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

[Jeff Kleist]

btw, feel free to get us a firm date on LOTR while you're there, k?

Q4-ish

That's as close to a firm date as you can get this early in the year

[awx]

Originally Posted by merrick97

but Guerilla absolutely BLEW it on the controller sensitivity. Its almost unplayable for me. Its either too slow or too fast and is damn near impossible to do a quick aim and many times feels like the number one enemy.

I don't understand how Sony can make such large and pointless mistake on this calibre of game, really the most important game of the year. There must have been plenty of people complaining during the internal testing yet somehow a FPS shipped in 2009 with this crazy acceleration/sensitivity. Sony's gaming division needs a Penton.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by awx

I don't understand how Sony can make such large and pointless mistake on this calibre of game, really the most important game of the year. There must have been plenty of people complaining during the internal testing yet somehow a FPS shipped in 2009 with this crazy acceleration/sensitivity. Sony's gaming division needs a Penton.

The controls are perfect, you guys just need to realise that its not COD4.

They made a game with their own feeling not that of "lets make it like COD4" or any other FPS. The weight of the controls are why its so intense.

Seriously, give it a few days, come back when you're used to them.

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

It's more of a statement buy for people right now, but give it a while, once all of the big manufacturers start making them, and 7:3 will take more of the LCD market than CIH setup has of the front projector market. Mainly because it is the right ratio out of the box and doesn't require any extra buys, plus it comes in more PAL friendly sizes...

Yes. I think 7:3 (or 21:9) will be a real winner for the movie/blu lovers. The screen real estate is used efficiently for the scope movies - no more blackbars. This is not cumbersome as front projectors - no extra infrastructure needed.

This may or may not be a mass market product, however, it is likely to be popular amongst the movie lovers. If it becomes mass market, it would be a goldmine for the manufacturers as it could trigger another round of upgrades including TV networks. So there is an interest for all manufacturers to push this idea.

I wonder how Philips develops a blu-ray player capable of shifting raster-image based pixel subs without having certified code from the BDA. If there is code, it is nice if that can be included in the PS3 to make many people happy.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I don’t see that as a legitimate excuse in determining the picture quality of a Blu-ray movie in terms of rating the technical quality of the encode.
I see that more of a conscious or unconscious *sweet spot* in the spectrum of color saturation that home theater enthusiasts deem to be excellent. In other words, if the filmmaker’s color palette falls outside of that fictitious sweet zone or bell shaped curve, either being too saturated or too desaturated, then the picture quality of the Blu-ray loses points in terms of being ‘transparent’ to the source?

Sony released to Blu-Ray the movie Felon that was shot on 16mm and it looked extremely grainy and desaturated with skewed colors which obviously was intended given the gritty story that is nicely complemented by the picture. Other than a few halos where I would not know where they came from (taking lens/scanning/sharpening) it looked perfect to me and it got marked down for the way it looked just about everywhere.
So in this case being transparent to the source caused the movie to be marked down.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I can appreciate though, how difficult it can sometimes be for non-professionals to separate the “picture quality” of the film master from that of the transfer (i.e. the HD video master) from that of the encode (the Blu-ray movie itself) without having some inside knowledge of the production, or at least a professional knowledge of the materials and methods used or, at the very minimum, having had attended the theatrical presentation and having excellent recall in regards to technical appearance of the imagery.

In that regard, Hancock is a relatively new feature film and anyone that attended the theatrical presentation (and likes to envision themselves as a picture quality guru) would have recognized and recalled that the richly saturated colors were present in theatrical showings. They were quite intended by the filmmaker (Peter Berg). Additionally, the ‘chain of custody’ so to speak, for this film was unbroken, in that the same digital colorist did the previews, and the color grading of the digital intermediate and the HD master (all on the Sony lot), which aint always the case.

