MovieChat Forums > The Last Days of Patton (1986) Discussion > Horrible Quality

Horrible Quality

posted 8 years ago by chrissso
1 reply | jump to latest

I watched this film with Amazon Instant and I was struck by the poor quality of the audio and video. Then I looked at Amazon reviews and found the following ...

Good movie but horrible quality DVD, April 29, 2005

I debated about how I wanted to rate this DVD. On the one hand the movie is very good but the quality of the picture and sound is very, very poor. This was a made for TV movie on CBS many years ago and to be honest this DVD looked like it could have been recorded right off TV or from a second generation or more VHS tape. I knew I was in trouble when I saw Brentwood put this out. I had bought a few other TV show movies made into DVD's by them that were equally horrendous in quality. Sometimes content was even missing as if they went to the bathroom during a commercial and got back too late to start recording again. The poor picture and sound quality is only magnified on a widescreen TV and good sound system. The picture even had a tendency to shutter which makes me think all the more it was made from a VHS tape, and a poor one at that. Its too bad an otherwise outstanding movie was torpedoed by a bad transfer. Buyer beware.

[–] rooprect (202) 7 years ago

I agree, my DVD copy looks like it was transferred from VHS... occasional jitter and tracking noise (not often but noticeable). But as of 2018, 32 years after the movie's release, I haven't heard a whisper about any plans to restore this. Real shame because you can imagine how amazing the Bavarian landscape, castles & street scenes would look in HD. Looks like they spared no expense with locations & scenery, but unfortunately that's lost in the sub par 4:3 transfer. My advice is get the best upscaling DVD player you can find and zoom in so it fills the entire screen, it's passable.