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

[Jeff Kleist]

The rest of BDA doesn't care? I mean aren't they a member of the board? Do they not actually participate?

I don't sit in the meetings, I have no idea what they do day to day But is Apple interested in Blu-ray? Not really. They're a lot more interested in selling iPods and collecting cash from iTunes. Apple's entire business model is centered around running the Church of Jobs, they know the faithful will take any kind of abuse they hand out, because in the end, it's not like they can buy their Macs from anyone else

I couldn't say what is actually under the hood, but Apple won't let anyone else write that kind of low-level software, so it doesn't do a lot of good to anyone even if the infrastructure is there if Apple won't provide the software. And they probably won't bother finishing those parts until after they extract from the rest of the BDA whatever gimme they're after, which will probably come long before Blu-ray becomes a dealbreaker in laptops

But the unibody Macbook Pros and new iMacs already have end to end HDCP, don't they? I could see backward compatibility on older models, but for the new stuff, IIRC, they already have iTunes up to date with mentions of Blu-ray in the EULA and the hardware appears up to snuff... so all that's left is the will and desire for BTO options for the appropriate hardware....

Oh and I saw Daybreakers tonight Shark. Little bumpy, but really great. Parnassas Sunday

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Apple's entire business model is centered around running the Church of Jobs, they know the faithful will take any kind of abuse they hand out, because in the end, it's not like they can buy their Macs from anyone else.

*







*I know how Penton feels in his thread and I'm trying to hold my tongue, but I just can't do it completely.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

Penton,

Did you see/hear Don Edlund from Sony Pictures on "Home Theater Geeks?" http://twit.tv/htg

I heard about it but, haven’t had the opportunity to listen to it as of yet.
Thanks for providing the link for everyone. I must say that is quite a coup for Scott Wilkinson to procure a sit-down interview with Don, as he is generally doing four or five things at the same time. Scott must have gotten Don at home or on a real slow day at the office…..like when it was ‘officially closed’ over the holidays and only the most dedicated came in to get something finished. Who does Scott have scheduled for his next Q & A?

Don is a valued V.P. at SPHE, who is extremely well-versed technically on a broad range of topics/issues at the same time always demonstrating integrity beyond reproach and I’m happy to call him one of my closest friends. I will say on a personal note (unbeknownst to the membership here) I had surgery prior to the Christmas holiday and developed a rather significant severe postoperative complication which could have led to a lifelong disability and Don was the first person to call and check on my status. Good Man.

b.t.w., I don’t want to seem to be a spelling nitpicker but, sometimes correct spelling is warranted . First of all, my dear Crystal misspelled a well known soccer team in England. It is Manchester (not “Manchister”) United……just in case our soccer challenged readers desire to accurately learn about English football during these thread musings between doctorossi, sharkshark and myself because it’s a given that at least one member from that particular club will be playing and starting on England’s National team this coming summer at the World Cup.

Secondly, the last name is ‘Eklund’ rather than “Edlund”. But don’t feel badly, as I’ve seen Don’s name misspelled on internet forums as often as I see ‘principal photography’ misspelled as “principle photography”……which is quite often. Perhaps, you , having a deeper insight into the industry than most, might have been thinking/typing at the same time of Richard Edlund, ASC who is no slouch in the techie world either (which is probably the understatement of the year) having been one of the first people involved in the special effects work on Star Wars, the development back-in-the-day of the Industrial Light and Magic effects facility, multi-Oscar nominee and winner, and currently co-chairs the ASC Technology Committee, etc.

Anyway, thanks again for providing the link to everyone who might otherwise not have known of its existence. I’ll eventually give it a listen and if I can add to or otherwise expound upon any topics which may have arisen during the interview, I’ll post my $0.02 worth.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

So, will Penton be on TV?

Tell him I bought District 9 on BD today becasue he just wouldn't shuttup about it....

lol, I hadn’t realized I was so verbose about District 9 but nevertheless, if that be the case, let us know what you think after you’ve watched it. You seem to see and review a good mix of motion pictures for the Toronto film festival.

P.S.
I’ve already been on TV, you just didn’t realize it.
Many who know me, think that Tommy Lee Jones’ character in this first scene fits me to a T.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBhBR...eature=related

[horseflesh]

Eight of the ten Premier League games were called of this weekend because of the bad weather in England.
Arsenal's game with Everton went ahead though.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

- Oh, my...it just started with Jimi H in from Woodstock 3D. Insane....

After briefly scanning some of the comments in the News section related to the 3D announcements coming out of CES and reading some of the posts on the various 3D related threads on this forum in the past, I sincerely hope that this time around, people on internet forums *up their game* regarding the discussion of this new technological topic and it doesn’t degenerate into yet another internet fanboy format war, this time between the 2D snobs and the 3D free-thinkers.