Thanks for the verification. The look of Hancock is indeed a bit off from that sweet spot or zone that many reviewers seem to have but with the DI and prints having the same look nobody can complain.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^
P.S.
Hey Oliver, since the recent conversation here moved to beautiful girls/women and since you mentioned the Berlinale, I assume you are either a Berliner or are somewhat familiar with that city?
This is something that I have been curious about for years…… being, back when I was a very young whippersnapper (too young to even drive), I fell in love with a beautiful blonde Berliner and we often walked by this bombed out (from WWII) church that was a historical monument type of thing which had next to it, a new modern building, which I guess was a new church (old vs. new theme for Berlin) and I wonder, what is the name of that old bombed out church and is it still there to this day?
All I can tell you is that I was staying at the Hilton Berlin and it had to be within walking distance of that hotel.

Ah, the beautiful Frauleins.

Eternal Sunshine beat me to it but it was surely the Gedächtniskirche - it seems you made good use of the available time to combine sightseeing and mingling with the natives

By the way: Not a Berliner, but close enough to drive a total of around 16 to 18 hours to the Berlinale to attend some 70mm screenings - that was not only a lot of fun but also a lot of time spent in the car.

And speaking of beautiful women: When we watched the new print of Khartoum there was a single and nice looking girl that sat down next to me and told me she went to this rather old and by now obscure movie because it was a 70mm screening and 70mm looked so great that she just went in without knowing anything about the movie - just because of its technical merits ! I thought that was a rather cool and unusual thing to say for a woman - what more could a lover of classic movies want ?

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Aygie

The controls are perfect, you guys just need to realise that its not COD4.

They made a game with their own feeling not that of "lets make it like COD4" or any other FPS. The weight of the controls are why its so intense.

Seriously, give it a few days, come back when you're used to them.

The controls are NOT perfect and I find it annoying when people tell me "there is nothing wrong with them". If they work for you then great, but I find them to be an annoying frustration and many others do too. When playing a game your number one enemy should not be controller. If the intention was to add a degree on realism then they blew it.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by merrick97

The controls are NOT perfect and I find it annoying when people tell me "there is nothing wrong with them". If they work for you then great, but I find them to be an annoying frustration and many others do too. When playing a game your number one enemy should not be controller. If the intention was to add a degree on realism then they blew it.

I disagree with you 100% and this is not the place to discuss it, this is https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=47066

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Esox50

Thanks for your efforts!!!

I’m encouraged to report that some people over at WB are indeed passionate about movies and very open to discussion and more importantly…. change.

They are acutely aware of the fact that RAH and myself are quite unhappy with what we both consider to be suboptimal (actually far from optimal) picture quality of the recent Amadeus Blu-ray release……..as to its generalized lack of detail with resultant smearing effect.

In their defense, WB lost about 10% of their manpower in Burbank around the time of the Inauguration and the Home Video dept. got hit about twice that hard, so things are tough over there.

Specifically, with regards to the Blu-ray movie Amadeus, a recent HD transfer was indeed done (last August) inhouse (MPI) along with the actual Blu-ray encoding/authoring (GDMX)-- both under the WB company umbrella so, if one were so inclined to determine the root cause of the suboptimal product (esp. given the expense they incurred by producing a new 1080p transfer), it really wouldn’t be as difficult as having to deal with multiple outside facilities, because all the evidence as well as all the personnel involved in the production are readily available.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Hey, don't mess with the Leland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Sklar)

btw, feel free to get us a firm date on LOTR while you're there, k?

The person I spoke with yesterday is not attached to that particular Blu-ray production.
What I can tell you, is that Peter Jackson and his people are heavily involved in the LOTR Blu-ray product.
Also, as an aside, the New Line division part of the company has a movie featuring 7.1 audio due to come out in the next few months.
I don’t think that it (or the specs) have been announced yet, so I’m not at liberty to divulge the name of the title…….all I can tell you is that the movie had its theatrical exhibition during this decade.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

In their defense, WB lost about 10% of their manpower in Burbank around the time of the Inauguration and the Home Video dept. got hit about twice that hard, so things are tough over there.

Well, if they need to cut back on the billed hours, I can recommend eliminating the "DNR Applier" and "Audio Compressionist" positions.

