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

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Elvis Is Alive

I have more important things things to worry about in my life than EE, DNR, halos, etc. I just buy movies that I want to watch. Sorry for the rant.

Your very presence on this forum seems to indicate you are not just into buying and watching movies

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Doby, I tried.

Your request was passed on to Adam…. http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamsosinsky but alas, he’s holding his Blu music cards very close to his chest.

Yeah, I've sent him a message a few months ago and never got a response. Hopefully the fact that he is "mum" on the topic is a good sign as I'm sure if they had no interest at all he would have said as much.

Thanks for this!

[Elvis Is Alive]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Your very presence on this forum seems to indicate you are not just into buying and watching movies

Probably true . I should have said that those things don't affect my purchasing decision.

[Josh]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

My sis tells me that you folks in the Northern Va. locale are having a helluva a hot and humid summer!

Up until this week, it has been. We got a few inches of rain yesterday, and luckly my route to work wasn't flooded or damaged. Air conditioning is a grand thing, especially with all this humidity!

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Most people want the "authentic version that played in theaters."

I've discussed some points on this recently. How the movie looked in theaters is a very faulty barometer on how a movie should be prepared for release on Blu-ray. As others have pointed out many theaters, even ones equipped with digital projection and digital 3D, can goof up presentation quality. One's impression of how a certain movie looked in theaters may be a very flawed impression. That makes the comparison of how the movie looked on screen quite invalid.

The original camera negative (or digital video camera data files) aren't valid as examples of the final finished product. They haven't gone through the color timing and/or digital intermediate stage yet. The original negatives or video files are by far the best source image for harvesting a master for Blu-ray release. But those elements represent only the very beginning of the post production process. They haven't been creatively altered yet. The film elements haven't been dirtied up, bleach bypassed, etc. The video files from electronic cameras haven't been gamma squeezed to get rid of the 6 o'clock news/soap opera look.

The definitive thing that serves as the "gold standard" for how a movie should look on Blu-ray is the very first element that is produced at the very point when a movie is finished in post production. Newer movies are easy in that the finished digital intermediate is the real master. Older movies need the original camera negative or 2nd gen interpositives/internegatives as well as the finished color timed print.

Additionally, should I ask my kids to take out their cell phones in order to text and check email while the movie is playing in order to "recreate the exact theatrical experience?" Furthermore, the movie theater won't pause the movie for you to go to the bathroom so that functionality will in the future be disabled from all Blu-ray players so the director's intent of pacing won't be interrupted.

[woodley56]

Originally Posted by Josh

Up until this week, it has been. We got a few inches of rain yesterday, and luckly my route to work wasn't flooded or damaged. Air conditioning is a grand thing, especially with all this humidity!

The electric bill from that air conditioning is another matter!

[Torsten Kaiser TLE]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

(...) The original camera negative (or digital video camera data files) aren't valid as examples of the final finished product. They haven't gone through the color timing and/or digital intermediate stage yet. The original negatives or video files are by far the best source image for harvesting a master for Blu-ray release. But those elements represent only the very beginning of the post production process. They haven't been creatively altered yet. The film elements haven't been dirtied up, bleach bypassed, etc. The video files from electronic cameras haven't been gamma squeezed to get rid of the 6 o'clock news/soap opera look.

The definitive thing that serves as the "gold standard" for how a movie should look on Blu-ray is the very first element that is produced at the very point when a movie is finished in post production. Newer movies are easy in that the finished digital intermediate is the real master. Older movies need the original camera negative or 2nd gen interpositives/internegatives as well as the finished color timed print.

Two words: Absolutely correct.
Unfortunately, this is not always done nor always appreciated (enough).

[Penton-Man]

Top of the Morning.

First off, let me say to sharkshark, please don’t dawdle in watching Shutter Island again because seriously, I await your further review and before the summer is out I plan on taking the family on a road trip like this, in which I don’t plan on taking any stinkin computer to keep in touch ….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsPWa...eature=related

I think I’ve convinced the family that it will be fun and in their best interests …..well, at least the dog agrees with me. Now, down to internet business.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Yeah, it was a non-thesis Masters.
No, I am not in the Department of Biochemistry anymore as a grad student. I am now in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science.
Completely different department.

In Animal Science, the main thing I did was analyze amino acids, assist in sheep hormone injections and assist in pig hysterectomys!

