The "Can It Be Done Better" theory of home video criticism
I have something of a theory on the way blu-rays are reviewed, in particular the way video quality is graded (although the same theory could to audio, and arguably supplements).
I will attempt to explain. Let's consider the blu-ray release of, for example, Classic Doctor Who Season 26, the third and final season of Sylvester McCoy's run. At this time, Doctor Who was entirely being shot and recorded on 1-inch Type C standard definition videotape. And it sure does look it. Being upscaled from a 576i source, there's not a whole lot of fine detail, and being from the analogue era there's a fair amount of inherent noise and artifacts in the picture. See for yourself in the screenshots attached to blu-ray.com's review. And that review accordingly gives the picture 2 stars out of 5 due to this general lack of quality.
But here's the thing. That is the best this show can look. No matter how good an upscale you apply (and the BBC I believe use some dedicated hardware stuff to upscale these releases) it's still limited by the source of 576i. You can't undo the inherent limitations of the cameras it was shot on or the standard definition analogue videotape it was recorded to.
Now let's take by way of comparison a series I'm very familiar with, the original Bubblegum Crisis. It's had a few blu-ray releases over the years, but the currently available one, the Perfect Collection released by AnimEigo under their new ownership of MediaOCD, is the one to get. It's got a proper HD transfer of the original film of the series, and it's generally un-messed-with in terms of noise reduction and the like. And there's no issues with compression or anything, thanks to MediaOCD's typical excellent work in this area. There's screenshots in the blu-ray.com review, and the review itself gives the video an impressive 4.5 stars.
But on the other hand, despite the high marks given it by the review, this is not what I'd call a shiny new transfer. The underlying video transfer is, as far as I know, the same one done for the Japanese blu-rays back in 2008. And it has kind of a softness that I tend to associate with earlier HD transfers like this. Things aren't exactly razor-sharp, the colour grading has a slightly washed-out feel to it, the film grain feels... I guess I'd say smudgy. I mean, it's always going to look like film (or at least it should) but this does kinda look like a 2008 video transfer. It still looks great to watch, but it could be better.
And indeed I have got the impression MediaOCD is hoping to do just that - at least they've hinted in panels and streams that they're trying to see if they can track down the original film and get a new 4K scan done. And honestly, that would look better than what we've got.
So maybe you can see where I'm going here. The Doctor Who series has probably the best video quality that's possible for the show, and gets 2 stars. Bubblegum Crisis gets video that's good, but that I'd contend could use a fresh transfer, and it gets 4.5 stars.
Yes, if you directly compare the two shows, you're going to go "oh the video quality on this disc is better than that disc". But I don't think people buy home video releases based on objective measurements of video quality, in most cases. Yes, occasionally you'll get something because it looks pretty on your OLED and shows off your Dolby Atmos system, so-called "demo material", but if you're buying a film it's because you want That Film. And these days probably what you want is to buy That Film and know that you're not going to have to buy it again a year later when a remaster comes out.
So for this reason I tend to think the star rating as like a global measure of video quality is not really worthwhile. Instead what I want is something that takes into account the context of the underlying material, discusses that, and ultimately asks Can It Be Done Better.
The Doctor Who blu-ray. Can it be done better? No. That's what it looks like.
Bubblegum Crisis. Can it be done better? As good as it is already, yeah probably. And I kinda hope it is, I'd love to get a new 4K transfer of this series.
There is also the associated question of Will It Be Done Better though.
Let's take Kimagure Orange Road as an example. Discotek's blu-ray looks great. Clean, colourful, the video transfer looks sharp but maintains an appropriate grain field (being mostly shot on 16mm). And the encoding is top-notch (thanks again to MediaOCD), better than the Japanese release despite having less discs. And there's screenshots on blu-ray.com's review and it gets an impressive 4.5 stars.
But can it be done better? Well, technically yes, as with everything shot on film you COULD scan it in 4K and give it an HDR grade. Would it benefit from that? Debatable, although with the OP and ED sourced from 35mm there could be some benefit there.
Is it going to happen though? No, no it is not. I do not think Kimagure Orange Road is likely at all to ever get a 4K release. So you can safely buy it on blu-ray knowing that it's the best the show will look. Will it be done better? I'd say no.
Honestly, this comes into play a bit with Bubblegum Crisis. Because in practice the "will it be done better" ultimately depends on whether MediaOCD can track down the film and get permission to do a new scan. Which is definitely not a guarantee. So even though there could be a 4K release somewhere in the future I'd still happily recommend the current blu-ray.
To help explain more what I'm on about, let's look at Imprint's release of Michael Caine's Alfie, from 1966. Imprint is, for some reason, the only company to have put this film out on blu-ray anywhere in the world. And their disc looks decent enough, but as with a fair few of their discs it's from an old transfer. So it's not quite got the pop that a new transfer would have. And the screenshots and review reflect this, like it gets 4 stars but there's acknowledgement that it could look better.
And honestly Imprint is kind of the example of where keeping this in mind matters. While recently they've started doing new 4K restorations and such, a lot of their releases are basically older HD masters in a nice box. And they might be the best release a film has (or indeed the only release, like with Alfie), but there could be an improvement just around the corner. They did a rather fancy blu-ray set of Wicker Man with various different cuts and a nice box and such. And then a year later StudioCanal, the company they'd licensed the film from, did their own release in 4K. Which I am pretty sure pissed off some people.
Physical media is, for some reason, much more of a niche collector thing these days. The heyday of elaborate DVD special editions, where you could advertise Attack of the Clones on DVD by pointing out it's the first time a live-action film has been directly transferred digitally to DVD, is long since passed. The staff who work on Discotek's blu-rays have said that they like to make their discs be the last time you'll ever have to buy that film, and honestly that's how I feel when buying something. I just want to get all my movies on shelves and have the perfect library.
So for this reason I think the "Can It Be Done Better" and "Will It Be Done Better" metrics should be the hot new trend in home video reviews. And I'll try to take it into account when writing or talking about home video releases myself.
(oh god it's still going to be messy, like will some old Toei show that gets shoved out as an SDBD or an upscale be done better one day? Because they totally COULD and honestly if they were from another studio they probably would be it's just Toei decided not to, but like is this really the same category as like a show where the only masters are SD video because they edited it on tape and lost the film or whatever, like Slayers for example? We will unpack this I am sure when it comes up.)
(and yes I know the star ratings aren't directly comparable since all the reviews I'm citing are written by different people, but the point still stands I think)