"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[GarettP]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

There is no possible way that LOTR will ship with lossy audio

The brass at WB have gotten the message about lossless. The problem is that that message takes time to filter down, and they're not going to go back and re-do already completed product either. It's going to take a year, and maybe longer for that to shake out down the chain of command (much less than a year) and to get those discs waiting for a date out the door. Please keep in mind that there's about a 4 month minimum lead time on most Blu-rays, so anything you do today will not show on shelves until Novemberish at best, and probably later since Christmas product is done early.

IN THE MEANTIME. Do not automatically assume that titles, EVEN IF THE PRELIMINARY BOX ART SHOWS IT, have lossy audio. They have a lot of graphic designers who have been sticking "Dolby Digital" on everything for 10 years, and they do slip up occasionally (See Perfect Storm)

Thanks for all of your work and contributions for all of us and I hope you are right, because no HD sound on discs is unexcusable to me and a lot of us!

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by mhafner

It applies to the general cry for lossless sound, whether compared to DTS or DD. DD can also go higher than 640 Kbit/s without being lossless. The difference between lossless and the less lossy versions >= 1 Mbit/s are minimal at best and you need professional quality equipment and rooms and very high quality sources to hear them. The former is not very rarely installed in normal people's systems and the latter affects all older films.

I'm in sympathy with the feeling that most people can't natively tell the difference between lossy and lossless audio. From this I conclude that they should be taught to do so, not that lossless should be denied the rest of us.

Lack of high quality equipment and pro installations do present an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. A cheap and easy way for anyone to get a handle on the difference between 1.5 Mbps _total_ audio data (e.g. DTS lossy multichannel or 16-bit PCM stereo) and 1.2 Mbps _per channel_ for 24/48 PCM is through headphones. A good ($75) pair, decent computer sound card or respectable headphone output in a receiver, and some hi-res music (with an ordinary CD for comparison) should do.

I think the listener will usually have to be told (at first) to attend to the greater possible range in volume, bigger ambience ("more stereophonic!") and so on. But once you know what to listen for it's hard to forget.

From there I'd tell the lossless trainee to imagine the experiment repeated for 5.1 or 7.1 external speakers. So some amount of education could occur even if there isn't a magnificent home theatre setup immediately to hand.

EDIT: Pace Brain Sturgeon, I agree with mhafner that the improved frequency response is going to be a toughie for most people to pick up. Distinguishing the bottom especially won't be easy because people don't hear too well in that register. I might tell the trainee, though, "Listen to the kick drum", "Now pick out the bass guitar" etc. I think that many people will be able qualitatively to distinguish the 1.5 vs. 2.4 Mbps representations of instruments which occupy the low end.

[Brain Sturgeon]

Originally Posted by mhafner

Why would depth of bass depend much on lossless compression? No soundstaging with bass anyway, no HF detail.

I don't know how the engineers for the codecs would explain this, but it is certainly there-- I've heard that difference time and again in A-B comparisons. There is a certain presence and palpability to deep bass in lossless that is not there with lossy schemes. The best way I can explain it is a feeling/sense that the floor has fallen out of your room with the bass assuming a "reach out and touch it" kind of realism. Your auditory sense of space is so much different with this than with lossy, which in comparison feels "fuzzy"-- it's around you but its not something that I can delineate clearly. This is just my experience with it, but I think others have had similar listening experiences.

[]
Whether or not everyone can tell the difference between lossy & lossless, I think the point that should be made regarding these movie releases is that we (home theater enthusiasts) want maxed out, as-close-to-the-director's/artist's-intended-experience-as-possible releases which, in addition to optimum video transfers (± changes in color timing, DNR, etc; all hopefully under the director's/DP's direction/supervison), should also include a lossless audio track. Even if a lossy track is excellent, and there are many that are-- particularly 1.5 Mbps DTS (Master and Commander and Kingdom of Heaven come to mind), I don't think anyone out there would disagree that a lossless track, properly done from the same source material, would perform better than the lossy track. The technology and physical space are there-- use it and make BD what it should be: the best video and audio presentation that consumers have ever had access to.
[/]

[darkblueme]

Originally Posted by Brain Sturgeon

I don't know how the engineers for the codecs would explain this, but it is certainly there-- I've heard that difference time and again in A-B comparisons. There is a certain presence and palpability to deep bass in lossless that is not there with lossy schemes. The best way I can explain it is a feeling/sense that the floor has fallen out of your room with the bass assuming a "reach out and touch it" kind of realism. Your auditory sense of space is so much different with this than with lossy, which in comparison feels "fuzzy"-- it's around you but its not something that I can delineate clearly. This is just my experience with it, but I think others have had similar listening experiences.

