Chicken Warrior

Most people could author and master blu-rays on their home PCs now if they wanted to and the pressing is only a few cents more per copy. I've researched this for my own purposes and the only significant expense I can think of is a much smaller market equalling a smaller run equalling a higher price per copy...but not 200%.

Jay G.

Are you certain you mean most people? Most people don't have authoring software that can create BDs, most people don't have BD burners, and most people don't have PCs powerful enough to playback HD material, let alone author it.

Even the software most people use for DVDs currently is only consumer-level software. The professional software is more expensive and intensive.

When the pressing costs for DVDs are only a few cents per copy, a "few cents more" could easily double the cost.

By your logic, even standard DVDs are a "rip," since the cost per disc pales in comparison to the price they charge, even for budget titles. You have to factor in the cost of the video content itself. It's also a factor of both supply and demand. Right now there aren't a lot of consumers of HD media, but those that do exist have proven willing to pay a premium for the more advanced presentation. BDs don't really cost much more than DVDs did at first.

pro-bassoonist

At this point I see no reason why we should even continue to argue the issue at hand as all of your writings could easily be summed up by the fact that you appear disapointed, for whatever reason, that Fox did not specifically announce on the cover that the intended video resolution was different. And that is where the entire debate ends. Still, I am going to address your observations as they appear rather generic.

This is as broad of a generalization as I have seen from you in this thread. Since Blu-Ray does not offer improved video quality only I fail to see how Fox could have released Boyle's film any differently other than perhaps explicitly noted what the director's intentions were. Point: the BR release of 28 Days Later offers DTS HD-MA which is not portable on SDVD. And since part of BR's technical portfolio also relates to audio it is obvious, at least to me, that the only valid critique here is labeling.


Once again, you are lumping the video encode with the audio encode and dismissing it as HD.

The studio's integrity is perfectly in tact. As to arguing about the SDVD version as preserving the integrity of the film better your theory fails the minute we see that part of SDVD's spec is an advanced 5.1 English track. I don't know if the director really intended it. Any specific reason why you only talk about the video?


And since the virtual "DVD player" you talk about won't ever play a SDVD with a DTS HD-MA track your theory is off. Hence, 28 Days Later arrived on BR and SDVD.


This is news to me. You know why Fox released it on BR? Once again, the only credible critique you could present, which is very easy to rebut, is that Fox did not explicitly label the video denomination. Period.


Yet, the two releases boast practically identical video. Strange?


And since the BR release offers a massive improvement in terms of audio your argument just went out the window. The BR release is fine.


No you can not! You keep talking about the video presentation like it is the only spec that matters. The BR disc offers a better all around presentation and as an enthusiast one could easily claim the audio treatment as enough of a reason to upgrade (Hammer 99 appears to be impressed precisely by it).


And again and again you keep coming back talking about making a case that the BR release is sub-par.

The above statement has absolute nothing to do with what I wrote earlier. I attempted to reveal to you that plenty of afficionados have already stopped purchasing SDVD software. Regardless of audio, video, or whatever else specs you could think of. They have simply switched to the next gen-media. So, your observation has nothing to do with what I wrote in the context of our discussion.

Perhaps for you. Not for me. I see BR simply as the next media carrier. It offers both improved audio and video specs. If a particular BR came up only with improved audio and not video, due to technical limitations desired by the director, I would be perfectly fine. Example: 28 Days Later offered advanced audio not portable to SDVD. Some in Fox's higher echelons appear to have concluded that this is enough of a reason for the BR's existence. Some customers appear to have agreed.



No it isn't. In post #42 to which you replied I made you aware that there is an existing thread where people were/are bidding SDVD goodbye. For a very specific reason. As I was "talking" to you and no one else and since we are in the HD section I don't think it was necessary that I provided a link to it. The thread is very recent.

Look Jay, there is absolutely no point that we argue whether or not people were allowed to have unreasonable expectations by Fox and their marketing department. As I already mentioned earlier if your only concern is the video treatment then your argument ends with the observation that Fox should have explicitly labeled it in a certain way. Yet since the BR offers advanced audio treatment not possible on SDVD, which people are just as concerned as you are about the video, this whole discussion is practically pointless. In post # 37 you implied that as enthusiasts we are expected to question sub-par releases and everything we have written and debated here leads me to believe that the disc is anything but.

Have a good night!

Pro-B

dhmac

And that's your opinion, not my opinion.

