Terminator 1 & 2

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

u may have missed the question but does VC-1 encoding automatically apply DNR? i read that programmers of the video codec (on avsforum i think) said that is a part of the algorithms of VC-1, DNR application.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Fritz, the online features and interface are COMPLETELY different between the domestic US disc and any of the European Skynet discs, due to the fact that Studio Canal had Imagion as their BD-Live client and Lionsgate utilized Sofatronic to implement theirs. By studio choice and necessity, they are completely separate animals. As a matter of fact, Studio Canal used some of my menu elements for their BD-Live skin but did not have me work on it at all; I never even saw it until it was already done and authored into a test disc. This is of course their right.

Another reason they are totally different is that the laws governing user-generated content and licensing deals are totally different between the US and Europe. For instance, I understand that there can really be no user-generated content in Europe because the laws hold the studio liable for anything anyone posts, because they are the ones providing the infrastructure; in the US, however, the law cannot hold the studio liable for that reason alone (can you imagine if YouTube could be sued by anyone offended by any piece of content that was posted?). Also, it may be that a piece of content that is cleared for US use is not cleared for international use. So, separate BD-Live components. In fact, I'd be interested in finding out what's on the European BD-Live site for T2...

For those with the US version, I'm told that the domestic BD-Live site is in the process of having some bugs worked out, so please be patient...apparently, the Skynet server is being tampered with by the human Resistance... ;-)

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Thank you for the explanation, it will help my attitude to know that it wasn't a frivolous reason for checking for the connection. Since you will be applying fixes and updates to the disc (which can't be permanent), this must mean you have to apply the fixes and updates each time the disc is loaded.

This is a comment not meant to offend, and since I don't have an internet connection for my BDP550, I can only go by what I read online. So far, I have not read a single comment in a forum that indicates there is any substantive content via BD-Live. Which is one reason I've not bothered with BD-Live. Does the Skynet edition change this?

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

good one about the bdlive comment van.

Jacob

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Van:

As per the liner notes on the 2003 "Extreme DVD", and HD transfer used for that release (and all of the various HD-DVD and Blu-ray releases around the world since, including the new "Skynet" Blu-ray) was an "anamorphic" High-Definition transfer- as in, the 2.35:1 image was not letterboxed within the 16:9 (1.78:1) HD frame, but rather stretched so as to use up the entire 1080 X 1920 pixel real-estate on active image area.

My question is, is it possible that the variances being reported between the now several HD releases of TERMINATOR 2 could be related to the fact that they all came from an "anamorphic" transfer, which then had to be unsqueezed/downconverted to letterboxed High-Def? I haven't seen this possibility raised before in discussing the differences in image quality, but it leapt out at me as a possible explanation for some of what folks are seeing.

Vincent

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.
I am not liking what this implies, that the european customers will be missing out on certain contents, but I do realize this is out of your hands. Are you at liberty to disclose exactly what the eurocrowd will be missing out on? (There is just the slightest hint of bitterness in your comments about this, but I wouldn't want you to compromise your standing in the business.)

Also, if I were to attempt to play the US disc on an internet-connected region A player from europe, would the BD-live access be blocked due to me connecting to it from a european IP address? Just curious.

Thanks again, Mr. Ling, your input is most welcome.

As you can see, I've been a loyal T2 consumer for many years:

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I have seen the different HD versions of the IP. That's my conclusion. If someone has an uncompressed version of this still from the original HD master I'm all eyes to compare to the released versions.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

No. VC-1 applies deblocking filters depending on bit rates and image content. Depends on what parameters you set.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Johnny, any downloaded VFS data or application modifications (which are small) are stored locally in your player's memory in a specific location, and is accessed every time you load the disc. Thus, you don't have to download it again every time you play the disc; only if there is a new update. When you first insert a BD, it can ask that a small folder be created on your local player storage; this folder can only be accessed by that disc (or possibly other discs from the same studio, since the folder is set up inside a directory for the releasing studio). It then checks for any updates and downloads them to the folder. Upon insertion, the disc is hard-programmed to check online for updates first; if there are none (or the internet is not connected), it checks the folder for the most current local data and uses that. If there's no current data in the folder, it defaults to what's on the disc. If it finds no folder, it creates one. As a user, you can use your player's utility menu to delete material from these folders to create space as necessary (for other disc's folder content, for instance). Hope this clarifies.

Fritz, since I really have no idea what the Studio Canal BD-Live client content is at the moment, I'm not prepared to say that you'll be "missing" any content if you don't have the US version... in fact, I'm sure there might be content on the European version that may not be on the US version as well. BD-Live is kind of a big experiment... we all think it has potential, but that depends on us being able to continuously create and add compelling content, and the studios are waiting to see if it's worth doing before they let us do any longterm planning or development. And what will determine that is whether or not consumers use it or not... and what determines THAT is if there is any compelling content on there! So it's a bit of a catch-22... If I get the opportunity to implement some of my ideas for BD-Live, I think it can be worth it; but as with most of the studios, it's about faith (or the lack thereof) in its potential.

