Industry Insiders Q&A MASTER THREAD [separate thread for Xbox/Add On & PS3] - Page 102  

Thanks .

Is this happening while you are watching the movie? If so, that is very odd and would seem to me a display problem or a lose cable.

Amir,

I hear you on the jitter thing. It's one reason I run my PCM streams (2.0 SPDIF) through two reclocking devices in series prior to my DAC.

I'm wondering if any receiver/decoder manufacturers have thought about implimenting reclocking in their devices to disassociate the receivers clock/DACs from any time-signal coming from the transport with multi-channel audio for HT. That would be a marvelous design feature of high-end preamps/decoders. Just knowing how much improvement I hear with my reclocked stereo, It's not hard to imagine.

BTW, I routinely turn the front LED display "off" on my Pioneer transport (LD player) which disengages all video circutry to help garner a cleaner clock.

Will we ever see movies encoded in xvYCC and "Deep Color"?

I can't say I understand this. Couldn't the receiver just have a buffer, thereby making the clocks independent? Or does that cause syncing problems?

dear amirm,

Quote:
Originally Posted by crashoveridema0
dear amirm,

Hi ,great work on the xbox 360 hd dvd player i completly love it and im running it in 1080p over vga and the quality is better than that of my hd-a1, my only gripe is sometimes my projector doesnt sunc the image correctly and part of the movie gets cut off is there any way to fix this problem or is there going to be some sort of hdmi solution because my projector syncs properly over hdmi.


Thanks .

Is this happening while you are watching the movie? If so, that is very odd and would seem to me a display problem or a lose cable.

actually its not a loos cable its just some times myprojector thinks the in comiing signal resolution is 1728x1080 in stead of 1920x1080 is there anythin i can do?

This response makes it looks like "The Polar Express" on HD DVD has this feature. I just checked, and it does not include it. The DVD does. Pick the French language on the DVD and the tickets that Tom Hanks punches show up in French. The HD DVD doesn't even have any languages other than English like the DVD does and turning on the French subtitles didn't change the ticket at all. Do you know of any HD DVDs that actually use seamless branching at this point (MI:3 used seamed branching)?

Also, animations should be easier than live action from a bitrate standpoint in general. Can you tell us how an HD DVD release of both versions of "Lord of the Rings" would use seamless branching to allow the user to select which version they wanted to watch, without compromising the audio or video? If we still got a lossless audio track like the regular or extended versions by themselves, what would the video bitrates have to be (approximately) for branch points? The seamlessly branched DVD release from New Line did not have the DTS audio track and I've been told that the video quality wasn't very impressive (although I haven't looked at it).

--Darin

Not sure if this has been asked before, but is it true that the Dolby Digital Plus tracks on all current HD-DVDs thus far are only 640kbps?
Is there a listing of audio bitrates posted anywhere?

You want the easy answer or the esoteric one?

Here is the easy answer. Yes, you can use a buffer and then run an independent clock on the output of the buffer to drive the DAC. But now you buy yourself a new problem. The input clock and output clock are independent of each other and can drift in different direction. Should the output run faster than the input clock, you eventually run out of samples to play! So you wind up interpolating data to stall until you get more input and this can impact audio quality. If the output runs slower than input, then you start accumulating samples as you run behind more and more (think what would happen in a 2 hour movie, even if your clock is very close to input). This means that you can run out of memory if the buffer is too small, forcing you again to do some kind of sample rate conversion which again impacts audio quality. Now, you may be tempted to put a huge buffer in there given cheap memory these days. But then you wind up accumulating latency. If the buffer becomes a few seconds, you will have problems with UI responsiveness to things like pausing audio.

There are adaptive de-jitter circuits which try to deal with above but still, the issue is hard to deal with in absolutes.

Now the esoteric answer. The same LIM (Logic Induced Modulation) distortion which got us started in this topic, applies here the same. The input jitter can cause variations in the power supply circuit which could be transmitted/reflected in the output clock, causing jitter there! Yes, I know, hard to imagine but if you want to have 24-bit noise floor, it is remarkable how little jitter budget one can have to achieve such accuracy.

All of this occurs because we have a real-time system. In data communication circles, we don't have these problems because the final resting place of the bits is on some storage device. As soon as you require that the output be synchronous, then the problem gets a lot more complicated (and less understood at times as we don't really know all the audible effects of jitter).

Studios have a choice of data rates. Universal usually uses 1.5 mbit/sec DD+. Warner usually uses 640kps. I think Paramount does the same. Of course, they could choose these settings anytime they wish but this is more or less the story today.

I have not seen the list anywhere but someone else might have.

Amir,

Since Disney did help design with HDi, what is their take on BD-J 1.1 spec being pushed back and basically, lack of BD-J authored titles where as HDi is being used heavily and with some cool features. To a studio that cared so much about interactivity, surely they can't be too happy with the situation?

I would think "grumpy" would best describe their frame of mind . And that feeling won't end anytime soon as even in November, they still have a platform which does not guarantee network/internet connectivity as HD DVD has had since inception. Given how much their care about this feature, I have to believe they continue to be unhappy about some aspects of how BDA works.

It is really ironic that it was Disney who showed us the way with interactivity. Yet it is the competing studios executing ahead of them on the very technology they helped create. That out to be creating some pain for them on top of standardization concerns.

