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

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I doubt you'll get one

It was absolutely political, using the BS excuse that (at the time) most players did not support TrueHD decoding and bitstreaming wasn't possible so it was a "needless expense"

That was on Superman and a few other titles where HD DVD got lossless and we didn't

Later the excuse was used because HD DVD kept tapping out on space and bandwidth and "we have to keep the 2 formats equal"

Ah, "we" (bold mine).

This "format war" is still a team sport, huh?

Again, repeating the same story doens't make it true, even if it is, that doesn't count as proof... Parsing technical specs equally runs into trouble.

I asked for some proof from someone who was there and made the call, or an insider that has direct knowledge of the politics of Warner during that period. If you're that guy, great...

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Esox50

It's been a frustrating week for me as far as Blu-Ray is concerned.

Rx.
Cadillac margarita.
Refill - PRN

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

It's up to me to rebut baseless conjecture based on technical considerations of discs? I though we weren't supposed to ascribe malicious or political intent to these things, such as giving due respect for those that let the usual PQ whipping boys get through PQ in mollested form.

I was simply pointing out that while the claims may very well be true, they certainly sound more like rumour, gossip and conjecture, and that the only source for such judgement of studio politics was being done by forum members, not "insiders".

But, hey, I guess if conjecture or extrapolation fits in with one's point of view it stops being bias and starts being "rational analysis of the facts at hand".

You know shark, I lived with two other guys and two girls in a townhouse in Georgetown, who attended Georgetown Law and I swear, you and doctorossi would put them to shame.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

As for DTS vs Dolby, I think part of the issue is that DTHD has Dialogue normalization and Dynamic range control. with those two it makes it hard to make a proper test and there is/can be digital manipulation of the data (i.e. the LPCM coming out as decoded is not the one that went in while encoded and which goes to the receiver). I think that is why some don't trust it.

Just an FYI: DTS has dialnorm too. Supposedly it supports DRC but nobody supports that.

[Jeff Kleist]

Ah, "we" (bold mine).

This "format war" is still a team sport, huh?

This is Blu-ray.com, and we're talking about Blu-ray

Again, repeating the same story doens't make it true, even if it is, that doesn't count as proof... Parsing technical specs equally runs into trouble.

I asked for some proof from someone who was there and made the call, or an insider that has direct knowledge of the politics of Warner during that period. If you're that guy, great...

Yes, we have direct sources on what was going on at WB at the time. Yes we know Steve Nickerson's long history working for Toshiba, and with Alan Bell (designer of HD DVD's physical structure and former chief tech officer of Paramount) and Warren Lieberfarb(former head of WB home video who worked hand in hand with Toshiba to get regular DVD off the ground, turned head HD DVD shill), and that both of them (Nickerson and Bell) spent a lot of effort getting their companies to adopt and hold onto HD DVD, and not use Blu-ray (including the infamous Paramount payoff).

If you expect a WB employee to come out of the woodwork, current or former, you'll be waiting a long time on that. If the above isn't enough to convince you, then nothing ever will.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

As for DTS vs Dolby, I think part of the issue is that DTHD has Dialogue normalization and Dynamic range control.

If memory serves, FilmMixer stated that DTS-HD MA could have DialNorm as well. I'm guessing it's just not used on the soundtracks released so far.

Personally, I may actually like DialNorm as I'm constantly fiddling with the volume during a movie to keep the sound somewhat consistent due to considerations of others in the house.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

As I mentioned before (in Jan. ?), what seems to be taking up a lot of peoples’ time and efforts is discovering a truly killer app for BD-Live.

I guess you'll have some subjective hits and misses based on peoples' individual preferences.

Personally, I think Lionsgate had some interesting ideas with "The Spirit". The menu has a clock and weather Widget on the menu (though it believes I live in North Georgia and I see no way to correct this), as well as a banner informing people of Lionsgate news (this movie coming to theaters soon, this movie coming to Blu-ray, this Blu-ray got five stars for PQ and AQ from Widescreen Review), and some other additional BD-Live features.

