[xradman]

It seems the PIP commentaries for both Descent and Crank are separate hard encoded movies on these discs rather than true PIP overlays. What is especially frustrating is that menu option is disabled when playing the movie in this mode. Anyone find an easy way to switch between the regular movie and PIP commentary enabled movie?


By the way, can anyone come up with a reasonable explanation as to why a family friendly audio option was included in the Crank? I can't think of a situation where people who would otherwise not be offended by nudity and graphic violence would be offended by few swear words.

 

[Jon_W]

I thinik it is because BR interactivity has not been completed yet, so this is the only way to give consumers features comparable to HD DVD. Warner for example is simply delaying titles like Batman Begins instead of doing what Lionsgate has done.

 

[inca]



Quote:
Originally Posted by xradman /forum/post/0


By the way, can anyone come up with a reasonable explanation as to why a family friendly audio option was included in the Crank? I can't think of a situation where people who would otherwise not be offended by nudity and graphic violence would be offended by few swear words.

Thats an easy one, do you have any kids?? For some of us who do not have dedicated theaters with sound proof walls and ceilings the sound leaks out to all the other rooms when the volume is adjusted to be loud and so while the kids are upstairs in there rooms playing or trying to sleep then they will not hear all the cussing going on, this is exactly why they did it. I have kids and at night I have to keep it fairly quiet with movies that drop the F bomb every 10 seconds so that my kids won't go to school and drop a few F-Bombs on their friends.

 

[xradman]



Quote:
Originally Posted by inca /forum/post/0


Thats an easy one, do you have any kids?? For some of us who do not have dedicated theaters with sound proof walls and ceilings the sound leaks out to all the other rooms when the volume is adjusted to be loud and so while the kids are upstairs in there rooms playing or trying to sleep then they will not hear all the cussing going on, this is exactly why they did it. I have kids and at night I have to keep it fairly quiet with movies that drop the F bomb every 10 seconds so that my kids won't go to school and drop a few F-Bombs on their friends.

Haven't thought about that. That is a good reason. Thanks.

 

[abr27440]

Current blu ray players do not support secondary video decoding (the PIP thing), so the only way to do it is having a separate encode with the pip. Although this sorta negates the capacity advantage by taking up 2x the space.


The good news is that the PS3 will almost definitely be updated to decode secondary video, but other gen 1 (and maybe even gen 2) players will be unable to.


The big question is will this become the primary way to do PIP on blu ray? I hope not.

 

[TomsHT]

I didnt expect Crank to be as raunchy as it was, I watched it with my wife and 13yr old son...

There seems to be a bunch of BD50s coming out soon that are all under 2 hours in length. I wonder if this is due to these PIP type features and extras


1 --- 9-Jan-07 --- Crank --- 87 minutes

2 --- 23-Jan-07 --- Saw II --- 92 minutes

3 --- 16-Jan-07 --- Resident Evil: Apocalypse --- 94 minutes

4 --- 13-Mar-07 --- Layer Cake --- 105 minutes

5 --- 23-Jan-07 --- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --- 109 minutes

6 --- 23-Jan-07 --- Casanova --- 111 minutes

7 --- 13-Mar-07 --- Mr. & Mrs. Smith --- 112 minutes

8 --- 23-Jan-07 --- Chicago --- 113 minutes

9 --- 27-Feb-07 --- Stranger Then Fiction --- 113 minutes

10 --- 13-Feb-07 --- Ladder 49 --- 115 minutes

11 --- 6-Feb-07 --- Glory --- 118 minutes

 

[wired1]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TomsHT /forum/post/0


I didnt expect Crank to be as raunchy as it was, I watched it with my wife and 13yr old son...

How awkward for your kid! LOL!!

 

[IeraseU]

I hope all releases are on BD50 from now on, even if the space is not needed for the lenght of the movie, it can be used for other things such as lossless audio (PCM, maybe even in multiple languages) or extras.

 

[Fettastic]



Quote:
Originally Posted by wired1 /forum/post/0


How awkward for your kid! LOL!!

I can totally picture the wife's hand jumping to cover the kids eyes as she gives dad the dagger eyes.

