Archived: Insiders Thread

[Penton-Man]

Also, just returned from mhafner’s sticky thread that I just posted a contact name for Alan Gougar to pursue……Don’t worry Alan, call em, Ron’s a nice guy, he won’t yell at you.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=937873&page=4

Anyway, I see so much spin near the bottom of the page by the A-man that I’m now dizzy and unsure if he is totally unfamiliar with The Matrix (1999), or he is clueless to the application of detail sharpening (EE)……..or probably both.

Later folks, I’m outa here. I’ve got to take an Antivert ?sp for the dizziness.

[Rob Tomlin]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Sorry …….....

So this my wife talking to me in a hypothetical conversation in one possible future: "so, let me get this straight, you got fired because you disclosed confidential company information" "and you did this because why?, to satisfy the raging curiosity of a group of movie fanatics you have never met?" " and for this, we are now selling our house and moving in with my folks?" "oh, okay, no really, I still love you honey...." "so tell me about that life insurance policy again...."

This hypothetical conversation clearly does not apply to me, since we have met.

As such, please send me a PM with all of the information you currently have at this time.

Thanks!

[ironrefault]

Apologies in advance for any dumb, repeated, or obvious questions.

Who controls the rights to The Godfather trilogy? Did Coppola retain it, and we might see something through American Zoetrope? Or is it still Paramount?

Also, what is the status on Once Upon A Time in Mexico? That title has been seen in seemingly every Sony blu-ray promo, from the early discs to Casino Royale to more recent titles like Hollow Man? Why the tease?

Wedding Crashers was in a recent blu-ray commercial. Any hints as to whether it's a hold-over until exclusivity from Time Warner (WB & NLC)?

[spicynacho]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Got it ?

Now, allow me to get ready to go into work and breach another WGA picket line because although I am supposed to be neutral concerning this situation, I am starting to lose my patience and sympathy for the *writers* – given what other *writers* endure without striking or complaining.

If any members here are interested in my further thoughts on this strike, let me know, and I’ll try to address the subject again with more elaboration later today or over the weekend.

My perspective of the writers strike is that they probably deserve something. I understand that they are looking for some payback on residuals for digital distribution in addition to home video. They are very upset because the last time they negotiated for home video they got a pithiness of what they feel it was worth since the market for home video exploded. I am a software developer; as such I have done a lot of different types of development which offer different compensation systems. Defense/commercial contracting where what I write is used by a single organization and is closely guarded and that organization pays for the whole of development costs. Open source where it is free to whomever wishes to use it as long as they abide by the GNU license this is totally pro bono work, unless you work for a company that pays you to work on it (like IBM or Red hat). Retail software freelance and for a couple of different companies where the software is sold to users for a fraction of what it cost to develop but multiple organizations or individuals pay for it.

I would say that developing retail software is most like the business model of Hollywood. There are very few programmers who are unionized and unionization does not make sense because there are so many different business models and you can choose how you want to work, in a competitive industry such as this, the talent will not stay with an organization that does not compensate them well.

Contract work pays VERY well but there are no residuals, until they need maintenance. Open source is kind of like film school, most people who are doing it are doing it just for the joy of programming (except that the open source software out there exceeds the quality of the closed source retail software in many instances). Closed source retail software is what most people are familiar with it is your windows, office, word perfect, real player, video games, google, yahoo, myspace, etc… This industry is dominated by a number of major players like MS, Google, Oracle, and Adobe which would be the equivalent of the major studios. Most of these companies compensate the developers, writers of code, on salary as well as performance based bonuses, profit sharing, or stock options. I don’t know of anyone who gets residuals on sales (unless you do it freelance and own your own company or product) but even then, the end result is usually becoming an acquisition target for a larger company at which point you take your lump sum and go come up with another brilliant idea.

I feel the entertainment industry has multiple business models as well. You have late night shows like Leno and the daily show where there is great writing but the body of work is very transient in nature. I think the writers for this should probably be paid an above average salary and have a high rate on 30-90 days of residuals, then nothing after that. For sitcoms they should get an average salary and average residuals. For TV/direct to video movies, they probably deserve below average salary and above average residuals. For major motion pictures, they deserve below average salary and high residuals. With the exception of sitcoms residuals should be equal across the board whether it is a home video sale, digital download, or television broadcast of the work the writers should get a % of profits. For sitcoms, they should get below average residuals on re-runs and syndication and high residuals on home video and downloads.

That is my take on how the equitable distribution of profits should occur. As far as what percent is average or fair, it is between the writers and the studios to fight over. How long it takes to get resolved, I don't care, I don't watch all that much television I have plenty of books to read.

[RangerSix]

Originally Posted by darinp2

While 2:1 would be useful for HP, it seems that Warner has stacked the deck. 300 got Pip and a combo disc on HD DVD, but they had a $5 higher MSRP. For Harry Potter they again gave the HD DVD PiP (but some extras got high definition on the BD) and spent the extra money to do combo discs, but this time didn't put any higher MSRP. So, people should could this in mind and that it is likely to take even more to get close to 2:1 for Blu-ray than 300. Anything above 1.5:1 should be considered a victory for Blu-ray on that title because of the way Warner stacked the deck with it, IMO.

I've always had the impression that while Warner is neutral; its heart has always been with HD-DVD. Even though it's is only speculation, I feel in my gut that the delay of releasing Batman and the Matrix on BD was done as a result of some "closed door" arrangement with the HDDVD group to slightly offset BD sales during this critical year of the format war.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I don't know of any Blu-ray studios going neutral.

