dvd-4-life

I've been waiting for Mission Impossible s4 and s5 . Plus the recent All-New Superfriends Hour Vol. 2. So I take it if you don't receive them from the studio they aren't reviewed ?

Chas Speed

That's a good question. I recently was looking for reviews of classic fims like "The Big Country" and Walt Disney's "The Three Live of Thomasina" starring Patrick McGoohan and could not find a review of either of them and yet there are reviews (often more then one) of every straight to DVD "National Lampoon" release over the past 5 years.

Adam Tyner

David Cornelius is writing a review of the Superfriends set.

Stuart Galbraith IV reviewed the fourth season of Mission: Impossible last June, but it doesn't look like we were sent a copy of season 5.

John Sinnott -- the editor here at DVD Talk who fields all the interaction with the studios/PR firms and doles out the review copies we're sent -- could probably do a better job explaining the process than I could, but this is the gist of it:

Some studios send DVD Talk everything they put out, and others only pass along those titles that have been expressly requested. (Those lists are compiled by John from what reviewers have requested.) Just because DVD Talk requests a copy doesn't necessarily mean we'll get it, but it generally works out, and John puts forth a lot (a lot!) of effort trying to make sure the site gets in a copy of everything reviewers want. There's really not an editorial decision behind what gets reviewed and what doesn't. It's a combination of (1) did the studio/PR firm pass along a copy and (2) is there at least one reviewer with the time and inclination to tackle it? The popularity or even the quality of the movies/TV shows/etc. being reviewed don't have any influence, and it's probably safe to say that DVD Talk's slate is more eclectic than any other DVD review site out there. Not everything that comes in can be reviewed, though, and not everything we want to review comes in.

Reviewers can do write-ups of titles they pick up on their own, and this does happen fairly frequently. I don't, personally, but it's not of some sense of entitlement. It's just that I only have time to review so many titles a week, and since there are always unreviewed review copies we've been sent collecting dust in Internet Brands' offices, I'd rather support the studios that went to the effort of sending us screeners by helping to clear out the backlog.

Trevor

Thanks Adam.

I've also always wondered, and maybe this is too "personal", but is there any compensation for the reviewers (besides, I imagine, keeping the screeners)?

I occasionally browse other DVD review sites, and feel that we have the best overall review database. (Except for the absolutely horrible "DVDTalk Collector's Series" designation, but that's another thread.) But it is frustrating to not find so many classic titles or "big" new releases not in the database. Seems like adding a couple more reviewers or throwing some more compensation out could make DVDtalk the undisputed DVD review destination (with the resulting hits and ad revenue).

John Sinnott

Thanks for the kind words Trevor.

Adam gave a good description of what happens. In a prefect world I get an e-mail blast announcing a title, I reply saying we want it, and it shows up a week or two before street date. Unfortunately it doesn't always go so smoothly. When a disc doesn't arrive I shoot off an e-mail to the PR rep for that studio and they often send one. Sometimes they "run out" and we're outta luck.

The biggest problem is when a large studio has several PR firms working for them, and there are usually several reps at those firms handling the studio. That's when I start to loose my hair. I've gotten the run around more than once; PR rep #1 says #2 is handling the title, #2 refers me to #3, #3 sends me to #4, and #4 tells me to contact #1. Figuring it can take a day or two to get a reply, something like that can eat up a week or more easily. Then there are the PR reps who I know are handling a title and don't return my e-mails, or the people who say they'll send something out and then never do.

Another problem that crops up is short turn around time from the studios. Blu-rays are especially bad. It's not uncommon to have a title arrive on the street date at IB headquarters, making it impossible to get a review out in time.

No, the reviewers aren't paid, aside from the DVDs that they are sent which they can keep. Once the discs arrive at Internet Brands in California, they are entered into our database that Adam was nice enough to construct. I then either assign the disc to a reviewer (based on their 'wish lists') or put it into the screener pool where any reviewer can grab it.

The discs are usually entered in the afternoon after the mail arrives so the discs are sent out the next day. In a prefect world the reviewer gets them 3 days later, but that's not always the case. (We pay for priority mail but I received a box yesterday that took seven days to get across the country.) The reviewers do a great job of trying to get high profile titles written up before the street date, but if we get the title in on Wed before street, it's mailed on Thursday and arrives on Monday the day before it's available. It's not realistic to expect a reviewer to screen the film and all of the extras and write up a good review in one night, though I know many times when they have.