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

[Slec]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

That's why we make the big bucks and you don't.

ahhh delegation

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

That thread is definately SCARY!
~Alan

I would describe it as 'emotionally energized' with at least one contributor (like dobyblue) ignoring the crystal clear post I made regarding a "Referendum" and future such surveys offered for consumer input from SPE.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

Still, at least one of your questions for the poll:

Appears to have been somewhat answered by the ratio regardless of any emotional attachment to one codec versus another.

~Alan

Nice to see at least one person read my entire post that initiated the survey.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Everyone with a handle other than SquidPuppet or Penton-Man:

Have we pummeled you into submission yet?

I think everyone by now is crying “Mercy” so, please be kind to others.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Yeah, but at what speed can it scan at 18K?

We can outsource the large format stuff with high K’s (well, not that high , yet) to places like DKP 70mm Inc. or FotoKem.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Esox50

A great movie indeed. I'm really looking forward to it on Blu. Who ya gonna call?

Was very impressed with DaVinci, getting Air Force One

The audio sounds excellent from what I remember ^ .
I can’t recall the PQ of the HD master but, I can guarantee you that no excessive digital processing was done at the encoding stage and all masters are QC'ed.

[kiskiboy97]

Originally Posted by Esox50

A great movie indeed. I'm really looking forward to it on Blu. Who ya gonna call?

Was very impressed with DaVinci, getting Air Force One next week, and Ghostbusters a few weeks after that. Good stretch for SPHE. Not so good stretch for SPHE A&D movie cash...still waiting. LOL.

Don't forget Glory comes out next Tuesday along with Air Force One. Amazing film with an equally brilliant score from James Horner.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

MacPros

Snap

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

The audio sounds excellent from what I remember ^ .

Air Force One used to be a show off disc for audio back in the heyday of DVD. I expect it to be an awesome sonic experience on Blu-Ray (for the period in which the film was created) w/ slightly "soft" video. I always remember the video being on the softer side and suspect it's another case of it being shot that way. We'll have to see what you know who says, cause he's the authority...

[Brain Sturgeon]

Great points Peter. A couple of comments:

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Because TrueHD has far greater compatibility, even some first gen BD players are able to decode it.

Agreed, although a good number of the first gen players were PS3's, and going forward, this looks like it will be less and less of an issue with current and forthcoming standalones.

Less DSP horsepower, cheaper to implement.

How much less/cheaper? Is this a factor with the current SoC's being used?

No "pop" issues. There are thousands of people still out there with faulty DTS-designed DSPs that could blow out their speakers.

Was this an issue with any other receiver except for the well documented Onkyo's?

Features: DRC is very important to those (like me) who screen films with older parents and young children (and those in apartments). Watching a movie like Bolt in DTS becomes an excersise in remote-volume control, where Iron Man in TrueHD was not. Not to mention those with limited range speaker setups (there are MILLIONS of people with cheap HTIBs out there, sad...but that's a fact).

I see where DRC might be useful in those situations. That having been said, I personally dislike the idea of the soundtrack being hamstrung-- If I'm going to screen/listen to a movie, then I want to screen/listen to it. The few times i've turned DRC on, I hated what it did to the soundtrack. But, I have the luxury of a room/isolation to listen to a full range soundtrack at any given time without disturbing others. Regardless, it is a user selectable option, so it's certainly nice to have options. Does DTS-HD MA have an option for DRC/night mode?

No flagging issues, is it ES? Or HD or MA? Why is my PS3 6.1 where if I bitstream it it's 5.1?

Don't know enough about it, and never had an issue myself with flagging.

Less space. TrueHD can go to "0" if need be. DTS-MA cannot exist without it's core. Speaking of cores 640kDD >< 1536kbps DTS.

This is certainly true that DTS-HD MA will always have a minimum CBR legacy "Core" running at 768 kbps-1.5 Mbps. But TrueHD soundtracks also require inclusion of a legacy DD 5.1 640 Kbps soundtrack for backwards compatibility for players/receivers/prepros without THD decoding capability. It's just not decoded when THD is being decoded, unlike HD MA's core+ext architecture. So space wise, I would guess that they would end up being pretty close, with THD being a touch smaller. Either way, both codecs are claiming around to 2:1 to 4:1 space savings versus LPCM.

I'm not even going to touch the landmine that is the 640 Kbps DD vs 1.5 Mbps DTS argument.

You think Sony will be able to offer multiple DTS-MA tracks on their discs as they have with TrueHD? Even Universal reverts to standard DTS for tracks other than the original language.

Assuming the space taken up by the lossless soundtracks are the same between THD and DTS-HDMA, I don't see why not? Any thoughts P-man?

Finally, if Sony were to "reissue" something that was TrueHD before in DTS-MA it's really going to sound different?

Probably not. I would guess that if they were reissuing a Title, that they wouldn't want to spend the extra coin to remaster and they would just release it with the prior THD soundtrack. Unless some kind of a remaster was part of the "reissue".

In going over their white papers, DTS prominently mentions a secondary audio option for DTS-HD. Does TrueHD have this function as well?

Dialnorm seems like a wash between the two codecs since they both appear to have it-- it's just that TrueHD has it defaulted to on and HD MA has it defaulted to off (actually, I didn't even see it mentioned in their white paper). Again, I am not a fan of having a codec digitally normalize the volume of a soundtrack when I would prefer to do it myself with my analog volume dial; but either way, there does not seem to be any clear "harm" being done to the original LPCM by doing so.

Any other talking points for the two codecs? Thanks for those points, Peter.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Brain Sturgeon

Agreed, although a good number of the first gen players were PS3's, and going forward, this looks like it will be less and less of an issue with current and forthcoming standalones.

