Archived: Insiders Thread

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

You would be proud of how paidgeek has nearly broken the Sony Classics budget on the production of Lawrence of Arabia……. and there is still possibly room for improvement......if one didn't care about placing all other projects on *hold* for the next twenty years or so.

I think if he asks for anymore money for LoA, the President of SPE will have a stroke.

I'm sooooo looking forward to seeing the fruits of such love and respect.

Gary

[TheLion]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

You would be proud of how paidgeek has nearly broken the Sony Classics budget on the production of Lawrence of Arabia……. and there is still possibly room for improvement......if one didn't care about placing all other projects on *hold* for the next twenty years or so.

I think if he asks for anymore money for LoA, the President of SPE will have a stroke.

There is hardly a better way of spending company funds than on LoA IMO.

[theknub]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

You would be proud of how paidgeek has nearly broken the Sony Classics budget on the production of Lawrence of Arabia……. and there is still possibly room for improvement......if one didn't care about placing all other projects on *hold* for the next twenty years or so.

I think if he asks for anymore money for LoA, the President of SPE will have a stroke.

That’s it for this week guys, I answered as many PM’s as I could.

where's rob? surprised he hasn't popped in to smile yet

[WickyWoo]

You would be proud of how paidgeek has nearly broken the Sony Classics budget on the production of Lawrence of Arabia……. and there is still possibly room for improvement......if one didn't care about placing all other projects on *hold* for the next twenty years or so.

*single tear*

Make sure they use the nice cover art on it instead of the horrific single disc "blue* art. The one that was on the original LE And a collector's box just like that one was.

Or do a funky packaging like the Star Trek set, where the clear box is full of sand..... (whoohoo! Break marketing's budget too!)

[David Forbes]

Three cheers for Paid!

[jsb_hburg]

To any insider,

Have any of you actually read or seen the article on the alleged Toshiba payment to Paramount?

[L or S of Perfect?]

Bad news concerning the cheap Gowell G875 blu-ray player. Answer to an email inquiry:

Dear Sir

this product is not ready yet. we will have publice information when it is ready!

it should be in next year!

Seems like both Funai & Gowell won't make it in time for this holiday season.

Insiders, any word on the cheap blu-ray players hitting before christmas (to counter venturer)?

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by Azumi

hello Penton,

According to the italian magazine AV Digitale (link to the story), Ridley Scott is demanding that his films are to be published in Blu-ray.

The story essentially says that the italian company Medusa (previously HD DVD exclusive) will be publishing Kingdom of Heaven exclusively in BD at Ridley Scott's request.

Is there any truth in this?

Both Blade Runner and Black Rain are neutral titles, so the question is if a final cut gives a director the freedom to demand studios that his films are to be published in his preferred format

And the 64,000 $ question (which I don't have, so don't ask for them ) is if there are other directors and creative people who have chosen Blu-ray...

I don't have any inside information on this. I will be anxious to see how the situation plays out...

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by scott1256ca

Speculation has been that Sony is (or at least was) capping the production costs for BD studios in order to make pricing competitive with HD DVD, which is why movie pricing on the end product is similar.

Would one of the insiders be able to answer a question for me?

Do companies that offer replication services, like Pacificdisc
http://www.pacificdisc.com
or proaction media
http://www.proactionmedia.com
actually own the equipment they replicate on, or do they outsource the actual replication to someone else? In other words, do they just create the master and send it out for replication?

These companies do not own replication plants. They broker replication services and leverage small orders by aggregating them.

[hoser]

Originally Posted by ps3andlovinit

Yes that has ALWAYS been the way they work. Take their weakness and hide it by making up something about the competition having that problem. It deflects attention and sets the agenda..the BDA needs to stop letting them set the agenda.

OK, so now we know you're a political junkie (hopefully, BD will fight back...unlike the Democrats).

[Freebster2007]

I was wondering if there is any news on Lord of the Rings on Blu Ray
Any new Info?

[Chad Varnadore]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

In regards to David Vaughn and future postings regarding studio business, I would expect the depth of his knowledge into what’s happening at Fox, Disney, and Sony to pretty much exactly mirror that of ………..the A-man.

