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

[neo_reloaded]

The problem is one of appearances. Either you're 100% for lossless and regard everything else as crap, or you're seen as "part of the problem." I don't agree with that mentality - we live in a world of greys, not of black and white - but I understand where it comes from.

First let me say that I agree that all releases should have lossless audio. Given the technology we have, and my understanding of the effort / cost that goes into producing any given disc, I don't see any reason why lossless audio is too difficult a thing to produce for any given title. And you'd think it'd be in studios' best interests as well, as it gives them an out from any sound-related complaint that could be thrown at them - i.e., "It's not our fault, we put the complete master audio tracks on the disc, take up any complaints with the original sound engineers for the film."

But I strongly disagree with the ranting and raving about how all lossy tracks are abominations. Did you people simply not view movies (both at home and in the cinema) until Blu-ray was released? The way people get up in arms, one would certainly assume so. As has been said before, Dolby Digital at its lower bitrates is still of higher quality than the audio presented at the cinema. People have this entitlement complex where simply knowing that something better exists makes everything else completely inadequate. Earth to people - the picture on every single Blu-ray you own is a lossy encoding of the picture information present in the original film. And I don't just mean that in regards to the nature of film not having a strict resolution - even after the film has been transferred to a digital medium, the Blu-ray video is a lossy encoding of that.

I understand that someone will take this and point at me as part of the problem. I understand that we can't tell studios it's acceptable to put lossy tracks if we ever want them to put lossless on every release. I just ask that we keep the context of the situation in mind, and avoid hyperbole and witch hunts.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

Let's take a step out for a minute. While I am a HUGE supporter of lossless audio and have spoken my word about it time and again (including most of my Warner reviews) I think this lossy thing can be taken a bit far. People claiming that the lossy soundtracks just sound flat, crappy and any other adjective are almost amusing considering the fact that even the lossy Dolby soundtracks on Blu-ray are at a higher bitrate than any other pre-packaged media before it including D-Theater and Dolby Digital in cinemas.

You forgot 1.4 Mb/s lossless stereo Laserdiscs which existed many years earlier than that and have given movielovers lossless sound for 15+ years. That's 705 kb/s sound per channel compared to 640 DD's 128 kb/s per channel

Dolby Digital 5.1 is just mp3 Stereo quality in surround. Mp3s are for iPods, not great movie soundstages with emotional crescendos in our home theater.

We've had 44 kHz/16-bit LPCM lossless stereo for a generation, we should have that and more in multichannel movies now.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

As has been said before, Dolby Digital at its lower bitrates is still of higher quality than the audio presented at the cinema. People have this entitlement complex where simply knowing that something better exists makes everything else completely inadequate.

There are generally TWO types of Blu-ray releases. Catalog titles, and new releases. People are double, triple-dipping, sometimes more on catalog titles. Wanting to get "something better" in both audio and video is perfectly understandable regardless of whether or not "lossy" is an upgrade. As for new releases, once you've been spoiled by "lossless", I'm sure it's disappointing to have to do without. After a certain point in DVD's lifetime, I made it a point not to buy non-anamorphic titles (the recent "Birds Of Prey: The Complete Series" release being an exception) long before I had a widescreen TV simply because I felt like I was getting more for my money, and because I knew it would only be a matter of time before I had one.

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

Earth to people - the picture on every single Blu-ray you own is a lossy encoding of the picture information present in the original film. And I don't just mean that in regards to the nature of film not having a strict resolution - even after the film has been transferred to a digital medium, the Blu-ray video is a lossy encoding of that.

How many films have been released on Blu-ray with "uncompressed" video? How many films have been released on Blu-ray with "uncompressed" audio?

Look, as much as I think WB has been sucking in the Blu-ray department, and feel they need to step up to BD standards, WickyWoo has said that "lossless" is a done deal for WB, they've started doing BD encodes ("The Bucket List", "Fool's Gold", "Dirty Harry", etc.), so I don't see the point in CONSTANTLY going over it when most of us KNOWS WB is doing sucky on BD, and hopefully they will get up to speed sooner than later.

I especially don't see the need to do so on Penton's thread... especially when I suspect he may be in Austria with his wife.

~Alan

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Dolby Digital 5.1 is just mp3 Stereo quality in surround. Mp3s are for iPods, not great movie soundstages with emotional crescendos in our home theater.

AC-3 and MP3 aren't even in the same league when it comes to sound quality, AC-3 is *much* more efficient, the same way AAC & MP4 is over MP3.

Due to DD's bit pooling, you can't say that AC-3 allots 128kbps per channel. Not all channels are active, nor do they require maximum bitrate at all times (the .1 LFE is rarely used compared to the main L-C-R channels and of limited bandwidth).

