Ask questions to Sony Pictures Entertainment insider "paidgeek"

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Hi Darin,

It's no problem to put 4+ hours on a BD50. LOA will fit nicely.

FYI, I have been told that HD-NET will be showing the newest version in a couple of weeks. Let me know what you think of it... I think everyone will be pleased.

Welcome back, paidgeek!

Many thanks for your participation here, and for the unfailingly high and professional quality of your comments.

Some of us have been concerned that using a single BD 50 for a movie as long as LOA will have the consequence that the PQ, while good, will not be as good as it could be if two discs were used. Could you offer any insight you might have on this subject?

[ErikR]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Lot's of money, time and added value going into this one. We are wringing everything out of it we can...

Glad to hear that!

Also, put me in the camp of wanting to see Southland Tales on Blu, all versions that are available as well.

[Knight-Errant]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Lot's of money, time and added value going into this one. We are wringing everything out of it we can...

Brilliant! Thanks paidgeek. I know the effects shots are probably really messy on this one but I'm imagining overall it can be made to look decent

[hollywoodguy]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

The titles you mentioned are possible. You'll have to wait for them, but chances are good...

I'll check on the warning cards coding. I have not paid much attention to this, but I assumed that all of our cards were encoded as 1080p. If not, we should be able to do something about that....

If I may add to the warning cards... This is a problem across studios. If you do change/re-encode the cards, it would be great if they were all flagged 1080p24, since if some are 1080p60, you would still get the hdmi re-sync for those running a forced 1080p24 mode. Thanks!!

(And a +1 on Groundhog Day, which was in the original question!! I don't really care if it's not an HD showcase title, just give us the best available right now, and the fans will be happy. I'm also a little disappointed that Tootsie doesn't get a BD release alongside the 25th anniversary edition on DVD. Any particular reason for that (shape of the master)? Or just the size of the market at this point?)

[sj001]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Lot's of money, time and added value going into this one. We are wringing everything out of it we can...

Thanks! Glad to hear some elbow grease is being put into this one!

[hollywoodguy]

I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on the use of DNR and sharpening on SPHE titles. Count me among those who like to see as little of it as possible on BD. Some studios/post houses go overboard with it and the movies stop to look like film, even if some professional reviews continue to praise the PQ. In my opinion, a film-like appearance should never be sacrificed for what some may consider "clean" or "sharp."

I as many others found SPHE to be very judicious in your use of DNR and sharpening. Even Casino Royale, which you said had some light DNR applied to it, never lost the film-like quality. (And, as an aside, while I understand why it was done (one only has to look at the 100 "grain threads" on this board every day), I'm certain it would have looked terrific without DNR as well.)

Now I saw some fairly prominent edge enhancement halos on The Life of Brian (A truly terrific disc all around by the way. Thankfully I had the chance to watch it for the appropriate occasion--on Christmas Day. Good times!) and wanted to ask when these were introduced. IIRC, Life of Brian underwent the Lowry clean-up, right? Was extra sharpening part of that or did Sony sharpen it afterwards? I don't think the Pythons made a DI back in 79, so we can probably rule that out . I still thought it looked great overall, but I had not seen EE halos on SPHE releases in a long time and was wondering why they came up here. Also, I haven't seen it yet, but EE was noted in this review of 30 Days of Night. Do you know if this was in the DI? My overall request would just be to keep noise reduction and artificial sharpening to a minimum, even if the uneducated cry "too soft" or "too grainy!"

P.S.: I LOVED the fact that Life of Brian was on BD at all. As I said, I hope other remasters like Groundhog Day and Tootsie get there soon, even if it's too late for "day and date" with the remastered DVDs. I think these movies in particular scored really high on the polls you mentioned, too.

P.P.S.: Welcome back and sorry for the meandering question. And congrats on winning the format war. I couldn't be happier (for a variety of reasons ).

[Knight-Errant]

Originally Posted by hollywoodguy

I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on the use of DNR and sharpening on SPHE titles. Count me among those who like to see as little of it as possible on BD. Some studios/post houses go overboard with it and the movies stop to look like film, even if some professional reviews continue to praise the PQ. In my opinion, a film-like appearance should never be sacrificed for what some may consider "clean" or "sharp."

I as many others found SPHE to be very judicious in your use of DNR and sharpening. Even Casino Royale, which you said had some light DNR applied to it, never lost the film-like quality. (And, as an aside, while I understand why it was done (one only has to look at the 100 "grain threads" on this board every day), I'm certain it would have looked terrific without DNR as well.)

