Industry Insiders Master Q&A thread IV: ONLY Questions to Insiders - Page 91  

Oops, hard to keep track - I just added up the numbers to remember 4:2:2 as 8-bit... duh. The above should obviously read 4:2:0 VC1 encode.

Now, how brutal is the dithering process from 4:4:4 down to 4:2:2? Do you guys make tools for the post-production part of the chain, assisting with the real-time capturing components? This is not at all that MS vs Sony crap, but I've always found it very compelling how Sony manages to be everywhere along the chain, from the Studio that makes the film, through the post houses, mix-down studios, digital cinema, home theatre, etc. We all know about the consumer level stuff, natch, but I continue to be interested in the back-end stuff, the crazy pro-level things that even some post houses can't touch and farm out to the big boys. In other words, does MS have a foothold at all at a pro level with film production that we may not know about?

To Microsoft insiders: are there some HW limitations in the Xbox 360 that prevent the HD DVD playback to get 100/100 on the HQV test? Or can it be fixed with a software update?

I'm referring to this article:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/xbox-360/...her-330916.php

Thank you.

Well, if you have a notable variance in the amount of grain between shots, or in the amount of grain inside a shot (like mixing CGI with film elements) it can be distracting. So you might need to add it in to make in more seamless.

Also, the release print process adds additional grain, so if the filmmakers assumed a particular amount of grain would be added there in order to get to their intended look, it might need to be enhanced in the compression source in order to get the same look as it had in the theaters.

Good stuff. I like that it clearly showed that film restoration is as much an art as a science. It's not all about algorithmic number crunching, but about smart people making creative decisions about how to make the content "more like itself."

That's always what I've imaged I'd do if compression ever gets too easy .

Not that brutal at all. We've designed ours so that it provides the minimal disruption in order to prevent banding.

At Microsoft, we don't make a whole end-to-end solution like that, although of course we make many of the components used in all kinds of professional video products (WMV import/export, and of course lots of video gear is running Windows Embedded, even if you never see the BIOS screen).

...I was imprecise before, but you may have thought I was making the same mistake twice - if I understand what was posted above, you guys get 4:2:2 masters that have to be converted (using your tools) for VC1 encoding (I assume that dither pass is done before any encoding rather than simultaneous with the compression).

However, I was wondering about slightly higher rung, namely, the conversion from, say, teh 4k, 4:4:4 monster file (terabyte+) dithered down to 4:2:2 to then be =re-dithered= to 4:2:0... Is that the way the workflow goes? If so, do you play a role in that phase, or is that done with really, really hardcore crazypants devices?

I'm fishing for hints about what the budget-no-object kids get to play with, what can I say...

Its "just" software. See my earlier reply as to why interlace support is not a big priority for us.

There's no such thing as budget-no-object, alas .

Our software is certainly capable of coming straight from a high-bit 4K as source for conversion to 8-bit 4:2:0 1080p, but it'd be pretty slow. I don't know if there have been any full features using that technique directly, but it's certainly feasible.

Bear in mind the DI isn't tweaked for HD color space (709), so there may be some creative tweaking required. So most HD discs are made from that 1080p master, be it tape or file, that's properly 709.

Ben

When you encode a movie to HD DVD and then port it over to BD is there any limitation for the HD DVD encode that you cant use because the port?

The main one is that BD allows a smaller number of B-Frames than HD DVD. Not a meaningful practical difference for quality very often, but it does limit the ability to squeeze bits of out the credits in a few cases.

There's only one movie I can think of off hand where that resulted in different encodes for a BD/HD DVD title.

why would BD have a different requirement when it comes to B frames; isn't that specified in the VC-1 and H.264/AVC specifications ?

And how does B-frames work?

My guess is that they give you the ability to add seperate element/frames and still keep the main scene intact without that element further impact on the frames that comes after?

Because I saw PC playback of Riddick once and it couldnt handle strobing lights, so that should have been a B-frame issue in the software?

My question is to Roger Dressler & Dolby Labs. Some enthusiasts believe Dialogue Normalization has some significant negative impact on the audible fidelity of a signal; in fact, the noise some has made has gotten Sony to disable it on some of their releases.

Personally, from my own experience with sound processing and normalization processes, I don't see singificant audible degradation as feasible since it is all done in the digital domain and it is fairly easy processing to do. I also like the idea of not having to mess with the volume knob between features. But, I'd like to hear Dolby's take on it.

