Toshiba official: HD-DVD is dead.

[Obin Olson]

Cineform pretty much takes it home for me...Need to see RED get on with it!

as of now we pretty much have no red post without it..

 

[Andrew M.]

All that goes without saying that there are murmurs on the street of a big Premiere announcement at NAB. It could just be talk, but I'm guessing some sort of RED compatibility or plans for working together. I think Premiere, now multi-platform once again, will move back up on the list that pro-users pick. Not to mention it's even better with CineForm which is an awesome program. I've been using it since April for EVERYTHING I do in HD. I can't live without it.

What about 2K or 4K support or HD-SDI cards?

 

[ChrisLyon]

Well currently, Premiere Pro CS3 can take in 4k footage according to the specs though i haven't tried it. HD-SDI cards have at least been supported since Premiere Pro 2.0 but I don't remember about before that. They did a big HD upgrade in 1.5 but I can't remember. Anyhow, only CS3 can run on Mac and Windows so that's what I'll talk about from here on out.

 

[Joe Carney]

Great that it is over but frankly both sides where really lame on the issue and I hope that a new tech leaps over blue ray.
Aloha
-A

Looking forward to 50gig USB 2 memory sticks that cost 3.00 USD a a piece.
Hand them out like candy, hehehe.

 

[laguun]

Well currently, Premiere Pro CS3 can take in 4k footage according to the specs though i haven't tried it.

4K conforming at 15/16 bit RGB colordepth per channel works well, we tested it not only for red but indeed with several multiscreen HD-venues.

Full 4096 resolution needs a -massive- diskarray, or cineform, then even a smaller raid is enough.

HD-SDI cards have at least been supported since Premiere Pro 2.0 but I don't remember about before that.

aja and blackmagic cards are available for 250-3000$, ranging from HDMI 1080P up to 12bit 2K RGB i/o and work nicely.

Above that, there are multichannel realtime solutions, as the Matrox Axio which handles 1080p multichannel with realtime colorcorrection, alpha, blurs etc. Some of these solutions are operation system specific, but 2K@12/16bit RGB is available for both, which solved one of the mayor shortcomings in FCS for us.

They did a big HD upgrade in 1.5 but I can't remember. Anyhow, only CS3 can run on Mac and Windows so that's what I'll talk about from here on out.

Since they completly rewrote Premiere to Premiere Pro, it supports HD-SDI i/o.

While the 1.0 and CS2 were for us side by side with FCS, CS3 really is amazing. Encore masters excellent blurays and dvds, Premiere Pro shuffles through 4K@16bit, After Effects and Photoshops dynamic links work nicely (you can render and edit AE directly in the timeline, or use Photoshop as Masking tool...), Media Central streams video to almost any Mobilephone, flash and the Adobe media encoder make excellent webstreams, bridge and acrobat allow the producers to write annotations into the timelines and control versioning, On location records timecode and offers live vectorscope/waveform for the set, Illustrator is a great tool for those complex hires logos etc.... Really, i have to admit, Adobes CS 3 Master Collection is a impressive package, and i say that with a background which is rather the $$$.$$$ systems as discreet etc.

 

[Aiden Cornwell]

The average viewer takes the movie, burns it 2-4 times, gives itto his friends in highschool, they show it others and burn it again, 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 copies within a few days. To give you an idea, many DVD releases only sell 5000 units - within a year. Our recent remastering of Amos Kollek films sold in the x.xxx area within 2 years.


blu ray with online authentication is pretty secure.
1stgeneration bluray can be pirated quite easy, the new specs however are pretty secure and is fieldupgradeable for most players.

furthermore - using cracking tools is illegal in most nations who defend copyrights. And a professional pirate who plans to steal 10.000 copies doesn´t care if has to film from the screen with hdcam anyhow. its about preventing private piracy, and that is meanwhile really important.

i will never forget the singer who wasn´t able to pay his studio bill and asked for a later payment who told us his record company already monitored over 400.000 downloads (a week before release) on emule and torrent.
I checked his figures, they were correct. He sold ~16.000 units of his cd, lost $$.$$$ and is no longer producing music. The downloads surpassed the 1.000.000.


For bankrobbers it will always be able to rob a bank, as people who fraud credit card holders on ebay will also be a reality we have to live with (albeit to a lesser extent). That however is no valid argument.

The difference is that violating copyrights -was- pretty easy, you didn´t see the victim (us, the authors / moviemakers) and people who wouldn´t steal a bubblegum for 10 cent were freely copying our work which cost us huge sums to produce because they didn´t realize that they where actually ripping me and my team off.


Today, DRM is necessary.

Everyone in the music industry knows that, they lost the battle, used a drm free media and now have to go drm free for the most part. The revenues are slashed, a huge part of the formerly employed people have no longer jobs in that industry and alternative content is starving most of the musicians (the sounddivision, led by my brother, won over a dozens platinium records within the last 5 years, i do know a little bit about the situation in that market).

