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

[Vincent Pereira]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Vincent P. -
Wait for the second video from NBC Nightly News to load.
It's about "Stamps" the Ferret...a story with a happy ending.

That's just awesome. I'm glad Stamps has found a happy and loving home

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#36735715

Vincent

[Cliff]

So, a week ago, someone posted in the LOTR comparison thread over at AVS:

I wish someone involved with this release would actually pop in to one of these forums for once and clarify this stuff instead of making people speculate

OK...
A) maybe if they hadn't run off every insider that used to participate there, he'd get his wish (although I don't think that's really what they want).

and

B) NOBODY has even mentioned the great write up Michael Pellerin did over at The Digital Bits. So, again, AVS members prove that they're less interested in information directly from the source because its in direct conflict with the conspiracies and fantasies that they need to give them purpose.

Edit: Interestingly, ten minutes after I wrote this someone finally posted the link to the Pellerin write-up. If I was a suspicious kind of guy...

Now the countdown to poking holes in everything Pellerin said in that article.

[sharkshark]

First review:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/42336...on-collection/

M lurked for quite some time in the murky waters of cheapie public domain dupes, so Criterion's earlier DVD releases were a refreshing upgrade. While this MPEG-4 AVC 1080p transfer is certainly the best the film has looked, the video quality is somewhat inconsistent. The pillar-boxed 1.19:1 image has plenty of rough spots, with visible lines, some dirt, and heavy grain; the meeting of the criminals around the 33-minute mark is particularly beat-up. But the second half looks much sharper and cleaner than the first--the grays and silvers of the rich black and white cinematography looks just marvelous in the extended pursuit sequence and beyond. In those scenes, the image is nearly flawless (save for some very minor speckling), with close-ups vividly rendered and grain nicely textured. Overall, the film doesn't take to HD quite as cleanly as some of Criterion's previous Blu-ray releases of older films, but it's a satisfying transfer nonetheless.

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by Cliff

So, a week ago, someone posted in the LOTR comparison thread over at AVS:



OK...
A) maybe if they hadn't run off every insider that used to participate there, he'd get his wish (although I don't think that's really what they want).

and

B) NOBODY has even mentioned the great write up Michael Pellerin did over at The Digital Bits. So, again, AVS members prove that they're less interested in information directly from the source because its in direct conflict with the conspiracies and fantasies that they need to give them purpose.

Edit: Interestingly, ten minutes after I wrote this someone finally posted the link to the Pellerin write-up. If I was a suspicious kind of guy...

Now the countdown to poking holes in everything Pellerin said in that article.

He's a member here as well, perhaps he needs help finding this section of blu-ray.com

[42041]

Originally Posted by Cliff

So, a week ago, someone posted in the LOTR comparison thread over at AVS:
OK...
A) maybe if they hadn't run off every insider that used to participate there, he'd get his wish (although I don't think that's really what they want).

and

B) NOBODY has even mentioned the great write up Michael Pellerin did over at The Digital Bits. So, again, AVS members prove that they're less interested in information directly from the source because its in direct conflict with the conspiracies and fantasies that they need to give them purpose.

Edit: Interestingly, ten minutes after I wrote this someone finally posted the link to the Pellerin write-up. If I was a suspicious kind of guy...

Now the countdown to poking holes in everything Pellerin said in that article.

Hi Cliff, I made the post you linked to, and a similar article WAS linked to where Michael Pellerin says much the same thing. That is, new masters using "improved technology" were created for the blu-ray release, apparently different from those I've seen on HDTV over the years, and apparently supervised by Andrew Lesnie, the cinematographer. Now, "improved technology" is pretty vague. I think it's worth addressing the more technical aspects of what they did. I watched the disc a few days ago and frankly it does not represent the cutting edge of mastering technology to me (which would be something like Minority Report).

