Archived: Insiders Thread

[Rob Zuber]

Over the past few months, many ill-informed articles have been written about HD-DVD's supposed advantage in "interactivity". Will there be an effort from anyone in the BDA to get the word out to the press about why only the BD version has seamless branching? Will any of WB's press releases emphasize and explain this difference?

Is that too much to ask?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^ ^ ^
My post above was specifically referring to the technological presence and superiority of seamless branching (see my original post for context) on the Blu-ray version in contrast to, its absence on the HD VD version, or so I was told by a WB studio colleague at the barbecue I attended last Sunday. Because that specific techo attribute is what he personally admired so much about the Blu-ray edition.

Hi Penton.

Is this in reference to the upcoming Director's Edition of Troy perhaps?

Having both the original (never on BD) and the new cut on the same BD disc?

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^ ^ ^
My post above was specifically referring to the technological presence and superiority of seamless branching (see my original post for context) on the Blu-ray version in contrast to, its absence on the HD VD version, or so I was told by a WB studio colleague at the barbecue I attended last Sunday. Because that specific techo attribute is what he personally admired so much about the Blu-ray edition.

The whole conversation was a prologue to him asking me about what cut would be seen by the public in the upcoming theatrical presentation of the motion picture Across the Universe……which I had expected.

Penton-Man, you know I am a long-time big fan of your golden nuggets of insight.

Is it reasonable to think that your decision to share this nugget about a Warner title should give us reason to sleep a little more comfortably now?

[dobyblue]

Penton - I know you have some bud's at Fox.

I have a huge favour to ask now that Paramount is exclusive to HD DVD.

When Fox release Titanic in Region B, can you advise them to PLEASE make it all region coding as they will sell a freakin' tonne of it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[WickyWoo]

When Fox release Titanic in Region B, can you advise them to PLEASE make it all region coding as they will sell a freakin' tonne of it.

Titanic's 10th anniversary is this year.

We know it's not coming now.

I'll bet money that you won't see it till long after Paramount's back in the fold anyway.

People also keep forgetting about Japan, which is region A as well, where Fox ALSO owns it. I keep seeing people running to the UK side for the imports but never Japan, where regions aren't an issue ever for Blu

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

All the posts I made regarding Across the Universe were solely in reference to the upcoming theatrical presentation in Sept.
...
And yes, the studio colleague did in fact tease me about which cut the public would be seeing this September (there has been a bit of a controversy about that… for those of you unfamiliar with the motion picture) and I have actually received several PM’s inquiring about it, which I am not at liberty to disclose.

It hit me as I was drifting off to sleep last night: Hey! This would be a great opportunity to release the multiple versions using seamless branching on BD! What a great idea! Penton man - now you have the opportunity to tease, er, encourage your industry friend back.

Coming back to earth (and avoiding why I think about such things before falling asleep), I was unaware about the controversy surrounding this film. Perhaps some day, some months after AtU's release, you could tell all? I'm no Hollywood leech, but I do enjoy intelligent discourse on why to edit a film one way or another. Ron Howard's commentary and deleted scenes on the "A Beautiful Mind" DVD is one such example.

Cheers!
-Jim

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

...
Man, all I can say is that alot of guys over there need to get laid, badly.

ROFL!

Wait a minute. Are you sure you want to encourage them to reproduce in captivity? Won't this just make our problems worse?

[kjack]

A bit of good news since it appears some people need cheering up

- There are more than 10 companies in the process of making stand-alone BD players, several at the request of major retailers. Most of these companies will have at least two models.

- Lots of things are being to done to reduce BD player cost as much as possible as fast as possible. For example, we are working closely with the CE companies, drive manufacturers, and DRAM/Flash suppliers to remove every penny from the player cost that we can. And we don't charge a royalty for our software, and use Linux OS, to further lower player costs.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by kjack

A bit of good news since it appears some people need cheering up

- There are more than 10 companies in the process of making stand-alone BD players, several at the request of major retailers. Most of these companies will have at least two models.

- Lots of things are being to done to reduce BD player cost as much as possible as fast as possible. For example, we are working closely with the CE companies, drive manufacturers, and DRAM/Flash suppliers to remove every penny from the player cost that we can. And we don't charge a royalty for our software, and use Linux OS, to further lower player costs.

Kjack, thank you

[Josh]

kjack,

Can you comment on how drastically lowering prices might affect CEMs? It seems to me that a CEM would be less inclined to support either format if profits get shrunk to the point of DVD players. Do enough CEMs have patents in Blu-ray to push the format even if the profits aren't there?

These cheaper players might look good to consumers, but have to be nightmares for larger CEMs who are watching player prices bottom out to DVD levels nearly overnight. Are these CEMs upset? Or are they embracing the movement?

