"DVD" doesn't necessarily mean a good image.

Tremendous article in the NY Times today on the flaws that appear on DVDs - at least, that can appear when the studios putting out the DVDs don't especially care how the movie actually looks. Sometimes it's color accuracy and consistency: the 2001 DVD release of Lawrence of Arabia had desert battle scenes where the sky is a different color in every shot - magenta, green, red - and none of those colors was in the original print. (Complaints from DVD purchasers has made Columbia come out with a new, improved version this fall - and those purchasers received no discount for having purchased the 2001 version.) Sometimes it's faded colors, blurry images, or odd, shimmering distortions.

Following similar complaints from customers, Warner came out with a remastered, improved version of its 7-movie set called "The Stanley Kubrick Collection", and Paramount is reissuing the Godfather movies next year, with new digital masters.

In a sidebar, there's a list of the 10 best and 10 worst looking DVD versions of great films. The "best" list includes Citizen Kane, The Third Man, and the new release of Casablanca, all of which I have, while the "worst" list includes a few classics where the DVD was clearly taken from the VHS master, and sometimes from a dirty master at that.