DVD reviewing...we NEW category for "Picture and Sound" quality... (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

Let me state right off that this post is in no way targeting the excellent reviews of any one site (such as Ron's reviews or DVDfile's reviews) or attempting to pass judgement on the quality of any particular reviewer

Right now most reviewers provide an image/sound quality summary which is often used as a guide for DVD enthusiasts like us looking to be sure a disc is worth the purchase before we place the order. These summaries are delivered in various ways:

Numeric scales like, Picture: 4/5; bar-charts that show Picture Rating: *******__; or text that says Overall picture quality: excellent.

The problem is that such a single rating cannot serve all aspects of what would define a DVD with "good" picture quality. Let me explain.

Imagine a DVD title like Gosford Park. Here is the typical kind of review of picture quality that we'd see (making this up):

Image was good overall, but flesh tones tended to be orange in color and overall detail was lacking giving the picture a soft-focus look. Colors appeared somewhat muted and black-level was acceptable, but the image had a somewhat "flat" quality and lacked the depth and saturation of many other period-films. Noticed no artifacting or distracting ringing from edge enhancement. Grain was evident in some darker scenes as well. Overall picture quality rating: 4 out of 5.

What's wrong with that review? Well...on the one hand all of the objective picture quality issues that were mentioned were quite true...rendering a well deserved 4 out of 5 points on overall picture quality.

HOWEVER

This is EXACTLY how the film appeared when projected from 35mm theatrically. The DVD is being as faithful to the source elements, and to the director's intentions, as the format is capable. Is it then fair to give a DVD 4 out of 5 points if the DVD is doing a perfect job (given the technolgy of the format) of replicating the source material? If I'm a film lover who saw this film theatrically, and my goal for home-theater is that it faithfully replicate the film-experience, then to me this DVD really has earned 5 out of 5 points for picture-quality.

Example Problem number 2. Open just about any copy of Widescreen review...seek out a review of an older film and look at the audio rating and you'll likely see this:

"Audio: 2/5 undistingushed mono"

*yes* it's true that the audio from that disc will not be the ideal demo-material to test your surrounds and subwoofer... BUT if the DVD is faithfully rendering the original audio track of the film elements...then the DVD is doing just what it should...and the 2/5 rating is promoting a perception that the DVD audio isn't "good" when it really *is* exactly what it *should* be.

I'm sure each and everyone of you has a token DVD title that comes to mind which illustrates this conundrum. The problem is that there are really two distinct categories of criteria that determine whether a DVD has "good" picture or sound...and they cannot be mixed together into a single rating.

The category most often used defacto by most reviewers is:

Absolute/Objective quality. This describes the picture and sound as they are perceived by the viewer in absolute terms. When we use the phrase "A reference transfer" this is what we most often mean to indicate. If a DVD looks or sounds as good as the format is capable of delivering, then it scores a 5 out of 5 points here. If there is anything that visually changes this...like film grain, scratches, altered color pallete, digital artifacting etc., the image cannot be considered "reference". It doesn't matter *why* such artifacts might be present (for instance, film grain might be intended by the director, or the scratched print might be the best source available, or old optical effects might increase image noise). These more subjective considerations are addressed in their *own* rating system:

The "new" category of criteria I'm suggesting is:

Releative/Fidelity-to-the-source Picture Quality. Here's where the DVD picture (sound follows same pattern) is judged relative to what it *should* look like given the best-surviving source material and the director's intentions. If a film print was filmed to look grainy by the director, then it should look grainy here. If colors were muted or the detail was soft-focus in the director-approved theatrical prints, it should look the same way here. The DVD should be as transparent as it can be as it attempts to serve as medium between the home-theater enthusiast and the source film elements.

A DVD can score a perfect mark in the "relative" picture category but NOT be considered a "reference" disc in absolute terms. And the converse is true...a DVD could have all of the film-grain removed and appear "perfect" in objective terms and score a 5 out of 5 on the absolute picture scale...but not faithfully represent the director's intentions or the source film elements faithfully.


Why is it important to have this dual-rating system?

Because right now most reviewers mix the apples-oranges of absolute/relative criteria in their review rating OR they simply rate on the "objective" scale and just make verbal mention of "but the director probably intended for it to look that way".

