ODEMAX in the fall?

[Blair S. Paulsen]

The Law of Unintended Consequences

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Taking a seat on the sidelines for a moment, its actually kind of comical to watch the various stakeholders trip over themselves to manipulate the standards (HDMI. HEVC, etc) to their advantage. In many cases the players are actually on board with the proposed standard but will delay it so they can retrench and catch up with competitors - only to discover that their stall tactic actually helped a rival far more than it helped them.

In Stacey's response to Neil's note about Apple, he admonishes Apple to follow system standards. This viewpoint is presumably based on the frustrations of past interoperability problems in system design brought about by vendors "going rouge". Point taken.

That said, in an environment where the standards process itself has morphed into corporate cage match with the only sure losers being the consumer I'm ready to try plan B - could it really be worse? What would happen if Apple sussed out the whole enchilada - codec, DRM, interconnects, content access, purchase model, format, color space, GUI, etc? Music via iTunes has been pretty successful, why not video?

Amazon and the rest can pay a royalty fee and compete using Apple's technical framework, or develop their own - its up to them. Perhaps if the risk of losing the race to Apple was great enough the other stakeholders would bury the hatchet and get a decent standard fast tracked. Essentially the same dynamic seen when the threat of an external enemy brings rival factions together in the geopolitical arena. Based on recent history can we expect real progress without exigency? As a parent, I know the quickest way to end an argument over what TV show will be watched is to tell the bickering kids that if they don't agree to something in one minute I'm turning it off - works every time...

IAC, looking at the current landscape - which seems to be aimed at intentionally creating a standard with a limited shelf life as a tactic to shorten replacement cycles, companies behind the technological curve trying to retard progress while they catch up and jockeying for royalty revenue - I would argue that Apple engineering the UHD ecosystem by edict might actually be the best case scenario. Add to that, the potential for Thunderbolt (even at 10gb/s TB1 bandwidth) to become the ubiquitous interconnect standard for a plethora of devices and I'm seeing a potential lifeline out of this morass.

I'm sure there will be plenty of Apple haters ready to flame me, and I am hardly blind to how they have leveraged their position to their own advantage, but at least there's a very good chance that their ecosystem will provide the kind of user experience that could speed UHD adoption rates. For those of us looking to sell UHD content sooner than later, that counts.

Cheers - #19

 

[Neil W. Smith]

UHDTV and real 4K content

UHDTV and real 4K content

VP8 is an evolution of VP9. 265 is an evolution of 264. 265 has the benefit, and detriment, of several companies providing IP. A lot mostly to ensure their piece of the royalty pie in the future. That means not everything submitted is worth having. VP8 was on par with VC-1 and both were technically inferior to H.264, though VC-1 beat H.264 MP in several blind tests done by Hollywood studios in 2004/2005. Sadly Microsoft's boasting lead to specific tools being added to H.264 high profile, which fixed the shortcomings main profile had. As Jeff pointed out earlier, its all about the encoder implementation. Not all 264 encoders are created equal. (Same for any codec) There is only one VP8 encoder that I am aware of. The VP8 spec has pages copy and pasted straight from H.264, which makes their claims about IP free laughable. 265 has the worlds leading experts on video compression contributing to it. They are not necessarily video people and I use the term video to mean digital images, not 60Hz interlaced content. They get math and algorithms but sometimes miss the image quality mark. 265 has a superior tool set to VP9. It has wide industry adoption. They did target mobile over UHD during its development because that is where the money is. I wish 4:2:2 10-bit would have been part of it from day 1 instead of a year later. If we get UHD Blu-ray, it will probably go with H.254 10-bit 4:2:0. We should know by years end.

The current open issue with 265 is the patent pool and royalties. Until this is worked out, supporting 265 is a risk. MPEG-4 ASP failed because it had no caps. 264 did not originally have caps, but VC-1 forced a royalty cap. Anyone selling an H.264 decoder must pay $0.20 to MPEG LA until they reach the cap. MPEG-2 has no such cap and everyone must pay $2.00 to MPEG LA forever. If 265 does not have a cap, it will fail. Hopefully VP9 will motivate a cap for 265.



No, a 265 decoder only needs to decode 265. With that said, no one could sell a product (ASIC) that only supports 265. Chips will continue to support all codecs. (sans VPn) MPEG LA was looking at forming a patent pool for VP8, not sure what is currently happening. They would probably do the same for VP9, which throws a wrench into IP free.



