On Aug 5, 2005, at 9:50 AM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

>  Bill is alive and well and still running Janus as well. Someone
> should write Bill and Saul's story since it's quite a lively one.
>
> Dennis Doros
> Milestone Film & Video

That's true, Dennis! (Maybe Bill should.)

Bill's story goes back to the Brattle theatre in Cambridge in the early 
fifties, which had been founded by classmates Bryant Halliday and Cyrus 
Harvey.

Bill and Saul sold their 16 mm library to Films Inc. in 1985--just as 
the value of a 16mm library was about to crash. They took some of the 
money and invested in Criterion, which had been founded by Bob and 
Aleen Stein  in 1984. Criterion was a pioneer in laserdiscs and it was 
that 15-year experience that prepared them perfectly to dominate 
high-end DVD beginning in the late 90s. Janus fed a lot of rights to 
Criterion, but the company also developed a reputation for quality 
production that made them the co of choice for Directors editions.

In the late 90s Bob Stein, always a visionary, became obsessed with 
CD-ROM multimedia. The company changed its name to Voyager and produced 
many of the notable CD-ROMs of the late 80s and early 90s (before that 
industry-in-search-of-a-business crashed). Aleen Stein's production 
"The Book of Lulu" sold more than 500,000 copies in more than 20 
languages in the mid-90s. (We distribute an updated version of Lulu 
now.) Bob and Aleen divorced. The von Holtzbrinck publishing family 
bought into the business. Much brouhaha between 95 and 98. Voyager was 
broken up. The von H's got most of the CD-ROMs and the Voyager name. 
Bob and the von H's were bought out (Aleen is still a shareholder).

The Becker and Turell families gained full control of the re-renamed 
Criterion just at the moment when the DVD bonanza was about to burst on 
the scene. Pretty good timing!

There's more in the Dictionary of New Media and in "About This Disc" on 
How To Read a Film: multimedia edition.



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