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

[RustyK94]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

For the type of film it was.

Same thing with RoboCop, which people complain about endlessly. That film will never look much better either.

Im rather happy with Robocop

[Jeff Kleist]

Did I miss something or has Disney switched to DTS-Master Audio? Any reason why? Is it safe to assume that all discs that enter production going forward will utilize DTS-MA?

The same reason why everyone else went DTS or HD DVD, DTS made them a deal they couldn't refuse. No one had any interest in including a redundant lossless codec, especially one that requires more expensive hardware and is more difficult to implement. So by making sure their codec is the codec of choice for the majority of studios, DTS ensures that their codec would make its way down the ladder of receivers quickly and stay there. Notice how DTS MA wasn't included in anything under Pioneer's top end receivers last year, and it's in the entry level this year?

Neither codec is better than the other one, except in the placebo area that fanboys operate in. DTS masters 8db above Dolby, and psychoacoustically louder=clearer. Turn up your receiver 8db, and it sounds identical.

[Vincent Pereira]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

For the type of film it was.

Same thing with RoboCop, which people complain about endlessly. That film will never look much better either.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about what constitutes "extremely low budget" (ROBOCOP had a budget of $13-million in 1987), and regardless, the budget of a film alone doesn't determine how good it can look. Variations on 'It was low budget, so it can't look good' seem to be something of a mantra in these kinds of discussion, and yet one of the most beautiful films in recent years is David Gordon Green's GEORGE WASHINGTON, and that had a budget of under $100,000.

Vincent

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Notice how DTS MA wasn't included in anything under Pioneer's top end receivers last year, and it's in the entry level this year?

In the case of Pioneer, the company has made some silly, backward decisions -mainly moving far too slowly in adopting new technologies and charging too much money for the limited functioning products they sold -like selling profile 1.1 BD players for $700-$800 that supported fewer features that BD players selling for under $300.

I'm not surprised Pioneer is throwing in the towel with regard to the market of DVD players, Blu-ray players and HDTV sets. The company was lethargic and out of touch with what was happening in the marketplace. Their delays of incorporating DTS-HD Master Audio into their receivers is more a symptom of what was wrong at Pioneer rather than what has been wrong at DTS.

It's no big deal for an electronics company to incorporate DTS-HD Master Audio decoding into a Blu-ray player or AV receiver. Every surround sound format available to home electronics can all be decoded on one single DSP chip. Since so many people disagree on what format is better, the electronics manufacturers can cover their bases by including both Dolby and DTS formats.

Naturally, it makes sense for Universal to use DTS exclusively. Fox simply must be getting a decent deal from DTS to do the same. I imagine the same could be true with Lionsgate and others.

Still, Dolby TrueHD appears to be the dominant audio format on Blu-ray. Sony, Paramount and Warner Bros. pretty much stick with that (well WB does if it's doing anything lossless).

With regard to Disney using DTS-HD Master Audio on certain animated titles, I still have a feeling this may be a temporary thing. Buena Vista isn't using DTS-HD on everything they release on Blu-ray.

In the past Buena Vista had used LPCM 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 as a standard combination for primary English tracks on Blu-ray. Unfortunately a slick logo for LPCM 5.1 doesn't exist. It doesn't conjure up the brand name fashion of name plates like Dolby or even DTS. I think this is why Sony shifted from using LPCM 5.1.

[Jeff Kleist]

Still, Dolby TrueHD appears to be the dominant audio format on Blu-ray. Sony, Paramount and Warner Bros. pretty much stick with that (well WB does if it's doing anything lossless).

Paramount is doing ST:TOS in DTS, think they're not being courted along with everyone else? Disney was moving to Dolby THD at the time anyway. And it's not a temporary thing on Disney.

Even though DTS can be decoded on the same chip as Dolby (now), you must still pay the licensing fee, which is where both companies make their cash.

Disney's output for the next few months:

Sin City- DTS
Pinnoccio DTS
SPACE BUDDIES- DTS
High School Musical- PCM (finished a long time ago)
high School Musical 3- DTS
Bedtime Stories- DTS
Rounders- Dolby TrueHD (probably finished awhile ago)

As you can see, all DTS with the exception of Rounders.

