zombie84 said:

It just seems to me that people continued to go nuts over Criterion stuff on DVD merely due to what they did for LD. Even when their DVD stuff was sub par.

Rather the opposite. No one had LD players, so most people don't know Criterion LDs. Criterion is known for doing custom restorations on all their releases.

While the vast majority of DVD owners didn't do LD, I think the 'core' of the DVD 'enthusiast' market did. That is to whom I referred. And I think their opinions can be somewhat infectious and spread to people that never had LD.

I guess you have just had bad luck. I would encourage you to give them a second chance. They are the absolute best company in home video history as far as quality control goes, in my opinion, up there with Warners.

Can you make some recommendations? Either for DVD or BD? I have seen some pretty stellar DVDs in my time (and quite a few 'shops') and I'm not sure if I'm missing anything.

Although I think it's also worth being said, it seems that Criterion specializes in films that are below the demarcation of "common interest"- that is to say that most of their DVD's and whatnot could be considered "special interest". Most of these films couldn't be turned into 'reference quality' DVDs due to poor source material. Criterion in these cases should be championed for doing "the best that can be done" but it would be a mistake to compare it A/V wise to a well done DVD of a modern blockbuster.