Questionable Bias from highdefdigest.

[BTBuck1]

I feal if your reviewing something, and thats what you do for a living you should be as unbiased as possible. Now if i go to a website that says HDDVD review, and they are comparing HDDVD's to Blu Ray, i kind of expect it. I also expect redsox games to be biased if broadcast on NESN, but i expect unbiased if i am watching it on ESPN...catch my drift?

okay...so originally I thought, hey HiDefDigest...this looks like a cool site, how cool they review just about every BR & HDDVD that comes out. But lately I see a disturbing trend from their reviews. First, the Training day review is absurd. Not only is it written to make you feel like Training day looks horrible, it is in fact false. They claim the image is cropped but it has already been dismissed that the image is not cropped and it is something to do with either their particular player or their set. It has been tested side by side by another website (JTK, help me out here whats the guys name?) anyways..it is not true. Training day on Blu-Ray looks phenomenal on HDDVD, I will give it that. But it also looks fantastic on Blu Ray. Yes, the soundtrack losing DD+ is a loss, one i am sad to see...but the reviewer words things so strongly that I would feel sorry for someone who wanted Training Day on BR and changed their mind after reading this, because they would be missing out on a great High Def experience (that btw has one of the best legacy DD soundtracks i've heard).

It just bothers me that Blu Ray has improved so much in so little time, yet they get no credit for it, only because people only see numbers, and not whats on the screen. SWAT review goes up today and he gives it shining reviews in one paragraph:

The print is very clean and sparkly, if a bit processed for my taste. There is a slight amount of film grain present, but the transfer has been so digitally tweaked it has that smoothed-out, impossibly sleek surface that film could never replicate. Colors are boosted and vibrant but for the most part not oversaturated. Fleshtones are also accurate, with skin boasting that perfect shade of orange that only exists in the movies. Overall, sharpness and contrast are quite good, though some scenes are intentionally blown out, which can slightly obscure detail. Conversely, I thought some interiors were a smidgen too dark for my taste. However, more often than not this transfer looks quite three-dimensional -- even startling at times.

Then follows up with this on the next one:

Alas, some of the inconsistency that has so far marred Sony's Blu-ray releases is present with 'S.W.A.T.' For example, I noticed slight noise that hampered shadow delineation in select shots, as well as softness in degrees that varied from shot to shot, even in the same scene. However, this is much less of a problem here than on Sony's earlier batches of Blu-ray titles. I know it is easy to blame the inconsistent quality of many of these early Blu-ray titles on the use of the MPEG2 compression codec instead of the less space-hungry VC1, or the rumored faulty noise reduction chip in the Samsung first-generation Blu-ray player currently be used to review titles. Still, in real-world conditions and regardless of fault, 'S.W.A.T.' does look good, however imperfect

Its as if someone took over for the original reviewer who didn't like blu-ray or we have some Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde action going here.

So I've started to take these reviewers "reviews" with a grain of salt. Their eyes are no better than mine (maybe their equipment is) But I know good when I see it. Critics have annoyed me for some time, especially when they pass off their opinions as fact I.E. "'S.W.A.T.' is a big, dumb, loud action movie" well maybe to you, I personally enjoyed this and many of the other remakes that have been comming out in years/months past. I want to see cool new movies like superman returns that blow the older ones out of the water with todays filmmaking techniques.

Anyways, thats my rant...to those who are on the BR bandwagon (with me) just watch out, these guys over at Highdefdigest are HDDVD fanboi's it's blatently obvious. If they weren't it wouldn't be so difficult for them to give credit where it's due without following up with a bunch of careful wording to degrade it's accomplishments and trick you into thinking excellent looking films, look bad (excluding HOFD, Hitch & TFE ofcourse).

look I don't expect things to be all roses and prairies but come on, things are alot better than these guys give credit for, and I'd be willing to bet they won't renig on these reviews or even second look them when the NR-less player or another player ends up in their hands. If they do, and other sites claim improvement and they don't then it will just prove my point further. Sound & vision magazine has already stated signifigant improvement with several titles, so we'll just have to wait n see.