Archived: Insiders Thread

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I'll pass the idea along, but keep in mind that the theatrical advertising is really where most of the awareness comes from...

Agreed. I think it's still a great idea though. If Sony could somehow pair the 1 week exclusive window with a short TV spot and an ad at Best Buy touting something like, "Get the High Definition Version one week earlier on Blu-Ray". This could even just be a tacked on one line 3 second close to the regular DVD commercial. I think that would cause a lot of "regular folks" to say, "Hey, what's the whole Blu-Ray 'get it sooner' thing they're talking about?"

I'll say it now, Spiderman 3 (combined with the release of 1 & 2) is going to be absolutely HUGE for the BD format this Fall.

[Heresy]

That would be fun and I would like it but I think it would piss off a lot more people than it would inspire to buy Blu-ray (and I imagine Sony's marketing department will see it the same way.)

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I'll pass the idea along, but keep in mind that the theatrical advertising is really where most of the awareness comes from...

Well then how about the Feature Presentation begin with a nice sweet Blu-ray promotion before Spiderman 3's opening credits start?

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Esox50

Agreed. I think it's still a great idea though. If Sony could somehow pair the 1 week exclusive window with a short TV spot and an ad at Best Buy touting something like, "Get the High Definition Version one week earlier on Blu-Ray". This could even just be a tacked on one line 3 second close to the regular DVD commercial. I think that would cause a lot of "regular folks" to say, "Hey, what's the whole Blu-Ray 'get it sooner' thing they're talking about?"

I'll say it now, Spiderman 3 (combined with the release of 1 & 2) is going to be absolutely HUGE for the BD format this Fall.

I think it's a great idea. I don't see it pissing anyone off except HD DVD fans, but they're going to be pissed either way.

[WriteSimply]

To paidgeek:

Can you confirm that the US version of Casino Royale differs from the Korean version and the European version?


fuad

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

To paidgeek:

Can you confirm that the US version of Casino Royale differs from the Korean version and the European version?


fuad

It is different, though not by much, just a few quick scenes that were edited for ratings.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

It is different, though not by much, just a few quick scenes that were edited for ratings.

Thanks for the confirmation.

So which version is the most complete version as compared to Martin Campbell's (assuming he was given the privelege) or SPHE's final cut before the submission to the various censorship bodies around the world?


fuad

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

Thanks for the confirmation.

So which version is the most complete version as compared to Martin Campbell's (assuming he was given the privelege) or SPHE's final cut before the submission to the various censorship bodies around the world?


fuad

To my knowledge, only the US and UK versions were edited, so the rest of the world gets the full version. We are talking less than a minute in total difference I think.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

To my knowledge, only the US and UK versions were edited, so the rest of the world gets the full version. We are talking less than a minute in total difference I think.

Thanks again, paidgeek. Now go enjoy your weekend!


fuad

[GoldenRedux]

I have a question for the hardware guys. When are the first stand-alone players fully supporting all the BD features (2.0, BD-J, BD-Live, TrueHD, DTS-HD MA) set to come out? I would like to get a second player, but certainly I will not be purchasing one until I can get one that is in fact fully-featured.

[Valore]

Originally Posted by GoldenRedux

I have a question for the hardware guys. When are the first stand-alone players fully supporting all the BD features (2.0, BD-J, BD-Live, TrueHD, DTS-HD MA) set to come out? I would like to get a second player, but certainly I will not be purchasing one until I can get one that is in fact fully-featured.

They will most likely be released after the 31st of October. All players manufactured and released after this date will feature significantly improved functionality, including mandatory full support for Blu-ray Java interactive technology. While current Blu-ray disc players feature Java interactive technology, most lack full support for it and firmware updates may not be able to provide full support either.

[Frode]

I figured I'd post this here because if I did it over at AVS it would probably get lost in Amir's Dog and Pony show

Anyway, Secrets just posted a review of the SD DVD playback side of the PS3:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-b...on%203%20(HDMI)

paid, do you know if the PS3 team is doing any work (or if there's any planned) for improving this part of the console? SD DVD does represent the majority of content people are still watching after all, and being able to replace a regular DVD player as well would be a boon for many. BD playback and other issues do come first in a format war like this I agree, but for longterm solutions ideally the SD player should be at least as good technically as the HD part.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Frode

I figured I'd post this here because if I did it over at AVS it would probably get lost in Amir's Dog and Pony show

Anyway, Secrets just posted a review of the SD DVD playback side of the PS3:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-b...on%203%20(HDMI)

paid, do you know if the PS3 team is doing any work (or if there's any planned) for improving this part of the console? SD DVD does represent the majority of content people are still watching after all, and being able to replace a regular DVD player as well would be a boon for many. BD playback and other issues do come first in a format war like this I agree, but for longterm solutions ideally the SD player should be at least as good technically as the HD part.

