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

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

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

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=51764

[Jeff Kleist]

Blasphemer! Burn him!

[GabrielB]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Who says they have?

Nobody. You know what I meant.

That was on lossless

No!
C'mon now Jeff! Did you read the link I provided??

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

I haven't seen it yet, but I have reason to believe this whole DNR thing will soon no longer be an issue at Warner.

It can't be denied.
We know it's not your fault. We know it's them.
You must understand people like me who aren't in the know just want this to move and evolve. We're tired about this and we're speaking up.

If you tell me, "Gabriel stop it you're not helping the issue... OK then fine..."

But otherwise, if Warner is monitoring this: Do you understand the responsibility that you have as a studio. More so at Warner with the depth of your library. Cinema is the most celebrated entertainment and art form. It is the art that reunites all arts. You owe it to the great artists and creators to present the films on the Blu-Ray format as faithfully as possible. That's what this is all about. And leaving the natural characteristics of film intact is a big part of that... Grain is what brings all to life on screen... Grain is part of the cinema experience and denying that is disrespectful to the art form. You have a huge responsibility there. We know that you have. That's why it's even more important to make the right choice. Everyone will still buy your movies, you don't have to be afraid of that. Make the decision to bring us the movies in their most natural ways. It's the right and respectful thing to do... For the creators who worked so hard on these films, for us and for yourselves as when the lights go off, you become the audience just like everyone...


I will leave you with a quote of one of your greatest.
Mr. Steven Spielberg

There's a magic about chemistry and film. Sure, a digital shot is steady. It doesn't have to ride through the gate of a projector. And, sure, it's as clean as the OR in a major hospital. That's exactly what's wrong with it. Film has a molecular structure called grain; even a still of just a flower in a vase has life because of the grain, because of the molecules in the film. Especially if you sit in the first five rows of any movie theater, you know what I'm talking about. The screen is alive. The screen is always alive with chaos and excitement...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...elberg_pr.html

[Jeff Kleist]

It can't be denied.
We know it's not your fault. We know it's them.
You must understand people like me who aren't in the know just want this to move and evolve. We're tired about this and we're speaking up.

If you tell me, "Gabriel stop it you're not helping the issue... OK then fine..."

It's not, and believe me I understand your frustration. There are plenty of areas of my life where I have little to no power, and the solutions are incredibly easy once one is in a position to implement them. The easiest solution is of course to get Bill Gates on our side, have him buy Time Warner and let me run the show (Bill, if you're reading, let's talk ).

To be honest, it's very very delicate. People who are resistant to change, they simply burrow in under pressure, and the best thing you can do is not purchase any title that doesn't live up to your standards. The clearest way to send a message is with your wallet. This isn't a Willy Wonka released in widescreen, this is an entrenched studio policy and procedure.

In the case of Amadeus, obviously someone was misinformed about there being a new compression up the chain of command, because given the bitrates it's absolutely an HD DVD recycle (and was originally compressed over a year ago, I know they did the original work back in 2007!)

A lot of us here are doing the best we can behind the scenes, just please understand that there are always going to be people, powerful people who will stonewall progress every step of the way just to avoid being wrong.

Another thing people need to remember is that many people in the chain of command are not film fans or film people. They're MBAs who are there to run a business they can care less is what goes out the door looks like it's from a juice bar, as long as the ROI meets expectations. They start paying attention when their market share is slipping, and not much before then.

We had excellent luck at one studio, who has done outstanding work since then that another member of this forum got comparison screenshots of a foreign version of their film, and the domestic smoothie, and they got passed around at a very high level at the studio. Their work since then has been exemplary. They already had good people working on their discs, ears and eyes got opened to "how can we be better". I'm not going to say it was the root cause, but it certainly got enough attention to blow back down the grapevine (you know who you are ).

[Bobby Henderson]

Not to be anti-American (because after all I have some sort of American-style viewpoints -like being able to shoot guns at inanimate objects) the big problem with American business is these high and mighty blow-hards who think they know everything when they really know nothing.

They know nothing! I tell you they know nothing!

Anyway, Mad Money references aside it seems like a lot of American executives are more in the business of ego protection than they are in making things better for the business.

The Japanese kick our asses in designing and manufacturing cars. Why? They're not doing anything special. They're just trying to see things from every point of view, including the customer's point of view.

Apple has been fantastic on that point of view, up until recently when they've stupidly been leveraging their iPod, iPhone, iTunes business against the thing that has kept them alive: professional computer users who rely on Mac-based systems to get work done. Macs HATE Blu-ray. Um, that's a pretty freaking stupid strategy. It's stupid enough that every retail BD movie disc anyone buys has been authored on a MICROSOFT driven Windows-based system. That ain't good. It's also not good that rivals like Eyeon Software (Fusion), Autodesk and numerous others are routinely out-classing Apple at every level of content creation. The problem is Apple has become very very greedy with its mass-consumerism iPhone, iTunes, iPod, iPoop bullcrap that it is going to seal its own doom if it doesn't wise up already! Apple is a great company and it just pisses me off to no end that its management could be so insanely stupid at this time!

