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

[Anthony P]

That answers my question. Seems that this should not create a bitrate problem for longer scenes.

no matter how long the scene is there will always be a bit rate problem (i.e. should not be at full 48mbps) at the jumps point, with a longer scene though it would be less important on the whole of a movie and for longer jump scenes it might not have an added affect at the second (return) jump point.

[Anthony P]

Which is a real shame and some would say almost hypocritical given the fact that so much time on all the forums is spent talking about picture quality, restorations, remastering, etc. For example, if one is a true cinephile or connoisseur of superb looking titles, there is no reason why such titles as Gandhi or The Professionals shouldn’t be selling better if people have the discretionary income to purchase other more current titles to add to their home collections.

well can't talk about others, and I have my share of catalogues (though some are still on the too be bought list) but in the end I don't have infinite amount of $ and, to be honest, I would give priority to an "interesting" movie I have not scene over a catalogue (unless I really feel like looking at it now) why? the new title also has the "curiosity" factor. I know when I bring them home, the comfy catalogue could stay months until I am in the mood for it while one day when I just want to watch a movie I will watch the new one out of curiosity. Also, and I hope this is not taken out of context since I hate the whiny “it costs too much” but when fox had catalogues priced the same as new releases (and higher then new releases of other studios) I felt it was insulting to expect us to repay full price again for something we bought already.

[Robert Siegel]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I'd say it's more that it will simply take that much longer for classics to come out. If you're on the fence about a classic, tip to the "buy" side. Buy week one if possilble. Tell your friends to do the same, give them as gifts!

That's exactly right Jeff. That is what we need to do. I have been buying classic blu-rays for friends as gifts and even talking some friends into the better titles. If we aren't buying them, why should they spend the money to release them. On the other hand, if they continue the slow streak of classic titles, what is there out there that temps anyone into classic movies to go blu? I have several friends that are waiting on the sidelines to buy a blu-ray player until there's more of a selection, they just aren't into that many movies made after the 60's...the release schedule for March was reason enough for one of them to buy a player but not the other 2.....I think we have some fine titles due this month including Quo Vadis, The Robe, Gigi, American in Paris and South Pacific but I urge everyone who supports classics on blu-ray to buy them! All of these titles are top notch Hollywood and will be well worth it.

That being said, some of the classic titles being released need to be questioned. Not their release, but timing as compared with other more popular titles. How many more people would buy The Sound of Music over South Pacific from Fox? Quite a few I think. How many more people would buy Lawrence of Arabia over The Professionals from Sony/Columbia? Quite a few I think!

[Stacey Spears]

because I’m telling you people, the ‘classics’ just aint selling that well,

I recall looking at the Nielsen numbers and seeing Joe Kane's DVE outselling some of the big classics. I told Joe he should put out a press release.

[4K2K]

I've read that King Kong (2005) only has an avg. video bitrate 16.33 mbit/sec for the extended edition to avg 16.41 mbit/sec. for the Theatrical, using seamless branching. Is this the same for the European version? Aren't these video bitrates lower than those used by Amadeus which people say could be a cause of a lower quality picture?

While a newer film like King Kong probably won't need the same bitrate as older films, wouldn't a video bitrate more in line with other releases - like at least above 20mbit/sec have given an even better quality with more fine detail than on this release?

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, I just hope that they show some interest in the chat with Schawn and George, et. al. because I’m telling you people, the ‘classics’ just aint selling that well, no matter what the quality of the Blu-ray product is or what studio it comes out of.

Which is a real shame and some would say almost hypocritical given the fact that so much time on all the forums is spent talking about picture quality, restorations, remastering, etc. For example, if one is a true cinephile or connoisseur of superb looking titles, there is no reason why such titles as Gandhi or The Professionals shouldn’t be selling better if people have the discretionary income to purchase other more current titles to add to their home collections.

You're preaching to the choir, Penton. Unfortunately, as has been proved repeatedly in the last couple years, enthusiasts forums are but a drop in the bucket.

If studios want the classics to sell, they need to do a better job explaining to the public at large something that isn't sinking in: that even though a movie may be old, it will benefit from being in hidef.

Believe it or not, Gone with the Wind wasn't made to be viewed on a 21" CRT. But people are so used to it that they can't imagine it used to be shown on huge cinema screens. And I don't mean multiplex size.

Studios need to get creative. Some free suggestions: "Now you can see the movie exactly like the day it opened!!" or "Why have a home theater when you can have a theater at home!!"

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Grubert

Believe it or not, Gone with the Wind wasn't made to be viewed on a 21" CRT. But people are so used to it that they can't imagine it used to be shown on huge cinema screens. And I don't mean multiplex size.

Studios need to get creative. Some free suggestions: "Now you can see the movie exactly like the day it opened!!" or "Why have a home theater when you can have a theater at home!!"

