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

[hanser]

I attended the Karlsruhe Festival last year, too. I saw LOA, but was only moderately impressed by this first exposure to a 70mm copy. I mentioned this here in Robert Harris thread, but in the end it is not clear if it was a bad copy, a projection defect or rather my too high expectations.

The Schauburg is a nice old theater, recently renovated (link). Since I grew up there (in Ettlingen, a small town 8km south from Karlsruhe; by the way, if you are in Karlsruhe, I recommend a short visit in Ettlingen for its picturesque old town and castle; link) I went often to the Schauburg in my youth in the 1980s and have fond memories of this theater

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Oliver, could you possibly send me a PM about this too?
Although my German is practically non-existant.....

Will do

For other members who are interested in 70mm screenings I hope it is OK to include a link here to

www.in70mm.com

It is a great site by somebody with a genuine love for 70mm, Thomas Hauerslev.

[Eastkhan]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Yes I saw Lawrence twice in 70mm - it is quite the treat

As you speak good German you might indeed consider attending the Karlsruhe festival, I'll send you a pm.

I'd appreciate it thank you so much

[Penton-Man]

I mentioned a few days back, I received several PM’s querying me about the use of trailers (per *screenshot* postings) as a comparison PQ indicator to the main feature for determining what is the proper ‘look’ for how the main feature could have/should have appeared.

Apparently, this practice has also become one of those fake standards that if repeated often enough, with enough different titles, is becoming an *accepted* practice for picture quality assessment of the main feature esp. in terms of implying possible devious or incompetent digital manipulation by any of the technicians along the pipeline of production --which is simply a wrong assumption.

A trailer should be thought of as a distinct entity in and of itself……..like a one minute mini-DI. It may or may not be (and usually the later) closely representative of the final post production product or Blu-ray product in terms of color timing, sharpening, grain structure, sound, etc. And it is common knowledge in the industry that with most trailers showing VFX shots, the VFX is far from finished.

Editorial dept./houses cut from whatever sources they can get their hands on in order to produce a trailer. I remember for the Sony Picture’s feature film Hitch (staring the always hot Eva Medes], the trailer for the SuperBowl ad for Hitch originated from picture elements from the original camera negative, two different interpositive versions and HD dailies!

I haven’t seen any trailer comparisons for Slumdog yet, as the Blu-ray isn’t available but, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that some digital or film footage included in that picture’s trailer is unfiltered, because for the end product, some de-graining and sharpening was performed during the final non-linear color grading, so that the 35mm capture would flow seamlessly with the digitally acquired images.

In Slumdog’s hypothetical case, does that make the unfiltered trailer ‘better’ in terms of technical merit than the feature itself?
No, as the end product, the feature film itself, which is intended to be viewed in it’s entirety (rather than a snapshot in time, like a trailer) is what filmmakers want you to ultimately see and experience when you view their completed work.

I notice that we are constantly picking up new members to this forum from all over the world , so, here is an example. This is the first Japanese trailer for Streetfighter….
http://streetfighter-movie.gyao.jp/
(just click “Cancel” when queried if you want to install the Japanese language pack as it is not necessary for looking at the imagery).
A couple of the shots here ^ on this trailer have not been graded at all!

People should not make erroneous conclusions that “trailers” are simply cut-downs from the final Cinematographic process in which the film’s creators have provided their input and finished their product to flow as a 2 hour feature film rather than an independent one minute mini-DI, which trailers, in many cases, essentially are. The end product (the motion picture itself) ultimately serves as the true creative intent of the filmmaker.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Great to see the first caps of South Pacific.

While I withhold further judgement until I get my disc of South Pacific I have to say that the caps of The Robe both on AVS and DVDBeaver are a revelation ! With regard to the amount of detail that can be seen in most shots this is certainly the surprise of the year for me

Screenshots have also been thoroughly discussed here in the past and I have noted your previous comments.
However, a little heads-up elaboration to new members may be in order so people don’t get the wrong impression.

They are perfectly adequate for estimation of the picture quality of a Blu-ray movie.
They become a potential pitfall and are sometimes inadvertently or intentionally misused when utilized for critical determination of the PQ of a Blu-ray motion picture, as Deci, I and others have pointed out ad nausea in the past. In fact, if memory serves, wasn’t the Beaver site the one that posted inaccurate colors with their screenshots of one of the Godfather movies, which people took as gospel until somebody figured out that something was wrong?

Not to the mention the fact that there is/was a case of an avid old red ant, who used to post comparison screenshots between HD DVD and Blu-ray, to prove that HD DVD was better, or at least as good. The only problem was that he had manipulated the screenshots in favor of HD DVD (and was caught at it by one of our computer gurus) and was subsequently banned from this forum.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Eastkhan

Thank you, I'll start diggin' in "stochastic resonance", never thought digital noise as a positive thing.

Well, don’t get the wrong impression though and believe me, I do not wish to belabor the issue but, random noise is like salt……….you only need/or consider - a pinch, so to speak, for flavoring. Anymore than that and the food (movie) tastes too salty to most folks. Much more than that (Miami Vice) and it could put you into cardiac failure if you are so inclined.