[]
Whether or not everyone can tell the difference between lossy & lossless, I think the point that should be made regarding these movie releases is that we (home theater enthusiasts) want maxed out, as-close-to-the-director's/artist's-intended-experience-as-possible releases which, in addition to optimum video transfers (± changes in color timing, DNR, etc; all hopefully under the director's/DP's direction/supervison), should also include a lossless audio track. Even if a lossy track is excellent, and there are many that are-- particularly 1.5 Mbps DTS (Master and Commander and Kingdom of Heaven come to mind), I don't think anyone out there would disagree that a lossless track, properly done from the same source material, would perform better than the lossy track. The technology and physical space are there-- use it and make BD what it should be: the best video and audio presentation that consumers have ever had access to.
[/]

Very well said.
I agree with you completely.

[Brain Sturgeon]

Originally Posted by Teazle

EDIT: Pace Brain Sturgeon, I agree with mhafner that the improved frequency response is going to be a toughie for most people to pick up. Distinguishing the bottom especially won't be easy because people don't hear too well in that register. I might tell the trainee, though, "Listen to the kick drum", "Now pick out the bass guitar" etc. I think that many people will be able qualitatively to distinguish the 1.5 vs. 2.4 Mbps representations of instruments which occupy the low end.

I also agree with you guys that, to the casual listener, the differences between lossless and lossy may not immediately be notable. However, as you mentioned, once you educate someone on what to listen for, the differences become fairly easy to pick out. I think this same issue comes up when educating people about video issues-- such as the recent notorious (dare I mention it) DNR "issues". The images look great to the casual viewer, but once you are cued in to the missing details, you can easily pick out the deficiencies of the image.

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

There is no possible way that LOTR will ship with lossy audio

The brass at WB have gotten the message about lossless. The problem is that that message takes time to filter down, and they're not going to go back and re-do already completed product either. It's going to take a year, and maybe longer for that to shake out down the chain of command (much less than a year) and to get those discs waiting for a date out the door.

Is the Warner home video department THAT big?!?!?
Any, thanks again for the reassurances, I hate sounding like a whinging ungrateful crybaby. It's just starting to bug me now, that's all.

Speaking of bugs where's Amazon's pre-order for Starship Troopers?!?!?

[WickyWoo]

Is the Warner home video department THAT big?!?!?
Any, thanks again for the reassurances, I hate sounding like a whinging ungrateful crybaby. It's just starting to bug me now, that's all.

Studios in general are very large and compartmentalized, and very often one hand never talks to the other unless it's forced to

We're all annoyed by it

The big thing is that they have a lot of product that's still waiting in the wings that has been completed but not solicited, plus all the Christmas catalog titles are starting to be pressed right around now. They're not going to go back and redo what's already locked and approved. So 4 months minimum for the changes in policy to take effect on the production end, then another 8-12 months for the existing product to finish bleeding out the door

[DenonCI]

I find the dialogue more natural with the lossless tracks versus lossy. It sounds as if the people are in your room versus coming out of a speaker.

[Grubert]

Natural Born Killers is an example of how to do things right* - sufficient video bitrate and lossless audio. It is utterly impressive. I've watched the Blu-ray twice already.


* If I was to nitpick, it should have a documentary (the Chaos rising featurette from the DVD was dropped), and a retrospective feature with cast and crew.

[Robert Siegel]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

I find the dialogue more natural with the lossless tracks versus lossy. It sounds as if the people are in your room versus coming out of a speaker.

The biggie for me with lossless is the sound of the orchestra (or score). The instruments have that natural orchestral field to them, and sound crystal clear. I've never heard any orchestra or score on regular dvd that comes near the sound of the same in lossless. A few of the DTS high bitrate dvd's were "ok." With lossless. Horns sound sharper, separation sounds wider, with lossless you can even hear the string hit a violin and the intended expression. A beautifully recorded track in lossless can make the orchestra sound like it may be in your room (with a good stereo system and well engineered recording). Not very often with lossy, if at all. Of course the sound effects and dialogue improve greatly as well. Maybe I am alone on this, but I believe all mono films show improvement as well and I am glad to see some studios using lossless for mono as well.

I really believe that when Warner finishes releasing what the have pressed already, they will use lossless all of the time. As Wicky says discs are pressed far ahead of time. That I understand. What baffles me is why didn't they have lossless in the FIRST PLACE? They have 50gb of space and many 25gb discs have room for it. Of course, there was different management at Warner Home Video at the time many of those first blu-rays were released and the format war was raging. 'nuff said.