For big titles like Gone with the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia studios could do something cool and screen the movie on release date in a few major cities and do a liitle cross marketing with the Blu-Ray release, something along the idea of the theatrical re-release Star Wars trailer that showed the movie previously available only small and tiny at home and now back on the big screen, only that this time it is a cinema AND the home theater screen or a big plasma or rear projection.

Another idea would be to have something along the lines of: The roadshow presentation is coming home for titles like Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, Ben Hur and other roadshwo epics. This would be a nice way to go about titles that are really big.

With smaller titles like The Professionals this would probably not be feasible but if it is a start for bigger movies why not use it ?

[eChopper]

yeah release the epics

3 years of apetizers !!!

[Mr. Cinema]

So what reason do the studios think why classic titles aren't selling?

1. The majority of owners are still younger and only care about new releases.

2. With the bad economy, consumers don't want to spend another $20-$25 on a title they already have on dvd.

3. combination of both?

Amadeus was on sale for $14.99 at Amazon and the nations #1 retailer, and although it cracked the top 10, it didn't appear to do that well given the index number thingy.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was also $14.99 that week and I don't recall it being in the top 20.

I have a feeling those of us who love the classic titles are going to be the ones who get the shaft since the majority of our ownership only enjoy new release action/sci-fi films with non-stop explosions and visual effects.

Nothing wrong with liking that, but damn, can't we broaden our taste just a little?

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Mr. Cinema

I have a feeling those of us who love the classic titles are going to be the ones who get the shaft since the majority of our ownership only enjoy new release action/sci-fi films with non-stop explosions and visual effects.

We're not getting the shaft, it is just that we have a taste in movies that is different from the majority. Studios can only release so many movies that are not sold in sufficient numbers, especially when it is rather costly to prepare them for Blu-Ray release.

There should be something like an adopt a movie program where wealthy people can give a studio money to prepare and release their favorite classic on Blu-Ray and maybe even strike a new print or two - now that would be a nice way to spend money for the billionaires of the world

In the end it will be a waiting game with classics on Blu-Ray - with more player sales and more new movies sold increased demand for classics will follow.

[Doctorossi]

Since no one around here seems to want to pick up the ball that is my Showscan question, can someone recommend an insider thread where I might have some success asking it? I don't want to spam a bunch of them.





As an aside, and speaking of "mercy killing", thanks to whoever cleaned up the debris on the floor in here. I apologize for failing to resist the temptation to contribute to it.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

I've read that King Kong (2005) only has an avg. video bitrate 16.33 mbit/sec for the extended edition to avg 16.41 mbit/sec. for the Theatrical, using seamless branching. Is this the same for the European version? Aren't these video bitrates lower than those used by Amadeus which people say could be a cause of a lower quality picture?

King Kong is a recent movie release with possibly higher potential sales. The folks who did the authoring work on the Blu-ray version probably spent significantly more time authoring the disc than what WB could budget for Amadeus.

Originally Posted by Oliver K

For big titles like Gone with the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia studios could do something cool and screen the movie on release date in a few major cities and do a liitle cross marketing with the Blu-Ray release, something along the idea of the theatrical re-release Star Wars trailer that showed the movie previously available only small and tiny at home and now back on the big screen, only that this time it is a cinema AND the home theater screen or a big plasma or rear projection.

This kind of thing has already been done with various catalog movie releases on home video. I remember WB having a limited theatrical release for Superman: The Movie in relation to its DVD-18 release. The Godfather has had limited theatrical showings for both its previous DVD release and recent release on Blu-ray.

Unfortunately, there are very few theaters left in the United States that can really do justice to a revival release of films like Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur or even Cleopatra.

For one thing, the theater needs a good 70mm projection setup (and booth personnel competent enough to not damage prints). 35mm or digital projection just isn't going to cut it for those movies.

Next, the theater needs to be really nice and not some ordinary stadium seated screening room. Premiere class theaters like The Uptown in Washington, D.C. or Ziegfeld Theatre in New York are very few in number and not easy to book either. Out of the best new theater locations in the country virtually none have 70mm projection. The 70mm format only seems to be surviving in IMAX theaters, and those auditoriums don't really provide the kind of "environment" I would associate with watching a classic epic movie. The old "movie palace" experience is needed for this kind of thing.

I visited Warren Theaters' Moore 14 last weekend to see Watchmen in one of the theater's two grand auditoriums. They have balconies (for adults only), traditional seating, lavish decor, very good THX-certified sound systems. This company is doing much to duplicate that movie palace experience. Unfortunately, 70mm capability is coming along as part of the package. It's all exclusively Dolby Digital Cinema.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Since no one around here seems to want to pick up the ball that is my Showscan question, can someone recommend an insider thread where I might have some success asking it? I don't want to spam a bunch of them.

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Here's another Blu-ray format question:

Does the base spec. require enough frame-buffer to seamlessly cover any on-the-fly changes in the frame-rate flagging? In other words, if one were to transfer, say...

