Down the
Primrose Path
Toward Perfect
Vision Forever?
Editor:
I’ve been with TPV since the first issue,
and was thankful, even delighted, when
you covered the remaining issues on my
subscription from five years back. That’s
perfect honesty. Now that you know my
credentials, here’s my wish list, which I
hope will help you keep your focus on
the perfect vision:
1.Reviews must be brutal in their
criticism of any company whose
film transfer falls short of DVD’s
promise. It wouldn’t hurt to take
up a page or two with three ongo-
ing lists: (near) perfect transfers,
adequate transfers, and lousy
transfers, arranged alphabetically
by company.
If magazines like this have any
goal in life at least one has to be to
speak truth to power and put
more pressure on the industry to
do what’s right instead of extend-
ing its
new technology.
2.In keeping with that goal, editors
must not allow a DVD review to
get longer and longer because its
author is rehashing
attempting to create a “think”
piece about the film’s story con-
tent, idea content, the director’s
oeuvre – or lack thereof. I know,
everyone wants to strut his
insights. But there are other maga-
zines for doing that. Your bi-
monthly shouldn’t eat up precious
space that way. We’re after the
perfect movie vision, not the per-
fect movie insight. In the
July/August issue it took 14 pages
(about 14,000 words) to cover a
mere 18 DVDs because of such
noodling on. At that rate, you’ll
cover not much more than 100
DVDs per year. The list sure won’t
grow fast at that rate. More impor-
tant, the story content of most
DVDs isn’t strong enough to begin
to justify buying all the expensive
equipment that TPV reviews.
Everyone should
thoughts about what constitutes
the viewing experience under var-
ious conditions.
3.If there’s anyone to supply them,
add more think pieces that illumi-
nate the problems and weakness-
es of the medium. Morrell’s “Theo-
ry of Relativity” is a good example.
My favorite would be a discussion
of whatever technical factors
cause some TV sets/monitors to
have that wonderful
even come close.
I’ve seen cheap TVs in motels
have that “see through” look and
at all. So it doesn’t take HDTV or
DVD to get there. But what causes it
and why don’t all sets have it? What-
ever the answer is goes to the heart
of attaining the perfect vision.
4.Please, don’t go back totally to the
“good old days” of TPV. Avoid
space eaters such as long, long
rambling interviews and general
articles about the history of film,
TV, Technicolor, formats, etc.,
unless the discussion is directly
and explicitly relevant to illumi-
nating specific problems with
attaining the perfect vision in cur-
rent media.
An example of relevance would
be the parts of Allen Daviau’s inter-
view where he reveals how sloven-
ly movie houses can be. Since the
goal is to “recreate” the theater
experience in the home, it’s rele-
vant to know what the theater
“standard” really is. For those inter-
ested in film as film, there are other
magazines. An example of irrele-
vance would be his own favorite
film scenes. How does that help
achieve the perfect vision?
5.As we go once more down the
primrose path toward another
technological bait and switch, TPV
can’t be too critical when any
manufacturer violates DVD’s im-
plied promise of perfect (or near
perfect) vision at low cost. That
would include manufacturers who
reportedly “cripple” the DVD play-
er’s video
supposedly because viewers don’t
know enough to turn down their
set’s sharpness (edge) control.
Why not have three lists for front
end equipment, too?
After more than a decade of CD
hype, aren’t we all more than a lit-
tle disgusted when no reasonably
priced hardware can completely
reproduce the content of the best
software, forcing the consumer to
fulfill the promise by buying more
and more expensive equipment to
more “perfectly” decode the damn
thing? From a marketing perspec-
tive, it’s a perverse inversion of the
standard “give them the razor and
sell them the blades” tactic. Here,
even when the blades are great,
must all the reasonably priced
handles be so designed that you
can’t avoid cutting yourself?
6.Finally, a modest proposal for all
readers looking down that prim-
rose path. Given the increasingly
high cost of recreating a good
movie theater and the difficulty of
choosing compatible equipment,
and assuming your video purchas-
es have nothing to do with show-
ing a profit, wouldn’t it be wiser to
buy the small movie theater your
town isn’t using any more? Sever-
al audio/videophiles could even go
into this together.
The owners’ families would re-
serve the best seats. You could let
everyone else in for a buck and
pay the mortgage and film rental
costs with income from something
that has nothing to do with any
kind of vision but that is neverthe-
less endlessly popular – popcorn.
It’s just a thought.
Best wishes for great cash flow in
the future.
MIKE ROBBINS
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
MROBBINS@POLESHIFT.ORG
HP: So your credentials consist solely
of “perfect honesty?” I might add that
you write well and make your points
cogently. And as you probably suspect -
ed when pen you first picked up, I am
far from being in agreement with the
bulk of your thinking, to the point of
saying perhaps the letter should have
best been addressed to some other mag -
azine (Widescreen Review perhaps?).
1.Agreed. I’ve been, since the re-
installation of a big
projection system, sorting the
DVDs in my collection into quite
distinct categories. You’ll be read -
ing about this in an upcoming
issue. My biggest problem to date?
Drawing the line between the A+,
A, and A- categories of excellence.
2.If there were other magazines
capable of strutting their “in-
sights” on film better than I can
muster as editor of this one, I will
cease. But I don’t believe that.
Content is at the heart of the mag -
azine. I quite agree that the
assessment of movies should
never be routine or mere assess -
ments of the plot line. That said,
I’ll note that the magazine is in