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

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Before we get too sidetracked with “politics”, because we’re treading on thin ice with forum rules and such, one last question/comment-- I do assume that this videoclip from the Republican National Channel concerning her thinking that Africa is a country, rather than a continent is accurate?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPsV6ZhL15c

Do you know if that ^ reporting of her geographical knowledge is wrong…. and also an urban legend?

Since it was angry campaign staffers looking to place blame for losses, I don't think we'll ever know the truth on that one, since there's no actual footage of it.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Since it was angry campaign staffers looking to place blame for losses, I don't think we'll ever know the truth on that one, since there's no actual footage of it.

Well, I don’t know about you guys, but politics aside, meaning, regardless if she be republican, independent or democrat, I for one, will miss her dearly because she certainly had a way with words………………
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASgjKLtfMzU&NR=1

that many screenwriters in Hollywood would envy.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Unfortunately it does seem to be using a master designed for the bit-challenged, so the gains are minimal ;(

Then that leaves 3 possible causes to the *problem* if Robert’s observations as well as our inhouse reviewer, Kenneth Brown are correct - https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movie...38&show=review
(and I have no reason to believe that Robert or Kenneth are wrong in their critiquing of the picture quality of the movie).
Either-
1. It’s an old master from the days of DVD.
Or
2. It’s a new master that had little or no oversight from the studio people.
Or
3. It’s a new master that had oversight from the studio people, in that a dnr directive was given.

[Penton-Man]

And speaking of our inhouse movie reviewers, where is the review for Ghandi?
It looks good and has a lot to offer folks.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I saw it somewhere, it's mid-high 20s....

Jeff,
Are you sure about that?
I just received a PM from somebody claiming the average bitrate is in the mid-teens not the mid-twenties.

If the former (i.e. mid-teens) is correct then I should add the legacy of Amir https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ir#post1633884

as a fourth possibility to my post at the top of the page........meaning, the master is fine but grain reduction was performed during the encoding phase of the production of this Blu-ray title, on the other hand, you could have had a "clean" master due to the reasons I outlined above, and they just didn't need a bitrate in the mid-20's to manage the compression.

[Jeff Kleist]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=32

Lists 2 bitrates, I don't know if one is combined and one just video (an 8mbps difference would be rather extreme for only English audio)

I checked with a few people, and so far as they know they used the same master from the 2-disc DVD from what, 2002? Because it was declared "good enough".

This may not be accurate, as I have not gotten a definitive answer on the subject. I was specifically told they were re-encoding it, and the file size would seem to check that out (33GB for the movie)

Amir always was crowing about how low they could go, and how Batman Begins is only something like 11 or 12mbps. A poor compressionist whose name escapes me slaved for weeks to squeeze it down so far. It's not suprising that not only having to compensate for HD DVDs weaknesses, but Amir's true background being web codecs that he would always see that as being the prime achievement

I tried to pick up Gandhi tonight Penton, but they hadn't even gotten it in yet ;(

It's too bad they didn't replicate the packaging from the first DVD, that was positively gorgeous

[Bluhorizon]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

what is the most notorious creature that inhabits the waters around Papua?.

Salt water croc?

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=32

Lists 2 bitrates, I don't know if one is combined and one just video (an 8mbps difference would be rather extreme for only English audio)

Total Bitrate=24.80
Video Bitrate=16.68
Apparently it's 3x English Language tracks (1 of those 3 is a commentary) + 4 Other Language tracks

[Jeff Kleist]

That would certainly explain it, my copy is still en-route from Amazon. Damn you super saver shipping and your tempting freeness! I honestly expect my official inquiry to be ignored and I'll have to call out the mole brigade, which means answers may not be timely

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

which home theater enthusiasts that have a predisposition to renting or buying WB (which has a fine, fine library ) blu-ray discs may just have to live with for awhile , if not permanently.
I’m sure Grubert or some other online historians could find some apropos links/quotes that exhibited Amir’s great pride in seeing how low they (MS and WB) could go.

You flatter me. I'm no historian - I'm just not very good at forgetting.

Here it is. I'm quoting it in full lest it accidentally gets erased at the source:

Originally Posted by amirm

Well, I am pleased to let you in on where the future holds for titles in VC-1. We have now made another breakthrough in quality improvements as evidenced by two recent encodes which clocked at less than 10 mbit/sec, with one less than 9 mbit/sec!

Yes, you read this right. We are now able to go below the 10 mbit/sec barrier. And this is not some random, special case, easy to encode content. One of the titles above is a major motion picture you would recognize in an instant with a ton of action. [1]

What is more, the encoder is so efficient and good in its automatic analysis/encode mode that the need for hand tuning is sharply reduced. One of the above titles didn’t need any manual optimizations despite the remarkably low data rate!

Given this breakthrough, we are going to see more titles appear at average rate of less than 10 mbit/sec, bringing the general range lower by 20% to 30%. So no longer will I use the 12-15 mbit/sec for rule of thumb .

What does this mean in reality? It means we only need 4.5 gigabytes per hour for video at 10 mbit/sec. So a red laser disc (sans audio/extras) can hold 2 hours of superb quality video, HD DVD-15 can support 3.3 hours and HD DVD-30, a whopping 6.7 hours! We can even do more in 9 mbit/sec.

What is more, with this improvement, we also save in peak rate requirement since the same efficiency kicks in there.

Of course, this is not to say all movies and all content will go this low. But that there is a significant saving here across all. Note that the rates in some cases are less than half of what was used in some HD DVD launch titles! We have come far in less than 12 months….