Anyway, off of that soapbox.

A common symptom of diseased American business executives is they often lose any ability of market observation. They just think they're 100% right all of the time and anyone else who disagrees is ready to be locked into a straight jacket and thrown into a rubber room.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by 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.

Point taken, but so far I never saw a movie where I thought "those caps look great" and was disappointed when I got the disc. So in the absence of the disc itself or a reviewer that I trust the caps are what I prefer to no usable info at all

And here is some praise to pass on to the appropriate adress: Sony admittedly has done such a great job with all their classic and for a long time also their new releases that I do not worry about quality with you guys anymore, both for the real classics and new titles

The only thing that I would hope for is that from time to time new HD masters that only get used for DVD releases make it to Blu-ray, too. A good example would be the Boetticher/Scott westerns: These are short movies, so all 5 could be released in a box with 2 DL and 1 SL or 5 SL Blu-Rays.

[Braktastic]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

And here is some praise to pass on to the appropriate adress: Sony admittedly has done such a great job with all their classic and for a long time also their new releases that I do not worry about quality with you guys anymore, both for the real classics and new titles .

Ditto. It is very refreshing, I am very grateful for it, and I wish all the studios were the same way.

[saprano]

GabrielB you saved me a breath of air, i wanted to bring that topic back up about warner but i was afraid to. i thought people we're going to give me the

It upsets me that some of their new releases still have those problems. well thats enough from me about that subject *walks away*

[Penton-Man]

Folks, I’m still trying to get in touch with people over at the WB......for more than just a blanket statement which I received via PM yesterday from somebody connected to their inner sanctum.

In the meantime, saprano's signature spiel above reminded me of something.
I’m not sure if this has been posted anywhere else around here but, if not, it is an interesting announcement, esp. since I know that at least one content provider in Hollywood utilizes a 60” Pioneer Elite PRO-151FD (along with a few other displays, not of the same size) to QC the 1080p masters before they are green lighted for use as a source for a Blu-ray movie………
http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/content/...ment_2009.html

For some of you guys, it ^ could affect your future purchasing decisions.

[Robert Harris]

I count on the Pioneer Kuros as well, for both moderate size QC as well as an aid to digital dirt and damage clean-up. I have yet to find another panel that can reproduce black anywhere near as well.

Not good news, or to quote Mrs. Higgins, "What a disagreeable surprise!"

RAH

[Bobby Henderson]

At least Panasonic will still be making plasma TVs for awhile longer. Maybe they can come up with a model to fill the vacancy the Grand Kuro will leave behind.

Have you guys tried any new LCD-TV panels with RGB LED back-lighting? I've seen claims from some manufacturers of RGB LED backlit panels for LCD-based televisions and flat panel computer screens these panels will reproduce nearly all the gamut range of the Adobe RGB model.

OLED is still somewhat in its infancy. Manufacturers need to scale this technology to much large display sizes (along with finding ways to get the price down to more affordable levels).

I'm definitely getting a RGB LED-based screen in the next notebook computer I buy -which hopefully won't need to happen until about this time next year.

Figuratively speaking I dodged a bullet this week when my current notebook's 15.4" display went on the fritz. The notebook is a now-aging Dell Inspiron 6000 with a 1680 X 1050 resolution screen. I don't know if the cold cathode fluorescent lamps in it went bad or if it was just an inverter. A friend had access to a bunch of decommissioned Dell notebooks and shipped me a replacement LCD part (a 1920 X 1200 panel no less). That was quite a favor because Dell would have charged me upwards of $500 for a factory part.

Anyway, I'm pretty familiar with LED technology. Good quality LEDs can run 24 hours a day for 11 years before they fail. Not all will perform that well, but LEDs have a better rated life span that fluorescent lamps. So I'm at least going to that with a new notebook. I'm not sure how RGB LEDs will make LCD HDTV sets compare better to plasma TVs.

[GabrielB]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

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.

Hey, and don't forget to practise your natural true self pose in case Chris Weeks aims at you.
Kiss Salma Hayek on the forehead for me...

I’ll put a call in and get back to you Mon. or Tues. of next week with anything at all I can share.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Folks, I’m still trying to get in touch with people over at the WB......for more than just a blanket statement which I received via PM yesterday from somebody connected to their inner sanctum.

Sounds good P-Man
I appreciate it.

[GabrielB]

Originally Posted by saprano

GabrielB you saved me a breath of air, i wanted to bring that topic back up about warner but i was afraid to. i thought people we're going to give me the

Yeah... I was hesitant to bring it up too. But the Amadeus thing just fired my ass.

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The easiest solution is of course to get Bill Gates on our side, have him buy Time Warner and let me run the show (Bill, if you're reading, let's talk ).

Are you crazy! I'd like you the run the show but that Bill Gates dude will order even lower bitrate DNRed encodes so that those same encodes will be available to use by Microsoft to push their HD downloads solution around the world!!! Muuaaahhh!!! And they will be kings again!

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

It's not, and believe me I understand your frustration. [...] A lot of us here are doing the best we can behind the scenes, just please understand that there are always going to be people, powerful people who will stonewall progress every step of the way just to avoid being wrong.[...]