I think there is suppose to be a world class software upscaling solution planned for the near future, right?

[WriteSimply]

To paidgeek:

The following is an excerpt of an interview with David Foster, executive producer of Digital Leisure's upcoming Dragon's Lair by Gaming Bits.

What were some of the biggest challenges in bringing it to the Blu-ray format?

DF: The biggest really was Blu-ray Java. We really were pioneers in terms of getting something to work. The documentation and the availability of hardware to test on was really a nightmare, quite honestly. It took us nearly eight solid months to do something, that if we had the right documentation, could be done in probably a month. So just at every turn when there would be something that would go wrong, there would be sort of a different implementation across the few different players we had to test on. Functions would be implemented differently, so we had to find some sort of common way to handle all these different machines. The good news is the Playstation 3, which honestly we could not test on, we crossed our fingers and checked discs, the PS3 turned out to be a great implementation of BD-J. It really plays the best than on any other system. So, sigh of relief!

Yeah a big one, I imagine!

DF: Yeah, it's not cheap to run these masters. Everything is expensive with blu-ray. If something had gone wrong on the blu-ray in a big way, we would just have no way to try and even figure out what to change to try and make it work. Let alone the $3000+ you need to pay every time to make a master. So, big sigh of relief when it worked and it worked fantastically.

So how many Blu-ray players did you test on?

DF: We have 3 players. The challenge of the players is that they don't allow us to put in anything but a final production ready disc. So, these test discs that we cut, there's only really two players, plus a PC player, that we're able to actually test on. So we had to extrapolate all the little problems we had on those and try to make generalized solutions that would work for the rest of the BD-J implementations.

Was it a lack of the technical support on the programming of the Java on the Blu-Ray that made it difficult?

DF: Yeah, unless you are in the inner circle. We were really early on with development tools that we purchased. We just aren't in the inner circle that someone at Sony or one of the big companies could probably just get information. We really had to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

You can read the full interview here.

Since the disc is already in replication, there's no point in asking who in the BDA to blame for Digital Leisure's lack of access to the "inner circle". However, it would be a great gesture if you or Penton-Man to provide a professional courtesy ALL-ACCESS card to Mr. Foster.


fuad

[Frode]

I don't know about world class scaling, but proper cadence detection and a decent de-interlacing algorithm wouldn't go amiss. Right now even the xbox360 is better at handling DVDs. The processing power is there and Sony has people who know how to take advantage of it.

[Chris Beveridge]

The AACS issue in terms of checkdiscs is a huge one when it comes to smaller vendors. Some sort of workaround has to happen to make it easier for dealing with this issue. Authoring costs are expensive enough as is but what I hear consistently from non-mainstream studios is that the AACS portion is what is keeping them from dealing with it.

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by Chris Beveridge

The AACS issue in terms of checkdiscs is a huge one when it comes to smaller vendors. Some sort of workaround has to happen to make it easier for dealing with this issue. Authoring costs are expensive enough as is but what I hear consistently from non-mainstream studios is that the AACS portion is what is keeping them from dealing with it.

AACS itself (not just the players, the entire system) got cracked this morning on doom9. Now, regardless of whatever keys are changed, they know how to decode the discs. So from now on, all hd-dvd discs will be able to be pirated regardless of anything they try. But blu-ray still has BD+ and ROM-Mark at the helm to prevent piracy. I cant wait for Universal execs to hear about how they can never again release a protected hd-dvd disc.

[Josh]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

AACS itself (not just the players, the entire system) got cracked this morning on doom9. Now, regardless of whatever keys are changed, they know how to decode the discs. So from now on, all hd-dvd discs will be able to be pirated regardless of anything they try. But blu-ray still has BD+ and ROM-Mark at the helm to prevent piracy. I cant wait for Universal execs to hear about how they can never again release a protected hd-dvd disc.

Link?

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by joshd2012

Link?

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=124294

btw, this was all done thanks to the hd-dvd addon drive, Thanks amir!!!

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

AACS itself (not just the players, the entire system) got cracked this morning on doom9. Now, regardless of whatever keys are changed, they know how to decode the discs. So from now on, all hd-dvd discs will be able to be pirated regardless of anything they try. But blu-ray still has BD+ and ROM-Mark at the helm to prevent piracy. I cant wait for Universal execs to hear about how they can never again release a protected hd-dvd disc.

If I read correctly, they've figured out how to patch the XBox add-on drive firmware to allow them bypass the AACS handshake security.

They'd need to do the same thing for a BD drive to have the same result for BD. The drives change more frequently, are made in lower quantity, and there is still BD+.

The Xbox add-on is a hacker's dream. A cheap and plentiful platform that can't be radically or quickly changed due to compatibility issues.

Gary