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

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Sorry to bud in, but I thought I'd amuse myself and take this opportunity to quickly post from my room aboard a yacht moored off Salt Island, where I spent the day diving the Rhone (as made famous by a certain Jacqueline Bisset and her wet t-shirt).

I even, uh, "penetrated" the old girl (the ship, that is), from keel to stern

Consider this a virtual postcard, Penton, from a fellow diver.

That’s great you made it down there!
Hey, did you take a camera with you? If so, we want pics!
The wreck is still in four major sections I presume, so you bottomed out at around 80-90ft.?

And if you happen to be in the area, look up a guy named Murray Maxwell (see right side of page -http://www.visar.org/crew
because he taught Jackie Bisset and Low Gosset how to dive and should be able to tell you some great stories.

P.S.
Be careful, the salt air and fine dining has a tendency to make many divers feel “in the mood”.
So, be prepared –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSwju...eature=related

[abintra]

Do any of the BD studios that use some sort of HD tagline on the cover art, or the early releases with things such as the swoosh, have plans to eventually phase in proper cover art for those?

[GGX]

Originally Posted by saprano

Penton, one word of advice for sony; stay away from flipper disc.

Do that and i'll continue buying their blurays.

If uni has this planned forall of their releases, no more uni movies for me. i mean do these companies not have faith in BD anymore?

I'll just use that money for more sony titles.

Good day sir.

I can agree with this wholeheartedly.

I've avoided all flipper discs on HD DVD and I'll do it again for Blu-ray if I have to.

[Penton-Man]

Wow, I just checked the # of comments (over 200) to that particular flipper news on our News Page…….. https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3819

The strong negative reaction to the BD59 thing is very interesting.
Thanks for the heads-up, as I had missed the robustness , so to speak, concerning the issue.

I shall pass on the concerns.

[Slec]

Following up on the above:

Early in the adoption process there are many knowledgeable and vocal people who can help shape direction. As blu-ray becomes more popular, the effect of the masses takes over, but are heavily skewed towards certain demographics. I guess what I'm trying to say is, to what extent would you say forums are replacing focus groups? especially given how vocal the public can be when they are not happy, and how quiet they are when something is done well.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Wow, I just checked the # of comments (over 200) to that particular flipper news on our News Page…….. https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3819

The strong negative reaction to the BD59 thing is very interesting.
Thanks for the heads-up, as I had missed the robustness , so to speak, concerning the issue.

I shall pass on the concerns.

B. Hunt has been getting more of the same (negative feedback) regarding the "flipper discs". Flipper Discs e-mail pouring in

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by Slec

Following up on the above:

Early in the adoption process there are many knowledgeable and vocal people who can help shape direction. As blu-ray becomes more popular, the effect of the masses takes over, but are heavily skewed towards certain demographics. I guess what I'm trying to say is, to what extent would you say forums are replacing focus groups? especially given how vocal the public can be when they are not happy, and how quiet they are when something is done well.

Great points! Whenever I start a thread with positive news, at the most, 5-10 members respond . However, the response to Universal's plan has been overwhelming and as unified as you will ever see on an issue. "Flipper discs" will make me NOT want to buy a movie, and I am 100% serious about that. I hated the idea with DVD, and even more so now. I have NO interest in having a disc with a DVD side...period. People that buy BD movies do not want DVDs and people that don't want to upgrade to Blu-ray will surely NOT spend and extra cent for the "Flipper Discs". I really would like to meet the individuals who make the decisions, what research or study do they use? Another thing they forget is that movie collectors (most of the people that buy movies) like to have art / graphics on the discs. Is the whole concept so difficult to understand?

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

People that buy BD movies do not want DVDs and people that don't want to upgrade to Blu-ray will surely NOT spend and extra cent for the "Flipper Discs".

Though it's doubtful I'd ever use it, I do like having a DVD version... I just want it to be a second disc.

