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

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

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.

Can we rule out the possibility that they're just still running through encodes designed around HD DVD disc capacities? It would be a cheap and lazy thing for them to do, but at least it would explain some motive.

[4K display]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

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.

They can't even use that excuse as I would wager a BD-25 Digibook costs them more to make than a BD-50 in regular packaging..

[kefrank]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

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.

I'm sure the insiders would have more insight into this, but I wonder how much of the low-bitrate issue is actually a matter of the master and not the encode. If they're using older masters that are excessively DNRed (to make DVD encoding easier), upping the bitrate of the BD encode isn't going to improve the image quality one bit (no pun intended). I suspect that it is a cost-cutting measure, not necessarily to use BD25s instead of BD50s, but rather deciding not to spend the money to go back and create a new master that's more suitable as a source for Blu-ray. The bitrate, at least in some cases, may just be the byproduct of a crappy master.

[Jeff Kleist]

I'm sure the insiders would have more insight into this, but I wonder how much of the low-bitrate issue is actually a matter of the master and not the encode. If they're using older masters that are excessively DNRed (to make DVD encoding easier), upping the bitrate of the BD encode isn't going to improve the image quality one bit (no pun intended)

WB DNRs at the mastering level. It has nothing to do with cost cutting, and they even do it to new transfers (classics excluded). Dark Knight looks as good as it does because a billion dollar box office tends to give one much greater levels of veto power

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by 4K display

They can't even use that excuse as I would wager a BD-25 Digibook costs them more to make than a BD-50 in regular packaging..

Yeah, but these decisions aren't made on the basis of "What is the cost of this ingredient?". Rather, they ask themselves, "What is the cost of this ingredient versus its perceived benefit to market value?". To the lay-consumer at Best Buy, a digibook might represent a big value-add and push them over the top to buy the product. The same consumer most often has no idea whether the disc inside that packaging is a BD-25 or a BD-50 or a BD-3000.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by kefrank

I'm sure the insiders would have more insight into this........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO2Sh...eature=related

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I'm a little stunned at the apparent lack of backlash this title (Amadeus) has received......

Where's the outrage?

I agree, and RAH and our inhouse movie reviewer, Kenneth have done their parts already, and even though this Blu-ray edition of Amadeus is the director’s cut, it is still quite similar to the theatrical version which is #53 on AFI’s Top 100 list, whereas Patton is something like #89 or #90!

I think proportionate *online interest* should be given to Amadeus, in view of how Patton was *debated*, not to mention the fact that some problematic studio depts. have had 9 more months to get the Blu-ray process ‘right’, since Patton was released back in something like last May!

Additionally, Fox does none of their transfers (HD masters or Blu-ray encoding/authoring) in-house, which makes the oversight process for them even more logistically difficult, plus Patton was shot on 65mm. film, which was inherently more fine grained to begin with, compared to the film elements of Amadeus.

[Jeff Kleist]

I would totally agree. I'm waiting to form a complete opinion for when I actually see the disc (hypothetically tomorrow), but from the majority opinion of those I trust, it's the typical Warner smeary smoothie catalog title

I'm confident they'll eventually get the idea, but who knows how long that'll take

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

WB DNRs at the mastering level. It has nothing to do with cost cutting, and they even do it to new transfers (classics excluded). Dark Knight looks as good as it does because a billion dollar box office tends to give one much greater levels of veto power.

I think it's worth mentioning the 2K JPEG2000 D-cinema videos I see of WB movies generally have film grain and lots of small object detail left intact. Those D-cinema encodes are running at much higher bit rates than what Blu-ray can support. So I have doubts that a lot of the DNR stuff is being applied on actual digital intermediates and archival masters in 2K, 4K or regular HD formats.

A great deal of the detail elimination happening with WB Blu-ray discs is taking place when the VC1 stream is being authored/encoded. Some deliberate choices are being made.

However, WB does, at times, distribute D-cinema virtual prints that are more significantly data compressed than the levels typically used by other major studios. It can take up to 2 hours for a D-cinema server to "ingest" a virtual print off a 300GB USB 2.0 connected hard disc. A theater manager friend of mine told me it took less than an hour for the last Harry Potter movie to ingest into a DoReMi server.

Regardless of where in the chain the excessive DNR smoothie techniques are being applied, the theory seems pretty clear that Warner Bros. has a rigid philosophy in place of squeezing both video and audio down to the smallest sizes possible even if those levels of severe compression are unnecessary.

