Archived: Insiders Thread

[daman]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I think persons from BD industries look around the forums from time to time. After all, there have been threads in the past that contain good information. When the threads are reduced to 5 or 6 people bickering back and forth, its just not worth sifting through.

thanks Paid.

I personally learn a lot from how you act on a forum. I participate in many forums and sometime, it's damn hard to refrain myself from a flame war when seeing something as obvious as Amir's snide comments.

After writing a long response, I delete it and decide not to engage in the word war. I keep asking myself "What would Paid do ?"

By response, we just give them ammuniation to fight another day. Take the highroad is the other option.

If i ever meet you in person, I'll buy you a beer, Paid

[daman]

Paid,

any schedule for holiday-themed movies coming out this xmas, new year ?

Home Alone 1-2 ? (by Fox)

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by daman

Paid,

any schedule for holiday-themed movies coming out this xmas, new year ?

Home Alone 1-2 ? (by Fox)

Not from SPE. I'm not sure what the other studios have planned.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I don't see it anywhere.

I realize that many of you are enthusiastic about your favorite titles coming to Blu-ray, but as I have mentioned in the past, I am not comfortable answering schedule questions because, honestly, the schedule changes all the time. There is no problem asking me for details about titles that have been annouced, but I would appreciate it if the members would refrain from asking me about all 4000 titles in our catalog. After all, every title has its fans and will have its day on Blu-ray.

Paid, you raise an interesting question right there. Not that it applies strictly to Blu-ray, but how many titles EXACTLY are there in the Sony Pictures Home Entertainment library. You mentioned 4000, but I'm sure that was just an estimate. Is the total number an easily accessible piece of information for you to retrieve? Just don't go sit down with a catalogue and count one at a time for my sake.

[tobytobe2002]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

A lot of effort has gone into making new HD masters. We may release this some time next year, but given that it is an episodic comedy, I think we should release it with some innovative added value. Maybe a Seinfeld trivia game or something. The fact that it is being released in HD may not be enough to get people to buy it if they already have the DVD. What do you think?

I for one would buy Seinfeld on BD even if there's not a single extra, as long as the PQ is top-notch and offers a significant step up from the dvds (I have the first 5 seasons so far, but would gladly double dip).

[tobytobe2002]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Glad you liked that. Please ask others to post there opinion on this and I'll see what we can do.

I also LOVE the idea of moveable subtitles.

I also would love more Chinese subtitles on BD releases please!

Sony and Sony classics seem to have a large number of Chinese films in its library - any major ones in the works that you can tell us about?

ps - thanks so much for your contributions here!

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Paid, you raise an interesting question right there. Not that it applies strictly to Blu-ray, but how many titles EXACTLY are there in the Sony Pictures Home Entertainment library. You mentioned 4000, but I'm sure that was just an estimate. Is the total number an easily accessible piece of information for you to retrieve? Just don't go sit down with a catalogue and count one at a time for my sake.

It's something over 4K, but probably half that number are considered commercially attractive.

[daman]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

It's something over 4K, but probably half that number are considered commercially attractive.

Paid, given the enormous number of titles in SPE library, how decision is made on what will be released next ?
Would past sale number or consumer demands affect the queue ?

[gand41f]

Originally Posted by tobytobe2002

I also LOVE the idea of moveable subtitles.

+1

By the way, my DVD player (Panasonic DVD-S97) could do it, and I used it all the time for 2.40:1 content on my 16:9 TV to move the subtitles as far down as possible. I take it the technology changed in Blu-ray and it is no longer easy for the player to implement it by itself?

thanks
gandalf

[onyxx]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I don't see it anywhere.

I realize that many of you are enthusiastic about your favorite titles coming to Blu-ray, but as I have mentioned in the past, I am not comfortable answering schedule questions because, honestly, the schedule changes all the time. There is no problem asking me for details about titles that have been annouced, but I would appreciate it if the members would refrain from asking me about all 4000 titles in our catalog. After all, every title has its fans and will have its day on Blu-ray.

A thought would be to change your signature to something that eliminates repetitive answers, this way you could ignore tons of posts and save some valuable time.

Something like this:

__________________
SPE Blu-ray insider
Ask me about...
Do not ask me about...

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

I realize that many of you are enthusiastic about your favorite titles coming to Blu-ray, but as I have mentioned in the past, I am not comfortable answering schedule questions because, honestly, the schedule changes all the time. There is no problem asking me for details about titles that have been annouced, but I would appreciate it if the members would refrain from asking me about all 4000 titles in our catalog. After all, every title has its fans and will have its day on Blu-ray.

I think it's understandable that people are keen to know about their favourite movies. Perhaps Sony Pictures could consider a couple of things:

1. Have a rough published schedule for the upcoming year, just a list of titles for each quarter, subject to change of course, but at least people would know what the current plan is. Disney have done this to some extent with their announcement of titles for next year.