Vincent, the anamorphic transfer master is always preformatted to the 2.35 letterbox before it gets sent out to anyone encoding from it, so no one outside of the main post house that vaults the masters ever works directly from the original anamorphic master... but you raise a good point in that the squeezing process may introduce some variation. I'm more inclined to think the variations may come from the different encodes, though. But any dubbing/reformat may introduce differences, depending upon the hardware chain and the settings therein.

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

so van..
have you heard anything from cameron about if he liked t4 or not? liked t3 better?

Jacob

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Thanks for the info. I imagine it's storing the stuff on the memory card inserted in the back of the player.

There have been several reports of players not being able to play this disc, but I'm happy to report my Sony BDPS550 plays it fine. I think I have installed one firmware update and haven't checked if there are any further updates.

I did some timing on this disc. All times are reflected from inserting and closing the disc tray and are in minutes and seconds:
1:00 The cancel internet message appears
1:30 Mainframe Accessing message appears
3:25 Main Menu appears
Starting over on Times after selecting Special Edition
0:00 Movie Stuff starts like DTS-HD, THX T2, Studio Canal, Carolco
2:20 Actual Movie starts

This means it takes 5:45 (approximately) from insertion of disc till the movie proper starts. Now I know that the studio probably considers the "Movie Stuff" as the beginning of the movie, but I'm not the studio.

Then to access the interactive portion, is another period of load time.

A question about the PIP, is that supposed to have it's own sound? If so, how is it accessed? I recall that the PIP for PJ's King Kong required me to go into the player menu and change an audio option to get it to work. Other movies (like Wall-E) don't require that.

I have about 20 BD's and this disc takes longer than any of them to load. Speaking for myself only, I would trade fancy menus for quicker loading and a stop feature that allowed resuming at that point. I know there are other issues involved in this, perhaps extra features would have to be eliminated, I don't know. Just my two-bits.

What I like...The video is excellent. This is the best that T2 has looked in my home theater. The audio is a whole new ball game for me. I've recently upgraded my sound system and this disc sounds great.

A question on the extended edition (not the one requiring the password). It has been at least a year since I've watched it on DVD, but I thought there were some snippets that were new to the extended edition, true or do I just have a bad memory? These were just bits where I'd think "I don't remember that."

I listened to the commentary on the the two deleted scenes and Cameron's commentary on the future coda is cutoff mid-sentence when the scene ends. BTW, it was a very good idea to delete the future coda. It was a little too definite about the future. Sara's optimistic voice over while the highway passes beneath the screen is much better. Also, Sara's old makeup looked like makeup.

Even though I'm not happy with the load time on this disc, if $20 bought me this much entertainment value every time I bought a BD, I'd be very happy. I'm pleased to own this disc.

Van, thanks for participating on this forum and being willing take so many pot-shots at your work.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Johnny and everyone, thanks for all the kind words and support...

The load times are long on most players... the tradeoff is longer load times and faster performance versus faster load times with slower performance once it's loaded. Neither scenario is ideal, but there are some ridiculous limitations in the spec and in the minimum standard for players...I could reduce the load times by having fewer graphics and just reuse components... but doing so would mean having smaller thumbnails and fewer chapters, etc. and reusing stuff means more CPU draw, which slows performance... even text items are a tradeoff: if I use font strips to reduce the texts to just the letters of the alphabet (which saves a lot of room), the downside is that the player CPU then has to generate all of the text letter by letter... which slows everything down as well. Believe me, I tried to come up with anything I could to reduce load times and speed up performance... short of tossing features. The PS3 is the fastest player to handle this, since it is a graphics processor first and a BD player second...

The PiP has its own audio that should play over the feature audio (whose levels are lowered automatically in a programmed "live" mix in the player), and should automatically turn on when you select the PiP mode. No audio setting changes are necessary.

The SE and ESE versions have not changed in scene content since we first put them out over a decade and a half ago, so you're probably just hav forgotten some of them.

If you look on the Ancillary menu, you'll notice that the Cameron/Wisher Commentary is not listed for the two deleted scenes... because it's not supposed to be there. The fact that you can hear them anyway by surfing audio streams can be called a mistake or an Easter Egg... your choice. It's a long story as to why, but it's technical and disc-space related. I can give you the gory details in another post if you want, but suffice to say it shows another part of the complexity of various limiting factors in working with BD.

Hope this helps,

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Jacob, I have no idea what Jim thinks of T4... if he had any time to talk, I'd be bugging him about reviewing the Abyss and True Lies masters! ;-)

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Just taking a look at the disc now - already wanted to thank Van for all his hard work, even if I may never get through all of it!

