"2005 DVD Movie Review" by Troy H. Cheek on Apr 10, 2005

This isn't a review of any particular DVD movie. It is, instead, a review of DVD movies in general. Due to recovering from surgery, I spent a great deal of time laying around the house trying to entertain myself. I eventually remember my massive collection of videos. I've got more VHS tapes that I can count, any number of things recorded from cable TV directly to my harddrive thanks to my TV capture card, and (the subject of this little article) a small collection of DVD movies.

Okay, make that a huge collection of DVD movies.

And while watching that collection, I came up with a list of good and bad things about them. I think that any DVD producer who actually cares what his customers think about him should read this list and do all the good things and avoid all the bad things, but that's just me.

GOOD Instant play: With some DVD movies I watched, I can put the DVD in and press play and the movie will play. It's that simple. Only after the movie finishes does a menu come up offering me special features and trailers and whatnot. Or, if I choose, I can hit the 'menu' button and pull up the menu at any time. Example: Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie

BAD Long, drawn out, animated menu that you have to watch each and every time, sometimes going through three different menues just to get to the movie.

GOOD Trailers: I like to see what's coming soon to a video rental store near me. On the older movies, the trailers were something of a time capsule reminding me of good times.

BAD Trailers: On the other hand, half a dozen trailers and commercials and public service announcements before getting to the movie (or even just the menu) is downright rude, especially when they can't be skipped or fast forwarded. This is just too much like some movie theaters, and I have walked out on movies and demanded my money back after sitting through excessive trailers. I plan to avoid those theaters in the future, and if I notice a pattern among my DVD movies, I may be avoiding certain DVD producers in the future.

GOOD Commentaries: Whether it's the director, actors, or the special effects wizards, I like commentaries. On one rainy afternoon, I watched the same movie three times listening to a different audio track each time. This adds entertainment of a whole new level.

BAD Crappy commentaries: I prefer to hear the original audio ever so softly, almost subliminally, in the background. It's almost like I'm in the back row of a private showing with the director and actors sitting all around me telling me their stories. Some commentaries don't let the original audio track bleed through at all. Any time the commentators shut up, the movie goes silent, which is a bit of a shock. Some mix the commentators and original audio at about the same level which makes it sound like we're sitting in the front row trying to talk over the movies. Some fade the original audio out when there are comments and then fade it back in when nobody's talking. That's good, unless it's done abruptly in which case it's rather jarring, or unless the original audio comes in twice as loud as the commentators were just talking in which case it's simply annoying.

GOOD Behind the Scenes: I like special "Making of..." and similar features that are made for the DVD. Like the commentaries, it makes me feel like I'm right there with the people who made the movies.

BAD Behind the Scenes: I dislike discovering that the only special "Making of..." bonus turns out to be one or two "Making of..." shows that I've seen 20 times since I first heard about the movie.

GOOD Subtitles: Sometimes I watch movies late at night when everyone else in the house is asleep, or simply don't want my teeth rattled by the loud parts of the movie. Subtitles lets me read the quiet dialog.

BAD No subtitles in my language: Really, would it kill you to include subtitles for every language track? How about just the primary language track? I watched one DVD which had no English subtitles, and half the subtitles it did have had no corresponding language track. For fun, I listened to Spanish audio while I read French subtitles. And, yes, this was an American release by an American company.

GOOD Special editions with commentaries, "Making of..." specials, deleted scenes, alternate endings, etc.

BAD Special editions that come out a few months after I buy the regular edition. The "special" edition with all the extras should be the only version, not a version put out later to make more money.

GOOD Anamorphic widescreen: For those who don't understand what "anamorphic" means, don't feel bad because the finer points escape me as well. But simply put, even if the movie is twice as wide as it is tall, the movie data is put on the disc as if it takes up the full (roughly square) screen, but a special flag is set so the DVD player knows to squish it or stretch it so that it displays correctly. All the data stream goes towards making the picture look better and not towards padding out the picture, and with the DVD player or possibly the television doing the scaling, the same movie will play in the best possible way no matter which player or display you're watching it on.

BAD Widescreen: If the DVD just says "widescreen" with no other information, I'll probably put it back on the shelf. It may be anamorphic widecreen, but it may also be letterboxed. Anamorphic widescreen lets the DVD player handle the stretching or squishing. Letterboxing puts the movie in the center of the screen, adds black bars to the top and bottom, then sets a flag telling the DVD player that the movie is full screen. Since some of the data stream is taken up by encoding the black bars, picture quality suffers a bit. Also, while letterboxed and anamorphic widescreen look about the same on a standard television, on a widescreen TV the anamorphic video can grow to fill much more of the screen. The letterboxed video has the black bars at the top and bottom added by the letterboxing technique, and then more black bars added on the sides by the television filling in that space. The movie resembles a postage stamp in the center. Example: Spaceballs

GOOD Letterboxing: Yes, I'm contradicting myself here. Some movies are so far away from the standard 4:3 of TV or 16:9 of (most) movies that the only way to get most players to display them correct is to letterbox them.

BAD Full frame: Unless the movie is edited fairly carefully, or the editor was a visionary who shot extra footage, I sometimes feel like I'm missing half the movie. I've seen some examples of pan&scan that almost made me seasick. Example: Star Trek The Motion Picture

GOOD Widescreen and fullscreen versions both included on the same DVD or on opposite sides of the same DVD or in the same package. I can at least take my pick.

BAD Making me pay twice for the same movie just so I can watch it correctly on both my regular TV and my widescreen laptop. Example: Most movies.

Not that I expect any DVD creators to pay attention to this, but I do feel better just getting it off my chest. Now, if you'll excuse me, the nephew just rented a couple of DVD movies and I have to go figure out why the video is displaying sideways.

Copyright 2005 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to