Dear Twilight Time: I Can Live With Your Prices, But Hate Your Forced Timelines (1 Viewer)

I e-mailed Twilight Time to tell them that I resent the fact that their timelines, in pause mode, cannot be disabled. I am a massive Harryhausen fan, and like to study his animation a frame at a time, as Sony and Warner Bros. have enabled me to do. TT, despite its gorgeous work on the Harryhausen titles (and this applies to ALL of its Blu-rays), seem to want to clutter their still-frame images with no option to push the "down" button on the remote to get rid of the timeline. I find that maddening, and I suspect there isn't one single consumer of these titles who is pleased with the lack of such an option. So why is TT doing this? Most studios allow for the removal of these intrusive things. When I pay $30.00 for a Blu-ray (with no discount options, generally), I feel I should be able to view it as I please.

So, why won't you answer my e-mail?

I agree with Dick.

Nick Redman has responded to the inquiry, and I quote:

"Since no-one has ever mentioned the issue of timelines to us before, we have no answer as yet, but I will take it up with our authoring house…."

I gather from the lack of interest in this thread that the timeline business isn't nearly as bothersome for other members as I had believed. And this is the first time Nick ever heard mention of this? Wow!

Well, I do still honestly feel there isn't anyone here who wouldn't prefer to have the option of removing these timelines. If there is, flame me!

It's something of a non-issue for me. I 'ruined' enough special effects by looking at them frame by frame back in the CAV laserdisc days so I'm not interested in doing that any more. That being said, I can understand how someone who does want to study the work would be bothered by a needless timeline across the bottom of the shot.

I'll chime in and say that this is a non-issue for me. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people will not be pausing blurays to look carefully at particular special effects. And for those who do pause a scene to examine it more closely, it's not as though the timeline obscures most of the image, so for casual observation they're fine.If you're really keen to look at a BD scene by scene, consider purchasing a bluray drive (around $80) as that really opens up your options. Because frankly I can't see studios changing their authoring to cater to this issue.

Total non-issue for me.

Non removeable timelines suck. People would have had fits about this sort of thing in the LD era.

And there isn't a Harryhausen fan on the planet that doesn't look at the FX shots frame by frame. I nearly broke my family VCR studying the Jason and the Argonauts skeleton fight back in the day.

Persianimmortal said:

I'll chime in and say that this is a non-issue for me. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people will not be pausing blurays to look carefully at particular special effects. And for those who do pause a scene to examine it more closely, it's not as though the timeline obscures most of the image, so for casual observation they're fine.If you're really keen to look at a BD scene by scene, consider purchasing a bluray drive (around $80) as that really opens up your options. Because frankly I can't see studios changing their authoring to cater to this issue.

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The vast majority probably don't listen to commentary tracks or watch supplementary material either, but it's nice to have the option...

...No offense, but did this really warrant its own thread?

The timeline is kinda annoying and something I'd prefer not to obstruct the pause screen, but it's pretty small potatoes.

Depending upon the effort level, why not please more fans. Seems like a pretty simple choice to me, assuming that the ability to hide timelines is not difficult to add to the authoring. Sounds like some of you don't care about pausing, so you'll never see the difference one way or the other and those who do will be happier.

- Walter.

This is easy - nobody seems to have much use for it or strong feelings for keeping it. So why not discard it altogether or make it optional if that is possible?I find them annoying, too by the way so you got my vote for disabling them, Dick - it would be great if Twilight listened.

Non-issue for me, but if it's easy to allow it to be disabled, then why not.

Steve W

Persianimmortal said:

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people will not be pausing blurays to look carefully at particular special effects.

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Really? Judging from what is written on most Blu-ray forums, an awful lot of people seem to do little else but pause the picture and examine the frame for DNR, grain, edge enhancement, color grading, etc to find out if their enjoyment of the film is being ruined

Douglas R said:

Really? Judging from what is written on most Blu-ray forums, an awful lot of people seem to do little else but pause the picture and examine the frame for DNR, grain, edge enhancement, color grading, etc to find out if their enjoyment of the film is being ruined

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It must be terrible to watch a Blu-ray Disc and enjoy the film, only to pause sections for closer scrutiny later and find that you never really enjoyed it at all.

Steve W

Douglas R said:

Really? Judging from what is written on most Blu-ray forums, an awful lot of people seem to do little else but pause the picture and examine the frame for DNR, grain, edge enhancement, color grading, etc to find out if their enjoyment of the film is being ruined

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Thats why I recommended getting a bluray drive, so that people can take those nitpicky screencaps without pesky timelines Seriously though, what ever happened to just watching a movie as a movie, and not something to be dissected for whatever reason? I wrote something along similar lines in another thread regarding the seemingly insatiable demand for extras. Pop in the movie disc, press play, watch, enjoy - problem solved!Anyway I have no problem with the ability to hide timelines being added, and Nick Redman has already indicated that he'll look into this.

Let's keep it hus hus. This is Twilight Time, the masters of everything.

Jari K said:

Let's keep it hus hus. This is Twilight Time, the masters of everything.

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Is this type of tweak really necessary as I never realized this was an issue for some people?

If it's such a non-issue for most people, then I say get rid of them. Please the people who don't want them forced. Many studios don't have them forced. That's a pretty easy fix.

Agreed. Easy fix. I am sure they are only there in the first place to "show off" the fancy Java capabilities on Blu-ray.

I'm one who doesn't care for still-frame timeline displays in general; they don't provide any info I want that's not available by bringing up my player's on-the-fly disc info function, and they often obscure the part of the image I wanted to inspect in still-frame in the first place. Luckily, many discs are programmed so that the timeline disappears after a few seconds.