[WickyWoo]

I really believe that when Warner finishes releasing what the have pressed already, they will use lossless all of the time. As Wicky says discs are pressed far ahead of time. That I understand. What baffles me is why didn't they have lossless in the FIRST PLACE? They have 50gb of space and many 25gb discs have room for it. Of course, there was different management at Warner Home Video at the time many of those first blu-rays were released and the format war was raging. 'nuff said.

Space issues on HD DVD. Even a THD track will take double the space of even DD+. Limited video bandwidth+limited disc space+desire to stuff the disc with extras= something has to go

[hollywoodguy]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Space issues on HD DVD. Even a THD track will take double the space of even DD+. Limited video bandwidth+limited disc space+desire to stuff the disc with extras= something has to go

Which begs the question why neutral Warner never hesitated to capitalize on HD DVD's strengths (PiP from the start, internet connectivity), but ignored Blu-ray's?

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by hollywoodguy

Which begs the question why neutral Warner never hesitated to capitalize on HD DVD's strengths (PiP from the start, internet connectivity), but never on Blu-ray's?

It really dosen't take an insider to answer this question. Warner was pro HD DUD from the beginning, and its red tendecies would have continued if certain "personnel" had stayed in place. .

[coolmilo]

It would be nice if Penton, Bill Hunt, or Wicky would get a big wig from Warner Home Video to clarify their Blu-ray strategy. Warner has known for over a year now that the HD market demands lossless audio and BD optimization and yet they still put out sub-par releases (excessive DNR, lossy audio, BD 25 media). And now it appears this is bleeding over to New Line releases. What would make us happy at this point is for a Warner rep to address our concerns and deliver a timeline when these problems will be fixed (such as starting on October 1 all titles will include lossless audio, will no longer include excessive DNR processing, and will be optimized for Blu-ray BD 50 media).

It seems as if their marketing department has taken over by including useless stuff such as books and cookie cutters instead of focusing on what's really important. What Warner should focus on is delivering additional value by taking advantage of the technology such as utilize BD-Live to deliver ebooks if that is the value Warner would like to include.

Is Warner really interested in HD media or are they trying to damage Blu-ray to make a better case for HD downloads?

[WickyWoo]

I'm afraid what you're asking for is very unlikely in any kind of official public statement

I can tell you that now that certain parties have made their exit, there is no question of WB's commitment to Blu-ray's success

[Robert Siegel]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Space issues on HD DVD. Even a THD track will take double the space of even DD+. Limited video bandwidth+limited disc space+desire to stuff the disc with extras= something has to go

I totally understand what you are saying, but then again Superman Returns, Phantom of the Opera, Happy Feet, Ant Bully and other titles had Dolby True on hd-dvd and the blu-rays had Dolby Digital at 640kbps. I realize that changed since the "exit" of some people from the studio but Its a shame we have to have good films like that without the lossless track. Hopefully Warner will at least release the Superman Returns that came with the Pioneer Player that has PCM and Dolby True, I am waiting to purchase the movie for that version.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

There is no possible way that LOTR will ship with lossy audio

The brass at WB have gotten the message about lossless.

How about the other "messages" that are frequently discussed around here?

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by mhafner

It applies to the general cry for lossless sound, whether compared to DTS or DD. DD can also go higher than 640 Kbit/s without being lossless. The difference between lossless and the less lossy versions >= 1 Mbit/s are minimal at best and you need professional quality equipment and rooms and very high quality sources to hear them. The former is not very rarely installed in normal people's systems and the latter affects all older films.

No offense.

I disagree when even my noob Wife and friends can easily discern differences between lossy and lossless audio. The law of diminishing returns doesn't that easily apply to lossless audio which delivers the extra oomph and sonics.

The differences are easily perceivable even with this miniscule HD capable HT.

http://img.kakaku.com/images/product...0452310385.jpg

[WickyWoo]

How about the other "messages" that are frequently discussed around here?

One thing at a time, we're working on it but it takes time

[milou6]

Originally Posted by mhafner

I'm rather sure that 100 out of 100 people with normal vision can tell apart without problems Patton as is and without DNR on a display/screen of suitable size. I'm equally sure that very few if any ouf of 100 can tell two versions of the same soundtrack apart in a double blind test on high end equipment in a good room: Uncompressed 24 bit and DTS 1.5 Mbit/s 16 bit.

In the absence of a comparison most people think DD sounds great. How many people plug their ipods with horribly compressed music into their stereos and don't even notice that it sounds like garbage? My in-laws still get annoyed with me when I go to set-up and change audio tracks (DVD or BD), because those fews seconds of delay for them aren't worth the increase in quality.

My point here is not to disagree but that it comes again to the education of the user.