I also think there can be a placebo effect here. I still remember DVD reviews from Widescreen Review saying the DVD sounded the same as the LD when they thought it was 2 channel PCM but really DD 2.0 @192kbps due to packaging errors.


I agree with Kris, lossless is great and preferred but lossy DD (or DTS even) is hardly crap in comparison.

[dialog_gvf]

I think there are bigger problems to tackle than people worrying about what people think about lossy v. lossless.

There's (generally) no problem with space or bandwidth supplying lossless on BD. So, it simply shouldn't matter so much to so many people what others think about lossless v. lossy.

Lossless is fine too, right? Let's let the people who can perceive the differences have their simple pleasure, and those who are placebotic have their's, and let's get back to the issue that REALLY matters: The DNR of the video.

Gary

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

AC-3 and MP3 aren't even in the same league when it comes to sound quality, AC-3 is *much* more efficient, the same way AAC & MP4 is over MP3.

Due to DD's bit pooling, you can't say that AC-3 allots 128kbps per channel. Not all channels are active, nor do they require maximum bitrate at all times (the .1 LFE is rarely used compared to the main L-C-R channels and of limited bandwidth).

I also think there can be a placebo effect here. I still remember DVD reviews from Widescreen Review saying the DVD sounded the same as the LD when they thought it was 2 channel PCM but really DD 2.0 @192kbps due to packaging errors.


I agree with Kris, lossless is great and preferred but lossy DD (or DTS even) is hardly crap in comparison.

Well I kept my Laserdiscs for the soundtracks which sound to me better than DD lossy ones. Even LPCM stereo Laserdisc through Dolby Surround decoders seemes to be often more musical and enveloping than DD5.1.

AC-3 was created and implemented in the early 90's, no?

And 640/5.0 = 128, so, no, I didn't count that extra 0.01 of channel on the calculation, just the main channels.
Even 640 divided into 3 main channels is 213 kb/s per channel not 700, a 3.3x ratio.

For 2 channel reproduction on DD, 192 to 224 kb/s for information is used compared to 1400 kb/s for Laserdiscs.

Now if you tell me that 3 (L-C-R) is more channels that 2 so it's more data than 2, so you're getting 50% more dimension, and more bits are being allocated, well that's still 640 kbs for 3 vs 1400 for 2

And as Gary said above, there's the storage space and bandwidth for high resolution lossless audio, so lets leave lossy behind.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

...
And as Gary said above, there's the storage space and bandwidth for high resolution lossless audio, so lets leave lossy behind.

And since this is a fact I think that's all there is to it. There is no excuse not to provide a lossless track, placebo effect or not.

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

What Kris said. Most people don't have gear to reproduce it anyway.

Most people don't have gear to reproduce 1080p. Yet, Blu-ray offers 1080p video anyway.


And, if I may say so, most people don't have gear to notice the picture filtering on Patton anyway.

We are going beyond the 720p 37" & sound over TV speakers crowd, right?

Disney has been 100% lossless since September 2006.
Fox has been 100% lossless since November 2006.
Lionsgate has been 100% lossless since June 2007.
Sony has been 100% lossless since June 2006.

Paramount and Universal are also doing 100% lossless.

Warner is the only studio not to use lossless across the board. Yet we are making excuses for them.

This reminds me of when Criterion were so late supporting anamorphic enhancement for DVD, yet so many people at enthusiasts forums were making excuses for them because their editions were so good otherwise (and probably out of Laserdisc gratitude).

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

What Kris said. Most people don't have gear to reproduce it anyway.

Is there a difference?

Yes.

Is it a Yugo to a Veyron?

Don't think so.

RAH

Robert the same could be said about DNR. Most domestic dwellings do not have the gear to tell the difference.

[lgans316]

Well said Grubert. I initially thought they were offering good stuffs on the AV front but after comparing the AV efforts put by other Studios I fully realized that we were being shortchanged. IMO Warner have made Blu-ray fall prey to their lab experiments that comprised half-assed low bit rate VC-1 encodes and lossy audio.

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Well said Grubert. I initially thought they were offering good stuffs on the AV front but after comparing the AV efforts put by other Studios I fully realized that we were being shortchanged.

Oy.

Anyway, my point never was that we shouldn't have lossless on every title - I said as much right in my post. I just tried to put things in context and ask for a stop of the "ugh lossy so horrible, abomination, personal insult, etc." nonsense that seems to invade so many threads. Of course then people pick and choose quotes to make it look like I'm saying lossy is "good enough" and we should be satisfied, which is never what I said.

WB knows we want lossless, and all the insiders here know we want lossless, and the forum in general is WELL AWARE of what members feel strongly about lossless. If you feel the need to gripe, write letters to WB expressing your disappointment over title X or whatever. Bugging Penton for the 13th time in two weeks does nothing but start this ridiculous conversation all over again.

