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

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

yes, zee Germans, zey don't like zee pan and scan

I saw it once on TV a long time ago and it was really a very good documentary. As I do not have TV any more I sometimes buy a series or two that I watch when it suits me and this would have been a candidate.

I can still get the old DVD version though - I expect the prices on this one to drop.

I'll send you mine for a fair price should I cave...

[sharkshark]

ps. The show opens with a copter shot of here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane

I'm not sure I'll ever bother going up there (Paris is way too inviting itself) but it does look like a cool place to be, a sort of modern Pompeii.

[Penton-Man]

Attention Blu-ray.com member Robert Zohn (if in fact, you still read this forum regularly).
This upcoming shoot-out alert posted at ETC…..
http://www.etcenter.org/calendars/3d-events/?event=143
Is it for 3D display comparisons…..2D comparisons….both? It’s just not clear to me.

If somebody knows Robert Z., please shoot him an e-mail. If this is for 3D displays, I think the folks in the 3D forum would be interested in the results.

[sharkshark]

More Cameron 3D madness pour vous.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

It makes me yearn for the days of WickyWoo (one of the original tech gurus).

Which reminds me, today somebody PM’ed me that somebody over on AVS (Whiggle-Man?) is again claiming a 1080i source for the Remastered version of the Blu-ray, The Fifth Element.

For cripes sakes , I already covered this issue close to three years ago….
https://forum.blu-ray.com/352780-post5960.html - not to mention the fact that the master originated from a new Datacine (not Telecine) of the IP.

I have no further comment as this was extensively discussed years ago.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

More Cameron 3D madness pour vous.

If you're speaking to the tiny fish with big teeth movie....please be nice as I think Steve McQueen's grandson is in the flick.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

So, P, can you shed any light on the "Snell Archangel HD" mentioned?

I really don’t know much about it.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

I agree that this method for replacing YCM separations looks very interesting and I would hope that it catches on if it is indeed that good. Imo registration errors and grain buildup are what really makes separations a last resort when everything else fails - this could change with such a process. Of course the part with the proprietary software is a bit frightening as opposed to traditional separations that can used as is.....

One challenging theoretical hurdle which they will have to overcome is convincing asset managers (at least at the studio level) no matter how fantastic their algorithm is….that essentially disregarding ¾ of the color information from the get-go (which their Bayer process does) is somehow not relevant or important to the end result.

Proponents of traditional YCMs may be skeptical despite how good the demos are.

[Penton-Man]

Gotta go, I’m meeting my wife for an early lunch in order to beat the heat we’ve got today in L.A.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Which reminds me, today somebody PM’ed me that somebody over on AVS (Whiggle-Man?) is again claiming a 1080i source for the Remastered version of the Blu-ray, The Fifth Element.

He's not claiming anything, he's guessing and he clearly says so. His guess is based on image artifacts that can be seen in a few frames and which kind of look like deinterlacing artifacts (combing). But then such artifacts could probably have other causes, too (e.g. a bug in the h264 encoder, just to name an example), so these artifacts don't proof anything IMHO.

[sharkshark]

uh, yeah.

Anyhoo, THIS is some astounding stuff if you haven't seen it:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...ntury_ago.html

Colour (three exposure) photography from a century ago. Incredible images, truly.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by madshi

He's not claiming anything, he's guessing and he clearly says so. His guess is based on image artifacts that can be seen in a few frames and which kind of look like deinterlacing artifacts (combing). But then such artifacts could probably have other causes, too (e.g. a bug in the h264 encoder, just to name an example), so these artifacts don't proof anything IMHO.

Out of respect to the member who alertly PM’ed me about this resurrected issue, c’mon, no matter how many subtle caveats someone puts in their technical post(s) to CYA, the point is that continued *guesswork* over a three year time-span implies to readers that you know what you’re talking about and essentially you are indeed making a ‘claim’….if only by the persistence of the exercise.

I really think that you’re using semantics to defend this practice. The take-home-message is that probably the vast majority of people who read that on AVS, think the poster knows exactly what he’s talking about….ergo is then correct, when in fact he’s not.