Thanks for the update and the efforts, Penton!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Sony released to Blu-Ray the movie Felon that was shot on 16mm and it looked extremely grainy and desaturated with skewed colors which obviously was intended given the gritty story that is nicely complemented by the picture. Other than a few halos where I would not know where they came from (taking lens/scanning/sharpening) it looked perfect to me and it got marked down for the way it looked just about everywhere.
So in this case being transparent to the source caused the movie to be marked down.

I think that an intrinsic problem with giving a particular Blu-ray movie one discrete numerical score for picture quality is that it seems to invariably represent a blend or combination of how well reviewers believe the HD transfer and Blu-ray encode is in terms of ‘transparency’ to the film master itself, along with how appealing the visual imagery is to them personally.

For instance, The Da Vinci Code Blu-ray due to street soon, is another movie that is sourced from a 4k DI and in the proper viewing environment it is a splendid incarnation of the commercial theatrical experience; however, I highly doubt it will receive any “5’s” for its picture quality due to the inherent darkness of the principal photography throughout the entire movie.

With regards to films sourced from a 16mm format, it is not uncommon during the digital intermediate process for the digital colorist and filmmaker to add a tad of sharpening due to the limitations of the stock. As long as it is done discretely and with moderation, it is not much a problem (in terms of halos) with the theatrical presentations as it gets softer with the release prints. If however, the same datacine is used to make a 1080p video master, the sharpening applied during the DI process can be more apparent than was observed with the film theatrical exhibitions.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I think that an intrinsic problem with giving a particular Blu-ray movie one discrete numerical score for picture quality is that it seems to invariably represent a blend or combination of how well reviewers believe the HD transfer and Blu-ray encode is in terms of ‘transparency’ to the film master itself, along with how appealing the visual imagery is to them personally.

For instance, The Da Vinci Code Blu-ray due to street soon, is another movie that is sourced from a 4k DI and in the proper viewing environment it is a splendid incarnation of the commercial theatrical experience; however, I highly doubt it will receive any “5’s” for its picture quality due to the inherent darkness of the principal photography throughout the entire movie.

With regards to films sourced from a 16mm format, it is not uncommon during the digital intermediate process for the digital colorist and filmmaker to add a tad of sharpening due to the limitations of the stock. As long as it is done discretely and with moderation, it is not much a problem (in terms of halos) with the theatrical presentations as it gets softer with the release prints. If however, the same datacine is used to make a 1080p video master, the sharpening applied during the DI process can be more apparent than was observed with the film theatrical exhibitions.

This is an interesting comment Penton. Being a Blu-ray reviewer myself, it is VERY difficult to assign a numerical value that will appease all.

Take a film like Miami Vice for instance. The Blu-ray looks nearly identical to the theatrical release I saw in D-Cimema and I think it is an exceptional representation of Mann's vision. I gave it a very high score despite the obvious noise throughout and inconsistencies in overall detail. I was railed for that by the many that thought it looked bad and nearly "unwatchable" in the darker sequences.

Surf's Up is another great example. I thought it looked incredible on Blu but many were not happy with the intended grain structure that the animators went to great length to create.

Rather than trying to grade a film based on how "accurate" it is to the source, I think picture grades for general reviewing have to be a bit generalized overall. Since no reviewer has a source, be it D5, SRCAM or film to directly compare against, it is nearly impossible to say it is true to the source. I think a generalization of how it looks overall is a better way to go. If you see obvious artifacts then point them out. General comments on dimension, film condition, depth and contrast are also warranted and will give the reader a general idea of what to expect.

I see a great number of films in theaters still and actually have a very good memory when it comes to general picture properties. Since I've been reviewing movies for nearly a decade now, I tend to be analytical, even at the theater. So I generally compare what I see on a Blu-ray transfer to what I recall from the theatrical viewing, if I saw the film.

I honestly don't think there is any perfect way to review PQ, but you find a reviewer you trust and that generally calls it the way you see it and trust them. Ultimately in the end I don't think ANYONE should trust anything more than their own eyes and ears when it comes to the enjoyment of movie watching. It is your own experience that matters FAR more than anything brought up on an internet board or anywhere else.

