Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[NoQuestion]

Jeff/Bill,

With the announcement of the Bourne Series happening today. Can you guys verify if these will be the exact same hd-dvd source or are they going to be re-done for bluray?

[Jeff Kleist]

If they follow what they've been doing, with the exception of Heroes S1 it'll be a new high bitrate compression from the same master tape.

[Slec]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

If they follow what they've been doing, with the exception of Heroes S1 it'll be a new high bitrate compression from the same master tape.

God I hope that's the case, for many reasons. I'll even admit one of them is because I don't know if I could handle 2 weeks of threads with people complaining about it and the zoo it would create on the 'other' forum.

[jd213]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

If they follow what they've been doing, with the exception of Heroes S1 it'll be a new high bitrate compression from the same master tape.

I believe Land of the Dead was also a recycled HD DVD encode. It was low-bitrate VC1 with pulsing in dark areas, so it had the look of an old 2006 VC1 disc.

[tilapiah6]

Two questions:

Hello Jeff, do you know when if ever Mulholland Dr, Lost Highway, Twin Peaks (movie or TV show), Elephant Man, or Eraserhead will be coming to Blu-ray?

Do you know how long us Lost fans are going to have to wait on a release for the first two seasons of Lost?

[Jeff Kleist]

No idea on the Lynch movies, though I believe Paramount did rescan the TP TV series in HD, so it's hypothetically possible, depending on how the DVD did.

I don't expect the first two seasons of Lost until the complete box hits in the fall of 2010. Catalog TV series have done quite poorly on Blu-ray and there needs to be a bigger audience.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

No idea on the Lynch movies, though I believe Paramount did rescan the TP TV series in HD, so it's hypothetically possible, depending on how the DVD did.

I don't expect the first two seasons of Lost until the complete box hits in the fall of 2010. Catalog TV series have done quite poorly on Blu-ray and there needs to be a bigger audience.

Any idea how Heroes has done on blu?

Btw, it does feel awesome that Bourne has been announced.

[Jeff Kleist]

Nothing outside the published Nielsen numbers. Getting actual sold figures is like pulling teeth because they're closely guarded. Heroes 2 seems to have sold within expectations, I don't know how 1 did, but I don't think it was expected to move that many to begin with, being expensive and a catalog title

A lot of what Universal is doing right now is trying to re-establish the base of the HD HD catalog, and obviously Heroes is probably the strongest TV title they have right now, and most of the hard work was already done.

[NoQuestion]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Nothing outside the published Nielsen numbers. Getting actual sold figures is like pulling teeth because they're closely guarded. Heroes 2 seems to have sold within expectations, I don't know how 1 did, but I don't think it was expected to move that many to begin with, being expensive and a catalog title

A lot of what Universal is doing right now is trying to re-establish the base of the HD HD catalog, and obviously Heroes is probably the strongest TV title they have right now, and most of the hard work was already done.

Its great seeing Universal put so much effort into the titles they have released so far and the ones they have announced so far.

Over in the Bourne thread you mentioned that other major catalog titles may be getting the bump up to Q1. Were you talking just from Universal or from the other major studios too?

[Jeff Kleist]

Over in the Bourne thread you mentioned that other major catalog titles may be getting the bump up to Q1. Were you talking just from Universal or from the other major studios too?

Universal

[coolmilo]

Hello Jeff,

Is Sony planning to release Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist anytime soon? I would have guessed that an announcement would have been made by now.

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

BTW Matrix people, Revolutions is next for me to watch, I've sent everything you've given me onto the right people long ago though encouraging an exchange program if/when they fix it

Any update after your viewing?

[mdm1699]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Universal

Never had a reason to post to this thread. I do browse it from time to time. Any word on Cold Mountain? Thanks.

[Jeff Kleist]

had a bit of a family crisis in the last 48 hours, so I haven't had time to watch anything at appropriate volumes

Never had a reason to post to this thread. I do browse it from time to time. Any word on Cold Mountain? Thanks.