For those movies aimed at families/kids, I think it's a great selling point. For other movies ("Angels And Demons", "District 9"), I think it's of lesser importance.

~Alan

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

Though it's doubtful I'd ever use it, I do like having a DVD version... I just want it to be a second disc.

For those movies aimed at families/kids, I think it's a great selling point. For other movies ("Angels And Demons", "District 9"), I think it's of lesser importance.

~Alan

Agree with that, since there's some added value. I have nothing against combo releases featuring a Blu-ray and a DVD disc of the same movie.

[Jeff Kleist]

People that buy BD movies do not want DVDs and people that don't want to upgrade to Blu-ray will surely NOT spend and extra cent for the "Flipper Discs".

The thinking behind that, and the "Two disc set with DVD" is more that people have DVD players in the car/bedroom, and therefore can play it wherever they happen to be. But most people are pretty universal in their dislike of double sided discs regardless of format

Aside from that, the unreliability of DVD-18s, their propensity for arriving defective or rotting in a few months on top of the general unattractiveness of flippers are really the problem. These will have far more problems, far longer than DVD-18 ever did, and on top of this, it will horribly confuse Joe Six-Pack. The hubs are just too small for easily readable labelling (even color coding), and so Universal is going to see piles of returns from people that put the Blu side in their DVD player.

Shipping a single product to stores is very attractive I know, but the hit simply isn't worth it.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Slec

Following up on the above:

Early in the adoption process there are many knowledgeable and vocal people who can help shape direction. As blu-ray becomes more popular, the effect of the masses takes over, but are heavily skewed towards certain demographics. I guess what I'm trying to say is, to what extent would you say forums are replacing focus groups? especially given how vocal the public can be when they are not happy, and how quiet they are when something is done well.

It all depends on exactly what you are testing for. Focus groups still have value and depending upon how they are selected, they can be more reflective of the mainstream population than internet forum populations – which, depending on the topic, can easily be inherently skewed for one reason or another.

Also, with focus groups, the input tends to be more ‘focused’ when people are sitting at a table looking and speaking to you face to face. This is of incredible value because it automatically filters out a lot of *anonymous internet biases*….so to speak. The downside is that they usually cost $$ and the sample size tends to comparatively small.

Internet forums can also be of value…..for instance, we found that the Dolby/DTS and Subtitle placement polls, esp. with pertinent comments as to why folks voted the way they did, to be very helpful in the decision making process. The downside is that there can be some…..shall be say *contamination* which at worst, could significantly skew the results and at best, makes wading through them to be rather time consuming.

In regards to random, out of the blue apparently provocative topics such as the BD59 news/issue and the associated response to it here on this forum (and Bill’s Digital Bits website for that matter, now that you’ve mentioned it), we find this of interest due to the passion for the subject with its seemingly preferential overwhelming mindset.

Honestly though, keep in mind, I don’t police 99.9% of the threads/topics on this forum so, if you guys hadn’t of brought it to my attention by posting it here on this thread……for all intensive purposes, I and others probably would never have even heard about the internet response to the subject. For example, a couple weeks back, if someone here on this thread hadn’t brought to my attention the Bright Star BD ‘mis-announcement’ by posting a query about it, I probably would have been clueless to the misstep altogether <- that by the way, turned out to be a clerical error. Somebody accidentally ticked a box saying SPHE was releasing a BD version but, that was just not the case.

[GGX]

Personally, I'd rather have nothing at all than flipper discs.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by GGX

Personally, I'd rather have nothing at all than flipper discs.

Wow. Really?! You'd just give up on HD movies because there's a DVD on the other side and occasionally you might run into a glitch or playback issue?

Sounds like you're just clinging onto this whole 'cinema' thing by the merest thread.

[GGX]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Wow. Really?! You'd just give up on HD movies because there's a DVD on the other side and occasionally you might run into a glitch or playback issue?

