Industry Insiders Q&A MASTER THREAD [separate thread for Xbox/Add On & PS3] - Page 58  

Thanks, Amir.

They are not in prodution at this moment. I don't know if they will be coming later this year.

This is correct. Blu-ray encoding allows the encoding of frames from progressive sources as frames not fields. The same is true of 24p handling in DVD, HD-DVD and so on.

I think the term CLV is a antiquated as it was used to define how LD, and CED read analog video data from a disc. In consider this term a misnomer since we are not reading data from the disc in real time, but rather picking up packets of data at faster than real time.

The data compression from a 30p source can be encoded as 30p but will have 60i syntax, just as with 24p and HD-DVD. If the data is from a 60i source it will be encoded 60i with 60i syntax. If the player outputs the data as 60i, the monitor will, in almost all cases, recognize that it is from a progressive frame and reconstruct it as such. The same cases hold true for 25/50.

Please let me know of any 25/30fps progressive material coming from a TV studio. I am not aware of any.

Could an insider please reconcile the apparent lack of corelation between Ben's answer and Paidgeek's? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9618046

It seems that paidgeek is saying that Bluray handles (or doesnt) 1080p25 the same way that HD DVD handles 1080p24. But yet previous answers have indicated that this is not the case? And paidgeek's advice to Torsten a few posts back was to encode his 1080p25 as 1080i50? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9608405

Anyone?

I am told that one or two are close, but I have not confirmed recently. I'll see if I can get more information on this.

It certainly is colorful, but it is also very soft. There is nothing we can gain by remastering this title. Please enjoy it as it is.

This is what I know. While it is clear to anyone encoding HD DVDs, that 24p material can be flagged and as such, encoded in progressive mode, such is not the case with at least some BD content creators. To wit, I believe NIN was encoded in true interlace mode (60i) as opposed to progressive for BD. While I do believe what Paid is saying is true, it might be that how you do this in their authoring tool is less than clear.

Net, net, we are both in the same boat depending on what frame rate we are talking about, and assuming a bit more education on the part of Sony. So I hope no one continues to say HD DVD is "1080i" when BD has to resort to same techniques to handle 25p and 30p sourced video .

They are being evaluated. No date as been set yet for release.

There is plenty of 25p content in Europe so I assume by above you mean US.

No probs - an earlier post here outlined some of it http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9613151


So was the "Nine Inch Nails" Bluray disc encoded as 1080p30 with a 60i syntax, or was it encoded as 1080i60 with a 60i syntax? If the former, do you know why?

I'm not aware how TV studios actually handle this. I would guess that in the PAL hemisphere a lot of productions have been made in 25p, probably mainly movies which were intended for both TV and cinema.

My original question came up when I realized that Ufa (and later on after-WWII film studios in Germany and Eastern Europe) shot 25 pictures per second film material. If this can be flagged as progressive and output in 50i by the player, then a processor or display will be able to perfectly restore the original 25fps.

By the way I'm wondering whether the movie "Das Perfum" (http://www.amazon.de/gp/product//B00...292029-7440522) was shot in 24 or 25frames?

Sorry Paidgeek, I don't want to turn this into a "when is this coming out" thread. However, if you could just answer me this for a less "high profile" release. Is Sony planning Starship Troopers and Bad Boys soon? Starship troopers already has a planned release in japan by the distributiing studio there so just wondered.

Your replies are very much appreciated.

Amir, have you heard anything else about Magnolia and BCI on their delayed HD DVD releases? It just seems odd that all of the HDNet stuff is already out on HD DVD but almost all of the Magnolia stuff is out on Blu-ray. I'm looking forward to seeing some great movies like War Within, One Last Thing, World's Fastest Indian, etc on HD DVD.

That being said please give Magnolia a big thumbs up when you talk to them for adding a TrueHD soundtrack to the HD DVD version of the Architect.

Also for insiders on both sides, have any of you heard interest in some other smaller studios for releasing on either format (Palm Pictures, Tartan, Anchor Bay, etc.)?

Does that mean it's pretty much ready and just waiting the word for mass production (IOW, to avoid a PR/review debacle as in The Fifth Element), or the idea of the project itself is being evaluated?

