With Blu the victor, it's time to demand some changes....

[Nick Graham]

I posted this over at HTF, but since (based on comments made here, anyway) there isn't a lot of cross-traffic from here to there and vice versa, I was curious what you guys thought. Hopefully all of these points get expressed at CES this week.


1) $39.99 catalog titles - Okay, since this whole war was about what was best for the consumer, and ending it was so that high def optical would have a chance to thrive in the mainstream, how about stopping the early adopter price gouging on catalog titles? Even with one format for the retailers to get behind, are mom and pop really gonna buy up BDs like they did DVDs when Die Hard is $9.99 on SD and $29.99 on BD at Wal-Mart? The early adopter phase is now over - players are $299 at Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, and Target. The perpetrators of this pricing are more than likely getting some incredible incentives to have stayed so loyal for all this time. How about passing that savings on to the consumers? Every single Fox title I own I have purchased used, with the exception of one, which was purchased during the 50% off Amazon sale. How much revenue are you getting from me for those?

2) Big budget movies with low bitrate lossy audio tracks - Warner, there should not be a single movie sizable budget released in the last 10-15 years
that should have a lossy audio track on Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD for that matter. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't recall The Aviator, The Fountain, or the Ocean's 11 movies being quaint little indie affairs with small production budgets.

3) DTS-MA - New Line, exactly what were you thinking (aside from "Thanks for the incentives!)? I realize DTS probably told you of all the umpteen BD players that would be able to decode the full lossless track any day now, but guess what?! They don't exist, and you've just screwed the majority of the Blu-Ray customer base, as they don't have the ability to hear more than the standard DVD level core track.

Fox, your continued support of this codec makes me shake my head, but chances are you have received some nice compensation is some form from DTS, so you may just not care. Regardless, it's not to late to go TrueHD, or at least demand that SCEA and DTS find a way to get at least the PS3 able to decode the lossless stream, and to get with the CE manufacturers and get crunching on getting any players with the horsepower to decode it to decode it.

4) Featureless BDs with feature-laden SD counterparts - MGM, you are the only kids left in the room for this one. 2007 has been a year of great two disc feature-laden standard def releases of your catalog films, coupled with featureless BDs of the same films with a retail of $39.99, which means $29.99 in the real world. Guess what? Unlike Fox, I haven't even purchased any of your discs used!! What possible incentive do I have - you won't even include commentary tracks on these things! Even at a 50% discount, I'm still not touching it. We have patience (most of us, anyway), and I would bet your sales numbers reflect that. It's 2008 - how about taking a new approach fro a new year? The DTS-MA rule applies to you as well, assuming you have control over such things.

5) Fifth and final - release your high profile indie/art house fare and your classics on BD! One of the best sleepers of the year from Fox was Waitress, a movie that played literally for months at some of the theaters in both KC and Tulsa due to endless word of mouth going around. Juno looks like it will blow that out of the water, and yet I am expecting only an SD release for it. Buena Vista is at least doing us right on this, with stuff like The Lookout (though I am still waiting for The Hoax to be put back on the schedule.) Sunshine is a good start, but please increase the output, all of you! Same thing goes for classic fare - now that there is only one format, the sales will happen if you release them. Warner doesn't seem to be swimming in red ink from releasing them.

That's enough for one night, but I'm hoping these things get brought up in a courteous, professional way to those who have the power to make changes at CES.

[bkbluray]

Good suggestions. I think PCM or Dolby TrueHD would be good points to start for sound. Also, lossless sound should be on EVERY movie as well.

[davidPS3]

Very nicely put. I hope they take a serious look at this.

[darkedgex]

Originally Posted by Nick Graham

3) DTS-MA - New Line, exactly what were you thinking (aside from "Thanks for the incentives!)? I realize DTS probably told you of all the umpteen BD players that would be able to decode the full lossless track any day now, but guess what?! They don't exist, and you've just screwed the majority of the Blu-Ray customer base, as they don't have the ability to hear more than the standard DVD level core track.

Fox, your continued support of this codec makes me shake my head, but chances are you have received some nice compensation is some form from DTS, so you may just not care. Regardless, it's not to late to go TrueHD, or at least demand that SCEA and DTS find a way to get at least the PS3 able to decode the lossless stream, and to get with the CE manufacturers and get crunching on getting any players with the horsepower to decode it to decode it.