Until publically available, I am limited on what I can say. They added 4:2:0 support specifically for 10+bit UHD. They should have supported 10/12-bit 4:4:4 UHD @ 60 Hz. (or 120 Hz) Decisions were made around todays technology, not tomorrows.



The "mastered in 4k" Blu-rays are 8-bit and claimed to support xvYCC. You don't need more bitdepth to support the wider gamut. There is a "fight" going on now about wide gamut in general. One of the concerns against it is displays not properly displaying existing 709 content. The fear is existing content not will out of whack with the wide gamut. Display manufacturers get so much wrong today. HD sets still suffer the same artifacts as SD set, just more resolution. We are now seeing the same thing with UHD sets.



If they come out with a display, of any resolution, I hope they meet system standards and not try and push their own. Google is pushing VP9 for UHD on YouTube. Others, like Netflix, are moving to H.265. I suspect Apple would follow H.265 as well. While a lot of content is shot in UHD+, not a lot is being finished.

Right now a lot of the HT magazines are kind of dismissing UHD. Most of the reviews of been done without actual UHD content.

Great reply - thanks ... appreciate the thought and detail you put into it. In my mind, the biggest single issue facing the wide scale adoption of UHDTV in the home market is the MGPEG LA patent pool warfare that's going on at the moment ... if the 11 major patent holders don't get their act together soonish and the fab vendors don't start spinning HEVC enabled silicon before the year-end we'll miss the CES 2014 launchpad window and that will slow down IPTV content delivery through OTT devices for the rest of the year.

Just want to come back to you on the question of 4K (3840 x 2160) content and the UHDTV experience ... I have a 55 inch UHDTV next to a 60 inch 1080p both being fed by an OPPO 4k/2k BluRay player in twin output mode. Put your 'HD Benchmark 2nd Ed' BR into the OPPO last night and calibrated the two panels side by side - the OPPO has a semi-decent HD to 4K upscaled and I dialed in both sets to match each other as best I could, given the vagaries of edge-lighting and DSP processors.

After running through the calibration sequence I watched your cool demo footage (even though it's all HD) and quite frankly I couldn't see any discernible difference between the two panels.

However, I then watch the 'remastered in 4K' SONY BluRay of 'Lawrence of Arabia' and that's were things got interesting ... though BR is only 1920x1080 the upscaled 3840x2160 version of LofA looked significantly better ... not sure I understand the reason why. I had both HDMi ports set to 36 bit wide color gamut.

Furthernore, at our last 4K Workflow Unplugged session, Ron Lagelof brought along a five minute short he'd shot on his EPICs and cut and finished in 3840x2160 .... it was a collection of some of his underwater dives in difference seas around the world and we played that back through the UHDTV through a Resolve and BMD 4K pipeline and wow! ... all the footage looked great but there were a couple of scenes of particularly vibrant complex coral with Angel fish in the foreground that totally popped out of the screen ... looked like 3D without the glasses.

The point I'm making is that resolution per se may not be the critical factor in determining the consumer's perceptual and emotional response to 4K content ... more likely to be a combination of well shot detailed and colorful 4K content displayed on an accurately calibrated UHDTV with wide color gamut.

Have you done any testing with different kinds of 4K content to see which benefits most from UHDTV resolution and xvYCC colorimetry?

Cheers,
Neil

P.S. any plans to bring out a 4K version of your superb calibration BluRay? ... highly recommended for any one serious about testing and setting up their home theater environment.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Music via iTunes has been pretty successful, why not video?

Who knows! People listen to music over and over again, the cost is low, and its a fast download. People don't often watch the same movie over and over again like they do music, the cost is higher to purchase, and the download times are longer. Frankly audio compression works better than video compression. There is not really a concept of segment re-encoding for audio like there is video. Blu-ray encodes are hand tuned while streaming is often not even QC'ed anymore due to cost. These are all just some of the things that pop into my head.

... not sure I understand the reason why.

Its possible you are experiencing the xvYCC version on the UHD panel. I was not able to get it to work on a Panasonic combination a while back. If it works through the OPPO, that is interesting. FYI, early tests show the OPPO scaling to 4k outperforming the Sony.

Yes, we plan to do a 4k version of the program. We will start to experiment once we receive our REDRAY player and encoder.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Who knows! People listen to music over and over again, the cost is low, and its a fast download. People don't often watch the same movie over and over again like they do music, the cost is higher to purchase, and the download times are longer. Frankly audio compression works better than video compression. There is not really a concept of segment re-encoding for audio like there is video. Blu-ray encodes are hand tuned while streaming is often not even QC'ed anymore due to cost. These are all just some of the things that pop into my head.