Shooting in DV is OK, but shooting in "SD" DV for a theatrical release is just not a good idea, IMO, because it'll leave the audience straining to focus on an image that's just too soft to be projected that big.

Jay G.

That would've helped, but that's not the only thing, or even the main thing, I've been arguing about.

I've already suggested an alternative release, repeatedly: They could've released the movie in it's original SD resolution on BD.

I'm not dismissing the video or audio codecs at all. In fact, I've repeatedly cited the advanced codecs available on BD as a valid jusitifcation for a BD release.

The one who's confused here seems to be you, as you've repeatedly been unable to separate the BD format from the HD resolution that it's most commonly associated with. BD does not automatically equal HD, as it's perfectly capable of storing SD material in SD.

Again, this is how they released it:
"1080p/AVC MPEG-4"
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1085/28dayslater.html
"Video resolution: 1080p"
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies...62&show=review

The release claims to be HD, and the video is even stored as HD, but as has been repeatedly pointed out, the source was not HD, and thus no release of this movie can ever truly be HD. It's on par with upconverting a letterboxed VHS of a film and claiming to have made an anamorphic DVD.

At best, Fox's decision to upconvert the video and release it in HD is potentially misleading, at worst it's an out-and-out lie intended to dupe unsuspecting into thinking a release that you yourself has said has identical video quality as the SD DVD into thinking the video's better on the BD.

My point is still completely valid because of two reasons:

1) The film was released in 5.1 surround in theaters as well, so the DVD isn't subverting the film's integrity in that regard.
3) The BD only contains 5.1 surround tracks as well. So as the two formats have the same audio specs for this title, mentioning the audio is irrelevant in discussing which release better preserves the film's integrity.

They released it to ride the promotional hype of the sequel. I have no complaint about that. It's that they decided that since it was on a BD the video had to be HD as well, even though there'd be no benefit to storing it as such, that I'm critical about.

For a release that purposes to be HD? You bet it's strange when it contains "practically identical video" to it's SD counterpart. The fact that the HD video offers no real benefits only bolsters my point that they should've just put the movie in SD on the BD.

No, I'm talking about the video presentation as the only spec that's not true.

Let's say that a studio wanted to put some HD extras on a disc. However, instead of either creating new extras in HD, or re-transfering existing extras into HD, they instead took the SD masters they had for the SD DVD, upconverted it to HD, stored it on the BD that way and claimed on the back that these counted as "HD extras." Wouldn't that be a lie?

You write that like I didn't right the same thing first, several posts back, and repeatedly since then. Are you even bothering to understand what I wrote before you respond?

The BD isn't sub-par for a release of this film. However, it is incredibly sub-par for a release that claims to be HD.

It has plenty to do within the context of our discussion, you just don't seem to know what the full context is. I'm saying that releasing it in BD is fine, and is to be expected. That's not what's bothering me, and never has been. It's your justification of Fox's upconversion of SD video to HD that's bothering me. If SD sourced material is going to be released on BD, it should be released in it's original SD form, not in an upconverted resolution just so the studio can slap "Now in HD!" on the box.

So you agree with me that Fox's decision to store SD video in HD on this disc was completely unnecessary. That's good.

Now you're guessing at their motives. Tell me this then: If they felt that just the advanced audio was enough of a reason to release it, why did they then upconvert the video and store it in HD on the disc?

Post #42 was where you wrote that you were informing me "again."
Here, I'll quote it:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....69#post8448169
Unless you had written about the thread somewhere before post #42, which you hadn't, then that use of the word "again" was entirely incorrect, which it was.

Expecting a release that touts to be HD to actually be HD is not unreasonable at all, I don't think. If something only has an SD source, there's no point in making an HD copy of that source when a BD can store the original SD source in its native resolution just fine.

Josh Z

Which was, in fact, the point. Not only was the movie shot with an SD camera, it was shot in a mode that halves the resolution to about 250 lines of resolution, and then it was further post-processed to make it as ugly and gritty as possible. The movie is meant to look like crap.

Zombielover

It was meant to look that way watch other Danny Boyle movies I love his work and style and the dread you can feel thru this movie

E Unit

Mkay

Dan

Aww, this thread brings back memories.

I'm pretty sure Pro-B is why Blu-ray won the format war.

Jay G.

It's interesting to re-read this thread and reflect on its relevance to the current 4K upconversions of 2K masters on a lot of UHD-BDs.

