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

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Peer reviewable observations as opposed to fanboyism, yes

How are people who come to different conclusions than you do any less subject to peer review than you are?

[Jeff Kleist]

How are people who come to different conclusions than you do any less subject to peer review than you are?

Because they haven't been peer reviewing. They've simply been making emotional statements. There's no evidence in there other than a raw box office number that's being provided. A peer review is when you do your own research and reach the same, or different conclusions, and then you write a piece explaining the results of your own research

[Doctorossi]

Ok. I don't know how peer review comes into the question of Avatar's box office, in the first place, as I'm not aware of anyone doing a study nor any reason that anyone would do a study. I was just giving you a hard time.

[MerrickG]

Based on the reviews it appears that Burton's Alice film is based on Through the Looking Glass as opposed to Charles Dodgsons Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Im pretty excited to see it actually, although it does appear that they are keeping more of a childrens tone to it. Damn I was hoping that they we're going to give it a darker tone than the silly 1951 animated film.

[mark antony]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Based on the reviews it appears that Burton's Alice film is based on Through the Looking Glass as opposed to Charles Dodgsons Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Im pretty excited to see it actually, although it does appear that they are keeping more of a childrens tone to it. Damn I was hoping that they we're going to give it a darker tone than the silly 1951 animated film.

Saw it on saturday, didn't know what to expect, visually amazing, very Burton..this isn't the animated Alice!

Great voice cast for the "animated" characters, great sfx etc, won't be everyone's cup of tea but i'd say it's well worth a watch.

M

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by mark antony

Saw it on saturday, didn't know what to expect, visually amazing, very Burton..this isn't the animated Alice!

Did you see it in 3D? If so, how did the post-production 3D look? I saw the 3D trailer on Avatar, but I'm sure that's not the same as a sustained experience.

[mark antony]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Did you see it in 3D? If so, how did the post-production 3D look? I saw the 3D trailer on Avatar, but I'm sure that's not the same as a sustained experience.

3D worked v well, not in your face, used subtly and outlandishly where appropriate...saw trailer for Tron and Toy S 3 in 3D too, both impressive

M

[Jeff Kleist]

I've already asked about it, but like I said before, I often get conflicting information about Uni titles, so I hesitate to say anything definitive

[jd213]

Has Universal ever done a new transfer for a Blu-ray release of one of their HD DVD catalog titles? I can't think of any.

[DaViD Boulet]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I've already asked about it, but like I said before, I often get conflicting information about Uni titles, so I hesitate to say anything definitive

I can believe that.

pointing to some past conflicting info from the studio: Universal has played good-cop-bad-cop many times as well... telling different stories to different parties for whatever reason. Ignoring the obvious HD DVD drama, they seemed to have convinced several of the moderators at another forum that lossless audio can't be provided on blu-ray Disc on many titles without necessitating a compromised image. In fact, they used the excuse that they had provided lossless audio "to make the fans happy" as a reason why several of their blu-ray Discs had dissappointing image quality. And the mods at this forum bought it hook line and sinker (as they had the HD DVD FUD) and were actually encouraging blu-ray enthusiasts to not push for lossless audio as a result... and basically harassed anyone who tried to suggest that maybe this story wasn't exactly the hard-fact truth of the matter, given that other studios were managing multiple languages in lossless with stellar image quality just fine.

I'm happy that Universal has gone blue and delivered some great discs, but it would be cool if they could get-on-the-level with the insider info that they choose to share.

[Vincent Pereira]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

...
I'm happy that Universal has gone blue and delivered some great discs, but it would be cool if they could get-on-the-level with the insider info that they choose to share.

I could care less about their "insider info", I just want them to "get on the level" when it comes to making new scans of catalogue titles instead of reusing ancient masters that look like crap.

Vincent

[Jeff Kleist]

Ignoring the obvious HD DVD drama, they seemed to have convinced several of the moderators at another forum that lossless audio can't be provided on blu-ray Disc on many titles without necessitating a compromised image. In fact, they used the excuse that they had provided lossless audio "to make the fans happy" as a reason why several of their blu-ray Discs had dissappointing image quality. And the mods at this forum bought it hook line and sinker (as they had the HD DVD FUD)

That kind of thing really sticks in my craw, you would have thought this would have ceased to be the case, or am I thinking of the wrong people?

