (or many other boutique labels) because Criterion focuses on a different type of film. They have more art films compared to the cult and genre films the others offer.
@@garyrichardson475 I’m referring more to the modern films that they have been releasing. Mean Streets, is a good example, as Second Sight, clearly put more effort into this release, and to the discerning eye, the transfer s superior. I don’t know if you have ever had the opportunity to engage with the staff of Criterion, but my GOD, do they look down their nose at you for even the *slightest* criticism. It also had to do with their handling of the Citizen Kane replacement discs. With Criterion, I had to physically smash the disc into pieces, then provide photo “proof” of the destruction. No other company, has ever made me jump through hoops, to take care of *their* mistakes.
Scream Factory has been a joke the past few years
Their new pre-orders made me laugh. Like wow! They've really gone downhill.
Been downhill for almost a decade now
How dare you not include Second Sight?! Redo and repost this subpar video once you fix your blatant exclusion. Good Lord...
Video showed second sight and others in part 2. 😁
Second Sight is one of our favorites, but these were our favorite labels that distribute in the US. We are doing a part 2 soon including Second Sight and other international labels soon!
Everyone!!!!!!!!!! 😂
Now do one about Soundtracks, only the label La La Land comes to mind, but my budget is always limited.
I'm from Mexico and it saddens me that all of these labels don't consider Latin America in theirs business plans. Although understandable, they're missing one big chunk of the market. Even if these titles cost an arm and a leg to import, they would be massive if they included spanish subtitles.
My mum and the missus always give me shit when they realise the titles I'm watching are in English only.
I'm sorry I wasn't going to say anything but slip cases slide in from the side slip covers slide up and down
I have to admit, after all these years, I don't think I've ever made that distinction.