Ultimately, it's making Warner Bros. look very bad in comparison to other major studios. Some folks at WB may strongly feel they are correct in their philosophy. But their judgment does not change how a lot of high definition customers feel.

[Jeff Kleist]

I think it's worth mentioning the 2K JPEG2000 D-cinema videos I see of WB movies generally have film grain and lots of small object detail left intact. Those D-cinema encodes are running at much higher bit rates than what Blu-ray can support. So I have doubts that a lot of the DNR stuff is being applied on actual digital intermediates and archival masters in 2K, 4K or regular HD formats.

I'm sure they don't on the DI, but the tapes/hard drives being delivered to the facility are pre-smoothed. Undoubtedly they're creating one master for archival purposes, and one for other use

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

However, WB does, at times, distribute D-cinema virtual prints that are more significantly data compressed than the levels typically used by other major studios.

Jeez! It's like a disease over there!

[Uxi]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Yeah, but these decisions aren't made on the basis of "What is the cost of this ingredient?". Rather, they ask themselves, "What is the cost of this ingredient versus its perceived benefit to market value?". To the lay-consumer at Best Buy, a digibook might represent a big value-add and push them over the top to buy the product. The same consumer most often has no idea whether the disc inside that packaging is a BD-25 or a BD-50 or a BD-3000.

I can't stand the Digibooks (or other eccentric packaging) and have avoided buying them in at least 3 cases. Gimme a standard Blu-ray disc, please. I may well bend for certain Criterion Collection releases... but will most likely be tossing their packaging in the box that my sleeves go in. I'll use an empty/demo disc with a custom cover.

[GabrielB]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I'm sure they don't on the DI, but the tapes/hard drives being delivered to the facility are pre-smoothed. Undoubtedly they're creating one master for archival purposes, and one for other use

Thank god as the thought of all their accessible masters being smeared with DNR made me want to puke... (but that just couldn't be possible...)

And I guess this DNR issue is even greater than we had anticipated (us the not-in-the-know). If they change their politics regarding DNR, we could assume it won't just affect Blu-Ray but also how they handle their master department, etc. I guess this is why it's also taking them so much time incorporating this new philosophy...

(And to get decisions approved in this gigantic corporation must be something with all the levels of authority they must have...)

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

but from the majority opinion of those I trust, it's the typical Warner smeary smoothie catalog title
I'm confident they'll eventually get the idea, but who knows how long that'll take

Yeah but the thing is that back in July of last year Bill was saying he was confident about WB's change of practice. (sorry Jeff I had already brought this up)

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=2279
*edit also this comment from BH:https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=2305

Now insiders are mute on the subject. And it looks as though we're far off.
And we can interpret that DNR practices and philosophies and not confined to our Blu-Ray reality.
What changed since last July? They backed off?...

Anyways, I guess you can't talk but this is so depressing...

[GabrielB]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO2Sh...eature=related

Yes we like unconfessed crime and burried wickedness

C'mon now Penton, throw us a little bit of your thoughts about this issue and let your faith or cynicism speak up about WB's subject. I know your hands are chained, but anything??

Just to give us some hope. (and hope has also to do with how time brings us the good news)
Or some ground in reality...


g

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Uxi

I can't stand the Digibooks (or other eccentric packaging) and have avoided buying them in at least 3 cases. Gimme a standard Blu-ray disc, please.

I'm with you there. I wonder if much of the industry's market research gives them the opportunity to uncover the opinions of folks like us or if specialized packaging is always assumed to be an appealing, value-adding thing. If its the only way to buy a title, special packaging won't stop me from buying a gotta-have movie, but I'd rather avoid it pretty much every time.

I'm waiting for a standard-packaging release of Casablanca like the fondly-remembered HD DVD I used to have, but even if I could get the current box for $10 tomorrow, I'd probably still wait for a regular-case release.

I'd really like to see every fancy package title given a standard case version, as well. I think studios might be surprised at how many folks would opt for them even with identical pricing.

[Jeff Kleist]

I guess this is why it's also taking them so much time incorporating this new philosophy...

Who says they have?

Yeah but the thing is that back in July of last year Bill was saying he was confident about WB's change of practice. (sorry Jeff I had already brought this up)

That was on lossless

[Bobby Henderson]

The simple thing is this: I don't think Warner Bros. "gets it" when it comes to how people see Blu-ray. I think WB is merely looking at the Blu-ray format in terms of a mass-market, let's sell the most widgets at the highest profit margin possible balanced against lowest possible cost. Blu-ray is seen as a McDonald's fast food style video format to replace the fast food home video formats that preceded it.

