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

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Mr. Cinema

I've noticed alot of members seem to think that the VC-1 codec is a bad thing. I'm sure most of that is associated with it being used mostly by studios who used to support that Red format. However, what they may not realize, is Disney has used VC-1 on at least 3 titles I know of: Flightplan, Deja-Vu, and Gone Baby Gone. To my eyes, all 3 looked great. Are we making too much of a big deal about codecs? I doubt the human eye is going to be able to tell the difference. Who decides on what codec to use and why did Disney use VC-1 when they are primarily a user of AVC?

VC-1 was also used on Disney's Becoming Jane, which looks very good.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Spankey

VC-1 is better than other codecs at lower bit rates and was/is being optimized to run at those lower rates by MS because of the storage space available to HD-DVD and now downloads. Given the space to breathe, VC-1 looks as great as AVC. Check out Disney's Flightplan. Great looking title.

Part of VC-1's problems were that the A-man's group bad mouthed its quality in a BD bandwidth environment, to protect the low bit-rate propaganda.

They had been saying VC-1s sweet spot is 18-20Mbps (or even lower), while those without an agenda say it is the same as AVC @ 24-26Mbps. That is, beyond practical for HD DVD (and crazy for downloads), so of course couldn't be the admitted sweet spot.

Gary

[rlsmith]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Part of VC-1's problems were that the A-man's group bad mouthed its quality in a BD bandwidth environment, to protect the low bit-rate propaganda.

They had been saying VC-1s sweet spot is 18-20Mbps (or even lower), while those without an agenda say it is the same as AVC @ 24-26Mbps. That is, beyond practical for HD DVD (and crazy for downloads), so of course couldn't be the admitted sweet spot.

Gary

This is not completely accurate. A-man certainly bad-mouthed Blu-ray from many perspectives but I did get him to admit that a VC-1 transfer on Blu-ray would be identical to the same transfer on HD DVD, assuming equipment was otherwise equivalent. Bytes are still bytes even in Redmond.

When pressed, he admitted that his case against Blu-ray were that the extra bandwidth and storage capacity was simply unnecessary given the qualities of VC-1 and came at a high cost in terms of creating "laws of physics" problems with efficient replication.

A-man did suggest that there were technical problems preparing the encodes for Blu-ray until Warners told Microsoft that they needed to port their encodes and Microsoft supplied a simple filter that did a minor file conversion.

This is nearly two years ago. You may also recall that Sony did its very best to torpedo their own format with wretched initial offerings, which gave a huge opening to the Microsoft team and anyone else who wanted to criticize Blu-ray.

If you look at the underlying technology, I am being told that VC-1 and AVC are very similar indeed. As it turns out, Microsoft submitted VC-1 to MPEG LA for licensing, and many of the same patents are involved. Apparently, Microsoft was quite taken aback by how many outside patents they had to pay royalties to, and may be pulling back from VC-1 just because it isn't going to be the money maker they had predicted.

I expect that AVC will now get more development from many quarters making it the format of choice.

Any comments, Penton?

[blitz6speed]

Penton, i will address this to you since paidgeek is busy.

Paidgeek previously said that the master of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was similar to that of House Of Flying Daggers, and that they didn't want to release it early on due to the poor quality of the master itself. However, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon aired in japans HD Channel and i have a screencap comparing the Blu-ray of House Of Flying Daggers with the japanese HD Airing of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.




As you can see, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon looks FANTASTIC! I was told the master used for this is quite old, and its looked this good for quite a long time. Is there any reason the Geekster told us it didnt look good (perhaps for marketing reasons?)?

Thanks.

[WickyWoo]

What's your source on the age of the master? That looks to me like a new one

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

What's your source on the age of the master? That looks to me like a new one

An insider. =)

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by rlsmith

Any comments, Penton?

Hah !
As long as the material isn’t bit-starved to death or DNRed to death, I don’t much care which codec is used.

When the codecs are so comparable regarding their potential end resultant image quality, a lot comes down to real world application and implementation………meaning the encoders (the machines).

In that regard, considerations should include which machine available is more automated, more user-friendly, better at handling low amplitude noise, etc.
Since it seems that these companies (Thomson, Sony, Microsoft, Matsushita Electric, etc.) are constantly improving these gizmos, any debate should really be about who has built the latest, greatest encoder box or version stuff.
Good luck with finding an unbiased, un-NDA restricted opinion on that.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

As you can see, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon looks FANTASTIC! I was told the master used for this is quite old, and its looked this good for quite a long time. Is there any reason the Geekster told us it didnt look good (perhaps for marketing reasons?)?

Thanks.

Dude, you just worsened my eye strain from today's work.
Next time just post your opinion, I'll take your word for it.

I don’t know anything about that particular title except if paid told you that the master SPHE was provided didn’t look good, then it didn’t look good to either him or his QC person……."marketing" had nothing to do with it.

[jopemoro]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Just don't tell me or link me anything about the Champions League Barcelona- Man. U. match today.

No worries, I'm a Real Madrid man...