Agree that there are a number of differences between music and movies/TV as you note. Beyond that, the current trajectory for both seems to be moving toward a subscription model. I am assuming that as the marketplace matures we will see various subscription levels (striated by price, access to premium content and maybe even quality) as well as pay per view, "purchase" via download, etc. Thanks to the cable and satellite companies' established pricing model, it shouldn't be that hard to offer consumers a compelling value proposition even if the bandwidth demands and unit cost are 3 times that of music.

In terms of music vs video in the Apple/iTunes model, I see it like a department store that retails disparate merchandise. It doesn't matter whether you came for socks or a prom dress (different price points and expected service life) the mechanics of the arrangement are unaffected - you select what you want and pay for it. Based on the adoption rate and user friendly GUI in DVRs, I don't see managing video resources to suit one's consumption preferences as a significant impediment to acceptance. Convenience could be further enhanced by any number of clever combinations of cloud access, licensing terms, managed sharing, etc.

Cheers - #19

 

[Neil W. Smith]

Consumer choice ...

Consumer choice ...

Except that Apple has not achieved any kind of dominance in video downloads or streaming as they did in the music business. The video pie is much more diverse, split between not only Netflix and Amazon, but Google, Hulu, Vudu, Sony, Microsoft, and others. I don't see where Apple or any other single player is going to be able to put that genie back in a bottle, no matter how much they might want to.

Valid point, Mike ... and yes, I agree that the current video pie distribution model is much more diverse than the music market is now ... however, it wasn't always thus ... it took Apple a few years to attain dominance in the .mp3 distribution business.

What's you view on this possible scenario ... HEVC (assuming MGPEG LA gets it act together) offers an opportunity to redefine both the current HD and future UHDTV delivery system ... Apple comes to market with a library of Hollywood content that is H.265 compressed with a convenient and flexible DRM system that consumers enjoy using ... plus they deliver a cool UHDTV panel of some size at a price that consumers find agreeable and combine that with either an embedded HEVC decoder or upgraded AppleTV that handles both H.264 and H.265 decoding and then price 4K content (3840x2160) at an attractive economic model for both content owners and content consumers?

Lots of 'ifs and ands and buts' I know and all pure speculation on my behalf ... but if such a scenario were to ensue between now and CES 2014, might some portion of the early adopter consumer market vote with their wallets and once again swing market share in Apple's favor?

If above scenario is totally implausible, wondering how you see the UHDTV market place developing over the next year?

Neil

 

[M Most]

What's you view on this possible scenario ... HEVC (assuming MGPEG LA gets it act together) offers an opportunity to redefine both the current HD and future UHDTV delivery system ... Apple comes to market with a library of Hollywood content that is H.265 compressed with a convenient and flexible DRM system that consumers enjoy using ... plus they deliver a cool UHDTV panel of some size at a price that consumers find agreeable and combine that with either an embedded HEVC decoder or upgraded AppleTV that handles both H.264 and H.265 decoding and then price 4K content (3840x2160) at an attractive economic model for both content owners and content consumers?

Lots of 'ifs and ands and buts' I know and all pure speculation on my behalf ... but if such a scenario were to ensue between now and CES 2014, might some portion of the early adopter consumer market vote with their wallets and once again swing market share in Apple's favor?

I don't think the general public either knows, understands, or cares about codecs, DRM, or a TV monitor with an Apple label on it. They will judge with their eyes and wallets. Many, if not most, of them have bought relatively inexpensive LCD's within the last few years and are pretty happy with them. Even at a relatively attractive price point (let's say under $1K), they probably have a lot of other things they would rather buy at this point. And since you really only see the difference when you put these things side by side, I don't think they would notice the difference anyway, especially on HD content - which amounts, and will likely still amount, to about 98% of what they'll watch for the next few years. So my view is that while Apple might try such a scenario, I don't see the possibility for success that you seem to unless the monitor is so innovative and has such unique features that it's irresistible. And frankly, I haven't seen that from Apple since......... well, since the original iPhone. And 2007 was a long time ago, relatively speaking...

If above scenario is totally implausible, wondering how you see the UHDTV market place developing over the next year?

Very slowly. If you change that to "over the next 5 years" I would say at about the same rate as HD was at the beginning. Which would be slow but deliberate, with about a 10 year path to "general acceptance". Not dead on arrival (like 3D), but not an immediate success, either. I would also point out that despite its availability, and despite it being a much more ready market, 4K has yet to make its presence really significant even in theatrical features, at least in terms of distribution and exhibition. It's still very much the exception and not the rule, even in 4K equipped theaters (and there are a lot of them). Granted, there are specific reasons for that (VFX being the prime one), but that's the fact, at least at this point in time. Consumers will buy what they want, regardless of how much they're told what they **should** want. There are only so many geeks out there in the world.

