Warner BDs - Cropped!

[zombie]

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kisskissbangbang.html

Unfortunately, as noted in my Blu-ray review of 'Training Day', the cropping issue again has reared its ugly head. Like 'Training Day,' 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' on Blu-ray also suffers from a narrower aspect ratio, with some noticeable cropping on the sides of the picture.

[ProvenFlipper]

I wonder what the reason for this is... I didn't notice this, but I wasn't comparing the HD-DVD release directly against the BD.

[BTBuck1]

I think the samsung player is doing this.

Once again he states that the "WB" Blu Ray titles don't support DD+ which is B.S. here they are...

only his test disc is lacking, the retail version has it intact:

[PBracke]

Hey there --

This is Peter Bracke with High Def Digest. I didn't review test discs -- Warner only sends out final product for review. Our copies, including the packaging, indicate only Dolby 5.1, and the same is on the disc for all of the Blu-ray titles.

Very, very strange. We will be contacting Warner tomorrow to see what is up -- I've also got confirm from readers who have found early copies at retail, and they also do not have Dolby Digital Plus tracks.

[BTBuck1]

WOW, hey thanks for the prompt reply. This is very interesting. I WILL ONLY BUY THE DD+ discs tuesday when i pick up my own (if they really exist & this isn't a typ on packaging). the pic is of provenflippers discs he found early at fry's electronics.

thanks,
Brian

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore (quoted from avsforum.com)

I contacted our press contact with Warner about the discrepancy in packaging today. She replied that some discs were shiped with inaccurate packaging indicating DD+ when the discs actually support only DD 5.1. Apparently some retailers sold some of the recalled titles before Warner could get them all back. But, they assured me there is no DD+ soundtracks on any of these first wave discs. They also confirmed for our pending review that these first discs are indeed MPEG2 and not VC1.

Can you come back and verify this tomorrow? thanks!
this could also explain why as of sunday, Best Buy still had not received their WB Br's yet.

Also Chad states this:

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore

I compared both at no overscan on a front projection display and was not able to duplicate any cropping or the brightness problemsthat Mr. Brack found, which the brightness thing is most likely an issue with his calibration not matched to the two devices. His and Bill Hunt's assertion that you need to use a component connection for a fair judgement has already been refutted as well. The only difference between the two discs video wise that I found was some minor blocking in the opening sunrise on the BD disc that wasn't there on the HD disc. I didn't notice this anywhere else on the disc though and think that the analog conversion may be aggravating the effect. If he's seeing it on the HD disc, I would surmise that the analog conversion may actually be generating it, as I couldn't see any blocking at all on the HD disc around 1/3 larger screen size.Unless Mr Bracke was referring to posterization, which is visible on both at the beginning but isn't necessarily a byproduct of compression.

__________________
Chad Varnadore
Senior Editor
Home Theater Spot

[Dr Kain]

What exaxctly does cropped mean?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

What exaxctly does cropped mean?

Not original aspect ratio. Meaning: You're getting screwed out of the full image, and quite needlessly I might add.

Example: Let's say the film's OAR was 2:35:1 widescreen, but you see cable and satellite do this all the time: They air that same film at 1:85:1 widescreen, if you're lucky.

That's cropping, albeit a more extreme form of it. I think you get the overall gist and concept, though.

So let's see. Cropping and no DD+? No sale whatsoever.

I can't see any sane person paying a grand for hardware so they can run subpar BD25 MPEG2 discs that are lacking in even core features vs. their HD-DVD counterparts.

I demand to have at least DD+ and full, uncropped OAR on any HD disc I buy or I will not touch it with a ten foot pole.


And this sucks, by the way.

Brian, I'm glad you saw Chad's messages on this. Chad is a great guy and as rock solid as they come. Chad's the one I was communicating with throughout the day yesterday on this Warner DD+ thing.

I knew something wasn't right, because Chad is not someone who posts misinformation.


I'm sorry, but this is really starting to get frustrating and looking bad for Blu-Ray, imo. It looks like Chad was probably right yesterday and so was I, Brian.

You better withdraw that "pwned! " unfortuneately...

[BTBuck1]

well it's pretty obvious the overscan doesn't exist because Chad doesn't see it, He also doesn't see the "artifacting problems" that they saw except in the sunset scene which i can attest to is very minor, and lasts all of 10 seconds.

This is still not only the BEST Blu Ray disc out there alongside STEALTH, But it's right along side Training Day on HDDVD which is the Best that format offers.

Albeit, missing DD+ however, but i guess i can accept this since all of this has made me discover you DO need a decoder to fully appreciate DD+ and none of the BR players out, or comming (that I want) can do this. And there are no receivers to decode the info.

The Soundtrack sounds suprisingly good, and me & provenflipper both thought we were listening to something special and are still happy with the disc.

pwn3d is provenflipper who has a disc with false advertisement!

To JTK:
[vin deisel] I retract my previous statement![/vin deisel]

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Brian@BBY

Albeit, missing DD+ however, but i guess i can accept this since all of this has made me discover you DO need a decoder to fully appreciate DD+ and none of the BR players out, or comming (that I want) can do this. And there are no receivers to decode the info.

