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

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

Penton (or any other insider),

I know there's been more and more discussion lately on DNR and such; is it being conveyed to studios that most of us do not want to see it?

Yes, the matter will be brought to the attention of at least two studios.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

Can you fill us in more on what's happening behind-the-scenes?

Sorry, no.
I think that would be unproductive at this point in time as discretion be the better part of valor for now.
The details of the mission be best keep anonymous to increase the chance for success.
If you question whether the insiders here have the connections to pursue such a mission, then I suggest you pay attention to Bill Hunt's "special event" announcement tomorrow.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Penton knows nothing about computers

I know how to dial Mike Dell on the phone and scream.
Otherwise, you're pretty much correct.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by CAB

I don't know him personally; not spoken with him; never PM'd him; never had a response from him on a post. I'm asking him to forward the request on to people he knows in Sony. I won't sell him so short as you. I tried to keep this above geekdom but wasn't allowed. I'm trying to help the average buyer of a SONY product support their own product. I'm trying to help Blu-ray.

Not to worry.
I caught your drift.

Wicky, was just using you as a foil to poke fun at me.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

You called?

I hope you saw that post I made about the western.
You may not catch it again on the big screen in this area for a long time.

[WickyWoo]

Wicky, was just using you as a foil to poke fun at me

Having done Penton tech support once, I don't envy Mr. Dell

[CAB]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Not to worry.
I caught your drift.

Wicky, was just using you as a foil to poke fun at me.

I believe you hide your technical prowess quite well. It's very good, at times, to feign ignorance as it grants the illusion of plausible deniability (sp?).

Thank-you for your help.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by CAB

I believe you hide your technical prowess quite well. It's very good, at times, to feign ignorance as it grants the illusion of plausible deniability (sp?).

Thank-you for your help.

[CAB]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I know how to dial Mike Dell on the phone and scream.
Otherwise, you're pretty much correct.

He lives a just a bit up the road from me. I can swing by and he'll actually hear me scream your name and curse of the day.

[Brain Sturgeon]

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

You called?

If you own an Aston-Martin Vanquish, that's enough to make most gentlemen handsome...

[Rob Tomlin]

..

[BigFoot]

^ Awesome. It might not be as pretty as the Vanquish, but if I had to drive one of 'em on a track I'd definitely pick the Exige S.

[Rob Tomlin]

..

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

Nope. Just a lowly Lotus Exige S!

I would like to buy this car for $19.95 incl shipping.

[Brain Sturgeon]

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

Nope. Just a lowly Lotus Exige S!

Very Nice! Must be nice to toss that baby around some corners. Although I heard that there is basically no rear view with the Exige, other than the side mirrors, no? Is there a rear camera option to overcome this? Not that you need to worry about what's behind you anyway, once you get going.

I myself drive an even lowlier Infiniti G35. It gets me where I'm going, but I've got my eye on an Aston-Martin DBS... hopefully, one of these days. Just got to put together the 265k for one of those bad boys.

[Eternal_Sunshine]

Originally Posted by CAB

The .exe Sony distributes is NOT a binary that is native to any OS but Microsoft thus their request for input into which MICROSOFT OS I'm running. (...) Why does Pioneer use a open standard and Sony does not. (...) I can compromise. Put the .iso into a .zip. (...) I can't think of a OS from the past 10 years that can't unpackage a .zip

I'm glad I've read your posts as I was planning to buy a Sony S550 player when they become available. As long as the upgrade path is so needlessly Microsoft-centric, I absolutely won't. Maybe I'll get another PS3 instead, or maybe a Panasonic BD50.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by mhafner

Do you have this for motion picture negative? Still frames are not the same as motion photography.

Vibrations of a 35mm professional motion picture camera and objects in motion can of course lower resolution due to motion blur. Negative film generally tends to have higher resolution/MTF than transparency film.
The ITU tests mentioned here show MTF curves of a regular movie shooting with a general purpose film negative and camera combination. Those numbers suggest that a system of at least 6K would be needed to preserve what's visible on a OCN, before any digital enhancement of the MTF curve. When archiving film to digital for generations to come the ultimate goal should be to use a system that preserves the highest attanaible quality. I agree though that for film watching, an optimized system of about 2000 pixels per picture height would look excellent for most purposes.

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Yes, the matter will be brought to the attention of at least two studios.

Penton, is there any chance that this campaign might be broadened to encourage studios to use bitrates that actually take advantage of the BD bandwidth spec, as opposed to using "good enough" bitrates in the low 20's? Disney's National Treasure 2 is a recent example of this unfortunate trend. While it looks good, I have a suspicion that it "could have" looked a lot better with higher bitrates. I also have a suspicion that this practice is really motivated by a desire to leave room for a PQ improvement with "superbit" editions down the road a bit.

[lgans316]

Same concern here as expressed by patrick. I think some of the Studios are trying to be too conservative by saving the bits to accommodate multiple spoken language track and on unwanted features which many hardly watch.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by patrick99

Penton, is there any chance that this campaign might be broadened to encourage studios to use bitrates that actually take advantage of the BD bandwidth spec, as opposed to using "good enough" bitrates in the low 20's? Disney's National Treasure 2 is a recent example of this unfortunate trend. While it looks good, I have a suspicion that it "could have" looked a lot better with higher bitrates.

That is not the case, which is why it would be a tough sell to do what you ask.