I can't wait for these myself, and indeed have passed up buying Spidey 2 on DVD on more than a couple occassions since I don't buy DVD anymore.

Would they revealed and/or would you (or folks in your team perhaps) have been in a position to know if they were producing a combo player rather than an HD-DVD (and separate BD) standalone?

Hi Ben/Amir:

Can you give us any updates yet on the modifications you made to VC1 to help the NIN with their new DVD??

Also, have any other studios used this as well?

On that note, pre-order for both the HD-DVD version and Blu-Ray is available on Amazon for $17.45. Wish more media was priced accordingly.

Finally, pretty dissapointed no DTS wasn't included on the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. My receiver can't handle True-HD and it sucks to have to settle for DD.

Thanks in advance,
Tony

Amir: Have you got word back from the Xbox team about disclosing the date for the DTS patch for the HD DVD add-on?

A date would really shut me up ... well probably not.

It would be improper for me to claim to know everything about everything in that regard . But this is a small world. For example, we knew about LG producing a dual format player for a long, long time. We are certainly in the know for anyone building a combo player becaue they come and ask us for advice and help on HD DVD side. So chances of them working on a combo, and us not knowing about it is as close to zero as you can imagine.

You know I am very open with you guys in answering questions like this . But the team feels that what we did for them is quite neat and prefer to not teach our competitors about the techniques. So we need to leave it at that.


The enhancements are in our standard encode so the techniques can be applied to content from other studios.


Sorry, I don't know the reason for that.

.

I am still working the issue. I wish the console business was not so competitive...

But I do know how much you all want to know the answer so as soon as I am free to disclose it, wink or whatever, I will.

Yes you are always open and I(we) appreciate it. When I asked before my thoughts were that it was due to a time issue/NDA. Didn't think it was for the reason you described. With that said, fair enough!


Good news indeed! I am very excited to hear that the improvements aren't limited to strictly the NIN release. I am excited to see some other concert releases as well. Personally, these types or releases can really benefit from the new generation of media!

should i assume that any hi-def disc i purchase will support managed copies (paid or unpaid copies) or will i need to look on the back of the disc for a unique logo?

does managed copies only apply to the major studios or would small independent studio be allowed to have managed copies?

thanks,
andré

There is no requirements for the content owners to provide managed copy under the interim license. Fortunately, I understand HD DVD studios like Warner are putting in the right hooks on their discs to enable this scenario when it becomes available under final license. I don't have any data on BD.

As to logo, we hope to make the provision mandatory for the bulk of HD optical content out there. So only the exception would be noted.

And yes, the provision applies to everyonem regardless of size.

Paidgeek....When is there going to be a DTS-MA firmware upgrade for the PS3..this will happen right.

Oh, so it's actually 23.976fps and not true 24fps?

At the moment I use a software SD DVD player in WinXP and re-rate 23.976 to 24 with ReClock (which takes over as DirectShow audio renderer and syncs the video stream to the display whilst resampling the audio). I get smoother playback on my fixed-refresh LCD that way. Can you tell me whether this is permitted within the DRM mechanisms of Vista HD DVD playback?

I think its in the major March patch, though Im not an insider.

CLV was never intended to refer to the rate an application consumed data from the disc. Constant Linear Velocity deals with velocity, and velocity is a physical quantity of an object's motion. In this case the relative velocity of pits in a plastic substrate relative to a optical pickup unit.

Therefore CLV refers to the relationship of the channel bits on the disc and the activity of the drive when reading these bits. Even modern Blu-ray drives read discs at a constant velocity, no matter what rate the video application requests data. In other words, the rate you request data (packets or not) does not generally change the disc velocity the drive uses to to retrieve that data. This is true if the drive reads the disc in CLV or CAV mode.

I guarantee that a Blu-ray disc is manufactured to a precise CLV specification. This manufacturing takes no account of the rate the application will consume the data.

CLV is not the only type of velocity used on optical discs. Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) recording may be seen near the inner hub as human readable text and machine readable barcodes. (Indeed, the BCA barcode is important for BD-ROM video discs.) Zoned Constant Angular Velocity recording may be seen in formats that are designed for very fast random access such as DVD-RAM, HD DVD-RAM, UDO, MO, and hard drives.