I'm using a PS3 - for comparison I get the main menu in 00:02:10 first time around, and 00:02:05 second time (when no content is downloaded). As for the bits before the film, all are skippable except the Studio Canal intro. Anyone else think the music on that is an odd choice?

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I am not getting the audio. The PiP does play but the sound remains the same, movie only. Is there a special selection I'm supposed to make?

I kinda figured it was my memory that was faulty.


Actually, Cameron is listed. When I bring the Ancillary Data menu up and highlight Play Future Coda with commentary, there is a little box that lists Winston, Hamilton, and Cameron. When the scene plays first we hear Winston, then Hamilton, and then Cameron. Cameron's commentary is cut off abruptly when the scene ends. Also when each commentary is playing, at the top of the screen it shows a little thumbnail of the speaker and the speaker's name in text. I nice touch. I haven't listened to the movie commentaries yet, I hope that is continued there.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Jim_E, we ALL scratch our heads over the Studio Canal logo... but I'm sure it means someting significant to the Parisian folk! ;-) I just think of the Simpsons main title every time I see it!

Johnny, I think the reason you're not hearing the PiP audio is that your home theatre is set to take the direct digital output from your player into your receiver and decoding the DTS or Dolby downstream... so you're probably not hearing the little "plink" and "whoosh" sounds when you navigate the menu either. This is because the way BD works, it can mix two audio streams from different layers (like the primary and secondary video streams) together within the player, for things lik PiP and menu clicksounds. The thing is, you have to be listening to the decoded and MIXED output from the player for that... which would unfortunately NOT be the direct encoded digital stream. Try switching to a different audio output from your player, and you should be able to hear the PiP audio.

And the official listed commentary that's under the deleted scenes is from the cast and crew commentary, which does include Cameron... but the other commentary (the Cameron/Wisher writer/director commentary) is also surfable, but may be cut off midsentence at the beginning and the end due to the seamless branching. Mostly, it came down to the fact that we couldn't include the deleted scenes on the disc TWICE, once for use in the ESE version and once as a re-edited standalone segment... that would have been four minutes of redundant disc space usage that we preferred to put into upping the feature bitrate.

And yes, the little Speaker ID and thumbnail should appear throughout the cast and crew commentary!

Hope this helps,

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I have at least one disc,Wall-E, in which the PiP automatically provides the audio and another (PJ's King Kong) in which I have to change the BD player audio setting to get the PiP audio. The selection I have to make (I forget at the moment what it is) is of a lesser audio selection, so once I'm finished with that particular disc, I have to remember to go back and change it. Why can the Wall-E disc provide the audio and others' can't? You're right, I don't hear the menu sounds. That won't keep me awake at night.

BTW, I like the feature that allows me to skip from one PiP feature to the next one. I don't have to watch the entire movie to see the PiP features.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Johnny, I think the way Wall-E must do it is to encode the PiP audio mix as a separate stream in either the Dolby or DTS format. That way, you're able to choose the movie audio-only stream in say DTS, or the PiP mix version in DTS... that way, it all can go out the direct digital port. I can ask my contact at Disney to see if this is the case. The downside to this method is that it takes up twice as much disc space for the two encodes, which we did not have on T2...

Hope this helps,

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

It would be interesting to know. BTW, while you're at it, tell them $20 for T2 and $29 for Bug's Life? The bigger hit (and better) movie is less. I'm just kidding, I know you can't do that.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Happy to be here. I'm doing my best to set the record straight over at the "science" forum. It's an uphill battle however...

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I think I will buy this disc when my player comes back from the shop.

After looking at the PNG screen grabs on AVS (which I know is by no means a definitive comparison), I'm not so convinced that DNR was applied. I certainly see differences, but the lack of "grain" when compared to the other versions doesn't seem to have resulted in less actual detail. In the older releases, they appear to have the same level of detail, just noisier (to my eyes). So I'm leaning towards the idea that maybe the previous versions actually added noise that wasn't part of the original transfer. Added noise can give the illusion of added detail, as a poster on AVS demonstrated in a thread about The Thing. He added noise to an HD DVD screenshot, and if I didn't know better I would have said that it was much sharper looking. I would link to it, but I don't think I can here.

I know this is all speculation, and I'm not an expert in anything like this, so just take it for what it's worth, but if neither Van nor Lightstorm saw anything wrong with the new cleaned-up master, I'm starting to wonder if that might be what's happened.

So considering all that, along with the reportedly improved colors and contrast and the clean-up work, I'm willing to give it a try. I think it will complement my extras-packed German HD DVD nicely with the lossless audio, all cuts of the film, and English-friendly interactive features.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Van

Why, why, why. Keep realising this popular film?

