Archived: Insiders Thread

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by BillCable

Along those lines... when Warner finally does release Matrix and Batman on Blu-ray, will those films be optimized for Blu-ray, or will we get the same gimped transfers as HD-DVD? One would hope that with more than a year between releases they'd be able to get away with offering better video and audio without any backlash.

The way I see it, thats the only way they can be fair about making us wait longer

[Brain Sturgeon]

Originally Posted by BillCable

Along those lines... when Warner finally does release Matrix and Batman on Blu-ray, will those films be optimized for Blu-ray, or will we get the same gimped transfers as HD-DVD? One would hope that with more than a year between releases they'd be able to get away with offering better video and audio without any backlash.

Both Matrix and Batman HD-DVDs had TrueHD soundtracks, so at the very least, both of these on Blu-ray should have at least one lossless soundtrack. It would be nice to see (or would that be hear?) an additional PCM soundtrack (like on WB's 300) and/or a higher bitrate video encode as well, but I get the feeling that won't be the case.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Jason One

paidgeek:

Can you pass along another request to the PS3 engineers? Mine concerns DVD upscaling.

As far as I know, there isn't a single upscaling DVD player in existence that properly handles non-anamorphic DVDs. Ideally, the player should stretch the non-anamorphic image vertically so that the widescreen image fills a native 16:9 HD screen with the correct proportions.

Since the PS3's upscaling is software-based, I would think it would be possible to add this functionality. I still have quite a few non-anamorphic DVDs, and if the PS3 did this it would be the best way to watch them by far. Thanks.

The Oppo players do it well.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I agree that this is a good movie. Not a big budget, just a good story...

This would have been a good candidate for dual position subtitles, but I don't think we have had much feedback since we introduced that feature on "Immortal Beloved". I'll bring it up again...

I'm sorry. I haven't seen "Immortal Beloved" yet, but I wanted to put in my $.02 that "The Lives of Others" is one of the greatest movies in recent years. I actually decided not to see it initially as I was upset that "Pan's Labyrinth" lost the Oscar... when I figured no other foreign language film of last year could have been nearly as good.

When I saw that Sony was releasing the film on Blu-ray, though, I decided that I would get the title to encourage studios to release more foreign and classic films on Blu-ray. Anyway, I watched it and was completely blown away. The film is amazing, and is exactly the kind of title I wish we got more of on Blu-ray.

So, my appologies to Sony. I was wrong and the Academy called it right. Thank you very much for the disc. And, although my current setup is 16:9, someday I plan to have a CH projector setup and REALLY like the idea of moveable subtitles.

Thanks, Paidgeek.



Edit: to Penton

Keep fighting the good fight. I really enjoyed "Blood Diamond" but that transfer did not do justice to the film. I saw it in theatres and it definitely looked better than the disc, whatever the reason.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

Paidgeek:

This is more a comment of appreciation and thanks than a question (but I will throw one in at the end anyway): I watched The Lives of Others last night, and I just wanted to let you and Sony know how much I appreciate the work that was done on this great (Academy Award Winning) title! The PQ was quite good, and the lossless German track was included. Thank you!
!

Same here! It was a GREAT move to release this film which together with VOLVER is amongst the most rewatched discs in my collection (my collection consists of well over 4000 discs, 97% European/Arthouse cinema). So, special thanks to your team Paidgeek. And if possible please consider the Almodovar set for BR!

Thank you again for a job well done!

Dr.A

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Honestly, I have no idea what the hell you are talking about but, if there is someone on AVS that is imitating me, I hope at least that he is smarter, funnier and better looking than me…..as then, it will only add- rather than detract- from my image.

In other words, if this dude says something extraordinarily insightful, you may consider the poster to be me, if you so choose. But it aint me.

Yeah, the real poster cleared that up. Honestly, I don't keep track of forum threads nearly as much as most people. I just dabble here and there. Most have become to much back and forth and name calling for my tastes and I try my best to not get into it (though I've been guilty a few times). I didn't know if you were posting under a different name over there now but I saw "Hollywood Insider" and made the assumption it was you. Oh well. He's not imitating you though.