We in the moving images have had more luck. While the CD had no copyprotection by design, then DVD used a sloppy one, "our" default distribution media now has a robust and solid protection of our rights, if we want.

If bluray copyprotection is compromised, its easy to upgrade it on the field to close the hole.

It would be totally naive to generally not copyprotect our contents. There are exceptions, many, excellent movies as "the corporation", being an example, where authors chose to free their movie, and i also consider distribution of some of movies for free.

However, for the huge majority of content, a solid DRM as in bluray is necessary in order to protect our and our industries interests.

Not having DRM did not kill the record industry. Many factors killed it. One big one is the fact that record labels have being ripping off the artists for years and some artists have gone ahead offering their music for free or even going as far as telling their fans to steal their own music (NINE INCH NAILS) Why did he say this because in some countries charging the equivalent of $30 for a CD is nuts. Also this new beleif in putting out 4 diffrent versions of the album with secret songs on each disc is also leading to the problem. I am not advocating the stealing of music or media however one of the biggest problems is offering the media at a fair price. $30 for a CD is nuts.

I also listen to a lot of music from overseas and try to buy the album when ever possible but sometimes that is not possible due to it being out of print or just way to expensive. SO I download it. You can call me a theif but the reality is I am more then happy to buy the muisic but if you want to charge me $30 for a CD then you don't get my money.

2nd problem is depending on where one lives much of the media I can not biuy legally. I know shocking since I live in Canada but that is the fact. I miss an episode of LOST and I go to buy it for 1.99 or watch it streaming I can't because the networks won't let me. So I should wait for the DVD to come out 8 months after the season ends?

With movies I think a lot of it comes down to time. I used to buy a lot of movies in my teens and early 20's but now I have a family 1 kid another one on the way I don;t have time to watch a movie more then once. So I rent.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

You can disable the region coding, but good luck selling BD discs without AACS. If you want to forgo the already-broken and socially irresponsible DRM, your only option is to use the consumer-level BDAV authoring format, which doesn't support "advanced" (read: any) interactivity (BD Live, PiP, secondary audio tracks, subtitles, etc.). For commercial releases you basically have to use BDMV (selling a BDAV disc would be akin to selling a DVD-R), and BDMV discs will not play in licensed players unless locked down by AACS. This effectively forces anyone wanting to sell high definition content on optical media to subsidize the useless AACS-LA.

I don't completely follow, but I really want to understand what you are saying here. Is there anywhere I can read up on these BDAV and BDMV and what the differences are?

 

[laguun]

Not having DRM did not kill the record industry. Many factors killed it.

Rumors about the music industry being death are somewhat exagerated.
Dozens of smaller indie label gone belly up and thousands of employees in studios/graphics, extremly reduced budgets for clips etc however are not.

One big one is the fact that record labels have being ripping off the artists for years and some artists have gone ahead offering their music for free or even going as far as telling their fans to steal their own music (NINE INCH NAILS)

There are few superstars who want their fans to rip their music, many others, as metallica indeed sue their fans. All top ten acts produced in the sound dept here were NOT encouraging their fans to steal the music, that includes nena and kim wilde.

Why did he say this because in some countries charging the equivalent of $30 for a CD is nuts.
Also this new beleif in putting out 4 diffrent versions of the album with secret songs on each disc is also leading to the problem. I am not advocating the stealing of music or media however one of the biggest problems is offering the media at a fair price. $30 for a CD is nuts.

Not at all. For a superstar with 10 records in the back, sure. However, if you take an average 5-15.000 copies (thats a german chart position today, used to be triple of that), you have to feed in the case of the typical starved rockband
2-4 musicians for lets say 2-3 months studio each.
1-2 Soundengineers / Producers, 2-3 months each.
0-2 managers for 0.5-1 month
0-10 studio guest musicians for day-week
1-3 graphic designers for cover/website, days-weeks
1-x lawyers for ~ a week
1-2 distribution guys for days
1-2 PR people for radio/tv/press
5-15.000 resellers once
1 printcampaign
1 videoclip
10.000-20.000 manufactured CD, including booklet
10.000-20.000 mailed, distributed, managed CD
typical 12-24 months of hotel/apparment
typical 10-20 flights and 5-15.000 miles of roadwarrior
150-2.000 kilograms freight
500-1.000 presscopies

from the typical $30 dollars substract 19% vat. in germany.
from the $24 dollars substract 10-30% reseller.
from the ~$20 substract overhead for gema (or other organisations) $0.1-1
from the $19 substract 5-15% distributor (no matter if web or cd)
from the $17 substract 2-3% loss (theft, transport damage etc)
from the $16.50 take ~20/20/20/20 for label/artists/composer/distri/producer etc
remaining typical 3-5$ each.

makes total of 10-50.000$ gross.
typical production costs today are 100-200.000$

you indeed loose money on that scenario. thats why we see so many crosspromoted "amercian superstar/hannas" and so few real ne bands.

