- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,311
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
This is going to be an interesting one...
First, I want to welcome Mike Maloney to the group. It should be understood that his commnets, in most cases, are more than simple opinions, but come from first hand knowledge. Its good to have him on board as that knowledge can be useful.
That said it is also acknowledged that his comments are his own and not as a representative of the company for which he works, which is a company where I currently am completing a project. They do some superb work.
To his points...
my quote:
I saw Cold Mountain at the Directors Guild in LA on a huge screen. The quality was impeccable.
Mike's response:
That ANY dvd gets a review that says something like "looks as good as in the theater" always amazes me. Let's look at the math. A film is mastered to some form of HD tape (HDCam, D5, etc.). Those tape machines play back at a data rate of approx. 1.483 Gigabits per second. If you were to make a dvd consisting of only the feature and one Dolby Digital soundtrack at 448 KHz, the dvd data rate would be about 9.5 Megabits per second. That's a compression ratio of 156:1.
In the case of Cold Mountain the compression ratio is actually 290.7:1. This is due to the length of the film and the extras on the disc.
********
The point that I was attempting to make here was not that a video representation should (or could) look as good as film, but rather that in a film which had gone through the DI process, and which may not have had the luxury of film dailies, looked as digitally free as it did. The only digital artifacts or odd-looking areas which I can recall were explosions in the opening scenes. My point was that the film looked quite good as film.
*********
quote:
Cold Mountain should have been a veritable slam-dunk to DVD.
Mike's response:
"There are probably less than 20 people in the world who have seen the compression master. I would be very hesitant to make that statement."
I am told that this comparison was performed and that the DVD failed the test.
********
Mike wrote:
"Also, with all due respect, if you do a Google search for "Cold Mountain dvd review", the results are about 80% favorable. This is not to belittle your review, but rather to point out that a review is an opinion, and it is to be expected that not everyone will agree."
One of the points, both good and bad, which is an affect of the web, is that we now have reviewers who become reviewers by appointing themselves as such with no qualifications to do so. Futher, said "reviewers" may not have the visual horsepower to properly examine these releases, which I will acknowledge, may look superb to the untrained eye, especially on a 27 inch monitor.
**********
In response to my query regarding too much material going into a DVD, Mike wrote the following:
"Aye, now there's the rub. My job is take all the assets provided by the client and make the best looking dvd possible. I do not have the authority to dictate the kind or amount of extras. Ultimately, the market will make those decisions. If dvds that are jammed with extras sit on the shelf, and retailers can't keep enough SuperBit discs in stock, the other studios will take note and do things differently."
He is absolutely correct in this statement.
However...
If there is too much junk going into a DVD, and it is not his proper position to tell the client that they don't know what they're doing...
Someone else in the organization should take on that task.
At the point the client can always reject the information.
It is then up to the Mike's superiors to reject the work which may make their facility look bad.
There is nothing wrong with turning down being the implimentor of inferior work.
********
In regard to my query about compression and authoring, we were properly told that the authoring had nothing to do with the problem, and that
"None of the bitstreams we make have any noise or grain reduction applied, nor is there any edge enhancement. We do not have any such devices installed in at our compression facility."
If this is the case, then were do the grain reduction and EE come from. I'm aware that some can be added during the transfer, but if the transfers or files do not have the problem....?
************
In regard to "apples and zebras," an apt phrase which I like...
But in the suggestion to compare the above problematic titles to Warner's release of the extended Two Towers, I'm not seeing the same problems. Two Towers, while similarly based upon a 2k DI, has light EE, but neither the totally removed high end and heavy digititus of Cold Mountain, nor the heavily electronic look of English Patient.
************
No offense was taken, nor was any meant.
Your comments are appreciated.
In regard to Cassy W's comments about the HiDef My Fair Lady, I'll have to take a look and see precisely what's going on.
RAH
First, I want to welcome Mike Maloney to the group. It should be understood that his commnets, in most cases, are more than simple opinions, but come from first hand knowledge. Its good to have him on board as that knowledge can be useful.
That said it is also acknowledged that his comments are his own and not as a representative of the company for which he works, which is a company where I currently am completing a project. They do some superb work.
To his points...
my quote:
I saw Cold Mountain at the Directors Guild in LA on a huge screen. The quality was impeccable.
Mike's response:
That ANY dvd gets a review that says something like "looks as good as in the theater" always amazes me. Let's look at the math. A film is mastered to some form of HD tape (HDCam, D5, etc.). Those tape machines play back at a data rate of approx. 1.483 Gigabits per second. If you were to make a dvd consisting of only the feature and one Dolby Digital soundtrack at 448 KHz, the dvd data rate would be about 9.5 Megabits per second. That's a compression ratio of 156:1.
In the case of Cold Mountain the compression ratio is actually 290.7:1. This is due to the length of the film and the extras on the disc.
********
The point that I was attempting to make here was not that a video representation should (or could) look as good as film, but rather that in a film which had gone through the DI process, and which may not have had the luxury of film dailies, looked as digitally free as it did. The only digital artifacts or odd-looking areas which I can recall were explosions in the opening scenes. My point was that the film looked quite good as film.
*********
quote:
Cold Mountain should have been a veritable slam-dunk to DVD.
Mike's response:
"There are probably less than 20 people in the world who have seen the compression master. I would be very hesitant to make that statement."
I am told that this comparison was performed and that the DVD failed the test.
********
Mike wrote:
"Also, with all due respect, if you do a Google search for "Cold Mountain dvd review", the results are about 80% favorable. This is not to belittle your review, but rather to point out that a review is an opinion, and it is to be expected that not everyone will agree."
One of the points, both good and bad, which is an affect of the web, is that we now have reviewers who become reviewers by appointing themselves as such with no qualifications to do so. Futher, said "reviewers" may not have the visual horsepower to properly examine these releases, which I will acknowledge, may look superb to the untrained eye, especially on a 27 inch monitor.
**********
In response to my query regarding too much material going into a DVD, Mike wrote the following:
"Aye, now there's the rub. My job is take all the assets provided by the client and make the best looking dvd possible. I do not have the authority to dictate the kind or amount of extras. Ultimately, the market will make those decisions. If dvds that are jammed with extras sit on the shelf, and retailers can't keep enough SuperBit discs in stock, the other studios will take note and do things differently."
He is absolutely correct in this statement.
However...
If there is too much junk going into a DVD, and it is not his proper position to tell the client that they don't know what they're doing...
Someone else in the organization should take on that task.
At the point the client can always reject the information.
It is then up to the Mike's superiors to reject the work which may make their facility look bad.
There is nothing wrong with turning down being the implimentor of inferior work.
********
In regard to my query about compression and authoring, we were properly told that the authoring had nothing to do with the problem, and that
"None of the bitstreams we make have any noise or grain reduction applied, nor is there any edge enhancement. We do not have any such devices installed in at our compression facility."
If this is the case, then were do the grain reduction and EE come from. I'm aware that some can be added during the transfer, but if the transfers or files do not have the problem....?
************
In regard to "apples and zebras," an apt phrase which I like...
But in the suggestion to compare the above problematic titles to Warner's release of the extended Two Towers, I'm not seeing the same problems. Two Towers, while similarly based upon a 2k DI, has light EE, but neither the totally removed high end and heavy digititus of Cold Mountain, nor the heavily electronic look of English Patient.
************
No offense was taken, nor was any meant.
Your comments are appreciated.
In regard to Cassy W's comments about the HiDef My Fair Lady, I'll have to take a look and see precisely what's going on.
RAH