How Do The Studios Stack Up On Blu-ray Releases?

Blu-ray is expensive. The players are not cheap, and neither are the discs. So when you spend that ridiculous $30+ on a movie you expect it to be of the highest quality. Yet so many studios are pushing out lazy SD content that doesn’t even include the standard features of a DVD release. Having already been burned by the early days of DVD (hey there horrible Goodfellas transfer) I’ve kept a keen eye on what films are worth picking up on Blu-ray right now. In case you were wondering, as I was, Kill Bill look spectacular in Blu-ray format.

The good gentlemen over at Sound & Vision magazine have put together a report card on the movie studios. S&V wanted to call these offending studios out, and hopefully put an end to sad sack Blu-ray releases. Sony, Universal and Disney all did well. Each scored a B or above, with Sony garnering an A-. Sony releases a lot, does great video transfers, includes TrueHD audio and they have a huge stake in Blu-ray. With the PS3 it is not surprising at all that Sony would be at the forefront of quality Blu-ray titles.

ON the other hand The Weinstein Company and MGM received a D- and F respectively. MGM only released 8 Blu-ray’s this year, and all of them are lazy affairs. You can read the full article, which goes into a lot of detail on how the grading system works and why each company gets the score assigned.