2. I think it would be nice to have a place on the website where people can vote for which movies they would like to see on Blu-ray. It would need some sort of protection against malicious voting, or people voting multiple times - perhaps each Sony Blu-ray disc could come with a unique code inside the packaging that entitles the buyer to one vote on the website. The more movies you buy, the more say you have in what gets released in the future, seems fair to me

[Razter]

I know this have been asked before, but I just need to know, is there any plans for Lèon DC on BD?
Pleeeeease make it happen I would pay anything for it :P

[Member-9711]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Glad you liked that. Please ask others to post there opinion on this and I'll see what we can do.

I think it's great! Thanks for the effort.

[gand41f]

Originally Posted by Razter

I know this have been asked before, but I just need to know, is there any plans for Lèon DC on BD?
Pleeeeease make it happen I would pay anything for it :P

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...nal#post161096

By the way, I think it's Léon, not Lèon.

enjoy
gandalf

[jason_grumpy]

To Any Insider:

In regards to High Def formats. Do studios conduct "trial runs" to gage public desire by broadcasting catalog titles on HD channels such as HDnet, HBOHD, etc?

I've noticed that some movies are broadcast on HD channels, and then are announced for HDM shortly after (Top Gun, Cars, Hunt for Red October, etc). I've also noticed that some titles were pulled from release slates after only broadcasting a couple times on HD (Ghost busters, Ghost, Officer and a Gentleman, etc).

Would it be wise to say that catalog titles being broadcast on HD networks have the potential to be released on HDM depending on ratings they recieve?

Thank you in advance.

[hoser]

Originally Posted by gand41f

+1

By the way, my DVD player (Panasonic DVD-S97) could do it, and I used it all the time for 2.40:1 content on my 16:9 TV to move the subtitles as far down as possible. I take it the technology changed in Blu-ray and it is no longer easy for the player to implement it by itself?

thanks
gandalf

Make that +2.
I have always wanted that feature.

[PaulGo]

Since the triple layer HD-DVD disk is about the equivalent of the BD-50 in size and the triple layer disk is not in production nor is their any assurance that it will work with current HD-DVD players why is the HD camp making such a big deal about the ramp up of the BD-50?

[WickyWoo]

In regards to High Def formats. Do studios conduct "trial runs" to gage public desire by broadcasting catalog titles on HD channels such as HDnet, HBOHD, etc?

I've noticed that some movies are broadcast on HD channels, and then are announced for HDM shortly after (Top Gun, Cars, Hunt for Red October, etc). I've also noticed that some titles were pulled from release slates after only broadcasting a couple times on HD (Ghost busters, Ghost, Officer and a Gentleman, etc).

It's more that they put them on their push list, which includes "reminding" people about the title through cable runs, and you want that money you spent on a new master to go to good use after all. It can pay for itself in a couple of weekends of cable easily

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by MovieTime

Sorry I refuse to go back to the AVS.

Me too, even though I met some great people on the Qualia display thread over on that forum and actually broke bread with several of them in their homes.

But, this was just PM’ed to me and is just too humorous not to share with everyone here………………….

Originally posted by mrseder on AVMS……..
Amir, are you saying it (Warner's upcoming "Return to House on Haunted Hill") doesn't have seamless branching for some other reason?

Originally posted by Amir on AVMS…………
I am saying that I will not break the confidence of our content partners no matter what. They don't share their crown jewels with us in advance of release if we had loose lips like some folks seem to have who spread such rumors with undue confidence.

If this means folks will keep speculating that HD DVD can’t do something, so be it. Our ethical standards mean more to us than winning a point in the short term on a forum….

^ ^ ^
LoL……
Well Amir, I guess ethical standards went out the Redmond door with your fellow colleague at M$ (sspears) on AVMS on 8/5/07. Not to mention, so much for not wanting to “win a point in the short term on a forum”.
Let's not even get into other titles from content providers that you've commented about in the past without any "official announcement" from the respective studio. Anyway..............

Originally posted by sspears on AVMS………..
Return to House on Haunted Hill has been announced to use seamless branching on both formats.

^ ^
From…………….
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=142

Again, yet another example of hypocrisy at its finest.

At this point with all the hubbub about this particular title on AVMS, I wouldn’t be surprised if WB pulls it indefinitely. Let’s hope they don’t.

I’m actually hoping at this juncture that the HD VD version of this title does indeed demonstrate seamless branching (in the true sense of the words) then, I figure my WB studio friend owes me a fine dinner for misspeaking about both versions of this title at the barbecue.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by daman

To all Insiders,

Not sure if it's approriate to ask so you can ignore but how the people at other studio and involved in this HDM business think about what Amir and HD-DVD insiders post on AVM$.

Their being smarter than us average consumers can smell the FUD from miles away. Do they read Amir's post and smirk or have to restrain themselves ?

Or they just laugh at Amir & Co and go about their business ?

Well daman, give me a moment to hunt up what Eric Maehara (Disney Home Entertainment's Worldwide Head of Communications) said about a recent request from Amir (or who he thought was Amir) and you can fill in the blanks for yourself as to what people think in Hollywood.