What's the worst DVDs you have ever seen? - Blu-ray Forum

jurid · 10-01-2020, 08:39 PM

I have seen a lot of lists of best DVDs in terms of picture quality, but none of the worst ones

I have a small list of DVDs that I am using to test my setups from time to time (or permutations of the equipment), trying to see if I can achieve a watchable picture. Also, these are DVDs that are not too tiresome to look at.

The first spot takes Criterion's "Branded to Kill" (1999). This one takes the distinction of being the only one-star disk in terms of video quality among 2000+ DVD reviews in list from Widescreen Review Magazine (published sometime in 2000). Quite an achievement indeed. Thanks, Criterion

The second on the list is "Blade Runner" (1997), one of the first DVDs ever made. It earns 5 star for video quality from the same Widescreen Review. It's quite amazing what passed as five star back then. Some VCDs look better.

And, finally, Aliens (1999). Also five stars from the same magazine. Looks much better than #2. You could see the obvious progression in what passed as five stars back then. But some really horrible noise and artifacts. An excellent material to see how different video processors take care of the defects.

These three DVDs refer to three different grades of worst quality. Some video processors manage to pull out watchable picture out of them.

Cremildo · 10-01-2020, 08:44 PM

The Brazilian (R4) DVD of Becket was literally unwatchable. I mean that the image was completely effed up in a way I can hardly begin to describe. The ones for Memories of Murder (2-disc) and 1492 were abysmal in the video quality department, too.

erlinmeyer · 10-01-2020, 08:58 PM

Worst in my collection, but not the worst in quality. Quite the action flick

BBQ1.jpg

BBQ2.jpg

Lee A Stewart · 10-01-2020, 08:59 PM

Paid a buck for it. The video quality was so bad after 10 minutes, I threw it in the garbage.

Bugg · 10-01-2020, 09:16 PM

Republic's THX certified dvd of Highlander.

It was one of the earlier discs released on the format. I remember being in my local laserdisc store a couple days after it released and I'm talking with the store owner and a couple other customers in a group near the checkout and were all complaining about how terrible it looks. Overnight the THX logo which was a desirable thing on laserdiscs, suddenly became a dire warning sign of shit dvds.

RalphoR · 10-01-2020, 09:20 PM

I had a copy of Varan the Unbelievable on DVD. Yeah, it was unbelievable alright. The movie was fine...the presentation? Atrocious.

Eschenpod · 10-01-2020, 09:24 PM

The Hitcher on DVD looked pretty bad, especially all the dark night scenes at the beginning.

sawdustandtinsel · 10-01-2020, 10:14 PM

Raise the Red Lantern is pretty bad. Subtitles are poorly translated and bad doesn't even begin to describe the picture, great movie though.

SillyG · 10-01-2020, 10:15 PM

The Message (1977) on DVD.

It was a 16:9 image squeezed into a 4:3 frame, black bars and all. Absolutely atrocious quality. Easily the worst (pressed) DVD that I have ever seen. Weirdly enough, the menu and supplementary features look fine though.

They included a second disc with the Arabic version of the film (they shot it alongside the English version with some variance in the cast) where the quality was really good (from memory) but there were no subtitles. Absolutely baffling considering that this release was intended for the Australian market.

Not relating to A/V quality, but I hated The Sketch Show - Series 1's DVD release. Instead of including all eight episodes separately, they quite stupidly attempted to stitch them all into a 3 hour feature, cutting the end credits to all but the final episode, and perhaps even more egregiously, they've cut a few of the sketches as well! As this was one of my favourite shows in my early teens, I was absolutely bummed by how badly they screwed up this release. Season 2 was never released.

Serial Mom's initial DVD was also pretty crappy. 4:3 cropped with an extremely dated master. The Blu-ray looks great though. I also found a Turkish dub VCD of Serial Mom about 5 years ago for practically nothing. It used the same master as the 90s (?) DVD, but the dub was one of the worst that I had ever heard. They didn't have a clean version of the soundtrack, so, they just used the music from the opening titles throughout the film to serve as a replacement. Sound effects were also virtually nonexistent in parts due to the lack of a clean soundtrack. The dialogue and performances were overall woeful, and they opted for "family friendly" language in spite of the content of the film.