BVHE and Sony and everyone else stopped using PCM so they could fit more dub tracks on, and ship the same disc in more parts of the world first and foremost. The average bitrate on a lossless compression track is a third of what PCM is. They could care less about the brand name, and much more aboutthe royalty fees they have to pay to use the codec (which DTS has greatly reduced or even waived). Obviously the goal of fitting more dub tracks or having more space for the movie or extra makes it worth it to them.

Personally I believe DTS is looking to pump up their perceived value so they can sell the company for a lot more than the major trouble they were in awhile back when they were selling off solid assets like Lowry. The biggest place DTS is going to be hurting is losing all those new digital theater installations because Dolby has that locked

[Sussudio]

you guys need to put this in perspective. for the size and scope of a terminator movie, 6 million is an extremely tight budget (yes, even for 1984). watch some of the docs on it and producer gale anne hurd explains how they were really pressed for $$.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Paramount is doing ST:TOS in DTS, think they're not being courted along with everyone else?

I'm sure DTS is trying to sign up any studio they can. They wouldn't be doing their jobs otherwise.

Nevertheless, the big screen Star Trek movies are set to have 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD audio tracks. Given the difference, I think Dolby is coming out better than DTS with the whole Star Trek thing.

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The biggest place DTS is going to be hurting is losing all those new digital theater installations because Dolby has that locked

Actually, Dolby has a very small presence in digital cinema compared to its rivals.

The vast majority of all D-cinema installations are from Cinedigm (formerly called AccessIT). Cinedigm did the 2200 screen deal for Carmike Cinemas. Much bigger than that, Cinedigm was chosen to do the multi-circuit install for Regal, AMC and Cinemark -which is now in progress. Dolby was considered, but Cinedigm won out instead. Cinedigm equipment is going into a lot of other theater chain locations too. They have every screen of the Rave Motion Pictures chain.

Dolby Digital Cinema is getting installed in some theaters, but not nearly at the scale of what Cinedigm is managing. DDC tends to be installed in smaller, independent movie theater circuits -like Warren Theaters in Wichita, KS and Moore, OK.

Dolby is also having problems getting theaters to adopt Dolby 3D. Some can argue it is a better system than RealD. Unfortunately, the Dolby 3D glasses are expensive, must be collected after every show and sanitized in a commercial dish washing machine -an item not many movie theaters can make room to install. Even worse, Dolby 3D is only compatible with Dolby Digital Cinema systems. The RealD system featured in far more D-cinema movie theaters works with a variety of d-cinema systems. RealD works with Cinedigm systems and even works with Dolby Digital Cinema servers.

DTS certainly has challenges ahead of it. But Dolby has a lot of work to do to stay relevant in commercial theaters as well.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Sussudio

you guys need to put this in perspective. for the size and scope of a terminator movie, 6 million is an extremely tight budget (yes, even for 1984). watch some of the docs on it and producer gale anne hurd explains how they were really pressed for $$.

Who gives a crap anymore?

Bottom line:
All things considered The Terminator looks pretty damn good on bluray and isnt likely to get much better.

Im just greatful for how it is.

[Jeff Kleist]

Nevertheless, the big screen Star Trek movies are set to have 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD audio tracks. Given the difference, I think Dolby is coming out better than DTS with the whole Star Trek thing

TrueHD is standard for Paramount

Remember this isn't the first time ST:TOS was a test case. It was also used as a testbed for combo-only releases for HD DVD. it's also an expensive title with 28 50 minute episodes to produce, so obviously this would be a great title to take advantage of that "try us for free" coupon

The vast majority of all D-cinema installations are from Cinedigm (formerly called AccessIT). Cinedigm did the 2200 screen deal for Carmike Cinemas. Much bigger than that, Cinedigm was chosen to do the multi-circuit install for Regal, AMC and Cinemark -which is now in progress. Dolby was considered, but Cinedigm won out instead.

