When will we see Opera HD DVDs or Blu-ray discs? - Page 3

Here's the press release from the Met. Note that I've no indication of the Met planning EITHER Blu-ray or HD DVD. As mentioned above, I bought HD DVD partly because Opus Arte planned to initially release in that format. If the Met went to Blu-ray exclusively, I'd buy a Blu-ray machine in short order.

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Five Metropolitan Opera High-Definition Transmissions from the 2007-08 Season to be Released on DVD

July 18, 2007

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metope...il.aspx?id=351

New York, NY (July 18, 2007)-- The Metropolitan Opera has made a deal with EMI Classics to release the first of its new and acclaimed high-definition (HD) transmissions on DVD. EMI has secured exclusive worldwide DVD distribution rights for an initial selection of five performances from the Met's ground-breaking new series, all chosen from next season's schedule of eight productions. The Met's inaugural 2006-07 season of six live HD programs proved to be a critical and popular hit, reaching 325,000 audience members around the world who attended performances relayed into movie theaters in North America, Europe, and Japan.

In its new deal with EMI, the Met retains the digital distribution rights for these five programs, as well as the DVD rights and digital distribution rights to the other programs which it has produced.

The Met's five-title deal with EMI includes the following opera performances scheduled for the 2007-08 season:

Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (January 1), starring Christine Schafer and Alice Coote in a new English-language production by Richard Jones and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski;

Verdi's Macbeth (January 12) starring Lado Ataneli in a new production directed by Adrian Noble;

Puccini's Manon Lescaut (February 16), starring Karita Mattila and Marcello Giordani;

Britten's Peter Grimes (March 15), starring Anthony Dean Griffey and Patricia Racette in a new production directed by John Doyle and conducted by Donald Runnicles; and

Puccini's La Boheme (April 5), starring Angela Gheorghiu and Ramon Vargas and conducted by Nicola Luisotti. Met Music Director James Levine conducts Macbeth and Manon Lescaut.

In addition to the opera performances, the releases will feature bonus material that includes some of the popular intermission features the Met produces for the live HD transmissions. The Met and EMI plan to discuss the possibility of other projects for release, both as DVDs and as audio records, culled from the historic Met archives as well as from the 2006-07 HD season.

"With the expansion of our network of movie theaters around the world, we anticipate an audience of one million attendees in movie theaters next season for our HD transmissions," said Peter Gelb, the Met's General Manager. "In the grand opera version of a movie roll-out, we plan on subsequent releases in many other formats, including DVD, which is why we are very pleased with our new arrangements with EMI."

"We are delighted to be a partner of the great Metropolitan Opera and the innovative media strategy which Peter Gelb has introduced," said Costa Pilavachi, President of EMI Classics. "This is a natural partnership as so many of our top stars are regular guests at the Met and we look forward to making these wonderful DVDs available to people in every corner of the globe."

As owner of the digital and electronic rights to the productions licensed to EMI, the Met plans to make this programming available through its consumer website and through various other video distribution services, as well as on PBS and foreign television broadcasting systems. The Met is also negotiating with similar companies for the release of its other HD titles on DVD.

The inaugural series of high-definition transmissions received enormous attention internationally and sold out in many movie theaters throughout North America, Europe, and Japan, including both live and encore presentations. The Los Angeles Times praised the series: "The Met's experiment of merging film with live performances has created a new art form. This venture may be the most significant development in opera since the supertitle." The Met is expanding the 2007-08 series from six to eight live opera transmissions, beginning on December 15, 2007.

About EMI Classics

EMI Classics, which includes the Paris-based label Virgin Classics, is one of the world's leading classical music labels which regularly records such distinguished orchestras as the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Wiener Philharmoniker and has exclusive recording contracts with artists including Sir Simon Rattle, Antonio Pappano, Maxim Vengerov, Nigel Kennedy, Angela Gheorghiu, Natalie Dessay, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, and Kate Royal amongst others. The company has regularly recorded international superstars such as Placido Domingo, Itzhak Perlman and Kiri Te Kanawa and has a back catalogue featuring historic recordings by Mstislav Rostropovich, Maria Callas, Victoria de los Angeles, Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Jacqueline du Pre, Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, Sir Adrian Boult, and Sir John Barbirolli as well as the longest-serving artist in the history of the record industry, the violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin. For more information please visit www.emiclassics.com.