[DrXym]

The more bits, the less it matters what codec is used. I seriously doubt anyone but an expert studying stills could tell one format from the other so it really boils down to pragmatism. Which format is likely to have better industry support, better tools, more choice of tools etc.? I think the answer should be pretty obvious.

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by jopemoro

No worries, I'm a Real Madrid man...

Ewwww......

[Anthony P]

When pressed, he admitted that his case against Blu-ray were that the extra bandwidth and storage capacity was simply unnecessary given the qualities of VC-1 and came at a high cost in terms of creating "laws of physics" problems with efficient replication.

but isn't that what Gary said and you disagreed with. The problem was that he was pushing HD DVD and to do that (like you said) he had to pretend that the "too low" BW used for the HD DVD was the sweet spot. The issue was that VC-1 was used at too low a BW (due to HD DVD) while AVC was not (since it was mostly used for BD). Obviously the same encode of the same movie on the same codec will look the same. The problem with his argument (and where he hurt VC-1) was pretending there would be no benefit if the encoded BW was higher.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

but isn't that what Gary said and you disagreed with. The problem was that he was pushing HD DVD and to do that (like you said) he had to pretend that the "too low" BW used for the HD DVD was the sweet spot. The issue was that VC-1 was used at too low a BW (due to HD DVD) while AVC was not (since it was mostly used for BD). Obviously the same encode of the same movie on the same codec will look the same. The problem with his argument (and where he hurt VC-1) was pretending there would be no benefit if the encoded BW was higher.

It still surprises me how much they convinced/brainwashed some AVS members that lower bitrate and more compression is better.

A-man's current crusade is to convince people that lossy audio is just as good as lossless. He sure likes to brag about his 'hand tuned' DACs from Mark Levison. I sure would like to see a scientific test experiment if anyone could actually pick out a 'hand tuned' DAC over the BurrBrowns in my 805.

A-man is as usual protected over there and as usual full of you know what. He is marketing guy with a little engineering background.

[spicynacho]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

They thought the impact of the advertising studios have around the dvd would be lost.
I guarantee you……. now, that this differential timeline will occur with Be Kind Rewind----several studio chieftains (i.e. Presidential level) will be keeping a close eye on the outcome(s) of this event.

The impact to DVD advertising would be non-existent.

Right now the last line of any dvd commercial is:
"Own it on DVD April 29th and on high definition blu-ray."
Would become:
"Own it on DVD April 29th or early on high definition blu-ray."

It would take avid movie buyers about a month to figure it out. People who infreaquently buy movies except for ones they really like would see the blu-ray in the store, and it would either encourage them to buy a player or be the first step for them to learn about blu-ray.

[WickyWoo]

A-man is as usual protected over there and as usual full of you know what. He is marketing guy with a little engineering background.

I've heard from a lot of people it's the opposite. Amir is an pretty good engineer that turned out to be pretty damn good at slimy marketing

Would become:
"Own it on DVD April 29th or early on high definition blu-ray."

Except that would require them to start what is a weeklong campaign 2 weeks early, and therefore miss the DVD release date. Only the gigantic titles have more than that week

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

I've heard from a lot of people it's the opposite. Amir is an pretty good engineer that turned out to be pretty damn good at slimy marketing

[jopemoro]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Ewwww......

[PaulGo]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

I've heard from a lot of people it's the opposite. Amir is an pretty good engineer that turned out to be pretty damn good at slimy marketing

The biggest problem with him: Amir = Arrogance
Plus he likes distorts the truth and if he feel he can intimidate you with his engineering knowledge he will. If you now enough not to be dazzled by his BS he will then try character assassination as he did with Richard of R&B Films.

[mhafner]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

As you can see, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon looks FANTASTIC!

Apart from one frame = statistically irrelevant sample size this Tiger frame looks so so. It looks sharpened and too harsh for my taste.

[scott1256ca]

A-man's current crusade is to convince people that lossy audio is just as good as lossless. He sure likes to brag about his 'hand tuned' DACs from Mark Levison. I sure would like to see a scientific test experiment if anyone could actually pick out a 'hand tuned' DAC over the BurrBrowns in my 805.

So he can tell the difference between "hand tuned DACs", but he can't tell the difference between a lossless and a lossy soundtrack?

This is why people like me want to see double blind testing for claims like lossy vs. lossless. Otherwise there is just so much opportunity to make nonsense claims and never be called on them. Even Roger Dressler from Dolby stated that going to 1.5 mbps on DD+ from 640k wouldn't provide that dramatic an improvement.

As an engineer, Amir's posts, frankly disgust me. And you are correct, arrogance is not something Amir is short of. He seems to think he can post any BS and sell it to even reasonably intelligent people. Remember the "BD costs up to $200/disk" argument (by the way, not a direct quote)? I guess if you roll in enough R&D and marketing expenses you could come up with that number. Then again, if you added the $150 million payola Paramount/Dreamworks to the the number of HD DVDs which had been sold at that time, that in itself would make the cost of each HD DVD sold to that date be about $75. As I recall there were less than 2m sold at that point.