Interesting take on Blu-ray and HD-DVD - production standpoint (NIN fans look here 2)

[Michael Osadciw]

Hi guys...interesting info on BD and HD-DVD differences from a production standpoint...with more info to come...

I'm a member on the Nine Inch Nails fan club and I found some interesting info posted there in the forum regarding the band's upcoming Beside You In Time concert release on all three formats: DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-ray disc. Having attended the concert several times as well as the 2000 tour (and owning the FANTASTIC ...and all that could have been DVD) I'm very excited about this release. Trent Reznor of NIN has always maintained consistent quality releases.

Regarding the "three formats" here's what Rob Sheridan (behind the scenes tech guy of NIN) has to say regarding the three releases:

To follow up on some of the DVD details from Trent's posts above:

- All three formats of the DVD will have the same video content. There will of course be differences in quality/resolution of the video/audio. There will also be some slight differences between the three which relate to technical limitations of each format. This is all very peripheral stuff, and we'll be laying out the exact, detailed technical differences between the three versions as they become clearer. If you're considering purchasing a high def player for this release, you should wait until we're able to see finished, manufactured versions of both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, at which point we'll lay out the pros and cons of each, at least in terms of our release. The discs are still in the authoring phase, but as of right this moment it looks like the Blu-Ray version will have a slight edge over the HD-DVD in terms of quality and technical aspects. I also want to put together a detailed FAQ for those of you who might be considering upgrading to HD and are confused about all this (it is VERY confusing stuff), so hold tight on any major purchases for now.

- But to make it clear: the track listing and bonus content are exactly the same between the three formats.

- As for the technical hurdles Trent mentioned: There have, as always, been many. We chose to put this out in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, both of which are very new and largely untested technologies. On the production end, people are still figuring out what they can even do with these formats, and there has been a great deal of testing and tweaking involved. The current challenge is unfortunately something that we faced with AATCHB as well, and that's the issue of encoding the video. Without getting too technical, video content on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray still needs to be compressed in much the same way video is compressed on standard DVD. The type of compression used is much better suited to movies, which have a lot of scenes of people talking, slow pans, still shots, and other imagery with relatively little movement. Our material is extremely unique in that it is very frenetic, with lots of motion and lots of aggressive strobe lights. Put simply, it is a huge challenge for video encoders, and it's the reason AATCHB had to be split onto two discs: At the time, we couldn't get high enough quality video to fit on one disc. Thankfully DVD codecs have improved since then and BYIT will fit on one disc, but we're still having a great deal of trouble perfecting the high-definition encode. Apparently the authoring facility has already put 200 man hours into encoding our feature, and it still has a long way to go before the quality is up to snuff. There is quite an art form to a good encode that I didn't really have an appreciation for prior to this experience. Adding to the challenge is that the codec they're currently using for HD is still under development. In the end we'll have a great-looking high def product, but it will take every byte of data available on the disc, and it may cost the sanity of a few video technicians.

- One other note: the main feature will be presented in full 1080p resolution. It was shot on extremely high quality professional video cameras - it's NOT upconverted and it's NOT HDV - so it looks pretty f*****g stunning at full resolution.

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming FAQ section to know just what is different between these two releases. They are right though...to most these are untested technologies with a lot of changes happening...

You can view the trailers here at:

http://www.nin.com/current/index.html

go to 9.23.06 NINE INCH NAILS: BESIDE YOU IN TIME to view the trailer in 1080p, 720p, or 480p. You may need to click on it twice. It'll open up in a second window.

[kenliles]

not a fan of NIN; but I can see from the trailer the incredible challenge for the encoders; this should be interesting indeed....

ken

[eightninesuited]

WHAT!!!! WHAT!!!! NIN on Blu-ray? When was this announced?!!!!

I'm a NIN nut!!! And Trent is a sound freak, so this will not only have lossless audio but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a True HD 7.1 or DTS 7.1.

[nyg]

Definite purchase for me. I saw Trent on his Downward Spiral tour twice. Have loved his music all along.

[Michael Osadciw]

eightninesuited

I doubt we will see compressed lossless audio formats as the main audio feature on Blu-ray. It may very well have a compressed lossless audio option, but my bets are on the table that the Blu-ray will include an uncompressed PCM 5.1 soundtrack at 24/96.

[briankmonkey]

I will buy this without hesitation.. Freaking awesome. Trent is amazing

[palofex]

Originally Posted by Michael Osadciw

eightninesuited

I doubt we will see compressed lossless audio formats as the main audio feature on Blu-ray. It may very well have a compressed lossless audio option, but my bets are on the table that the Blu-ray will include an uncompressed PCM 5.1 soundtrack at 24/96.

I would agree that the Blu-ray version will probably be PCM 5.1 at 24/96. It should be awesome but after watching the trailer I can see how hard it must be for them to encode it.

[dicey]

This is great news! Strobe lighting has always been the true torture test of any codec and I'm very happy to hear that Trent and his crew are doing their best to address this issue and not just putting out a product with a distractingly noisy picture.
I saw NIN at Coachella last year and had the unique opportunity to watch some of the show through the HD monitoring station that was setup to record it. There were monitors for each camera and I specifically looked for any breakup from the live feeds when there were strobe effects onstage. There was zero breakup and the image remained incrediblely clear. It looked exactily like it did live. I'm sure this is what Trent is trying to preserve on the home versions. And up until very recently, this would not have been possible. Thank you HD-DVD and BR!

