Studio policies that irk you... (1 Viewer)

[MikeDeVincenzo]

Universal shall remain the object of my undying contempt until they release Northern Exposure in full season box sets.

 

[Bill J]

Fox discontinued several of their 2-disc special editions. Fortunately they have brought some of them back, but where is the Patton 2-disc SE? I don't think Fight Club has been resurrected yet either...

Dreamworks and Columbia have also started doing this.

 

[MatthewA]

My list of complaints by studio (note that these are the sum parts, not the whole, of my opinions):

FOX:
—Dropping a certain TV show for not selling a billion copies
—Eviscerating the commentaries on another TV show
—Slowing yet another TV show's releases to a maddening point

UNIVERSAL:
—Not listing special features on box (where applicable)
—The inconsistent transfer quality (The Glenn Miller Story had a mediocre transfer)
—Basically dropping out of sight until Vivendi unloads them

DISNEY:
—Allowing their film library to be beholden to political activists
—Actually releasing a colorized title
—Eisner hasn't been run out of town on a rail yet

WARNER:
—Very little to complain about. Still waiting for releases of TV shows that are pre-1990

MGM:
—Not greenlighting crucial restorations/reconstructions of popular titles that need it badly

 

[Paul_Scott]

MGM and Columbias & MAR.
- i just can't trust these two anymore and am very leary of hearing my favorite films finally get announced from these two for fear they will be MAR.
and yes, Columbia has wildly regressed in terms of pricing.
i remember when i first got into dvds, the prices on some of their catalog titles not only were the lowest around, the transfers themselves were of remarkable high quality.
they've really gone down
(but i will sincerely thank them again for The Swimmer )

Universal is by far the most frustrating in terms of catalog.
if its not disposable nostalgia aimed at the gen Y market, or color comedies of a certain star (Don Knotts, Doris Day), or a Jimmy Stewart western, seems Universal doesn't see much use in it.
you'd think there were no Universal movies pre-'55.
their genre tv product on disc is also woefully sparse.

another studio that started out with high quality and great expectations and has regressed in a major way.

 

[CraigF]

Some general things, not all studios are guilty:

Not having a standard grid describing the technical details of the main presentation...don't make us search and have to read fine print, or even guess...make it plain and obvious. Also use consistent terms, and lose silliness like "enhanced for 16:9 TV's" etc.: those who care understand "anamorphic", and using the word will make more people find out what it means. Likewise if the other details are clear. Put the stuff in the grid, and save your prose for telling us about the restoration/new transfer etc. if there is any.

If you *know* you are going to release a deluxe/ultimate/SE/Superbit/extended/uncut/etc. version of a new movie at the time you release the first DVD version, and just a very short time later, please tell us. So we can make a suitable buying/rental decision. Like they did with the LOTR series. Fanatics won't care, but casual viewers don't need to own everything, and double-dipping can become/is annoying, possible backlash...so don't get the wrong idea if you release umpteen versions of a DVD and the slightly better/newer ones don't sell that well...

For digipacks: please use hub releases that work, so we don't have to bend the DVD's to get them out. These hubs exist.

For HBO especially: please get a rational pricing schedule for ALL your series. IMO the nice boxes that come with some series aren't worth the extra Cdn$50 they cost over everybody elses digipack series with the same number of discs/running time, or your own for that matter. [The BBC could use some price rationalisation too.]


These are just some things that bugged me this week, while rearranging my discs in new racks, of course I could go on...

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Rhino:
- Adding in extra sound effects to The Transformers (and I've heard they did the same with G.I. Joe, but I haven't seen this set myself.) Poor quality control.

 

[Bill Burns]

Derek hit the nail on the head for one of my biggest pet peeves: 1.66:1 films that are not anamorphically enhanced. Warner Bros. and MGM are the only two "major" studios I know of who continue this policy, which ignores the full potential of the DVD spec. I find it particularly irksome with transfers that are otherwise excellent, because you know that additional resolution would push them right over the top into "demonstration" quality, and of course would make them all the more film-like, which is surely the highest aim of feature films on DVD.

