Zodiac Standard DVD poor picture quality

[heartofsaturday]

Zodiac Standard DVD : This DVD is not faulty but is very poor quality.
It is riddled with artefacts, wobbly bridge and building lines etc and its the only poor quality DVD I have watched on my new 42" plasma.
I have read that the HD version is perfect.
There is no reason why the standard DVD version should be below the normal quality expected from a DVD. I have watched much older DVD's even one's of classic films and they are all fine. I have complained to the web site I bought the DVD from and asked them to you pass these comments on to Warner Brothers - or to thier supplier. I tried to contact Warner Brothers UK directly but could not. I would have gone HD/blu-ray by now but it's a cert I would buy the format which will be dead by 2010! I will continue to buy standard DVD in the meantime. I hope film companies are now not going to manufacture below quality DVD's to try and encourage customers to go HD. It may also be possible that Zodiac is poor quality on this version so that they will sell more of the 2 disc special edition on its way soon - which will no doubt be great quality.

[raigraphixs]

Originally Posted by heartofsaturday

Zodiac Standard DVD : This DVD is not faulty but is very poor quality.
It is riddled with artefacts, wobbly bridge and building lines etc and its the only poor quality DVD I have watched on my new 42" plasma.
I have read that the HD version is perfect.
There is no reason why the standard DVD version should be below the normal quality expected from a DVD. I have watched much older DVD's even one's of classic films and they are all fine. I have complained to the web site I bought the DVD from and asked them to you pass these comments on to Warner Brothers - or to thier supplier. I tried to contact Warner Brothers UK directly but could not. I would have gone HD/blu-ray by now but it's a cert I would buy the format which will be dead by 2010! I will continue to buy standard DVD in the meantime. I hope film companies are now not going to manufacture below quality DVD's to try and encourage customers to go HD. It may also be possible that Zodiac is poor quality on this version so that they will sell more of the 2 disc special edition on its way soon - which will no doubt be great quality.

i dont recall it being a bad image at all myself, i think it was very good and clean, this was my comment on seeing it, ...but nothing about the actual PQ. Maybe if someone else has it will check.

Raigraphixs;
Superbly shot and directed on VIPER digital cameras, with over 2hr20min running time, the pace of the movie is almost
walking speed, no high speed car chases, shoot-outs, but always interesting.

this is from the SD 1 disc review online;

Video and Presentation
As with any Fincher film, the cinematography here is simply astounding, faded and dull and yet somehow exquisitely polished. Zodiac isn't a terribly colorful film - in fact, from scene to scene, it revels in its own darkness - and the often monochrome presentation of the more clinical investigation sequences borders on the tanish-brown version of black-and-white. Fincher, however, is masterful at filling the frame with well-chosen detail and flourishes of era-appropriate d¿cor.

The black levels here are devil-deep and provide a great contrast to the bleak, hopeless images that play out in-between. Despite many scenes play out in the darkness of night - and a view that play out to great effect in broad daylight - the image is always clear, perfectly presented and the transfer considerably above par. Another beautiful-looking version of a beautiful-looking Fincher film.

Score: 9 out of 10

[nwgarratt]

The R2 SD DVD is very poor quality. Along with Harry Potter 5, it is one of the worse I have seen lately.

This review pretty describe it accurately.

The transfer has a look that I can't say I've ever seen before: detail levels are above average, while just about every single shot is marred by a large amount of frozen mosquito noise around complex areas. It's difficult to tell whether this is grain frozen as a result of noise reduction, or compression artefacts resulting from an inadequate bit rate, but it's incredibly distracting either way, and it gives the entire film a very strange look which was certainly not intentional. Given the all-digital nature of the production, it should have yielded a grain-free look, and yet the tell-tale signs of aggressive noise reduction are visible in just about every scene, particularly those shot in low lighting conditions.

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=65986

[raigraphixs]

Originally Posted by nwgarratt

The R2 SD DVD is very poor quality. Along with Harry Potter 5, it is one of the worse I have seen lately.

This review pretty describe it accurately.



http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=65986

interesting, cant say i noticed it i usually do, prob too gripped by the excellent film

[Rom]

Thing is, Warners released it over here, paramount released it in the US. They will have done their own encodes. Maybe Warner were just sloppy with their release. I have the HD DVD version and it is absolutely stunning in HD.

[nwgarratt]

Some people think it is done on purpose to make the HD look even better. I do wonder if they have actually done that.

[bosque]

You can see the worst of the Region 1 SD DVD at the beginning of the credit sequence as the camera swoops over the water towards the San Francisco Chronical building, wobbly building lines etc as the OP says. Compare this to the HD-DVD which is completely free of these artefacts/jaggies. In fact, the HD-DVD has the best PQ I've seen on the hi-def format.

[low-def]

Yes I remember that too. The picture on the R2 dvd is god awful

[hutch]

Originally Posted by nwgarratt

Some people think it is done on purpose to make the HD look even better. I do wonder if they have actually done that.

Im thinking this more and more when I watch newly released DVD's some are absolutely shocking and I dont think its a coincidence that these also come from studios who have released the same movie on a HD format...

[LFC_SL]

And I am being urged to pick the DVD up and watch it for first time being a fan or Se7en...

[raigraphixs]

Originally Posted by LFC_SL

And I am being urged to pick the DVD up and watch it for first time being a fan or Se7en...

nothing wrong with the movie its ace

[A.C.T]

Glad I read this I was beginning to think it was just me! We hired Zodiac to view and I was shocked at the poor picture quality, at first leading me to believe there was something wrong with my projector, particularly a long shot of a street scene towards the start of the film. It really marred my enjoyment of a film I had been looking forward to seeing, and I agree with the comments about the reduction of the quality of the standard definition to push sales of high definition. Hoping this is not the start of a trend!

[discostewart]

i wanted to like this film but just couldnt get into it, it seemed to want to be a sherlock holmes sleuth type film in its set-up, but in reality the perpetrator is more or less handed to the police (allegedly). overall the film seemed well directed it just suffered from a poor concept haunted by its own wish to stay true to the source material.

In regards to the transfer of the sd version in the UK, i doubt it was done to push sales of the HD. More likely the fact that it had, as mentioned, a different distributor over here meant that a low budget was avaiablble than encoding done for worldwide distribution. Whatcha think ?

[bosque]

Originally Posted by discostewart

i wanted to like this film but just couldnt get into it, it seemed to want to be a sherlock holmes sleuth type film in its set-up, but in reality the perpetrator is more or less handed to the police (allegedly). overall the film seemed well directed it just suffered from a poor concept haunted by its own wish to stay true to the source material.

In regards to the transfer of the sd version in the UK, i doubt it was done to push sales of the HD. More likely the fact that it had, as mentioned, a different distributor over here meant that a low budget was avaiablble than encoding done for worldwide distribution. Whatcha think ?

The US release is just as bad as the UK release, so it can't be due to distributors, think it was a rush job and was only improved when Fincher had time to attend to the video quality.

[heartofsaturday]

Result - looks like I am getting a refund when I return the disc.
"I have complained to the web site I bought the DVD from and asked them to you pass these comments on to Warner Brothers - or to thier supplier."

I will now hold off and wait until I can buy the disc HD/Blu-ray. This is when the format war is over.