Official Blu-ray Reviews Scoring

This thread is meant to act as a guide/explanation as to how we end up at the scores for each section and the overall score for each Blu-Ray we review.

The scoring system that we use is explained below and should give some insight as to how we come up with the overall grade.

Movie:
The movie itself accounts for 20% of the overall score of the review. Some may argue that it should be split a bit more evenly however; we give more creedence to the PQ and AQ as a majority of our members are focused in on that aspect alone.

Video:
The video section accounts for 35% of the review. Here we discuss some of the more technical aspects of the PQ (Picture Quality) and how well the studio did during the transfer of the video to Blu-Ray. This includes, but is not limited to:

• color reproduction
• black levels
• shadow dilineation
• resolution
• compression
• clarity

Audio:
Similarly to the video, the audio section accounts for 35% of the overall score of the review. Here we discuss the positives and negatives of the AQ (Audio Quality) on the Blu-Ray disc and how the overall sound presentation performed through our systems. This includes, but is not limited to:

• LFE & VLF
• Surround Performance
• Clarity
• Dynamics
• Detail
• Dialogue

Extras:
The remaining 10% of the review is dedicated to the extras featured on the Blu-Ray. This may include director commentary, behind the scenes features, deleted scenes and a host of other features. While this adds to the overall value of the disc, it doesn't really add to the experience.

Based on these percentages, you can see how a movie (story) could rate :2.5stars: (Fail) yet still receive an overall score of :4stars:.

We use the following Microsoft Excel file to help determine our overall final numerical score: View attachment Review Scoring.xls

Our scoring is defined below and we have a couple of examples listed next to each that we have graded in the past with regards to PQ.

• :5stars: Excellent (How to Train Your Dragon, Avatar, Kung Fu Panda)
• :4.5stars: Very Good (The Dark Knight, The Book of Eli)
• :4stars: Good (I Am Number Four, Clash of the Titans)
• :3.5stars: Fair + (Surrogates, The Last Exorcism)
• :3stars: Fair (The New Daughter)
• :2.5stars: Fair -
• :2stars: Not So Good
• :1.5stars: Poor
• :1star: Terrible

Another way to interpret these scores could be:

• :5stars: A+
• :4.5stars: A
• :4stars: B
• :3.5stars: C
• :3stars: D
• :2.5stars: F
• :2stars: F
• :1.5stars: F
• :1star: F

Additionally each review will have a summary recommendation at the end that will basically represent the replay value.



Example:

Recommendation: Buy It!​

Or​

Recommendation: Rent It!​

We hope that this gives some insight into how we score our reviews and please feel free to post any questions or comments in the Official Blu-Ray Reviews Scoring Discussion Thread.