[Jarod M]

Rob Sheridan elaborated and said that they were using Dolby TruHD 24/48 (though subject to change). Also, VC-1 is being used. This information is now over a month old. I'm not aware of any later updates. BUT, Microsoft's benwaggoner posted the following very recently, which made me think of the NIN release. After all, how many releases with strobe lighting could they be working on?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...01#post8831301

[IndifferentBozo]

Thanks for the update, great information. I have no doubt this disc will be unbelievably good. Any estimated release date?

This is a title that I will buy a player to watch, if I'm still playerless when it comes out.

[Dan Hitchman]

They did say the video quality was going in the favor of Blu-Ray so far. It could be because of the higher bitrate peaks allowed.

Dan

[Kris Deering]

With content as difficult as this will be to encode it would be a mistake not to take advantage of BD's higher available bit rate. If they do indeed do that it will be interesting to compare the two and see how much visible difference there really is.

I am glad that they are going to offer a 24/48 lossless audio track too. Trent has always been picky about the presentation of his material. Should sound amazing. I made a recommendation to Rob Sheridan who is handling this to look into putting an LPCM track on the BD disc since the majority of BD players do not decode TrueHD, guess we'll see what happens!

[eightninesuited]

Are they using BL25 or BD50?

[amirm]

Originally Posted by joshd2012

If its VC-1, that's pretty disappointing. They have already put in 200 man hours and have a long way to to. They must be having to do some very strategic encoding to get a workable image. The TrueHD 24/48 sounds great, as long as its the type that Blu-ray handles. If this is yet another release that leaves off the TrueHD because they don't use the correct form, I am going to find Trent and piss on his head.

As usual, I am not going to comment on unreleased titles. But will say that I don't know where the 200 hour came from. They are using a new post house that is getting into HD/BD encoding so they have a learning curve here....

As to BD being better off, in one respect it is not. And that is a unique issue to this title. That is all I am going to say.

[dobyblue]

Trent used 24/48 tracks for both Hi-Rez releases of Downward Spiral and With Teeth on the DVD-A portion of the DualDisc releases, so I'm not sure why he'd suddenly jump to 24/96, but one can hope.

He's also a bigger fan of DTS, putting more effort into the audio options of the DTS version of AATCHB vs. the Dolby version. For example on the DTS version all the extras and easter eggs are available in DTS 5.1, on the Dolby version they're only available in 2.0

Here's hoping that the Blu-ray will have either PCM or DTS-MA.

I've seen NIN 7 times since August 1994 in Toronto and I'm really looking forward to this disc - I met Rob too after the Rochester show this year; really mellow, cool guy. Asked for a setlist from the lighting guy, but he was not friendly at all.

I'm not sure what Amir thinks will be a negative factor for the Blu-ray release, but if Rob thinks the BR will have a slight edge then no doubt it's nothing no be concerned about for Blu-ray fans. Isn't quality the most important thing?

[amirm]

Originally Posted by joshd2012

I hope you aren't referring to an IME. Of course, knowing you, this advantage could be "it plays in an HD DVD player".

Nope. It is a new topic not discussed here to date. Note that it is not a huge deal. But something new....

[Jarod M]

Originally Posted by amirm

As usual, I am not going to comment on unreleased titles. But will say that I don't know where the 200 hour came from. They are using a new post house that is getting into HD/BD encoding so they have a learning curve here....

As to BD being better off, in one respect it is not. And that is a unique issue to this title. That is all I am going to say.

Hmmm. I was fishing for information on this release in the Insider thread a few weeks back. No one bit who admitted having knowledge about it, though as an unreleased title I was merely hoping for vague hints. I doubt that Amir would even be commenting if the BD had something significant that the HD-DVD did not. As for the unique issue, I wonder if it involves the menu design or Easter Egg access, which would be "not a huge deal" for most.

[SomethingMore]

Dammit, Amir. You're messing with Nine Inch Nails fans here. You may need a bodyguard if you plan to withhold information from us.

[amirm]

Originally Posted by SomethingMore

Dammit, Amir. You're messing with Nine Inch Nails fans here. You may need a bodyguard if you plan to withhold information from us.

Shoot, I didn't think of that . It’s time for another story.

About 7 years ago, I was sitting in my office, helping the team optimize our audio codec (WMA), when one of our business development people came in and introduced me to a set of people in the music business. He asked me to demo WMA to them. I took them to my audio lab which at the time, was the size of a closet. So all 7 or 8 of us crammed in there and I started to show off WMA which fortunately, put a smile on their faces. They were most impressed by the audio quality and the fact that I was playing them on Genelec speakers which they liked ("we know that sound."). They leave and I ask the bizdev guy who they were. He said the Grateful Dead!

So don't mind me if I don't quite know my audience in certain cases .

[amirm]

Originally Posted by Richard Paul

So now you are making vague negative statements against individual Blu-ray titles?

