First BD titles under scrutiny: The Fifth Element and others

Larry Sutliff · 06-16-2006, 07:59 PM

Sony has so much invested in making Blu-Ray a success, I can't believe they would issue an inferior product. It must be this title, as reviews indicate that other films such as TERMINATOR look much better.

RobertR · 06-17-2006, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Sony has so much invested in making Blu-Ray a success, I can't believe they would issue an inferior product. It must be this title

But "this title" IS a Sony product.

The film is owned by Sony.

The film to video transfer was done by Sony.

The video mastering was done by Sony.

The disc replication was done by Sony.

So how is this inferior product not a Sony product?

Larry Sutliff · 06-17-2006, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobertR

But "this title" IS a Sony product.

The film is owned by Sony.

The film to video transfer was done by Sony.

The video mastering was done by Sony.

The disc replication was done by Sony.

So how is this inferior product not a Sony product?

Sigh...

I wasn't saying that the T5E disc wasn't an inferior product,or not a Sony product, I was merely wondering why Sony would release such a botched transfer when they have so much riding on the success of Blu-Ray.

RobertR · 06-17-2006, 12:11 PM

Quote:

I was merely wondering why Sony would release such a botched transfer when they have so much riding on the success of Blu-Ray.

Ok.

It looks like another example of Sony botching up things with a format they have a lot riding on.

Larry Sutliff · 06-17-2006, 01:51 PM

Quote:

It looks like another example of Sony botching up things with a format they have a lot riding on.

Hopefully this is an isolated instance. Most of the other movies reviewed sound like they look very nice.

PS The sigh was for myself, not for you, Robert. My ramblings on these message boards are fairly stream of conscious and I know I'm not always expressing myself very well.

**HTF Ads**

RobertR · 06-17-2006, 03:35 PM

No problem, Larry.

And yes, we all hope Sony does better. My attitude is that the format war is what tells them that they'd damn well BETTER do better...or else.

Rob_HD · 06-17-2006, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry Sutliff

Sigh...

I wasn't saying that the T5E disc wasn't an inferior product,or not a Sony product, I was merely wondering why Sony would release such a botched transfer when they have so much riding on the success of Blu-Ray.

I don't think they had any choice at all.

Consider that they've boxed themselves into the following situation:

1) Production of 50 Gig dual-layer discs is not working out - they say it'll be worked out by end of summer, but no proof that this will happen yet. As a result they were forced to launch the format on Single-Layer discs which, at best, are 254 Gigs, but according to insider gossip are being crippled to 20 Gigs to help production.

2) They didn't embrace VC1 (for obvious competitor reasons, no doubt) and they weren't ready to author in AVC either, as their tools couldn't support it in time. So they were forced to launch with Mpeg 2.

3) The players at launch are not able to decode the advanced audio compression formats - DD+, TruHD or DTS-HD - so since regular DVD-era DD and DTS would have been received unfavourably, they were also forced to include L-PCM uncompressed 5.1 tracks (albeit at only 48/16) which take a lot of space.

So... It looks like all these factors combined to force them to take a big hit on PQ by over-filtering the video before encoding to Mpeg 2, to save space.

Also, it is reported that they have dropped some bonus features from the titles because they still couldn't fit them on the discs.

In Summary:

IMHO - Bluray was NOT ready to launch, as a format. They should have waited until all of these things were fixed and launched it properly.

Instead, people are going to be making some pretty rigorous comparisons between the formats - and the most honest folks are going to report the obvious...

When I predicted that Mpeg 2 on 25 Gig discs with L-PCM audio was going to hurt the quality, I was roundly beaten by BD fans. I hope this post doesn't happen again here, as it's very much looking like this is what has actually happened now...

Dave Mack · 06-17-2006, 03:46 PM

Ok, not too sound like an ass, (difficult for me) but if Sony are going to release some, (maybe many) titles like this, why effing bother? They are trying to compete against another format that costs 1/2 the $$$ to get into with the equipment and they are offering inferior PQ? Isn't the WHOLE point of these newer HD formats to look as good as possible? wtf?!?!
Who in their right mind is going to spend twice the $$$ for PQ that at BEST can match Hddvd and at worst look like upconverted SD?!?!
I might have been born at night but NOT last night.
Sony, with all due respect, you are doing everything in your power to lose this war before it has really begun IMHO.
Like others have said, TFE should've been a grandslam. And now excessive filtering? And only 25gb discs when HDdvd has 30?
I'm a little dense, someone clue me in as to why this format was considered "superior". And awesome PQ on a BR demo disc means absolutely nothing if the full movie releases are compromised because of bit space.
Seems like BR should be 1/2 the price of HDdvd and not the other way around... unless their plan is to release BR "superbit" down the line. Knowing Sony's track record, wouldn't surprise me at all.

D

RobertR · 06-17-2006, 04:04 PM

Agreed, Dave. IMO, the ENTIRE future of BD hinges on their ability to get BD50 production at reasonable cost going DAMN QUICK, along with ending the love affair with MPEG2 NOW. The way it is now with MPEG2, they NEED BD50 just to get PQ up to where it was supposed to be in the FIRST PLACE. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

Rob_HD · 06-17-2006, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Mack

Ok, not too sound like an ass, (difficult for me) but if Sony are going to release some, (maybe many) titles like this, why effing bother? They are trying to compete against another format that costs 1/2 the $$$ to get into with the equipment and they are offering inferior PQ? Isn't the WHOLE point of these newer HD formats to look as good as possible? wtf?!?!
Who in their right mind is going to spend twice the $$$ for PQ that at BEST can match Hddvd and at worst look like upconverted SD?!?!
I might have been born at night but NOT last night.
Sony, with all due respect, you are doing everything in your power to lose this war before it has really begun IMHO.
Like others have said, TFE should've been a grandslam. And now excessive filtering? And only 25gb discs when HDdvd has 30?
I'm a little dense, someone clue me in as to why this format was considered "superior". And awesome PQ on a BR demo disc means absolutely nothing if the full movie releases are compromised because of bit space.
Seems like BR should be 1/2 the price of HDdvd and not the other way around... unless their plan is to release BR "superbit" down the line. Knowing Sony's track record, wouldn't surprise me at all.

D

All good points, Dave.

What they are saying now is that BD "will" be the greatest someday

But the key issue is that there is no reason to buy into the format at all right now.

1) The launch discs suffer from the problems noted (Mpeg2, single-layer, etc)

2) No advanced audio in the mandatory specs meant none of the announced players can decode these new formats, and has forced the use of L-PCM tracks which are huge and compounded the space issues.

"But wait" say some - "you should buy the player and the later movies wil be fixed.

1) If you buy the current players, you still will never get the advanced audio, so why not wait for players that can, anyway.

2) If Sony or Samsung do indeed sell a PILE of these first players, then the BD format will always be hobbled by having to support a large base of these first Gen players, and forced to continue taking piles of space for L-PCM tracks.

Even when the 2nd Gen BD players ship next year, how many of the movies on the shelves will already be Single Layer releases, even if some of them do, in fact, start to come out with VC1 encoding??

Even if they get the full 25 Gigs on Single-Layer Bluray, how much of this space will be taken up by the L-PCM tracks??

So even if they get Mpeg 2 out of the frame (pun intended) by the end of this year - Single-Layer discs and L-PCM support will still potentially hobble VC1 or AVC releases on Bluray.

How many titles available to buy next spring will be 50 Gig, 2 layer BD ROM, with TruHD or DTS-HD-MA tracks. IMO, it must be the MAJORITY of the BD titles, or the format is not worth buying into... even when the 2nd or 3rd Gen BD players come along with better features...