[jayd]

Originally Posted by kjack

A bit of good news since it appears some people need cheering up

- There are more than 10 companies in the process of making stand-alone BD players, several at the request of major retailers. Most of these companies will have at least two models.

- Lots of things are being to done to reduce BD player cost as much as possible as fast as possible. For example, we are working closely with the CE companies, drive manufacturers, and DRAM/Flash suppliers to remove every penny from the player cost that we can. And we don't charge a royalty for our software, and use Linux OS, to further lower player costs.

Can you tell us, if these players are bound just for the USa, or will they end up on European, Asian etc, shores ? Thanks for the above info, btw

[Jish]

Originally Posted by kjack

A bit of good news since it appears some people need cheering up

- There are more than 10 companies in the process of making stand-alone BD players, several at the request of major retailers. Most of these companies will have at least two models.

- Lots of things are being to done to reduce BD player cost as much as possible as fast as possible. For example, we are working closely with the CE companies, drive manufacturers, and DRAM/Flash suppliers to remove every penny from the player cost that we can. And we don't charge a royalty for our software, and use Linux OS, to further lower player costs.

To add to the parade of kjack questions - since your company is involved with both BD and HD DVD can you comment on whether the move to produce more standalone players is only on the BD side or if similar news will be released for HD DVD?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by cjamescook

ROFL!

Wait a minute. Are you sure you want to encourage them to reproduce in captivity? Won't this just make our problems worse?

No, if they stay confined to where they are, it should theoretically decrease the gene pool accordingly making them even less inclined to venture into our blu waters.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by cjamescook

It hit me as I was drifting off to sleep last night: Hey! This would be a great opportunity to release the multiple versions using seamless branching on BD! What a great idea! Penton man - now you have the opportunity to tease, er, encourage your industry friend back.
Cheers!
-Jim

That’s not a problem, we swap dinner invites back and forth all the time.

But in regards to your “multiple version thing”, in this case (and others for that matter), it certainly would expand the definition of Director’s Cut to Director’s Cut(s).

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Rob Zuber

Over the past few months, many ill-informed articles have been written about HD-DVD's supposed advantage in "interactivity". Will there be an effort from anyone in the BDA to get the word out to the press about why only the BD version has seamless branching?......................

Is that too much to ask?

Well I would imagine that first you would need a public poll to discern how much interest there is in seamless branching compared to the “interactivity” you describe above. It might even be prudent for the OP to explain or define seamless branching in his first post so as to educate any uninformed viewers that are unfamiliar with the term.

[Frode]

*puts 1 million spacebucks in the tip jar*

I have a question about BD Live 2.0. Is it going to be just BD-J code on the disc that handles the online connectivity, or is there going to be any player side functionality other than just the physical link?

The problem is that if it's a disc driven feature instead of a player one, you can't just include online support on all discs and not have some kind of online content available when the disc is released. People would cry foul. Even if you later release something for it, how would they know you did? A lot of the time the studio has no clue what kind of additional assets they'll get for a movie a year after it's released. Today they don't bother updating promo sites after the launch window, and a lot of them even get taken down after a while because of that.

I've been thinking, and came up with a possible solution to that problem, assuming there's some kind of basic player functionality:

- upon loading a disc the player will check for an ID code for the disc and then match that up against a downloaded database
- if it finds a match, it'll display a symbol/icon that indicates to the user that there's online features available - on newer discs you could also have latent code it would match up on the disc that would then provide a more customized menu interface if that's desirable.
- the ID code of the disc and name of the movie is stored in a local database. This can be used as a simple list of owned discs, which you can do various things with depending on how advanced you want to get (dvdprofiler/dvdaficionado stuff for instance).
- when you download an updated list of discs with online connectivity you can then get alerts for all the discs you own at the same time.
- you can also browse a list of all the titles you own that currently have online features
- any downloadable assets such as PiP features, subtitles and audio tracks can then be used on any disc that's been released so far, regardless of whether it has 2.0 support or not.

Of course there's some IFs in there that needs to be worked out, such as the location and financing of the central database server etc.

Are there any provisions for that kind of use, or is BD Live limited only to discs that implicitly have networking code and what that code allows?

[aygie]

OK, i got a question for our insiders.... are there any plans to release any "proper" comedies on Blu? and when i say proper i mean the likes of Eddie Murphy's Delirious & Raw and Richard Pryors Stand up shows. Ok i know there old but these would be a must for me.

Any ideas?

[jhansla]

Penton do you have any insight on what we can expect next week? Anything big coming?

Cheers

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by jhansla

Penton do you have any insight on what we can expect next week? Anything big coming?

Cheers

Labor Day.
Everyone’s going to the beach or the mountains.

Boy, if I had a few drinks, I could really do a play on words with your last sentence.

[UltimateFighter]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Labor Day.
Everyone’s going to the beach or the mountains.

Boy, if I had a few drinks, I could really do a play on words with your last sentence.

How about tomorrow?