Actually, it was mentioned in the first reply. I haven't seen several of the bad transfers mentioned, but I have seen Highlander. It looks as if I'm viewing it through wax paper. Absolutely the worst transfer I've seen.

I'd agree with Highlander...but it was mentioned already. See the 2nd post.

Although I've never seen it, the first DVD (not the upcoming new one) of The Final Countdown has gotten a lot of bad press around here.

The jackie chan releases that dont really feature him that best buy sells for like 5 bucks. I grabbed one of those one day (still dont know why i did) and it is like a 70's film stock from a moldy room captured through a 39.99 usb tv tuner and burned onto dvd. Just the funniest thing in the world. Greatest dvd to show off your HT ... reminds me to find the thing and watch it to laugh at somemore...

Given the DVD purchases that I have made (and granted, they aren't that many), The American President is by far the worst that I have seen.

I unloaded it without even watching it all, and have since picked up the region 2 version, which has a much better transfer.

Russian six hour version of WAR AND PEACE.

Sorry all, but the worst is still

TWINS

Horrible horrible pressing.

Also Rocky II, terrible!

First release of The Highlander, definitely. It was even THX.

Galaxina was pretty awful....

Haven't watched Highlander for a while, but I do remember in my infancy of DVD / Movie infatuation, recognizing the poor video/audio quality of original DVD release.

Laurel & Hardy 2 disc DVD : 14 episodes

Scarface, Christmas Vacation, etc, etc.

And Happy Gimore wasn't that bad.

The WORST DVD Video Quality is "The Blob" (old versioin). It looks worse than a VHS copied off the cable. It is almost unwatchable.

Check it out and you will agree.

I've got some old Gamera movies from Alpha and a Godzilla vs. Megalon from Ace Video/Passion Productions that are horrible, but they're public domain so they don't really count. The Relic , however, is so freakin' dark I thought there was something wrong with my t.v.

Yeah, that pissed me off when I finally bought it. But the CE of Scarface was awful.

I remember one of these threads way back, someone mentioned a DVD mastered from a VCD, thats gotta be in the immediate top ten.

The Criterion edition? You can't be serious. It looks fabulous, better than many non-B-movies of the era.

You must be talking about some non-Criterion version.

I had that original version of Highlander...was not a good transfer. But it doesn't even come close to how bad the transfer is on Hellraiser III. My old, used, 'previously-viewed' VHS is 10 times better than the DVD. Everything that could be wrong with it is there...completely unwatchable. I've had deteriorating video tapes with a MUCH better picture than that fullscreen nightmare.

Good to know. I meant to pick that up early last year when it appeared in the bargain bins and have held out hope it would make it back someday.

Heh, Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time takes the cake, IMO. I think it was the Mei-Ah disc that I had, and holy Jesus, it shocked me how horrendous it was. Besides having positively atrocious image quality, the movie was formatted with borders around it (the picture looked noticibly squashed, as well) and a large gray box at the bottom for the [laughably bad] subtitles.

I honestly threw the disc in the garbage.

Agreed - It was painful to watch.

The first release of Enigma is the worst in my collection, and the worst transfer I've seen.

Oh man I second that, that grey box at the bottom was just jaw-droppingly bad/awful/stupid/painful.

I mean as you said we're already losing image all the way around and then practically a third of the image is eaten by that goddamn box.

The Final Countdown was the worst that I've seen. I ended up buying it out of morbid curiousity, and it was as horrible.

I'll have to say most bootlegs

din ding ding we have a winner
Five Deadly Venoms takes the cake!

[devil's advocate]
I wonder how many posters are confusing transfer quality with source material quality. No only that, how many people would have access to the original source material to know whether it's a bad transfer, or just bad source material?
[/devil's advocate]