Not quite. Both AVC and VC-1 have richer specs than either format allow. For reasons specific for the applications (e.g. trick play) a number of restrctions are put on each codec.

For reasons that blow my mind, no one from BDA group consulted us in creating the profile for VC-1 which they used. I do understand however that they are attempting to fix the B-frame profile issue. But have lost track of where they are on it....

While we still are at VC1 theme

How does the median filter work that helps with the grainencoding?

Could this grain be modelled in by the player in realtime? I think someone said AVC has this option but it isn't currently used. Could VC1 have a similar option, so that for people who don't want lots of artificial grain or image degradation and would like the picture quality obtained from the best negative/IP available even if some shots don't quite match up to composite shots, those users could select the option to disable this realtime fake-grain addition (because, if you have some poor quality/grainy shots in the film, some people may not want all the rest of the film to be reduced in quality to match the poorer quality of these minority of shots).

Also, for films that have CGI composited into them (ie. I don't think Blade Runner would have had much other than displays?) - couldn't just the CGI portions have the added grain to match whatever grain was in the live action elements - instead of adding grain to the full frame?

Also, for recent films, which would have been colour graded/composited etc. digitally, do they generally scan the whole film nowadays? If so, after they've done this post production work on this digital intermediate is this version always the version used for the HD-DVD/Blu-ray or do the output it to film etc. before re-scanning it for HD-DVD etc. releases (I'm assuming the latter wouldn't be done).

Dave,

Have you heard anything about Warner switching stances soon? Lots of buzz going around.

To any insider: is there any news on HD DVD burners for PC?

Robert,

I fully expect that Warner will make an announcement at CES this year. As to which way they will go, no one knows with the exception to the guy who will make the call with WHV. I'm sure he is looking at this whole situation from every angle and holds all the cards in the format war. IMO, the side Warner chooses will end up "winning".

Dave,
so do you think Warner choosing a side in CES is pretty much a done deal?

If I was a betting man, I would say yes. As to which way they will go, who knows?

I would think Warner knows. Both BD and HD DVD both look desparate to me and I think it has to do with an impending decision by WB. BD players are being given away with the purchase of a HDTV with a zillion movies and HD DVD players are being sold for the cost of 5 movies and you actually get 10 movies with the purchase. If you have an HD DVD player and want to buy several titles it is now cheaper to buy a new player and get all the titles that come with it than it is to just go out and buy the movies alone.

David - why would WB now be willing to "leave some money on the table"? Do you think that WB is now afraid that two formats will "kill" both? Personally, if I were WB I would go HD DVD exclusive in order to get the BDA exclusive studios to sit down and negotiate full neutrality for all studios and then offer them all a deal for TotalHD.

Cheers,

Grant

A question to Dave,

Over the past few years, the movie business has become global. Hollywood studios depend on foreign markets -- both video and theatrical -- to cover the costs of their movies (especially the big budgets), and make money.

Recent data has shown us that Blu-ray disc sale ratios are consistently better in some key foreign markets. For instance, BD outsells HD 3-to-1 in Europe and 9-to-1 in Japan. These territories represent the vast majority of worldwide film sales.

So, do movie studios like Warner think globally?

Is it possible that Warner might choose Blu solely on the basis of its better worldwide penetration, even if in the US BD doesn't outdistance HD from its current 2-to-1 ratio?

Clarification: I'm speaking of film business and therefore disc sales -- not hardware units.

David:

So you disagree with my post?:

The thing with these ratio's that people aren't taking into consideration is that yes, by percentage, BD has a lead in disc sales, but when you look at the overall numbers, they are less than 1% of DVD sales. So in reality, software sales doesn't mean a hill of beans right now other than for marketing reasons. Or to put it another way, when Transformers or Shrek III or Ratatouille were relesed on DVD, every one of those titles sold more copies their first week than both formats have sold in combined sales since inception! See what I mean?

I agree.

David, do you find it a bit telling like I do that if they do come out at CES to make an anouncement one way or the other, they won't have the Christmas sales data yet particularly for hardware, so it seems unlikely they could be basing the decision solely on the future outlook of either platform. This makes me wonder if they've been given a big money-hat by one side ala Paramount.

Dave, do you have insider info that makes you want to take this bet? Or is it just a strong hunch?

You do?

But you posted this:


You agree that a WB announcement would be totally disruptive to CES - but they are going to do it anyway?

?

BD-ROM Part 3 v2.1 mandates support for 3 consecutive B-frames in VC-1 when EPS <= 1s.