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by 42041

Hi Cliff, I made the post you linked to, and a similar article WAS linked to where Michael Pellerin says much the same thing. That is, new masters using "improved technology" were created for the blu-ray release, apparently different from those I've seen on HDTV over the years, and apparently supervised by Andrew Lesnie, the cinematographer. Now, "improved technology" is pretty vague. I think it's worth addressing the more technical aspects of what they did. I watched the disc a few days ago and frankly it does not represent the cutting edge of mastering technology to me (which would be something like Minority Report).

Your right, I missed the earlier reference to the other article. My mistake.

However, that gave me a chance to see some of the post revelation comments, such as this:

I still can't shake off the feeling that Jackson, Lesnie, and the producers saw a different master/blu-ray than what ended up on the retail disc
They'd need to bring in the cinematographer for THIS?

Oh wait, that was you.
The man probably most directly involved with what was going on with this release (certainly more so than Peter Jackson) confirmed these are all new transfers supervised by the DP. What possible sense does it make for Warner to spend all that time and money (not to mention involving Jackson and Lesnie) to create a new master and then just utilize a different/older master that's been lying around or monkey around with a brand new master they just spent a bunch of money to create? It doesn't make any sense at all, yet that seems to be the most plausible answer for some people to wrap their brains around.

Now answer me this question... The facility that did the work on Fellowship (GDMX here in Los Angeles) also did the work for Two Towers and Return of the King. Now assuming the horrifying "detail scrubbing DNR'd to death" abuse that some people are so nauseated by (you'd think these disc put people's lives in danger), but assuming this was not done in the transfer/master but rather applied in the authoring/compression stage... why does this only affect Fellowship? Given that the same facility (and most likely the same compressionist) did all three titles, why did they only bestow eyeball liquifying, brain aneurysm inducing, nervous system collapsing digital noise reduction to just the first film?

Is it possible that discrepancies are created by the differences in DIs? If a new IP was created to source the new master, is it possible it could differ slightly from the IP they used for the original master? Did the telecine for the new transfer utilize the exact same settings and tweakings that the original used? It's always amazing to me that there seems to be only one possible answer in some people's minds no matter how many details informed people try to offer along the way.

And, in closing, I will say that almost all of this is akin to picking gnat shit out of pepper. The fact that you have to freeze 1/24th of a second and then potentially zoom in 200% to be able to illustrate some difference (which could actually be caused by things like differing contrasts, motion artifacting, 3:2 pulldown artifacts, differing encodings, telecines done on different equipment, capture procedure and screenshot handling... There are about 1000 different things that could cause image A to look 1/2 to 1% softer than image B. Do you complain at the theater if a movie doesn't contain the exact same focal quality as the last time you saw it? I'm guessing not and the only time people get riled up about this stuff is when someone else tells them they should get riled up. Xylon is like the Jim Jones of AVS, enlightening all of his little disciples on the ignorance of the studios and how they don't understand digital mastering. He never takes the filmmaker's involvement into considering. He never accounts for simple things like different settings and personal preference, but his opinion is apparently the beginning of wisdom. For me, the DP approved the transfer... I'm going to side with him. It really is that simple for me. But ultimately facts don't matter if you're just not interested in changing your opinion. Some of the people at AVS don't want an explanation, they want a confession.

And a guy like Kram Sacul doesn't even bother with the pepper... he just keeps sifting through the gnat shit.

PS- you can't compare Lord of the Rings to Minority Report. Report was given a 4K master. LOTR, to the best of my knowledge was 2K. So, no, Lord of the Rings isn't cutting edge, but that doesn't mean it's defective.

[phansson]

I was the one that posted the link in the AVS forum. I do not post over there very often, because I like this forum better. I just felt that the article was a good read and all of those "screenshot scientists" needed to read it.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by phansson

I was the one that posted the link in the AVS forum. I do not post over there very often, because I like this forum better. I just felt that the article was a good read and all of those "screenshot scientists" needed to read it.

Yeah, it was a very well done article, kudos to Bill. I love when we get the full story, details and all.

There's still a few niggly bits, as he really didn't necessarily address the controversy, which will leave many still wondering why the first film looks funky compared to the other two (others have addressed it, and I'm not wading in there to see how people have reacted).

