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"It's a BIG movie so it'll have BIG quality too!"
I've noticed that a lot of reviews of video transfers exhibit an interesting phenomenon. When a big-name, blockbuster movie comes out on a video format (DVD, HD DVD, BD), no matter how mediocre the video transfer is, they will praise it to the high heavens. All objectivity goes out the window. The technical merits of the disc seem to make way for gushing comments based on the number of explosions there are in the film.
To demonstrate the effect, let's look at some real-life, actual, 1:1 grabs from HD DVD discs.
"Black Snake Moan" is a disc Paramount put out on both formats (before "the announcement" that they were ditching BD). The HD DVD version is in MPEG-4 and takes up 20.8gb healthy gigabytes, and the film runs for 116 minutes (although file size and length aren't directly related). It is incredibly detailed, and looks like an unmolested, un-screwed-around-with version of what the director made. It looks absolutely wonderful. You also get to see Christina Ricci's boobies in it, which has got to earn it some more points, right? (I'm kidding). Most reviewers did actually agree that this disc looks really good. One review, however, did peg it as low as a 7. Take a look and judge for yourself:
Here's "The Matrix" from Warner. File size: 21.4gb, so about 1gb more than the above example of "Black Snake Moan". It's compressed with the Microsoft VC1 codec and runs for 136 minutes, so slightly longer than BSM. "The Matrix" movies on HD DVD are no different to most of Warner's stuff: they're all pretty decent looking but have been massively over-rated. Are the sites too afraid to say that a major release doesn't look anything other than all-out wonderful?
In terms of video, "The Matrix" received nothing but rave reviews. The lowest I saw was an 8/10, alongside some 5/5 and 100/100 scores. I don't think it's even comparable to the quality of discs like BSM. Although reviewing output by studio is simplifying things a little, Paramount seem to have consistently delivered the goods on HD DVD, whereas on both formats, Warner have put out a large catalogue of titles that look merely OK. Other than "Corpse Bride" (which isn't exactly a compression challenge, being short and totally grainless since it was shot digitally), I don't think I've seen anything from them that I'd rate as a solid 10/10. (Edit: there's other 10s from WB as well, such as "300", and possibly "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" - I forgot about those in the original post).
One day if I'm in a venomous mood I'll talk about the mountains of crap that Universal have put out on HD DVD (alongside the good stuff).
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Personally, I simply cannot understand how over on AVS Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions are rated in the top tier "cream of the crop" of HD DVD transfers on their HD DVD A/V Tier thread . Most of the time they both barely look better than their DVD counterparts.
As for Paramount, the only transfer to somewhat disappoint me is Black Rain. Though that probably has to do with the film's drab and hazy '80s action flick look. I know their release of Sleepy Hollow is constantly lambasted as having tons of digital noise?!?