I know that this is a place where lots of people want to be optimistic about these things. And many of them consider me to be a pessimist. I don't consider myself to be either. I consider myself to be a realist.

 

[Neil W. Smith]

adoption of 4K in the home ...

adoption of 4K in the home ...

I don't think the general public either knows, understands, or cares about codecs, DRM, or a TV monitor with an Apple label on it. They will judge with their eyes and wallets. Many, if not most, of them have bought relatively inexpensive LCD's within the last few years and are pretty happy with them. Even at a relatively attractive price point (let's say under $1K), they probably have a lot of other things they would rather buy at this point. And since you really only see the difference when you put these things side by side, I don't think they would notice the difference anyway, especially on HD content - which amounts, and will likely still amount, to about 98% of what they'll watch for the next few years. So my view is that while Apple might try such a scenario, I don't see the possibility for success that you seem to unless the monitor is so innovative and has such unique features that it's irresistible. And frankly, I haven't seen that from Apple since......... well, since the original iPhone. And 2007 was a long time ago, relatively speaking...



Very slowly. If you change that to "over the next 5 years" I would say at about the same rate as HD was at the beginning. Which would be slow but deliberate, with about a 10 year path to "general acceptance". Not dead on arrival (like 3D), but not an immediate success, either. I would also point out that despite its availability, and despite it being a much more ready market, 4K has yet to make its presence really significant even in theatrical features, at least in terms of distribution and exhibition. It's still very much the exception and not the rule, even in 4K equipped theaters (and there are a lot of them). Granted, there are specific reasons for that (VFX being the prime one), but that's the fact, at least at this point in time. Consumers will buy what they want, regardless of how much they're told what they **should** want. There are only so many geeks out there in the world.

I know that this is a place where lots of people want to be optimistic about these things. And many of them consider me to be a pessimist. I don't consider myself to be either. I consider myself to be a realist.

Thanks Mike ... as ever your perspective is erudite and worthy of careful consideration ... and I agree, realism though not valued by all on this forum comes in handy at times.

If you don't think the HEVC/UHDTV/Apple combination is going to take off any time soon in the home market, what's your view of the likelihood of the .red/Odemax/Red Ray combination (whatever that may be) achieving wide scale acceptance and market penetration?

Neil

 

[M Most]

If you don't think the HEVC/UHDTV/Apple combination is going to take off any time soon in the home market, what's your view of the likelihood of the .red/Odemax/Red Ray combination (whatever that may be) achieving wide scale acceptance and market penetration?

This is Reduser, and I do want to remain respectful of that. So I would say extrapolate from my earlier comments. :wink5:

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

FWIW, at least initially, the .RED/RedRay/ODEMAX combo is not something that has "wide scale" anything written all over it. That said, it could turn out to be an important beach head.

In terms of anticipated timelines for UHD infrastructure to manifest Apple obviously has a bit (yes, that's sarcasm) larger footprint in the consumer marketplace than RED or ODEMAX. IF, and that's a big IF, Apple does want to make a move into the UHD distribution space they could unilaterally shorten the adoption timeline significantly. The theoretical attraction of UHD for Apple might be as a differentiator and establishing position for when UHD does become more widespread, even if that's several years away.

RED obviously has a number of motivations for promoting UHD/4K, not the least of which is to provide proof of concept to prime the distribution ecosystem.

Cheers - #19

 

[Elsie N]

With unabashed temerity, I offer a simple solution for ODEMAX and RED to grab a large share of the new delivery venues audience.

Quickly make .RED an all source codec... from 1080p up to and including 4k. Sell the decoder through ODEMAX for a one-time fee of like $10.00, or even give it away for ODEMAX subcribers. RED sells their players to those who want 4k quality while those who want to watch the same content in 1080p (good enough for smaller screens) can watch it on their handhelds or home computer/tv systems.

Since RED and ODEMAX are pretty much ready to go right now, I should think many content providers, including some studios, would get on board sooner or later. This doesn't do much to push 4k as the standard as it gives a nod to 1080p, but it could make for a much larger content library since it acknowledges that 1080p is all that is within reach of many.

 

[M Most]

With unabashed temerity, I offer a simple solution for ODEMAX and RED to grab a large share of the new delivery venues audience.