[mwales]

I've been a lurker on the board a few months now, and have a question for the insiders (and probably more specifically Sony insiders):

Is there any plans to address Blu-ray playback for Linux systems?

I have migrated most of my home PCs to Ubuntu Linux (which overall, I'm very happy with), and I think in general Linux is beginning to pick up more and more momentum. Multimedia playback is a bit troublesome though, especially DVDS. All the major distributions that I know of have not been able to play DVDs because of patent and DMCA restrictions.

I've noticed that Sony seems to be drifting more and more towards open systems and standards (which is great!). So much so that I was able to install another OS on my PS3 without even voiding the warranty.

Would it be possible for Sony (or someone else) to release Blu-ray playback SW for Linux systems? If not, what are the limitations and could they be addressed? Linux users prefer open source applications, but are still accepting of proprietary software (Google Earth for example).

[The Guardian]

Question: Has the idea been tossed around to pay Wal-mart and others for an "exclusive" Upcoming Releases arrangement?

I'm talking about the sign in their electronics departments listing all the upcoming DVDs and the release dates. When DVD was new it showed both DVD and VHS, and it had a check next to which ones were supported... at the start, not all were on DVD, then eventually not all on VHS...

By exclusive, I don't mean getting rid of DVD off the chart, but having DVD and Blu-ray and no HD DVD...

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by gand41f

Let me add my thanks as well. This is an excellent movie with a great transfer.

Sony has really distinguished themselves by bringing great foreign cinema to Blu-ray (others include Black Book, Volver and the assorted Chinese epics). Now please add these to the 1/2 off sale and I'll buy them all.
thanks
gandalf

Gandalf,
I just returned from my local Circuit City where I took advantage of the “2 for 1” sale on Blu-ray discs and bought a boat load of titles for my sister’s son whom I am godfather to.

With any and I mean any title (costing $29.99 or $24.99 as listed on the case) that they rang up on their computer, I got the complementary “2 for 1” sale thingee. (I bought alot of titles not on the "official" sale list).

Actually, the way my receipt came out was that every Blu-ray title that I bought whether it was or wasn’t on their “sale list” was charged to me as either $12.50 or $15.00.

I suggest you take advantage of this sale if there is a store in your area.

[Rio]

As to the "sin" of the video master, even D5 does not have any sorts of "artifacts" we often see on HDM titles, such as pulsing, block/mosquito noises, ringing, and false-contouring. Although intra-frame based DCT compression smooths very high frequency signal little bit compared to uncompressed 4:4:4 signal, it is hard to distinguish that by just looking it on less than 60" screen. Softness, ringings, btw, could be attributed to the source signal fed to the VCR machine, such as old telecine machine (old Spirit machine produced ringing as far as I know). All of you may know, just few years before, there were no system in posthouses for telecine to check the result on fairly big screen. They had used 32" BVM as the standard and believe me, they couldn't see any detail info on that small interlace based monitor, although its color reproducibility is still a top notch. It's not the colorists' fault at all as well, films were beautifully seen on the BVM. I think shooting itself is getting more difficult these days, when we consider that the final presentation on much bigger display with dot by dot accuracy and high contrast. We could even see slight off-focusing on that kind of displays.

Further more, some of older CGI movies also had some sort of artifacts in its "master" prior to the tape machine. Some of them used compression to store each frame at the final production maybe due to the limitation of cost/storage available at that time. I saw typical compression artifacts in it, although I believe that kind of way of production is no longer seen recently.

Now, we have better transfer method than before, we have 24p tape machine instead of 60i machine, with lessened compression ratio, we have displays to check them, we have less-cost huge storage, all of those can provide much solid masters for HDM titles ever before.

