Archived: Insiders Thread

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by kjack

There is a big push to be able to send the main audio bitstream over HDMI 1.3 and we have been working on supporting that.

Gee, thanks.

I suppose it would be amusing if the BD box contained a Sigma chip, but the user chose to send the audio to an external box, only to have it decoded by the same sigma chip. ;D

[Merlins]

Originally Posted by GoldenRedux

For those of you who do read Japanese, is there any mention of English subtitles?

I don't read Japanese but I could not find anything about subtitles in the translated version. English sound is provided both in LPCM 5.1 and DD 5.1 (EDIT: For Casino Royale and not for Paprika, sorry for that):

http://translate.google.com/translat...&hl=en&ie=UTF8

[Frode]

Originally Posted by Merlins

I don't read Japanese but I could not find anything about subtitles in the translated version. English sound is provided both in LPCM 5.1 and DD 5.1:

http://translate.google.com/translat...&hl=en&ie=UTF8

You're looking at the wrong entry (Casino Royale). Paprika comes with Japanese audio tracks only (DD5.1 and LPCM 5.1). There's no mention of English subtitles and the only subtitle track mentioned is a Japanese one (on the DVDs only) aimed at a "make your own japanese dub" kind of thing. Unless things change I think we're looking at final specs.

Paidgeek this is incidentally a perfect example of a case where the ability to download or use external subtitles would be beneficial, as I've mentioned over at AVS (and thanks for your reply over there while I'm at it). It's another data point on the curve so to speak.

[cjamescook]

On the other hand, many would really appreciate improvements to standard defintion (SD) upscaling. There are many SD DVDs that will be a long time in coming to HD, if ever.

See comments in the this display review regarding the inadequacies of one high end plasma's upscaling, thus advocating external upscaling:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...tv-1-2007.html

[onyxx]

Addressing Paidgeek,

I am a lover of European cinema and was thinking of purchasing Volver which is due to be released on April 3. Now I can't find any specs about the movie no mater were I look and I was thinking, since it is a SPHE movie maybe you could give us some inside info on the subject (BD50, AVC, PCM, extras etc.)?

[Frode]

Originally Posted by cjamescook

On the other hand, many would really appreciate improvements to standard defintion (SD) upscaling. There are many SD DVDs that will be a long time in coming to HD, if ever.

See comments in the this display review regarding the inadequacies of one high end plasma's upscaling, thus advocating external upscaling:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...tv-1-2007.html

cjames if you're advocating that studios release upscaled versions of SD DVDs I'd rather they don't. It's a waste of time and money that could be better spent on doing proper releases of real HD content. For consumers there's also plenty of options, such as getting a good upscaling DVD player like one of the Oppos. If that's not good enough there's also more expensive solutions. Or did you mean the upscaling done by the Blu-ray and HD-DVD players?

I imagine that there is a market for re-releases of SD-only content, but that they'd then prefer to do it IN SD but utilize the extra space and interactivity that Blu-ray and HD-DVD provide. It's also something I don't think we'll start seeing until HD on disc has truly established itself as the successor to DVD.

[dobyblue]

paidgeek - any word on what's going on with Robocop? Is FOX doing this title now or is Sony redoing it?

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Paidgeek,

I was wondering how many movies can you guys prepare in parallel (on a per codec basis, please)? Can they be done in parallel?

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

paidgeek - any word on what's going on with Robocop? Is FOX doing this title now or is Sony redoing it?

I think this will be with Fox now. Very tough master for film grain.

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

Paidgeek,

I was wondering how many movies can you guys prepare in parallel (on a per codec basis, please)? Can they be done in parallel?

We can presently work on 2 projects simultaneously on AVC while running 3 at once on MPEG2. It rarely gets so busy that we are using up all the hardware at once though...

[Nismobeach]

paidgeek,

What has the reaction been from your coworkers and higher ups about the Casino Royale BD sales?

Have they motivated everyone at Sony Pictures to fight the format war to the death?

[Neftoon]

Hello Paidgeek, a quick question on region encoding, for titles that sony only holds the north american distribution rights to, and a HD-DVD studio owned the international distribution rights to, would Sony region encode it?

For example 'The Holiday' is being released on HD-DVD in Australia because it is being distributed by Universal for international releases, but this is a movie that I wanted to pickup on Blu-ray, which I can only do from the states, however because it is a new release it will probably be region encoded A.

Also what are the chances of Sony putting in their press releases for titles the region encoding of the disc, to completely cut out any confusion for international consumers. Or is this already being done and US sites are just not reporting it?

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by Nismobeach

paidgeek,

What has the reaction been from your coworkers and higher ups about the Casino Royale BD sales?

Have they motivated everyone at Sony Pictures to fight the format war to the death?

Everyone is very pleased. A press release will come out shortly announcing that over 100K units of this title have been sold. Things are looking very promising for Blu-ray.

[Merlins]

I don't like region coding at all but that's only an option for the studios to use and works in a better way than on DVD:s. Sony have marked many of it's BD:s as region A even if they really are region free. I wonder why because you could lose sales on this. To this date it's only Fox that holds on to the region coding on all it's discs.

I live in Sweden and have bought many movies from Amazon. It's just stupid to try to stop customers from buying their products.

Can't Sony do as Warner and Paramount and have all the releases as region free? Especially now in the beginning of the format then the market is not that big.

[JBlacklow]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Everyone is very pleased. A press release will come out shortly announcing that over 100K units of this title have been sold. Things are looking very promising for Blu-ray.

Holy cats!

[Josh]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Everyone is very pleased. A press release will come out shortly announcing that over 100K units of this title have been sold. Things are looking very promising for Blu-ray.

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Everyone is very pleased. A press release will come out shortly announcing that over 100K units of this title have been sold. Things are looking very promising for Blu-ray.

Congratulations.

[GaS]

Excellent. Lets get this news on avs!!

[GaS]

Do we know if any hd title (bd or hd) has ever sold that many units total?

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Everyone is very pleased. A press release will come out shortly announcing that over 100K units of this title have been sold. Things are looking very promising for Blu-ray.

Congratulations! The 100K title is a major milestone for a new format.

Gary