I think that there has been some truly MISSED promotional opportunities. Take two of last year's Blu-ray releases, "Transformers" and "Iron Man" for instance. They really should have used "Transformers" BD-Live capabilities to promote the new film... advance previews of trailers before anywhere else, promo art, movie clips, worked out a deal with Red One/Esquire for downloadable 1080p Megan Fox video clip. For "Iron Man", several set photos have been released, as well as artwork, why couldn't they have put them on BD-Live, etc...

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

And what's with that ^ ?
Not the menus per se but, the picture quality.
I haven't followed the discussion but, Jeff made an allusion that the screenshot *scientists* are going wild again, then Torsten chimes in with info from someone whom I imagine Jeff would love to have on his rolodex.
Bill Hunt pops in and out to give updates, etc.

I don't have the disc yet, as I'll probably wait and watch all four films later this year once T4 comes out on Blu-ray... but I'm REALLY fascinated by these developments... because going by the screenshots (I know, I know), I can only see MINUTE differences between the two, and the screen shots look excellent. I look forward to seeing what my opinion on the transfer is once I get T2, but in the meantime, I'm not seeing what I saw with the ST films (which I finally got in the mail the other day)... and I'm glad Bill & Jeff's "digging" is agreeing with me.

~Alan

[mpsan]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, divedude was a fanatic for the Q thread, so I hope that does not indicate things are going poorly for him……health wise.

As to your question, regarding 24, that is one of the few dramatic television shows that I am able to keep up with on a weekly basis once they air every season, so no, I haven’t seen the Blu-ray of 24 yet.....no need, as my wife claims I still have a memory like an elephant.

Well, one reason my wife and I do NOT watch, or DVR, 24 is that we like to see them as a marathon over a long holiday. This became New Years, before I retired. Also, there were so many missing weeks, that we liked to get the whole season at once from Netflix.

I will send an email to DiveDude.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

You know shark, I lived with two other guys and two girls in a townhouse in Georgetown, who attended Georgetown Law and I swear, you and doctorossi would put them to shame.

I'm Jewish enough to take that as a compliment.

BTW, this is a happy post - https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2741

Ever been to Cannes during the fest, Penton? Weasled my way in back in '96, hell of a year for it... Saw Breaking the Waves at the morning screening, sitting in the seat/row normally reserved for the director. Fargo, Trainspotting... Yeah, good year.

Was bliss...

On an unrelated note, despite the fact that I have a completely legit HD signal that I could be watching F1 on, the BBC pre and post race coverage is so much better than what is shown up here on TSN that I'm forced to find other means of getting the feed. I really like what they're doing this year with Jordan and Coultard, you should check it out if you have the means...

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

Personally, I may actually like DialNorm as I'm constantly fiddling with the volume during a movie to keep the sound somewhat consistent due to considerations of others in the house.

That's not DialNorm, it's Dynamic Range Control (DRC aka Night Mode).
DialNorm is merely a program reference level, and it never changes during the program itself.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

That's not DialNorm, it's Dynamic Range Control (DRC aka Night Mode).
DialNorm is merely a program reference level, and it never changes during the program itself.

WOW! So I've completely misunderstood what DialNorm is... I read some older information after doing a search on this site (Link), and now I'm completely baffled as to why DialNorm is so hated (man, I have to get "lossless", so I can follow this stuff better)...

~Alan

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

WOW! So I've completely misunderstood what DialNorm is... I read some older information after doing a search on this site (Link), and now I'm completely baffled as to why DialNorm is so hated (man, I have to get "lossless", so I can follow this stuff better)...

DialNorm is hated because it's easily misunderstood (the DN is DRC myth).

There is much value in it, so much that DTS added it to their encoder options.

