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

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

He's talking about bonus material production, not the mastering process

The question was about the uproar regarding theatrical vs EE, but I agree with you, his answer went off topic. Still, his words are bold, "Nothing to do with the process".

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

The question was about the uproar regarding theatrical vs EE, but I agree with you, his answer went off topic. Still, his words are bold, "Nothing to do with the process".

Yeah, quite upsetting.

[Jeff Kleist]

Well wait for what happens with the EEs. I think we all know WB would be a fool not to give them a budget and let them fly

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Originally Posted by KubrickFan

Doesn't that completely contradict the statements given by Jackson and DVD producer Michael Pellerin?

It depends on what Jackson is referring to as "the process." It read to me that he was talking about content (which cut, special features, etc.), not the mastering process, so that wouldn't contradict Pellerin.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Cliff

Not only have they completely bled out their membership, but they've lost pretty much everyone in a position to give them insight from the studios, filmmakers, and production houses. What's the word for them again? Oh, Insiders. Although those guys (the Kram's of the world) seem happier to be rid of the insiders because the insiders were usually the one's to point out how wrong they generally were about things. To quote The American President (which'll make a fine BD):

Run everyone smarter than you out of the room and suddenly you're the brightest guy around (but only by default).

But yes, just looking at their activity over there, there are only 23 (non-sticky) threads that have had comments today while over at Blu-ray.com, triple that number have received comments today. So not only is the discussion fairly useless over there now, but there way less of it.

Calling Bobby Henderson's graphics expertise:


Could you make a version called "Screenshot Monthly" or "Popular Screenshot Science"?

[Mr. Cinema]

I've been reading that Fox has provided a new version of BD+ for Avatar. Are the manufacturers going to have firmware updates ready so millions of people can enjoy this movie on Thursday? Is it possible we'll be able play the disc without a new update? I haven't gotten anything from Sony on my BDP-S360 today.

[Jeff Kleist]

I've been reading that Fox has provided a new version of BD+ for Avatar. Are the manufacturers going to have firmware updates ready so millions of people can enjoy this movie on Thursday? Is it possible we'll be able play the disc without a new update? I haven't gotten anything from Sony on my BDP-S360 today.

Pioneeer has already announced them, Panny just did one last week

New versions of BD+ don't necessarily break all previous players either, just FYI

[Mr. Cinema]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Pioneeer has already announced them, Panny just did one last week

New versions of BD+ don't necessarily break all previous players either, just FYI

Avatar will be a good test then. My Sony has handled everything with no problems at all. They've only provided 2 updates on this unit over the span of a year, so that's pretty good.

[Penton-Man]

People PM’ed me for pics of our Pom. Here he is wearing his little cap to go with the fact that the bride and groom were Scots and the wedding had a Scottish theme to it. (Deci do your thing when you get a chance)

[Jeff Kleist]

Note from Maya:

"Yum! Haggis!"

[Penton-Man]

Here’s another during the daytime…

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Note from Maya:

"Yum! Haggis!"

They're friends.
And as far as others...he has faced down more than one wild coyote in his time...and WON!

His bark makes them flee, pronto!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Blaumann

Hi,
they've recently updated their forum policy about posting screenshots, i guess this is what Penton meant. They sent a pm to every member about it. This is the message, it's also posted publicly in a sticky thread:

In short, they say any screenshots posted must meet three requirements to be acceptable:

1. There has to be a "copyright by" overlay as part of the screenshot.
2. Screenshots have to be posted in context with a written message, as to illustrate a point [e.g. "you can clearly see the sepia tone of the movie"]
3. Screenshots may only be posted in their original size and without any further processing [like Photoshop etc.]

It also states, that they will delete any screenshots/posts that don't meet these requirements.

I am not aware, what led them to restrict posting screenshots this way.

I meant to get back to you this a.m. but, I was rushed.

Hopefully the new screenshot policy for the German site will be a wake-up call to all forums that allow the misuse of screenshots by their posting membership and hold the ownership of such websites accountable.

