News|Movies|BD & DVD|Writings|Other

When I first jumped aboard the high definition bandwagon back in the summer of 2006, I immediately began to notice major discrepancies between the ratings being awarded to the image quality of Blu-ray releases on major review sites, and what I was seeing with my own eyes. As with standard definition DVD, I quickly lost track of the number of times a reviewer would praise a transfer to the heavens, only for me to discover that it was in fact blurry, filtered and/or edge enhanced, or for them to utterly trash (or at the very least remain indifferent to) discs that turn out to feature smooth, natural, film-like image quality. Broadly speaking, there seems to be a lack of understanding among reviewers, even so-called professional ones, of what constitutes a filmic "look" and how to accurately describe the various strengths and weaknesses on display in a transfer. I thought, and still think, that reviews such as these can potentially cause damage to the format (a distributor, for example, might see that a filtered and/or edge enhanced title is receiving rave reviews and therefore mandate that ALL transfers have the same work done on them) and bring the profession into disrepute (by appearing ignorant).

Therefore, I made up my mind to add my own voice, wherever possible, and "call it as I see it". Initially, reviewing every disc that landed on my doormat wasn't too much of a tall order, but, as I ended up buying or otherwise receiving more and more discs, this became increasingly difficult until, fairly quickly, I realised that it would be impossible to write in detail about every single Blu-ray disc I'd seen. This is why I decided to create the HD Image Quality Rankings chart.

A few preliminary notes about my review criteria. Above all else, I favour a film-like appearance that is faithful to the source materials. That may be an extremely rough, grainy image (in the case of the 16mm-sourced scenes in BABEL) or one that is completely grain-free (as in the digitally-sourced RATATOUILLE). The next most important criterion for me is detail - and by that I mean real detail, not artificially induced sharpness. A brilliantly detailed, pin-sharp image with some compression artefacts (e.g. Sony's Blu-ray release of SILENT HILL) will impress me infinitely more than one that is free of compression problems but filtered and lacking in detail (e.g. BATMAN BEGINS). There is always going to be some level of personal preference involved, and the inherent limitations of the source materials may sometimes prevent a transfer that is in actual fact transparent to the master from gaining top marks (CRANK, for example, features excessive edge enhancement that was intentionally added by its filmmakers, but nets a 4 out of 10 rating due to its ugly appearance, and giving it the same rank as CASINO ROYALE would therefore be simply ludicrous).

Above: ENCHANTED is demo quality, the perfect example of how an HD release should be done. (Click to enlarge)		Above: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is the sort of thing you scrape off the bottom of your boot. (Click to enlarge)

It's also important to note that, while the chart was originally intended as a linear ranking system, with each title listed in descending order featuring a weaker transfer than the one above it, this is no longer the case. In the early days, with only a dozen or so titles in the list, this was quite feasible, but nowadays, with over 100, the waters have become much muddier, to the extent that, within each ranking tier ("10", "9", etc...), the actual ordering is alphabetical. You can therefore assume that an "8" title, for instance, is roughly comparable in terms of quality to all other "8" titles, although of course each bracket still includes room for a great deal of divergence. (THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES is assuredly a better "9" than CHILDREN OF MEN, for example, but is ZODIAC better-looking than 300, or are they both comparable in quality within the limits of their decidedly different visual styles?) This is particularly relevant when you consider that different transfers may suffer from a variety of different flaws, making it difficult to judge relative quality. For example, are DVNR artefacts and lack of definition in BASIC INSTINCT worse than the ringing in FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS? How do you measure one against the other?

Finally, I must stress that, while I do happen to think that my opinion is closer to the truth than that of many reviewers out there (well, I would, wouldn't I?), ultimately that's all it is: an opinion. There can be no substitute for seeing with your own eyes and making up your own mind. If you think the standard definition upconverted ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK looks great on your system, then bully for you. I certainly am not about to tell you what to enjoy and what not to, but the list below is, in my opinion, the closest thing there is to a genuine critical appraisal of the relative qualities of the various HD transfers out there.

PS. A transfer achieves an automatic "0" if it looks no better than a standard definition transfer (e.g. the upconverted TRAFFIC).

• Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - Downgraded TRANSSIBERIAN (Icon UK, Region B) from a 10/10 to a 9.5/10
• Monday, August 23, 2010 - PSYCHO (Universal UK, Region ABC) - 6/10
• Sunday, August 22, 2010 - Added English titles for non-English releases
• Thursday, August 19, 2010 - CENTURION (Pathé UK, Region B) - 9/10
• Friday, August 13, 2010 - GLADIATOR (remastered) (Universal Netherlands, Region ABC) - 10/10
• Monday, August 9, 2010 - THE GHOST WRITER (E1 Entertainment Canada, Region A) - 8/10
• Saturday, July 31, 2010 - Removed all HD DVD titles from the list.
• Sunday, July 25, 2010 - AFTER.LIFE (Anchor Bay USA, Region A) - 7/10
• Sunday, July 18, 2010 - LUFTSLOTTET SOM SPRENGTES (Nordisk Film Norway, Region ABC) - 7/10
• Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 36 (Palisades Tartan UK, Region B) - 5/10

(*) - The country in which the version I viewed was released. Broadly speaking, the same encode appears to be used in all territories for which the rights are held by the same distributor (so, for example, I viewed the UK release of UP, but the US release more than likely looks identical). There are probably exceptions, though, so to save confusion I have made it clear which version I have watched.

(#) - This film was originally released on Blu-ray with a high quality AVC encode, but was, approximately six months later, silently replaced with a noticeably inferior MPEG2 variant, with no explanation provided. The rating here refers only to the AVC version.

Lists compiled with the assistance of David Mackenzie.

The compression artefacts in title X bother me much more than the edge enhancement in title Y. Therefore, title Y should be ranked above title X.

I'd disagree with you, but that's your prerogative and mine. Everyone has a different set of viewing criteria: mine is that compression artefacts, while still troubling, are generally less of an eyesore than edge enhancement, filtering and noise reduction artefacts. Once again, I must reiterate that there is no substitute for watching a disc for yourself and making up your own mind about its transfer.

Have you really watched all the films listed here from beginning to end?

Broadly speaking, yes. I get a lot of discs through LoveFilm, and sometimes I don't have the time or inclination to watch them in their entirety. These are the exception rather than the rule, however, and, if a title looks as if it will be polemical, I always make a point of watching it from beginning to end before adding it to the list. In most cases, though, I can generally tell how a transfer is going to rank within a few minutes of viewing.

Why isn't title X in this list?

I can't rate what I haven't seen, and, while I do try to view as many HD releases as I can, there's only so much I can do. If you have a title that you feel ought to be included in the list, and are willing to pay for it to be shipped to me, feel free to email me at whiggles[at]whiggles[dot]com or whiggles[at]ntlworld[dot]com and we may be able to set something up. (I very much doubt it would be worth paying for postage simply so I can add a title to a list, though!)

Where can I get information on why a specific title has a certain rating?

Check out the various full-length reviews that are linked to.