Ask questions to Sony Pictures Entertainment insider "paidgeek"

[hanser]

Originally Posted by bluseminole

I put a poll up on Hanser's suggestions (gave credit to you, Hanser--great ideas, BTW).

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=35807

Thanks a lot!

[WickyWoo]

The full price would be charged upon shipment, the initial fee is a 'reserve'. In any case, I believe the issue would be to book the full revenue before shipment.

Yeah, you can't do that. I've worked with many small video labels that tried it on DVD becuase they don't have the upfront money to finance compression, authoring etc. Try doing a search on Google for "Pacific Family Entertainment" and "The Final Countdown". You can get in HUGE legal hot water. The lawyers would nix it for sure.

[bluseminole]

Originally Posted by hanser

Thanks a lot!

No prob

[Prasad]

Does paidgeek has any CS contact number for Sony's Blu-Ray High-Def Offer . Appreciate a response.thanks

[frank_t]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Yeah, you can't do that. I've worked with many small video labels that tried it on DVD becuase they don't have the upfront money to finance compression, authoring etc. Try doing a search on Google for "Pacific Family Entertainment" and "The Final Countdown". You can get in HUGE legal hot water. The lawyers would nix it for sure.

a fine movie. i would not hold my breath for a blu release, but hope to see it someday

[WickyWoo]

Does paidgeek has any CS contact number for Sony's Blu-Ray High-Def Offer . Appreciate a response.thanks

It's disney, not sony

800-598-9671

[TheLion]

Dear paidgeek,

(what follows is just another of your preferred "When is ... being released on Blu-Ray?" pleas ) but this time it is all different...sort of.

I am rather proud that Austria took a Oscar home this year - I am talking about "The Counterfeiter" aka Die Fälscher

As far as I can see it Sony Pictures Classics holds the US rights. Natural question: Is this movie being considered for a day-and-date Blue-Ray release?

Thank you very much (and sorry for just another annoying release question)

[Tok]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

Thanks for your comments.

We did the DTS and Dolby encodes for CE3K from the same 24bit source.

Great! It's nice to know that we have a title to actually compare if one lossless codec is better than the other. Now for Sony to get the dtsHD-MA decoding in the PS3

Thanks. I am going to try to get around to finally watching CE3K this weekend.

[coolmilo]

Paidgeek,

I am sorry to keep this Across the Universe stuff taking up space in your thread but…I sampled about half of the Blu-ray tonight on a setup with a 40” XBR2 and a 46” XBR4. The 40” setup has a BDP-S1 with a bitrate meter. Overall, I thought Across the Universe looked/sounded terrific. I have to agree with the reviewers in this case (4.5 stars PQ). I did not have the issues that Patrick had with the movie (suspect PQ).

Originally Posted by patrick99

Paidgeek, is there any chance that SPE might be persuaded to reconsider the seeming conclusion that bitrates in the 20's are sufficient to produce acceptable PQ?

The average bitrate displayed on my BPD-S1 was 32MBPS. I did notice that it dropped to 25 MBPS from time to time but it also spiked to 45 MBPS.

Strange indeed.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by coolmilo

Paidgeek,

I am sorry to keep this Across the Universe stuff taking up space in your thread but…I sampled about half of the Blu-ray tonight on a setup with a 40” XBR2 and a 46” XBR4. The 40” setup has a BDP-S1 with a bitrate meter. Overall, I thought Across the Universe looked/sounded terrific. I have to agree with the reviewers in this case (4.5 stars PQ). I did not have the issues that Patrick had with the movie (suspect PQ).

I'll throw in my $.02. On an ISO calibrated 55" Sony SXRD and PS3 it looked fantastic. I saw no compression artifacts and no noise or DNR or EE artifacts to speak of either. Even the Dolby Digital track through my (soon to be replaced) ES receiver sounded terrific. I can't wait to hear the lossless track. The surround imaging on the DD track was excellent.

I don't believe in looking at the bitrate meter unless I see a problem that I think could be compression related. As I didn't see anything that, I won't comment on the bitrate. Whatever it was, it certainly seemed to be enough to me. I do think that all of the video processing that clearly went into the master could make some people feel that the video was lacking... but since that was both intentional and in the master I don't know how a higher bitrate would have done anything.

Anyway, that's just what my eyes saw.

[patrick99]

Paidgeek, perhaps Jane Austen Book Club presents a better occasion for asking about SPE's current bitrate practices than Across the Universe, since I seem to be a voice in the wilderness on that one.

I very seldom agree with Peter Bracke's PQ evaluations, but I do in this case:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1261...nbookclub.html

"Detail and depth to the image are simply mediocre, at least for a new release. The image never boasts the kind of visible fine texture of the best high-def."

To avoid any possiblity of misunderstanding, I don't agree with Bracke's comments about colors; I asssume that this is simply a choice as to how the director and DP wanted the movie to look. Also, this encode does look much better than those cases where studios have used the same low bitrate encode on both formats. Nevertheless, I do agree with Bracke that detail and sharpness often seemed lacking.

