What will be High-Def extras? (1 Viewer)

It seems that DVD producers are busy thinking up ways to spruce up the new formats. Interesting stuff.

From DVD Exclusive Online:

http://www.dvdexclusive.com/article.asp?articleID=1869

Well, one perk is that photo galleries will be awesome in HD.

That article makes me nervous! They make is sound like documentaries and commentary tracks aren't appreciated anymore. I'll take a documentary and commentary over some damned video game and self-editing tool.

I hope that I'm mis-interpreting what I'm reading, or I won't ever be making the upgrade to HD.

Yeah, what was up with all that crap about video games? Whatever.

Slightly OT--were the interviews they did for the LOTR:EE documentaries shot in HD? They look really sharp.

What I'm a bit concerned is the idea that all the top DVD producers such as Charlie De Lauzirika, David Prior, Van Ling etc. might begin to gravitate away from SD-DVD to work on HD-DVD material while SD-DVD is still the main format. Those of us who don't make the move right away will be stuck with Sub-Par SD-DVD releases.

I'm more concerned with corporations "sponsering" DVD extras. I'd really prefer not to have a whole disc dedicated to what are basically Earthlink commercials.

Haggai: I worked on some of those extras, they shot most of the stuff with Panasonic's HDDV in 480p 16:9 mode, iirc.

I read the article in the print version of the magazine and it just shows how little most of these DVD producers have learned about what extras should be. The most acclaimed DVDs are along the lines of the Lord of the Rings Extended cuts and things like that - where the extras delve in-depth into the filmmaking process, from every angle. Granted, you don't do that on every movie...but the thing is, not every movie WARRANTS it, either. Some movies just don't demand extras.

However, these studios are scared that DVD sales are starting to flatten out, rentals (particularly online) are increasing steadily, and they are grabbing at anything that will become the next "bullet point" that can drive sales. Plus, they want to make sure High Def formats don't fall flat coming out of the gates...so they're throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. Same as what they did as we started seeing the first DVD extras. Look at the progression of DVD extras - it started with nothing more than text bios, filmographies and "other recommended movies." Then gradually you start seeing documentaries, commentaries, those worthless games, etc...

I honestly don't know how many people actually mess with the games or see added value in them, but I think they're almost always stupid and a waste of time (Shrek 2 is the most recent waste of DVD development money I can remember). Kids might like them, but that's about it.

Maybe the idea of doing a cut of something on your own, with footage they provide, is interesting...give people a taste of what it's like to edit a film. But the rest of the ideas and games...I'll pass. Put that money into rentals on HDCam for the documentary makers so we don't have to deal with any SD extras on HD DVDs.

From the DVD Exclusive article linked above: I thought I paid for a DVD when I buy it. I don't care to buy commercials. I won't be buying any DVDs like Meet the Parents if they have ads. On the other hand, if they are free, like commercial TV, then maybe I could live with commercials on DVDs.

(BTW: I also boycott movie theaters that show strings of ads before the movies.)

Whoa, anyone who worked on those movies/DVDs in any capacity gets some props from me! And thanks for the info.

Editing tools? Building your own sequel to run after the main feature? WTF is all that about? The world has gone nuts!

What about simply presenting the movie properly? Even this small task has proven troublesome to some DVD producers of late.

John

"Previous DVDs, including a 2001 Die Hard special edition, have already boasted personal editing workshops. Yet viewers have mostly been limited to switching the order of shots pre-selected by the filmmaker.

With roomier high-def disc space, "you could decide where within a shot you want to cut" and truly fulfill the duties of a film editor, explained producer David Prior.

De Lauzirika added there could be new uses for multi-layer high-def discs, with read-only layers holding the content and then re-writeable layers allowing viewers to edit and even save that content.

"Current DVD offers very crude editing options," he said. "But with a future format, you could pick your exact in and out edit points, create your own cut and save it. These things have all been under discussion."


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That sounds extremely cool to me. I've always wanted to do a recut of a movie. Forget Director's cut - lets have the Consumers Cut!

I doubt many directors are gonna let a feature on a DVD that enables somebody to re-cut their movie to someone else's liking. I hope they don't anyway.

Frankly, I don't care at all about the extras. I just want a good high quality transfer of the film. Everything else just takes away from that, as far as I'm concerned.

ditto the above post

Just give me the movie at the highest bitrate and best sound quality possible.

I like documentary extras about the creative process, the origins of a property, the journey it went through to get made, and worthwhile commentary tracks. I could definitely do without fluff games and junk thrown in to score more bullet points on the box back. I have also never cared about DVD-Rom extras, aside from the odd desktop wallpaper.

With High-Definition DVD, I think it's reasonable to expect high bitrate encoding to eliminate compression artifacts of any kind. Even with that, though, there should be plenty of room left on the discs for some quality extras. For a while, I'm sure they're going to waste a ton of money developing lots of worthless extras that nobody cares about, until they figure out what works...and my guess is, they'll find that what works in HD is exactly the same as what works in SD. My opinion is just that they should put the development money into equipment that will ensure an end-to-end HD experience on an HD disc...all documentaries, all trailers, everything in widescreen HD. No SD, nothing upconverted, etc...

The "editing" game type feature I was thinking would be cool is not re-editing the film, which I'm sure no creative in the industry would allow them to do...but what I think might be neat is giving people a chance to edit their own trailer for the movie. Give them a selection of music to choose from, a large bin of key moments and sound bytes, maybe a text generator to do titling, and let them do a little iMovie style, drag and drop trailer with simple transitions. It would give people an appreciation for the creative process behind cutting an effective trailer and also for the art of editing in general, which I'd obviously like to see since it's my profession and always gets short shrift

That could be a very handy feature for something like say...

...the original Star Wars film!

More power to you, but I look at a featureless disc as a rental only. If I'm going to spend the extra money to own a disc then I want additional content for my money. If extras were not my present, my current collection of 700+ discs would be 1/4 that size if not smaller.

Do you also boycott basic cable, newspapers, and magazines?

DJ

Editing your own movie... that's like being given the Mona Lisa, and a brush, and allowed to add your own little bits at the bottom.

Do these people not realise that film is art? And that the director's vision, good or bad, is how the film should be appreciated?

John

Hmmm, I can't think of a single time that I bought a movie or TV show on DVD where I said to my self, "Wow! Look at the extras on that disk!" "I was just going to rent it, but with extra features like that, I just HAVE to buy it!" When I buy DVD's, I buy "MOVIES", and "TV SHOWS". Not "Making of" featurettes.