Have you guys noticed a drop in dvd image quality in most recent DVDs?

Question

Lately, I found that the image quality on DVDs was lower than DVDs that were released earlier (e.g. DVDs released before HD-DVD and Blu-Ray was launched).

I noticed this on the latest Harry Potter DVD (order of the Phoenix). I actually compared the image quality of the first Harry Potter DVD with it's HD-DVD version, and didn't see much difference, whereas the difference between the HD-DVD and DVD of the order of the Phoenix was obvious.

I was wondering if you had experienced the same, and was wondering if they were intentionally dropping the quality of DVDs to make HD-DVDs look better.

Do you know if DVDs go through some sort of certification, and if there is an organization to report this problem to?

Answer 1

All DVD format are recorded in the same high guilty, this problem maybe dew to your DVD player, old movies will be digitally remastered if made years ago to cope with our high resolution tv's of today

HD & Blue Ray DVDs are a separate kind of format, made up of more resolution and a better guilty which can only be viewed on a compatible device.

Answer 2

DJTonic, you are completely missing the point, and the older a DVD player gets does not degrade the picture quality.  

I definately agree with you H, and some of the first DVD's that came out in the first five years of production were of excellent quality, because usually the DVD was mastered and created after the movie was finished and released in theaters.  Nowadays movie studios are producing DVD's at the same time the movie is being made, and chances are the DVD is already done before the movie hits the theaters!  This leads to faster DVD production, and in order to accomodate this they often don't create the DVD off the best master copy.   In fact this has lead to errors being introduced into DVD's, see the link below.  

The THX standard for DVD's is a help, it insures that DVD's are produced at a certain standard.  It does not ensure the best master film reel for a transfer, but it's a start.  

Really the picture quality is now dependant on the studios, and there is no set standard in the industry. Even HD-DVD and Blu-Ray suffer from this, in fact the first release of Fifth Element on Blu-Ray was widely criticized because it was a worse transfer than the DVD!  they later went back, re-mastered the Blu-ray, and sony offered free replacements for those who bought the bad first release.

Answer 3

I don't think you can generalize.

Although I believe it is generally accepted that there is a wide variation in quality among DVDs (and, for that matter, among HD DVDs and Blu-ray disks). It is also well known that it takes care to "get it right", and that budget issues of DVDs can be of less than stellar quality.

In contrast to your suggestion I have read recent comments on various fora noting that many newer DVDs are exemplary. It has been suggested that these are DVDs where a new master has been done to support release of the HD DVD or Blu-ray disk. This makes sense to me in that there would be little sense in using different masters, therefore the DVD ... unless intentionally made substandard .. should be good quality.

While it's tempting to embrace conspiracy theories ... namely that studios want to kill off DVD to force people to move to HD disks, where there is (potentially) more profit ... the fact is DVD is, and for for a long time will remain, studios' "bread and butter".

So, I tend to believe that while there may be the occasional new DVD that is somewhat substandard, on average, quality is likely to increase because of HD DVD and Blu-ray, not decrease.

It would be nice to get some objective evidence though ... for example, are bit rates going down on newer DVDs?