Merrick, you kill me .(bolding by moi)
I’m now beginning to understand why they awarded you a “non-thesis” Masters of Science Degree. Son, you would have driven your advisor absolutely bonkers with the rewrites of your work which are a necessary part of the process.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Elvis Is Alive

Fair enough. I don't quite understand why people get in an uproar trying to compare different encodes, broadcasts, storage medium, etc. of a particular motion picture when they do not have accesss to source material viewed on a reference display. It seems to be too many variables in play to make definitive judgements in most cases.

I have more important things things to worry about in my life than EE, DNR, halos, etc. I just buy movies that I want to watch. Sorry for the rant.

That’s not a rant. I would post a couple of links to real rants but I’ll refrain, for I fear I would give Iceman a stroke.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Denon,

If you keep this up Im gonna tell everyone your real name.

That ^ my friends, is one of the quintessential reasons for always remaining anonymous (even in PMs).

I’m talking threats from the peanut gallery.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

No, I understood, if I expressed it badly. I'm saying that Cameron's comments may be equivalent - if he really didn't want grain at the time, but it was a "mistake" to be corrected (like, say, matte lines that were never clean, or wires that should have been buried), then this de-noising isn't just the whim of a director rethinking his work, but a correction of a wrong.

I’ll admit that ever since that videoclip where Jim described the Aliens remastering, that he and Skip went in and “completely denoised and degrained it” and “they got rid of all the grain”, it has inspired me to have another look-see at what we have in-house, which many consider to be the best de-grainer tool (definitely, the most expensive) on the market so that, I’m fully prepared the next time a big-name Director comes by for corrections.

Today, when I look at the processing tree from the main interface software, there are a couple of tiny little filter boxes, namely -Temporal Smooth and Motion Estimation Compensation, with a subset of even more filter boxes, namely – Power Spatial grain, Basic Spatial grain, Basic Temporal, Dynamic Temporal, and the very last box in the row is the ever so reliable Smart Sharpen Filter. That’s a lot of tiny boxes to decide to select or unselect!

I figures that if you want to completely de-grain and get rid of all the grain from the material, you’ve probably got to check all dem tiny boxes…..at least all but the Smart Sharpen box (better save that for later…..you know, just in case ) but, the problem I’m having now is that a lower set of parameters pop up and there is no stinkin DNR knob to adjust the settings!

What’s a man to do in order to adjust the attenuation, spatial size and temporal size settings without any DNR knob? And not only that, to further confuse me, they’ve got red, green, blue and even white color DNR channels to adjust the filters…..with no DNR knob to turn…..not even a ‘DVNR’ knob to turn. What’s worse……is that now I can’t find the manual and I think that rat in the suite either hid it again or else ate it.

One interesting aside to this whole situation is that if this dnr solution for the Blu-ray of Aliens indeed works out in a visually appealing fashion for the internet PQ warriors, I think there are going to be a whole lot of folks on the internet who will be compelled to change their signatures regarding dnr, or else they’re going to look a little like hypocrites.

Madshi, one thing for sure is that if the screencap folks have any HD broadcast captures from Aliens to do a Blu-ray vs HDTV comparison like with Fellowship of the Ring, that thread may just turn out to be the hottest thing on the internet since sliced bread or the American pick-up truck. Suddenly, I find myself rather envious of you, eric and xylon over there at AVS.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Meanwhile, speaking of James C, I dove THIS this evening... Visibility was crappo, but it was a gorgeous day, few waves, and the water temp a balmy 67 degrees.

Nice , when’s and where’s your next warm water dive planned? And if you prefer crispier water temps., you’ve got to dive Galapagos before you hang up your regulator.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

yeah, for a while I thought a bunch of people were getting royalties on the patents for either of the formats. Its all... comical.

Well I’m in it for the money, I’ll admit it upfront. I want to get out of the rat race and retire early. On that note, I’ve got an idea and if I can make it work, maybe it will turn out to be my lotto ticket out of the workforce….or at least from the techno salt mines into the Marketing Dept. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYgJ-LQgFVY

In that regard, my question to you and others is that when Taxi Driver does make a Blu-ray appearance, if the marketing folks were to jack up the price of the package and include a model replica of a New York City cab such as something like this-
http://www.motormint.com/index.asp?P...ROD&ProdID=139

(but, of course, with the appropriate vintage year from the mid-seventies listed)….would you guys fork over the extra $$ for such a plastic collectible and the disc…..if say, the studio did a limited run of several thousand toy cars and the disc popped out from the undercarriage of the car?

