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

[mikey p]

Originally Posted by Esox50

I fondly remember the "old days" over there battling the idiots with ya...like when it was all your and paidgeek's fault that "see-jay-play" had to stop posting...

Will anyone ever forget that?

[Knight-Errant]

Originally Posted by mikey p

Will anyone ever forget that?

Ah yes the elder days when the great war of format raged across the land of Internet

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by mhafner

Damn, I don't visit this thread for a day and major stuff goes down.

Well, it just goes to show that you shouldn’t miss a day because something is going on somewhere on this forum.
Here’s a heads-up that may be worthy of your further attention. It could serve either as a challenge to your visual acuity…… or, at the very least, an interesting example of how close some digital cameras can/are approaching the *film look*.

“Deception” debuted in U.S. theaters sometime last month, so it may be arriving in your area of the world in a couple months or so. The young whipper-snapper that had decision-making power regarding the primary photography wanted the whole feature shot on film. The old-timer who also had a great deal of input as to the primary photography desired to shoot the entire production with a digital camera. Can you imagine that, i.e. the role reversal aspect?

Anyway, to make a long story short, they decided to roughly split the difference and use both a film camera and a digital camera for capture. See if you can recognize which scenes were captured with which type of camera. You’ll probably figure it out but, I’ll bet that if you go to the cinema with a group of friends or colleagues, they will have a tough time even noticing any difference related to capture device.

b.t.w.– don’t bother on checking the tech specs for this film on imdb because the last I noticed, they are incomplete or non-specific.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sj001

Penton,

Sort of a weird question, but do you know why First Blood is being re-released into the theaters?

I'm psyched about seeing it (never did in the theater), but I haven't figured out why it's back out?

Rumor has it that it was re-released to provide perspective for red ants still fighting the format war on other internet forums…………….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGxuqS-MFJw

For example, a fellow member has informed me that Amir’s latest red seed planted on *the other forum* was to question the motives of Bill Hunt’s upcoming quest to alert a major Hollywood studio in regards to inappropriate grain reduction techniques. It seems our retired person is stating this (which I’m taking directly from one of my PM’s, so I assume it’s accurate word for word)….
“As to Hunt's initiative here, it is appreciated of course, but one wonders if he is trying more to defend the BD format rather than artistic intentions. He is probably genuine but given the history, one would wonder if film scratches were the issue, he would write that they should be in there too, because "that is film."

^
Unbelievable, just unbelievable!
Doesn’t this guy ever stop with the nonsense?
Amir, given your history, did you ever wonder how many hundreds of dollars you cost early adopters in the purchase of HD DVD players when they might have put that same money to better use today?

I think it’s time for somebody to repost that tombstone pic to refresh everyone’s memory.
Oh well, I guess some things never change.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by mhafner

(not the current low contrast Sony models)

Hehe, damn you miss very little.
I see you’ve been keeping up with commercial digital projectors.
I also expect them to improve with time.

[dialog_gvf]

As to Hunt's initiative here, it is appreciated of course, but one wonders if he is trying more to defend the BD format rather than artistic intentions. He is probably genuine but given the history, one would wonder if film scratches were the issue, he would write that they should be in there too, because "that is film."

What the devil does wanting to preserve the detail in film have to do with defending BD? And defend it against WHAT?

Gary

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

What the devil does wanting to preserve the detail in film have to do with defending BD? And defend it against WHAT?

Gary

I don’t know…….I’m not sure what thread it even comes from. It may originate from a member’s only thread, as I can’t believe he would have the gall to say such a thing.

I don’t read what he says, just excerpts I get from PM’s that people send me.

[sj001]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Unbelievable, just unbelievable!
Doesn’t this guy ever stop with the nonsense?
Amir, given your history, did you ever wonder how many hundreds of dollars you cost early adopters in the purchase of HD DVD players when they might have put that same money to better use today?

I think it’s time for somebody to repost that tombstone pic to refresh everyone’s memory.
Oh well, I guess some things never change.

It figures, the guy will be 80 years old and still clinging to the same BS, I guess some people just cannot accept the truth no matter what happens.

[Jeff®]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I think it’s time for somebody to repost that tombstone pic to refresh everyone’s memory.
Oh well, I guess some things never change.

[mhafner]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

. See if you can recognize which scenes were captured with which type of camera.

ASC Magazine spilled the beans already...

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by mhafner

ACS Magazine spilled the beans already...

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh !
The dang picture just debuted in the U.S. about 3 weeks ago!

I had thought there would be more lag time for something like that. Like for instance…. 6 months or so.
Give us a link if you’ve got the time. Maybe I can still add something.