BTW, a company "FED" demonstrated its prototype FED (Field Emission Display, spin-out technology developed by Sony) monitor at the CEATEC. They are working at hard to get their product out for master monitor use. I saw it and it's very nice. They had side-by-side comparison with FED and CRT BVM, black was blacker than BVM and very accurate sharpness (of course), and color reproducibility was almost identical. They also demonstrated high frame rate with custom-made Grand Turismo 5 demo playbacked at 240Hz. At 60Hz, video playback is much smoother than 24Hz and this makes more "reality", but I still see it's a video presentation, on the other hand, at 240Hz, I felt I was seeing "real" scenery - just like watching it through window. It was very exciting experience.

According to them, their plan is releasing master monitor use for media industry as well as medical, but the available size of the products will be 24-32". I hoped they would release much bigger one in the future...

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

I'm sorry P-Man, I have to disagree with you here. We all know that the problem that WB has doesn't stem from the skill of their compression team, rather the silly policy of using a less than satisfactory implementation of MPEG4, and having to stick to awful bandwidth limitations.

Blaming GDMX is a very easy thing to do these days but I have nothing but respect for those guys as they have to do a very difficult job under the worst kind of pressure with poor tools. I am sure if they used Sony's implementation of mpeg4 they would achieve better results but unfortunately this is not going to happen.

Basically all I am saying is that GDMX do a damn fine job and blaming them would be quite harsh as I don't see how they could do any better while following the poor guidelines set out by WB.

Max,
I don’t dispute anything you are saying. I think you misunderstood my post, you may want to reread it.
I don’t blame the compressionists group per se that do the work for WB because as you indicate they are indeed handcuffed due to the technological limitations of the HD DVD format.

If they were *allowed* to do a separate encode for the Blu-ray titles, I’m sure that their work would take advantage of the increased bandwith and space of Blu-ray….. translating into a superior picture and audio quality.

But for now, alas they must do their job and produce one encode which is a common denominator to both formats and ends up shafting Blu-ray people....due to the limitations of HD DVD.

Who I am blaming is this particular compressionist who told Dave Vaughn and Robert George that the problem scenes in the title Blood Diamond were due to the film elements.

Or, if he wants to change his story (as I mentioned to Kris above) the video master for that matter. Neither are the problem in this case.......and the individual compressionist shouldn't be making that assertion.

[Monkey]

Gran Turismo at 240hz? Holy mother, what was running it?

[Monkey]

Do you have any more details on this? You're the only person I know of to mention this. I'm sure people outside of blu-ray.com would like details. Like was that still at 1080p? Any other cars on the track,etc? People are going to be very skeptical of this? Any links with info on this for the masses?

[WickyWoo]

It was likely a pre-record. A PS3 may have generated it like the Killzone 2 movie (playback at 60fps, rendered at 5)

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

It was likely a pre-record. A PS3 may have generated it like the Killzone 2 movie (playback at 60fps, rendered at 5)

That would be believable. If so, would be cool for an option to use that on replay's.

[fronn]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

It was likely a pre-record. A PS3 may have generated it like the Killzone 2 movie (playback at 60fps, rendered at 5)

Just curious (and I'm sorry for off topic), but what Killzone 2 movie are you talking about?

There has only been two and one has been confirmed (the E3 05 one) by many sources to be complete CG (and not on the PS3 at all) and done by CG studio (employees of the CG studio being one of the sources -- no game assets were used either). The second (from E3 07) is full realtime.

This situation is likely just a matter of a little confusion -- that monitor is just going to be repeating each frame 4 times to get the 240hz (much like many of the new 120hz panels repeating several times depending on 24 or 30hz input) -- I'd be surprised if it was even able to accept a 240hz signal (what the hell is going to produce that? A PS3 can't). The GT5 demo there is very likely not specially made (the GT team doesn't have time to specially make a 240hz version just for a single vendor non related to gaming and with no real benefit to SCE)... I'm willing to bet it's just one of their 60fps GT5 demos that's probably been shown somewhere before (hell, it could have been a video). Sony may be kind to it's partners, but it won't make a special version of the PS3 that can output 240hz and won't have a special version of GT5 made just to show off a new 240hz reference panel (a single display at that). It doesn't make any sense.