Sounds like you're just clinging onto this whole 'cinema' thing by the merest thread.

Not at all. Its just how far my hatred extends for this concept. I'd probably move onto rental only.

[fitprod]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Wow. Really?! You'd just give up on HD movies because there's a DVD on the other side and occasionally you might run into a glitch or playback issue?

I'm with GGX on this. But with a caveat...

If these combo's work consistantly, I have no major problem with it. But, I will wait a few weeks to see if there are any playback issues being reported.

If there are problems popping up, I will skip all combo releases. I had about 6 combo HD DVD's and had nothing but problems with them. After that, I never bought another one.

Assuming this is the same plant that has pressed Universal's DVD-18's and HD DVD combos, I have no confidence in the reliabilty. Sort of like my lack of confidence in... Sorry, but I've got to say this... DADC-USA, during the days of laserdisc.

Every other manufacturer fixed the laser rot problem problem, except for this plant. I just have to use Sony's own MIB laserdisc as an example. The LD store I worked for intially order 50 copies of MIB on LD for release, this batch was pressed at Pioneer's plant, and had no problems. When we re-ordered 20 disc after release date, half of those discs failed... They were pressed at DADC-USA. (Never had a problem with stuff from DADC-Japan or DADC-Austria though.)

fitprod

[Jeff Kleist]

If these combo's work consistantly, I have no major problem with it. But, I will wait a few weeks to see if there are any playback issues being reported.

Months is more like it, to see if they suffer from rot. DVD-18s had 2 seperate issues, the initial ones that rotted between the error check at pressing and your player, and the ones that slow rotted and died inside a year

Yes the Indiana LD plant was infamous for rotting discs. Aliens Director's cut, tons of Criterions are all dead now because of it.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Months is more like it, to see if they suffer from rot. DVD-18s had 2 seperate issues, the initial ones that rotted between the error check at pressing and your player, and the ones that slow rotted and died inside a year

Yes the Indiana LD plant was infamous for rotting discs. Aliens Director's cut, tons of Criterions are all dead now because of it.

Aliens and Criterion DVDs or LDs?

Since Blu-ray is a single strata media (like CD) and not 2 discs glued together like DVD and LD, will the DVD part be bonded to a Blu-ray, and will it receive the coating? That coating may be the savior as far as rot goes.

That said, I still prefer different discs for each format. Just include them in the box like Disney and other video labels are doing.

[fitprod]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Aliens and Criterion DVDs or LDs?

Since Blu-ray is a single strata media (like CD) and not 2 discs glued together like DVD and LD, will the DVD part be bonded to a Blu-ray, and will it receive the coating? That coating may be the savior as far as rot goes.

That said, I still prefer different discs for each format. Just include them in the box like Disney and other video labels are doing.

Criterion LD's...

With regards of the BD/DVD Combos, I'd assume bonding of the BD to the DVD is a no brainer, since the physical layer structure of BDs and DVDs are different. (BDs layers have a different thickness, DVDs are the same thickness.)

fitprod

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I would say that in general, most of the highest ranking studio executives believe that there's already been too rapid a price erosion in Blu-ray, so the studios/content providers are not making the price point which was originally hoped for in order to make up for lost DVD revenue.

It’s believed that the entertainment industry at large has pretty much given away high definition to consumers. They haven't really charged a premium for it on television. That makes consumers more likely to buy Blu-ray but, less likely to pay a premium for it.

I would imagine the economy and to some extent earlier on the format war played a factor in the steep price drops we've seen -- especially with hardware. With software, aside from new releases, I also believe it gets much harder to sell and re-sell the same movie to someone again so the price needs to be very enticing as we've been seeing lately with so many catalog titles. I think it will be that much harder on the next format/delivery method.

[Jeff Kleist]

My original Criterion 7 Samurai rotted on me But yes, LDs. Hopefully I'll havea shiny Blu-ray to replace it soon (simple wish, not hint)