Out-Foxed? Future Blu-ray reviews may be affected by new studio policy
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment recently announced in a message to movie sites that “we’ve gone digital with our brand new online screening room,” which “will be the primary tool for reviewing Fox releases and gives users early quick and easy access to the latest film and television releases along with hours of bonus material that will be featured on Blu-ray and DVD.”
Sounds like great news, right? After all, everything’s going digital. But even if you brush aside the fear that maybe this is another step toward eliminating Blu-ray discs that collectors still treasure and want produced, there are other issues. Reviewing a movie that’s streamed just isn’t the same thing as reviewing a film that’s been released on Blu-ray or DVD. With digital screeners there’s no way to gauge the quality of the transfer to disc, and as anyone who’s watched streaming video can attest, it doesn’t offer the same consistency. Buffering, buffering, buffering, and sometimes weaker picture quality still plague video streaming. Such distractions and interruptions can not only skew our reviews of the video and audio, but can also affect the way a critic responds to a film. This is why, in the past, Movie Met has had a policy against reviewing so-called “test” or “check” discs. We only wanted to review the final product that our readers would be buying, to ensure that our reviews would be accurate . . . and helpful.
Watching a movie on a computer is a completely different experience from watching it on a Home Theater system. Perspective and impact can be altered on a small screen, and I don’t know about you, but MY computer doesn’t have DTS-HD MA 7.1 sound. Even if the signal was “boosted” to a larger TV monitor through devices such as Google Chromecast, you still won’t get the exact same picture and sound as on a Blu-ray release. The quality will be affected each time a signal is redirected. And how can we possibly report on disc playback issues if we watch a new release digitally?
The bottom line? Although Fox has said that they’re not doing away with Blu-ray screeners entirely, their PR company's operations manager told me that “product will be much more limited and we cannot guarantee it on any title”—though she added that they will “do our best to provide” screeners “when we can.”
For commercial sites—sites that make money through the sale of movies and more than the token ads that non-corporate sites like Movie Met feature—none of this will pose a problem. They’ll write up the reviews early, faking it based on what they saw streamed, then purchase a copy of the Blu-ray on the release date to confirm the picture and sound quality and perhaps add comments about the packaging.
But for non-commercial and non-profit sites like Movie Metropolis (formerly DVD Town, the oldest dot-com devoted to home theater news and reviews) that don’t have the money to buy screeners, it DOES pose a problem. For sites like Movie Met, the choice is to fake it by writing an apples review to describe an oranges release, or to be honest and admit that we’re not able to review Fox titles under such circumstances. We’ve decided to do the latter.
We will continue to provide news about upcoming 20th Century Fox titles—that will not change. But because our readers are collectors who are building home theater libraries and who want to know if a Blu-ray release sports a decent transfer and get an honest appraisal of the picture and sound quality, we don’t feel confident that reviewing a streamed copy of the film or bonus features will provide that.
As a result, there may be some Fox titles that we won’t be able to review in the future, if indeed Blu-ray screeners are “much more limited.” That’s too bad. You might say that we’ve been “out-Foxed.” And indirectly, so have you.
-- James Plath (moviemet.com)
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment recently announced in a message to movie sites that “we’ve gone digital with our brand new online screening room,” which “will be the primary tool for reviewing Fox releases and gives users early quick and easy access to the latest film and television releases along with hours of bonus material that will be featured on Blu-ray and DVD.”
Sounds like great news, right? After all, everything’s going digital. But even if you brush aside the fear that maybe this is another step toward eliminating Blu-ray discs that collectors still treasure and want produced, there are other issues. Reviewing a movie that’s streamed just isn’t the same thing as reviewing a film that’s been released on Blu-ray or DVD. With digital screeners there’s no way to gauge the quality of the transfer to disc, and as anyone who’s watched streaming video can attest, it doesn’t offer the same consistency. Buffering, buffering, buffering, and sometimes weaker picture quality still plague video streaming. Such distractions and interruptions can not only skew our reviews of the video and audio, but can also affect the way a critic responds to a film. This is why, in the past, Movie Met has had a policy against reviewing so-called “test” or “check” discs. We only wanted to review the final product that our readers would be buying, to ensure that our reviews would be accurate . . . and helpful.
Watching a movie on a computer is a completely different experience from watching it on a Home Theater system. Perspective and impact can be altered on a small screen, and I don’t know about you, but MY computer doesn’t have DTS-HD MA 7.1 sound. Even if the signal was “boosted” to a larger TV monitor through devices such as Google Chromecast, you still won’t get the exact same picture and sound as on a Blu-ray release. The quality will be affected each time a signal is redirected. And how can we possibly report on disc playback issues if we watch a new release digitally?
The bottom line? Although Fox has said that they’re not doing away with Blu-ray screeners entirely, their PR company's operations manager told me that “product will be much more limited and we cannot guarantee it on any title”—though she added that they will “do our best to provide” screeners “when we can.”
For commercial sites—sites that make money through the sale of movies and more than the token ads that non-corporate sites like Movie Met feature—none of this will pose a problem. They’ll write up the reviews early, faking it based on what they saw streamed, then purchase a copy of the Blu-ray on the release date to confirm the picture and sound quality and perhaps add comments about the packaging.
But for non-commercial and non-profit sites like Movie Metropolis (formerly DVD Town, the oldest dot-com devoted to home theater news and reviews) that don’t have the money to buy screeners, it DOES pose a problem. For sites like Movie Met, the choice is to fake it by writing an apples review to describe an oranges release, or to be honest and admit that we’re not able to review Fox titles under such circumstances. We’ve decided to do the latter.
We will continue to provide news about upcoming 20th Century Fox titles—that will not change. But because our readers are collectors who are building home theater libraries and who want to know if a Blu-ray release sports a decent transfer and get an honest appraisal of the picture and sound quality, we don’t feel confident that reviewing a streamed copy of the film or bonus features will provide that.
As a result, there may be some Fox titles that we won’t be able to review in the future, if indeed Blu-ray screeners are “much more limited.” That’s too bad. You might say that we’ve been “out-Foxed.” And indirectly, so have you.
-- James Plath (moviemet.com)