Anything to wake up the BD crusaders out of their caves .

At the very least Amir if you are going to bash your competition you might as well come out and tell us why.

Man, everywhere I turn you are asking me questions about BD . Why not ask Talk? Maybe he knows something about this title.

Really Richard. In case you had not noticed, we were having fun here. But you threw water all over it with this kind of post. Let’s not get upset over everything. The NIN BD title will play just fine on your PS3. Oh, maybe not. Wait…. Just kidding.

[Johnsteph10]

How is that something negative about BD?

Calm down.

[Michael Osadciw]

guys guys, this is all for fun...just fun talk!! no harsh stuff...don't bash amir...this post wasn't a HA HA and point fingers or to bash one format over the other. just have a conversation and don't act like Grade 4 students on the playground...

[REFLEX]

This is some of the greatest news for me regarding live music on Hd-dvd and blu-ray. Im going to be ordering this stuff the second it becomes available. I simply cannot wait.

I was at 3 concerts on this tour.... it was AMAZING and the whole time after the show for the rest of the night (besides being blown away) I was hoping they would record this in HD and release it real soon.

For those of you who didnt go or dont know about it, it was THE best and craziest and SLICKEST stage set up of ALL time. It was 1st class all the way, the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will be so amazing im sure ill watch it a few times over the weekend. God I cannot wait!

[SomethingMore]

I'll definitely be pre-ordering the HD DVD when it appears on amazon.

So, Amir... buddy... pal...
tell us more about this title. Just a little. For the fans...

[REFLEX]

Theres not much to know...

they did 3 different types of sets on this tour.. the first leg which wasnt that big of a show set up on stage or anything, the second stage of the tour (which was when these were filmed) which was the huge stadium shows with the HUGE visuals set up on stage and the giant screen (I saw it 3 times live, it was ORGASMIC), and the third leg of the tour which was in all outdoor venues which was similar to the 2nd leg production wise but not as big.

they recorded a total of 3 shows, their set lists were pretty long for that part of the tour.. anywhere from 22 to 25 songs at a show.

They are releasing versions on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray and trent reznor has said that the blu-ray version will probably edge out the HD-DVd version for quality by a little tiny bit only because there is more space to work with and coding this kind of thing is really hard because of all the lights and stuff.

[lymzy]

Originally Posted by amirm

As to BD being better off, in one respect it is not. And that is a unique issue to this title. That is all I am going to say.

Ok, this might be the unique issue.

Quote from sspears
"It is an interesting title and brings with it a bit of progressive irony.

The concert was shot at 1080p30. It will be encoded as true 1080p30 on HD DVD. It will be encoded as 1080i60 on BD. The reason is because BD does not support 1080p30 as an option.

It will be interesting to see what Fox does with Okalahoma on BD. Will they only release the 24p version or will they also release the 30p version encoded as 1080i60? "

[lymzy]

Originally Posted by joshd2012

Interesting, but shouldn't really be an issue. The reason people complain about 1080i60 is because you have to do 3:2 pulldown to get it back to the correct 24fps. If the correct frame rate is 30fps, you simply have to deinterlace. Interesting, none-the-less.

I don't get this. People has a issue with 3:2 IVTC 1080i60 into 1080p24 but doesn't have a issue with 2:2 IVTC 1080i60 into 1080p30?
Also, if the 30p master is forced to 60i before encoding, then any possible loss/filtering couldn't be recovered by the player/decoder.

[Ian_S]

Originally Posted by lymzy

Ok, this might be the unique issue.

Quote from sspears
"It is an interesting title and brings with it a bit of progressive irony.

The concert was shot at 1080p30. It will be encoded as true 1080p30 on HD DVD. It will be encoded as 1080i60 on BD. The reason is because BD does not support 1080p30 as an option.

Well surely that's a moot point as it will get output as 1080i60 by ANY available player anyway.

The fact that it is 1080p30 instead of 1080p24 means potentially a 25% uplift in bitrate required to equal an equivalent 24p encode and I suspect it will be a full screen 16:9 presentation rather than a slightly more compression friendly film AR. Probably the last thing you need when the video contains such challenging material to start with.

It will certainly be an interesting release.

[Michael Osadciw]

can someone direct me with a link to the quote of 1080/30p and 1080/60i issue? Thanks.

[Jarod M]

A date has been set for the release-
02-27-07

So far the only other details squeezed out of Rob is that the two music videos and the live rehearsals are standard def, because that is their original format, and the summer tour stuff was shot on a consumer grade HD camera, so it has a much rougher appearance with artifacts than the winter tour.

My thoughts are that this is a great package. I am disappointed that "Every Day Is Exactly the Same" is left out, because it had one of the better visuals of the tour. "Even Deeper," "Suck," and "Sin" were also apparently left off, even though those four songs were performed on the two nights that sourced the footage. AATCHB had several major Easter eggs, so who knows what else might be included.

The alternate angle use is very appropriate, as this is the part of the concert when they drop the translucent screen and show video footage from a projector.

No new information (as of this second) about possible differences between the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray releases, though I wonder how the alternate angle feature will be handled.