Only major studios included in the POLL. Please cast your vote. :D

New Line not included considering their late entry to HDM.

Universal? Maybe if you exclude the boatload of godawful catalog titles.

Disney is generally excellent.

Buena Vista, Sony and then Fox in that order are the top three.

I put a lot of value into not having a bunch of anoying previews before the menu. Disney is the WORST!

Universal goes right to the main menu, right away. Its much more consumer friendly.

Aside from that the when comparing the best of the best for AQ and PQ no one studio stands out. They all produce great and not so great examples.

Buena Vista pretty easily. Then, Sony followed by Fox.

Buena Vista, Sony and then Fox in that order are the top three.

I agree... although the few titles New Line have released have been excellent.

I agree... although the few titles New Line have released have been excellent.

What about Pan's Labyrinth? I love the movie, but I wouldn't mind having the rest of the detail (and grain back).

Disney's stuff is great for PQ and AQ, but the forced trailers need to stop.

Disney. This is not even a contest.

A release with DNR/EE like Scary Movie should knock down Disney a few pegs. Absolutely atrocious.

Dobyblue compiled and posted these numbers on another site. He used the following review sites to generate these numbers as of 10/30/07. www.highdefdigest.com, www.***************.com, www.dvdtalk.com, www.upcomingdiscs.com, www.hometheaterforum.com.

PQ Studio
4.18 Buena Vista
4.01 Paramount
3.97 Warner
3.97 Sony
3.84 Fox
3.80 Weinstein
3.71 Universal
3.64 Lionsgate

I'm not sure how much change there's been in the last 2-3 months. At the end of the day it makes more sense to judge on a title by title basis though.

Dobyblue compiled and posted these numbers on another site. He used the following review sites to generate these numbers as of 10/30/07. www.highdefdigest.com, www.***************.com, www.dvdtalk.com, www.upcomingdiscs.com, www.hometheaterforum.com.

PQ Studio
4.18 Buena Vista
4.01 Paramount
3.97 Warner
3.97 Sony
3.84 Fox
3.80 Weinstein
3.71 Universal
3.64 Lionsgate

I'm not sure how much change there's been in the last 2-3 months. At the end of the day it makes more sense to judge on a title by title basis though.

What's the breakdown with the audio?

I'm inclined to pick Disney, but I have to qualify that:

Most of their titles have been from the past 4-5 years, including a higher proportion of the CG animation movies that have the best video quality. They have yet to release anything pre-1995. So I don't know if it's just that they're selecting titles with better quality masters to release, or if they are really doing a better job with similar sources. Obviously this kind of title selection skews their average score higher.

A release with DNR/EE like Scary Movie should knock down Disney a few pegs. Absolutely atrocious.

The EE on High School Musical 2 should take them down a few more.

Disney definitely makes the "Superbit" of HDM's. They consistently have video data data peek rates near 40mbps (ABR's for video must be in the high 20's to low 30's) while always having 24bit (16bit if the Master was) lossless audio. They use BD's 48Mbps bandwidth to their full advantage.

Disney definitely makes the "Superbit" of HDM's. They consistently have video data data peek rates near 40mbps (ABR's for video must be in the high 20's to low 30's) while always having 24bit (16bit if the Master was) lossless audio. They use BD's 48Mbps bandwidth to their full advantage.

In my opinion, Fox's post-hiatus releases have set a new standard for PQ and the bitrates needed to achieve that. One would think that Disney would do the best they are capable of on something like POTC3, but the bitrate in that one, although peaking very high in the high action scenes, is frequently quite low. Some of the low bitrate scenes look surprisingly good, but others don't.

I am quite disappointed that Sony seems to have decided that bitrates in the high twenties are "good enough." This decision is shown in releases like SM3 and Resident Evil: Extinction.

Superbit was just an excuse not to have any bonus content. Other films had the same bitrate but put a bonus disc with the release

Disney/BVHE IMO easily, even if you exclude the animated films.

Superbit was just an excuse not to have any bonus content. Other films had the same bitrate but put a bonus disc with the release

That is why I put " marks around the word. As in what people's idea of what a superbit was.;)

Anyone notice that in 'Underdog' you could go right to the 'Top Menu' without watching any of the trailers?

That is Buena Vista btw.

FWIW I didn't buy it, or even sit to watch it, but my kids did enjoy it.

I think disney is the clear winner.

BTW, watching Ratatouille tonight, noticed that there were no forced trailers on that either.

:)

I put a lot of value into not having a bunch of anoying previews before the menu. Disney is the WORST!

Universal goes right to the main menu, right away. Its much more consumer friendly.

Aside from that the when comparing the best of the best for AQ and PQ no one studio stands out. They all produce great and not so great examples.

+1

Get to the movie right away

Definitely BVHE, FOX and SONY. Consistently offering great PQ and lossless audio on every BD they have released. Bravo!

As for Warners, great PQ most of the time, horrible support for lossless audio. The days of standard DD is over, please release all your future content in lossless, not like BD doesn't have the space for it.

Universal is hit and miss with their PQ. AQ has gotten better with more and more TrueHD tracks, but still not there yet.

Paramount: great PQ, lame AQ, almost never offering lossless.

Disney has been the best, most consistent of any studio. Sony and Fox have improved greatly over their early releases. And all 3 have supported lossless audio since Day 1. I don't think any others have.

Fox is definitely the worst. Barebones discs at highest price, and lossless audio that 99.9% of the public cannot decode.

Disney would be the tops if they did not have forced trailers.

Universal's newer releases are generally very well done, however some of their poor catalog releases pull them down.