Katatonia · 10-01-2020, 10:32 PM

Without a shadow of a doubt, Triclops.

I really enjoyed the camp aspects of the movie itself, as with all Brett Piper movies I've seen before. But the DVD quality itself is abysmal and easily detracts from the viewing experience from that alone.

It's a DVD-R to begin with. ...but the entire DVD only takes up something like only 1.5gb or some similar nonsense, and the movie is pressed TWICE on the disc...so the bit-rate is just laughable and severe macroblocking is seen virtually ever second. On a larger screen it only looks far worse. They pressed it a 2nd time just for the "Audio Commentary" track. There is no other difference between the two versions of the movie pressed on the disc, just the "Audio Commentary" track.

Why did they press the movie twice on the disc? Whoever encoded the disc was obviously a complete moron. You almost get the vibe that they tried to do the worst job possible. Virtually anyone with a free encoder could have done a better job.

I have never seen another DVD of such poor quality. Even $1 budget releases are better.

The Fallen Deity · 10-01-2020, 10:52 PM

I'm not sure what THE worst DVD I've ever seen is... But a few that are a strong contender for that title are:

Aliens
Highlander
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The Abyss
True Lies (R1 release)
Die Hard With A Vengeance
Batman (original DVD)
Blade Runner (original DVD)

Thomas Irwin · 10-01-2020, 11:03 PM

Nothing I've ever seen has come close to this.

There were so many macroblocks that it looked like a mosaic. Totally unwatchable. A shame because it's a great show. Thankfully, Mill Creek has come a long way since then.

LexInHD · 10-02-2020, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bugg

Republic's THX certified dvd of Highlander.

It was one of the earlier discs released on the format. I remember being in my local laserdisc store a couple days after it released and I'm talking with the store owner and a couple other customers in a group near the checkout and were all complaining about how terrible it looks. Overnight the THX logo which was a desirable thing on laserdiscs, suddenly became a dire warning sign of shit dvds.

I watched that so much, it got worn out. Those older THX DVDs were pretty much straight ports of the LaserDisc masters and the encoding was primitive back then, so we never got anything of quality until several years later, when there was an actual THX DVD mastering program in place.

LexInHD · 10-02-2020, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Irwin

Nothing I've ever seen has come close to this.

There were so many macroblocks that it looked like a mosaic. Totally unwatchable. A shame because it's a great show. Thankfully, Mill Creek has come a long way since then.

I remember the show. The masters for the show are low-grade video, so it has always looked like a hot piece of garbage and can't really be fixed up. Fun Fact: Brendan Kelly played the Marine, Private Cox, who went toe-to-toe with Sean Connery in The Rock and called him an "English Prick!".

Roonan · 10-02-2020, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fallen Deity

I'm not sure what THE worst DVD I've ever seen is... But a few that are a strong contender for that title are:

Aliens
Highlander
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The Abyss
True Lies (R1 release)
Die Hard With A Vengeance
Batman (original DVD)
Blade Runner (original DVD)

While most of those have aged, they were reference quality at the time, and in turn are nowhere near the worst.

jurid · 10-02-2020, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fallen Deity

I'm not sure what THE worst DVD I've ever seen is... But a few that are a strong contender for that title are:

Aliens
Highlander
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The Abyss
True Lies (R1 release)
Die Hard With A Vengeance
Batman (original DVD)
Blade Runner (original DVD)

Phantom Menace wasn't bad I remember. Doesn't deserve to be on the list..

jurid · 10-02-2020, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roonan

While most of those have aged, they were reference quality at the time, and in turn are nowhere near the worst.

That's the whole point. Early DVDs were measured against late LDs. They did look better than those LDs already. However our standards has shifted. Now these DVDs look like crap.