The problem is viewers expect a lot more out of Blu-ray.

Blu-ray is a prestige format. It's the ultimate thing for home theater right now. Blu-ray demands that the movie studios supporting it put their best foot forward in terms of audio-video quality. Some studios are spending a fortune restoring and/or refurbishing catalog titles and gearing new projects where they will dove-tail into 1080p BD distribution looking fantastic in the end result on Blu-ray. Bragging rights are out there to be had for the studio producing the best looking movie discs.

I have friends asking me all the time, "which are the best looking movies to get on Blu-ray?" I can't bring up very many Warner Bros. titles that I would consider to be "reference quality." Bladerunner: The Final Cut perhaps. The Searchers. Of course, The Dark Knight is an unusual case in that it had very high production standards from the start. Outside of those 3 titles I can't think of a lot of WB movies to recommend for 1080p eye-candy material even though WB is releasing a LOT of movies on Blu-ray.

Originally Posted by Uxi

I can't stand the Digibooks (or other eccentric packaging) and have avoided buying them in at least 3 cases. Gimme a standard Blu-ray disc, please.

I don't really mind Warner's "digi-book" cases. The color printed booklets are pretty nice. At least the digibook cases are better designed than those silly snapper cases they insisted on using for the first several years of the DVD format. My criticism of Warner Bros. is strictly directed toward how they are authoring their Blu-ray discs rather than how they are packaging them.

Some people want a totally uniform looking collection of Blu-ray movie cases. I don't care about that. I like something different from time to time.

A unique, unusual case design is fine by me as long as it looks and functions well. The DVD format had some interesting custom case designs. I loved the case/packaging design of the original 2-disc DVD release of Fight Club. Columbia's case design for the 2-disc DVD release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind was not very good. It folded out into a very unusual L-shape. A SE DVD release of Total Recall had some strange circular tin biscuit like thing balanced into a paperboard container. That, and the 2-disc steel case for Akira are the most odd or unusual cases on my DVD shelf.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by GabrielB

Yes we like unconfessed crime and burried wickedness

C'mon now Penton, throw us a little bit of your thoughts about this issue and let your faith or cynicism speak up about WB's subject. I know your hands are chained, but anything??........

I’ll put a call in and get back to you Mon. or Tues. of next week with anything at all I can share.
I’m quite busy tomorrow because the Spirit’s are on Sat. and the Academy Awards are on Sunday. And since Nikki Finke from Deadline Hollywood Daily enjoys reporting that all Academy membership are old enough to have one foot in the grave …………

I’ve got some serious things to do tomorrow like getting my oxygen tank filled up (which I wheel behind me while walking), getting my cardiac pacemaker tuned for safety and most importantly, having the urologist check out my penile implant to make sure it doesn’t inadvertently malfunction and go up/on when one of those pretty trophy girls comes on stage to hand out the Oscar statutes or I’ll be stuck with my hands on my lap all evening long.

But, I’ll see what I can find out and offer. I expect nothing different than what Jeff or Bill have been told. Meanwhile, if anyone from WB is reading this in the next few days, feel free to PM me and enlighten me as to your side of the ‘events’ regarding the picture quality of your Blu-ray movies…….. just, please leave a contact phone number for verification, in case I don’t know you in the first place.

Additionally, I’m not interested in hearing from any public relations spokesperson, only a WB employee, preferably Director level or above.

In the meantime, I would suggest you guys ‘carry on’ to remind any Blu-ray “cheerleaders” from WB that when one Googles ………Blu-ray---------
one invariably gets these results at the top of the page on almost a daily basis………..
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Blu-ray&aq=f&oq=

[Jeff Kleist]

And since Nikki Finke from Deadline Hollywood Daily enjoys reporting that all Academy membership are old enough to have one foot in the grave …………

Maybe if they'd nominated Serenity the way they were supposed to for best picture, things would be different

A local friend of mine let me cast his votes that year, because he'd had a kid and hadn't seen 90% of the movies on the list , so I know for a fact it got at least ONE best adapted screenplay vote :P

[Robert Harris]

In regard to bit rates, and dead air left for the taking on BD-50s, one point to keep in mind is that during compression there is generally a number that must be hit in terms of overall space.

Dead digital air may well mean that featurettes or major extras were removed at the last moment for legal or other exigencies. No one is going to re-compress to fit the now available space.

In terms of Amadeus, I doubt that had the bit rate been upped, that the image would have been superior. What we're seeing is not in the compression, but rather in the final mastering, which far from the Patton situation, is only moderately "dumbed down.

RAH