You know what I mean, all the upcoming implied *I know this for sure* public prognostications regarding 3Ds future and the individual posturing either to reassure each other of their own personal purchasing decisions and/or sway the opinion of others toward their own personal viewing preferences. I’ve already had enough of online religious zealousness being applied to home theater applications over the past couple years.

I think I’ll sit out this potential 3D vs 2D internet foray and just provide very limited accurate, informative tidbits and only when I’m motivated to do so…..like giving you all (with the help of Crystal ) that preview of the tone (3D) of the Sony CES Press Conference, for those who may have had some interest in this year’s main theme and desired to catch the online live video feed of the event while it was streaming.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

- Taylor Swift no less...

Her album “Fearless” is nominated for Album of the Year at the upcoming 2010Grammy Awards.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I don't sit in the meetings, I have no idea what they do day to day But is Apple interested in Blu-ray? Not really. They're a lot more interested in selling iPods and collecting cash from iTunes. Apple's entire business model is centered around running the Church of Jobs, they know the faithful will take any kind of abuse they hand out, because in the end, it's not like they can buy their Macs from anyone else

Isn't any business interested in selling the products they have to offer You make Apple sound bad for wanting to make money from the things they sell....

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by cipher

Just updated my annual year-end Blu-Ray technology analysis thread with 2009 data.

However, here's the summary tables for those who rarely venture outside this thread........
I guess 2010 is the year Warner decides to go all lossless? Ouch.

cipher, I notice that the Liverpool club crest below your name looks a tad flat or faded. That reminds me of yet another reason for why sharpening is sometimes used in the industry and for which some readers may be unaware. Namely, sometimes scans of the available film elements come out ‘flat’ compared to how the original film element looked like in its prime. So, the post production facility may apply a little sharpening to compensate for that. Some do it, or at least claim to do it, better than others……..
http://www.lowrydigital.com/enhancement.html - Lowry even has a demo clip in that link grossly showing the result of their proprietary process.

Anyway, I clicked on your thread and read your original post on the page of that particular sub-forum to give context to all the figures which you presented. Allow me to just emphasize one notion in your original post to which you seemingly downplayed and expressed as a ‘given’, which is hardly that, and actually I would say these days is thee determining factor for eventual superb Blu-ray PQ and is of critical significance. You wrote……
“Now, before we start, I'm fully aware that lossless audio, BD50 and AVC/VC1 alone do not guarantee quality releases, but all things being equal, with a high quality master………..”
My friend, these days now that the format and tools have matured, 2D encoding/authoring (at least at SPHE) and its associated QC (quality control) has been refined to the point that engineers are now working on much more esoteric things such as the 10-bit to 8-bit reduction algorithm I recently elaborated upon. Currently, the primary real-world *bottleneck* so-to-speak, is for content providers to guarantee a “high quality master”.

For a variety of reasons, some studios routinely achieve this outcome better than others, and when they don’t, sometimes it is beyond the control of the distributing studio because they have to work with what they are given, meaning they don’t have the rights/access to the film master or original source.

[Penton-Man]

Now, let me go back and check on a few past inquiries/comments from other members which I think I may have missed providing a response to just prior to CES because of time constraints.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by mark antony

Not sure that he has!

For me, a definition could be sooner is in the next 12 months, later is next year and beyond or thereabouts!

Sorry Mark, even in the broadest of time periods, I’m just not comfortable in revealing the proposed/predicted street date of any titles. I’ll leave that up to others to reveal/leak, or the “official” announcement from the marketing dept. Consider Breaking Bad, District 9 and a couple others in the past to have been gifts or exceptions to the rule of this thread.

Firstly, things can change for a whole host of reasons, even after an “official” announcement or promotion, ala Ghostbusters at Comic-Con. Secondly, I don’t work in Marketing and those folks deserve every chance they can get to toot their own horn or determine who to bestow that particular privilege upon in the form of a scoop ….The Digital Bits team, etc.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by JimSD

Yes, quite a few times although it's been a long time since I've done much riding in the east county. Not the best descender - I almost like the long climbs getting to the top of Noble better.
One of the most epic rides we did out there was starting from Cuyamaca and taking the East Mesa trail over to Deer Valley and up the Indian Creek trail, down the back side of that, up to Noble, recovered a bit on the Big Laguna trail, down Noble Canyon, up that ridiculously steep road back towards Indian Creek and East Mesa, and then back west on East Mesa. A hot day, a crash on Noble, and my legs were revolting big time at the end. We used to do a lot of riding at Lake Morena/Corral Canyon too.....

