Worst DVD ever made?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't mean the content (the film or whatever is actually on the DVD). Meaning, I'm not talking about the 'worst movie ever released on DVD'. I mean the actual DVD itself. What do y'all think are some of the worst DVDs ever produced, and why?

(King Crimson fans will probably have something to say here...)

Me, I'd have to say 2010. For a couple of reasons: 1) Probably the worst picture quality I've ever seen, and 2) It's not anamorphic (but the stupid box cover art says it IS ). So for obvious reasons, #2 is one of the reasons for #1.

 

[amdmiami]

Prom Night (1980). The film looked worse than the old VHS version that I had and the only option was play!

 

[Gary Mitchell]

The Wiseguy tv show set "Between the Mob and a Hard Place". Disc 4 has 2 episodes with audio commentary by actor Ken Wahl. The bad thing is that you can only hear Wahl's commentary- you cant hear the audio from the episodes. To make it even better, no subtitles were included and the show isn't closed-captioned.

 

[Harvey]

Maybe not the worst ever, but I'd like to nominate the X-Files: Season Six. Fox won't even acknowledge that there's a major problem with the picture quality of the episode "Triangle," let alone get along to fixing it.

 

[Trekker4747]

When Titanic first came to DVD.

Highest gossing most movie-est movie ever and the DVD is just the movie and the damn trailer. No bonus features from the countless making-of footage they had. No commentary from Cameron or the cast, no deleted scenes.

Just the damn movie and a trailer.

For a movie that grossed a billion damn dollars.

 

[zenophite]

any of that crap you can pick up at the dollar store.

 

[Timby]

The first DVD release of The American President was utterly abysmal -- a shoddy laserdisc transfer and two-channel sound.

It also took distributors a looong time to figure out how to get Highlander released on a disc that didn't suck, either.

 

[CommodoreKong]

The American version of Destroy All Monsters is pretty bad. It's widescreen, but it's not anamorphic. The picture quality is pretty low, they only have the English audio, and it doesn't even have a menu. The movie just starts up when you put the DVD in the player and once it ends it starts up again.

Destroy All Monsters deserves a better DVD release.

 

[PK95]

It also took distributors a looong time to figure out how to get Highlander released on a disc that didn't suck, either.

That was the first DVD that popped in my head.

 

[Aragorn]

A lot of older TV shows weren't even saved on film -- they were saved on video. So transferring them to DVD is really no different than transferring your VHS home videos onto DVD.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I believe the Trancers DVD was just a straight-up transfer of the laserdisc version - up to and including the 'Side 1' and 'Side 2'!

 

[Sephiroth]

this mexican soap opera recorded on betamax, then transfered to to dvd through an 8-track player, that i bought at a flea market one time

 

[cardinal biggles]

Any number of kids films (usually released by Warner Bros.) that are only available in pan & scan because what difference does it make? The kids won't know the difference.

(Most amusing bit of irony: the film Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird is in p&s, but the film's trailer is shown in its original widescreen.)

 

[Borjis]

Saturn III was minted straight from the laserdisc too. The pioneer laser disc logo shows at the end.

Agree with you, 2010 looks really bad. I hope they release it on Blu-Ray soon.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

ANY movie that gets packaged in the Warner Bros. cardboard snapcases. God, I hate those things.

Honorable mention (or is that dishonorable?) go to the DS9 cases. Season One pretty much disintegrated on me.

 

[BigFoot]

While the DVDs are fine, the packaging on the Region 1 (North America) release of Deep Space Nine sucks ass.

 

[Hennessy Badger]

My top three picks:

1) Farscape (starburst edition) seasons 1 & 2.

The first two seasons were released with double sided disks, that wouldn't play correctly. They skipped all over the place. So many fans complained that they quickly changed to single sided disks for the rest of their releases. Not only that, but they made sure to re-release seasons 1 & 2 in single (working) disk sets.

Apparently, there was an replacement program set up for the defective disks at one point. But I didn't hear about it until long after it was announced. And the web links set up for the exchange have since been pulled.

2) Star Trek: Complete Movie Collection.

It's the special collector edition of all ten films. Same disks as the separate releases, except the cases have been switched with cheaper versions that make the disks nearly impossible to remove. Just stupid.

3) Doctor Who (new series) seasons 1 and 2.

Released with flimsy plastic slip cases that fell apart months after purchase. At least for season 3 they switched to studier cardboard.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Transformers never got a proper TV DVD release.

 

[Angel4576]

Early R2 SG1 releases. Assume it wasn't just me as it happened on a few different DVD players, but they'd often freeze/stick/skip. Irritating.

Transformers never got a proper TV DVD release.

Did over here on R2.

 

[Gojirob]

The American version of Destroy All Monsters is pretty bad. It's widescreen, but it's not anamorphic. The picture quality is pretty low, they only have the English audio, and it doesn't even have a menu. The movie just starts up when you put the DVD in the player and once it ends it starts up again.

Destroy All Monsters deserves a better DVD release.

Amen. And what's more, no dual-language options, and no AIP version (Takei and Hal Linden were among the dubbers on that one) The version I bought didn't even have that cool monster pose that the VHS cover did.