TheMGR · 10-02-2020, 04:10 PM

A famously terrible disc. Described by various online sources as "ugly", "rotten", "the worst DVD I've ever seen from a major producer", and the "source of a lot of scorn and ridicule" -- you get the idea.

Not only was this in fact a 4X3 letterbox transfer despite being labeled "enhanced for widescreen TVs", and not only was it sourced from what looks like a washed-out, dirty theatrical print, it was laden with every possible problematic video artifact imaginable plus some more that probably hadn't ever previously existed, including a nasty vertical "jumping" in every scene, which not only made it even blurrier, but damn near impossible to watch.

Thankfully the 2012 blu-ray looks fantastic and is one of the best early-80s catalog restorations I've seen on the format.

LokiMok · 10-02-2020, 04:17 PM

The most recent awful DVD I've seen is Kong: Skull Island. Shockingly bad bootleg picture quality from a major studio.

Almost any DVD put out by Fox Lorber or New Yorker Video was horrendous.

I have a lot of early Hong Kong DVDs. They're all non-anamorphic & terrible. I have some put out by Mei Ah that are 4x3 cropped with burned in subtitles.

Special mention must be made of the original release of Powerpuff Girls: Meet the Beat-Alls. Picture quality is comparable to other cartoon DVDs of the time, but the bonus features include a computer virus called FunLove! (& it's in my collection) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1632896.stm

When I bought my first DVD player, there was a promo where you could get 5 free movies by mail. They included: Lethal Weapon 4 (anamorphic), Lost in Space (anamorphic), Six Days, Seven Nights (non-anamorphic widescreen), Stargate (non-anamorphic flipper -you had to flip the disc over half way through to finish the movie!), & Stepmom. I don't know if this was a widespread problem, but my copy of Stepmom was pressed off center so it wouldn't load. I've still never seen the movie (which is just fine with me).

TheMGR · 10-02-2020, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eschenpod

The Hitcher on DVD looked pretty bad, especially all the dark night scenes at the beginning.

I don't disagree that this DVD is far from ideal, and those scenes you're describing do look terrible, but somehow once you get past that, things seem to stabilize to the point where it looks pretty much like what you'd expect a disc from that era to look like which, and perhaps I'm being charitable, is something I can easily accept as serviceable in the absence of any otherwise egregious problems or mistakes.

10-01-2020, 08:39 PM	#1
jurid Active Member Member since:Aug 2020	What's the worst DVDs you have ever seen? I have seen a lot of lists of best DVDs in terms of picture quality, but none of the worst ones I have a small list of DVDs that I am using to test my setups from time to time (or permutations of the equipment), trying to see if I can achieve a watchable picture. Also, these are DVDs that are not too tiresome to look at. The first spot takes Criterion's "Branded to Kill" (1999). This one takes the distinction of being the only one-star disk in terms of video quality among 2000+ DVD reviews in list from Widescreen Review Magazine (published sometime in 2000). Quite an achievement indeed. Thanks, Criterion The second on the list is "Blade Runner" (1997), one of the first DVDs ever made. It earns 5 star for video quality from the same Widescreen Review. It's quite amazing what passed as five star back then. Some VCDs look better. And, finally, Aliens (1999). Also five stars from the same magazine. Looks much better than #2. You could see the obvious progression in what passed as five stars back then. But some really horrible noise and artifacts. An excellent material to see how different video processors take care of the defects. These three DVDs refer to three different grades of worst quality. Some video processors manage to pull out watchable picture out of them. Last edited by jurid; 10-01-2020 at 08:45 PM.