I haven't been to AVS in many months. So I haven't followed Dave's posting over there. I can say with fairly strong certainty that Dave probably doesn't have any contacts at Fox, Sony, or Disney. He covers Warner, Paramount, and Universal for the Spot. I don't know if he's actually passing himself off as an insider on AVS, if AVS may have chose to make him one for reasons of their own, or if he's simply been mislabeled as one due to the nature of his posts. But he's not an insider, by my definition, he's press.

I don't know where his information is coming from, probably someone affiliated with Paramount. Personally, unlike Amir and co, Paid hasn't given me any reason not to believe his 80 percent plus figure. And I think the evidence and consistency of BD50s use in the market seems to support that there isn't any kind of significant replication problem. I can't think of any BDs that have been recalled for replication errors. HD DVD has had to essentially recall one at least, maybe two or more (Children of Men). And if sales are any indicator of replication numbers, they're only producing roughly half the volume of discs as BD.

Idon't trust anything coming from Paramount right now. I was surprised that news broke of the 150 million deal so soon. But I guess, all things considered, they had to have something to justify the decision to their investors and the creative talent that would logically be upset by their decision to only support a poorer selling, format of lower capability. But, I don't buy most of what they've had to say so far. In fact half of their reasoning sounds like they were tutored by select members of Microsoft/the HD DVD promotion group. Whether Dave feels differently or is just passing on the information he's been fed, I don't know. I can say that Dave has indicated that he doesn't trust Amir anymore than most here, anymore. But Amir is a good salesman that seems capable of making some people forgive or forget.

[jorg]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Folks I’ll be super busy this week so you probably won’t be hearing from me for awhile. I haven’t even caught up with this thread since I posted this morning and I see my PM’s are stacking up again. My apologies but I probably won’t get to any of them until this weekend, the earliest.

Meanwhile bug Talkstr8t to do more talking.
Plus kjack should be coming back from vacation.

Later

ya havent seen paid geek or talkstr8t post in long time

[Dave J]

Originally Posted by jorg

ya havent seen paid geek or talkstr8t post in long time

Talkstr8t has been doing a fairly convincing re-enactment of The Omega Man/Last Man on Earth over on AVS today but instead of zombies, imagine an army of red ants.

[dialog_gvf]

Moved some posts to the commentary thread:

David Vaughn responds here

[Rob Tomlin]

Wow, great post Chad. Thanks!

[BTBuck1]

Saw this over at AVS:

Originally Posted by rlogle

Three of the Wal-Marts in my area have gotten rid of all the hd dvd's they had in stock. I have a friend that works at one of them and he say's they have a big Blu Ray sign in the back ready for the holiday's. I was afraid they'd go bd exclusive. The chinese players, besides the Venturer, I'm afraid is goin' to be a blu ray player and Wal-Mart wil go with blu ray. Please hd dvd fans let's get to emailing Wal-Mart.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=902387

Any news on if/when Walmart may or may not be going BD exclusive?

Thanks!

I noticed in my Wally, they have about 20-25 BD's and about 2-3 HDDVD's.

[FourToedStatue]

I hope its not true and we are getting the UNRATED Die Hard 4. It would suck if we got the skimped version

[Razter]

So apparently there is nothing called Profile "1.0,1.1,2.0"
They are just made up to make it easier to talk about I guess.

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

1.1 is a made-up term. You won't find it in the BD-ROM specification. The proper terms are "Profile 1 (Grace Period Profile)", "Profile 1 (Final Standard Profile), and "Profile 2 (BD-Live)". The Broadcom datasheet is simply using proper terminology (especially since Profile 2 is a superset of Profile 1/1.1).

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=813

The right terms are "Profile 1" and "Profile 2"
This has been confusing but it now seems that the new Samsung(combo) will have the 2.0 profile(with profile 1=PiP)

Are there other new players that could of been mistaken as a old "Grace Period" player?

paidgeek: What about the new Sony, is it really a "Grace Period" player or a new "Profile 1" player?

[Razter]

Bummer, stupid mistake by Sony if you ask me.

EDIT: Did they use the term "1.1" or something else, maybe it says "Profile 1" in the specs and everyone thinks it's the old term "1.0"?