[Oliver K]

@Penton-Man:

Very interesting insights with regard to the treatment of 16mm movies. And now I am looking forward to The Da Vince Code, even though I did not even like the movie that much !

@Kris:

While I can understand where you are coming from and the need not to drive away the average Joe it is a pity when a probably as close to perfect transfer as Hancock gets full points from not even one reviewer in the overview that can be seen on cinemasquid.com.

I would prefer to split the score into how pleasing the picture looks, one might also call it the eye candy factor, and transparency of the encode to the DI and/or intended theatrical presentation. Something like 3/5 plus 5/5 for a combined score of 4/5 for Felon could be a nice compromise to give an example.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

@Kris:

While I can understand where you are coming from and the need not to drive away the average Joe it is a pity when a probably as close to perfect transfer as Hancock gets full points from not even one reviewer in the overview that can be seen on cinemasquid.com.

I would prefer to split the score into how pleasing the picture looks, one might also call it the eye candy factor, and transparency of the encode to the DI and/or intended theatrical presentation. Something like 3/5 plus 5/5 for a combined score of 4/5 for Felon could be a nice compromise to give an example.

You can't do that though. While Penton states that the BD encode is transparent to the DI there is absolutely no way to verify that as a reviewer, and (no offense Penton), I've been told WAY too many times that one thing or another is transparent to this or that and that simply doesn't end up being the case. Plus, masters have their own limitations as well. A BD could be transparent to the master but that doesn't mean the master is perfect and may have its own issues that translate directly to the image you're looking at (Warner is a great example of this).

This is why you almost have to make generalized comments as it is impossible to say one thing is more accurate than another if you don't actually have anything to compare to make that claim. Anyone doing otherwise is lying to you.

Another thing that I cannot stress enough is the quality of the playback system the reviewer is using. This is a CRUCIAL part of the review and can make or break a reviewer's ability to make claims about the picture and sound quality. There are too many things that can be screwed up in the settings and chain that can have severe affects on the end result. And never mind how well the system is calibrated and the viewing enviroment, etc, etc.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

This is an interesting comment Penton. Being a Blu-ray reviewer myself, it is VERY difficult to assign a numerical value that will appease all.

Indeed it is!
One numeric score is a true conundrum and I’m not assigning any blame to any reviewers or movie watchers in particular for using that type of criteria for expediency, if nothing else. I just felt that this subject (accuracy to the master vs. appealing Blu-ray imagery) is a topic that people should be aware of when they are watching a Blu-ray movie and afterwards decide to critique the merits of its picture quality……either in their own minds or on the internet.

Something else that I often see written about are the terms “inky blacks” and “true whites” as if by definition that is one criteria that qualifies a Blu-ray movie as being excellent ……..at least in terms of ‘color’.

Again, this is a somewhat simplified notion of the production process leading to the Blu-ray edition and in some cases it may very well be a correct assumption…….and in other cases it may be totally wrong. How “inky black” the blacks are and how “truly” white the whites are, is dependent upon a multitude of factors such as the principal photography, the color temperature of the original scene, the developing process if the feature used a solely photochemical approach, the DI process, etc.

And in regards to the later (the DI process), if you are a digital colorist, sometimes if you make the blacks “inky” black and the whites
“truly or “lily” white, it may adversely affect the color of the mid-tones, which the DP finds to be just as, or more important than neutral blacks and whites for the ultimate ‘look’ he desires.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

@Penton-Man:
Very interesting insights with regard to the treatment of 16mm movies.

You want to know what the worst thing is to deal with regarding 16mm movies…….and this even includes brand spankin “new” movies?

It’s that any photochemical dirt on the film is going to be extremely obvious to viewers. So, the dust busting process with 16 is going to be even more critical than that for 35mm. film. during the DI process.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

So, the dust busting process with 16 is going to be even more critical than that for 35mm. film. during the DI process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H064-mR0ygk

[micks_address]

just in relation to 'inky blacks'... i noticed while watching The Dark Knight that the black bars top on bottom of the non imax footage are not nearly as dark as say the black bars top and bottom of other titles i have watched such as Kung Fu Panda.. same with any of the PIXAR titles - black bars seem to be really black... its distracting when they appear a lighter shade in some films..

why is that? how are black bars encoded? are they part of the film master or added at the encode stage?

i'm watching on a sony 1080p ISF calibrated screen... so the setup should be ok...

