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

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Penton, not decided on an Island yet - I've doved/diven/dived Jamaica, Cozumel, Turks, and am looking for another venue, this time a week liveaboard. Leaning sofar to US-VI in a trimaran, but we'll see.

Dude, you haven’t dove the Caymans !
That’s nearly sacrilegious for someone who has made other trips down to the Caribbean in the past !

I haven’t been on this vessel but, try this outfit………..
http://www.worlddive.com/destin/live...t/cay_main.htm

And while you’re down there, hop a flight over to St. Croix and dive RMS Rhone off Salt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Rhone

where some of the underwater footage from this upcoming Blu-ray was captured……..
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=5047

And also because St. Croix’s got the beautifully colored seahorses off Frederiksted Pier - http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...44435858476275 which you can literally spend hours with if you are an underwater photog.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

So, Penton, I'll ignore the creepy bit where you implied that you scoured the AMPAS voting-member rolls, looking for my name, but I am curious about what you think (if you do) of the news in the video you posted.

Me, I think it'll be nice to see a little wider spread of winner speculation in the media, with perhaps less of a feeling of utter inevitability by the time the ceremony arrives and a *little* more opportunity for the occasional surprise result. However, 10 seems a bit unwieldy to me, and maybe too much for most casual observers to keep track of. Maybe 8 would be better. Doubling the number also gives a suggestion of arbitrariness and the impression that not much thought was given to the decision, although I'm quite sure that's far from the truth.

Not arbitrary……..returning to a past tradition –
http://www.oscars.org/press/pressrel.../20090624.html (play the video clip on the right)

I like the idea.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Vincent Pereira

Probably my last post ever on AVS Forum, read it before it gets deleted:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...7&postcount=37

Vincent

Isn’t it just typical that when you click on that link, one gets slapped in the face with a bunch of advertisements.
Sheesh.

Somebody PM’ed your post before it evaporated. From what I recall, “Kram Sacul” ?sp is worse with his occasional jabs at RAH because instead of insinuating judgment tempered by financial interest, “Kram” just outright accuses RAH of reviewer incompetence from time to time.

If those *scientists* want to sling mud at people as well regarded throughout the real world as Robert and the mods over there let accusations like that stand , perhaps I’ll tell the story of how Amir bid on and won a charity auction jointly hosted by the owner of AVS with merchandise totaling over $10,000, some say closer to $15,000.

I wonder if that *donation* procured any preferential treatment of Amir by the moderators of AVS during the days of the format war.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

And that is exactly what we need.

Nobody can tell me that somebody who sits close to 1 screen width away needs subtitles of the same size as somebody who sits 3 screen widths away - the subs are so big on some discs that I have to wonder why somebody would want to watch a Blu-Ray at all if he needs subs that are so big.

So please make it movable AND scalable - that would go a long way and probably satisfy 99.5% of all users.

Yeah, I also plan on walking on water the first week in July when I’m scouting a location up in Vancouver.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Eternal_Sunshine

Thanks for making SPHE sensitive to the subs issue, Penton!

And thanks for setting up the poll so quickly, Deci!

You’re welcome.

If memory serves, you were the first member here (even prior to Brain Sturgeon) that brought this subject to my attention. I’m glad I was able to re-energize the issue so quickly because honestly, we all have a lot of other things on our plates to deal with simultaneously.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Downloadable subs and/or including languages outside your area might be licensing issues. It's a "quality of life" issue, in that the ability of players to render them properly is too variable, especially when we start getting into the cheap players come next year

That may be true, but don't these Blu-ray players have to live up to certain standards with regard how Java and other BD-related features are implemented? If some newer, cheap players are buggy with regard to how they handle a feature like vector-based subtitles they still could be firmware updated to fix the issue.

I don't know if it's possible for Java to incorporate other existing vector-based technologies such as Flash, PDF, SVG or font formats like OpenType. In the case of PDF, Adobe made significant elements of it open source. The SVG format is also open source (also thanks in part to the folks at Adobe) and coded in XML language. Inkscape is an open source vector drawing application that creates and edits SVG files.

Font licensing and use of existing font formats or use of a Java-based font format would be preferable for keeping subtitle file sizes as low as possible. The lettering could be converted to outlines and stored as raw vector-based objects. The funny thing with font copyrights is the font name is copyrighted, not the actual letter shapes. It's an odd situation and why there are so many look alike fonts sold by different companies under different names.

Anyone who calls himself a graphic artist and designs logos originally in raster form is a freaking IDIOT. Vector art rules.