I for one, always put Disney in a different class than other BD companies. They stand out as one of the few BD companies who have taken the participation in DVD Forum and HD DVD format making seriously. They vote on all the issues instead of abstaining. They worked hand in hand with the rest of us to create the HD DVD interactivity spec. They pushed strongly to make those and audio features mandatory. And they gave the best look at VC-1 than any BD studio. We don't see eye to eye when we step out of the forum to be sure in the optical formats, but share a certain level of respect for each other still.

The above is the reason I sincerely thanked them (and Warner) for their special contributions to HD DVD at the keynote for the 10-th anniversary of HD DVD last month. I got a smile from them so I know they appreciate the mutual respect.

So why don't they switch to HD DVD amirm? Is this a case of politics rather than the actual specs?

It is a long, and complicated answer with a lot of data that cannot be shared publically. (yes, I am saving it all for a book I am writing ).

Answer:
This has been discussed in depth before. Their website has not been updated on that page since last year.

Do you feel there was anything you personally could have done differently to have helped Disney go to neutrality, if not HDDVD exclusive? Or was the corporate juggernaught too much for any mere mortal to overcome?

I'm asking more as a sense of perspective, so a yes or no would be most interesting rather than attempt to get specifics you're not able / willing to reveal.

A book detailing the back room deal and politics about this whole "war" would be a really good read. Hope you're serious

Just to be clear, everything we know about the PS3's hardware capabilities points to it being fully capable of BD-Live support. Unless/until Sony announces BD-Live support for the PS3, however, there is always the chance (however small) that it will never appear.

Looking at the range of HDi and BD-J content which has been released so far, I don't think you can state that as of now one has clearly been more innovative than the other. HDi has shown IME (video commentary and bookmarking) and some extra features like choosing the color of a car in a given scene or seeing a GPS display overlaid on the movie. BD-J has shown a custom playlist app based on keyword/location/actor, multimedia director commentary, and several games, at least one (Chicken Little) of which is by most accounts quite entertaining. Both sides have barely even scratched the surface, but I don't think you can say the range of HDi content has been substantially more compelling than the range of BD-J content.

Hi Talk,

I know you've stated that you "believe most consumers willing to spend $1K on an unproven format understand the risks", but here in the UK the Sony and Pioneer BD players haven't even been released yet - are you comfortable with the fact UK consumers will be paying $1500 for a BD player in the summer that won't be able to utilize all of the features of new BD releases by October?

Thanks

Amir,

Do you have any sway at Warner to ensure that Animatrix gets an HD encoding instead of rehashing the same DVD release? It would be a great oversight on Warner's part not to include a HD DVD version of what many consider to be second best Matrix movie.

Thank you,

Hi Amir,

are you aware of any plans for the XBox 360 to allow playback of hard-disk based DVDs via it's media center capabilities? All my windows PCs can do it, there are countless media players in the market that can do it, even the origianl Xbox can do it (via XBMC).

Thanks.

A question to the Blu-Ray insiders:

Would you consider adding HD trailers (at least 720p) to http://www.blu-raydisc.com/ for all available Blu-Ray discs? Having trailers for all discs available for download would be great, cause it would help choosing which discs to buy. Sure, I could watch those 320x200 trailers on the web. Or maybe those 480p trailers on apple.com, but honestly - these trailers are hurting my eyes. Yes, there are some HD trailers available on apple.com, too, but only for some newer movies. And the encoding seems to be lacking (lots of banding in foggy scenes etc).

Thanks!

P.S: The HD DVD side seems to be on its way for such an offer. There are still lots of trailers missing, but most discs say "trailer coming soon". Looks good!

No personal regrets. We enjoyed a warm and collaborative relationship with Disney. We helped them solve the one big problem they had (interactivity). And we did that to some extent for both formats actually. There really was no "ask" that we turned down. For example, we backed Disney when they asked for mandatory features in HD DVD, even when it was painful (i.e. paying higher royalties for multiple audio codecs).

At a personal level, I had an excellent relationship with one of the top executives who was a key part of the final decision to go BD route. And I know the feeling was mutual per above things we had done for each other. He no longer works there and I think he has a new prespective than he had then.

To any insider,
There is a lot of debate currently going on regarding extras and interactivity in the new HD formats. My question is ,what research has been done by the studios, if any, into the desires of the consumer for these features in the new HD formats?
Thanks in advance.

Yes as stand-alone products have a UI for "night mode" so they can defaut to full dynamic range and indeed, are doing exactly that.

With the lines between TV movies and gaming being blurred, I hope that I can ask this question here.

Ben and/or Amir,

(Presuming that in the future, Microsoft releases a larger HDD for the XBOX 360...)

As useful as a larger HDD on the XBOX 360 would be for video downloads, have you guys heard of how it would benefit "gaming"? Has there been any talk of either full retail downloading of games, or managed copy from the optical disc?

Personally, I would be inclined to buy more games if I could access them through the dashboard like my arcade games. Right now, I can do everything from the comfort of my couch except switch retail games. If I get a cross game invite from a friend I rarely get up, go to the equiptment closet, search through my games and switch out the disk.

I'd hate to see games get the short end of the stick on a gaming console.

I'm sure this isn't an aswerable question from an official point of view, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it from a personal perspective.

I'll comment, since I know nothing about future Xbox plans.

I keep my 360 + HD DVD accessory on top of my Anthrocart, on a shelf above my monitors, between my AVM-30 and IO Data player. I can change discs without even looking (although I wish I had more time to play games - the discs I put in are mainly movies or discs of test content I've burned myself).

Seems like a cool idea, though.

Does this (along with Talks's "2007" comment) imply that the new 10/07 BD-Video 1.1 profile player may also include Netowrk capability as well? Will they likel ybe full -Live players?