10-01-2020, 10:15 PM	#9
SillyG Special Member Member since:Aug 2019 Location:Sydney, Australia 4K collection:41 Blu-ray collection:205 DVD collection:21	The Message (1977) on DVD. It was a 16:9 image squeezed into a 4:3 frame, black bars and all. Absolutely atrocious quality. Easily the worst (pressed) DVD that I have ever seen. Weirdly enough, the menu and supplementary features look fine though. They included a second disc with the Arabic version of the film (they shot it alongside the English version with some variance in the cast) where the quality was really good (from memory) but there were no subtitles. Absolutely baffling considering that this release was intended for the Australian market. Not relating to A/V quality, but I hated The Sketch Show - Series 1's DVD release. Instead of including all eight episodes separately, they quite stupidly attempted to stitch them all into a 3 hour feature, cutting the end credits to all but the final episode, and perhaps even more egregiously, they've cut a few of the sketches as well! As this was one of my favourite shows in my early teens, I was absolutely bummed by how badly they screwed up this release. Season 2 was never released. Serial Mom's initial DVD was also pretty crappy. 4:3 cropped with an extremely dated master. The Blu-ray looks great though. I also found a Turkish dub VCD of Serial Mom about 5 years ago for practically nothing. It used the same master as the 90s (?) DVD, but the dub was one of the worst that I had ever heard. They didn't have a clean version of the soundtrack, so, they just used the music from the opening titles throughout the film to serve as a replacement. Sound effects were also virtually nonexistent in parts due to the lack of a clean soundtrack. The dialogue and performances were overall woeful, and they opted for "family friendly" language in spite of the content of the film. Last edited by SillyG; 10-01-2020 at 10:21 PM.

10-02-2020, 04:10 PM	#18
TheMGR Expert Member Top contributor Member since:Apr 2018 Location:Canada 4K collection:166 Blu-ray collection:4626 DVD collection:4209	Outland - WB Snapcase 1997 A famously terrible disc. Described by various online sources as "ugly", "rotten", "the worst DVD I've ever seen from a major producer", and the "source of a lot of scorn and ridicule" -- you get the idea. Not only was this in fact a 4X3 letterbox transfer despite being labeled "enhanced for widescreen TVs", and not only was it sourced from what looks like a washed-out, dirty theatrical print, it was laden with every possible problematic video artifact imaginable plus some more that probably hadn't ever previously existed, including a nasty vertical "jumping" in every scene, which not only made it even blurrier, but damn near impossible to watch. Thankfully the 2012 blu-ray looks fantastic and is one of the best early-80s catalog restorations I've seen on the format. Last edited by TheMGR; 10-02-2020 at 08:54 PM.

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10-01-2020, 08:44 PM	#2
Cremildo Blu-ray Archduke Member since:Jul 2011 Location:Brazil 4K collection:165 Blu-ray collection:1051 Trading Score:51	The Brazilian (R4) DVD of Becket was literally unwatchable. I mean that the image was completely effed up in a way I can hardly begin to describe. The ones for Memories of Murder (2-disc) and 1492 were abysmal in the video quality department, too.

10-01-2020, 08:58 PM	#3
erlinmeyer Blu-ray Ninja Top contributor Member since:Jun 2009 Location:Minnesota 4K collection:713 Blu-ray collection:5094 DVD collection:427 MA collection:1726 Digital collection:1776 iTunes collection:2604 iTunes music:732 Prime collection:1300 Blu-ray reviews: 9 Trading Score:11	Worst in my collection, but not the worst in quality. Quite the action flick BBQ1.jpg BBQ2.jpg

10-01-2020, 08:59 PM	#4
Lee A Stewart Blu-ray Baron Member since:Jan 2019 Location:Albuquerque, NM	Paid a buck for it. The video quality was so bad after 10 minutes, I threw it in the garbage.

10-01-2020, 09:16 PM	#5
Bugg Blu-ray Samurai Top contributor Member since:Nov 2008 4K collection:759 Blu-ray collection:1934 DVD collection:145	Republic's THX certified dvd of Highlander. It was one of the earlier discs released on the format. I remember being in my local laserdisc store a couple days after it released and I'm talking with the store owner and a couple other customers in a group near the checkout and were all complaining about how terrible it looks. Overnight the THX logo which was a desirable thing on laserdiscs, suddenly became a dire warning sign of shit dvds.

10-01-2020, 09:20 PM	#6
RalphoR Blu-ray Archduke Member since:Oct 2013 Location:The Forbidden Valley of NE Ohio Trading Score:13	I had a copy of Varan the Unbelievable on DVD. Yeah, it was unbelievable alright. The movie was fine...the presentation? Atrocious.