Kinda think of it in practical terms as the reason why many people (including the filmmakers themselves) prefer to see their work when originally captured in well-lit conditions with a digital camera (of whichever manufacturer) to be projected with a film out at a theatrical film venue rather than the imagery going straight to a digital exhibition with a 2k or 4k digital projector.

[Jeff Kleist]

I would almost completely agree with you on the trailers penton, especially on the color grading. However they ARE usually a good way to tell how much detail is hypothetically available in a print. it's really sad that when you download the 1080p trailers for V for Vendetta or Batman Begins from Quicktime, and the detail level is so far and away above what's on the Blu, even at 1/3 of the bitrate. The Silence of the Lambs trailer is a great example of a lack of color timing, the red push on there is extreme when compared to the final color timing (which is correct on the Blu)

[Penton-Man]

Dr. A -
I just replied to your PM.
The request apparently originated from their legal dept. > publicity dept > PR firm.

Feel free to pass the info onto any other people 'that need to know' so I don't get bombarded with PM's from other mods here.

That's it for today folks.
I hope I'm beating Esox (with 1 s) out the office.

[Eastkhan]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, don’t get the wrong impression though and believe me, I do not wish to belabor the issue but, random noise is like salt……….you only need/or consider - a pinch, so to speak, for flavoring. Anymore than that and the food (movie) tastes too salty to most folks. Much more than that (Miami Vice) and it could put you into cardiac failure if you are so inclined.

Kinda think of it in practical terms as the reason why many people (including the filmmakers themselves) prefer to see their work when originally captured in well-lit conditions with a digital camera (of whichever manufacturer) to be projected with a film out at a theatrical film venue rather than the imagery going straight to a digital exhibition with a 2k or 4k digital projector.

No, thats intriguing for me actually, thank you.

The practical part is a little confusing.
A film shot in Viper or Genesis lets say, is preferred (by director) to be projected with film in a theater rather than digital 2k exhibition because of?...stochastic resonance? (= more digital noise in the film presentation rather than the 2k projector??)

What about my blu-rays of Gandhi and Professionals then, theyre 35mm films, do they have some "salt" added as well or is it film grain only.

I just realized that this forum's not for my sole eduction so thats my last post about this, sorry for the annoyance

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Screenshots have also been thoroughly discussed here in the past and I have noted your previous comments. However, a little heads-up elaboration to new members may be in order so people don’t get the wrong impression.

For the new participants in this thread, while visually interesting, screen shots from Blu-ray discs (or any consumer video format) are pretty much invalid for use in fairly judging the video quality of a movie release on home video.

The only material whose image quality can be judged on a still frame by frame basis is video material that actually stores every frame as a discrete, separate image. No consumer digital video format in existence does that. Interframe compression is used on everything from the AVC/VC1 formats in Blu-ray to MiniDV and especially various Internet-oriented video codecs.

Current d-cinema systems use Motion JPEG2000, which does store every film frame as a separate image in the "virtual print" -a 300GB or larger external hard disc. But the imagery is still lossy compressed with the latest JPEG codec.

Really the only way anyone can truly judge the image quality of a movie on a still frame by frame basis is if they have access to the uncompressed HD/2K/4K master. Typically the only people in that group are ones who were employed to work on movie's post production. And they're not going to say squat one way or the other about image quality, especially in a public forum like this. Not if they value the jobs they have.

[Doctorossi]

Bobby, why does it matter whether or not the frames are interdependent? They're always going to be decoded in the same manner, whether start-frames or sub-frames. By the time you see them as screengrabs, they're reconstructed.

[Jeff Kleist]

Because you're putting the quality of the decoder and the encoder into the picture, and how well they play together. It's not a true judgement of how good it is/can be. The minimum amount of steps between the raw and the observer is the only way to get an objective sample

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Bobby, why does it matter whether or not the frames are interdependent? They're always going to be decoded in the same manner, whether start-frames or sub-frames. By the time you see them as screengrabs, they're reconstructed.

Perhaps you do not understand what is going on with a DATA LOSSY video compression codec. The image frames are NOT discrete. The image data is NOT all restored on a frame by frame basis. You have frequent instances where certain elements of image data is held static over a series of numerous frames or smoothed out so they can be held static the same way.

Nothing about AVC or VC1 video encoding is at all lossless. It is extremely lossy. To a severe degree. The uncompressed masters run at bandwidths between 1 billion and 3 billion bits per second. Just how much image quality can anyone expect to be preserved when the consumer format bandwidth is squished down to mere levels of only 15 million to 40 million bits per second?

IMHO, it's a miracle those systems work at all. Blu-ray has a slightly higher bit budget to give those codecs more room to work. HD-DVD cramped them down to a more severe degree, which is why I am 100% glad the HD-DVD format was killed. Politics between studios and electronics companies be damned. I don't care who I piss off with that opinion. Like the British say, they can just piss off.

