Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Film quality VS Blu-Ray

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Community » The Afterlife » Film quality VS Blu-Ray (Page 2)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Author

Topic: Film quality VS Blu-Ray

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-10-2011 06:02 PM

As good as Blu-ray can be it is still inferior to 2K JPEG2000-based DCPs shipped on hard discs -at least it is for the most part.

Most DCP file sizes are several times the size of the feature film file size on a Blu-ray disc. DCP file sizes are bigger because of the rules regarding how they are created. The MPEG-4 AVC, VC1 and MPEG-2 formats used on Blu-ray can use far more severe levels of compression on the video.

Some studios, Warner Bros. in particular, ship out DCPs with significantly smaller file sizes (and more severe levels of data compression) than rival studios. One studio's 200GB movie file might be only half or even one fourth the size if it were coming from Warner Bros.

| IP: Logged

Alan Gouger
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 501
From: Bradenton, FL, USA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-10-2011 06:30 PM

Warner also has some of the worse Blu-Rays ruining some nice blockbusters by adding edge enhancement and noise reduction.
Ive noticed a lot of their films are flat looking low contrast compared to some of the other studios.

| IP: Logged

Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 07-10-2011 06:54 PM

Warner has seemed to be "cheap" in their deployment of video all the way back to DVD. The only time they ever got a little liberal were those few full bitrate DTS DVDs of Twister and couple others.

I find it interesting that this has translated to their DCPs as well...

AJG

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-10-2011 10:33 PM

There is a strange philosophy in place at WB. They try to compress things as severe as possible regardless of the ample space available on a given storage format, be it DVD, Blu-ray or a Digital Cinema Print.

The studio is pretty consistent about this. I can visit a site like DVD Beaver and look at the technical specs between WB's movies and those of other studios. Very often the video file of a 2 hour movie on a WB Blu-ray release will be small enough to fit on a 25GB single layer BD and with extras the entire contents may weigh under 30GB. It's as if WB is still mastering everything for HD-DVD. Other studios, like Paramount in particular, will use a BD-50 for all it is worth. They'll even have the movie alone fill up all of a BD-50 and stick most or all of the extras on a second disc. I like that approach.

| IP: Logged

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 07-11-2011 12:54 AM

Maybe WB thinks that they need to e-mail all of their data or fit it on a floppy. I bet the decision to compress as much as possible regardless of format and available space came from someone who is old.

| IP: Logged

Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 07-11-2011 10:20 AM

quote: Aaron Garman
Warner has seemed to be "cheap" in their deployment of video all the way back to DVD. The only time they ever got a little liberal were those few full bitrate DTS DVDs of Twister and couple others.

Can you expand on this a bit?
I thought Warner Bro wasn't bad on their DVD. I like the cases and most movies had both FS/WS on either side of the disc.

Laserdisc were not bad. They adopted AC-3 for most movies. Although THX certified LDs were only Twister from what I remember.

| IP: Logged

Victor Liorentas
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 800
From: london ontario canada
Registered: May 2009

posted 07-11-2011 01:09 PM

The bluray of Enter The Dragon is well restored but has way too many extras on the same disc and the result is evident when projected on a large screen.

| IP: Logged

Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 07-11-2011 02:23 PM

quote: Tom Petrov
Can you expand on this a bit?

Many titles released by them on DVD I remember having low average bit rates, for both video and audio. As Bobby mentioned, this has continued with Blu-rays that seem to be created based on HD-DVD standards. Hell, a 192kbps mono track on Casablanca on Blu-ray? That's just silly given the medium.

As for Twister on DVD: it had a couple releases, with the later one having a full bit rate 1500kbps DTS track on it. This was seen as pretty odd because Warner never used DTS on home video and it was an extremely high bit rate, vs. their standard 384kbps Dolby 5.1 that was found on many titles.

AJG

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-11-2011 02:33 PM

WB released Twister, Interview with the Vampire and the three Lethal Weapon movies as what must have been some sort of marketing experiment. The DVDs not only featured lossy DTS 5.1 tracks at the "full" 1509kbps data rate they also had Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks too. I can't remember if the DD 5.1 tracks were encoded at 384kbps or 448kbps. I guess I'll have to load up one of them later this evening and see.

| IP: Logged

Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 07-12-2011 05:51 PM

quote: Per Hauberg
I've asked this question a couple of times in others treads on F-T, -maybe this is the place to get an answer:
Are BluRays being used for regular cinema presentation (minor titles) at Your place, or only for single night special events ??

Picture quality aside, one aspect of this that seems to get overlooked is that sound mixes for DVD formats are different to their theatrical counterparts in important respects; they are mixed for the "near-field" listening characteristic typical of the Home environment and take account of the much smaller size of the room. The mix levels are different as well; I'm not an expert in this area but have seen references to 81dB rather than the 85dB used for theatrical mixes.

| IP: Logged

Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 07-12-2011 08:44 PM

quote:
WB released Twister, Interview with the Vampire and the three Lethal Weapon movies as what must have been some sort of marketing experiment.

I doubt there was some experiment. There were a number of titles released at the lower 754 DTS kbps rate by Warner. Likely they just took advantage of the new format when DTS came out.

| IP: Logged

Don Furr
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 509
From: Sun City, Ca USA
Registered: Nov 2002

posted 07-12-2011 09:44 PM

I ran a Blu Ray of TWISTER and it sounded like crap!! It was no where close to the Dolby Digital track on 35mm. Yuck. I gave the disc to my son.

Don

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-12-2011 11:24 PM

quote: Tom Petrov
I doubt there was some experiment. There were a number of titles released at the lower 754 DTS kbps rate by Warner. Likely they just took advantage of the new format when DTS came out.

Actually those titles I mentioned were their first DVD releases using DTS audio. WB didn't release many other DVDs with DTS.

Of course the situation is now very different with Blu-ray. Every major studio (including WB) is releasing Blu-ray discs with DTS-HD Master Audio being the primary audio format of choice.

BTW, those WB DVD titles I mentioned not only had DTS 5.1 at 1509kb/s. The DD 5.1 tracks were 448kb/s instead of the usual 384kb/s rate. In the case of Twister and Interview With the Vampire English and French DD 5.1 tracks were included as well as the full bit rate DTS track.

| IP: Logged

Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 07-13-2011 11:16 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Actually those titles I mentioned were their first DVD releases using DTS audio. WB didn't release many other DVDs with DTS.

Actually, it has nothing to do with Warner, almost all early DTS releases were full bit rate on DVD. It's DTS that cut the bit rate.

| IP: Logged

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 07-13-2011 11:52 AM

quote: Don Furr
I ran a Blu Ray of TWISTER and it sounded like crap!! It was no where close to the Dolby Digital track on 35mm.

I don't remember Twister sounding particularly great in the theater. It might be another one of those Jan De Bont movies that have zero subwoofer. I know the Dolby Digital version of the trailer doesn't have any sub.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.