The irony is that from a film-lover's viewpoint, the most important issue is not whether a DVD looks like it was shot on an HD-cam, but that it represents the original film elements *faithfully*.

This need to address this issue is apparent in the myriad of threads on this forum where members argue back and forth about what constitutes a "good" DVD transfer regarding issues of film-grain removal and audio processing that alters the original mixes (arguing apples/and oranges rarely results in a *fruitful* conclusion...hehe). Also since most reviews tend to sum up their overall conclusions on a single side of this argument (giving the highest scores to transfers that look objectivly good, but not necessarily faithful to the source) I think a dual-rating system is essential and would demonstrate to both the reading public and studios alike that faithfulness to the source is an important set of criteria to the DVD collector--studios look to such reviews to guide their mastering processing...is it really wise to give lesser marks to transfers that remain faithful to the source image and sound while favoring transfers that alter these aspects to try to acheive a better "absolute" image score? A dual-rating source makes the issue moot...it provides a score on both counts so that they can both be viewed separately and distinctly and *meaningfully*.

I can appreciate both aspects of DVD picture quality...I enjoy it when a DVD is faithful to the source and I also enjoy it when a DVD looks and sounds so stunning I can't wait to use it to show off my system. I think it would benefit the whole DVD community if more and more reviews clearly reflected both sets of values clearly and plainly...and I think a dual-rating score is an easy step in that direction.

Thoughts?

 

[Kevin M]

Oh, well I agree with you 100%. No need to discuss it any further.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Fidelity-to-the-source is the most important quality for me. However, it requires a reviewer to possess the knowledge of what a given film is supposed to look like. Sadly, very few people can actually speak with authority on this subject for any given film. Therefore, the number of reviewers who would actually be able to give an accurate fidelity-to-the-source rating for a given film is very small, and no single reviewer would be able to do it for every DVD on the market (even with all of the time in the world in which to review them). To get a proper review of that factor for every DVD would require rounding up experts knowledgable with regard to every single film. This would be no small task.

While I appreciate the aspirations, I'm doubtful of the possibility of it being implemented on anything resembling a large scale.

DJ

 

[Kevin M]

Seriously, what this originally stemmed from was that in a King Kong(1933) thread PatrickMcCart stated

quote:

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Home theaters have a purpose of showing films in the best possible way with the current technology.
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Not so, HT are meant to reproduce the movie theater experience.
However, if your like me, you will seek a 'better than theater ' experience.
And I am not just talking about the gum under the seat and/or coke on the floor.
That's why I call my set-up: an AV system.
It's 'made' to provide me with the best possible playback from audio & video sources, my money can by.
It is not trying to recreate the movie or music theater experience.
But an HT system is, hence the name "Home Theater", period.

quote:

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Why not apply reference quality in an adjusted way?
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Because, you would destroy the word: reference.
Which is pretty important in the phase; "Reference Quality"!
If you have a "King Kong" reference, you would then have too have a "Dances with Wolf's" RQ, and a "Harry Meet Sally" RQ, and a "Rock & Roll High School" RQ, etc, etc, etc.
You would have to have a RQ for sound for 80's stereo movies, 50's mono, 60's re-mixed for 5.1 movies, 90's 5.1 remixed for 6.1, 2000+ Dolby Digital movies remixed for DTS, 90's SDDS movies remix for Dolbly Digital, etc, etc, etc.
Where is your reference?
It just got 'buried' under the weight of your proposal to reference 'every' movie differently.
Reference refers to; The Best.
And "The Best", refers too: The best it can possibly be by "today's" standard.
Not, yesterday's standard, not last week's.
Reference Quality's reference is today.
If you would like too state that the PQ of the new "King Kong" DVD, is the best it has ever been, and I hope that's becomes true, I believe people will agree with you [OK, not 'everyone'!]
But if you say "King Kong" is RQ, it will be compared to "Blade II", for sound & visual's, for which comparison it will not fair well.
Unfortunate as that may be.

From there it erupted into a whole debacle of semantics as to just what "Reference Quality" really means in the Home Theater world.

