DVD details for
Meet Joe Black (1998) More at IMDbPro »

Michel Hafner (15 October 1999):
This DVD edition of Meet Joe Black (1998) by Universal is a disappointment.
The film master used is very clean and image steadiness is good. Contrast and color rendition did not disappoint me either. Highlights tend to be somewhat harsh though and some daylight shots look too bright. Sharpness is at the lower end for a 16:9 enhanced transfer. Images are never really sharp. Fine detail is either lacking or messed up by the one big problem of this DVD, noise processing. The noise and grain level is too high for a brand new transfer. The film element used is too grainy. Obviously the people in charge agreed and fought it with digital noise suppression. Doing so they have screwed up this DVD for good. There is not one scene that does not have noise processing artifacts. Fine image detail is flickering all the time. Textures are looking unnatural when stationary or in motion. In motion they get also smeared and lose fine detail altogether. The noise processing has not been optimized in any way, it seems. It looks as if some standard settings have been applied whether they perform well or not. This is ok for low resolution displays. It's ugly and distracting on all other displays. In addition edges are slightly overenhanced.
Here are three examples: chapter 3 (have a close look at Pitt's jacket when he talks to Claire Forlani, the texture is smeared when he moves), chapter 6 (0:29-0:35: Pitt's jacket has vertical stripes that disappear when he moves), chapter 13 (the buttons on Pitt's vest disappear and reappear, looks like scratch removal out of control). You can easily find dozens of similar examples all over this DVD. Happy hunting.
Compression on the other hand looks good. I have seen no distracting artifacts that were not noise related. Compression problems, if they exist, drown in the noise processing artifacts.
In its overall impression this DVD is anything but state of the art, largely due to distracting noise processing artifacts you can see everywhere if you have a decent display. If you don't like that processed, unnatural look, stay away from this DVD. You won't enjoy what you see. Depending on where the noise processing has been done, there is hope or not for a possible future DTS version. If it has been done at the teleciné (which I'm afraid is the case) only a new transfer can help (there won't be any, wanna bet?), but if it has been done before compression it could be fixed for the DTS version. Let's hope it's the latter.