Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[PaulGo]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

Well, it seems to be an unfortunate catch-22. Presumably because of the recession, BD sales haven't continued to increase at the same rate, and specifically catalog sales are way down. 20% or more down. Part of that is the recession; part of it is the fact that fans have already purchased many of these titles 2 and 3 times. In theory, many are willing to re-buy them again on Blu-ray, if they feel like they're getting their money's worth. But too often, the studios have released movie-only editions or recycled older transfers to save money. And look - trying to save money in a recession when titles aren't selling well is understandable from their position. But the result is that the core Blu-ray fans who are (or at least were) spending their money enthusiastically to re-buy their favorite films in HD... aren't so enthusiastic anymore, because they've purchased one too many of their favorite films on Blu-ray with really disappointing transfers and few extras. That loss of enthusiasm has almost certainly translated to further catalog sales decline. Which means the studios are belt-tightening even further. It's a shame.

The one bright spot in all this, is that the few catalog titles the studios ARE releasing are generally A-List titles, and the studios are going all out on some of them - Fox's yearly Blu-ray box set releases for example, this year's installment being Alien Anthology.

If things get bad enough they could always go back to VHS tapes of DVD so no one could see the difference (or care).

Seriously though in the beginning of Blu-ray releases their were a lot of poor transfers and they were also using a high bit rate mpeg2 encoding. I did a comparison between a DVD and a Blu-ray disc and could not tell much of a difference.

If the quality is not there and customers are disappointed they will just give up. Customers need to see a distinct difference between Blu-ray and material they can stream or watch on HDTV - this is one of the main selling points of Blu-ray - the outstanding picture and sound quality.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

If things get bad enough they could always go back to VHS tapes of DVD so no one could see the difference (or care).

Seriously though in the beginning of Blu-ray releases their were a lot of poor transfers and they were also using a high bit rate mpeg2 encoding. I did a comparison between a DVD and a Blu-ray disc and could not tell much of a difference.

Seriously? Name one disc that has this problem in which you claim you can't tell much of a difference between the dvd and bluray.

There are indeed bad blurays out there, but even the worst bluray of a film that has been released on dvd has always looked significantly better on bluray from what I've seen.

Total Recall and the 40 Year Old Virgin are the worst looking blurays I own, but they are still head and shoulders above their dvd counterparts.

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

If things get bad enough they could always go back to VHS tapes of DVD so no one could see the difference (or care).

Seriously though in the beginning of Blu-ray releases their were a lot of poor transfers and they were also using a high bit rate mpeg2 encoding. I did a comparison between a DVD and a Blu-ray disc and could not tell much of a difference.

If the quality is not there and customers are disappointed they will just give up. Customers need to see a distinct difference between Blu-ray and material they can stream or watch on HDTV - this is one of the main selling points of Blu-ray - the outstanding picture and sound quality.

Blu-ray releases should be perfect representations of their cinema counterparts. No ifs, ands or buts. If not, I suggest we shut down Blu-ray production, as it serves no purpose.

RAH

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

I actually don't mind the grain in Ghostbusters, any more than I minded it in Close Encounters. I know that the DP helped supervise and approve the transfer for Ghostbusters and the director approved it. That's good enough for me. On the other hand, I'm not opposed to grain reduction, provided it's done with a light hand, and with care taken to make sure the proper balance is struck between the desire to reduce grain and the need to preserve the fine detail and film-like visual character of the image.

From what I've heard Lowry Digital is the best company when it comes to doing this.

Speaking of Lowry, any word on whats going on with that new special edition of the first Terminator? I'm really hoping it gets released at the same time as Avatar SE. I am also VERY curious to see what Lowry was able to do with it.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

Blu-ray releases should be perfect representations of their cinema counterparts. No ifs, ands or buts. If not, I suggest we shut down Blu-ray production, as it serves no purpose.

RAH

Luckily, this HAS been the case for over 90% of all films released on bluray.
Would you agree on that Mr. Harris?

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Luckily, this HAS been the case for over 90% of all films released on bluray.
Would you agree on that Mr. Harris?

