Ask questions to Sony Pictures Entertainment insider "paidgeek"

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Thanks for taking the time to post these ideas. Some of these are hard to implement, but others are possible. It would be great to have feedback from others on this topic. Would you care to run a poll on these collectively or individually?

I agree, a lot of the features hanser suggested would go a long way to enhance BD functionality.

As for Across The Universe...wasn't it one of those films heavily processed in the digital domain (grading, digital IP)? If the BD is transparent to the master, throwing higher bitrate isn't going to help.

[jon s]

Whatever happened to "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Natural"? no word was ever given about the cause of the delay... If fact, "The Natural" had a release date and it never appeared...

[jopemoro]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

This is an interesting idea that has been considered for DVD, but has some technical implementation issues with Blu-ray. Most of these stem from securing the content against unauthorized copying.

Paid, regarding BD on-demand: how about an online shop for classic BD titles but based on 'aggregate-commited purchasing'?

We would subscribe online to a title, pay only a small 'retainer' fee via credit card when 'preordering', and as soon as the title reaches a certain number of commitments, it can get produced and shipped.

The possibilities around building a community are huge, and you can always partner with other companies for distribution, etc...

I know, not easy, but if someone does this, I want credit for the idea!

[WickyWoo]

We would subscribe online to a title, pay only a small 'retainer' fee via credit card when 'preordering', and as soon as the title reaches a certain number of commitments, it can get produced and shipped.

The Federal Trade Commission and the post office frown greatly upon doing such things, even by upstanding companies like Sony. They cannot charge you until they ship

Several small companies have done this (RightStuf with Captain Tylor, AnimEigo with Macross), basically they have to take names, and when it's time to press they make sure you're still interested and get your payment details, then run the discs, charge you and ship them, and hope that number stays above their cost to produce

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by jd213

paidgeek,

The Punisher (2004) was set to be released by SPE in Japan in late 2006, but it's been on hiatus forever. Do you know what's going on, or if they're waiting release the extended cut?

Also, do you know if the Japanese release of Hairspray by SPE will just have the same VC1 encode as the US release, or if it will be optimized for Blu-Ray?

I do not expect that we would re-use the VC-1 encode for Hairspray since we did not prepare it originally.

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by andyparhelia

Hi Paidgeek,

A nice easy question for you - is 30 Days of Night region coded?

Thanks

It is not region coded.

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by patrick99

Unfortunately, my reaction was not limited to particular scenes, but was pretty uniform throughout the whole movie. . . .

I checked a production disc and thought the picture quality was in the top 10 percent of our releases. It is a solid video master. I don't know which titles you are comparing this to that you feel look superior?

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by Dynamic

Thank you so much for your response.

To be honest I actually thought about trying this. I noticed that when viewing my LCD with HDMI point-blank the loss of quality is visible as blocking and pixelation whereas when I view my RPTV with components point-blank the loss of quality comes in the form of blurriness. I hope this is normal?

My next and assumable final set of questions in relation to the PS3 HDMI are:

1. If it turns out to be an HDMI issue, does that mean it is a general PS3 issue or an acute occurrence and I have purchased a faulty PS3?

2. Would the quality or version of my cables play a role? I am using HDMI 1.3a from monoprice if that helps.

Thank you again for all of your help.

I don't really notice the lines since they are not very bright, but if I am not mistaken, it is in all the players and is not considered a defect.

[martinstraka8282]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I checked a production disc and thought the picture quality was in the top 10 percent of our releases. It is a solid video master. I don't know which titles you are comparing this to that you feel look superior?

I'm confused as well, IMO this is quite possibly the best quality non animation title I've ever seen on Blu.

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by CraigW

paidgeek,

I understand being price sensitive. And with the economy going into a recession remember more consumers are going to be price sensitive.

I don't expect a $10 BD bin at Walmart for a long time, but I also think the studios are being unrealistic thinking that most consumers are going to pony up $35 for standard catalog releases. Most of Sony's catalog streets for $25 so again I am not singling out Sony and they have been priced more competively.

Again I think I speak for most here that in order for BD to become a DVD like market price has to come down.

As a consumer I can tell you I probably spent more than anticipated when price per disc dropped in between $15 and $20. I bought titles that I probably would have never added to my collection. With all the BOGOs between October and December my BD collection went from roughly twelve over a ten month period titles to over 50 in the following three months.

The studios will move more software and the market will grow at a larger rate if prices drop $5 to $10. The BD market will not replace the DVD market with the current pricing structure. High prices will equal a niche market.

Question:
Did Sony do the encodes for both the DolbyTrueHD track and dtsHDMA track on CE3K? And was the same master used? dts had a history of using a different master for titles that were owned/controlled by Mr. Spielberg. Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan are couple of examples from the earlier DVD days.

