Commentary

"My Personal View Of the Whole DVD Picture"

Review: By (Wayne "I'm Mad As Hell And I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore" Klein)

(Photo's) by "Fotosearch"

(Wayne Klein) Relaxing At Home.

(2008) is almost behind us and so it's time to look back at the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to the studios, DVD and Blu-ray releases. 2008 is most notable for what might be a pyrrhic victory of sorts as HD-DVD officially went the way of the Dodo and Blu-ray won an unnecessary format war that divided and confused consumers damaging the viability of the Blu-ray format. What's more while prices did come down as a result of this format war, few people were buying and those that did were confused over the necessary online upgrades when Sony released a format what wasn't truly consumer ready yet to prevent Toshiba from winning the home video format war for the second time. ***

The Good: The best releases and studios this year played musical chairs except for the top spot which continues to be occupied by Warner Home Video the undisputed king of pleasing their customers, providing the best content and most value for consumers. Warner at the end of the last year decided to stand behind Blu-ray and, regardless of the reason for that, they came through just as they did when DVD was launched by introducing some of the best Blu-rays on the market while continuing to define excellent in the DVD market. Not only that but Warner delivered to consumers providing Blu-ray discs at the lowest retail cost of ANY major studio including Sony. ***

A special shout out to Universal Studios for Most Improved Studio Award. Universal has taken on it on the chin from me and been sucker punched (sometimes deservedly) by other critics over the years for their lackluster DVD releases. While they initially stood behind HD-DVD and ignored Blu-ray (how could they not? They were owned at one time by Toshiba which marketed HD-DVD) but once they jumped on the bandwagon they made up for lost time by introducing a number of strong Blu-ray releases. That's not why they made the list this time though. It's because I've seen a marketed improvement in some of their regular TV On DVD releases over the years. For example, "Night Gallery: The Complete Second Season" came with featurettes, commentary tracks and a gallery of the artwork for the show. This three years AFTER they release the first season on DVD which only had second and third season episodes as extras. To circle back to the Blu-ray releases, they made up for lost time by introducing excellent Blu-rays for "The Mummy", "The Mummy Returns", "The Incredible Hulk", "The Thing" (although it was flawed by NOT including the entire documentary in the U-Control interactive format they still made the effort to include extras ported over from the previous release) and other strong catalog and new releases on Blu-ray. ---

The Bad: Sony wins this one by releasing the Bond films on Blu-ray WITHOUT any major support online at the time of release for updates to run the discs. They dropped the ball (not the first time) and did a lousy job of making sure that those who license their product keep it updated so that it can play -take responsibility for your actions and require all content providers to have an update as an extra on each new release disc and then phase them out as new updates become available. Here's a clue Sony if you rely on the consumer to download updates to fix problems because the company released a format that wasn't ready for the consumer market, they won't do it because they'll forget, assume it's the disc and return to retailers or are too lazy themselves. It's your product and the success or failure of Blu-ray as a high def market is being challenged by downloads (even though they aren't true high def--consumers don't know that). You have to make this consumer friendly and that means accepting responsibility for screwing up, providing a solution that works and moving on to prevent it from occurring again. This was your mistake by rushing a product that wasn't finished to market to win a format war that was absolutely unnecessary and was dictated by greed. You can't assume that the consumer sees the big advantage of Blu-ray in an economy that is mired in a recession and, perhaps, is on the brink of a depression. The quality difference between DVD and Blu-ray while evident to techno geeks like me or others becomes pushed to periphery when the shrinking value of what's in their wallets sits smack tab in the middle of their line of sight. You must make the format economically attractive on both sides from hardware to content. While you can't dictate what other companies charge, you can lead the charge by lowering your prices on both to reasonable levels in an economy that is grinding to a halt. This isn't 1996 and Blu-ray could become the NEXT SACD or DVD-A. ---

The Ugly: Blu-ray prices are too high from every manufacturer EXCEPT Warner. I'm not suggesting that you release these as bare bones discs either just to increase your profit margin. If you want Blu-ray to succeed in a market where DVDs can be had for $6.00 in some cases, you have to be competitive. The only way consumers are going to SEE that Blu-ray is better if you price is competitively so consumers can see that fact.