10-01-2020, 09:24 PM	#7
Eschenpod Blu-ray Knight Member since:Mar 2019 Location:South Florida Trading Score:4	The Hitcher on DVD looked pretty bad, especially all the dark night scenes at the beginning.

10-01-2020, 10:14 PM	#8
sawdustandtinsel Expert Member Member since:Mar 2017 Location:WNY 4K collection:5 Blu-ray collection:716 DVD collection:267	Raise the Red Lantern is pretty bad. Subtitles are poorly translated and bad doesn't even begin to describe the picture, great movie though.

10-01-2020, 10:32 PM	#10
Katatonia Blu-ray Grand Duke Top contributor Member since:Nov 2010 Location:Missouri, USA 4K collection:928 Blu-ray collection:8239 DVD collection:3655 Digital collection:33 Prime collection:106 Blu-ray reviews: 30 Trading Score:156	Without a shadow of a doubt, Triclops. I really enjoyed the camp aspects of the movie itself, as with all Brett Piper movies I've seen before. But the DVD quality itself is abysmal and easily detracts from the viewing experience from that alone. It's a DVD-R to begin with. ...but the entire DVD only takes up something like only 1.5gb or some similar nonsense, and the movie is pressed TWICE on the disc...so the bit-rate is just laughable and severe macroblocking is seen virtually ever second. On a larger screen it only looks far worse. They pressed it a 2nd time just for the "Audio Commentary" track. There is no other difference between the two versions of the movie pressed on the disc, just the "Audio Commentary" track. Why did they press the movie twice on the disc? Whoever encoded the disc was obviously a complete moron. You almost get the vibe that they tried to do the worst job possible. Virtually anyone with a free encoder could have done a better job. I have never seen another DVD of such poor quality. Even $1 budget releases are better.

10-01-2020, 10:52 PM	#11
The Fallen Deity Blu-ray Knight Top contributor Member since:Jul 2011 Location:Scotland 4K collection:348 Blu-ray collection:1226 DVD collection:112	I'm not sure what THE worst DVD I've ever seen is... But a few that are a strong contender for that title are: Aliens Highlander Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace The Abyss True Lies (R1 release) Die Hard With A Vengeance Batman (original DVD) Blade Runner (original DVD)

10-01-2020, 11:03 PM	#12
Thomas Irwin Blu-ray Count Top contributor Member since:Feb 2013 4K collection:- Blu-ray collection:- DVD collection:- Trading Score:87	Nothing I've ever seen has come close to this. There were so many macroblocks that it looked like a mosaic. Totally unwatchable. A shame because it's a great show. Thankfully, Mill Creek has come a long way since then.

10-02-2020, 04:17 PM	#19
LokiMok Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Feb 2016 4K collection:- Blu-ray collection:- DVD collection:- MA collection:- Digital collection:- iTunes collection:- Prime collection:- Trading Score:38	The most recent awful DVD I've seen is Kong: Skull Island. Shockingly bad bootleg picture quality from a major studio. Almost any DVD put out by Fox Lorber or New Yorker Video was horrendous. I have a lot of early Hong Kong DVDs. They're all non-anamorphic & terrible. I have some put out by Mei Ah that are 4x3 cropped with burned in subtitles. Special mention must be made of the original release of Powerpuff Girls: Meet the Beat-Alls. Picture quality is comparable to other cartoon DVDs of the time, but the bonus features include a computer virus called FunLove! (& it's in my collection) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1632896.stm When I bought my first DVD player, there was a promo where you could get 5 free movies by mail. They included: Lethal Weapon 4 (anamorphic), Lost in Space (anamorphic), Six Days, Seven Nights (non-anamorphic widescreen), Stargate (non-anamorphic flipper -you had to flip the disc over half way through to finish the movie!), & Stepmom. I don't know if this was a widespread problem, but my copy of Stepmom was pressed off center so it wouldn't load. I've still never seen the movie (which is just fine with me).

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