Is the problem here the source material? It seemed to me while watching that a higher bitrate might have helped.

Does SPE have a rule or practice or policy against using bitrates above about 30?

Thanks again for your valued participation here.

[Scorxpion]

Originally Posted by patrick99

Paidgeek, perhaps Jane Austen Book Club presents a better occasion for asking about SPE's current bitrate practices than Across the Universe, since I seem to be a voice in the wilderness on that one.

I very seldom agree with Peter Bracke's PQ evaluations, but I do in this case:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1261...nbookclub.html

"Detail and depth to the image are simply mediocre, at least for a new release. The image never boasts the kind of visible fine texture of the best high-def."

Is the problem here the source material? It seemed to me while watching that a higher bitrate might have helped.

Does SPE have a rule or practice or policy against using bitrates above about 30?

Thanks again for your valued participation here.

Patrick,

I still cant agree with Peter because CHAD has another opinion and i trust him.

link:
http://www.hometheaterspot.com/fusio...hp?tid/140408/
Video:

"If I only reviewed new release BDs from Sony, I could probably go ahead and set the video score at a reference 5 paws in the template. It seems that every new film that comes to the format lacks little to be desired outside of subjective appeal. Sony’s new masters especially, seem to always look great and their encodings are probably the most consistent we’ve seen in high def over the past year at least. Essentially, Sony, along with Disney, has reflected the level of consistency in high def that Warner and Fox have often been acclaimed for with DVD, which is curious as both Warner and Fox have been rather inconsistent in the emerging world of HD. Though, Fox has gotten a lot better since their return.

Commentary aside, this film looked absolutely gorgeous. At 24p, resolution never became lacking – not in the darkness, not in the deep saturated hues that follow some interiors, and especially not in the bright light of day where image detail and particularly depth adorn a profound sense of realism. It was like looking out a 92” window.

Either from post manipulation or lighting, fleshtones gave an orangey hue in select shots, but for the most part color balance and contrast have a naturalistic, maybe slightly accentuated appeal that really shows off the photography. The visuals are very pleasing, suffice it to say, with blacks that never leave contrast wanting or obscure too much delineation in the shadows, despite a curious limit on noise in the darkness as well.

The encoding did falter in the sky diving scene, where transitions in the blue sky broke up into blocking, badly. But, I couldn’t see lowering the score on a 5 point scale for what amounted to only a few brief seconds. It was rather unsightly, but hardly consistent to but momentarily detract from another brilliant Sony BD."

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by patrick99

Is the problem here the source material? It seemed to me while watching that a higher bitrate might have helped.

Did you ever consider that it was shot that way? Sounds like the CU scene that looked sharp to you was one shot out of hundreds that created the overall look of ATU.

paidgeek, would you let us know the details of Hairspray for Japan if and when you've completed working on the title? I've already gotten the New Line version but I think if real PiP can be done on the Japanese version, I'd get that one as well.


fuad

[gre8t1]

paid,
have you heard or seen anything regarding badboys. what can be the hold up on this film if any.. or is sony not ready to give us the BD yet.

[Dotpattern]

Paid,

I don't know if this is something that you can answer. I brought this up on another thread and was wondering what the possibility of something like this being done on certain future releases?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=18

Thanks in advance!

[NoQuestion]

paidgeek,

EDIT: is this server capable of performing 1.1 PiP and 2.0 features in the future? If not then I will hope that Sony will put out a bigger storage media server that can handle PiP and 2.0. If that happens I am all over it

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Darth Fredius]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

30 Days of Night is not region coded.

Thank you so mutch.
But are you sure that 30 Days of Night is not region coded ?
Here's a picture of the back cover. And it says : REGION A...
Last question is it a canadian dubbed french track or a parisian dubbed french track ?
Thanks !

[horseflesh]

Paid, sorry if I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but did you get a chance to ask about the European release of Almost Famous??

My finger is on the order trigger.....

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

Well, what can we do? I rented it, loved it, and then bought CE3K. Thats about as much as i can do to support the title! You know, i was shopping at best buy, and they had this movie at 44.95. Sorry, but thats ridiculous.

More people can rent it, love it, and then buy it.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

Well, what can we do? I rented it, loved it, and then bought CE3K. Thats about as much as i can do to support the title! You know, i was shopping at best buy, and they had this movie at 44.95. Sorry, but thats ridiculous.

I paid around $125 for the Criterion LaserDisc Special Edition of CE3K. I think $44.95 is a bargain for a remastered high-def version with seamless branching (as opposed to the track programming, etc that the LD had). The only thing I find ridiculous is that Best Buy charges full MSRP for the title... when you can go down the street to Walmart and get it for $10 less and get a free soundtrack CD in the bundle.

Pricing on BDs is the same as DVDs in its early days, and FAR LESS than LDs were. Meanwhile the production costs of creating a solid HD transfer with special features etc, are far higher.