Net, net, we are getting pretty close to 3:1 advantage over MPEG-2! I let you ponder the impact of this on the format war .

http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/...d.php?t=718689


[1] It was later suspected by other forum members that the title in question, though a 'motion picture,' was not actually a 'film.' amirm failed to clarify that point.

As I have said elsewhere, why are other studios (Fox, Sony, Paramount, even Universal!) using avg bitrates of well over 20, and peaks of well over 30, when WB manages a lot less? Either they are all stupid and incompetent, or WB movies have some magical quality by which they never require high bitrates. Or...

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Amir always was crowing about how low they could go, and how Batman Begins is only something like 11 or 12mbps. A poor compressionist whose name escapes me slaved for weeks to squeeze it down so far. It's not suprising that not only having to compensate for HD DVDs weaknesses, but Amir's true background being web codecs that he would always see that as being the prime achievement

That was cjplay. I'd really like it if he still posted on the forum. I'd be asking him some questions.

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

No she didn't, that's an urban legend. It actually was a Tina Fey quote attributed to her.

But she did say: "You can actually see Russia from land, here in Alaska."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXL86v8NoGk

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Jeff,
Are you sure about that?
I just received a PM from somebody claiming the average bitrate is in the mid-teens not the mid-twenties.

If the former (i.e. mid-teens) is correct then I should add the legacy of Amir https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ir#post1633884

The bitrate number is correct and as Amir now is long gone I think it is time that Warner just has a good look at the fine work other studios are doing with a higher percentage of their releases than Warner does.

There are a number of Warner releases that immediately come to mind where older and not particularly easy to encode movies have to make do with a budget of 5 to 7 gig per hour with 11 to 17 mbps average bitrates as does Amadeus. Other examples would be Mutiny on the Bounty, but also Battle of the Bulge. Most encodes from other studios almost all have at least 50% higher bitrates with a comparable codec which is not a problem anyway with the space a BD50 provides, so why not use it ? Mutiny is shot on earlier 65 mm stock and has grain structure visible at 1080p if allowed to and almost all of it is lost on the Warner HD-DVD, together with high frequency detail I might add. What might have slipped by in 2006 when this one came out is hopefully not something that Warner will dare to release on Blu-Ray today, but then they just released Amadeus that is also problematic. What is noticable that other studios mostly use bitrates that are much higher and voila - there even is visible grain and high frequency detail on the disc where it once was, a good case in point how that can look will hopefully be the much talked about releases of Lawrence and also South Pacific, weird colors and all.

And I fully agree with what Grubert says: It is improbable that Warner has a super duper encoding secret to allow such low bitrates with all the other studios don't know what they're doing. The look of the respective releases does not confirm that either.

So here is hoping that changes are made at Warner and that they will in the future mostly add to the many quality releases they already have and not to those that should be a thing of the past with the technology and disc capacity at hand.

BTW: I had a peek at the caps of Ghandi over at DVDBeaver and they look excellent, looking forward to get my disc

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Grubert

But she did say: "You can actually see Russia from land, here in Alaska."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXL86v8NoGk

And from the Aleutians you can

It's not like she said we have 52 states or anything....

[Nathan P]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I wouldn't peg any date at all.

To me that either implies that the change is very near to reality i.e the discs are in some stage of production now or we are collectively wasting our time complaining and WB are not listening and they have no intention of listening in the future

[Penton-Man]

Oliver K., I agree with everything you’ve said above, except, don’t pay too much attention to screencaps as they can be misleading for definitive analysis of the picture quality of a Blu-ray title……..that’s why I dislike *screenshot* science so much with its erroneous conclusions.

Nobody in the industry that I know of………meaning the guys in charge of quality control, use screencaps to ascertain the picture quality of a Blu-ray movie, nor the masters from which they arise, for that matter.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Bluhorizon

Salt water croc?

Correcto-mundo.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Nice link.
The camera rig actually was so heavy that it took a crane to get it in and out the water.......and so big that an adult could have fit inside the aluminum housing itself, easily.

So, nobody knows about the mysterious notorious creature that swims in the waters around Papua?
Hint: The first syllable of the infamous creature rhymes with the first part of the online name of the member we have here, who admires a certain successful and well known MOTO GP racer.

Salt rymes with Squid? Or Doc? I am very

Croc doc.....oooooh

[Jeff Kleist]

To me that either implies that the change is very near to reality i.e the discs are in some stage of production now or we are collectively wasting our time complaining and WB are not listening and they have no intention of listening in the future

No, it means that studio politics are studio politics, and just like any good politician, you hav to find a compatible spin that will stick and make you look good, while not burning other bridges with powerful people.

[Bobby Henderson]

It's a shame I didn't see the trivia questions about IMAX until just now.

A standard IMAX camera setup that doesn't go in the water can tip the scales at 300 pounds. Water-tight housings for a giant format camera will naturally add a lot more weight to the equation.

Regarding the Warner Bros. thing and low bit rate Blu-ray movies, I simply don't understand their thought process behind this -other than to max out profit margins.

Naturally, it is going to cost less to replicate BD-25 single layer discs than BD-50 dual layer platters. Even with the BD-50 discs, WB still squeezes the crap out of the bit rate. It's like some idiot geek somewhere in the food chain is more obsessed with smaller file sizes than making the movie look as good as possible with the available file storage real estate on the disc.

Really, if I want to watch low bit-rate HD, I'll just wait a few months for a particular WB release to appear on HBO. When I buy a movie on Blu-ray I expect to see a pretty noticeable boost in video quality above anything you can see via cable, satellite or downloading service. Other studios like Disney, Fox, etc. routinely deliver the goods on that. WB too often falls short.