Quickly make .RED an all source codec... from 1080p up to and including 4k. Sell the decoder through ODEMAX for a one-time fee of like $10.00, or even give it away for ODEMAX subcribers. RED sells their players to those who want 4k quality while those who want to watch the same content in 1080p (good enough for smaller screens) can watch it on their handhelds or home computer/tv systems.

Since RED and ODEMAX are pretty much ready to go right now, I should think many content providers, including some studios, would get on board sooner or later. This doesn't do much to push 4k as the standard as it gives a nod to 1080p, but it could make for a much larger content library since it acknowledges that 1080p is all that is within reach of many.

I'm guessing just a bit here, but the level of compression used in the .RED codec is really only made possible because of the higher resolution original material and higher resolution result. There is a lot more redundancy when you have 4 times the number of pixels, and this allows for higher compression ratios with acceptable results. Going to lower resolutions - even HD - removes some of that ability and thus requires a lower compression ratio in order for the material to survive with an acceptably low amount of artifacting.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Unless something fundamental changes, the RedRay hardware is a requirement for the .RED/ODEMAX ecosystem. FWIW, that hardware "dongle" may also be the key to providing a safe enough distribution modality to assuage piracy fears for the major rights holders. Sadly, I'd wager DRM is higher on the priority list than IQ.

Cheers - #19

 

[mark haflich]

This is Reduser, and I do want to remain respectful of that. So I would say extrapolate from my earlier comments. :wink5:

Neil like but not a lawyer asks Mike a question he well knows the answer to and Mike knowing that Neil well knows the answer both from common sense and Mike's past posts and one again like but not a lawyer refuses to directly answer the question but tells Neil he has already indirectly answered that question and to connect the dots established by his other posts. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Now I ask a question I think I know the answer to and the reason Mike despite being asked by me in several threads refuses to acknowledge or answer, what is the minimum 4K display size for post work on 4K content for ultimate large screen 4K display? I assume portions of the post work could adequately be done on small panels but that large screens, say at least 10 ft wide, would be required for other portions and final checking and corrections. I assume that low quality Chinese monitors being widely used by many Redusers are totally inadequate for quality work even for those portions of post that could adequately be performed on small panels. I think part of the problem here is the capture end of the chain has adequately hatched (the wonderful and relatively affordable Red 4K and up cameras) before the display and monitor end and the inability financially of many to buy a better monitor and 4K projector after they have blown their wad on cameras and lenses etc. Hopefully, we will see cheaper 4K consumer projectors shipping by years end or earlier that the pros cam use. I smell a consumer 4K projector from red being shown at Cedia but not using direct laser illumination but blue laser lit white phosphor etc licensed from another.

 

[mark haflich]

Elsie. I have been a way working on a retrofit wiring job for five solid days, a 100 year old house, which in retrofit includes a full recording studio etc, so I have just been able to catch up here. We work and sleep when in the field, no down time for internetting. Anyhow, I appreciate your "unabashed temerity" and intend in my future posting to also make them with unabashed temerity. I will no longer hold back.

 

[Mathias Rauen]

The "mastered in 4k" Blu-rays are 8-bit and claimed to support xvYCC.

"claimed to", haha, yes. Do I sense some doubt on your side?

Do you think they are *really* using xvYCC? I kinda doubt it because if they did, non-xvYCC-capable hardware would probably simply clip the xvYCC information and that *should* (in theory) result in all wide colors being displayed with incorrect hues. I wonder if Sony is actually willing to release Blu-Rays that result in incorrect hues being shown with the majority of hardware out there today? Or am I missing something?

 

[Brian F Kobylarz]

Time to shift the discussion!

Time to shift the discussion!

Events have overtaken the title of this thread -

Speculation over - another paradigm shift in the industry happened last night.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?103659-Odemax-is-LIVE!

Exciting times!

 

[Jeremy Torrie]

Has anyone heard back directly from Odemax? I've contacted them via email a few times and zero response. We have our 4K master as this was short-listed for the Shot On Red Film Festival that never happened. I'd love to get it in their hands but no communication!

 

[Corey_O]

I see ODEMAX has over 50 movies in the pipeline on their website.

Is ODEMAX delivering content to Redray owners?

Love to hear from RedRay owners if they viewed any ODEMAX footage.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Still in beta….

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Here's a question, does it have the latest display port or thunderbolt 2? HDMI, is a threat to the industry with such a mess of support and upgrade delays, 1.4b should have been 2160p60 at least. p30 was unacceptable, and now we have p30 only consumer sets as the mass affordable sets without rec2020, so pretty bad when people try to hook up 24/25/60p content from reports.