I really think I can make this thing work, if there’s enough demand out there. I guess the question comes down to….are there as many car geeks out there in the blogosphere as there are sci-fi geeks.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Madshi, one thing for sure is that if the screencap folks have any HD broadcast captures from Aliens to do a Blu-ray vs HDTV comparison like with Fellowship of the Ring, that thread may just turn out to be the hottest thing on the internet since sliced bread or the American pick-up truck.

There is a Japan 20Mbps MPEG2 Aliens HD broadcast, but the image quality is rather bad. There's lots of grain, but you mostly only see it in motion, because in still pictures it's so mushy that it almost doesn't look like grain. Not sure if it's very bad DNR or if the scan is so bad or if the original film is at fault.

I guess that the Blu-Ray will probably look cleaner and sharper and probably "better" overall. But still, I think that getting rid of *all* the grain can not be the way to go for a movie like Aliens. Even if there was a way to get rid of all the grain without losing any detail, I'd still be against it. That's almost like getting totally rid of all the traffic noise in a busy street scene, so that the dialog can be heard nice and clean!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Yeah, I've sent him a message a few months ago and never got a response. Hopefully the fact that he is "mum" on the topic is a good sign as I'm sure if they had no interest at all he would have said as much.

Thanks for this!

You know, I just checked his schooling on that bio. At least Jeff Kleist should be happy with this music executive.

Jeff, you’ll note that Adam didn’t attend Wharton at U. of P. He acquired his advanced degree elsewhere.

[johndoyle123]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well I’m in it for the money, I’ll admit it upfront. I want to get out of the rat race and retire early. On that note, I’ve got an idea and if I can make it work, maybe it will turn out to be my lotto ticket out of the workforce….or at least from the techno salt mines into the Marketing Dept. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYgJ-LQgFVY

In that regard, my question to you and others is that when Taxi Driver does make a Blu-ray appearance, if the marketing folks were to jack up the price of the package and include a model replica of a New York City cab such as something like this-
http://www.motormint.com/index.asp?P...ROD&ProdID=139

(but, of course, with the appropriate vintage year from the mid-seventies listed)….would you guys fork over the extra $$ for such a plastic collectible and the disc…..if say, the studio did a limited run of several thousand toy cars and the disc popped out from the undercarriage of the car?

I really think I can make this thing work, if there’s enough demand out there. I guess the question comes down to….are there as many car geeks out there in the blogosphere as there are sci-fi geeks.

yes i would soo buy that

quick everyone agree also s they might release it quicker
jokes

but seriously i think little trinkets and what not are awesome

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Josh

Up until this week, it has been. We got a few inches of rain yesterday, and luckly my route to work wasn't flooded or damaged. Air conditioning is a grand thing, especially with all this humidity!

Tell that to my sis , you have no idea the square footage and high ceilings she has in Mount Vernon.

[Penton-Man]

Gotta run.
10:00 A.M. meeting.

[mark antony]

Re: Aliens it's difficult to know what to say that hasn't been said already.

I have purchased Aliens on VHS, LD and DVD...the laserdisc box cost me over £100 back in 1992ish, now we have a HD version that costs less than £40 complete with it's 3 sisters plus hours of supplements.

I guess you can say the old chestnut of if you want the original look buy any of the above or watch the non-altered look on the HD theatrical cut.

TBH Aliens has always looked like garbage, as far as absolute picture quality goes, each of the above versions have looked better and better as transfer techniques have improved and better sources have been used.

Given Mr Cameron's ABSOLUTE knowledge on most film related technical matters (most tech's on his films think he knows how to do their job better than they do) and that Skip has been mastering film for home use for longer than I can recall, I think we will be in for a treat.

There will be nitpickers and neighsayers, but TBH there will be more people that would have complained that Aliens in HD was a grainy mess, as it (and it's sisters) is a film that appeals to all sorts of demographics and may well even shift a few players.

An open mind may be called for and the possibility of whether this is another revolution in home video presentation.

If a talented filmmaker can present an alternate vision, closer to what he/she original wanted in the first place then as a cinephile I cannot deny them that opportunity, a film on blu ray can be re-pressed or re-issued it is not infinite, as long as they haven't cut/ruined the O-neg in the process (Cough Star Wars, cough Apocalypse Now...) .

M