Whoa whoa whoa.. I like your other points, but this one is out of left field to me. DTS HD MA is better than Dolby TrueHD. Even paidgeek has said as much (our Sony Pictures insider). Is there a general lack of decoding hardware available? Sure. Would it be nice if the PS3 supported decoding of DTS HD MA? Definitely. But so long as studios are going to push PIP video commentaries on us and chew in to the bitrate used for the main video encode, I think we should use the best lossless audio compression available (and also the one that happens to be the most backwards compatible: remember, on older playback devices, you get a very nice 1.5 mbps lossy core, much better than the 640 kbps "core" on Dolby TrueHD).

But again, your other points are excellent. If BD is to overtake DVD, some of these things need to be addressed.

[Nick Graham]

Originally Posted by darkedgex

Whoa whoa whoa.. I like your other points, but this one is out of left field to me. DTS HD MA is better than Dolby TrueHD. Even paidgeek has said as much (our Sony Pictures insider). Is there a general lack of decoding hardware available? Sure. Would it be nice if the PS3 supported decoding of DTS HD MA? Definitely. But so long as studios are going to push PIP video commentaries on us and chew in to the bitrate used for the main video encode, I think we should use the best lossless audio compression available (and also the one that happens to be the most backwards compatible: remember, on older playback devices, you get a very nice 1.5 mbps lossy core, much better than the 640 kbps "core" on Dolby TrueHD).

But again, your other points are excellent. If BD is to overtake DVD, some of these things need to be addressed.

When did paidgeek say that? I believe you that he did, I just only randomly visit the Insiders thread and must have missed it.

[darkedgex]

Originally Posted by Nick Graham

When did paidgeek say that? I believe you that he did, I just only randomly visit the Insiders thread and must have missed it.

It was on AVS prior to paidgeek leaving that site for good.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=1161

Originally Posted by paidgeek

As mentioned earlier, the difference between DTS-HD and Dolby THD (including the legacy stream) is from 5 - 10%. Please see actual data below:

Dolby TrueHD
"Click" (1hr 47min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 1.215G, and the 24-bit version is 2.673G.
Including a 640kbps AC3 core, 16-bit version is 1.722G, and the 24-bit version is 3.18G.

"Rent" (2hr 15min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 1.698G, and the 24-bit version is 3.53G.
Including a 640kbps AC3 core, 16-bit version is 2.335G, and the 24-bit version is 4.167G.

DTS-HD
"Click" (1hr 47min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 1.719G, and the 24-bit version is 2.951G.

"Rent" (2hr 15min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 2.28G, and the 24-bit version is 3.927G.

It's not a huge difference, but as more and more stuff gets stuffed on to each disc (games, PIP commentaries, alternate language tracks, etc), every little bit counts. Audio compression is also one of the first steps in the authoring process I believe (as it's largely automated, unlike video compression where the compressionist can go back and hand tweak selected scenes/segments to get a better result out of the encoder). Once the final size of the audio encode and the other assets is known, video compression can commence (because the compressionist knows how much room is left on the disc for the main feature). So having the smallest audio file up front is important for getting the most out of the video.

[daringdogcow]

Originally Posted by Nick Graham

Juno looks like it will blow that out of the water, and yet I am expecting only an SD release for it.

Didn't Fox say this was coming to BD? I thought they did around the holidays.

[eli1277]

what exactly is lossless audio??

[ScopeAspect]

I agree with the OP 100%.

Scope

[koreyman]

I see Twister being the first movie WB really goes nuts on. and will have it pefected for the movie of 2008 a BLU exclusive THE DARK NIGHT by the way sence now 75% of the movies are blu exclusive do we need to still say that I mean we dont say dvd exclusive do we ?

[WickyWoo]

Doubtful. Twister's done and has been done

[Kristin Simard]

I would like to see an end to region coding of Blu-ray discs and players entirely. One key attribute of Blu-ray and High def in general is the possibility of compatibility throughout the world (no PAL/NTSC type problems).

People buy online "all the time" now, so the location of shipment is relatively a minor issue. Unlocking players and discs allows access to obscure titles from any part of the world. Also, when one travels or moves to another part of the world, titles picked up along the way would be compatible. It worked for music CDs.

