Bill Hunt comments on Sony titles (1 Viewer)

[MarekM]

I am not sure if I can copy that from their site...
there are some very interesting comments...

here is link...
if adminnistrator think it is ok to copy that here, please do....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...67#post8489767

 

[TonyD]

here's the link to the beginning of that topic.
were bil's comments were posted.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=726840

 

[MarekM]

Thanx TonyD, I was sure it will go to beginning....
Marek

 

[MarekM]

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8503640

part of message about work on Fifth Element.........

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"He said that after it was transferred, they went back to Sony and said it's a mess and requires lots of cleanup work. Sony said..."no, we want to get it out quickly! It's OK the way it is".

Then, of course, it was released and the "S..." hit the fan.

Subsequently, Sony went back to them and said that in the future, "take as much time and effort as you need to make it PERFECT!""
====================================

 

[Juan C]

This is an outrage. That's no way to build a format.

More than the individual event, what upsets me is what it tells me about Sony's priorities - ie they don't care about quality unless there is backlash. Like movie theater projectionists who focus by turning the knob until the hisses die down.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Very disappointing to learn that Sony opted to rush Blu-Ray
releases to the format rather than make sure they looked perfect.

This is no way to launch a format.

 

[Jerome Grate]

I agree, waiting would have given Sony and BD a huge, huge release and the price would have been easier to swallow as long as the quality was there. Instead they rushed out the release, bad decision, used bad masters to hurry for the release, another bad decision and finally 500 dollars more than the competition with all the quirks the worst decision IMHO

 

[Cees Alons]

It's not just stupid. They're not hurting only themselves. They're hurting their customers.
It's cheating. A consumer may expect an excellent product for his/her money, period.

Now, when we (stupidly) believed to hand over the money for a double-dip worth to be bought, a beautiful movie and a glorious Blu-ray disc, well done on this new shining format as we might expect by Sony/TriStar, the forrunner of the format, we were miserably cheated and got a mediocre product.

I cannot even see the disc yet (no player), but I already hate owning it (and paying for it).
(And, indeed, the "news" on the net stopped me from buying more BD releases after the first three I bought. Like many must have done. THAT hurted Sony, even if they don't care.)


Cees

 

[RobertR]

Even if Sony cleans up its act and starts turning out high quality releases, it should be obvious to everyone that they won't be doing so because they have any professional pride in wanting to produce high quality product. Their only motive will be to reduce criticism of them to an acceptable level. They deserve no kudos for acting solely in a reactive manner.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Maybe, that's one of the reasons why Sony's Home Entertainment Division has a new person running the show.

 

[Cees Alons]

That's very interesting news!

Back in 2000 in LA, we visited SHED and we were very impressed (at least I was) with the professional atmosphere and opinions there and the way they looked at the product and the "consumer": the somewhat elite-like DVD lovers of then.

That's why I was so extremely disappointed about all this (I think it started around when the Superbit idea hit the market, shortly after that visit).

Perhaps we're going to see a new change, this time one for the best.


Cees

 

[MatthewA]

Please! From this company I'll take a quality product any way that I can get it.

 

[Brian-W]

I think it was a bad (penny wise, pound foolish) move of Sony to kill off their onsite HD facility.

I posted a response in AVS in regards to a question about "doesn't Sony do their own transfers and just farm out encoding", I think it is relevant here (and perhaps to Cee's comment)

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Not anymore (IIRC). They had a 'showcase' facility on the Culver studio lot that encompassed everything: telecine transfer, color correction, sound remixing, digital print clean up, everything. It really was one of the first studios to take on HD, and Sony used it to really help push their equipment (HDCam, HDVS, etc). Sony even developed their own telecine machine which was never completed, but reportedly leaps and bounds better than the Phillips Spirit. It was started up to do the transfers of film titles to the now dead Japanese HD laserdisc format based on the MUSE specification. It evolved over time, naturally.

The facility it was decided (again, IIRC) by corporate to have 'done it's job' and that the work could be farmed out more cheaply than maintaining everything onsite. The shutdown began in 2002, completed in 2003. The irony is they were in the midst of expanding with all new 'directorial' suites where directors and film makers could sit down, use all of the latest equipment, and master their films accordingly. It was like a music studio, with the front of the room having a screen and projection system (Sony G90s), with the back of the room containing all the sound equipment for mixing, color correction, as well as Sony 34" HD CRT units (forgot model #, but fed via HD-SDI and ~ $34k each). It was very state of the art, very plush. Xanadu for film freaks.

I got a tour back in 1999 and again in 2002 and 2003. Back in 1999, I got to visit the color correction centers, where they were transferring and already color correcting HD masters for films that weren't even released yet ("Wild Things" was being done at the time). The masters were done to HDCam, and then archived. I also saw a room (like a sweat shop really) where there were a number of digital artists and SGI machines cleaning up digitally film, frame by frame. I think Ghostbusters was being done while I was there (again, in 1999).

But Sony decided to farm everything out from a cost perspective, and pretty dumb if you ask me. Anyway, they liquidated almost all the equipment there, including their Phillips Spirit (which my friend almost bought) telecince units (they had two I believe). I subsequently bought one of the early gen models of the 28" CRT HD displays and (like finding buried treasure), boxes upon boxes of Hi-Vision LD titles (gone to Japan).

Ah, those were the days...sad that it went away.
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