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    May 15, 2005
    Daggers Flying Over Review
    Dear Gary,

    just brought home House Of Flying Daggers and popped it into my DVD player and was stunned at the poor picture quality. I immediately went to your Web site to see what your review said. I was amazed to see that according to Suzanne Hodges, “This is one of the most visually stunning experiences on home video!” and “The visually stunning anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 DVD picture is very nicely rendered throughout.” Then she said that the picture quality deserved a 4.5 out of 5.

    I then looked closely at the DVD and saw that only 4.54 GB was used for the main movie––this is just slightly more than would be available on a single layer DVD (4.37 GB). Compounding this is the fact there are four audio tracks taking up 1408 mb/s for a total of just under 1.3 GB of disk space. This leaves only 3.24 GB of space for the video of a two hour movie. “Visually stunning”––I don’t think so. Maybe if it was compressed using MPEG-4 or VC1, but definitely not with MPEG-2.

    Glenn Fralic



    DVD Review Senior Editor Suzanne Hodges Comments:

    First I want to address the quote: “This is one of the most visually stunning experiences on home video!” That quote was meant to refer to the creative visuals (the sets, the fights, the environments, and mood), not the picture quality. I certainly try to remain unattached to creative visuals when evaluating DVDs for picture quality.

    When I got the chance to look at the DVD again, the problems you mentioned were clearly something that I don’t ignore. I cannot say for certain that the 4.5 score was a typo, but it looks like something I would not have a problem rating at a 3.5. While it may be generous by your standards, it is consistent with my style of reviewing for Widescreen Review. I have made a minor change on our Web site regarding the review, and left the original review on the Web site as well. Here is the update that precedes the original review:

    “We have taken a second look at House Of Flying Daggers, since the original review was published. While we still stand behind a positive review, the original 4.5 (reference quality) rating does not reflect the distractions mentioned in the review. The smearing and softness, often related to a relatively low bit rate, can be problematic.”

    This was a difficult decision, as we do not change our scores...even for example while under immense pressure from people who saw our review posted online years after the original (and highly overrated by today’s standards) Highlander review was published. We have discussed this issue over the years, as readers have challenged our reviews. But out of concern that we could completely lose our credibility as reviewers if we were constantly changing our scores, we have opted against it.

    I strive for objective integrity when writing picture quality reviews for Widescreen Review, and I know not everyone is going to agree with me 100 percent of the time. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. And thank you for your support.

    You can E-mail Widescreen Review @ mailto:editorgary@widescreenreview.com

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