Here's the entire thread if you want to see all the opinions expressed.. Bad News For King Kong

And there you go......Discuss.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Damin makes an excellent point that pretty much drives a stake through the heart of your point, with which I hasten to say I very much sympathize. Even if I've seen a DVD I'm reviewing in a theater (less and less likely as DVD viewing eats up my theater-going time), it's going to be a) a less-than-optimal theatrical showing due to me being in the hinterlands of Wisconsin where there are no good theaters that meet generally accepted standards, and b) probably be six months or more after the viewing before I get the review copy and I'll likely only remember gross details (if that) of the theatrical picture quality anyway. The only way to work this is to have a pristine 35mm print at hand while reviewing every single DVD, and I'm sorry but that's just not going to happen.

That said, I always try to take into account in my reviews for http://www.digitallyobsessed.com the age of the film, and my best guesstimate for what it should look and sound like; often an older film ends up getting ranked by me based on what other films of that age generally look and sound like. For instance, I'm pretty easy on grading the sound quality on British and Russian pictures from the 1930s, which are notoriously awful as a group. Since I review a lot of silents, this is pretty tricky at times, especially when you're often dealing with a single surviving print, but one shouldn't rely on a letter, number or bar grade on such films anyway. You have to read the text that goes with it to understand how the picture quality grade got to where it is.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

I agree that the theatrical presentation should be taken into account, but in reality that's much harder to do than you might think. Keep in mind that it's probably going to be several months between the theatrical release and the DVD release, and any particular theatrical showing may be less than ideal. Just because a particular movie had a somewhat soft picture when I saw it in the theater doesn't mean that's how it would look when viewing a pristine print in a well set up theater.

Also, I think a lot of the things I'm interested in hearing about as far as technical quality are more DVD-specific as opposed to "artistic intent". Things like edge-enhancement, compression artifacts, over-filtering, poor resolution, reproduction of blacks, etc are far more likely to be a product of the DVD transfer than anything else. And I think I can tell the difference between an close-up shot that is intentionally using a soft focus verses a longer-range shot where the over-compression and/or the limits of DVD resolution are robbing the picture of the detail it would otherwise have.

Similarly, in judging audio quality I want to know how well the soundstage is reproduced, whether there's any clipping/distortion, etc. As for mono soundtracks, I don't think you should automatically score a mono sountrack extremely low. But I also think (as others have mentioned recently in other threads) that many of the mono soundtracks that we're getting on DVD's in DD 1.0 or 2.0 sound bad; not just because they're mono, but rather because they're over compressed and lacking in fidelity.

So while I guess I don't necessarily disagree with you, I don't think this as big of a problem as you seem to. Sure, you'll get the occasionaly newbie complaining about the picture quality of movies like The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, etc. But for the most part I think reviewers do try to keep the source material in mind when judging the DVD.

As for scoring overall quality, just because a DVD accurately represents the movie doesn't necessarily mean it should get the highest score possible. There is some subjectivity in this overall. Consider Movie A, shot on 16mm with mono sound and a grainy, soft look. Movie B on the other hand was shot with superfine grain 35mm and 6-channel sound and looks and sounds wonderful. If DVD A and DVD B both do excellent jobs of reproducing the theatrical experience, I don't think there's any problem with DVD-A getting a '4' and DVD B getting a '5'.

 

[Damin J Toell]

As for scoring overall quality, just because a DVD accurately represents the movie doesn't necessarily mean it should get the highest score possible. There is some subjectivity in this overall. Consider Movie A, shot on 16mm with mono sound and a grainy, soft look. Movie B on the other hand was shot with superfine grain 35mm and 6-channel sound and looks and sounds wonderful. If DVD A and DVD B both do excellent jobs of reproducing the theatrical experience, I don't think there's any problem with DVD-A getting a '4' and DVD B getting a '5'.

But why? If the goal of DVD is to best present films as they are meant to be seen, why don't both DVDs get a 5? It seems irrational to me that, in your hypothetical, the best possible and most accurate DVD representation of film A can't ever achieve the highest score. What are the numbers rating, exactly, if not quality of reproduction of the film in question?

DJ

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

While I can appreciate David's intent, it is unrealistic for the reasons outlined above. To have a completely accurate comparison, not only would the film have to be seen in the theater, but it should have been seen on the first run - a little difficult for 1930s pictures for some of us younger folk.