[Jeff Kleist]

One of the very goood uses of dialnorm is on ATSC TV. It ensures that the programming volume level is constant across channels. Of course this doesn't stop the 10db increase on commercials Of course, some stations implement this improperly as well so YMMV

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, I would like to hear your impressions after you’ve seen the whole thing, which is always a good idea for people to keep in mind at least in general for some feature films, for example, in this case, since the second half of the motion picture (for the most part) was captured a little differently than the first although, I think you may not even notice that subtlety because it appears to flow rather seamlessly.

It’s funny, because I viewed this with a compressionist (yes, one of the people that really does encodes for a living - which probably ranks up there in excitement with anesthesiologists who only monitor healthy young males during routine knee operations all day long...my hat is off to both of them for their ‘endurance’).
Anyway, we watched the Blu-ray edition in my home theater this past week and despite the most popular terms on some internet forums, i.e. by that I mean, dnr and ee, these never even came up once during our discussion following the screening………not even as a pertinent negative by him. Of course, his job is, and always has been, to make the Blu-ray encodes as transparent as possible to the HD master so, some hobbyist’s obsessions don’t often jive with topics of interest to professionals. Anyway, his primary interest was regarding how Sony Picture Imageworks technically did the visual effects for the upper extremity deformity of Tom Cruise’s character in the film.

And before anyone starts whining about the *look* of the film not being “right” and implying that there was some kind of color grading/contrast faux-pas with the transfer, I would strongly suggest that they never saw the theatrical presentation, as the Blu-ray *look* is compatible with the theatrical *look*.

Watched it last night and thought it looked and sounded great.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

One of the very goood uses of dialnorm is on ATSC TV. It ensures that the programming volume level is constant across channels. Of course this doesn't stop the 10db increase on commercials Of course, some stations implement this improperly as well so YMMV

I find in network (national) commercials during prime time shows the DialNorm will vary as it should. It's when the yokel ads show up that the volume starts getting out of hand. NBC-LA had something with a rock concert sound that would blast the speakers for several weeks recently, very annoying.

[Anthony P]

Just an FYI: DTS has dialnorm too.

you are right, my mistake

[Anthony P]

WOW! So I've completely misunderstood what DialNorm is... I read some older information after doing a search on this site (Link), and now I'm completely baffled as to why DialNorm is so hated (man, I have to get "lossless", so I can follow this stuff better)...

like Peter said DRC can either compress or expand the range in a movie (most just compress but I have seen some devices that can expand as well). DN is the normalization of sound. Like I said before, trying to make the average loudness in each movie equal. I guess Jeff's and Peter's watching TV example makes it interesting (since there are many different audio segments mixed together by different places) but for movies you can take a 1/2 a second to adjust the volume before hand. As to why is is hated, I think some people don't like manipulation after the fact. The sound engineer mixed it in a particular way, then it got encoded at a particular level for a particular reason. why mess with that?

[Bobby Henderson]

I find some of the worst offenders in volume level cranking antics to be certain cable channels. For instance, Palladia is REALLY BAD about this nonsense. They'll be showing a concert with DD 5.1 audio already. When the commercials play the volume jumps up noticeably. The loudest clips tend to be the promos for their own channel.

[Jeff Kleist]

They up the volume on commercials so they "grab your attention"

All dialnorm does is provide an offset, it's not "manipulation".

Look at it this way

You have your AVR set it "-20"

The dialnorm offset is at "-4"

so your receiver delivers -24 but reports -20. This can be corrected by a simple turnup of volume the audio data is not altered any more than moving your volume dial does

Here's a great piece I found on the subject

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...on-6-2000.html

[Anthony P]

so your receiver delivers -24 but reports -20. This can be corrected by a simple turnup of volume the audio data is not altered any more than moving your volume dial does

and how does it do it?

this is the issue of DN (from the article you linked to)

[PeterTHX]

The second picture is the DRC they talk about as well, not DN.