Which Studio brings us the best DVD's? Tell which ones you like the best and why. Also then tell us which ones you don't like and why. this is totally my opinion of the DVD's I own at home. Universal-Great DVD's. Most of the time comes with DTS and DD. Has great menus and nice features. Seems like always a choice of WS or PS (I never buy pan and scammed). Some of the older DVD's like Casino are lacking though. New line: The old new line crappy-snappy DVD's were only decent, but it seems they are now moving towards providing the better cases, DD-EX and DTS-ES, the infini films have great features. The "new" new line looks much better. Columbia/Tristar: first releases are pretty good, then later on come out with great SE's, then superbits (Do we really have to buy 2 copies of these movies?). But even the first releases have nice features and are wide screen. Paramount: OK DVD's. Where is my SE DTS-ES braveheart...no where to be found. Some of the movies are not done well at all. Dreamworks: Probably the best, at least in my collection. All my dreamworks (I think, i'm not near my collection) have DTS and DD. They also have widescreen and fullscreen (not that anyone wants FS anyway!) and have great menus and features. Fox: Good DVD's also on first release, but in no way compare to the Five Star collections, dislike the previews though. Warner Bros: the ONLY DVD's I frown on every time I buy them. Crappy-snappy cases are garbage. Over the years the cardboard gets worn and looks like trash. Why have these horrible cases anyway, they don't allow 2 disc sets and they are not even the same size as the rest of the DVD's. NO SE's that I can think of, NO DTS that I can think of. I could be wrong here and if I am, please please point me towards these SE's. They always come with just a few features. Warner Bros has such great movies, why not make better DVD's. The matrix for example, if you made a SE DTS version of this everyone would buy it, but instead you make a matrix revisited, so we have to buy it for all the features. Why not just make a 2 disc set, one disc with the movie (with DTS) and the next disc with all the features. WB definitely needs to do something about these DVD's they make. I've got a huge collection of just mediocre DVD's from WB, I guess they know that we will continue to buy them regardless of the quality.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment - New pan & scan/open-matte policies for a number of titles. Great special editions when they put forth the effort but a lot of titles feel underproduced for the asking prices. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment - Caving into the "Wal-Mart" crowd and creating new DVDs with pan & scan/open-matte transfers. But when they do DVD, they do it pretty dang good. From Hell, The Abyss - FULL Special Edition, Independence Day - Five Star Collection, and Joy Ride are some great DVDs. Can't wait for Speed - Five Star Collection but I don't want the inevitable Speed - Pan & Scan version. Paramount Home Entertainment - Terrific video transfer for many of their 16:9 enhanced releases. Regarding Braveheart...PHE got Mel Gibson to record a new commentary for this one. Not to mention the awesome Special Collector's Editions for Forrest Gump, Fatal Attraction, and Beverly Hills Cop. Plus they paid to create the Director's Editions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Columbia Tri-Star Home Entertainment - What is up with all the labels?! Superbit, Superbit Deluxe, Limited Edition, Deluxe Edition, etc. Not to mention a number of well-loved titles getting pan & scan/open-matte releases. I wished they went back to focusing on creating great DVD product. Universal Home Video - Finally price drops for a number of titles! However the wait on some titles is too long and frustrating. Especially when they announce a title then announce a delay. Warner Home Video - Too many good titles still stuck in pan & scan/open-matte hell. They do have terrific special editions but the choice not to enhance 1.66:1 films for 16:9 displays is not a very good one. MGM Home Entertainment - Great prices on a number of releases but again no support for 16:9 enhancement for 1.66:1 films. Another problem is that they "surprise" consumers too many times with "special edition" re-issues. Causing a lot of consumer uneasiness and confusion. Dreamworks Home Entertainment - They provide what the consumer wants. The price drops are also pretty welcomed. Not enough of a catalog to really pit them against the other major distributors. dts & Dolby Digital mean nothing if a film is not properly presented on DVD with as beautiful a video transfer as possible and with as great sound as possible.
