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

[Paul H]

Originally Posted by gandley

seeing alot of talk/flak about DNR and some BD titles.

But do guys realise that rise of the silver surfer had DNR applied to the BR encode. still a very sharp/detailed transfer so it can be done correctly.

If DNR is "done correctly", IMHO, there would be no "talk/flak" on the titles in question.

Studios just need to view the authored discs projected on LARGE screens, as well as the studio monitors, to check for unwanted visible artifacts before the OK is given for release.

Paul

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

It's four titles, including Sinbad and 20M

Some guy (or girl?) named Lindsay Mayer sez three titles in the "3 Pack" box set, which was why I kinda gagged on the idea of forcing 20 M Miles in there in preference to Sinbad.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1558

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Some guy (or girl?) named Lindsay Mayer sez three titles in the "3 Pack" box set, which was why I kinda gagged on the idea of forcing 20 M Miles in there in preference to Sinbad.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1558

Sorry, I meant to ask a question, rather than make a statement. It seems odd that the giftset misses a newly released title but includes a previously released one.

It still seems confusing with that original link (above). That talks about a new Sinbad DVD + Blu-ray 3-pack and Giftset (implying a possible inclusion of Sinbad for BD).

It's two purchases + one duplicate for Harryhausen fans?

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

It's two purchases + one duplicate for Harryhausen fans?

If the news items are right, yes, the 3-Pack plus Sinbad, four titles in two purchases. It looks like we will have to sell or trade away our redundant old copies of 20 M Miles. Ah Sony, we love you but you don't make it easy for us ...

Unless Sony will later announce separate availability for Beneath the Sea and Flying Saucers (to my knowledge, this has not been announced)?

[fronn]

Originally Posted by Teazle

If the news items are right, yes, the 3-Pack plus Sinbad, four titles in two purchases. It looks like we will have to sell or trade away our redundant old copies of 20 M Miles. Ah Sony, we love you but you don't make it easy for us ...

Unless Sony will later announce separate availability for Beneath the Sea and Flying Saucers (to my knowledge, this has not been announced)?

It doesn't make much marketing sense to release 3 new movies and include 2 of them with an already released movie. The logical grouping would be the 3 new movies, so that the true Harryhousen fans (who likely already picked up 20M miles) can more easily enjoy the 3 new movies.

Stinks of that groupthink kind of mentality where little to no thought was actually put into it but somehow everyone agreed that it was a good idea.

I hope it was a typo and some sort of mistake, otherwise I'm going to have to wait til they release them separately, which doesn't make much sense, considering I'm the more likely buyer of the set to begin with (seeing as I went out and bought 20M miles already).

[aramis109]

Originally Posted by gandley

seeing alot of talk/flak about DNR and some BD titles.

But do guys realise that rise of the silver surfer had DNR applied to the BR encode. still a very sharp/detailed transfer so it can be done correctly.

I don't think anyone is arguing that it needs to completely go away. Used in moderation it can be a good tool. Penton-Man had brought up Hellboy as another title that received a light DNR pass and yet (IMO) still retains a nice even grain structure and shows some good high-frequency detail.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by gandley

seeing alot of talk/flak about DNR and some BD titles.

But do guys realise that rise of the silver surfer had DNR applied to the BR encode. still a very sharp/detailed transfer so it can be done correctly.

There are a number of VFX houses that degrain everything before making a composite and then *regrain* it afterwards. The importance of grain in feature films has been appreciated by people in the business for years as has noise for procedural texture ever since the work of Ken Perlin –http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/doc/oscar.html
From my experience these days if grain reduction is performed for HD deliverables or just prior to the Blu-ray compression itself, it is not so much utilized to cater to the aesthetics of any particular viewer demographic but to provide a more consistent seamless look to the whole Blu-ray movie (striving to be more similar to the film presentation at theatrical venues which seems to handle/present grain better than compressed digital formats for home media) and to prevent potential Blu-ray encoding issues. And even then if it is utilized --it is used very sparingly because as one Sony studio representative (Grover Crisp) discussed during the last Home Media Expo-- to date all grain removal tools currently on the market appear to have a downside.