[Q?]

Once Upon A Time In The West has supposedly been remastered and rereleased in select theaters, will this mean we'll see this soon on Blu-ray?

Thanks..

[mark antony]

Jeff, I'm not sure if this a phenomenon to Warner, but when they have a Dolby Stereo film that they have chosen not to remix for 5.1/elements unavailable etc they seem to be presenting it in 2.0.

This is all well and good but wouldn't the optimum presentation be 4.0 with them decoding the matrixed Dolby 2 channel into discreet 4.0/4.1 direct from the master elements, rather than the user at home doing it, if they even have the correct equipment to do so?

I noticed it on Falling Down and now Clash of the Titan's, I assume there are others, any idea's why they wouldn't go down the discrete 4.0 route?

M

[Jeff Kleist]

Best guess would be that final mix is all they have for whatever reason

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Q!

Once Upon A Time In The West has supposedly been remastered and rereleased in select theaters, will this mean we'll see this soon on Blu-ray?

Wha?!

[Braktastic]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

That kind of thing really sticks in my craw, you would have thought this would have ceased to be the case, or am I thinking of the wrong people?

lol I think you hit the nail on the head.

[DaViD Boulet]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

That kind of thing really sticks in my craw, you would have thought this would have ceased to be the case, or am I thinking of the wrong people?

Jeff,

you nailed it.

That's why I no longer post there.

It was incredible. The Universal reps, as an excuse for the sub-par image quality of a few Uni blues, told them that the reason that the image quality wasn't good on those blu-rays was because they had "used the bit rate for lossless audio because the fans want lossless" and that's why the image quality got compromised.



And the mods bought it! What's worse: when informed enthusiasts tried to discuss the issue, they were, in usual form for that forum, shut down and harassed by the mods who apparently don't want to see blu-ray Discs mastered with lossless audio. I just don't get it.

(The explanation I see is them not wanting to see the advantages that blu-ray Disc offered over HD DVD actually materialize since it would prove that they were wrong about all of their assertions during the format war... and since HD DVD had some challenges with presenting lossless audio and transparent video on some titles, they don't want to see blu-ray Disc solve those problems and prove in practice that it's a better technology. This Uni-lossless discussion happened well after the demise of HD DVD but one wonders if there is still some sort of passive-agressive anti-blu-ray agenda at play.)

Then again, what do you expect from a forum policed by mods, one of whom preferred lossy Dolby Digital over PCM because PCM was an "abomination" because it was "less modern" than Dolby Digital?

[DaViD Boulet]

This is all well and good but wouldn't the optimum presentation be 4.0 with them decoding the matrixed Dolby 2 channel into discreet 4.0/4.1 direct from the master elements, rather than the user at home doing it, if they even have the correct equipment to do so?

If the existing master is the dowmixed 2.0 mix, then providing that in lossless is the most transparent way to deliver it on blu-ray possible. There are *many* ways to decode surround information: ProLogic, ProLocic II, Circle Surround: all of those options remain on the table if you're provided with the 2.0 mastered mix.

However, if the original front 3 channels and mono surround stems are available, *then* the best way to deliver that would be the 4.0 mix versus a later-generation 2.0 downmix.

But it's not really better to have the studio "process" a 2.0 mix for you with their equipment. That would be like a studio taking a 480 image and upscaling it to 1080p for you... better to use your own gear as you may actually have a better scaler than what they had in the studio at the time.

[Jeff Kleist]

Then again, what do you expect from a forum policed by mods, one of whom preferred lossy Dolby Digital over PCM because PCM was an "abomination" because it was "less modern" than Dolby Digital?

I once had a Mac head try to tell me that BIOS was dead and his Mac was so muchore advanced because it had EFI, another in a long line of Intel standards they tried to force on people like RDRAM instead of DDR. Today that keeps he price of PS3 manufacture high BTW, cause the legacy engineers already knew it. True story, Apple was going to use Cell in their machines until the last minute when MSs involvement in it's development hit and it became clear that Sony was going to eat all the chips. They then ran to Intel and told them to gimme what you got. So EFI is there strictly because intel managed to weasel it in, and Im sure that locking people out of another basic area of the computer makes Jobs happy as a bonus.