And over time these *guessworks* turn into gospel truth (see the last on the list)…..
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...41&postcount=4

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

hey, is this thing on again? fun DB problems all day. Ice, et. al., I know the feeling (just not on a scale of this site o' yours!)

Anyhoo, the link above re: Cameron was meant to be to the G4 interview:

http://g4tv.com/videos/48219/Avatars...ew/?quality=hd

With the “pour vous” in your original post on the last page, I thought, given the recent weekend’s box office success…
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/164...23/story.jhtml

you were speaking about Alex…
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column...e-pirate-20242

on which Mike had worked –
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0131679/

P.S.
Jim has good taste in the blood and guts of his 3D camera system.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Jim has good taste in the blood and guts of his 3D camera system.

Penton-Man....you do have a way with words. Btw..re the "message" in these few words... they speak volumes, better than any picture and so true...so true.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Jim has good taste in the blood and guts of his 3D camera system.

Wouldn't it be better and more like human vision if the distance between the lenses in his camera system didn't change?

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

Wouldn't it be better and more like human vision if the distance between the lenses in his camera system didn't change?

A billion technical parameters of cinema would be "more like human vision" if they weren't variable... and movies would bore us to tears.

[sharkshark]

well, yeah, but the point is that for 3D montage you don't want sudden jumps in z-depth. What makes bad 3D just that is some sort of auto-system whereby your eyes are changing focus shot-to-shot.

As much as I hated Avatar as a film, as a technical process it's pretty flawless, with only a couple instances where I (personally) thought he went too far with the 3D.

I have a friend who's a big film nut, and LOVED the Zemeckis 3D stuff, and thought UP and Avatar were disappointing. I talked about how the great uses of 3D provide more depth rather than (SCTV-like) zooms to your face.

We were at a Best Buy, and tried out the Sony system, and realized when we were watching the same thing that he wasn't seeing things right... I asked and confirmed that as a kid he was diagnosed with a lazy eye, and that one is stronger than the other (after 20 years of friendship this hadn't come up). So, for him, the more "wizzbang" 3D of "Cloudy with a Chance", etc., did the trick, where UP did not.

Amusing.

Anyhoo, by adjusting interocular space, you can cut from shot to shot without causing nausea. At least, that's what I think the Pace/Cameron thing does better than most.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

well, yeah, but the point is that for 3D montage you don't want sudden jumps in z-depth. What makes bad 3D just that is some sort of auto-system whereby your eyes are changing focus shot-to-shot.

I disagree. I think this kind of perspective may be more appropriate now, as audiences become familiar with 3D cinema vocabulary, but as they do so, this limitation will be less and less necessary. Compare the earliest 2D cinema to the conceptual jump-cuts in modern popular releases. Yes, the z-depth shift can add a queasiness "dimension", but this does not mean that the baby of perspective in the third dimension should be thrown out with the bathwater of tasteless application; it just requires care and an understanding that will be developed as 3D cinematographers learn their language.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Anyhoo, by adjusting interocular space, you can cut from shot to shot without causing nausea. At least, that's what I think the Pace/Cameron thing does better than most.

But he talks about reducing the interocular distance for things like close-ups. Apart from reducing the distance to make cuts to different scenes easier to watch (and shouldn't there be less cuts in a 3D film? - and they could try to make sure that the focus point for the next shot is at about the same depth as the previous shot - so you wouldn't need to reduce the shot to almost 2D), assuming there isn't about to be a cut to a different scene, shouldn't the interocular distance for close-ups be the same as for mid-shots, long shots etc. ie. have all of these shot where the distance between the centre of the lenses is the same as the distance between the centre of the average person's eyes - otherwise aren't things going to look like miniature versions if the distance is increased a lot? Could changing this be what makes some shots look fake/like cardboard cut-outs at different depths? Or if not what causes some scenes to look like that, even when apparently something has all been shot with 3D cameras?

I would think it's probably related to the size of the cinema screen/HDTV screen and viewing distance and actual distance between the person's eyes though.

[sharkshark]

Hey, I've yet to do my part, but this guy thinks you should go watch a movie set in my city in order to support good films:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/osc...right-now.html