List of technical issues on Shout/Scream BDs + Replacement Program information

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Originally Posted by Agent Kay

How can a list of facts be over exaggeration?
It's exactly the right amount of exaggeration.

Facts exist in a context, and I wouldn't even argue that this is a list of facts. "Poor compression" is inherently an opinion - a Blu-ray is fundamentally going to have lossy compression of an HD master, and the goal is to create an image that looks good in motion, not something that will be 100% free of any artifacts when examined at 400% zoom via screenshots. Criterion's The Thin Red Line has true compression problems that you can see in motion. Studio Canal's The Fog 4K UHD has true compression problems that you can see in motion. Maybe a very few in this thread rise to that level, but I sure wouldn't know from reading the list because it's full of false alarms.

I subscribed to the thread initially to be kept informed of actual problems that merit replacement discs. Now I receive very regular emails, with messages discussing how a dozen or so new titles have been added, all because someone has asserted that these titles are "poor" because you can find some extra macroblocks on a 400% zoomed-in screenshot than a UK or DE release of the film. The list is thus no longer useful and has actually become an annoyance.

So when someone says "With all these defects, why do people still give them money?", that prompts my answer of "These are not significant defects, these are nitpicks from pedants." People still give Shout money because they release a ton of interesting titles, most at acceptable or good quality, and they usually fix actually significant problems that truly require a replacement disc. Sometimes they really do drop the ball, like the Billy Jack release, but I don't see how such actual ball-dropping even stands out anymore in a silly list with entry after entry of so-called "poor compression."