Hold the phone.

Do you mean to tell me that my $500 HD-DVD player can do DD+ over mutichannel analogs to my hardly high end receiver RIGHT NOW but NONE of these Blu-Ray players can do the same things? $1000? $1500?

Surely that can't be.

I guess it doesn't matter if the studios aren't even going to bother putting DD+ on BD discs.

The Soundtrack sounds suprisingly good, and me & provenflipper both thought we were listening to something special and are still happy with the disc.

It sounds good, but it's a gip. Make no mistake about it.

pwn3d is provenflipper who has a disc with false advertisement!

To JTK:
[vin deisel] I retract my previous statement![/vin deisel]

I wish you had been right.

[BTBuck1]

This is what it says for the Sony:

I can't decode this i need the Rosetta stone:
Uncompressed Multi Channel Linear PCM OutputDolby® Digital Plus(Dolby® Digital audio stream only), Dolby® TrueHD (Dolby® Digital audio stream only) dts®-HD --- (dts audio stream only) Digital Out and decoding capabilityDolby® Digital and dts® 5.1channel Output


The Panasonic is supposed to be able to do everything.

Samsung lists:
Dolby Digital, Dolby® Digital Plus, DTS®, MP3 audio decoding
^but apparently this isn't true, or maybe it can only stream it. i don't know, this shit is getting confusing!

Pioneer: I cound't find anything.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Brian@BBY

5.1channel Output

See that? Whenever you see a designation like that...usually *knocks on wood* it's referring to 5.1 mutichannel analogs.

So, from what I'm gathering from all that mess is: Yes, you can use multichannel analogs to get at least DD+.

If the studios bother to put it on the discs, that is...

[Shadowself]

I must be missing something here.

Why would a studio go through the effort of creating a disk with VC-1 video encoding and DD+ audio encoding then turn around and go through the additional effort of creating a MPEG2 video encoding and a DD audio encoding?

As I understand it the specifications for players for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disk are that they must both support VC-1 and DD+.

So why go throught the added expense of the second set of encodings?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Shadowself

I must be missing something here.

Why would a studio go through the effort of creating a disk with VC-1 video encoding and DD+ audio encoding then turn around and go through the additional effort of creating a MPEG2 video encoding and a DD audio encoding?

As I understand it the specifications for players for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disk are that they must both support VC-1 and DD+.

So why go throught the added expense of the second set of encodings?

Beats me.

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by JTK

See that? Whenever you see a designation like that...usually *knocks on wood* it's referring to 5.1 mutichannel analogs.

So, from what I'm gathering from all that mess is: Yes, you can use multichannel analogs to get at least DD+.

If the studios bother to put it on the discs, that is...

So does this mean it will stream all of those formats over 5.1 analog out?
Like, DTSHD-DD+-DtruHD etc?

[Psiweaver]

Yeah i'm very confused about what it will or will not do. I'm confused as to why they would change the encoding all around to release it on blu-ray. Seems like much more money and time being spent on something that doesn't really need to have that done to it.

[BTBuck1]

the only authoring tools available for BR at the time of press was mpeg2 from sony. I understand that now things are different.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Brian@BBY

So does this mean it will stream all of those formats over 5.1 analog out?
Like, DTSHD-DD+-DtruHD etc?

DD+ for sure.

Not 100 percent sure about the others... *goes to start looking...*

Originally Posted by Psiweaver

Yeah i'm very confused about what it will or will not do. I'm confused as to why they would change the encoding all around to release it on blu-ray. Seems like much more money and time being spent on something that doesn't really need to have that done to it.

I think it's a more customer friendly move, by far, to have the audio codcecs in the players so people like me and probably a lot of others, that don't have recievers with HDMI on them, can at least use the multichannel analogs and get some HD audio hotness NOW.

It's amazing that the $500 HD-DVD player has the audio codecs built in.

For $1000 or more: Any player should damn well have the audio codecs built in for sure. From here on out.

[Psiweaver]

I would prefer that if there going to do the audio processing that they actually do a good job of it though. I could care less what format the audio is encoded in as long as it sounds great is very clean and has a great dynamic range, ie sounds much more like a cd or hi-rez audio format as opposed to sounding like my buddies ipod where he's ripped everything at 128k mp3 tracks.

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by Brian@BBY

the only authoring tools available for BR at the time of press was mpeg2 from sony. I understand that now things are different.

Every authoring system I have personally used or been exposed to has the encoded media as a drop in. (Unfortunately, I don't personally play with this stuff anymore. Hell, I don't even go to the Holiwood Post Alliance conferences and parties anymore -- and they KNOW how to party!) If the media is already encoded then it is just placed into the "container" in the authoring system and written to the media with all the fancy user access wrapped around it.

Unless Sony has explicitly written the authoring system to be usable ONLY with MPEG2 and DD then the situation still makes no sense to me. I don't understand why Sony would (if they did) hardwire MPEG2 into the authoring system for the disk. If this is true then Sony will have to rewrite major parts of their authoring system around H.264. (I doubt they'll go with VC-1.)