I will receive them in August beginning when my brother returns from US. These are black and white silent classics, two of the greatest movies every I have seen them both. There are some other great silent classics as well.
Black and white looks very sharp on blu-ray by all reviews I have reatd. Black and white blu-rays are a huge success. The quality is (improved and mastered from earlier DVD releases. These two titles are two of the best. The General is Kino's first blu-ray while Sunrise is a Masters of Cinema blu-ray. It is region free. Amazon UK wrongly written that it is region B (many titles from Masters of Cinema are sadly region B). 90% of blu-rays I come across are region free or region A, so region A player does just fine for me.
The importance is how well the videos are mastered. Old color blu-rays like Wizard of Oz have also recieved largely recieved very good reviews. It all depends on the studio and the treatment the studio provides to a particular movie.
I can't wait for Psycho's release in October in US (UK it is an August release). 2010 is Psycho's 50th anniversary and even though the company handling it messed color movie I can't remember the of, Psycho will be great as it already looks very good on DVD and they are remastering even that. Psycho is also black and white. I can't wait for more Hitchcock films like Birds, Rear Window, Trouble with Harry (I am not a huge fan of Vertigo) and more older movies to be released.
Criterion black and white blu-ray releases have also recieved a lot of positive feedback. Black and white on blu-ray is a huge success.