My Regal runs Dolby and RealD, so far as I'd heard, their lossless cinema codec was standard. I'll agree with you that Dolby3D is impractical and that RealD is far more exhibitor friendly. I wish they'd hurry up and get a couple more screens done, the last Pixar movie in digital they had was Cars . The point still stands that DTS has zero presense in the field of commercial digital cinema

If Paramount goes DTS, Dolby is going to have to start looking at buying back some of these studios in order to stay relevant. It'll be a sad state of affairs if we have the 2 sound codec companies trying to lose the most money to keep their codec in front of people. Dolby can probably outspend them if they have to, but who would want either company to waste that much money, especially in this economy, money they could be spending making better products?

[STARSCREAM]

Any idea if/when they will re-release the Harry Potter films with updated transfers. I think the first film in particular could look alot better. Since they released them back when HDDVD was around I'd think they could optimize blu-rays disc space now and have better transfer.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Who gives a crap anymore?

Bottom line:
All things considered The Terminator looks pretty damn good on bluray and isnt likely to get much better.

Im just greatful for how it is.

Good post...it is silly to keep discussing something that won't change. It is what it is.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The point still stands that DTS has zero presense in the field of commercial digital cinema

That's not true. DTS has its DTS Film Store system. The DTS-XD10P is a d-cinema oriented cinema processor. They also offer a content encoding service for digital cinema.

The problem is DTS is in the same boat as Dolby when it comes to digital cinema. Neither has any product that is absolutely critical to presenting movies with digital projection. Movie theater companies can totally side step the both of them and still get the job done with fantastic results.

Ultimately DTS and Dolby are looking at the very real prospects of being relegated to home theater only...at least for now on Blu-ray. 10 years later when some new much higher capacity disc format is introduced or downloading becomes the norm, DTS and Dolby may lose their foothold entirely to Linear PCM.

The lossy compressed audio formats from Dolby and DTS are only relevant for 35mm film (and 70mm in the case of DTS -Dolby never bothered supporting 70mm and digital sound). No digital cinema system, not even the one from Dolby, uses any sort of compressed audio. It's all multichannel linear PCM.

A DTS-XD10 processor could deliver the same kind of LPCM audio, even 24/96 audio in up to 10 discrete channels or even more, for a 35mm film based setup. But the studios just haven't bothered to make any effort to support it with any content. They're just doing business as usual. It's pretty laughable that Surround•EX, DTS-ES and 7.1 channel discrete surround has seen a lot more action on home video than in commercial movie theaters.

Dolby isn't the only company making high quality cinema processors, even though they still offer the best choice...if you're willing to pay a little extra for it.

Dolby equipment was pretty vital when it came to playing a 35mm print with optical audio encoded in Dolby SR. You really needed something like a Dolby CP65 cinema processor for that. Imitation SR in other cinema processors sucked big time.

The problem is with digital cinema you don't need any fancy-schmancy noise reduction system for analog audio. You don't even need any patented audio compression system either. You just need something that will play that 5.1 digital LPCM track properly. Any number of companies can deliver equipment to do that without having to pay Dolby one silver colored nickel in patent money to get it done.

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

If Paramount goes DTS, Dolby is going to have to start looking at buying back some of these studios in order to stay relevant. It'll be a sad state of affairs if we have the 2 sound codec companies trying to lose the most money to keep their codec in front of people.

The really sad thing for both Dolby and DTS is the movie studios could cut both of those companies entirely out of the equation at any time.

Any movie studio could just jump to using LPCM only. Include a LPCM multichannel track in 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1. Then offer a CD quality LPCM 2.0 track alongside. Bases are covered without paying Dolby or DTS anything.

Granted, it's not practical to have every audio track on a Blu-ray disc be encoded in LPCM. But it is do-able. This is what has already happened with digital cinema. D-cinema doesn't do DTS or Dolby sound. It's all LPCM.

As I said earlier, Dolby and DTS at least have brand names. LPCM doesn't. So the Blu-ray discs will have those surround format logos emblazoned on the packaging.

I think Dolby is going to continue to do just fine with what all is happening with Blu-ray and maybe even digital cinema for that matter. DTS was really doing a number on Dolby throughout a lot of the 1990s until Dolby developed the CP500 cinema processor with integrated Dolby Digital functions.

Dolby has to figure out how to develop something vital for digital cinema that doesn't just require a very expensive Dolby-only branded Dolby Digital cinema system to use. They need to develop something along the lines of the master-stroke they performed with introducing the CP500 in the 1990s. Unfortunately, I don't know what that would be.