[Arecsa]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

WB knows we want lossless, and all the insiders here know we want lossless, and the forum in general is WELL AWARE of what members feel strongly about lossless.

I'd hope so by now, it's only been at least a year of us asking for it. They are still the only studio who can't consistently get things right though. If it's not the audio it's the overly DNR'd transfer or their single layer obsession. LA Confidential, 138 minutes long with TrueHD on a 25gb Blu-ray, along with all of the extras they are trying to cram in there? No thanks.

And now with Warner assuming control over New Line's releases we lose out on their 7.1 DTS HD MA tracks, just fantastic. Blow with a 5.1 Dolby Digital track? I really hope that isn't correct.

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

Bugging Penton for the 13th time in two weeks does nothing but start this ridiculous conversation all over again.

Good idea.

There's an existing thread on Warner Brothers and missed opportunities. That's an appropriate place to voice one's concerns.

Let's leave this thread for Q&A with Penton-Man (when he reappears).

[milou6]

Peter, yeah, thanks for the correction, I meant 448.

As to DTS core on DTS-MA: I know bitrate comparison between different lossy formats is not a fair equation, but 1536kbps vs. 640kbps (DD core from TrueHD) seems like such a disparity that I had assumed there was more fidelity in the DTS core. My bias doubtless comes not from my ears but from residual memories of DD vs. DTS on DVD. I will take your word for it and with that in mind I am much happier as I wait for my new receiver and listen to core tracks in the meantime.

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

There's no 340 bitrate for DD.

DTS lossless is nice, it's the original master. Keep in mind if Warner had used TrueHD on The Aviator it would have sounded the same, unless the Dutch version used a different printmaster.

I prefer TrueHD because nearly all BD players support it, 640kbps core DD is just as good as DTS 1536kbps, and it has dynamic range options for those of us stuck in apartments or who like to watch their movies well into the night (nor worry about pops or speaker damaging cracks).

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

The last time I was over the rainbow I managed to sneak a pic of Penton hard a work when he wasn't looking. Sorry about the quality of the pic.

Just wondering if there was ever such a comparably proportionate uproar over the entire internet regarding the high definition home media edition of Spartacus, as there was with GoNY or Patton ?
(of course back then, many of the “officially” neutral forums, tilted red in words and actions).

B.T.W.
Does anyone know off the top of their head, where on the latest AFI top 100 list have the above three titles slotted in ?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Just wondering if there was ever such a comparably proportionate uproar over the entire internet regarding the high definition home media edition of Spartacus, as there was with GoNY or Patton ?
(of course back then, many of the “officially” neutral forums, tilted red in words and actions).

B.T.W.
Does anyone know off the top of their head, where on the latest AFI top 100 list have the above three titles slotted in ?

Speaking of Patton…………….

I received an interesting PM from someone that says a guy is posting on some other forum claiming he works for the post house that did the work on Patton, and the person that PM’ed me is inquiring if he is the real deal or not.

Sorry, I don’t have time to read other forums. Just ask the dude three simple questions that he should be able to easily answer without overtly revealing himself or the name of his company.

1. What is the official contact address for the company? Just get the name of the street as it has hundreds if not thousands of companies located along its path and that info shouldn’t place anyone or anything in jeopardy.

2. Where did their CTO work prior to coming to his company ?
Actually, if I recall correctly, the CTO in question also has a couple of feathers in his cap….those being two Scientific and Technical Academy Awards.

3. How many terabytes of disk storage space does the company currently have in it’s SAN’s ?

^
Let me know what he says if he chooses to answer.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Grubert

Going back to topic, it's like the movie Ultraviolet and digital video filtering. It was intentional for that movie, but if you see that movie, you know what extreme DNR would look like.

Besides other types of intentional post processing (including oversaturated colors), Ultraviolet is a good example of what I was talking about here………….
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=3161

i.e.,……….. “PowerTiers allows one to create user-defined areas (quadrilateral and circle window shapes for geographical area isolation)………………
in this particular case-- the person’s face, and selectively defocus it”

Look at some of the close-ups of Milla’s face and compare the detail compared to her adjacent hair.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by JasonR

Penton,

Where in the heck has Paidgeek been?

Jason

He works one salt mine over from me.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

..... Penton's thread... especially when I suspect he may be in Austria with his wife.

~Alan

Actually, I've always considered it to be the People's Thread with me as a host.

Still here but, leaving soon to watch the final stage of the Tour de France in Paris and then onto to the country of my grandparents.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

Bugging Penton for the 13th time in two weeks does nothing but start this ridiculous conversation all over again.

Actually, its been a refreshing change from the previous conspiracy theory that was floated a while back.