About the Met

Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Metropolitan Opera has launched many new initiatives to connect the company with a larger audience. The Met has made a commitment to presenting modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory, with highly theatrical productions featuring the greatest opera stars in the world. New audience development initiatives include free open houses that offer the public access to final dress rehearsals of new Met productions; reduced ticket prices, including an immensely popular new rush ticket program; and the new Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met exhibiting contemporary art. As a result of these efforts, the Met experienced its first box office increase in five years during the 2006-07 season: total ticket sales increased by 7.1% from the previous season, with 88 performances selling out compared to 22 the season before. In 2007-08, the Met will debut seven new productions, the most the Met has presented in one season in 40 years.

Building on 76 years of international Saturday radio broadcasts - now heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network - the Met recently began to use advanced media distribution platforms and state-of-the-art technology to attract new audiences and reach millions of opera fans around the world. In addition to the Met's live transmissions, which were later broadcast on PBS's new "Great Performances at the Met," the company recently launched Metropolitan Opera Radio on Sirius, a 24-hour satellite radio channel broadcasting both live and rare historical performances. With support from RealNetworks, the Met began free live streaming of performances on its website. For more information, please visit: www.metopera.org.

Next disc from Opus Arte is ready

As I said:

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte - HD DVD is coming with 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby TrueHD 24bit, 48Khz tracks. The audio sounds great, video is grainy, but much better than SD version, obviously.


Also next disc is coming very soon:

Midsummer Nights Dream with a beautiful visual presentation.
It's a real pleasure for eyes.
Hope people will enjoy it.

...and more will follow....


Andrew

Many thanks for the info! No Met on BD/HD DVD now isn't going to cause me to lose any sleep.

Andrew,
I presume that this: http://www.opusarte.com/pages/product.asp?ProductID=43 is the DVD version of the production of Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" that will be coming out on HD.
Ron

When the fat lady sings!

I've been playing quite a few of Netflix's opera dvds over the past year and DD and DTS leave quite a bit to be desired. 300 MB of highly compressed audio data just isn't enough. I'm totally format neutral and have both a PS3 and a 360 HD-DVD addon HTPC. I'm hoping that the money that Sony donated to build the HD studio in the SF War Memorial Opera House will be used to crank out BR discs.

Please keep us posted on when Die Zauberflöte - HD DVD comes out because I'll buy it in a second.

If you want the best audio, than you need to start with 24/96 5.1 (24/192 5.1?) PCM and take it from there. Does either TrueHD or DTS HD MA support 24/96 ? An HD media music video which includes POTCesqe PQ and 24/96 5.1 audio tracks would catch my interest. Something tells me I'll be waiting a while, especially if we are limited to HD DVD.

There will be releases with 24/96, but old masters are in 24/48 or even 16 bit.
Also there is a big difference in video quality between 7 years and 1 year old masters.

Sorry- we can't change masters

"Die Zauberflöte" has nice audio and sounds much better in TrueHD than in DTS, but "A Midsummer Night's Dream" looks really nice (as a painting).

Andrew

Be patient and you may be supprised with a New Year

Andrew

Yes and it looks stunning.

Andrew

Andrew,

Is the Mozart up for pre-order yet?
I can't put it in the basket I can't find a button to order it.

Will there be some search option or HD DVD section in the web page menu to help finding the titles a bit easier?

[quote=chavel;11430896] I'm hoping that the money that Sony donated to build the HD studio in the SF War Memorial Opera House will be used to crank out BR discs.
QUOTE]

This isn't quite right. There is a partnership with Sony and the SF Opera. The studio was built with a grant from the Koret Foundation.

http://www.sfopera.com/press/SFOOper...MediaSuite.pdf

Sorry I don't work for Opus Arte, but I can suggest some things

It will be available at the begining of September.

Andrew

Oops,

Thanks,

[quote=chavel;11446237]
That looks very promising for Operas on Blu-ray using HD cameras. Hopefully, they'll crank up the audio resolution as well (5.1 24 bit lossless at a minimum).

Hope to see BD versions soon!

A very interesting facility that SFO has built. I wonder what the response has been to the "OperaVision" concept.

Judging by the demographics of opera fans it's no surprise that the future looks rosey for HDM opera. I just wonder what subset of opera fans hang out here at AVS?

Andrew,

Do you think it's feasable to do combo releases? Can the added expense for combo replication be absorbed by doing single inventory?

It's interesting that Opera on DVD appears to have been very successful, judging by the number of titles available. Classical concerts seem to be much less plentiful, probably since they don't benefit as much from the visual aspect and subtitles....

I think HD media offers substantial benefits for Opera, but only for those of us that have relatively large, high resolution displays.

The subset of opera fans who hang out at AVS is an extremely small fraction of the number of opera fans. (Even assuming there are many more readers than posters.) For instance, here in Chicago there are about 25,000 to 40,000 subscribers to Lyric Opera. As far as I've seen, I'm the only one who hangs out here. (Other Chicago area folks, please raise your hands....)