DVD Josh

I had forgotten I had even posted in this before, lol.

orangerunner

I'm not sure it was mentioned among the many points that were made through-out the post but I suppose the Blu-ray could be justified in that the film was natively shot on DV video (720X480 standard def) with the compression rate of that format at 25mbps which a DVD cannot replicate but a Blu-ray can.

After all of the post production, I'm not sure how relevant that may be in the final product but uncompressed standard def on a Blu-ray should be better quality than compressed standard def on a DVD - not that it can be classified as HD.

Jay G.

Yeah, I mentioned higher-bitrate SD video as an option in one of my rants.

Josh Z

The compression rate is kind of irrelevant since the Blu-ray is not a direct-digital transfer from the original data files. It was scanned from a film-out 35mm internegative, which is forever locked to the quality of the digital-to-celluloid output done at that time. The only portion of the movie that benefits from HD is the final scene, which switches to genuine 35mm photography for a couple minutes.

E Unit

Ha, 9 1/2 years and 3 pages later, we get the answer to the OP.

Jay G.

But that "digital-to-celluloid output" was from a 25Mbps source, so the compression artifacts imprinted onto the 35mm internegative may be less than what's evident on a DVD made from a scanned master of that internegative.

Josh Z

The amount of noise Boyle deliberately introduced into the movie as part of his grading process to make it look as gritty as possible far overshadows any alleged compression artifacts the DVD may have had.

This isn't just picking nits. It's picking the nits on those nits.

AaronSch

This. Not that you can rely on memories from well over a decade ago, but I did see this film theatrically and have watched it on DVD and Blu-ray a few times over the years. I don't ever remember anything distracting about the home viewing experience. It's about as good as you are gonna get unless they produce a box set with additional content for its 15th anniversary this year...but that ain't likely to happen at this point.

hanshotfirst1138

Was it shot at 25 FPS? If it was shot on PAL video then projected at 24, did they cut frames? I've always wondered.

morriscroy

Another possibility is a deliberate 25fps -> 24fps slowdown.

Jay G.

i'm pretty sure it was this. The audio seems pitch corrected, but everyone's moving slightly slower than they actually were when shot.

It wouldn't be the first movie/show slowed down. Planet Earth was also slowed from 50i to 24p for the Blu-ray presentation.
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/internation...-slowdown.html

More info on how 28 Days Later was shot.
http://indiediyfilm.blogspot.com/200...ot-on-xl1.html
https://forums.creativecow.net/archivethread/59/350222

hanshotfirst1138

Do the U.K. BDs of either retain the 50i? I wonder where the messiness from the speed up ends and the deliberate noise begins? I remember Sherlock got converted to 60i on BD, how does that work? Does he same happen with other U.K. shows released in the U.S.?

Jay G.

Nope, they're 24p too.

Seasons 3 & 4 of Sherlock were released in 1080p in the US:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Sherlo...Blu-ray/79402/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Sherlo...lu-ray/161931/

Some UK shows have been converted from 50i to 60i, using specialized frame rate converters. However, the most recent season of Doctor Who is 1080p on both sides of the pond.

For older shows, if they were shot on film, they're likely to be released in 24p, and in fact were likely shot at 24fps in the first place, and then sped up for PAL broadcast. The Prisoner is one such show.

hanshotfirst1138

That kinda stinks. Can BR play back 50i?

Did they shoot 24p and speed them up?

With the advent of BD, is it easier just to shoot 24p to have it for the home video released and then speed it up for PAL? I assume that U.K. HDTVs are 50i, how do they manage that?

Huh, I wondered about that. I'd always assumed most older U.K. shows were shot 25 FPS. Was it easier to shoot 24 then speed up the to PAL video?

Jay G.

BD supports 1080i/50 as an option for discs to be encoded in, but not all BD players can output it, and not all TVs can display it, with most in the US not able to. Some US BD Players can convert 1080i/50 to 1080i/60.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray#Video

Possibly, but on newer cameras there may be a 25p or 50p option, much like some US cameras have 30p and 60p as framerate options. In this case, the US releases are slowed to 24p.

The tricky bit for PAL/50i -> NTSC/60i would be the shows shot on video before 24p became an option. Those need frame interpolation, as well as resolution downscaling if going from PAL to NTSC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televi...rds_conversion

I'm not an expert on early UK TV though. I did find a reference to some shows shot on film using cameras set to record at 25fps:
https://books.google.com/books?id=WR...r%20TV&f=false