Yup, rdjam will always be remembered as one of the dumbest peopl on the planets.

He's dumber than those B&W vids showing people jumping off piers trying to fly and plummeting straight down.

He's just a complete and utter idiot, there are no two ways about it.

Thanks for posting though Penton.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

well i got a warning for questioning the admins for allowing HD-DVD insiders to discuss BD production as if they were an authority on the subject.

You should forward it to Alan Gouger and David Bott and ask them for their official clarification.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

If any members here are interested in my further thoughts on this strike, let me know, and I’ll try to address the subject again with more elaboration later today or over the weekend.

Absolutely, Penton. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. The stuation is becoming more and more maddening as no progress is made.

[depooter]

Fox just announced the Darjeeling Limited for release on DVD in February, but no mention of a blu-ray release. Any word on this? I need this on Blu-Ray!!!

Thanks
Greg
www.cameroncrowe.com

[juanleche]

Insiders:
On Harry Potter:
Do HD-DVDs accidently shiped with Blu-Ray Box Sets count towards HD-DVD sales?

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by juanleche

Insiders:
On Harry Potter:
Do HD-DVDs accidently shiped with Blu-Ray Box Sets count towards HD-DVD sales?

*Put my head in my hands, and shake my head*

[richteer]

Originally Posted by spicynacho

Open source where it is free to whomever wishes to use it as long as they abide by the GNU license this is totally pro bono work, unless you work for a company that pays you to work on it (like IBM or Red hat).

That first bit isn't true: open source where it is free to whomever wishes to use it as long as they abide by the license. That license isn't necessarily the GPL (there's CDDL, BSD, Mozilla, Apache, and so on)...

Sorry for the interruption, no w back to our regularly scheduled Insider Programming (no pun intended!).

[blix01]

small nit:
OpenSource and Free are two different concepts that often are used together but they don't mean the same thing, and they don't have to always be applied together.

[WickyWoo]

Do HD-DVDs accidently shiped with Blu-Ray Box Sets count towards HD-DVD sales?

No, because the Blu-ray SKU is what's scanned

[juanleche]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

No, because the Blu-ray SKU is what's scanned

OK I think I should have known that, I just have a gut feeling this issue screws the numbers for someone somewhere because those are now defective items that add to shrink, but also a lower number of HD DVD discs to actually count as sales

[Crackbone]

I have a legitimate question re: this format war for the insiders.


How long really is the industry going to tolerate the under performance of HD DVD?

It's getting to the point where it's like a 4 year old's T-Ball game. Let's just not keep score...

Any thoughts?

[Neo65]

Sorry guys. I'm sure this is all very interesting info, but if there is a lot of interest in creating a shrine thread to the esteemed RD**m (no offense intended) from AVSforum, then it should be a separate thread titled : "Why I find R***m fascinating" or "500M is a tonne of money. Are we worthy?" and engage in a serious discussion there.

I clicked on this thread thinking there's more insider insight (or perhaps Fox Exec was going to announce Rocky Horror Picture Show in BD), and all I got was this thing, this very enlightening gossip about 500M spent to make some studio neutral.

Needless to say, I feel cheated and want that 20 minutes of my life back, but I digress.

[SuprSlow]

Originally Posted by Crackbone

It's getting to the point where it's like a 4 year old's T-Ball game. Let's just not keep score...

To piggyback on that...can we all quit acting like four year olds, and TRY to get back to discussing REAL information pertinent to the insiders we have?

Think about it, we're lucky enough to have people in the business, very well-placed people from what I understand, and we're sitting here discussing some BS from a known HD-DVD troll.

Please, it gets old scrolling the page after page of "yeah, lolz, rdjam sucks" to find a post by an insider.

[Fozziwig]

Didn't this used to be the insiders thread?

My question to the mods is:

Are you unable or unwilling to police the Insider thread and keep it on topic (even remotely on topic would be nice)?

A while ago there was a seperate discussion thread for comment on the posts in the insider thread. Why was that thread discarded?

My suggestion is to lock this thread and create 'Insiders Thread 2'. If you do this then please patrol the new one much more strictly because, as we move into some very interesting times, there is likely to be a massive amount of superfluous waffle (well intentioned no doubt) that belongs elsewhere on the forum.

I thank you.

[androvsky]

argh... can't resist...

Okay, the two main open source licenses (GPL, BSD) allow people to charge for software. In fact, with BSD, all you have to do is give credit to the original authors. Apple's OSX uses a BSD kernel. Even with GPL software you can charge for it (ask Red Hat and Suse), but you have to make the source readily available, and end users are perfectly within their rights to turn around and post the GPL-licensed source-code available for free for everyone. There are actually linux distributions built on the source code from Red Hat's Enterprise edition available for free, legally.

phew, okay, something on-topic... uh, when this stupid format war is over, what is the title priority going to look like for various studios? I know right now it's newer titles that can show off blu-ray's looks, but after that, will there be an emphasis on longer movies or TV series? I'm sure every studio has a bunch of film nuts that are going to want to get some obscure movie that happened to be shot on 70mm released on blu-ray.

I'm also beginning to wonder if titles need a separate commentary track from the director of photography explaining over and over again that yes, this is how the shot is supposed to look.