[NoQuestion]

Originally Posted by Jeff®

LOVE the avatar Jeff. Hopefully Uni gives us this one by year end along withshaun of the dead

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

It's depressing. Toronto used to have several AMAZING 70mm theaters. But, "Darth" Drabinski was here to invent the megaplex and destroy these wonderful theaters for us and everyone.

Well, I guess IMAX compensates for our sin, somewhat.

Gary

Well justice may be served in the end on the space issue.

[rlsmith]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Rumor has it that it was re-released to provide perspective for red ants still fighting the format war on other internet forums…………….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGxuqS-MFJw

For example, a fellow member has informed me that Amir’s latest red seed planted on *the other forum* was to question the motives of Bill Hunt’s upcoming quest to alert a major Hollywood studio in regards to inappropriate grain reduction techniques. It seems our retired person is stating this (which I’m taking directly from one of my PM’s, so I assume it’s accurate word for word)….
“As to Hunt's initiative here, it is appreciated of course, but one wonders if he is trying more to defend the BD format rather than artistic intentions. He is probably genuine but given the history, one would wonder if film scratches were the issue, he would write that they should be in there too, because "that is film."

^
Unbelievable, just unbelievable!
Doesn’t this guy ever stop with the nonsense?
Amir, given your history, did you ever wonder how many hundreds of dollars you cost early adopters in the purchase of HD DVD players when they might have put that same money to better use today?

I think it’s time for somebody to repost that tombstone pic to refresh everyone’s memory.
Oh well, I guess some things never change.

Amir never seemed to understand that bytes are bytes. The fact as that any byte string for the three video codecs that will fit onto an HD DVD disk will also fit onto a Blu-ray disk (with only completely inconsequential changes). [The converse is not true because Blu-ray has more space and bandwidth.]

So, all issues about transfers, scratches, encodes, DNR, grain, EE, etc. are totally the same between the two formats.

If Warners happens to make a VC-1 encode with DNR, it is going to look identical on the two formats. Independent reviewers saw this release after release.

If Amir wants to comment on handling grain and scratches, that is fine, but it has no bearing on the differences (such as they are) between the Blu-ray format and the now defunct HD DVD format.

Amir will have more credibility in his new job with Widescreen Review if we moves away from this sort of thing. Resurrecting the format war will become more and more peculiar as time goes on.

[mhafner]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh !
The dang picture just debuted in the U.S. about 3 weeks ago!

I had thought there would be more lag time for something like that. Like for instance…. 6 months or so.
Give us a link if you’ve got the time. Maybe I can still add something.

http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynam...08/current.php
But the article is not online. They need to sell some magazines after all.
The Genesis footage is....
(don't read if you don't want to know.)





most of the night time location work.

[mhafner]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Hehe, damn you miss very little.
I see you’ve been keeping up with commercial digital projectors.
I also expect them to improve with time.

Low on-off contrast was/is my number one pet peeve with digital projectors. Till JVC came along with the HD1/RS1 which was the first digital good enough for me in that department to buy one. The cinema models are stuck at ~5-7 times lower than the JVC. But JVC does 4K too. And one day we might see better contrast 4K in the cinema as we see now better 1080p contrast at home.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I don’t know…….I’m not sure what thread it even comes from. It may originate from a member’s only thread, as I can’t believe he would have the gall to say such a thing.

I don’t read what he says, just excerpts I get from PM’s that people send me.

Here you go, Penton-Man. Just to assauge your curiosity. It's in the public HDTV Media forum at AVS.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...8&postcount=19

Take a gander at the rest of that thread if you've got time. There a lot of interesting posts contained therein, not just from certain retirees.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by rlsmith

So, all issues about transfers, scratches, encodes, DNR, grain, EE, etc. are totally the same between the two formats.

Exactly. Whatever format had won, Bill (et al) would be wanting to preserve detail/grain and have no EE.

So, if the A-man starts talking in terms of BD defense, I think perhaps we should shine the spotlight back. He's fighting lossless audio too. Is it just coincidence that everything he takes a swipe at happens to need the BD bandwidth to accomplish?

Basically he's implying Bill wants something solely because BD can handle it and other formats (HD DVD, downloads) could and can not.

This was a common accusation on many over the last few years. And it always seemed to me to be a pot/kettle issue.

Gary

[HeavyHitter]

Hi Penton,

I thought I'd give you some Monday morning humor to start your week. Of course, something like this would most likely be from AVS and the discussion of Bram Stroker's Dracula.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...925329&page=17

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by rlsmith

Amir will have more credibility in his new job with Widescreen Review if we moves away from this sort of thing.....

I wonder how many subscriptions that magazine will pick-up based upon knowledge of his upcoming contributions there……………………………

and how many subscriptions they will lose by folks familiar with his history?