Are studios slacking off on picture quality?
 

Just read a review from ign.com of Bourne Supremacy and the reviewer made it quite clear that he was not impressed with the picture quality for this dvd. What is with this trend of releasing brand spanking new titles with inferior or subpar picture quality? I recall Bourne Identity being close to reference quality in both picture and sound, and that was released more than a year ago. So far, I've counted three new titles all from different major studios with average, or below average PQ. I'm watching them on my 32 inch and I can easily notice the significant degradation. I can only sympathize with those with far larger sets.
Elf- New Line
Hero - Miramax
Bourne Supremacy - Universal

You can add American Wedding to that list. It might be the worst picture quality out of any dvd I own, and I own over 400.

The studio's might be doing that because they want to re-release it later in a SE edition. That way there will be something to look forward to.

Thanks. You just saved me $14.95. :D I'll wait to see if they re-release it.

HD-DVD>DVD

Yeah I agree alot of releases have only been average as of late.
Specially on black scenes I see a ton of compression artifacts. Thats why I'm exited for the new format since its supposed to get rid of all of those problems.

I agree about American Wedding ---- no excuse for something that poor.

I think this is just a case by case basis. I don't think studios are intentionally f'ing up. Miramax are just lazy cheap-ass bastards and Universal is flat out the most mis-managed studio out there. Though I can't say I have any excuses for New Line they usually are top-notch.

I really don't think it has anything to do with double dipping or HD-DVD.

What is wrong with Bourne Supremacy? The graininess was intentional, if that is the complaint.

Irrelevant.

This is not about the format. It's about what is put on the format. The quality of the content on an HD-DVD can suck ass too, if a studio wants it to or doesn't care.

I never would have thought owners of American Wedding would get their feathers ruffled over image quality. :)

When the picture quality is as poor as it is on American Wedding, I get upset. Yes, American Wedding did not win any cinematography awards, but the image is sooo soft and the colors so saturated that it looks like a bootleg copy. I actually had friends over watching the dvd and thought that it was a bootleg.

I am sure that is the 'issue' and thus I don't take reviewers who think grain is 'bad' seriouslly:D

I see one too many reviews that complain about the slightest hint at intentional natural film grain. Sometimes a 'soft look' for a film was intended,yet the reviewers bitch about the 'soft image'.

Really you can not win with these grain phobic,soft image phobic,"I want all my movies to look the same and as pristinely crystal clear as possible" people.

Possibly the problem with The Bourne Supremacy is that they tried to cram as many featurettes as they could on one disc. Identity had less featurettes but had DTS. It's hard to judge the picture quality of Supremacy since there's a certain stylized look to it and the shaky camera work. But, I wasn't disappointed with it.

I agree that they may be trying to dumb down DVD a little bit now for the kick-off of HD/Blue-Ray discs. If Joe 6-Pack can't see the difference in picture quality on a standard definition TV, why upgrade?

Well, a few months ago, Robert A. Harris' column over at The Digital Bits was critical of some of Miramax's transfers of late. He mentioned Cold Mountain and Kill Bill: Vol. I as examples.