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

[Jeff Kleist]

Those 15 year old boys aren't going to be getting any, despite what the commercials claim. And if one manages to sink the pink he managed it for other reasons than the body spray he was wearing.

Maybe his girlfriend loved the really funny yet sexy way he licked his own eyebrows!

Used disc market? Blu-ray isn't old enough for there to be a good used disc market. I'm looking for ways to unload my old DVDs!

I think the wisdom of age clouds your vision

The rental shops sell their overstock used, and people buy them, lots of people

[Bobby Henderson]

On the sports in 3D topic:

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The Dallas test reportedly didn't go over well. I dunno if the crowd was too drunk to put on the glasses when they were told or whether it wasn't calibrated right or what.

The 3D thing on the giant LED jumbotron in Cowboys Stadium had a couple negative things running against it. The featurette was anaglyphic 3D, not full color 3D. The audience had cheesy paperboard glasses with red and blue lenses.

I don't think LED-based electronic variable message centers are up to showing full color 3D at this point. I'm not aware of any message center brands (Mitsubishi, Barco, Daktronics, Time-O-Matic, etc.) supporting a high enough refresh rate to do 3D. Most have pretty slow refresh rates. If I take a picture of one I have to use a slow shutter speed and use a tripod otherwise I get strange results in the photo. On top of the slow refresh rate, full color LED message centers have a hard enough time keeping all the message center LED tiles ("driver boards") in sync with each other.

Sports might be able to go over well in 3D in the home if the right kinds of camera angles are used. TV crews would need more deep, super telephoto shots. You're not going to see much in the way of 3D from some master shot of a football field or basketball court from high above. Sports 3D needs athletes positioned more in the foreground not stuck far into the background.

I think video gaming will go over great in full color 3D. Actually, I kind of think 3D video games will do more to drive 3D TV sales than 3D movies. Nintendo had better be already working on a 3D HD version of the Wii.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

The 3D thing on the giant LED jumbotron in Cowboys Stadium had a couple negative things running against it. The featurette was anaglyphic 3D, not full color 3D. The audience had cheesy paperboard glasses with red and blue lenses.

Bobby, I don't think that's the "Dallas test" Jeff was referring to. There was an invitation-only screening in a commercial theatre of a live broadcast Cowboys game, shot with 3D cameras and projected theatrically using non-anaglyph means (RealD?).

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Icemage

I would think that video gaming would be the vanguard of 3D adoption more so than 3D sports.......
That said, it sure wouldn't hurt to have something like the Super Bowl or World Cup broadcast in 3D, so perhaps you're right.

Mental lapse.
I had forgotten about gaming. It will certainly be a big contributor to the viewing of the extra dimension.

Regarding sports, also keep in mind, with more practice and experience in the technology, that 3D application may be possible for so many diverse sports, thusly having the ability to draw in a broad base of different fans……not just ‘traditional’ sports like football, basketball and soccer (truly global).
For example, you’ve got your ‘extreme’ sports………………
http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/specia...s3dmovie/index

fast action motorized stuff -
http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2009/M...ree+Dimensions

and I wouldn’t even venture to guess what would happen if they brought 3D into some of those past golfing event Hospitality tents –
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/16/local/me-golf16

[Penton-Man]

Well, that didn’t take long (for an AVATAR accolade)……….
http://newsblaze.com/story/200912140.../topstory.html

[Vincent Pereira]

Gotta agree with Bobby here. What really annoys me is that the "rental" discs- at least from Warners- don't even offer an alternate cut of the film. Case in point- the awful TERMINATOR SALVATION. The rental version is PG-13 only. Also, the rental version of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH was 2-D only, even though on the box it still touted it as being 3-D. Really stupid.

Vincent

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Not intending to divert the topic further, but:

What in unholy freaking **** is going on with these LAME "rental" oriented Blu-ray discs now seeming to INFECT video stores???

...

[coolmilo]

Hello Penton,

I tried MovieIQ while watching Snatch last night. This time everything worked great and I was actually happy that it was included with the movie.

After watching the Snatch I was very interested in learning about the music score. I started the movie again with MovieIQ enabled and selected the music tab. It worked like a champ.

The other cool thing I noticed is MovieIQ can be disabled when no longer needed.

Overall it was a very good experience.

[Agent Cooper]

Hi Penton - I have a question which you or any other insider are welcome to answer if possible.

The BDA just announced a 3D standard for the Blu-ray format. Do you know how the data would be stored on the discs? As two independent 1080p streams (the 3D picture) or something else? What discs sizes would be used for 3D - 'regular BD-50gb' discs?