Unfortunately, Opera will be a niche within a niche within a niche. There can't be much of market in it (even I've NEVER been to an Opera). I willing to try it because I am into high resolution, multichannel (1) classical music and (2) music concerts. Blu-ray (and maybe HD DVD) will be the first consumer media to give me both the hi-rez audio and hi-def video.

Opera is very much an acquired taste. And is certainly a niche market. But I think you'd be surprised how much of a market there is for Operas on DVD -- check out "Opera on DVD - USA Releases" at http://opera_on_dvd.home.att.net/ Since HD discs apparently are selling at about one percent of DVD volumes, I'm grateful that Opus Arte is getting things started.

It is almost impossible, because than you have not enough space for HD main title (one layer only). Some operas are 4 hours long

We already struggle with space (avg. video bitrate) when opera is 3 hours long+ extras.

Andrew

Now that I've bothered to read more of the thread, I've got some other points to clarify/make.

(1) I have no interest in lossy music video. In fact, I no longer procure (16 bit/44.1Khz)CDs because they have insufficient resolution for audio IMO (I listen primarily to DVD-A/DAD/SACD; even vinyl could be in my future). I expect something better for music videos (e.g. 24 bit/96Khz).

(2) I would expect anyone interested in high resolution audio, will also be interested only in players which support TrueHD, DTS HD MA, and uncompressed PCM. The fact that it's not part of spec. doesn't bother me one bit. I'll simply shop around for a suitable player that has the features I want.

(3) Of course I want superlative picture quality. Something along the lines of the better Discovery HD channel or HDnet PQ or the "Planet Earth" series HD discs.

(4) I'll be interested in the opinions of content providers concerning the bandwidth limitations and storage capacity limitations of both HD DVD and Blu-ray and how this affects audio and video content and quality.

I'd forgotten how long some Operas can last. I can see multiple disk set requirements.

I just rented Le Nozze Di Figaro (2007) with Anna Netrebko from Netflix. It was on 2 discs of around 90 minutes each. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was about 2 GB of audio data on each disc. 1 Gig each for the PCM stereo and DTS tracks. This is better than some opera dvds I've seen where they have as little a 300 MB DD track for a 2+ hour opera. I like the older Drottningholm Figaro with Ann Christine Biel more though.

I can comment that, but I'm going home, now

First post. I had too, I love opera. I've been to them, I purchase them, I have friends who play in the pit. I hope a Bayreuth Fest Ring Cycle can make it to either format sometime in the futre. Either a new production or an old.

MahlerFreak, Welcome to the Forum!
A Ring Cycle would be terrific, but I suspect that will be a few years off.
I'm not so sure that some recent Bayreuth productions need to be preserved for posterity in high definition: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/ar...ic/30meis.html

I didn't realize this before but another poster suggested a possible problem with TrueHD. If true, I'd much prefer PCM (and maybe DTS HD MA) over TrueHD:

"....Dialog Normalization, something these idiots used for their DVD audio tools as well, is basically digital volume manipulation. To lower the volume or make it seem equal in level to other sountracks/audio encodes, the encoder/decoder recalculates the digital level. The encoder defaults to -27dB ("ON", which is essentially any setting -30dB and lower) in the metadata section of the codec, instead of -31dB (the "OFF" setting). This means that if the sound engineer knows absolutely nothing about the "feature", it's set to digitally manipulate the volume from get-go. If the sound engineer knows about the "feature" and leaves it "ON" or, worse yet, lowers the level (which increases the manipulation), the audio could be degraded even further. For movies, if you switch back and forth between an uncompressed PCM track and a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack, the volume level should not change because the advanced audio track encode, after it's decoded to PCM, is supposed to be bit-for-bit identical (aka losslessly compressed) to the original PCM source. If it does change, chances are that dialog normalization is being used on the TrueHD track. In case you're wondering, any product that "turns OFF" dialog normalization is considered out-of-spec by Dolby and the manufacturer will not be granted a license (or use of the Dolby logo) for that product. Unfortunately, I've read that DTS has added dialog normalization to their audio tools as well. But unlike Dolby, I'm willing to bet that DTS defaults to "OFF", rather than "ON", to preserve the audio quality of the source that it's supposed to match. ...."

Regarding Combos:
I was under the impression that combos could be made two layers both sides -- that is, HD30/DVD9. Is that not available from your replication facility?
Several Opus Arte DVD titles come on 2 disks. Can do that for HD also...
I'm not really a combo fan, but perhaps some new releases could be done as a combo instead of the HD version following the DVD with a significant time delay.
Ron