Are studios rushing processing too much to win the content war?

[baccusboy]

As I posted in the other "picture quality" thread, I saw a demo of the Samsung BDP1000 player at Costco near Sangbon station in Seoul today. Much of the movie footage they used was overly grainy, or the colors were way off. This wasn't a fault of the player, or the 50" Samsung PAVV 1080p TV (although the TV's setup was a bit dark) being fed via HDMI. This was a conversion issue.

I am wondering if studios aren't "rushing" the conversion process in order to get out as many disks for their particular format as quickly as possible. Many people, as is well know, believe that the format which can offer the most content will be the eventual winner.

I know a bit about processing and video, having spent 8 years as a TV producer and 4 years editing on AVID Media Composers. I know less about film, but I do know that great pains are taken to "clean up" images when transferred from film to standard DVDs. I have seen excuses stating that "you'll get more grain because it's such a high resolution", etc., but I know better. The complaints about grain, in particular are setting off alarm bells in my head (as are other comments about movie quality).

I'm not talking about just Bluray or HDDVD here (although it was the Samsung BR demo that was just horrible). I'm curious... do you guys get the feeling we're being short-changed on quality, just so they can release more titles quickly?

Could this kill a format?