I would not go to 90. Possibly 70-75.

The problem is that the bad ones make Blu-ray appear to be technological joke.

For those of us who appreciate what home theater can do, that's not a good thing.

For the consumer, purchasing a Blu-ray disc should be mindless... a no-brainer.

And it isn't.

RAH

[PaulGo]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Seriously? Name one disc that has this problem in which you claim you can't tell much of a difference between the dvd and bluray.

There are indeed bad blurays out there, but even the worst bluray of a film that has been released on dvd has always looked significantly better on bluray from what I've seen.

Total Recall and the 40 Year Old Virgin are the worst looking blurays I own, but they are still head and shoulders above their dvd counterparts.

Try "House of the Flying Daggers" done in Mpeg2. I had the DVD and Blu-ray running at the same time and switched between the two. The difference was very small.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

I would not go to 90. Possibly 70-75.

The problem is that the bad ones make Blu-ray appear to be technological joke.

For those of us who appreciate what home theater can do, that's not a good thing.

For the consumer, purchasing a Blu-ray disc should be mindless... a no-brainer.

And it isn't.

RAH

Yeah, the bad ones are unfortunate. You probably missed my comment on the Predator bluray, but I was showing one of my friends the Predator bluray of the infamous Arnold scene (look at my avatar) and I paused that scene and asked him what he thought and even he said it looked the gaussian blur had been applied a little too heavily. He described it as waxy, too!

I have both Predator bluray (I got the new one for $5 and figured the extras made were worth it.)

Nevertheless, Im still excited about many films coming to bluray IF the studios would bother to release them. My purchases are pretty bare for the next few months. There may be 5 blurays I'm looking to get between now and October.

I know times are tough for the studios but I DO know that studios won't be making ANY money on bluray if they don't release titles!

[Jeff Kleist]

Try "House of the Flying Daggers" done in Mpeg2. I had the DVD and Blu-ray running at the same time and switched between the two. The difference was very small.

MPEG-2 was not the problem. A poor master from the production company was. MPEG-2 was pretty much not the problem with any of the early Blu-rays.

[MerrickG]

In other news, its kind of a shame that Ed Norton won't be back to do the next Hulk film. I actually felt the Incredible Hulk reboot was pretty fantastic and was hoping they would do another one.

Sad.

[Jeff Kleist]

Incredible Hulk wasn't a reboot. The original film still happened.

That said, it was a vast improvement, and I found it very enjoyable. I have a feeling that they'd rather let the rights expire and start all over again under Disney

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Incredible Hulk wasn't a reboot. The original film still happened.

That said, it was a vast improvement, and I found it very enjoyable. I have a feeling that they'd rather let the rights expire and start all over again under Disney

No way that the Ang Lee POS was considered the first one and Norton was considered a sequel.

No way.

Will Transformers 3 finally get some light shed on it as Comic Con. So far it seems like there is no anticipation for part 3. Then again considering how bad the 2nd one was I can't say Im too surprised. Then again $400M at the box office says not everyone hated it.

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Seriously? Name one disc that has this problem in which you claim you can't tell much of a difference between the dvd and bluray.

There are indeed bad blurays out there, but even the worst bluray of a film that has been released on dvd has always looked significantly better on bluray from what I've seen.

Total Recall and the 40 Year Old Virgin are the worst looking blurays I own, but they are still head and shoulders above their dvd counterparts.

Merrick,

Depends on the screen size. If you watch on a 32" LCD and sit 9 feet away, SD cable doesn't look half-bad. Take the same material and watch on a 90" screen from 9 feet....well, that's a totally different story.

[fitprod]

Originally Posted by merrick97

No way that the Ang Lee POS was considered the first one and Norton was considered a sequel.

No way.

According to the Marvel execs it was... I'll go with their interpretation. It is a shame they can't come to terms with Norton though.

fitprod

[Atreyu]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Seriously? Name one disc that has this problem in which you claim you can't tell much of a difference between the dvd and bluray.

There are indeed bad blurays out there, but even the worst bluray of a film that has been released on dvd has always looked significantly better on bluray from what I've seen.