Fair enough Jeff. Thanks for your answer.
Keep up the good work behind the scenes.

I was wondering something that you guys may have talked about. (or not because it's such an inconceivable(*) thought...) What about bringing film lovers from the industry and get them to sensibilise the good people at WB. The likes of Spielberg who loves and respect film and loves grain, Scorcese, Tarantino, even Michael Bay who seems to like grain, Aronofsky, Stone, Zack Snyder who's seems well liked there at Warner, DPs like Kaminski, Deakins etc, etc. I don't know maybe it's a stupid/naive/impossible idea, I was just thinking out loud.

If these big names rallied to push the idea of faithful and unprocessed presentations on Blu-Ray, maybe WB would listen up more?...

Maybe that's not how it works. Maybe these types of people don't care or don't mind Blu-Ray much... Maybe WB won't listen to them. Whatever. I don't know. I was just saying and waiting for you to comment.


(*) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMHCegdJcro

[Jeff Kleist]

My Uncle bought on Mercer Island before it got big (I think Amir lives nearby actually ), and you can see Bill Gates' house from there. We went over while they were building it, and according to the architect he actually had a robot laserdisc changer built. (this was like 1993 or 94)

I'd say that when it comes to Bill Gates and his personal home theater, he's got very high standards

I'd love to get them to do a pre-movie "This is HD" type thing. It's one of those things that looks really good on paper, and gives you a stroke before you even get close to being done I've managed to pull off some miracles in my time, but that one is definately beyond me, and probably beyond almost everyone else.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

In the meantime, saprano's signature spiel above reminded me of something.
I’m not sure if this has been posted anywhere else around here but, if not, it is an interesting announcement, esp. since I know that at least one content provider in Hollywood utilizes a 60” Pioneer Elite PRO-151FD (along with a few other displays, not of the same size) to QC the 1080p masters before they are green lighted for use as a source for a Blu-ray movie………
http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/content/...ment_2009.html

For some of you guys, it ^ could affect your future purchasing decisions.

Wasn't the dark knight mastered on a kuro?

Yea the news sucks, i was looking forward to their 10g panels. it was suppose to have a next generation processer called fuga http://www.homecinemachoice.com/feat...Fuga+Kuro+tech

Im most likely going to be getting the 151FD in a few months.

[GGX]

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 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.

Well I love the Warner coffee table book packaging (they dont actually call them "digibooks").

Just to balance this out a bit.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by GabrielB

Yeah... I was hesitant to bring it up too. But the Amadeus thing just fired my ass.

Funny yet not funny, ha.

Penton, jeff. doesn't the "WB thing" have to do with those surveys they use to do? i dont remember exactly but it was talked about here about last year. basically catering to the masses.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

In the case of Amadeus, obviously someone was misinformed about there being a new compression up the chain of command, because given the bitrates it's absolutely an HD DVD recycle (and was originally compressed over a year ago, I know they did the original work back in 2007!)

That is the thing though, it is not an encode that could have existed on HD DVD. While most of the encode could have fit quite easily on that dead format, there are moments where the video bitrate reaches the high 30's, an impossibility on the red format. The BDInfo scan (a full readout breaks out each chapter) confirmed that one chapter had a five second max around 34 Mbps, which is over the limits for HD DVD. But many scenes stay in the low teens for extended periods of time. It appears Warner did redo the encoding but still aimed very low on the compression parameters. There is an immense amount of free space left on the BD-50.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

That is the thing though, it is not an encode that could have existed on HD DVD. While most of the encode could have fit quite easily on that dead format, there are moments where the video bitrate reaches the high 30's, an impossibility on the red format. The BDInfo scan (a full readout breaks out each chapter) confirmed that one chapter had a five second max around 34 Mbps, which is over the limits for HD DVD. But many scenes stay in the low teens for extended periods of time. It appears Warner did redo the encoding but still aimed very low on the compression parameters. There is an immense amount of free space left on the BD-50.

Well, I don’t know if it is a new encode or an old recycled encode. I’ll let you and Jeff figure that one out.
Jeff, I favor Clark Kent’s new information above. It also makes me wonder how looow does the bitrate drop on some scenes, which is probably putting a smile on Amir’s face, even to this day.

The simplified bottom line for newcomers to this sort of discussion is that with most typical films, a significantly low bitrate is usually a red flag that the home edition of the movie is not harvesting as much detail as the Blu-ray format is capable of.
What this means is that either one of two things have happened………..

1. The 1080p master was grain reduced (for whatever reason) before the compressionist got his hands on it and therefore, a low bitrate was all that was needed to encode the master, which is relatively lacking in high frequency detail in the first place.

0r

2. The master was essentially transparent to the source in terms of grain and detail (as much as film to video can be with current technology) and the compressionist bit starved the encode (for whatever reason) which resulted in the Blu-ray movie to be lacking in detail.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by saprano

Wasn't the dark knight mastered on a kuro?

Yes, see paragraph 2 of Ben’s report here…https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2268,
for anyone that didn’t have the chance to attend the last CES and visit the Pio booth.