Alan Smithee

Just signed up for the trial but wish I had noticed the Roku app isn't ready yet and you can only watch their pre-launch movies through a browser. Have the three premium Roku Channel services on trial also so will have to watch a lot, though Epix will certainly get canned at the end no matter what.

majorjoe23

I can access the preview via VHX on my iPad/Apple TV.

asianxcore

I could see this happening. Mostly because Eureka is releasing their Blu-Rays of Last Hurrah For Chivalry & Hand of Death (2K Restorations) in June.

LorenzoL

I hope so. I have the Dragon Dynasty DVD release and I would love to upgrade it.

Why So Blu?

It's live!

Geofferson

Strange, I can sign into the website, but not the app. Doesn't recognize my email. Anyone else experiencing this?

mphtrilogy

Just signed in on the App, worked ok for me...

mphtrilogy

scratch that, also having problems on app, it is letting me log in, but the movies are locked, sent them an email....

andicus

It looks like only trailers are available, so far, along with the Movie of the Week.

Dan

Yeah, I don't see the catalog just yet on the website. I'm sure they're still tweaking some things as well as getting hammered by people refreshing the site to see when it launches.

edit: Now I see everything. It's go time!

Why So Blu?

From what I just read the official launch is (was) at 12 noon EST. Should be good to go all the way around now.

Geofferson

Yup, working here. Able to successfully log in and access the catalog.

andicus

^Yep, all good now!

Just wish I could watch, instead of having to work.

mphtrilogy

works now, here we go!

mphtrilogy

Just finished My Name Is Julia Ross, 1945 film noir. Really enjoyed it, great selection of Noir titles to dig into right off the bat. I'm digging this channel so far. Would be great to see others post some good stuff they have watched in this thread so I can add to the que...

Why So Blu?

Keep in mind there are over 1,000 titles. They don't necessarily have them all listed, so use the search bar if you have to.

Alan Smithee

andicus

Their interface is still very lacking. VERY basic controls. Play/pause, volume, a slider for position and full screen expand, and subtitle options, sometimes. That's it . No skip forward or backward, 10 sec replay or anything like that.

When I initially ran it, there was an option to change the streaming resolution, but I no longer see it.

The other annoyingly lacking feature is 'resume' playback. If you stop playing, and do something else on the site, it doesn't remember where you left off. You have to remember and then drag the slider to that position.

Buffering still takes way too long (about 25 secs before switching to HD). A minor irritation, but an irritation nonetheless.

All these observations are when watching from a browser. I don't know if the apps are any different.

Hopefully these things will improve with time and feedback.

mphtrilogy

Watched 3 Film Noir movies yesterday, worked great on the phone, including a download option which I used while waiting for my daughter to get out of softball practice. I downloaded the Fire Stick App last night, so need to see how that looks. Initial thoughts on the fast forward buttons weren't great.

The app has a resume feature that worked pretty well.

If I can watch 2-4 movies a month I will be very happy with this service, there's a ton material that I want to catch up on, and I feel like Criterion is curating some of that for me...

The search function is so-so, I wonder how often the movie selection will change and what will be leaving from month to month... would be good to know this somehow.

Geofferson

^ Same here. I started watching De Palma's Sisters last night using the Roku app and it looked good. Agree the UI is basic and I wish there was a better way to 'explore', but recognizing there are 1k titles limits that capability. Maybe I just need to refresh myself what's all in the Criterion catalog - haven't tracked it too closely in the past couple years.

Alan Smithee

Dan

There's definitely room for improvement, but so far I'm happy. I initially loaded up the VHX app on my Roku (since that's what I used during the trial period), and was disappointed with how terrible the whole thing worked. No search. Super ugly UI. No personal list. It was a few minutes later when I realized that they put out a dedicated Criterion app. So I uninstalled VHX and installed the right one, and it was obviously a massive improvement. As I said, there's still stuff they can do better (I want to be able to browse by title, director, and spine number if applicable, and I want to be able to see all the director's movies listed BEFORE all of the random special feature videos, not mixed in together).

Overall, I'm totally happy. Going to start my Jim Jarmusch marathon tonight I think.

Dan

The Questyen

Everything was going smooth until I got to the last five minutes of the movie and now it just gives me an error and it won't go any further.

andicus

You asked for good stuff, but I think bad stuff is fair game, too.

The Lure is simply not very good, IMHO. I really didn't get anything out of it.

I had some issues, as well, when trying to cue to the point at which I wanted to resume watching. Sometimes it would just hang on the load icon, other times it seemed to stay low resolution until I would exit, and start playing again. Of course, then I would have to cue again. They've certainly got some work to do.