User reviews.

[Tony K.]

Editor reviews are nice and all since they do have training and knowledge for the technical aspects and analyses of BD. Not to mention, on occasion, the ability to write some pretty good movie interpretations. But there's always room for another opinion. Hence, the user review. Looking through some of 'em, however, I'm pretty sickened by the lack of detail, poor structuring, and apparent dismissal/obliviousness of basic English grammar/spelling that 90% of 'em seem to have. And yet, despite some of the really good reviews, you still see some of the itty ones ranking higher.

So I wanna' ask a few things:

1) Do you find user reviews relevant in the first place? If so, why or why not?

I personally read 'em more often for technical analyses of video transfers and audio quality. Movie reviews will always be subjective and opinions will vary from person to person. But even still, people can use completely blatant and unsupported one-liners, resulting in a natural, communal down-vote, which I'm sure we can all at least agree on that.

I don't expect every review to be a short essay since we all have different levels of intelligence, enthusiasm, and writing skill. But some kind of effort would be appreciated, don't ya' think? "the audio rockzz!!!" or "THIS IS REFERENCE" doesn't tell me squat. I want better, or at least more slightly-informed-sounding, opinions on why people think such and such BD is good or bad. Is that too much to ask for?

2) What kind of reviews to you prefer, short or long? Why or why not?

I started writing my own reviews as a way to make up for some of the ittier ones. At first, I didn't wanna' make 'em too long because I had this obsessive/compulsive tendency of making one paragraph per field. Though recently, I find myself starting to get more and more into movie interpretations resulting in several paragraphs per movie review now.

Is that too much? Am I getting too ambitious and ahead of everyone else's attention spans? Suffice it to say, the more I like a movie, the more I'm probably gonna' write about it. And yet again, despite some of my efforts to convey my thoughts and feelings I still see the long-winded reviews getting the shaft over the shorter ones. Is there a general preference you all have?

That's all I got for now. I'd appreciate any feedback.

[JJ]

I do agree with you on some aspects - that the horrible lack of grammar or the outright bias towards a movie is something that is completely unnecessary. Sure, each person is entitled to their opinion, but such unwarranted attacks on a movie for whatever personal reason one may have really have no place here.

I can think of a few examples of my own, as well - people who rate a movie 0.5 across the board because of their own particular qualm with it.

I do value user reviews because they also give a good generalized look at PQ - but I rely on other sources for AQ/movie quality ratings.

I'm a grammar/spelling/punctuation nut myself, so seeing something horribly incorrect bothers me, but ehhh - I'm not one to complain about it.

But I do expect people to tell you to relax and stop taking things so seriously, not to mention you'll get your post edited for language.

[42041]

The internet is full of noise. I prefer to tune it out. If I'm trying to figure out whether a black and white film from the 40s is a good blu-ray, the opinions of people whining about how it's not as pretty as their Transformers disc is entirely irrelevant to me. The opinions of those who watch movies on a torch mode LCD from 15 feet away are similarly worthless for my needs.

[Tony K.]

I didn't know the s-word was considered so bad here. I'll go edit those...

Thanks for bringing up the bias thing, too. I bought Crank 2: High Voltage on Black Friday and it's appalling to see the user reviews downgrading the BD's rating. Granted, the movie itself is pretty vulgar and offensive, which can be a put-off, but .5's on everything because you didn't like the movie or a technical issue the player/disc is ludicrous.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Tony K.

Editor reviews are nice and all since they do have training and knowledge for the technical aspects and analyses of BD. Not to mention, on occasion, the ability to write some pretty good movie interpretations. But there's always room for another opinion. Hence, the user review. Looking through some of 'em, however, I'm pretty sickened by the lack of detail, poor structuring, and apparent dismissal/obliviousness of basic English grammar/spelling that 90% of 'em seem to have. And yet, despite some of the really good reviews, you still see some of the shitty ones ranking higher.

So I wanna' ask a few things:

1) Do you find user reviews relevant in the first place? If so, why or why not?

I personally read 'em more often for technical analyses of video transfers and audio quality. Movie reviews will always be subjective and opinions will vary from person to person. But even still, people can be idiots and use completely blatant and unsupported one-liners, resulting in a natural, communal down-vote, which I'm sure we can all at least agree on that.

I don't expect every review to be a short essay since we all have different levels of intelligence, enthusiasm, and writing skill. But some kind of effort would be appreciated, don't ya' think? "the audio rockzz!!!" or "THIS IS REFERENCE" doesn't tell me shit. I want better, or at least more slightly-informed-sounding, opinions on why people think such and such BD is good or bad. Is that too much to ask for?

2) What kind of reviews to you prefer, short or long? Why or why not?