[Superking]

Originally Posted by Kristin Simard

I would like to see an end to region coding of Blu-ray discs and players entirely. One key attribute of Blu-ray and High def in general is the possibility of compatibility throughout the world (no PAL/NTSC type problems).

People buy online "all the time" now, so the location of shipment is relatively a minor issue. Unlocking players and discs allows access to obscure titles from any part of the world. Also, when one travels or moves to another part of the world, titles picked up along the way would be compatible. It worked for music CDs.

Different mediums, different industries.

Region coding is also what helped Blu win, studios such as New Line need region coding around since they don't own the distribution rights to their movie in other parts of the world.

You can still do what you just said even with region coding on Blu as catalog titles (not Fox/MGM) are region free or support all regions. Also if you plan on importing from Europe, you'll be happy to know that most European releases support all regions. And if you want stuff from Asia, well Asia is the same as North America if you're from North America and vice versa.

I am against region coding as much as everybody else, but at least this time around it's not so bad with just 3 regions rather than Toshiba's horrible 8 region setup last time around.

[Seretur]

Hi, Nick! Thanks for posting this here, as HTF is really not somewhere I care to go anymore.

Point by point:

1 -- This is Fox, basically. Their attitude to BD releases smacks of planned double-dipping, and combined with your Point 4, has made me refrain from purchasing the vast majority of their titles. Look at it more widely: Fox are also obsessed with region coding and copy protection, so they're the odd company out in many ways. But then again, they're also obsessed with transfer quality (nowadays) and playability.

I'd guess that's just a different attitude than that of Disney or Sony, who give us discs that for the most part can be considered definitive releases -- a corporate MO that will certainly have to be adjusted in the upcoming months.


2 -- And this is why I've held off from buying all the titles you mention, and then some. As a rule of thumb, I won't accept less than lossless audio on any film released with a digital soundtrack, i.e. post-1990 (although I'm well aware that they could all have lossless -- it's just how I've rationalised buying, say, the Peckinpah titles, which I really wanted).

Warner are coming around in regard to lossless, though -- apparently even Jesse James will have it, contrary to initial reports. And I'm quite certain it would be no problem for them to repress most lossy releases, the way they did Superman Returns, so hopefully we see that happen this year.


3 -- Um, no. DTS-HD MA is a very good audio option. We shouldn't be judging it based on yesterday's players and receivers (and I'm saying this as someone who has a yesterday's player and receiver).

Even now, it can be bitstreamed from sub-$500 players, and processed by sub-$500 receivers. Those of us who care about audio can certainly invest in such gear (and prices are falling daily, see Funai). Those who don't care about audio still get at least DVD-quality DTS. I actually prefer this option to straight PCM, as it leaves more room for other things on the disc.


4 -- This is Fox and MGM, basically. Double dippers all. Well, thankfully The Fly was done justice to... And it seems they're getting better. Fox had a very trying year in 2007, now they can relax and start doing things right. And I'm not touching The Fifth Element until Sony finally release it as a proper SE. It's a silly film which you have to deck out like a Wallachian bride to make appealing...


5 -- Hey, it's all coming. I can take or leave the current "indie" cinema, but I want my classic titles done right, and that means care. None of the Universal catalog approach. (Those bozos will have to redo most of their transfers for the eventual BD releases, as I hope even they understand.) I'd rather have one big catalog title per studio every month, but done right. You know, like CE3K or BSD...


Speaking of BSD, I'm tickled pink to go over to HTF and see how Dave Mack is taking the Warner news...

...but nahh. Cees will probably want to give me a full cavity search, as soon as I click on the URL.

[Nick Graham]

Originally Posted by Seretur

...but nahh. Cees will probably want to give me a full cavity search, as soon as I click on the URL.

ROTFL

[ezcobar411]

Good suggestions

[ground chuck]

these are great suggestions, but i think that we're all jumping to conclusions that this war is over. while warner going blu is huge the end is near, but the war is not over. warner going blu is a battle won in the war between hd-dvd and blu-ray. i think we all forget about that from time to time.

[rwduke]

DTS MA is awesome and needs to stay.

As for positive changes that need to happen:
All titles should have lossless audio, period. Lossy audio is for standard dvd.

[GarettP]

No More Dolby Digital Please!

[Dadds]

i hate dts ma because with my current receiver it locks up sometimes