We've got a much better idea of the "chain of command" regarding the elements, and the prospect of a HD special edition with the benefit of time (often a challenge for most special features) is a tantalizing one to say the least.

So, in short, I think it's an excellent article, but given that it doesn't explicitly discuss why one film would look "so much poorer than the others" (not my evaluation, as I'd expect, for reasons given here (DI percentage, age of film, rush of production, etc.) that Fellowship would be a bit softer), I'm not sure it'll do much to quell the frustration, director/DOP approved or no.

Plus, did anybody uncover what PJ was talking about in that interview when he said he had nothing to do with this release?

[Jeff Kleist]

He was talking about special features

[HeavyHitter]

Hi Cliff,

Good info and points on the LOTR stuff.

Would you have any information on the new Apollo 13 BD? It does seem to look much differently than the HD DVD version; different color timing, more contrast, etc. I wasn't sure if this was a new master.

Thanks.

[chris0]

Originally Posted by Cliff

Xylon is like the Jim Jones of AVS, enlightening all of his little disciples on the ignorance of the studios and how they don't understand digital mastering. He never takes the filmmaker's involvement into considering.

In the Avatar thread that patrick99 linked to in Jeff's thread Xylon says, "The live action looks too processed for my taste but it looks like that when I watched this on different versions of 3D and IMAX presentations in the theaters." That makes me think that, if he hadn't seen it in theaters, he'd be complaining about all the DNR in this release, too.

[Jeff Kleist]

Well, Eric.exe, having been pw0ned by someone that actually, you know, worked on it, has of course reached the obvious conclusion.

And people wonder why the word "transfer'" is on my pet peeve list

Since we obviously didn't get new transfers, new masters means exactly what we think it means. ie take existing masters, tweak and cleanup, and that becomes your new master. If they did new transfers, they probably would have used words like retransfer or film elements or new scan or whatever. And since it's impossible to retransfer TTT and ROTK since they come from DIs, and DI tweaking is common place, and since the "new masters" term was applied to all three, we can only conclude it means tweaking existing digital masters.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Cliff

The Digital Bits

I read it.

For those who don't know -
Mike Mulvihill = good people
I think he’s a Senior V.P. over at Fox now.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Cliff

Edit: Interestingly, ten minutes after I wrote this someone finally posted the link to the Pellerin write-up. If I was a suspicious kind of guy...

Phansson = good people

[Jeff Kleist]

Mike Mulvihill = good people
I think he’s a Senior V.P. over at Fox now.

Yes, he took over there

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

First review:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/42336...on-collection/

Scroll down to the very bottom of the page.

Geez, how many reviewers out there actually are ‘cat people’?

P.S.
Attention 3D haters, tell us what ‘type’ of film opened Tribeca and I’m not referring to just the ‘animation’ genre, per se. You guys can't avoid it...it's everywhere.

[4K display]

I ran across this pic while reading this thread and found it so fitting I just couldn't resist. Sorry if inappropriate butt it just sums up so much about screenshots:

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Cliff

And, in closing, I will say that almost all of this is akin to picking gnat shit out of pepper.

You've got me eyeing the black dit-sels in my food now when I ask the server for ground pepper in a restaurant.

[mrpink134]

I for one like coming to bluray.com compared to the AVS forum, I don't like those guys at all. I also wanted to give thanks to Penton-man and Jeff for all the work they put into this forums. Makes these forums that much more enjoyable

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Cliff

PS- you can't compare Lord of the Rings to Minority Report. Report was given a 4K master. LOTR, to the best of my knowledge was 2K. So, no, Lord of the Rings isn't cutting edge, but that doesn't mean it's defective.

You guys have no idea how lucky you are with Minority Report.

Despite it being a Steven S. movie, the word on the street (and it’s no secret) is that the previous owner of the post production facility that did the work on this Blu-ray movie, ran the company into the ground before its recent sale (which probably had something similar to the gestational period of an elephant) to the private equity investment firm which is now the current owner.