Very few will admit a problem. It will only be after both industry and mass amounts of the public complain, people stop buying the disc, and the problem is inexpensive to fix.

DVD-BOY said:

none said:

Let's say they did take their time with this release, what would have been an approximate date for last change? Do they need a month for reproduction of 100k copies of a 9 disc set? How many did the 2004 set sell?

Disc replication could be relatively quick - perhaps just a couple of weeks to produce the numbers required:

http://www.singulus.de/de/optical-disc/replikationslinien/bluline-ii-features.html

This quotes a cycle time of 4.5s on a BD-50.

You're looking at 4-6 weeks beforehand to get stock into the logistic and fufillment warehouses.

You've also got to balance up what other titles are going through as well - Q3-Q4 obviously everyone is getting ready for Christmas.

Again, it's not about the date of the last change, that shouldn't be an issue because they shouldn't be being rushed. There will be a cost involved in how quick the job can be turned around in - ficticous / unrealistic deadlines that have to be met. I have spent months discussing a job in the planning phase only to see the press release go up before the assets turn up , then the client is screaming they're going to miss their deadline.

I guess my main point is that there are different issues which are attributed to different points in the entire process:

Editorial Changes - Lucas

Colour Grading - Lucas / Post Production

Humdinger - VT Ops who didn't runtime the layoff / tape dub

Overbearing Sound Effects / Mix - Burtt / Wood / Whoever

Reversed Rear Channels for 1 Real - Compressionist

If you flag a certain issue further down the line, the question is did your company introduce it and unfortunately 'is it good enough'.

The original Godfather DVD release looked awful, everyone said it was awful and I heard through a friend of a friend that he failed it during QC multiple times because it looked awful. In the end the question was:

Does it look like the Master we were supplied? Yes it did.

Then it has passed QC.

A VT Op should have spotted the Humdinger glitch, but it's not his job to say the lightsabres look wrong, because as a fan he knows they should have white cores. And even if he did, who is going to listen to him?

Same as the original trilogy. Lucas made the change in 1997 and as far as he's concerend it's done. Everything else will be based on that, and that's the company line, that's what everyone is briefed on. Perhaps every once in a while someone tries to suggest a return to the original versions, but probably get's fobbed off by their line manager, or their boss' boss because they know the company line and don't want to rock the boat. These people have jobs and they can't Martyr themselves because the company doesn't see it the 'fans' way.

I knew there was a reason I just read here and keep my mouth shut - when the worst comes out of this community it's like a gang of whining armchair quaterbacks who don't have a clue how 'the real world' works.

I'm not justifying these practises, it's just the nature of the industry and sadly not every studio is like Criterion.

I think I'll go back to lurking...

This is a very good point. It's about getting the product out there and marketing the hell out of it to move a mass amount of copies. The film presentation is really the last thing on people's minds. Besides Criterion, Kino and Eureka/Masters of Cinema you're not really ever going to get painstaking effort by a studio to present films-unless they have already poured a bunch of money into a restoration or new scan. Then they will be more likely to want to make sure that they get their money's worth. MOD services are getting better all the time, and if they move to HD then I think it will only get better. With these titles they have to use the best print from the studio and clean it up like a Criterion transfer. Not the best, but still more care than is put into a catalog release.

And the Godfathers-ugh...they never looked well from the first time I saw them on VHS to LD to that awful, awful DVD set. I gave that away years ago. RH's work on restoring them has got to be freaking near definitive. (Although I wished they had been able to do an analog film restoration, I understand the more cost-effective digital process, but they should have allowed for an 8K scan instead of 4K.)

At least George is only scribbling with his crayons on a crummy over-processed 1080p scan.