Here's a brief list:

MGM and Warner:

1.66:1 needs to be presented anamorphically. Consider excellent anamorphic 1.66:1 transfers from Disney, Anchor Bay, and others as evidence.

Universal and Warner:

Films shot in 3D need to be presented as such on DVD. Field sequential 3D viewing systems are already on the market for DVD (Slingshot has a system that can be easily found at Best Buys across North America), and pictures such as The Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came From Outer Space, Kiss Me Kate, House of Wax, and others should be offered with both a 2D version (for those not willing to invest in the 3D viewing system) and a field sequential 3D version (so as to best represent the intent of the filmmakers and the picture's history in theatres). Warner's upcoming Dial M for Murder (2004) will be an excellent opportunity to rectify the missed opportunity of earlier 3D features on DVD. I hope they seize it. If Grace Kelly won't sell in 3D, there's no hope for civilization.

Warner:

Snappers. Bad. Keepcases. Good. Digipaks (or as I like to call them, terminal lock paks). Mediocre. Keepcases. Good. The best hub design I've ever found was used by Universal for a few of their Hitchcock releases, including Marnie. It places a powerful lock on the disc, so it won't come loose even when extreme trauma is suffered by the case in transit from manufacturer to consumer, yet the hub gives with sufficient direct pressure and the disc pops free. Even standard keepcases with their "two halves" hub are superior to snappers and digipaks, though.

Disney/Miramax:

While it's fine (and vital) that we can skip the promos at the beginning of a disc, these should either play after the feature or exist solely as a supplement. Automatic play before the feature is a minor, but persistent, annoyance. My copy of Love's Labour's Lost went bad in a very strange way, as well: the notices play up front, but the disc then malfunctions and will not access the main menu or any other content. This is on a Sony carousel. When I play it on a PS2, I can force the disc to skip the notices and "hard" access the main menu, at which point I can play the feature but still cannot access any of the supplements. I don't know why this has happened (the disc is pristine and exhibits no "disc rot"), but it wouldn't matter if I could directly access the main menu from the moment I place the disc in the carousel. PS2's unique interactive menus allow me to do this, but not a standard DVD player's, where the menu button and other skip functions are deactivated until all copyright notices have played and the disc either transitions into promos or the main menu. Activating the menu button during the opening copyright notices would be wonderful. Folks needn't sit through copyright notices on a feature in a theatre until the end of the credits; I'd like to see the option of the same on DVD. That a consumer chooses to skip copyright notices is an acknowledgment that they're aware of them, so I don't see a legal imperative that such notices continue to be encoded as mandatory viewing before the feature. In addition to the annoyance, on at least one feature, as just detailed, this policy has led to an insurmountable disc malfunction that prevents playback on my standard player. Love's Labour's Lost is a Miramax DVD, but Disney owns Miramax and the DVDs of the two labels are very similar in design.

Disney/Miramax/Dimension:

I think that's the proper order: Disney owns Miramax, who in turn own Dimension? Well, whatever the case, anamorphic reissues of Supercop and Operation Condor would be most welcome, with original language tracks and their original Hong Kong cuts. Criterion's laserdisc of Supercop is an excellent example of both a transfer (though non-anamorphic, of course) and supplements package done right for one of these films. Their cut is the American one, but all excised material is presented as a supplement on the disc, if memory serves (I rented it back in the day). Dimension's DVD offers a transfer below the standard of Criterion's, when a bit more effort and anamorphic encoding could have yielded one which was superior. I haven't seen the HK cut of Operation Condor (released under another title over there, and the sequel to a film released here as its sequel, as if that isn't confusing enough), but a friend tells me it's much superior to the U.S. cut. These are early discs from Dimension, so reissues should remain, hopefully, a possibility.