Thanks for your comments.

We did the DTS and Dolby encodes for CE3K from the same 24bit source.

[DaViD Boulet]

I do not expect that we would re-use the VC-1 encode for Hairspray since we did not prepare it originally.

I'll have to pick up that version of Hairspray and do a comparison at dvdfile. If there's room for improvement with the picture, be sure that your disc shows it off!

dave

[jd213]

Yeah, I think the US release of Hairspray could definitely be improved on. There didn't seem to be much grain, and faces looked a bit too smooth.

[WickyWoo]

Paid, we've been discussing accessibility issues over in Talk's thread, whether something could be done to write a text to speech program in Java for blind users, that would interface with some kind of HTML type menu (probably done in HDMV).

Would it be possible to write a text to speech in Java, and implement a standard something like "Hold down the A function key on boot to access HDMV menu" so that people with bad eyes can navigate the menus, and people who are annoyed with long load times can forgo those features? Or would something like text to speech have to be implemented in some kind of hardware due to processing limitations?

[hanser]

paidgeek,

I made some of my suggestions also in the 2themax insider thread, and here is his answer.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...0&postcount=83

I found it very interesting and promising in regard to doability (does this word exist?)

About the poll, I will try it when I have more time.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by HDJK

Would you need different authoring tools to produce a BD audio? Or can you just program the disc to automatically start and still provide some kind of menu as with DVD audio? If it can be done with existing tools, is something like this considered in the near future?

Originally Posted by paidgeek

If any modifications are required to Blu-print to accommodate BD-Audio, we will make them.

Thank you for this answer. I'll interpret it as a yes

[jopemoro]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

The Federal Trade Commission and the post office frown greatly upon doing such things, even by upstanding companies like Sony. They cannot charge you until they ship

The full price would be charged upon shipment, the initial fee is a 'reserve'. In any case, I believe the issue would be to book the full revenue before shipment.

Still, I wonder if the technology is there to do small runs of BD discs, which would probably be the real show-stopper...

[andyparhelia]

It is not region coded.

Excellent, I can pre-order then!

[Ian_S]

Originally Posted by hanser

paidgeek,

I made some of my suggestions also in the 2themax insider thread, and here is his answer.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...0&postcount=83

I found it very interesting and promising in regard to doability (does this word exist?)

About the poll, I will try it when I have more time.

A generic Java applet that all Studios could use to provide resume play features on BD-J based discs would be a most welcome feature.

I think as a user I could accept that any special features that were turned on were reset upon a resume play as long as the main feature picked up where it left off. I can see how trying to do a complete 'state-save' as discs get more complex could be an ever moving target. The important stuff to keep would be the place in the film, the selected soundtrack and possibly subtitles. I could live with everything else such as Pip windows not coming back as they can be easily turned back on from the pop-up disc menu.

Given that resume play seems to work for simpler BDMV discs, I think it's addition to BD-J based discs would be a big boon for all. No idea how you'd retro-fit that to older titles though or even if that would be possible.

My only other format wide suggestion would centre around network features. It would be nice if the studios got together to fund a unified portal for access to network features. With no keyboards on most players it's a pain in the neck to have to register, login etc for each individual movie studio that intends to provide an online experience.

It would also be useful if somehow you could make use of the persistent storage that BD-Live players will have to allow a generic Java app to be accessed that allowed you to access such a portal without needing to put a disc in, to look for latest trailers for example. More difficult I expect, but might make the online features more worthwhile.

Just some thoughts obviously.

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I checked a production disc and thought the picture quality was in the top 10 percent of our releases. It is a solid video master. I don't know which titles you are comparing this to that you feel look superior?

I watched a large chunk of Across the Universe again last night and had the same reaction as when I watched it the first time.

I know of course that Shoot 'Em Up is not yours, but that is a recent example of something that I think looks notably better, as well as recent Fox releases such as Prison Break or Mr. Brooks or Die Hard 4.

As for recent Sony releases that I thought looked better, SM3 and RE3 come to mind. I thought that Fifth Element (remastered) looked fantastic. I thought The Patriot looked very nice.

To pick one specific shot in Across the Universe that illustrates what I had a problem with, the opening shot of Jim Sturgess on a beach, ending with a tight close-up. The close-up just doesn't have the crispness that I expect to see in such tight close-ups, and that is really true throughout the movie. There are some exceptions; the close-ups of Prudence during I Wanna Hold Your Hand look pretty good. Many close-ups of Sturgess seemed especially lacking.

Another example of something that I thought looked bad: the blue elongated heads in the Eddie Izzard number.

[bluseminole]

I put a poll up on Hanser's suggestions (gave credit to you, Hanser--great ideas, BTW).

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=35807