Jim, I definitely DO like the climb up to Noble better, as climbing is the soul of mountain biking. There’s a beautiful alpine meadow somewhere along the top of the mountain, I’m not sure of the name of the exact trail but, it’s a comparatively flat roller which makes you feel like a hero riding it at speed after you’ve made the difficult long slow climb to the top of the mountain and it’s a great photo op for a riding group esp. when cattle are grazing in the background.

And, after a long day in the saddle and you load your bikes back on your vehicles for the drive home, it’s great to stop in Julian for Pie.

I rode the Lake Morena area only once when the Sagebrush Safari ?sp. was a Norba National…..about…. I’m guessing, 6-7 years ago. It was over 100 degrees in the shade at the start and something like 104-106 degrees by the end……brutal, just brutal. People were dropping like flies all along the course

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by aygie

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/02/n...blu-ray-discs/

hey Penton, any tidbits you can share about this? Is it more likely to be just a firmware update or new machines?

^ According to WHO at Sony?
The story is incorrect. There is no such capacity increase coming.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^ According to WHO at Sony?
The story is incorrect. There is no such capacity increase coming.

There are lots of articles on the net that trace this back to a Sony/Panasonic presentation at the International Symposium on Optical Memory 2009 (ISOM '09), held in October 2009

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article...091222/178809/

Details of i-MLSE were announced at International Symposium on Optical Memory 2009 (ISOM '09), held in October 2009. The first of the two key characteristics is that i-MLSE has a strong correlation with the error rate (Fig. 1) even in read/write at 33.4 GB using PRML. The second, according to Sony, is that "i-MLSE exhibits the same relationship to signal quality as conventional jitter." In other words, it will be relatively simple to estimate the read error rate from the i-MLSE, just as can be done now with jitter.

also from the above:

Sony plans to propose widespread adoption of i-MLSE via the Blu-ray Disc Association and other avenues.

That is incorrect?

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^ According to WHO at Sony?
The story is incorrect. There is no such capacity increase coming.

Really?!?! I've sen lot of reports of this, so its completely fabricated?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by aygie

Isn't any business interested in selling the products they have to offer You make Apple sound bad for wanting to make money from the things they sell....

Except that most don't realize they are a true hardware/software monopoly, with closed standards as bad as the things they criticized Sony for (iTunes anyone?)...I won't pay the Apple tax and until I can build my own OSX desktop I'm not interested. At least Microsoft acknowledged the BD platform for Windows.

Penton...did you leave Vegas like this BTW?

[maverik1979]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

lol, I hadn’t realized I was so verbose about District 9 but nevertheless, if that be the case, let us know what you think after you’ve watched it. You seem to see and review a good mix of motion pictures for the Toronto film festival.

P.S.
I’ve already been on TV, you just didn’t realize it.
Many who know me, think that Tommy Lee Jones’ character in this first scene fits me to a T.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBhBR...eature=related

actually based upon the review from this site, and ofcourse your recommendation, i have blind bought this, havent had chance to watch it yet though, went a bit mad at christmas with all the special offers on!

btw come on united! , and rooney for top scorer at world cup!

[JimSD]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

There’s a beautiful alpine meadow somewhere along the top of the mountain, I’m not sure of the name of the exact trail but, it’s a comparatively flat roller which makes you feel like a hero riding it at speed after you’ve made the difficult long slow climb to the top of the mountain and it’s a great photo op for a riding group esp. when cattle are grazing in the background.

I believe you're thinking of the Big Laguna trail. That trail is a lot of fun for all ability levels. I was leading my son a few years ago on that one and at one of the few technical rocky sections I yelled back "You can walk this one" and he replied "tooooo laaaaaaate!"

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

And, after a long day in the saddle and you load your bikes back on your vehicles for the drive home, it’s great to stop in Julian for Pie.

Mananas for Mexican food in Alpine is the hot spot for local MTBers after riding out east.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I rode the Lake Morena area only once when the Sagebrush Safari ?sp. was a Norba National…..about…. I’m guessing, 6-7 years ago.

The Sagebrush course covers a fair amount of the good singletrack/moto trails out there, but there is a lot more. Instead of taking that steep road up like in the race, you can go past that and take a singletrack (forgot the name) up to the back side of Los Pinos (where the fire lookout is and Expert course goes to the top of) or go down into another valley. All kinds of possibilities open up out that way.

Never rode anything quite as epic as TransAlp or Leadville, but my wife and I did ride 1800 awesome miles from Seattle to SD once. Your post last week inspired me to get off my rear end and get out on the dirt for the first time in a while - thanks.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Except that most don't realize they are a true hardware/software monopoly

Apple is a monopoly?! With what- 8% market share?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Apple is a monopoly?! With what- 8% market share?

How many other companies can make Apple computers? How many non-Apple companies can have their desktops with Apple OS?

iTunes & iPod.

M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y