Who does the reviews at dvdtalk!!!!  

LOL.
Alan, I like your "kiss ass reviewers..." words.

Perhaps THX certied dvds also equates to EE. The facts are:

1. T2:Ultimate edition THX certified with so much EE.
2. Superspeedway THX version with noticeable EE and now the non-THX anarmorphic version with so much reduced EE.I captured 2 shots to prove it.
3. Star Wars:The Phantom Menace
4. True Lies, yuks!

etc....

CH Yeow

One of the head honchos at Fox (Peter Staddon) has gone on record saying he knows no EE was applied to the transfer. I saw a post at another forum where some misguided guy is trying to float the idea that film prints have EE in them already! The online world of HT is truly confused...

I don't take most people's reviews seriously. I do try to understand where they are coming from and that can influence what I think of their future reviews. I can't think of a single reviewer that I always agree with.

Alan, as you point out, EE is easy for many (not all of course) people to miss on small displays. This goes to the point I tried to make several months ago, which is that many reviewers TRY TO HIDE the fact that they are watching the DVD's they review on direct view TV sets. All review sites should say UP FRONT the exact equipment used in the review and if they can't be bothered with that, than at least tell us what display they are using. I think many try to HIDE that they are watching these DVD's on TV sets because they don't want their reviews to be considered irrelevant by the HT videophiles. And of course, they are right. Their reviews would be largely meaningless to people with front projectors.

there's a big thread on TPM EE on HTforum where things are sometimes so much "denied" or "no, it's not, we are right" http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif that it's stunning. They even managed to say that Bjoern ( one of the best expert in video and sound and we are lucky to have him here on this great forum ) was way too much into EE and that in fact it's very rare or hardware induced ... and of course, when a studio rep shows up, don't expect to hear "yeah, sorry, we added EE" http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif .
Btw, would be nice to have a Columbia rep here so we can say something about this issue. Seems FOX and Columbia, then New Line (those three pop in my mind at first ) are EE masters http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Alan, I also like your "kiss ass reviewer" analogy, which can and in fact should be understood in another way http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif , when we think about some reviewers ( not here )... see what I mean ? Oops, you said "kiss ass", not "kick ass" http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif lol!

best

David,

I agree with you about these 3 studios beeing EE masters.
I would add artisan.
I'm glad you add new-line, as I thought I was the only guy to see EE in their latest releases.What a shame!
I used to love buena vista's releases and was all the more disappointed with unbreakable as I liked this flick (did you talk about bad taste?!).

However, I am happy to see that reviewers start talking about EE, at las (even DVDfile).
I think we're going in the good direction.Maybe some day, studios will listen for their customers!


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Stef.

salut Stephane! http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif

yes, EE is more and more criticez, rightfully BUT it appears more and more new releases !!! so the message is not going right up to the studios!!

seems encoders or whatever should need some special teaching http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Not to pat ourselves on the back, but I would just like to say something about the poilitics involved in reviewing these films as we do at www.dvdmg.com. We believe we have the best equipment to review these movies on and we do so in two formats. We use the elaborate FP setup with a Sony G90 9 " crt with a 100" screen and we also review many films with a 36" Wega XBR that is more within the mainstream of what most HT enthusiasts have. We include commentary on EE with pretty much every DVD we review these days. We are also very critical -- TPM only got a B from us for visual quality -- that's four levels removed from reference perfection (A+). The politics comes into play when the studios request or peruse our reviews (yes, their publicists do read them) and report back to their client. They have unlimited tolerance for bad reviews when it comes to the movie's content, but it seems they are very touchy about negative comments made with respect to the quality of the DVD itself and in particular the authoring process. We are sometimes snubbed by studios who consciously will support other sites by giving them material ahead of us since they know a better review is likely to come out first. They always come through eventually and allow us for the most part to review prior to street date, but not always with the same window other folks have which leads into Alan's point. I can't certify this of course, just a feeling we get sometimes from some of the studios.

I dunno, I've seen some really ill-informed, uneducated, and simply wrong reviews every place I go. I don't think it's fair to point out just DVDtalk.

-- Robert

Mike,

This is precisely why I follow your reviews in particular. If you say a DVD looks great then I can rest assured that this will be the case when I watch it on my NEC 8" CRT projector.

So I simply stay with a source of information that I know I can trust.

--Jerome

[This message has been edited by jsaliga (edited 09-29-2001).]

The reviewer's name is listed at the top of the review, above links to other Star Wars sites. If you click on his name it takes you to his bio, which lists his system:

Toshiba TWX80 16 x 9 RPTV
Onkyo 575 DTS/DD Receiver
Toshiba 2109 DVD Player

Seems sufficient to spot EE.

