DVD details for
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) More at IMDbPro »

Michel Hafner (26 May 1999):
This is the second Coen Brothers movie on DVD I'm reviewing. The first was The Big Lebowski (1998) which has some problems, unfortunately. Are we luckier with this Warner Brothers offering? I am sorry to have to report that this disc is not the true thing either. Pity.
The film master is in good shape with few speckles or other blemishes. Color and contrast are good as well. The disc is 16:9 enhanced and images are pretty sharp. So where is the problem?
As with many Warner DVDs the amount of noise and grain is above a level that can be described as unobtrusive or not distracting. That alone is not so bad as long as the level is still 'relatively' low. But add to that an average bit rate of 5 Mbit/s (there is no more available since the Pan & Scan version occupies the second side) and you start to have unnatural looking textures due to compression problems. Add to that artifacts of digital noise removal and finally a good dose of overenhanced edges with white halos and you get a mediocre result. The malaise is well documented in chapter 13. At 3:22 and following watch the grid in the background. It seems that digital scratch removal is attacking it. Very ugly. Where is quality control when you need it? A bit later, when 'Tim Robbins' sees off 'Paul Newman' , you better not look at Robbins' tie. The noise suppression is several times reducing it to a totally blurred pulp. All that may be fine for small TV sets. For a high quality home theatre it is deadly.
Quite clearly this DVD scores low in the video artifacts category. It's also a good example of how not to master a DVD when it comes to noise and grain. If you can't afford or don't want to go back to the original negative or a first generation interpositive to reduce the noise level to the minimum, you should at least use two layers and a high bit rate to properly compress the grain. If you don't you get compression artifacts which further enhance the noise level, and if you fight the noise with (aggressive) digital noise removal you get even more artifacts. That is what has happened here. This film needs to be retransferred from the best source available and carefully compressed. Then the DVD could do justice to this great movie, the justice it deserves but does not get here.
There are also no supplements whatsoever and the scene access menu has not even pictures in it. This is a substandard DVD from Warner Brothers which I can not recommend to anybody who is looking for high image quality and decent supplements. We have seen much better from this studio lately. On the other hand, this film made a very meager 3 million at the US box office. If the Coen brothers had not quite some reputation, there might be no DVD at all.