Michael

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Paul H

If DNR is "done correctly", IMHO, there would be no "talk/flak" on the titles in question.

Studios just need to view the authored discs projected on LARGE screens, as well as the studio monitors, to check for unwanted visible artifacts before the OK is given for release.

Paul

Several post production facilities (Sony, PHL, etc.) have already supplemented (and are actively using) industry standard professional CRT based displays with the newest breed of consumer digital displays (as large as ~100” in some cases) to both evaluate HD masters and the Blu-ray end product. This has taken some time however because there are several complications in using consumer based products in professional environments:
• Model year changes mean that it is not practical to standardize on a
brand and model of device for any length of time
• Consumer devices rarely are provisioned for professional signal formats
• Products are not built to professional criteria and may have variable
performance, even within a particular model
So some testing is usually done by the various facilities before any implementation.

Michael

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Several post production facilities (Sony, PHL, etc.) have already supplemented (and are actively using) industry standard professional CRT based displays with the newest breed of consumer digital displays (as large as ~100” in some cases) to both evaluate HD masters and the Blu-ray end product. This has taken some time however because there are several complications in using consumer based products in professional environments:
• Model year changes mean that it is not practical to standardize on a
brand and model of device for any length of time
• Consumer devices rarely are provisioned for professional signal formats
• Products are not built to professional criteria and may have variable
performance, even within a particular model
So some testing is usually done by the various facilities before any implementation.

Michael

Hi Micahel,

Do you feel good about this entire DNR issue as a whole moving forward? I mean facilities and studios getting this problem?

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by Teazle

If the news items are right, yes, the 3-Pack plus Sinbad, four titles in two purchases. It looks like we will have to sell or trade away our redundant old copies of 20 M Miles. Ah Sony, we love you but you don't make it easy for us ...

Unless Sony will later announce separate availability for Beneath the Sea and Flying Saucers (to my knowledge, this has not been announced)?

From Bill Hunt's new updated bits:

Also due on 10/7 is a 6-disc Ray Harryhausen DVD Giftset (SRP $80.95) set to include 20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and It Came from Beneath the Sea, along with a collectible Ymir figurine based on Ray Harryhausen's original 1957 hand-crafted design and signed by Harryhausen himself. [Editor's Note: I've just gotten a look at Sony's official press release and have learned that a Ray Harryhausen High-Definition Four-Pack will also be available on 10/7 (SRP $107.95) including Blu-ray editions of It Came from Beneath the Sea, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, the 20 Million Miles to Earth: 50th Anniversary Edition, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad: 50th Anniversary Edition. The street date for all of these Harryhausen releases is 10/7.]

[Teazle]

Thanks for the update; looks like I will be buying the 4-pack and selling off the extra copy of 20 M Miles.

[NoQuestion]

Penton or anyone else,

Does anyone know why the new Harold and Kumar titles as well as Dark City(apparently) come with digital copies only good on PCs and not Mac or ipods? It seems like someone slipped up somewhere when they determined this. I mean, Lost Boys sequel comes with a digital copy for ipods and it is from WB.

Is this a New Line, WB, or apple issue? Or possibly a combination of all?

[Mystery Clock]

Originally Posted by NoQuestion

Penton or anyone else,

Does anyone know why the new Harold and Kumar titles as well as Dark City(apparently) come with digital copies only good on PCs and not Mac or ipods? It seems like someone slipped up somewhere when they determined this. I mean, Lost Boys sequel comes with a digital copy for ipods and it is from WB.

Is this a New Line, WB, or apple issue? Or possibly a combination of all?

+Ditto, +Tritto, etc.

I noticed this last night on the digital copy for Dark City, and since I'm 100% Mac, I'm pretty much 100% screwed for getting a legal digital copy of my favorite film.



It certainly wasn't a space issue because the DVD only used something like 1.6gb, so they could quite easily have fit large & small Quicktime versions of the movie on there as well and still been way below the DVD-SL size (i.e. ZERO additional media cost.) And I'm sure they could have worked something out with Apple wrt. FairPlay and hooking those Quicktime files into your larger iTunes account for DRM. As much as I dislike DRM, I can't see that as a huge stumbling block.

