Terminator 1 & 2 - Page 5

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

RickardL, an approved HD transfer means whatever JC wants it to mean for him to sign off. Given his focus on Avatar right now, it means having to take the time to sit and watch the film and make notes (if any) about tweaks he wants made. He generally does not have the time to do this at all when he is in production/post on a show, so either he has to delegate the approval (not likely) or take the time.

Mike, this means that yes, it might hold up T1 as well. It also depends on whether or not the studio who owns the film will move ahead and use the last-known-to-be-approved master instead of a new one, just to get a product out by a street date target they want to hit in order to maximize sales (like trying to get T1 or T2 out in time for the release of T4). The studio has the legal right to use the last approved master without going back for the filmmaker's re-approval (or else a filmmaker could effectively prevent a studio from ever releasing a disc for a film they actually own), but often won't chance getting on a filmmaker's bad side over it... especially if they want to work with that filmmaker again. On the other hand, a filmmaker may have the contractual right to approve any HD transfer to be used for disc, but they have to do so in a reasonable amount of time, and understand that once it's approved for use, the studio can use it for whatever releases they want without going through the filmmaker as long as they do not alter the look of the transfer in any way (dirt cleanup paintwork is generally allowed, but running the approved transfer through a denoising filter is or a sharpening filter would generally mean needing a new approval).

Also, the official T2 mix is in fact the 5.1 EX we did for the original 2000 DVD with Gary Rydstrom and Lightstorm, so this is what I mean when I say the 5.1... sorry for any confusion. As for version preference, both the TH and SE versions are official and legitimate, and I can't speak for JC as for which he prefers (tastes may change after a decade!). For me, the TH version is leaner and faster, but the SE has more character and depth... so it sometimes depends upon mood as to which I prefer to watch (although as you can imagine, I've seen it way too many times already!).

There are plans afoot to do commentary for T1, but as you can imagine, that would take even more time commitment from JC than even approving a transfer...but never say never...

Will, I have no idea why anyone would want to change/add new effects for T1... it's like going back as an adult and rewriting your old high school essays when they already got you an A! Or putting yourself or your spouse through tons of plastic surgery to stay young-looking... I mean, who in the entertainment business would ever do such a.... oh, never mind... ;-)

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

David and friends: Lionsgate does not own the film, and only had the US Domestic home video license for T2. As a result, they cannot really just make the disc region-free without pissing off the actual owner of the film, which is Studio Canal in France. SC owns the film T2 outright, having bought it from Carolco Pictures when they declared bankruptcy quite a few years ago (for that reason, SC also owns Stargate, Total Recall and the Rambo films, among others). Apart from Lionsgate, SC licenses T2 to other licensees around the world, including Kinowelt in Germany, Optimum in the UK and Geneon (Pioneer) in Japan. More recently, SC actually BOUGHT Optimum and Kinowelt, and licensed T2 to Universal Pictures International (UPI) for all other international territories, including Japan; Geneon was bought out by UPI.

What this means is that Studio Canal can dictate a lot of what is done with what they own... and region coding is of course one of those things. To protect their separate licensee deals, they obviously don't want one territory to take sales away from other territories.

Hope this explains some of the machinations...

V

PS: Stay tuned for part 2 of my answer to the last couple dozen posts...

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Part 2: I reckon the good news is that Studio Canal has been collaborating with Lionsgate to try to produce a (generally) consistent worldwide version of this next iteration of T2 on Blu-ray, so that the same features are available in all regions, including the US (through Lionsgate), the UK (through Optimum), France (through Studio Canal), Germany (through Kinowelt) and the rest of the world (through Universal Picture International). To the Petainesque extent that I can, I have been working to translate many of my previous special features to Blu-ray and work with the good folks at Blink Digital here in the US and Sofatronic overseas in Germany to create some fairly sophisticated interactivity. Needless to say, this is a huge challenge due to both the programming and space limitations of the format (since I'm always trying to cram the disc full for you guys, and getting anywhere near the maximum limits really taxes the BD format) but also because there are very different requirements for the different combinations of territories and the commensurate amount of space they take up on a given disc. For example, certain territory discs have a lot more audio tracks for different languages than others, and under normal circumstances you'd encode the feature picture only ONCE at a general bitrate to fit on the disc with the highest number of audio tracks... but this means that for the territory versions with fewer languages on it (like the US disc, for example), you'd end up with a lower bitrate transfer and a lot of empty space. So we're trying to do additional encodes of the picture at a higher bitrate for those discs with fewer languages, to use all of the available space on the disc... and this costs more. The studio also wants the disc out in time to take advantage of the theatrical release of Terminator: Salvation, so that defines our deadline. So obviously, time and resources are a factor... no one gives me an unlimited budget or unlimited time, as I'm not Jim Cameron! But we are trying to build a pretty awesome and worthwhile disc.

And in recognition of what Kinowelt did in Germany with their swansong HD-DVD release, we have adapted a number of their features as well, working with those folks to include their trivia games and such. It's not EVERYTHING of course, since there is only so much you can put on a single BD without sacrificing the image quality of the feature too badly, but it's a fair amount. And Lionsgate certainly takes the argument of multiple discs to heart by including all of the other features via the UT2 and T2X DVDs in their Limited Edition set.

And yes, there is a THX-certified English DTS-HD Master Audio lossless track as the primary audio stream, along with Dolby Headphone, both existing commentaries, D-Box Motion COdes and THX Optimizer, as well as new HD transfers of the trailers. From a picture standpoint, a lot of manual dirt cleanup was performed on the existing Cameron-approved master and the decision was made to encode the film in VC-1, so I'd be interested in your feedback when you see the film on this disc.

And for Merrick, all I can say is I hope you remember the code! ;-)

So I hope you'll want to check out this disc and give me some feedback... as you know, I've always tried to push the envelope when I can, and am always learning new things about what the BD format can and can't do... and I rely on folks like you to let me know what works and doesn't work.

Thanks,

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

And for all the T1 fans, I am working on some new material for Blu-ray, hopefully to be seen later this year... ;-)

V