Total Recall and the 40 Year Old Virgin are the worst looking blurays I own, but they are still head and shoulders above their dvd counterparts.

I suggest you take a look at the blu of Child's Play. It almost looks like someone copied the VHS version onto a dvd. While watching it I even questioned if I had accidentally put the standard dvd copy(that came with the blu) in the player by mistake.

[garyrc]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

.... On the other hand, I'm not opposed to grain reduction, provided it's done with a light hand, and with care taken to make sure the proper balance is struck between the desire to reduce grain and the need to preserve the fine detail and film-like visual character of the image.

IMO, grain reduction would be O.K. only if it did not reduce detail when viewing from about one screen width away. I'll bet you could half kill an image without people who sit 4 or 5 screen widths away noticing a reduction in detail -- although they might see the loss if they looked carefully.

One screen width away is approx the same size on one's retinas as the image you would see in my favorite 70 mm theater from the 20th row. Most film buffs I knew in the heyday of 70 mm would move up to about the 15th row, and some would move closer yet. It would be great to simulate, or at least suggest, that experience in the home. I realize that would be pushing it, because Blu-ray has lower resolution than most 70 mm presentations, using most popular film emulsions of 45 years ago, but I would think that grain reduction processes would make the simulation even harder. By the way, I very rarely saw objectionable l grain in 70 mm projection in a theater, with the 20/20 vision I had back then, so there may not be any need for grain reduction in these films, including Close Encounters.

[Musashi]

Nice of you to stop in Bill!

Bill and/or Jeff:

There seems some confusion in the news post about the ultimate editions of Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire, apparently some sources claiming there will be no extended editions on this release. Is this the case or no?

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Why? It was expected to come last year and then was delayed to this year. I have a VERY hard time believing they would delay it AGAIN next year, but the way the studios (and game studios) have managed to rip my heart out in the last year I wouldn't be surprised. Delaying things appears to be the new thing. Its not ALWAYS a bad thing though, its just disappointing.

My *guess* is there is no reason to release it this year. There is no major tie-in and next year is the 30th Ann. of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

On the other hand, if the rumors of Star Wars coming out next year are true and given it's the 35th ann. of the original film, I cannot see them releasing the original Indy films in the same year. Maybe it won't be until Indy 4.

So, maybe Indy will be released after Star Wars (unlike the DVD releases).

[DaViD Boulet]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

So with them sticking the 3D version on its own disc pretty much negates the "feature" of 3D being transparent and backwards compatible to the existing 2D user base.

Any AVC 3D signal is *automatically* a 2D disc because the 3D contains a left/right image, and the 2D is just one of those two images. Even if there was a "separate 3D disc" it would STILL have a 2D version on it as well. That's part of the 3D spec. It will always be true.

I doubt that if Disney does a mutli-disc set that they'd put the 3D feature on a separate disc since it would be redundant, unless the needed bandwidth for a real-time special feature that they really wanted on the "feature film". Most likely if that's not the case you'd have one disc with the 3D/2D version and then push bonus features onto a second disc if needed.

Reminds me of the "P&S - Letterbox" setting on DVD. DVD had the capability to present *everything* widescreen and panning & scanning on the fly for the foolscreen audience. As far as I can recall, not one single title took advantage of that feature and dual sided or separate releases ruled the day.

Agreed, but the issues weren't so simple:

That was because the P/S feature required a "point of focus" and could only pan left/right... not zoom. So it only worked with 16x9 discs that were full-frame... if the movie was 2.35 it was still letterboxed even in a 16x9 frame and it would have appeared roughly 1.85:1 letterboxed in dyanmic pan/scan.

Since dynamic P/S only pertained to discs that were basically 1.78-1.85, it didn't get use because 99% of those movies are "open matte" in 4x3 mode, not literally panned and scanned.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

Blu-ray releases should be perfect representations of their cinema counterparts. No ifs, ands or buts. If not, I suggest we shut down Blu-ray production, as it serves no purpose.

RAH

It's purpose is to entertain. I submit that Blu-ray doesn't need to be perfect to accomplish THAT.