So what happened?

Tell you what -- tell the good folks at New Line ... um... Warner Brothers to let us take our secret codes for WMV registration, plug those into a Web site and download the Mac-only FairPlay DRMed versions of the large and small movie files. I think that would be a fairly cheap thing for them to do and would go a long, long way to making the rest of us happy(er.)

-John

[Mystery Clock]

...and speaking of Dark City: Director's Cut I'm absolutely flabbergasted at the number of differences between it and the theatrical cut. It seems like upwards of 60-75+% of all scenes had some kind of change, ranging from very minor (lingering shots, different takes) to major (new characters, etc.) And yet, the overall arc of the story is the same and, thanks to the new cut, makes even more sense and flows better now.

Bravo, Mr. Proyas.

-John

PS: And the BD looks amazing too, I don't care what some folks say.

[GGX]

Originally Posted by Mystery Clock

PS: And the BD looks amazing too, I don't care what some folks say.

It would look even more amazing if it wasn't processed like it was...

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

Hi Micahel,

Do you feel good about this entire DNR issue as a whole moving forward? I mean facilities and studios getting this problem?

SPE doesn’t have a "DNR issue". Please see my previous two postings.
Additionally, in case you are unaware - Sony encoders have built-in split screen capability so video masters can be compressed and the resultant Blu-ray end product can be viewed side by side. I figure by now all the moderators and insiders have returned home and successfully recuperated from Comic-Con so my emergency duty here is over and I leave you in their capable hands.

Michael

[milou6]

Michael, thank you for your posts! Very helpful and thorough information, much appreciated.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Knight-Errant

Yeah have a great time Penton!

I’m back ……………………………
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...=1#post1061313

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I’m back ……………………………
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...=1#post1061313

So, all I get from Michael the whole time I’m abroad is a text message saying “33.955°N, 117.765°W”.
As if I’m supposed to know what the hell that means.
Well, what that means is that upon returning home, my wife and I find pictures that were once hanging on the walls, now on the floor with some frames damaged.
A bookcase fallen over with journals that I had anally arranged by month and year all jumbled up in a pile on the floor and …………..out of order!

The coup de grace ?
I decide to take a shower after the long day’s flight and…….










no freaking hot water!
Seems like the shaker caused the earthquake thingee on the gas valve thingee to cut off the gas flow to our house (exactly what it was designed to do but I didn’t remember we even had one installed years ago) which stopped the gas flow to the hot water heater which stopped heating the water, which meant ………..cold freakin shower!
Now, to add insult to injury, I can’t find the dang manual that tells you how to reset the earthquake thingee on the gas so……….”Who ya goin call?”

I may just have to call the “paidgeek” to come over to my humble abode and figure out how to reset it.

Anyway, *cinematic-associated* type highlights of the trip for us were that “the voice” at the beginning of NBC Nightly News showed up at Le Tour de France, which was a pleasant surprise.

Also, even though we didn’t have time to check out the castle (Where Eagles Dare) in Austria this time around, my wife *substituted* a prolonged visit to the recently opened Von Trapp family (The Sound of Music) home in the Salzburg area which was well worthwhile.

Gotta run and catch up/clean up.

[Penton-Man]

Before I forget, here’s a heads-up for those interested and were unaware.
Zhang Yimou is the chief Director for the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

Anyway, the Opening Ceremony may well be worth tuning in to see if it is truly unique compared to others in the past. I don’t know if it will but, I’m hoping so, as I normally find the Opening Ceremony to be like watching grass grow. Should be interesting at least to see how they light the Olympic cauldron.
If you don’t recognize the name………. Zhang Yimou, then think of the beautiful colorful imagery of Raise the Red Lantern, which was outstanding!

P.S.
In case the broadcast appears soft or fuzzy, I really doubt that the lensers used any Pro-Mist® filters on those Sony HD cams or there was any post production “digital processing”.
Just think old fashioned atmospheric alteration by man.