True, but there's still a quite a few sold over the last three years now that can't, and in this economy I don't think a lot of people are going to rush to replace a fairly expensive investment. It took me 4 years to upgrade my first DVD player (from 1997) and it still played DVDs just fine.

How much less/cheaper? Is this a factor with the current SoC's being used?

Current SoCs are much cheaper of course, but I'd be surprised if all the sub $200 players this holiday season offered things like internal decoding or Profile 2.0.

Was this an issue with any other receiver except for the well documented Onkyo's?

Yamaha used the same DSP, so their receivers for that year are equally at risk.

I see where DRC might be useful in those situations. That having been said, I personally dislike the idea of the soundtrack being hamstrung-- If I'm going to screen/listen to a movie, then I want to screen/listen to it. The few times i've turned DRC on, I hated what it did to the soundtrack. But, I have the luxury of a room/isolation to listen to a full range soundtrack at any given time without disturbing others. Regardless, it is a user selectable option, so it's certainly nice to have options. Does DTS-HD MA have an option for DRC/night mode?

I've heard DTS supports it, but I haven't seen it implemented anywhere. Ironically enough, Dolby introduced Dolby Volume so DRC is available on ANY source.
Keep in mind the DRC is completely defeatable in TrueHD and you still get a full-range soundtrack.

Don't know enough about it, and never had an issue myself with flagging.

Fox has yet to replace Die Hard 2...if you put it into a bitstreaming player you get silence, the player is looking for a DTS-HD HR track rather than a DTS-HD MA track. Players with internal decoding get around this.
Another flagging issue is DTS' version of EX...DTS-ES for 6.1 matrix soundtracks. Again, if you bitstream it the decoders only see a 5.1 signal, where the PS3 will correctly de-matrix the surround back channel and present it as 6.1. Titles affected include Bolt, Wall*E, A Bug's Life, and Terminator 2 (Skynet Edition) who's packaging highlights having a 6.1 soundtrack.
With Dolby TrueHD, the tracks bitstream properly and display as "Dolby TrueHD 5.1 EX".

In going over their white papers, DTS prominently mentions a secondary audio option for DTS-HD. Does TrueHD have this function as well?

I believe they mean DTS-Express with PiP. TrueHD/DD discs with PiP use Dolby Digital Plus.

Dialnorm seems like a wash between the two codecs since they both appear to have it-- it's just that TrueHD has it defaulted to on and HD MA has it defaulted to off (actually, I didn't even see it mentioned in their white paper). Again, I am not a fan of having a codec digitally normalize the volume of a soundtrack when I would prefer to do it myself with my analog volume dial; but either way, there does not seem to be any clear "harm" being done to the original LPCM by doing so.

Any other talking points for the two codecs? Thanks for those points, Peter.

Just keep in mind it's a reference volume level, the soundtrack is not affected in any way. If the DN is -4dB then if you raise the volume that much you get the entire original soundtrack with equalization, dynamic range, and frequency response fully intact and untouched. The studios want the option, and that's why DTS added it to their spec.

[SquidPuppet]

Fridays first practice session in Mugello saw sunshine and a new record.

The session also saw Dani Pedrosa beat the all-time top speed record in MotoGP getting up to 349.3 km/h at one stage en route to setting his best time of 1’50.808, putting him fourth on the timesheet, taking the record from previous holder Makoto Tamada who hit 343.7km/h in China in 2006.

217 mph = delicious.

[Doctorossi]

I can see where he hit it in my mind's eye, too. I love Mugello.

Not bad for a guy with a lingering injury.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I can see where he hit it in my mind's eye, too. I love Mugello.

Not bad for a guy with a lingering injury.

I can't believe that he does not blow off the bike. He is a darn feather....112 lbs. I met Melandri in Monterey and was blown away by how small he was...and Pedrosa is tinier yet. Jockeys. Rossi is a giant compared to them, at almost 6 feet and 150+ lbs. Kinda funny how our heros/idols are bigger than life...until we meet them.

[Cinema Squid]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

I believe they mean DTS-Express with PiP. TrueHD/DD discs with PiP use Dolby Digital Plus.

It seems that is also possible to pair TrueHD primary audio with DTS Express secondary audio since Sony has done this on a number of BonusView titles - ex. Groundhog Day, Hancock, Underworld 3, Untraceable, etc. I'm not sure what the motivation for selecting DTS Express over DD+ would be, but there might be a good reason.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Cinema Squid

It seems that is also possible to pair TrueHD primary audio with DTS Express secondary audio since Sony has done this on a number of BonusView titles - ex. Groundhog Day, Hancock, Underworld 3, Untraceable, etc. I'm not sure what the motivation for selecting DTS Express over DD+ would be, but there might be a good reason.

I've seen that too, maybe a default selection in the JAVA profile 2 authoring package?

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I can't believe that he does not blow off the bike. He is a darn feather....112 lbs.

Yeah, Pedrosa's another level of light. I sometimes wonder where he finds the muscle to twist the throttle.

[SquidPuppet]

Lorenzo on pole which bumped Rossi to the second row.

I predict a brawl.

[cjamescook]

BTW, in the discussions of various sound formats, no one has mentioned seamless branching of sound.

We've previously seen technical descriptions of what must happen to branch the video. What about branching the sound? Is one sound format more amenable to branching than another?

Cheers!
-Jim

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by cjamescook

BTW, in the discussions of various sound formats, no one has mentioned seamless branching of sound.

We've previously seen technical descriptions of what must happen to branch the video. What about branching the sound? Is one sound format more amenable to branching than another?

Well, on Close Encounters both formats branched just fine. As long as the packets keep coming there's no reason there would be a glitch, although there is less processing for a TrueHD signal.