A SHOWSCAN PRINT OF BRAINSTORM

could they just transfer it as-is and apply appropriate frame-rate flagging or would the 24p portion of the film need to be converted so that the whole thing would run in 60p?

I looked up that film on www.imdb.com and in the trivia it says:

- 'Douglas Trumbull' originally wanted to film this movie in "Showscan", a 60-frame-per-second widescreen process he'd developed, but the costs of retrofitting theaters to show it proved
prohibitive. If the "Showscan" version had been made...

So imdb seems to say that they never shot it in Showscan. Did they actually shoot that film in the showscan format? If it had been shot in 60fps or there was a print like that, it couldn't be encoded as 1080p60 anyway since it isn't supported. It would have to be encoded as something like 1080/60i or 720/60p.

Don't 24p capable TVs take a while - like multiple seconds to switch eg. between 24p and 60i/p (while they resync to the frame rate change)? That's what it does on mine on Blu-ray discs that have a 24p menu and main feature but 60i/p bonus content, where I have it set to output in full 1080p. I don't know how much is due to the TV itself or checking for any copy protection or other HDMI issues (probably most/all is due to the TVs themselves since I've read that most TVs glitch and take at least a second or two on frame rate changes and that's without HDMI/copy protection stuff).

So - and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd think if they had to change rates like 24fps to 60fps very quickly, and with no picture glitches or pauses, they'd have to encode everything at the same rate, like everything at 1080/60i or everything at 720/60p. That might mean that the 24fps portion might have 3:2 pull-down judder if it was encoded as 60fps, but wouldn't if it was encoded natively at 24fps.

[Doctorossi]

They shot sequences in Showscan (hence my rate-change question).

You're right, I think- even just to completely eliminate the compatibility question, they'd probably want to encode the whole thing at 60.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

I recall looking at the Nielsen numbers and seeing Joe Kane's DVE outselling some of the big classics. I told Joe he should put out a press release.

You!
I want my two dollars plus tip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXIBjo8gWEE

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

On another note, Stacey Spears and Don Munsil have just put together an OUTSTANDING Blu-ray calibration disc that will be available for purchase very soon. It is also being bundled with the upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player. If you want to get the most out of your HD display, this is an OUTSTANDING disc with clear explanations on how to use the test patterns to get the most of your display. There is also a great montage shot by Stacey himself with a 4K Red camera!

[Bobby Henderson]

Brainstorm was shot with a mix of 35mm and 65mm footage at 24fps. AFAIK, none of it was filmed in true Showscan.

Douglass Trumbull indeed wanted to film the entire movie in Showscan, but no studio guys wanted to provide the extra funding it would have taken to shoot the whole thing in 5/65mm at 60fps.

A long time ago I read somewhere (can't remember) that Trumbull demonstrated the Showscan process to some studio heads, possibly at Disney. They rejected the format because the results looked "too real."

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Esox50

Penton,

Don't get too excited about the stock market yet. :-)

-Esox

You mean my “penny stocks” right?
What I want to know is where the hell did all the money go?
It just didn’t disappear, somebody made a profit/killing on the slide down.

The government should jack up the capital gains tax this year.

[GabrielB]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

You know Oliver, one thing that I am constantly amazed about, is that your first language is German (I presume like Torsten, hanser, etc.)………and other members here who post on this forum whose first language is other than English (Grubert’s - Spanish?) and how well you guys write and express yourselves.

Hey you forgot about me!... I'm a Québécois...
But I know... I do not reside in your heart as much as some of the others. Well that's OK. And I don't consider to express myself that well. Sometimes I find it frustrating and often see that I lack that depth of the language I have in french. Well anyways.

Thanks for your answer a few days ago.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I can tell you one thing though, I’m already getting word back from people that I certainly stirred the pot in their home video dept. ……….for the good.
[...]

On the other hand, it seems everyone has input over there and what they really need is some Leadership, i.e. a General to take the reins and sort things out.

Well good to know then . Let's just hope it will come to fruition; this is what I'm afraid with them. Good intentions perhaps but inside a giant corporation with multiple people in charge? Hope they will name a captain who likes catalogs and the natural characteristics of film.

Cheers then and keep the good work.
And whenever you can tell us more, we enjoy all the bits you can share.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Grubert

You're preaching to the choir, Penton. Unfortunately, as has been proved repeatedly in the last couple years, enthusiasts forums are but a drop in the bucket.

I know that the purchasing power of all the forum members combined is “but a drop in the bucket” but, I am not solely “preaching to the choir”.

You see, since George Feltenstein (WB), Rich Marty (Sony) and other industry folks regularly read this thread, I’m using you guys as a sounding board for them ^.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Grubert

Studios need to get creative. Some free suggestions: "Now you can see the movie exactly like the day it opened!!" or "Why have a home theater when you can have a theater at home!!"

Wally (Pfister) is currently building himself a spiffy home theater at home.