Also, very few people have any idea what the best available sources for a transfer are - even the studios have a hard time tracking down the best masters, so your average reviewer doesn't stand much of a chance making a concrete statement about the condition those elements may be in.

I see no reason why a 70 year old, black and white film with mono sound doesn't deseve full marks if the presentation is excellent, taking into account the age of the film. I think the descriptive portion should handle any possible issues, and the rating be for overall impression, even though I personally don't see much value in a scale rating.

Every year the bar gets raised in terms of transfer quality and decreased artifacting, so determining what is reference is a very time limited thing.

I have no problem giving a good sounding mono track an A.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I have only quickly looked over David's thread.
It's a little after 5am and I am on my way out
the door for work. I did want to say something
on my behalf before this thread becomes more
populated....

I don't consider myself to be anything more
than an amateur reviewer. While I appreciate
David's kind words, let's face the fact that what
I write is nowhere on par with the type of reviews
of DVDFILE or THE DIGITAL BITS.

I took the job as a reviewer because the one we
had initially quit. I decided to try my hand at
it, despite the fact I got a lot of flack from
people who accused me of trying to pawn myself
off as a reviewer.

I'd love to be able to do more with the reviews
I write, but I am limited in what I can do. I don't
go to many theatrical movies so I can't tell what
the director's intent was when reviewing a film.
I usually have no idea what a film looked like
during its theatrical presentation.

I look at a DVD transfer from an honest perspective,
and write down what I see. This is the best I can
do right now.

Thanks

 

[Adam Tyner]

I look at a DVD transfer from an honest perspective,
and write down what I see. This is the best I can
do right now.

...which is the way to go. I completely understand David's points, and some of his comments play a huge role in why I always read the text of DVD reviews but never pay attention to any 'summary' ratings, numeric or otherwise.

 

[Tony-B]

let's face the fact that what
I write is nowhere on par with the type of reviews
of DVDFILE or THE DIGITAL BITS.

I disagree. I think that a lot of your reviews are the best on the internet! Seriously. Especially the FOTR:EE or BTTF review. Those were great reviews. I think that you are one of the most in-depth reviewers too.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

As for scoring overall quality, just because a DVD accurately represents the movie doesn't necessarily mean it should get the highest score possible. There is some subjectivity in this overall. Consider Movie A, shot on 16mm with mono sound and a grainy, soft look. Movie B on the other hand was shot with superfine grain 35mm and 6-channel sound and looks and sounds wonderful. If DVD A and DVD B both do excellent jobs of reproducing the theatrical experience, I don't think there's any problem with DVD-A getting a '4' and DVD B getting a '5'.

Damin responded well to this. I would add that your statement above shows exactly why 2 separate and distinct ratings are essential.

The 35 mm source gets a 5 on objective quality, and the 16 mm source gets a 4 or 3 on objective quality. Then they both get a 5 on the "fidelity to the original" rating.

Win-win.

You've stated how it may be "difficult" for a reviewer to possess all the facts to make the more subjective judement, and I agree that at times it may be challenging (Of course, the example you provided above also shows how *easy* it could be to do exactly what I'm suggesting ).

HOWEVER,

This is exactly what reviews should be about!

Real-world problem:

I read a review of the Sound of Music on a *very* respected DVD-review site. In it, the reviewer criticized the audio for "distracting dialogue that moved from speaker to speaker as the actors moved accross the screen". He suggested that Fox should have mixed all the dialogue into the center channel and wasn't sure how this "problem" with the audio had happened in the first place. (!?!?!)

I emailed this reviewer and *politely* explained how many big-budget films from this era had directional-dialogue to compliment the panarama of the WS image...and that the preservation of these historical sound mixes is very important. He responded with a tone of annoyance that I called his judgement into question and basically said that was "my opinion" and that his opinion (that the audio should have been remixed for "home video" destroying the directional dialogue of the source multi-track master) was perfectly valid. There was *no* willingness by this reviewer to *learn* from the new information he was being politely provided about historical sound mixes to help guide his future review criteria.

Hmmmmmmm.