I started writing my own reviews as a way to make up for some of the shittier ones. At first, I didn't wanna' make 'em too long because I had this obsessive/compulsive tendency of making one paragraph per field. Though recently, I find myself starting to get more and more into movie interpretations resulting in several paragraphs per movie review now.

Is that too much? Am I getting too ambitious and ahead of everyone else's attention spans? Suffice it to say, the more I like a movie, the more I'm probably gonna' write about it. And yet again, despite some of my efforts to convey my thoughts and feelings I still see the long-winded reviews getting the shaft over the shorter ones. Is there a general preference you all have?

That's all I got for now. I'd appreciate any feedback.

I bolded my feedback.

[JJ]

Originally Posted by 42041

The internet is full of noise. I prefer to tune it out. If I'm trying to figure out whether a black and white film from the 40s is a good blu-ray, the opinions of people whining about how it's not as pretty as their Transformers disc is entirely irrelevant to me. The opinions of those who watch movies on a torch mode LCD from 15 feet away are similarly worthless for my needs.

EXACTLY.

I just tune it all out. Not everyone is going to agree on anything, but there are a bunch of poorly informed saps who feel the need to constantly complain/argue over any opinion contrary to theirs. This happens here a lot - hence why I never wander into the Movie/TV Discussion forum, and rarely into this one here.

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I bolded my feedback.

lol - leave him alone, you basically just started something unnecessary,

[DetroitSportsFan]

User reviews are a joke. I ignore them.

As for the "professional" reviews, I read the technical information (picture/sound quality) but ignore their opinions of the film itself.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by JJxiv1215

EXACTLY.





lol - leave him alone, you basically just started something unnecessary,

He asked for feedback.

[Tony K.]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I bolded my feedback.

[ckenisell]

I put more stock in the official reviewer's reviews and kinda tune out user reviews. Especially long user reviews. In fact, I kinda got bored reading your initial post here. Just kidding.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Tony K.

]

Your post is full of things that you dislike.

[KJH6926]

It's a USER REVIEW.......not an EDITOR REVIEW!!!

[AKORIS]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

User reviews are a joke. I ignore them.

As for the "professional" reviews, I read the technical information (picture/sound quality) but ignore their opinions of the film itself.

that's exactly my take-- I'm only interested in the tech info...

[KJH6926]

Originally Posted by Tony K.

I didn't know the s-word was considered so bad here. I'll go edit those...

Thanks for bringing up the bias thing, too. I bought Crank 2: High Voltage on Black Friday and it's appalling to see the user reviews downgrading the BD's rating. Granted, the movie itself is pretty vulgar and offensive, which can be a put-off, but .5's on everything because you didn't like the movie or a technical issue the player/disc is ludicrous.

I do agree with you here. The technical aspects of the movie should not be rated poorly on account of the person not liking the movie.

[sfmarine]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

He asked for feedback.

I look at user reviews sometimes but not all the time. I don't need all the technical aspects reviewed. Just the basics. How does it sound? Is it lossless, and is the PQ worthy of a purchase? I did this recently with Blow. I remember hearing early that it didn't have HD audio and the PQ was mediocre. It was recently $7.99 so I revisited the reviews again and it turns out that the cover was misprinted and it did in fact have lossless. So it was worth a purchase to me. I watched it last night. The PQ was crap but it's still better than my old DVD.

The grammer thing, I'm not too worried about. This is a forum not an english classroom.

[kpkelley]

Whenever I write User Reviews here I try to touch on the film and the quality of the disc seperately. While I can't stand the pointless one line reviews, the essay length reviews surpass the modicum of patience that I have. I try to keep my reviews detailed but concise, it can be a difficult balancing act.

[KJH6926]

Originally Posted by sfmarine

I look at user reviews sometimes but not all the time. I don't need all the technical aspects reviewed. Just the basics. How does it sound? Is it lossless, and is the PQ worthy of a purchase? I did this recently with Blow. I remember hearing early that it didn't have HD audio and the PQ was mediocre. It was recently $7.99 so I revisited the reviews again and it turns out that the cover was misprinted and it did in fact have lossless. So it was worth a purchase to me. I watched it last night. The PQ was crap but it's still better than my old DVD.

The grammer thing, I'm not too worried about. This is a forum not an english classroom.

well said

[ungood]

i don't like it when somebody puts .5's or 1's across the board because of something stupid like their disc couldn't play because they didn't update to the latest firmware for their bd player. idiots. it'd make more sense to post that info in the forums OR there's always the option of putting n/a instead of a number so as not to affect the overall ratings.

[cojake]

I look to the user reviews as a general consensus about the movie. If 50 people say it is the bees knees and only 1 person says it is bad I tend to trust the masses. I can always Netflix a movie myself before purchasing, but the user reviews can be helpful to me.

[SquidPuppet]

Have you ever noticed that when a popular movie is released it gets a ton of reviews by NEW users that never post anything again? Usually praising the film and BD.