I’ve only noticed a different version of the same film expect single DVD disc with audio commentary with Cameron and Schwarzenegger. Under the Optimum Releasing Optimum Releasing

Fine with me I have the original laserdisc release NTSC and the special edition THX laserdisc and the first edition DVD region 2 THX set. I have the second edition DVD of the first film and I’m disappointed audio commentary wasn’t even a priority at that time.

Give a good reason why I should buy another, when audio commentary was common thing in the days of laserdisc.

Thank you.

Stay healthy.


Oh, there is just one more thing. What Jim E said about the Studio Canal I mean its sounds like THX intro playing in reverse LOL! I just mute the sound because it’s a real downer!


Yeah LOL spot on! “The Simpson’sssss”

Well at least this thread as since of homer d’oh! I mean humour.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Van

As for the video picture in picture screen capture comparisons how about some Real 35mm and 70mm frames of T2 with digital video side by side comparison, surely you can get hold of few frames and get them posted up for most us to view.

Its been donkey years since I saw T2 projected in small cinema and over time memory can’t hold onto too that much detail. I’m good at listening and looking but mostly listening others might be good at viewing.

Thanks and stay healthy

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Ashley, I can only give you a good reason to get another version of either of these films by trying to create new or interesting content when the studio gives me the opportunity and resources to do it, and when Jim Cameron chooses to participate. The reason we don't have a commentary yet for T1 is that Jim has not deigned to do one yet. And if you read the packaging and determine there's nothing on it worth getting it again, then don't buy it! As I keep saying, you vote with your wallets... the studios would be happy to keep rereleasing the same literal disc with new packaging if people kept buying them. If you see the exact same thing you already have but in different packaging, then don't fall for it. The studio's thinking on this is to target consumers who HAVEN'T yet purchased that title, by hoping a pretty new package will be the tipping point. Or completists who want a sample of evey iteration of packaging. The folks who are smart enough to read the packaging and compare it to what they already have will be able to make a value assessment as to whether it's worth it or not.

As for 35mm and 70mm frames, I don't have access to film elements any more... Note that the 70mm versions were created from the Super35 anyway, so they won't look as good as the original source 35mm.

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Talking to a friend last night. He was about to take back his T2 disc, because he thought it was defective. As a matter of fact, he has only been in Blu-ray about a month, and was thinking of taking back the player too!
Why?
Because the literally 2 or 3 minute load time on this disc!
I have been into Blu-ray about 2 years, and i am used to the firmware updates. But my friend, who is pretty tech savvy himself, is pretty mad he has to mess with firmware updates, every time a disc wont play in a player.
I told him its a pretty rare occurence...but i agree.

Van, why is it about 3 years later, do we have these Blu-ray mishaps? Why do we need a firmware update every time a disc comes out, that changes the way things were, for the player?
My parents sure wouldnt know about them? Or anyone else i know. This will keep people from buying big into Blu-ray, cause it is a hassle. Especially when a big title like T2 wont play, or has 2 or 3 minute load times! I hope a firmware update DOES fix this problem.
I have a Sony 300 and 350 Blu-ray players. Love the machines, love the format, but dont understand what happens , and why it happens.

Just venting to you Van, since your in the know, and can ( i hope) explain whats going on in these machines, and the studios, that like to change how the discs work in our players.

Oh, beautiful disc, looks and sounds great, once it played.

Thanks for being a part of this forum, sir!

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Van what are your thoughts on Salvation? I personally enjoyed the hell out of it.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

i'll take a stab. the why is because of the new aacs/BD+ codes used to thwart piracy. every now and then, movies are pressed w/new anti-piracy codes. then pirates crack them. studios keep generating new ones. that is why the players need to be kept up to date w/firmware. if ur friend is 'tech saavy' as you say, then he must know that computer hardwares frequently update drivers. if he is a gamer, his video cards gets new drivers very frequently. ATI video cards get one EVERY month. GeForce every 2 or 3 i think. Microsoft releases 'patch Tuesday' monthly or more. and so on. updates are just a fact of life these days.

and it won't just be restricted to entertainment/computer industry. your car's computer sometimes require firmware updates, gas/electric/etc. utilities wireless computer meters will require them. ur cellphones require them, watches require them, ur GPS requires them. anything w/a computer in them will require constant update.

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I have a BD-Live related problem. My player is the 60G PS3 with system software 2.76. I have downloaded both "The Making of T2" and "No Feat but what we make"; but when i try to play either one, I get this message: "This video cannot be played (800299a1)." What happened?

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I had the same problem James.
I have the ps3 80.

Jacob

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I don't have a PS3 so I can't say for sure, but there are some codecs and video formats the PS3 can play, and some it can't... I guess it's possible that they used some kind of video format that your PS3 isn't recognizing, although it does seem like the kind of thing they'd test beforehand.