[gand41f]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Gandalf,
I just returned from my local Circuit City where I took advantage of the “2 for 1” sale on Blu-ray discs and bought a boat load of titles for my sister’s son whom I am godfather to.

With any and I mean any title (costing $29.99 or $24.99 as listed on the case) that they rang up on their computer, I got the complementary “2 for 1” sale thingee. (I bought alot of titles not on the "official" sale list).

Actually, the way my receipt came out was that every Blu-ray title that I bought whether it was or wasn’t on their “sale list” was charged to me as either $12.50 or $15.00.

I suggest you take advantage of this sale if there is a store in your area.

Thanks Penton-Man. In fact I did go to Circuit City today to get some movies. Unfortunately, they don't have any of the less popular Sony titles as their selection is not that great.

Some of these titles are quite hard to find locally. For instance, I've never seen Warriors of Heaven and Earth around here. It will be greatly appreciated if SPE can do a sale on Amazon that includes these.

thanks
gandalf

[Rio]

Originally Posted by fronn

This situation is likely just a matter of a little confusion -- that monitor is just going to be repeating each frame 4 times to get the 240hz (much like many of the new 120hz panels repeating several times depending on 24 or 30hz input) -- I'd be surprised if it was even able to accept a 240hz signal (what the hell is going to produce that? A PS3 can't). The GT5 demo there is very likely not specially made (the GT team doesn't have time to specially make a 240hz version just for a single vendor non related to gaming and with no real benefit to SCE)... I'm willing to bet it's just one of their 60fps GT5 demos that's probably been shown somewhere before (hell, it could have been a video). Sony may be kind to it's partners, but it won't make a special version of the PS3 that can output 240hz and won't have a special version of GT5 made just to show off a new 240hz reference panel (a single display at that). It doesn't make any sense.

My memory was certainly corrupted badly --- the GT5 demo on FED was held with cooperation of SCE and Polyphony Digital, rendered specifically at 240fps and fed from disk recorder to FED display. It was full 240Hz resolution and not repeated same frame 4 times. The difference of the movement between 60Hz and 240Hz was night and day, not even close, that's the reason why I was almost "deceived" as it being "real".

Anyway, sorry for my misleading post.

[gand41f]

I have a somewhat related question to Paidgeek. There have been some discussions regarding 120Hz LCDs and 24Hz input. A set that does true 5:5 pulldown will make the motion (especially smooth panning motions, like end credits) look more film-like and 3:2 judder free. I know it's not your division or even your company, but do you know if the Sony XBR4/XBR5 LCDs do this correctly, instead of doubling the input to 60Hz and then to 120Hz and thus producing a 6:4 judder?

It would make Blu-rays look better if they do, that's why I am very interested. In fact, if this is confirmed by an actual insider I'd go out and buy that TV right away. I've been asking questions everywhere (including this site's Home Theater board) but haven't gotten any definite answers.

Or am I totally overrating this feature? Do people in the film industry care enough to go for multiple-of-24Hz setups (I believe high-end projectors do 48Hz and some Pioneer plasmas do 72Hz)?

Thanks! (Puts a c-note in the coffer)

enjoy
gandalf

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

I'm sorry P-Man, I have to disagree with you here. We all know that the problem that WB has doesn't stem from the skill of their compression team, rather the silly policy of using a less than satisfactory implementation of MPEG4, and having to stick to awful bandwidth limitations.

Blaming GDMX is a very easy thing to do these days but I have nothing but respect for those guys as they have to do a very difficult job under the worst kind of pressure with poor tools. I am sure if they used Sony's implementation of mpeg4 they would achieve better results but unfortunately this is not going to happen.

Basically all I am saying is that GDMX do a damn fine job and blaming them would be quite harsh as I don't see how they could do any better while following the poor guidelines set out by WB.

It seems that the "awful bandwidth limitations" that are in effect for Warner high def discs go beyond those imposed by the HD DVD specs. Can you provide any insight as to why Warner is doing this?