Dolby doesn't own any patents on Motion JPEG2000 (the standard for 2K and 4K digital cinema video compression). Dolby doesn't have a stake in multichannel LPCM audio distribution either. That pretty much leaves them stuck in the business of selling hardware for playing d-cinema movies. Right now they're badly losing the battle against Cinedigm in terms of pricing and choices of equipment.

The best thing Dolby has going for it in terms of d-cinema is the sorry state of Cinedigm stock. If Cinedigm implodes from being over-extended then Dolby could, possibly, swoop right in to the rescue. Install their software on all those Doremi servers and slap a Dolby name on them. Get service techs on the job maintaining the systems, etc. But then all that leg work may get them into the same trouble. That sort of brings up the ultimate problem with commercial movie theaters: Hollywood movie studios have been screwing them over HARD.

Running a commercial movie theater showing Hollywood content is one of the least profitable, thankless businesses anyone can enter. That crap has to change. And it has to change for the sake of Hollywood. Because only real movies are movies that played in real movie theaters. If not, they're just TV shows. Without commercial movie theaters you just have glorified TV. Once it's all TV then not many people are going to give a fart, "hell I can see better shows than that on HBO. Guess I'll just watch NBC instead."

Dang that was a long post!

[Jeff Kleist]

Any idea if/when they will re-release the Harry Potter films with updated transfers. I think the first film in particular could look alot better. Since they released them back when HDDVD was around I'd think they could optimize blu-rays disc space now and have better transfer.

Not until all the movies are done

That's not true. DTS has its DTS Film Store system. The DTS-XD10P is a d-cinema oriented cinema processor. They also offer a content encoding service for digital cinema.

Well, no one of consequence has it installed, so it may as well be zero

Bobby, you could be right that Dolby is simply waiting for Cinedigm to do all the hard work, then pick them up for nothing. Seems like a viable gameplan to me

LPCM isn't viable long term on Blu-ray so long as huge swaths of the world insist on watching their movies dubbed. I couldn't believe it when I got Death at a Funeral from Germany, DTS Master Audio dub, DTS vanilla for English *sigh* Good thing the standard DTS is more than adequate, it's not exactly a dynamic movie

[Bobby Henderson]

The trouble is DTS is not at "zero" in terms of D-cinema market penetration. And Dolby is not nearly at as good a level as they should be to have a good long term foot hold for what happens in commercial movie theaters. Their best shot is being able to sell more Dolby CP650 cinema processors on the front end of projection booths. They're not getting many takers for Dolby Digital Cinema.

The problems with Cinedigm and the systems they're selling to beat Dolby is they're not profitable enough on the services they're delivering.

Already, that isn't good from Dolby's perspective since Cinedigm/AccessIT was already undercutting what Dolby was offering for similar services. If Dolby took over what Cinedigm was doing on the same terms then Dolby would be in every bit as much trouble as Cinedigm if not even worse.

Overall, I believe the entire commercial movie theater industry is in some very precarious shape.

Major Hollywood movie studios need to pull their collective heads out of the deep recesses of their colons and wake up to this fact. They are potentially cutting their own throats over this.

The major Hollywood studios are desperately trying to warm themselves up to the idea that they can get by without commercial movie theaters. My opinion is they will not survive without the commercial theatrical end of the deal. Day and date release on VOD, PPV and all that bullcrap isn't going to work.

Movies that don't play in movie theaters are only TV shows. That is how the general public will judge those products. It won't matter if the studio spent $200 million+ on the project. If the movie doesn't play in a real movie theater then it isn't a real movie. Plain and simple as that. If viewers can only view the show on a TV screen then it is only a TV show. Nothing more. Major Hollywood studios must realize this concept and the notion that certain conventions are not going to change.

Some people may believe that a movie studio can spend over $200 million on a project that a viewer will only watch on his stupid iPhone. I am not ever going to be willing to buy into that stupidity. Unfortunately I don't have the kind of clout it takes to change direction in how Hollywood operates. So the industry will do whatever it wants to do regardless of whether it is a good decision or a very self destructive decision.