I'd suggest that unless a reviewer is *willing* to educate him/herself about the historical nature of the films that he/she is reviewing, he/she shouldn't review DVD films at all. Note I'm not suggesting that every reviewer needs to possess all knowledge in order to review! I'm holding up the importance of an *attitude* of being open to learning about the nature of films and how they were intended to be presented by the artists who created them. Critizing a studio like Fox for preserving the historic sound mix and then refusing to accept that one has made an error in ignorance of the facts once they are presented is unacceptable.

(in the model I'm suggesting, such a reviewer could give the audio a 4/5 "objective" rating due to what they perceive as a distracting sound effect, and then also give the sound a 5/5 rating for being faithful to the source mix)

Would it be any different if a reviewer criticized a DVD because of visible film-grain? Is this *wrong* when the title is A.I.?

------------------------------

Ron,

Please take the time to re-read my initial post and do realize that your reviews in no way were the motivation for my thread! The reason I'm starting this thread is because it's becoming clear that the typical review style we see *everywhere* often times reinforces many of the misconceptions about they way films should be presented on DVD which have been the source of much debate on MANY threads on this forum. I'm suggesting that DVD reviews could become a place where such misconceptions are clarified.

I don't think it's necessary that a reviewer see every DVD they review theatrically projected, but I do think it's important that any reviewer be familiar with film projection and how it looks. When reviewing a DVD on a revealing system (once one has become familiar with critically viewing projected film presentations) it's often quite clear if a DVD looks "like film" or if it looks "like video". The former is a correct DVD presentation, the latter is not (in terms of relative/faithful-to-the-source image quality).

As an example, one doesn't need to interview the director or be an expert in the history of film to perceive the difference between video noise and boni-fide film-grain on a revealing system and score two films that show these respective artifacts differently (versus simply giving both transfers a bad mark for "grain"). BTW, this is a general made-up example just to illustrate.

I'm not suggesting one has to be an expert to review...I'm just talking about adding a new perspective or angle to the review process and the criteria that go into judging a disc.

One thing every reviewer can do:

If a particular reviewer feels he/she lacks the background knowledge of a film to fairly judge it's faithfullness to the source...it would *still* be very helpful if the objective score that is rendered is clearly stated as such...and that the "relative" score be simply left blank with the reviewer stating that they do not have a fair way to judge the DVD on that scale. This would emphasize that the relative criteria is not somehow being combined in the single score which is often implied when someone simply says "overall...the PQ is _____".

I know that "relative" or "faithful to the source" reviewing is more subjective and more difficult...but it's also the most important aspect of a DVD. It's more important than how sharp or "clean" the transfer looks. It's more important than how loud the subwoofer rattles or how active the surrounds are. It's more important that a boat-load of extras. DVDs should be replicating films as well as the technology allows. I'm just suggesting that reviews *attempt* to recognize this and give it the attention it deserves.

Who knows...maybe Robert Harris could be a "review consultant" for important titles and help to provide the background information to make it easier

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Funny you should suggest that...on more than one occasion I've abused Mr. Harris' willingness to discuss the condition of old films that I'm reviewing (for instance, we had a very edifying email chat regarding the sound Eisensteins), though I try to keep that very few and far between so he can go about his extremely important business.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I like these ideas. And I find Ron's reviews to be among the 3 main sources of reviews I frequently read. You don't have to have a $500,000.50 home theater to do accurate reviews. Perhaps those 9' screens are revealing too much of these simple 720x480 images.



To get the most accurate rating for a DVD transfer, you grade the image fidelity in proportion to age, condition of film source, color, transfer quality, audio fidelity in proportion to age, audio mix quality/remix quality, and then presentation (OAR, original B&W, censorship, etc). The main rating is based on this analyzation while the "average Home Theater rating" would be next to it.

For example, Being There's DVD:

Print fidelity: 4.5 (3)
Print condition: 4.5 (4)
Color: 4.5 (2.5)
Transfer quality: 4.5 (3)

Audio fidelity: 5 (2, mono default rating)
Audio mix (how appropriate?): 5 (2, default)

Presentation: 5, OAR, original sound, and 16x9 (3.5, no remix)

8 1/2: Criterion Collection -

Print fidelity: 5 (4)
Print condition: 4.5 (3)
Greyscale: 5 (4)

Audio fidelity: 5 (1.5, mono default)
Audio mix: 5 (1.5, default)

Presentation: 5 (3.5)

 

[Jefferson]

I agree, and DavidBoulet, that was extremely well said.
I think the problem also stems from these reviews coming from being watched on different equipment. None of us here view DVDs n the exact same home theater system, and some reveal things better, (or mask them better) than others.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

Damin responded well to this. I would add that your statement above shows exactly why 2 separate and distinct ratings are essential.