Not that I've heard

[stockstar1138]

Hey Jeff, can you lend some insight on this. Is this guy a wacko or does this have some crediblity.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...81#post1323181

The reason I know what I'm saying is true is because I am a professional in the motion picture industry who has supervised dozens of 35mm film transfers to 1080p. I have compared the DVDs of "Clockwork" and "The Shining" to the blue-ray and they are IDENTICAL, shot-for-shot; it's the exact same SD master, uprezzed. If it were a re-master, it would look slightly different in color here and there because re-mastering is a shot-by-shot adjustment from the 35mm original negative to a 1080p format called HDCAM-SR. That is not the case here. The opening titles on "Clockwork" are a dead giveaway as well as all of the wide shots in both films. Yes, the films look great; fantastic! But that doesn't mean they're from 1080p masters. That's because those original SD masters were done painstakingly and brilliantly well. And Kubrick was a freak about technical perfection, cherry picking every lens he shot with and testing lighting before he shot so everything in the film would be perfect. Couple that with a perfect transfer and you've got one helluva good looking master -- in SD. So good, in fact, it'll uprez brillinatly to 1080p and look great. But not as great as it would look if Kubrick's amazing 35mm original were re-mastered in HDCAM-SR. That's why WB is able to get away with it. Andyman, do you honestly think WB would sell a re-mastered version that cost them a fortune for $15 bucks? Think about it. And, BTW, I scoured the disk boxes. NOWHERE on them does it say "re-mastered in HD" That's because then WB WOULD be liable for fraud. Look, I'm on YOUR side, folks. This is about fairness. These companies do not want to spend the tens of thousands it takes to re-master old films if their SD masters are decent enough and the public will accept it. They can legally call it 1080p because that's the format they're selling you. But it doesn't mean the original video content they made it from is 1080. And it's not all films. I have "Deliverance." An older film that does not look as good as as the Kubrick movies, but it is a true 1080p master. Companies look at the numbers and the quality of their masters. If they can avoid a r-master, they will. Many of the older films you watch on you HD channels are just SD masters uprezzed to 1080p. They're not true HD re-masters. Don't fight it. Fix it. Get educated.

[mdm1699]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

had a bit of a family crisis in the last 48 hours, so I haven't had time to watch anything at appropriate volumes



Not that I've heard

Thanks and hope that all goes well.

[Jeff Kleist]

Hey Jeff, can you lend some insight on this. Is this guy a wacko or does this have some crediblity.

He has no idea what he's talking about. It sounds to me like he's doing pixel counting or something. Kubrick's stuff was often somewhat soft focus from what I remember (I'm not a big fan of Kubrick, but I've seen most of his films), was shot back in the 70s and 80s on the cruddy stocks of the period. Then of course they were put through WB's DNR pipeline. There's been a few films like Robin Hood that I've done direct comparisons on where the DVD version did look superficially identical to the Blu-ray, but when you look closer, there was no comparison, and I had a recent viewing of a 35mm print to compare both of those to, and the BLu-ray captures the experience I saw.

ADDENDUM- Re-reading the text, he seems to not realize that they do a 1080p transfer and then downres for the DVD, so of course the color timing would be the same. This sort of thing has been stardard procedure for 10 years as well.

Too many people look at older films, or even pre-HD pipeline TV like Firefly in a very superficial manner. I can say with certainty that this guy has never been anywhere near GDMX or WB's mastering department, they've been archiving and transferring in 1080i and up since before the first Kubrick DVDs back in what, 1999? How good a job they've done is certainly up to debate, but upconverting masters? Absolutely not. There is only one upconverted Blu-ray on the US market, Yukikaze from Bandai.

[MerrickG]

Hey Jeff,

Im sure you probably cant comment, but it has long been rumored that Serentity would be part of a Sci-Fi pack with stuff like Chronicles of Riddick and Pitchblack.

Do you expect these to get released on the same day as Serenity?


Once again, thanks for taking the time to post here.

[Jeff Kleist]

I expect them to get 3 packed, but not to come out the same day.

[tilapiah6]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

No idea on the Lynch movies, though I believe Paramount did rescan the TP TV series in HD, so it's hypothetically possible, depending on how the DVD did.

I don't expect the first two seasons of Lost until the complete box hits in the fall of 2010. Catalog TV series have done quite poorly on Blu-ray and there needs to be a bigger audience.

Thank you for that information. I certainly hope Twin Peaks gets the HD treatment.