That's a little "attitude" coming from me with what I deal with regularly in my day job. Just this morning someone brought in their logo for a project -saved in Microsoft Powerpoint. Throw in a few JPEG files and an odd MS Publisher document and that will make my day.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Penton, my copy of Dr Strangelove arrived this morning, and I'll hopefully get a chance to watch it in the next week or so. In the meantime can you give my thanks to the artwork/packaging people at SPHE for making Ireland the only country visible in its entirity on the front cover.

I'm one of the few who actually likes the digibooks and by remarkable coincidence DS is now sitting proudly beside my Dirty Harry digibook
One thing though; although it doesn't affect me because I'm not in North America, if someone ever needed to use the proof of purchase they'd have to butcher the digibook.
Could it not be placed in a more discreet position, somewhere in the booklet maybe?

I’ll pass it on.

[Monkey]

Kram still pushing his daily bull$hit at AVS, somehow I'm not surprised at all.

I'm guessing there are people at AVS who think Xylon is an objective blu-ray fan as well


Then again I'm not a person to zoom in 400% hoping to find as many flaws I can in a blu-ray in still shots, advancing frame by frame hoping to find a truly crappy frame to post. I actually watch them in motion, but that goes against the AVS culture

[kefrank]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

I'm one of the few who actually likes the digibooks

I think a lot of people like the digibooks. It's just that those who don't like them are very vocal.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Not arbitrary……..returning to a past tradition –

... a "tradition" that is very old by anyone's standard and Pleistocene-ancient by Hollywood's.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by kefrank

I think a lot of people like the digibooks. It's just that those who don't like them are very vocal.

Do you see any digibooks in the top 50? Evidently
people that like them don't buy much. That's even with huge
Amazon mark downs. Second chart is one that someone
took the percentages of the top 50 and calculated unit sales
based on a reported 2 million unit sale for Dark Knight.
I'll bet digibooks don't sell 10k. At least we have a choice
most of the time to import and avoid digibooks.
Yes, I realize digibooks are mostly catalog titles and catalog
titles rarely make the top 50. Digibooks will not change that,
but will not help either.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

Yes, I realize digibooks are mostly catalog titles and catalog titles rarely make the top 50.

Then why do you persist with your empty attempt at a damning association?

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Then why do you persist with your empty attempt at a damning association?

Probably for the same reason you persist with your views
on subtitle placement.
At least I voted and do buy regardless of subtitle placement, removeable or not.

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

And this is why the most important factor for me is that the subtitles (except in cases in which titling is present in the original language version of the film) are always removable. In fact, (with the noted exception) if they are not removable, I will not buy the disc.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

Probably for the same reason you persist with your views on subtitle placement.

I persist with my views on subtitle placement because I don't know them to be wrong, going in.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I persist with my views on subtitle placement because I don't know them to be wrong, going in.

That is what reviews are for.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

That is what reviews are for.

Wha?! You've completely lost me.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Wha?! You've completely lost me.

Dr. Svev reviews most of the titles where subtitles (foreign)
may or may not be an issue, and is very quick to mention
that fact. If not, there is a place for User comments for you
to ask or send Dr. Svev a PM.

In short there is ample opportunity to find out before going
in.

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

Dr. Svev reviews most of the titles where subtitles (foreign)
may or may not be an issue, and is very quick to mention
that fact. If not, there is a place for User comments for you
to ask or send Dr. Svev a PM.

In short there is ample opportunity to find out before going
in.

You've misconstrued his argument. He said "I persist with my views on subtitle placement because I don't know them to be wrong, going in.", referencing your argument about Digibooks not breaking the top 50. You acknowledge that no catalogue titles are in the top 50, making the entire list irrelevant in discussing whether Digibooks increase or decrease sales numbers, yet you then still go on with said argument and post two very long lists. Doctorossi continues with his subtitle arguments because he believes them to be true - he doesn't preface discussions on the matter with evidence to disprove them.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

You've misconstrued his argument. He said "I persist with my views on subtitle placement because I don't know them to be wrong, going in.", referencing your argument about Digibooks not breaking the top 50. You acknowledge that no catalogue titles are in the top 50, making the entire list irrelevant in discussing whether Digibooks increase or decrease sales numbers, yet you then still go on with said argument and post two very long lists. Doctorossi continues with his subtitle arguments because he believes them to be true - he doesn't preface discussions on the matter with evidence to disprove them.

Bingo. Thank you, neo.

[bluskies]

I like the digibooks on the whole, when they offer some insight to the making of the movie, not just ads and photos. But, on the whole, I think they are quite smart looking.

I still get surprised by some people who will chant, "Give me the full experience!!! 7.1 audio!!! 3-D!!! Bigger everything!!! Take me to places I have never experienced image and audio wise on my Blu-ray player!!! Knock my eyes out!!! Expand my world in EVERY conceivable way!!!!

...but make sure the Blu-holder matches every other Blu-ray holder on my shelf, not one centimeter difference in size."