 

[TomsHT]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Fettastic /forum/post/0


I can totally picture the wife's hand jumping to cover the kids eyes as she gives dad the dagger eyes.

You were there eh... Probably worse was the fact that I was gonna let my 9yr old daughter watch it too but the wife drew the line on that one before the movie...

 

[Fettastic]

Pretty much all you can do is give her the look of "Hey, I didn't make the movie".


Or you could just take the macho stance and say "Let him look! The boy's got to learn someday!"


But you'd better have a real comfy couch if you're going to try that one.

 

[WirelessGuru]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TomsHT /forum/post/0


I didnt expect Crank to be as raunchy as it was, I watched it with my wife and 13yr old son...

I'm not easily offended, and I wasn't really offended by this movie, but there were several scenes that I would describe as being "in poor taste". I also didn't think the movie was very good. I'm glad i rented it instead of bought.

 

[Dave Mack]

While I agree that BD is currently doing the PIP thing in a very unorthodox way, how is it "fake" Is there actually a "picture in picture" commentary track? Yes. So it's not "fake."

 

[TomsHT]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Mack /forum/post/0


While I agree that BD is currently doing the PIP thing in a very unorthodox way, how is it "fake" Is there actually a "picture in picture" commentary track? Yes. So it's not "fake."

Fake, real or however anyone else wants to describe it I think it is a complete waste of space and negates any space advantages that BD50s previously had without using it.

 

[Dave Mack]

fine, for now. I'm sure it won't stay this way.

 

[xradman]

I don't mind the "fakeness" as much. Hey it's an 87 min movie with BD50. They could probably fit 3 different versions of the movie with room to spare. What I don't like is the fact that you can't easily switch it off. Let's say that I start out with the PIP commentary version of the movie. I want to skip certain PIP commentary session and watch just the movie. There is no way to do this other than to stop the movie and restart the damn thing all over with a non-commentary version and skipping the chapters to where I was. At least give me an option to switch to non-commentary version on the fly and don't disable the menu key. This is so stupid that I can't believe Lionsgate signed off on this.

 

[Dave Mack]

i agree but what choice do they have at this time? No option whatsoever? I'd rather have at least the option there for now, imperfect as it is than not.

 

[MovieSoundGuy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by xradman /forum/post/0


By the way, can anyone come up with a reasonable explanation as to why a family friendly audio option was included in the Crank? I can't think of a situation where people who would otherwise not be offended by nudity and graphic violence would be offended by few swear words.

The "Family Friendly" version MUST have been intended as a funny joke. The original has so much swearing in it.


My wife and I were listening to it in the background, and as you listen to it there are so many words replaced that were just hillarious.


One example that I recall: instead of the word: "Mother F***er!" they dubbed in the word: "Mocha Frapaccino!".

 

[Kentai]

The "Family Friendly" version of CRANK was created as far as I know because the film was co-financed by a cable TV network, and the edited audio track was tailor made for said network as part of their funding it (along with getting first dibs on playing the movie once they've milked the video and VOD angle as much as Lion's Gate feels the need to). Of course, they'll STILL probably have to cut and blur the hell out of it anyway.

It's included on the DVD/Blu-Ray because, well... it's funny. Poorly edited versions of films usually are.


In regards to the "fake" PIP commentaries, I don't give a damn as long as the main transfer on the film isn't harmed by their inclusion, and can't see why anyone else would either. So they needed to encode a second version of the film. So what? If a BD-50 is holding 2 versions of a film and plenty of extras, where's the problem? That it's not as cutting edge as HD DVD even though it's doing the exact same thing? If anything this would let the main film have more bandwidth for lossless/uncompressed audio and higher video peak bitrates versus with a picture-in-picture feature on the main movie (which would have to eat up bandwidth), and I haven't heard anyome complain that the transfer on Crank or The Descent are riddled with artifacts. Some people don't like the look of these two films, sure, but that's a matter of how it was filmed rather than how it was mastered and encoded.


I imagine the menu key being blocked off would be frustrating as hell, and no, I don't see why anyone at Lion's Gate thought this was a good idea either. Could you skip past the last chapter, or use a title menu button or something to get back to the feature/menu?