Paramount suffers from their general lack of lossless audio options.

Warner should be commended for their excellent catalog releases, but PQ and AQ are only little above average for their newer releases.

Sony seem mediocre to average in all aspects.

So in conclusion, Fox is the worst, everyone else all have problems one way or another. If I had to choose, I would probably pick Disney/Buena Vista as the best of the rest.

Taking both audio and video into account, I'd have to say Disney, Sony and Fox, by far. They have put lossless on every movie they release and consistently put out high tier stuff.

I voted BVHE, but the real option should read: Disney/Buena Vista.

Brandon

Disney is the hand-down winner. Picture, sound, features, reasonable price, Disney has it all. I hate the forced trailer though.

Sony and Universal offer uniformly excellent picture quality. Sony offers uncompressed LPCM soundtracks on just about every one of their releases for great sound quality. Universal offers great special features. Their pricing is also very reasonable.

Fox has the highest prices and the fewest special features, but sometimes they have great picture and sound quality.

Lionsgate can eat a dick. Up until very recently they were using only MPEG2 on BD-25, and only ported DD5.1 and DTS soundtracks from the DVD releases.

Warner can eat a dick. They consistently have the worst picture quality, with bitrate starved encodes. Their sound quality is better, but visuals are the most important part of the movie experience. Special features are usually pretty good, and pricing is reasonable. But that picture quality, ugh.

I don't own anything from Paramount, so I am not prepared to comment on them.

Buena Vista rocks!

Most of the others are still a bit hit and miss, except for Sony and Fox which have greatly improved.

Consistantly it has been Buena Vista. The most 24 bit PCM audio, and the highest bitrates. Their PIXAR titles are almost perfect.

WB is so-so. They need to drop HD-DVD optimized encodings and go to 24 bit lossless and consistantly high bitrates and stop DNR.

Consistantly it has been Buena Vista. The most 24 bit PCM audio, and the highest bitrates. Their PIXAR titles are almost perfect.

WB is so-so. They need to drop HD-DVD optimized encodings and go to 24 bit lossless and consistantly high bitrates and stop DNR.

+1 and add Universal and Paramount along with WB needing to drop HD DVD and optimize for blu-ray.

Disney then Fox for me

+1 and add Universal and Paramount along with WB needing to drop HD DVD and optimize for blu-ray.
No dropping of formats please.
Optimise for both (2 separate encodes). Competition is good. Choice is good.

No dropping of formats please.
Optimise for both (2 separate encodes). Competition is good. Choice is good.

That works for me as well.

Warner, cuz when you insert their discs they actually play the movie.

None of the above.
All of the studios have issues that need to be resolved.
Disney has forced trailers
Fox is switching (or has already switched) to DTS-HD MA, that almost no one can use.
I find Sony to be mediocre as a general rule.
Universal and Warner are inconsistent.
Paramount has good PQ, OK AQ, and REALLY needs to put out more titles.

J

Universal goes right to the main menu, right away. Its much more consumer friendly.

Exactly why Universal is my favorite presentation.

Doing this from work and can't remember all the studios but here's my order of pref:

P/DW - Transformers
Uni - Serenity
Fox - FF
Disney - like pirates by they're dogged down by java.
WB - like their movies, but don't think they're the best visually, mostly due to artistic intent (batman). OP was asking about AV presentation, not on transfer merits.
Sony - Fifth Element, they fixed it, but it shouldn't have been released like that to begin with.
BVHE - off the top of my head, I can't remember any of their movies.

The "square button" trick works great on the PS3 to skip all of the Disney previews. Is there an equivalent function on standalone players? I ask because I see a lot of complaints about Disney and their habit of dumping 5-6 previews on a disc. But if there is a standard feature that allows you to skip them all automatically, it's really a non-issue.

Maybe some of the folks out there with a Harmony remote and a SA player could look into it?

Oh ya, I voted for Disney also. I really like what I've seen from them in the sense that they don't just seem to be treating this like DVD+. They always use lossless audio, have great PQ and judging by the 2 or 3 discs I've put on my HTPC, they seem to use up the full BD 50. Pirates 3 and Ratatouille were both over 47GB if I recall correctly.

Sony is the real surprise for me. For a company with such a high stake in Blu-ray, you think they would put forth more of an effort. I find their stuff to be mediocre.

BTW, didn't Disney drop the Buena Vista name, or has that not taken effect yet?

I really do not understand why Disney gets so much praise in this area. My most recent Disney purchase was Game Plan. Totally mediocre PQ. I believe my last Disney purchase before that was HSM2. Horrendous EE. The PQ in POTC 1&2 has been seriously overpraised. Why do so many think Disney is the best in this regard?

From the HDM that I have watched, I agree with the consensus that Disney/BV are most consistently the best. I haven't seen Scary Movie or High School Musical 2, so I can't comment on those.

The Sony/Columbia movies are not quite as consistent. There are a lot of great ones, and some others that are mediocre.

Warner is all over the map. Some are great, and some are crap, and some are in between.

The Fox movies have all been pretty good, but I'm slightly disappointed that I can't take advantage of the DTS-HDMA with my equipment.

I haven't been completely blown away by anything from Universal, but I only have a few of their titles. Their BSG season 1 release was great at points, but left me wanting something much better at other points.

Paramount is a wildcard. Some good releases. Very few releases with lossless audio.

Warner, cuz when you insert their discs they actually play the movie.

That's one of the reasons that I absolutely hate the Warner movies. Then you have to bring up the pop up menu and make sure that you have the correct audio track specified. If they would just default to the best audio track, I'd like it.