The other ugly thing is double and triple dipping your consumers. CBS/Paramount wins the Big Ugly Award this year for treating the loyal fan and consumer like crap. Not only do they abandon their high def release of "Star Trek: The Original Series" after HD-DVD goes belly up but they proceed to release it in standard DVD at inflated prices and come up with a minimum of new special features forgetting to even port over some of the others from the 2004 release of the series. Yes, the new visuals are stunning but why not get it right and release it on Blu-ray at the same time? ***

CBS/Paramount wins another BIG UGLY AWARD for "The Wild Wild West: The Complete Series" for repacking the entire four season run of this popular 60's TV show with the 80's TV movies that fans have been clamoring for available ONLY in the box set at this time. The TV movies weren't great to begin with but they should have been release with one movie each to the third and fourth season as extras along with their TV teasers. What's more Paramount released them claiming that they have been digitally cleaned up when, in fact, the TV films look like hardly any effort was put into their digital transfer with white splotches and analog artifacts all over the place. ***

To add insult to injury CBS/Paramount takes the series and puts it in a box the size of a game with cruddy packaging that will allow the DVDs to be damaged separated only by crude little cardboard inserts. The packaging looks like it was designed by a drop out from Design 101 with packaging that my 10 year old son could have designed better. How do I know this? Because I asked him how he would have designed it--he suggested the saddle bag packaging could have been great with plastic sleeves for the individual discs to slide into or that the set could have been designed as a pair of holsters with plastic sleeves. He then suggested that each could have been decorated with a sticker with the title of the show, pictures of Robert Conrad, Ross Martin, Michael Dunn, Charles Aidman, Victor Buno and other co-stars over the years. ***

Best Example of Destroying a Franchise-20th Century-Fox for "The X-Files" movie.

Final Words:

Final Words, A summary of some of the good, the bad and the ugly plus a top ten of DVD/Blu-ray releases for 2008. ***

Best Studio for DVD/Blu-ray: Warner Home Video.***

Special Recognition Award: Walt Disney Home Video/Buena Vista Home Video for the exceptional restorations/Blu-ray transfers for the classic Walt Disney titles.***

Dumb Move of the Decade Nomination: Sony Home Video for releasing the Bond Blu-rays without updates being in place. This is where including updates on an additional disc for Blu-ray users would be helpful AND it would insure less frustration on the part of consumers.*** Honorable Mention: Universal Home Video for Best Improved DVD/Blu-ray Releases Worst Studio: 20th Century Fox for the pricing of their Blu-ray products.***

Worst Studio: CBS/Paramount Home Video for treating the consumer badly and poor packaging design for "Star Trek: The Original Series" and "The Wild Wild West: The Complete Series"--a tie with Lionsgate for releasing ALL "Speed Racer" the TV series in half season sets and then releasing the entire series after fans had already purchased it. You're both on the naughty list.***

Top Ten Recommended Boxed sets for the Holidays:

1. "Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection" (MGM Home Video)-A hefty DVD boxed set with classics from the silent era ("The Lodger") to the Selznick era ("Rebecca") and the Hitchcock era (where Hitch had more control over his films such as "Notorious" and "Lifeboat") makes this a top notch choice for lovers of classic suspense films. We get new transfers and extras for "Spellbound", "Notorious", "Rebecca", "The Lodger" and some one so-so Hitchcock film that hadn't been released previously ("The Paradine Case") a film that Selznick constantly rewrote minutes before shooting began.***

2. "Planet of the Apes 40th Anniversary Collection" (20th Century Fox Home Video)- We get all five original "Apes" films plus all the extras from the previous DVD collection with the exception of the live action and animated TV series. Although the transfers could have used a bit more contrast they look, on the whole, quite remarkable. Fox has cleaned up the films without overprocessing them for Blu-ray debut. ***