The compressionists are relying greatly on the human vision disability known as persistence of vision to make up for all the short cuts that take place when severely data compressing a video image. Frame grabs from Blu-ray or any consumer digital video format suck badly. Those frame grabs are worthless.

As a tangent of this discussion, I find no valid reason why movie studios would prevent vendors of software-based Blu-ray players for computers from capturing still frames from BD movies. The still captures are nowhere near master-level quality. They suck compared to the master. But such a feature might appeal to a lot of customers looking to deck out their computer desktops with some custom movie frame wallpaper and stuff like that.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

The only material whose image quality can be judged on a still frame by frame basis is video material that actually stores every frame as a discrete, separate image. No consumer digital video format in existence does that. Interframe compression is used on everything from the AVC/VC1 formats in Blu-ray to MiniDV and especially various Internet-oriented video codecs.

Current d-cinema systems use Motion JPEG2000, which does store every film frame as a separate image in the "virtual print" -a 300GB or larger external hard disc. But the imagery is still lossy compressed with the latest JPEG codec....

DV and mini-DV consumer formats work just like Motion Jpeg2000, in that they compress each frame individually. ie. they don't work like mpeg, so are a lot easier and faster to edit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DV

Features include intraframe compression for uncomplicated editing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_c...me_compression

intraframe compression uses only the current frame, which is effectively image compression.

[Jeff Kleist]

As a tangent of this discussion, I find no valid reason why movie studios would prevent vendors of software-based Blu-ray players for computers from capturing still frames from BD movies. The still captures are nowhere near master-level quality. They suck compared to the master. But such a feature might appeal to a lot of customers looking to deck out their computer desktops with some custom movie frame wallpaper and stuff like that.

Because ti exposes the frame buffer, which can then be dumped out and recompressed.

The first hack of DVD was a simple program that pressed "print screen" 29.97x per second

Seriously

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

For the new participants in this thread, while visually interesting, screen shots from Blu-ray discs (or any consumer video format) are pretty much invalid for use in fairly judging the video quality of a movie release on home video.

Screencaps that I saw that looked great, as imperfect as they may be, so far always came from a Blu-Ray that looked as good or better.

So as long as the actual viewing experience matches or exceeds what can be seen in screencaps I see no reason not to be very happy when seeing great screencaps.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Nothing about AVC or VC1 video encoding is at all lossless. It is extremely lossy. To a severe degree. The uncompressed masters run at bandwidths between 1 billion and 3 billion bits per second. Just how much image quality can anyone expect to be preserved when the consumer format bandwidth is squished down to mere levels of only 15 million to 40 million bits per second?

Bobby, this has nothing to do with my question which was about your claim that screengrabs were inappropriate for judging the image quality of a consumer disc release, not of the original photography (obviously, that's another story entirely).

It's moot, though, as Jeff answered my question quite clearly and succinctly. Thanks, Jeff!

[Stacey Spears]

Nothing about AVC or VC1 video encoding is at all lossless. It is extremely lossy. To a severe degree.

True, true, but it is impressive what encoders can accomplish. For the fun of it, I have provided links to three images. On is the original 4k 16-bit per channel TIFF exported from SCRATCH. The next one is the source that was fed into the encoder. The 3rd is compressed version that has been decoded.

Original 4k TIFF: (48 MB)
http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/image...riginal_4k.tif

1080p Source:
http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/image...urce_1080p.PNG

1080p encoded:
http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/image..._VC1_1080p.PNG

Penton, I have been trying to send you the $2 I owe, but I must have misplaced your address.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Eastkhan

No, thats intriguing for me actually, thank you.

The practical part is a little confusing.
A film shot in Viper or Genesis lets say, is preferred (by director) to be projected with film in a theater rather than digital 2k exhibition because of?...stochastic resonance? (= more digital noise in the film presentation rather than the 2k projector??)

What about my blu-rays of Gandhi and Professionals then, theyre 35mm films, do they have some "salt" added as well or is it film grain only.

I just realized that this forum's not for my sole eduction so thats my last post about this, sorry for the annoyance

Good to hear (i.e. "last post) , final answer.

No, you don’t understand. You’re getting too caught up in the conventional definitions of film grain and digital noise.
Well-lit digital capture that goes to digital exhibition will generally give a super clean ‘look’ (think a typical NFL football game on Sunday afternoon). If however, you do a film out of the digital files, the grain in the release prints themselves portrays itself as random ‘noise’ to a human’s brain (which is not a bad thing, in moderation) as well as serving its primary function as a carrier of image detail.

In regards to Ghandi and The Professionals – no.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

An Evening With Warner Home Video Live Chat
In Attendance:
George Feltenstein, SVP Catalog Marketing
Ronnee Sass, VP Publicity & Promotion
Janet Keller, Manager of Publicity
Monday, 23 March 2009
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/chat...ome_Video.html

WB tells me that the chatters ^ are planning a fairly big announcement during the chat……but it is not about Blu-ray per se.