Meanwhile, our own Russell Hammond has just posted the weekly update of the Release Dates & Artwork section, featuring all the latest Blu-ray and DVD cover artwork with Amazon.com pre-order links. As always, any time you order literally anything from Amazon in the same shopping session after clicking through to them though our links, you’re helping to support The Bits and it really makes a difference in our efforts to keep site going. So we appreciate it tremendously – thank you!
Now then... in announcement news today, Criterion has just revealed their May release slate, which is set to include Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (Spine #545 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/3, Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (Spine #810 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/10, Kaneto Shindo’s The Naked Island (Spine #811 – Blu-ray, DVD, and Hulu Plus) on 5/17, Robert Altman’s The Player (Spine #812 – Blu-ray and DVD) on 5/24, and Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy (Spine #813 – Blu-ray and DVD – includes Alice in the Cities #814, Wrong Move #815, and Kings of the Road #816) on 5/31. All are available for pre-order on Amazon (just click on the cover artwork below).
In other release news, Universal and Syfy have set Kill Joys: Season One for Blu-ray and DVD release on 5/10.
And Warner Home Video has set the new Point Break for Blu-ray 3D Combo, Blu-ray Combo, and DVD release on 3/29. Extras on the Blu-rays will include deleted scenes, 4 featurettes (Rock Climbing, Wingsuit Flying, Snowboarding, and Motocross), and 2 trailers.
Also, here’s something fascinating: Scientists at the University of Southampton in the UK have developed a way to record and read “five dimensional digital data in nanostructured glass using a femtosecond laser.” The process allows for 360 TB/disc data capacity, and the data is reportedly stable for billions of years. If you think this sounds a lot like the “isolinear optical data chips” of Star Trek fame, you’d be right. It’s unlikely to become a consumer product anytime soon, but here’s the thing: The world’s historical archivists (including those at the Library of Congress) have long been fighting a battle to figure out a way to preserve important documents for future generations – manuscripts, books, photographs, even Hollywood films, and TV programs. It’s a challenge to have to preserve the physical media that this data is recorded on, be it paper, magnetic tape, or what have you. Digital data is even more vulnerable – at least with analog material like paper, photos, or film, you can go back to the original physical media if it survives in good condition – but with digital, once that data is lost, it’s gone for good. But if you could record that data permanently into a stable material that could read indefinitely, suddenly you have a secure way to preserve that data for a very long time. So, for example, this process could one day become the digital equivalent to Hollywood’s “salt mine” for preserving, protecting, and storing high-resolution scans of Hollywood film prints. It’s fascinating stuff. Do give it a look here and here.
We’ll leave you today with a look at some new Blu-ray cover artwork, including all of those new Criterion titles we mentioned above. Each can be pre-ordered now on Amazon by clicking on the covers...
Stay tuned!
- Bill Hunt (@BillHuntBits)