3. "Night Gallery: Season Two" (Universal)-Universal dropped the ball with the previous DVD release of this popular horror TV show from the 70's. I'm pleased to report that they stole it back providing fans with an excellent second season collection featuring commentary tracks and featurettes on the show. Great job guys! ***

4. "Get Smart: The Complete Series" (Time/Life-Warner Home Video)-A clever TV series from Buck Henry and Mel Brooks that kept audiences laughing by parodying the spy genre (Brooks first "official" parody), the Complete Series has numerous extras and sparkling looking transfers. ***

5. The Universe Collector's Set (BBC/Warner Home Video)-A terrific TV series about how all of this came to be and the oddities that surround our cozy little island of tranquility, "Universe" will make you appreciate the world we live in when you discover how hostile the rest of the cosmos is to life. ***

6. "The Godfather Trilogy: The Coppola Restoration" (Paramount)-A marvelous job with Robert Harris at restoring this classic trilogy of films is a highlight of this set. The first film was in amazingly bad shape having been pulled apart for Coppola's "The Godfather Novel for Television" and then put back together incorrectly using inferior products. Coppola provides us with marvelous commentary tracks and we get all of the extras from the previous sets ported over plus brand spanking new ones. The most important thing to keep in mind that these films were always grainy to begin with and since Gordon Willis often tried to use minimal fill lights, the f-stop was constantly pushed which resulted in the grainy look that we see here. That won't change because that's the way that Coppola and Willis wanted the film to look like but this beautiful restoration (which was designed NOT for home video but for theaters). ***

7. "Mad Men" (Lionsgate) (Either Blu-ray or DVD although the DVD has the better packaging) in the Zippo lighter packaging was both cool looking and a perfect compliment for one of the best shows on television. ***

8. "Supernatural: Season 3" (available either on Blu-ray or DVD) I've only seen the DVD edition of this season but, as with previous seasons, we get some terrific episodes and some terrific extras. Although not quite as comprehensive as some previous sets in terms of extras, the third season had enough to keep fans coming back for more. What matters, though, is the quality of the shows themselves and they tend to be terrific particularly the episode about the Anti-Claus which the boys believe make be attacking people and taking them away because they were on the naughty list (it's a little more complicated than that but I won't go into it because it's a spoiler for an outstanding, creepy episode). ***

9. "How the West Was Won" (Warner Home Video)- A terrific restoration for a film shot in a rare process that is the 20th century equivalent of Imax, Warner did everything right for this set including tracking down folks who worked on the film to provide a commentary track and some pretty cool extras all on two discs presented in a "book" format. ***

10. "John Adams" (HBO Home Video)-A terrific mini-series with strong performances also got a deluxe treatment for its home video release. While HBO has made some very questionable decisions over the last two years (cancelling "Deadwood" before its conclusion, cancelling "Rome" and forcing the writers-producers to compact a series that should have run four years into two, green lighting the idiotic "In Treatment"), producing this mini-series was one of the few moves the cable channel made that wasn't bone headed. ---

Final Words:

I would love to give you some idea about the "300 Deluxe Edition" or "I Am Legend: Deluxe Edition" but Warner hasn't forwarded copies of either set for review. I'd recommend more Fox sets but Fox has a bad habit of sending only one or two discs or burned DVD-R's. My New Year's Resolution is NOT to give Fox titles good reviews until they begin sending out the finished product. I have listed at here some of the worst releases below. ***

Boo and Hisses Awards to: 1. Patton-Paramount Home Video-Great movie, lousy transfer from Fox.***

2. Gangs of New York-Miramax Home Video-Once again a lousy transfer.*** 3. Dark City-Miramax Home Video-Exceptional film, lousy transfer.***

4. Clear and Present Danger-Paramount Home Video-A so-so transfer for a spectacular action film.***

5. Any studio that double dips consumers. We're in a recession folks and these individuals have chosen to BUY your product NOT pirate it. Treat them right.***