Now I saw some fairly prominent edge enhancement halos on The Life of Brian (A truly terrific disc all around by the way. Thankfully I had the chance to watch it for the appropriate occasion--on Christmas Day. Good times!) and wanted to ask when these were introduced. IIRC, Life of Brian underwent the Lowry clean-up, right? Was extra sharpening part of that or did Sony sharpen it afterwards? I don't think the Pythons made a DI back in 79, so we can probably rule that out . I still thought it looked great overall, but I had not seen EE halos on SPHE releases in a long time and was wondering why they came up here. Also, I haven't seen it yet, but EE was noted in this review of 30 Days of Night. Do you know if this was in the DI? My overall request would just be to keep noise reduction and artificial sharpening to a minimum, even if the uneducated cry "too soft" or "too grainy!"

P.S.: I LOVED the fact that Life of Brian was on BD at all. As I said, I hope other remasters like Groundhog Day and Tootsie get there soon, even if it's too late for "day and date" with the remastered DVDs. I think these movies in particular scored really high on the polls you mentioned, too.

P.P.S.: Welcome back and sorry for the meandering question. And congrats on winning the format war. I couldn't be happier (for a variety of reasons ).

Great question. Count me as interested too.

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by hollywoodguy

And congrats on winning the format war. I couldn't be happier (for a variety of reasons ).

+1

[neo_reloaded]

Bits of Once Upon A Time In Mexico have been showing up in Blu-ray previews for awhile so I figure it's in the pipeline, but any idea how far along it is or if it's scheduled for release yet?

Also, are past and future seasons of Rescue Me in consideration for Blu-ray release? I'd absolutely love the first 2 seasons (as well as the 4th and future seasons) to come out on Blu-ray, so any way of passing that along would be greatly appreciated. The 3rd season in BR was great.

[androvsky]

Welcome back paidgeek. I was wondering if you had any news about Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, it was announced last year for release last fall, but Square Enix was still rendering the extended cut last fall. Any idea if it's getting close?

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Lot's of money, time and added value going into this one. We are wringing everything out of it we can...

WOW GREAT TO HEAR! Can't wait to see those films.

[JamesN]

I read an interview with Robert Harris awhile back (sorry, no link--I believe it was a magazine article) in which he stated that at the time of the original restoration of Lawrence of Arabia there was still some missing footage that had not been located and that therefore did not make it into the restoration. I believe he also stated that subsequent to that time, the footage had been found and that if another restoration were ever undertaken it could be incorporated.

Do you know if the latest work on LOA includes any of the missing footage that Mr. Harris alluded to?

Many thanks.

[rondanto]

When Will Sony Release The Columbia Film "Salome" With Rita Hayworth?

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by patrick99

Welcome back, paidgeek!

Many thanks for your participation here, and for the unfailingly high and professional quality of your comments.

Some of us have been concerned that using a single BD 50 for a movie as long as LOA will have the consequence that the PQ, while good, will not be as good as it could be if two discs were used. Could you offer any insight you might have on this subject?

We will have to take a close look at this when we get closer to the release. Off hand I can say that the North American version can be done on one disc with lossless audio and no compromise in picture quality. For the international version we might want to use two discs and that is not so hard when you have a built in intermission right?

[WriteSimply]

Welcome back, paidgeek. I hope you spent the money in the coffer well.

*puts US$10 in*

1) Subtitles. My question to you was lost when they reshuffled the insider thread. IF an SPHE movie has 7 subtitles (A Few Good Men had a LOT), can you make sure that all of the extras have the corresponding subtitles as well? It makes sense to get everything to flow. It also helps your international market.

2) PiP and commentary subtitles. Again if the SPHE movie has subtitles in 7 languages, the PiP feature and the commentary should also have this many subtitles. Just keepin' it in the flow.

3) I know that you are working on a new kind of calibration menu. Disney's Ratatouille was very helpful to me. The one that was helpful to me from SPHE was the one with the sine waves/lines. Hopefully the new one will be easy to understand. Regardless, is it possible to have a CLIP of 1080p24 video that can show users if they have a 1080p24 capable display? Something like the video inherently shows the change in numbers per frames. It might be helpful.

4) A while back, new SPHE titles used a feature that can show a photo and the title of a BD when the BD is inserted in a PS3. I see that Disney had used that with Lost Season 3. Are other studios using it as well? Hopefully it becomes a widespread practice.