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Indeed it is!
One numeric score is a true conundrum and I’m not assigning any blame to any reviewers or movie watchers in particular for using that type of criteria for expediency, if nothing else. I just felt that this subject (accuracy to the master vs. appealing Blu-ray imagery) is a topic that people should be aware of when they are watching a Blu-ray movie and afterwards decide to critique the merits of its picture quality……either in their own minds or on the internet.

Something else that I often see written about are the terms “inky blacks” and “true whites” as if by definition that is one criteria that qualifies a Blu-ray movie as being excellent ……..at least in terms of ‘color’.

Again, this is a somewhat simplified notion of the production process leading to the Blu-ray edition and in some cases it may very well be a correct assumption…….and in other cases it may be totally wrong. How “inky black” the blacks are and how “truly” white the whites are, is dependent upon a multitude of factors such as the principal photography, the color temperature of the original scene, the developing process if the feature used a solely photochemical approach, the DI process, etc.

And in regards to the later (the DI process), if you are a digital colorist, sometimes if you make the blacks “inky” black and the whites
“truly or “lily” white, it may adversely affect the color of the mid-tones, which the DP finds to be just as, or more important than neutral blacks and whites for the ultimate ‘look’ he desires.

[Stacey Spears]

say the black bars top and bottom of other titles i have watched such as Kung Fu Panda.. same with any of the PIXAR titles...why is that? how are black bars encoded?

The black bars really should be Y 16, Cb 128, CR 128. This is not always the case. For example, some of the sources that StudioCanal used for HD DVD had odd Y values, which were higher than normal.

I could understand why some of the animated content might have lower values for the bars, which would make them look blacker on your display. How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

I just looked at Cars and the bars are 16, 128, 128. I took a quick look at Penton's favoriate forum, since they host a number of *Pix*. It turns out the color conversion used on all of the samples I looked at (Dark Knight, King Kong, Serenity and WALL•E) were converted using PC levels, instead of video levels, so all bars are Y 1.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

You can't do that though. While Penton states that the BD encode is transparent to the DI there is absolutely no way to verify that as a reviewer, and (no offense Penton), I've been told WAY too many times that one thing or another is transparent to this or that and that simply doesn't end up being the case. Plus, masters have their own limitations as well. A BD could be transparent to the master but that doesn't mean the master is perfect and may have its own issues that translate directly to the image you're looking at (Warner is a great example of this).

This is why you almost have to make generalized comments as it is impossible to say one thing is more accurate than another if you don't actually have anything to compare to make that claim. Anyone doing otherwise is lying to you.

Another thing that I cannot stress enough is the quality of the playback system the reviewer is using. This is a CRUCIAL part of the review and can make or break a reviewer's ability to make claims about the picture and sound quality. There are too many things that can be screwed up in the settings and chain that can have severe affects on the end result. And never mind how well the system is calibrated and the viewing enviroment, etc, etc.

You are right that the dual score is something that is only possible in an ideal world as most of the time we do not have any info to make that judgement about transparency.

I think the approach of trying to look for artefacts and giving a general assessment of how nice the picture looks is what works for most and if there is not just a score but also some words to go with it there is enough room to put the score into context.
A good example would be your very harsh review of the PQ of Forgetting Sarah Marshall - reading what you wrote about it is was clear that you were critical of the way it was shot, not the way it was brought to disc. So while your score of (iirc) 2.5 out of 5 iirc was very hard I knew that this was because you did not like the cinematography, not because of some issues like grain reduction, DNR-smearing or excessive halos.

Regarding the playback system: I think that most of the times the reviews speak for themselves as I can put the reviews of a certain reviewer into context with my own viewing experiences.

Most of the times though and for studios with a known track record I just get the movie and watch it - that is much more fun for me.