I suppose if Hollywood makes a lot of self destructive decisions and puts itself out of business then we should all get used to watching a lot of "Bollywood" movies from here on out. And then we'll have a whole other kind of politics on what Bollywood likes for audio and video compression formats for Blu-ray -if it bothers to support Blu-ray at all.

[STARSCREAM]

[QUOTE=Jeff Kleist;1643947]Not until all the movies are doneQUOTE]

Ok Thanks. Thats about what I figured anyway. I thought I'd also try and get this thread back on track.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

For the type of film it was.

Same thing with RoboCop, which people complain about endlessly. That film will never look much better either.

Is it true the color timing on the BD was altered?

[PeterTHX]

Isn't ST:TOS authored by CBS, which while distributed by Paramount a separate entity?

That would explain to me why DTS-HD MA on that and D-THD on the films, which are Paramount "proper".

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The same reason why everyone else went DTS or HD DVD, DTS made them a deal they couldn't refuse.

Interesting.

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Neither codec is better than the other one, except in the placebo area that fanboys operate in. DTS masters 8db above Dolby, and psychoacoustically louder=clearer. Turn up your receiver 8db, and it sounds identical.

Agreed. I wasn't making a judgment call on one codec being better than another. I was just curious cause it seemed DTS was way behind in next generation audio a little over a year ago, now all of the sudden with Disney they have 1/2 the big studios using it (in addition to gaining Universal about a year ago too).

My only problem with TrueHD is the auto night compression flag fiasco, but I don't think that's their problem as it was more an issue with the disc's creation or the implementation by Integra.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

And just the second half of Trek 5 sucked? I know my good friend Rob Burnett did the DVD SE of that, and he claims that had Shatner (who is a friend of his after directing him in Free Enterprise) been able to complete his director's cut, it would be a much better movie. I've read the novelization that covers that, and I respectfully disagree that anything short of starting from scratch will help

I know it's an unpopular opinion, but yes, I liked the movie as a whole.

The premise of the movie to me was very interesting (minor spoilers ahead):

An exiled Vulcan creates a terrorist situation in order to comandeer a starship to use in his quest for "god."

Truly the "Final Frontier!"

Some people complain about the campfire scenes, but I actually liked them as it showed three old friends enjoying spending time together. I personally felt Uhura's "fan dance" scene to be a lot cornier than any of the campfire scenes.

I said the second half, but I really should have said the climax to the "search for god" part... or as I like to call it, the "what does god need with a starship?" parts are what bothered me. I can think of multiple ways of ending the "search for god" parts, and some may be worse than what they did, some may be better, but I just felt that what we ended up with fell kind of "flat" to me.

Which is not to say the rest of the film was great, but rather to say that I enjoyed the movie... I just felt parts of the ending weren't very good... which brings the rest of the movie down down some with it.

~Alan

[Alan Gordon]

Questions:

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

From this point on, Warner intends to release all catalog BDs with Dolby TrueHD audio. (They've taken note of complaints about the lack of one on Casablanca.)

This comment was in response to the article on HighDefDigest.com:

However, Mr. Feltenstein has noted that from this point forward, Warner Home Video intends to release all catalog titles with TrueHD tracks. When original multiple channel recordings are available, the studio may produce newer, multitrack audio mixes, but whether or not the films have multitrack audio elements, the studio believes each release deserves the absolute best audio possible and will provide it in TrueHD.

Blu About The Slow Release of Classic Titles On Blu-ray? Take Heart! (UPDATED)

First of all:

1st Question: Will this affect any of the HD DVD catch-up titles or are all of them too far done to be affected?

2nd Question: The article writers refers to "catalog titles." Should we read anything into this, or will WB adopt "lossless" for new titles as well?

3rd Question: Bill posted in The Rumor Mill, WB's plans to release "Torchwood: Season Three" in July, "Chuck: Season Two", "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season Two" and "Fringe: Season One" on Blu-ray in the 3Q (hopefully with more yet to be rumored). "Torchwood: Season One" at least gave us a 1.5mbps bitrate DTS soundtrack, but the first season sets for "Chuck" and T:TSCC only gave us 640k soundtracks last year. What are the chances that this newfound policy of WB's will give us "lossless" sound for these new sets, or are they too far done to be affected?

~Alan