5) Some movies were made in eras where intermission is a welcomed break, like LOA. How would SPHE handle that vis a vis discs used? Would you use two discs and then bump up the bitrates? Would you use just one BD50 and do an option to watch the movie with no intermission and one with (including the intermission music) via seamless branching?

6) CJ7 is about to be released here, this week. Any idea when it'll be released on BD?


fuad

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by hollywoodguy

I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on the use of DNR and sharpening on SPHE titles. Count me among those who like to see as little of it as possible on BD. Some studios/post houses go overboard with it and the movies stop to look like film, even if some professional reviews continue to praise the PQ. In my opinion, a film-like appearance should never be sacrificed for what some may consider "clean" or "sharp."

I as many others found SPHE to be very judicious in your use of DNR and sharpening. Even Casino Royale, which you said had some light DNR applied to it, never lost the film-like quality. (And, as an aside, while I understand why it was done (one only has to look at the 100 "grain threads" on this board every day), I'm certain it would have looked terrific without DNR as well.)

Now I saw some fairly prominent edge enhancement halos on The Life of Brian (A truly terrific disc all around by the way. Thankfully I had the chance to watch it for the appropriate occasion--on Christmas Day. Good times!) and wanted to ask when these were introduced. IIRC, Life of Brian underwent the Lowry clean-up, right? Was extra sharpening part of that or did Sony sharpen it afterwards? I don't think the Pythons made a DI back in 79, so we can probably rule that out . I still thought it looked great overall, but I had not seen EE halos on SPHE releases in a long time and was wondering why they came up here. Also, I haven't seen it yet, but EE was noted in this review of 30 Days of Night. Do you know if this was in the DI? My overall request would just be to keep noise reduction and artificial sharpening to a minimum, even if the uneducated cry "too soft" or "too grainy!"

P.S.: I LOVED the fact that Life of Brian was on BD at all. As I said, I hope other remasters like Groundhog Day and Tootsie get there soon, even if it's too late for "day and date" with the remastered DVDs. I think these movies in particular scored really high on the polls you mentioned, too.

P.P.S.: Welcome back and sorry for the meandering question. And congrats on winning the format war. I couldn't be happier (for a variety of reasons ).

We agree with you that it is best to avoid noise reduction and enhancement unless absolutley necessary. LOB was a special case and I think it is the first time we have released a Blu-ray that has used the Lowry process. I think we can all agree that this film never pretended to be a cinematic masterpiece, so the objective was to make it look good and not have any technical issue distract you from enjoying the intent of a MP title.

I have no idea about any enhancement in 30 Days of Night, but I can look into it. That title did not need any sharpening in my opinion.

My philosophy is that if you want a sharper, grain reduced, processed looking title, then experiment with your HD displays controls as you like. There are more than enough adjustments available in the current display products.

[MerrickG]

paidgeek,

I know there are rules about asking about release dates and Im also sure this has been brought up before, but I was curious if Ghostbusters will get a blu release in the not so distant future.

Hopefully, this post doesnt violate the rules.

Thanks.

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

Bits of Once Upon A Time In Mexico have been showing up in Blu-ray previews for awhile so I figure it's in the pipeline, but any idea how far along it is or if it's scheduled for release yet?

Also, are past and future seasons of Rescue Me in consideration for Blu-ray release? I'd absolutely love the first 2 seasons (as well as the 4th and future seasons) to come out on Blu-ray, so any way of passing that along would be greatly appreciated. The 3rd season in BR was great.

I have not seen OUATIM on the schedule. Rescue Me is being considered, but the noise in the masters varies quiet a bit. Do you find that in any way distracting?

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by androvsky

Welcome back paidgeek. I was wondering if you had any news about Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, it was announced last year for release last fall, but Square Enix was still rendering the extended cut last fall. Any idea if it's getting close?

It's under investigation...

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by JamesN

I read an interview with Robert Harris awhile back (sorry, no link--I believe it was a magazine article) in which he stated that at the time of the original restoration of Lawrence of Arabia there was still some missing footage that had not been located and that therefore did not make it into the restoration. I believe he also stated that subsequent to that time, the footage had been found and that if another restoration were ever undertaken it could be incorporated.

Do you know if the latest work on LOA includes any of the missing footage that Mr. Harris alluded to?

Many thanks.

I don't know, but I know someone that can tell me. I'll let you know what I find out.