ALL STUDIOS:

1. Be very cognizant of artificial edge enhancement, and omit it from your titles. It easily crops up in telecine, I understand, and can ruin otherwise excellent transfers. Compare the EE-less, and absolutely excellent in every regard, Columbia His Girl Friday to the EE heavy, but generally quite good, Fox The Ghost and Mrs. Muir for an example of how this can even prove problematic on classic B&W films; on newer films, with their exceptional clarity, it is often all the more obnoxious. The worst form of EE contributes hard, black outlines to actors and objects against backgrounds brighter than themselves (just about the worst example I've seen is MGM's Goldfinger). A slightly less annoying, but still very objectionable, form lends soft halos of increased brightness to the edges of these same objects and actors (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is such an example; Fox's Gentleman's Agreement is another). Both forms generally manifest to the screen right of the objects and actors, as if to lend them "relief" against the backdrop. It doesn't; it only mars the picture. Halos can also result from the contrast build-up of multi-generation elements, so it's important for reviewers to differentiate the two as best they can (one is imposed in either the film to tape stage or the encoding stage, the other unavoidable without digital restoration or the discovery of better elements), but whenever EE is added in telecine in the forms noted above, it is a distraction and an unfortunate weight on the quality of the transfer. I'd like studios to make the avoidance of this a top priority. Even content providers we generally regard as the best in caring for their product, such as Criterion, have issued titles with excessive EE (noticeable EE, in other words).

2. Please take care, in the manufacturing plants you use (or, if the disc is outsourced, be aware of the QC provisions of those houses to whom you outsource it), to ensure that the discs are created and packaged in an environment as dust and debris free as possible. The level of filth (ranging from dust to miniscule bits of paper to threads of silicon-like material) I've found on Disney DVDs, in particular, but also some from MGM and other studios is disheartening, and takes some time to properly clean away. Many brand new discs have also arrived with surface scratches and scuffs that cannot be removed. The format is too young to say if such scuffs in any way impact the life of the disc, but when studios such as Universal continue to issue pristine discs (I recall Vertigo and one of their Bob Hope Tribute discs as remarkably spotless), it's clear that the QC necessary for the same is within reach. It goes without saying that all manufacturing plants that load discs by hand should require the use of protective gloves by all who handle the discs and their packaging prior to the sealing and shrinkwrapping stage; fingerprints on brand new discs, bought the day of their release, is a ridiculous QC failure I've found far too often.

Of the above, I'd classify #1, under ALL STUDIOS, as the most important point of all, but everything above continues to keep the format from achieving the best it has to offer.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Disney:
Please stop forcing me to sit through trailers. The Sixth Sense DVD is an abomination. OK, you've gotten better, now I can choose to skip them, but they shouldn't show up in the first place without me asking for them! Also, widescreen films in widescreen please. And though you'll never do it, how about releasing a product and making it avaliable for people to buy when they want to buy it, instead of pressing them only for a limited time? Believe it or not, people are interested in buying discs but don't have money all the time. I lost out on the second wave of the Treasures line because I was broke at the time.

Universal:
If I want to switch from the movie soundtrack to the commentary without going back to the menu, what's the problem?

Columbia:
Stop making me sit through all of the FBI warning crap every time I hit play. Bring down prices.

Paramount:
More extras! Lower prices! 'Nuff said.

MGM (and a few others):
If a film is released with burned-in optical subtitles in a scene, LEAVE IT THAT WAY ON THE DVD! Though not an MGM release, the original Traffic release replaced the optical subtitles with a subtitle track for the Mexico sequences that looked terrible and was very distracting. Fortunately, the Criterion version corrected that mistake and used a print that featured the original opticals.


and, to all studios:

If a film was originally released in mono or stereo, please include that track on the disc. Some of us like to have the sound the way it was originally done. If you want to do a 5.1 remix in addition to that, fine, but much the way I want the original version of Star Wars and E.T., I want the original sound mix. Some of the remixes are very good, and some aren't, and for archival purposes I think the original sound mixes (especially of mono films) should be preserved.