Thanks.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Agent Cooper

Hi Penton - I have a question which you or any other insider are welcome to answer if possible.

The BDA just announced a 3D standard for the Blu-ray format. Do you know how the data would be stored on the discs? As two independent 1080p streams (the 3D picture) or something else? What discs sizes would be used for 3D - 'regular BD-50gb' discs?

Thanks.

not an insider but the answers are

something else AVC (H.264) MVC (Multiview Video Coding) it records they changes due to depth from the other view.

yes BD50 there is nothing higher.

[Jeff Kleist]

Essentially it works like DTS Master Audio. There is the core (2-D) stream, and then the extension that non-3D players will never even see that contains the shift/depth data. This results in an approx 50% increase in bandwidth, but retains backwards compatibility and results in good 3D.

BD-50 contains all the space you need to hold even a long movie like Avatar. Bonus material just needs to be moved to the second disc

[Agent Cooper]

Ok - that sounds interesting.

Thanks for the quick reply, guys.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

BD-50 contains all the space you need to hold even a long movie like Avatar. Bonus material just needs to be moved to the second disc.

That's a point that could be open to debate. My biggest concern with these 3D discs is the studios may try to cram everything (3D/2D movie, bonus features, etc.) into just one disc. That will indeed harm the video quality because the choice would force the movie bit rate (per eye) down to levels similar to or even below what we even saw with HD-DVD. We know how crummy cable/satellite HD can look. That sort of quality certainly has no place on Blu-ray.

Lots of standard 2D movies on Blu-ray have the movie portion of the disc consuming well over 25GB of space. Some will eat up over 30GB or even 40GB of space. Something would have to give when adding a 2nd eye view in full 1080p.

At the very least, extra features would need to be moved to a 2nd disc to maximize space for the 2D/3D movie. I think it would be nice to have a 2D only version on one disc where that version's bit rate is maximized. I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. Animated CGI movies oriented more for kids tend to have a shorter run time. It will be easier to encode those movies onto a BD50 in 3D and maintain great video quality. It may not be so easy with a long movie like Avatar, especially if additional footage is added back into the show. A really long movie may have to be split across 2 discs.

[4K2K]

Is there any chance of the studios agreeing to include a separate 2D-only disc in each 3D release so the 3D release won't lower the quality of the 2D only version?

[micks_address]

Hi Penton,

Picked up my Beyonce I am Yours blu-ray last night.. as a stocking filler.. should go nicely with my George Michael and Take That Blu-Rays over christmas...

Obvouisly they are for my wife.. but i'll be doing some serious screenshot analysis of the beyonce Blu-ray for signs of defects

Cheers,
Mick

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I would have to ask the Sony Music Entertainment people, b.t.w.- nice sound………..
http://www.sonymusic.co.uk/artists.php/Beyonce/

For those Liverpool supporters feeling down about the Premiere League, check "B" out this Saturday as she has a gig planned in your city.
Me, I plan on being here…………
http://www.cinegearexpo.com/semhistory.html

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

Is there any chance of the studios agreeing to include a separate 2D-only disc in each 3D release so the 3D release won't lower the quality of the 2D only version?

Agreed. This is a huge concern for me.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Agreed. This is a huge concern for me.

So now we're at: 3D Blu Ray, plus 2D Blu Ray, plus DVD, plus digital copy?

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by blu2

So now we're at: 3D Blu Ray, plus 2D Blu Ray, plus DVD, plus digital copy?

No, what we are at is keyboard speculation.

[Ian_S]

In reading through catching up as I do from time to time, I thought I'd point you in the direction of one of our more entertainging members when it comes to Blu-ray transfers as a bit of an antidote to the much loved *science" members.

He is at least entertaining sometimes as opposed to just being always annoying. The search function should keep you amused for a while. Meet Pinch Paxton.

[chris0]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

No, what we are at is keyboard speculation.

and people pulling their hair out for something that hasn't even happened yet.

[Eternal_Sunshine]

Originally Posted by chris0

and people pulling their hair out for something that hasn't even happened yet.

Because it hasn't happened yet, now is exactly the right time to talk about it to prevent it from happening,

Frankly, I'm also a little concerned because
a) I'm not interested in 3D very much (just saw Avatar, looked like a video game to me, not a movie – with a very predictable story...) and
b) the MVC data apparently does take away from the (maximum) bandwith of the "core" AVC 2D stream.

Cue the ghost of Amir bragging about how low the bitrate can go and still be "transparent" to the master...?