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Steve

I don't know that trashing one review source or another isn't a good way to get some change.It may well be a very good way! If the DVD transfer is reference quality then this should be getting the highest rating ,if not then we should know. I mean what is the reason for these evaluations in the first place! Each of us has seen discs that we know are as good as it gets as far as transfer quality is concerned. After that we know what DVD is capable of giving us. When we see a film which we are eagerly awaiting and it hasn't been given the kind of effort we expect it can do nothing but disappoint.
I think that DVD reviews should include categories such as digital artifacts,EE, film based artifacting etc and then at least a 1 to 10 scale to allow some sort of differentiation. To some of us say a 7 or 8 on the EE scale would be invisible. I've noticed that WSR doesn't give out 5 out of 5 so much anymore but go back just six months and many of these 5s are obviously not reference quality stuff.
First A,B,C or 1 to 5 just isn't adequate for most of this. Also consider the way WSR ,as an example, rates the transfer. "Will surely please" or has "some edge enhancement" or shows some edge enhancement but "it isn't bothersome". What in the world do these mean. When reviewing a film subjective critique must be the way but video transfer could be done much more objectively.

Mike

Hi

I enjoy the dvdmg reviews, especially yours with the superb set up you have ( question: is it you who review some dvd on IMDB ?? ). I understand what you said, having a pretty much ideas on which site or reviewers get a good tap on the back http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

cheers

I am beginning to suspect that EE is being used as an explaination for:

1. Mis-Convergence in 3 gun CRT PJ's.

About 75% of the HD/widescreen sets have been FPTV and RPTV. Getting a 100% convergence on 100% of the image is not easy. If the convergence is only 2% out, it will give objects in the image a "ring" or "halo" which many times can be mistaken for EE.

2. Contrast set too high.

Again, all the white level has to be is about 5% too high and it starts to bloom. Most people do not like to have the white level (contrast) where it is supposed to be whrn using a test DVD due to the very dim brightness of the image.

3. The Chroma Limit of DVD.

Though DVD is a major improvement over VHS with its 240 line res for color information, it is nowhere near the B&W resolution of 480. The color info is not has defined and even though people are using fancy scalers and multipliers, this low chroma resolution does show up. Again in the case of blooming, it can look like a "halo or ringing."

Have you noticed that people rarely if ever mention EE when it comes to HDTV? Though #'s 1 and 2 above can be prevelant, # 3 is not due to the very high resolution of both the color and B&W signals.

Lee

Lee:

I can't speak for others naturally, but I have to believe that most people here are pretty well educated about EE and the lack of convergence and the difference between them. My PJ is 100% dead on accurately converged and it's tweaked every so often just to make sure. Of course, the great thing about the Sony G90 is you hardly ever have to converge because of their rock solid stability. The EE most people notice is either source related or made worse by the analog to digital to analog chain. Pure and simple, although I readily admit that rarely do people using different different display devices or processors ever agree on the level of distraction it causes.

I know this thread didn't start out to be another EE thread so I don't want to make it into one. I was simply using EE as one of the many variables which should be evaluated and reported in a DVD review. I certainly can tell the difference between EE and a misconverged image! I think it also needs to be stated that I have DVDs in my library with essentially no EE.There aren't as many as I would like however. And yes my HD has none. I know what a good transfer looks like on my system. I believe reviewers just aren't considering this.

So lets go back to the original post by Alan. On the HT Forum Peter S.who is head of Fox Home Video, as quoted on this forum stated that TPM has no EE. None was introduced into the transfer.

So if no EE was introduced, what are people calling EE?

Lee

Either he's stating an incorrect opinion or people are referring to the outline ringing around objects rather than the artificially sharpened edges seen in high contrast shots, which is different than edge enhancement although it does induce the same effect as well. Ringing can occur from a variety of source problematicals. Edge enhancement is a factory induced process on the disk itself. EE does causes ringing however in certain poorly done transfers. So, if this guy is right and no EE was applied yet we have ringing -- then other artifacts are being introduced into the process and is being interpreted by the decoder as an outline that feeds into the display and onto your screen.

I remember have read on the HT forum a thread by a guy from fox stating they seemingly didn't add any EE to the dvd of diehard with a vengeance and that it was probably in the original master.WOW, if it's not EE, so what is it?I have the R2 release and I can tell you for sure it has almost no EE ( DNR use, yes but not that ignoble EE we find on the R1 release).
I suppose every man reacts differently about EE.
a friend of mine, for instance doesn't care for EE at all and hardly sees it on the worst dvds(even when I point it out).




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Stef.

I don't know that we could reliably determine the cause of the flaws in TPM without knowing more about how the DVD was mastered.

For example, if a film master was used, what we are calling EE might actually be ringing in whatever digital display was used to generate the film frames. This is likely the case, as the normal DVD mastering is done with interpositives.

If TPM was a direct digital transfer as with A Bug's Life (and such digital transfers are very much the exception not the rule) then it's likely what we are remarking upon is actually EE, but whether it was applied in the final DVD master or in some earlier CG step is still not clear. For example, I only saw the film in a theater once, and it was via a film projector not a digital projector, and frankly I don't remember if EE was present then or not.

Gary

more and more on the HTF you can find reasons for asking yourself what the f... are they saying?? are all dvds so perfect ? no more freedom to critic majors? EE is a myth and therefore does not exist ? pathetic I say !!

a good recent example is the discussion on the GODFATHER trilogy, which disappoints as Paramount kinda failed with the compression and the sound too ( a PCM mono or even a dts remaster would have sounded MUCH better: mono suffers horribly from low kbps tracks ).

Mike does no reviews for IMDb. I do (and sometimes Peter
Simeon). We always judge quality in several areas so people
see how the overall rating is computed.
Michel Hafner