The 35 mm source gets a 5 on objective quality, and the 16 mm source gets a 4 or 3 on objective quality. Then they both get a 5 on the "fidelity to the original" rating.

Part of it for me, though, is that I think the top score in a particular rating system should be something that rarely gets awarded, only for those truly stand-out DVD's that make you go "WOW" when watching. So an accurate reproduction of a 16mm presentation wouldn't get a 5 on my scale (maybe a 4 or 4 1/2).

That said, I don't think two separate scores are necessary. I think it is sufficient if the reviewer discusses fidelity to the original presentation in the review. And I think that's what quite a few of the reviewers that I read do. They might give a picture quality rating of 4 out of 5, but when you read the details they comment on the fact that heavy film grain or over-blown contrast levels are consistent with the theatrical release. I have no problem with that type of review.

 

[TheLongshot]

I think the problem also stems from these reviews coming from being watched on different equipment.

That's the reason why good reviewers will list their equipment.

I don't think for me that numerical ratings are all that helpful, even if you add another category. I'd rather have a reviewer describe what he's seeing. To me, that's more helpful than a generic rating because it tells me what is wrong, if anything. Then, people on here can talk about if that's the way it is supposed to be or not.

Jason

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Part of it for me, though, is that I think the top score in a particular rating system should be something that rarely gets awarded, only for those truly stand-out DVD's that make you go "WOW" when watching. So an accurate reproduction of a 16mm presentation wouldn't get a 5 on my scale (maybe a 4 or 4 1/2).

That's because you're talking about the overall-objective "absolute" criteria...that's the "WOW" criteria.

I agreed that a 16mm print should NOT get a 5 out of 5 on that scale.

It should *only* get a 5 of 5 on the *relative* scale.

I understand what you're saying that given an overall rating of 4 out of 5 you can then read the fine-print in the review to see *why* that's the case...and a good reviewer will have qualified that with the theatrical presentation etc. HOWEVER...given that being true-to-the-source is the most important goal that a DVD should be mastered to deliver...why then is only the "absolute" quality rating listed? It reinforces the agenda that is becoming dangerous that a "good" DVD is a "WOW" DVD and a "Bad" DVD is one that has stuff like grain or other "film" artifacts that may very-well be director-approved.

Having 2 separate ratings shows that a reviewer is legitimizing the criteria that a DVD be faithful to the source...and that this source is not an objective window through which we watch actors talk...but that the source is a film emulsion (or digital pallete/whatever) that used as an artistic medium by a director.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

So an accurate reproduction of a 16mm presentation wouldn't get a 5 on my scale

Why not? If it faithfully reproduces the source, it should get top marks. I gave Fruit of the Vine an A for looking like the 8mm film it was. I see no need to degrade a rating due to the director's choice of film stock, and don't feel it necessary to try to rate presentation against other films. In my view, presentation should be based soley on the film in question, and whether or not there is room for improvement.

However, the comments should describe the look as accurately as possible, and if something looks drop dead gorgeous due to its cleanliness, say so.

Since there are but a handful of people on this planet who could give an accurate grade to the quality of transfer from all available sources, accounting for age, film stock, the history of the film in the hands of its owners, etc., trying to say with authority how a film should or should not really look is pretty much beyond the scope of the majority of reviewers. I can only go by what I'm presented and make educated guesses as to how the film should look under ideal circumstances. I am more concerned with transfer induced anomalies than whether the resulting image is completely true to the original master, which I, and the majority of other people, will have never seen, since even theatrical prints vary in replicating the approved densities, coloring and framing.

 

[Bryce Miner]

For me I see all new releases with pleasing audio and video. As far as Video goes I see differences with EE and Compression issues, but not black level, color and tint problems with new hollywood films.

It is the older movies that are coming out on DVD that vary so much. I believe a lot to do with the master being used.

I do like the idea of a "true to the master" review.