In the case of the LOTR screenshots, WB legal is certainly not stupid. I think that they were just misinformed by some ‘little mind’ in their publicity/marketing Dept. as to the root cause (AVS) of the situation.

If they are truly worried about repeated screenshot abuse with their Blu-ray movies directly causing consumer confusion or dilution of intellectual property rights then all it would take would be a warning letter to the ownership or their legal representatives. I think some action like this should be ‘across the board’ and just not applicable to well-read and well respected forums like Blu-ray.com.

If the ownership refused to comply with the request, it would be pretty easy for a GDMX (WB’s in-house authoring facility) compressionist or even an outside expert to give testimony about how misleading and abusive this screenshot *science* is and directly attack its validity. I mean, in the past, WB legal has pursued a website poster who happened to be a 15 year-old fan of Harry Potter for far less egregious behavior, at least as far as I'm concerned.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Could you make a version called "Screenshot Monthly" or "Popular Screenshot Science"?

I’m off to an SMPTE Hollywood section meeting on new technologies for reference displays (actually, I just go for the free finger food) and I’ve got to leave now because it’s raining and my windshield ‘wipers’ don’t wipe.

Bob Frye or Dave Schnuelle from Dolby Laboratories will be attending.
Do you know them?
I’m compelled to tell them that “Peter THX” has become quite the internet warrior.

[Jeff Kleist]

You know it's interesting

A friend of mine who writes for a high end enthusiast magazine and is a gigantic space nerd told me he wasn't buying Apollo 13. I asked him why and he pointed me to Xylon's screenshots.

I was actually watching the disc and the time, and the uber softness (there is overuse of scratch removal which eats some of the shakey optical titles a bit, and there is some DNR), it looked about 3x worse on his screenshots. So I looked at the screenshots here, which are taken in a diffferent fashion of many of the same scenes, and the edge haloing is much less pronounced and the clarity levels are higher.

He went from a "no way" to ordering it.

So along with copyright notices and such, it would probably help that methodologies be attacked as well (first and foremost- No ripping)

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I’m off to an SMPTE Hollywood section meeting on new technologies for reference displays (actually, I just go for the free finger food) and I’ve got to leave now because it’s raining and my windshield ‘wipers’ don’t wipe.

Bob Frye or Dave Schnuelle from Dolby Laboratories will be attending.
Do you know them?
I’m compelled to tell them that “Peter THX” has become quite the internet warrior.

Cool.

We'd probably met them at CES, but I don't know if they'd remember me.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

So I looked at the screenshots here, which are taken in a diffferent fashion of many of the same scenes, and the edge haloing is much less pronounced and the clarity levels are higher.

As I pointed out in the Apollo 13 thread it's hardware vs. software decoding. Hardware pretty much wins every time.

Even on a mature tech like DVD...to this day I haven't seen a software scaler that makes DVD looks as good as the hardware solutions OPPO and other companies use.

[42041]

A scaler isn't a decoder. A compliant decoder should produce compliant output. I suspect the perceived differences come down to the selection of the shots.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by 42041

A scaler isn't a decoder. A compliant decoder should produce compliant output. I suspect the perceived differences come down to the selection of the shots.

I'm talking about software vs. hardware in general. Xylon scales his DVD screenshots BTW.

[Xorp]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

As I pointed out in the Apollo 13 thread it's hardware vs. software decoding. Hardware pretty much wins every time.

Even on a mature tech like DVD...to this day I haven't seen a software scaler that makes DVD looks as good as the hardware solutions OPPO and other companies use.

I was actually curious about this myself, so I took some screenshots from my Blu-ray drive matched to Blu-ray.com's hardware screenshots of various movies and they look absolutely identical, minus some very slight color differences. I was impressed how perfect Blu-ray.com's capture method was. So your statement about hardware being better is completely wrong. Scaling and deinterlacing is where hardware wins, but for 1080p, both hardware and software decode the image exactly the same, strictly to H264 or VC1's official specifications.