I also listen to a lot of music from overseas and try to buy the album when ever possible but sometimes that is not possible due to it being out of print or just way to expensive. SO I download it. You can call me a theif but the reality is I am more then happy to buy the muisic but if you want to charge me $30 for a CD then you don't get my money.

See above. And thats why i am glad that we have a pretty solid DRM on bluray.

2nd problem is depending on where one lives much of the media I can not biuy legally. I know shocking since I live in Canada but that is the fact. I miss an episode of LOST and I go to buy it for 1.99 or watch it streaming I can't because the networks won't let me. So I should wait for the DVD to come out 8 months after the season ends?

Yes, however here i have to say that this sceanrio indeed is 100% bad service of the motion picture / tv industry.

With movies I think a lot of it comes down to time. I used to buy a lot of movies in my teens and early 20's but now I have a family 1 kid another one on the way I don;t have time to watch a movie more then once. So I rent.

rental/streaming are indeed interesting models.

However your view reassured me of my position that a solid DRM is a good thing to have.
Piracy is killing the industry we are working in - as are stupid managers, bad business models etc, but it adds first and foremosts to the dominance of the large marketing budgets, which i, as mid-sized production can not welcome.

 

[Aiden Cornwell]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

 

[Lexicon]

I don't completely follow, but I really want to understand what you are saying here. Is there anywhere I can read up on these BDAV and BDMV and what the differences are?

BDAV = Consumer format with low bitrate and no menus
BDMV = Professional with high bitrate and menus

The differences are comparable to those of a 1997 DVD and a 2008 DVD. BDAV has no menu functionality as it was intended to be used for HD camcorder footage and off-air recording from cable/sat. BDMV is the Blu-Ray equivalent to today's polished DVD authoring that anyone can get with the right software. Both formats have different file structures. Generally speaking, using either format is a crapshoot at this point since some players will work with them and others won't. If you have something that needs to be copied a few times and handed out, you'd best check what players it's going to be played in, or if you need a lot of copies, turn the disc files over to a disc replicator to get it authored to meet their requirements for replication. Many pros have learned the hard way that the software available right now that many had invested in when the format came out works for putting a disc together but it's just not keeping up with the standards that replicators require for disc replication.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

'Solid DRM' just f***s the people who payed for it.

I can get any piece of media illegally I want. I download things I own. Why? Because it let's me play it on devices that I want to watch or listen to it on.

The music industry still says ripping your own CDs to your hard drive is stealing! But they still despise digital downloads and treat them like they're only quasi legal.

Considering the only CD player I own is the one in my computer and the one in my DVD player that means I can't listen to music according to the music industry. OK. Fine. I'll stop buying your music.


You deliver your product in a means that is as simple or simpler than piracy and you reduce the price to impulse buy points and people will buy more than they need.

I might just sit out this whole blu-ray thing and hope it all blows over.

 

[Tom Lowe]

'Solid DRM' just f***s the people who payed for it.

Such a good point. The people who download illegally are not affected at all by DRM, because their copies are stripped of all DRM and are "clean."

The only people who get raped by DRM are the people who actually pay for the product! Great incentive! :huh:

 

[laguun]

'Solid DRM' just f***s the people who payed for it.

I can get any piece of media illegally I want. I download things I own. Why? Because it let's me play it on devices that I want to watch or listen to it on.

Thats a myth.
You can playback a DRM-locked bluray in any bluray player.

The music industry still says ripping your own CDs to your hard drive is stealing! But they still despise digital downloads and treat them like they're only quasi legal.
Considering the only CD player I own is the one in my computer and the one in my DVD player that means I can't listen to music according to the music industry. OK. Fine. I'll stop buying your music.

You can anytime download music from our artists from many stores for 0.49-1.49 per track. And burn in to any medium you want.

The non-playing CDs are a setback, but that only exists because -CD has no DRM-
Thats a copyprotection, which intentionally breaks the design specs of the cd, as the cd has no drm.
Therefore a DRM on bluray is agood thing, as we can avoid incompatibility -and- protect the content without tampering with the bluray specs.

I might just sit out this whole blu-ray thing and hope it all blows over.

There are many fantastic movies in gorgeous quality on bluray, and i prefer to see them with grain and all the fine details. Rental prices are 3-5 euro here, and getting lower every day. If someone else to prefer a sub-dvd pirate version or only a dvd, ok - i prefer good images.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Therefore a DRM on bluray is agood thing, as we can avoid incompatibility -and- protect the content without tampering with the bluray specs.

You are actually arguing in favor of DRM? How will DRM "protect" content when pirates have always been able to defeat every DRM? The only people who cannot defeat it are the poor saps who actually paid for their discs and might want to back them up or put them on their laptop harddrive, etc.

 

[laguun]

Such a good point. The people who download illegally are not affected at all by DRM, because their copies are stripped of all DRM and are "clean."

If you prefer to download 50 gbyte, spend 10 $/€ to store it permanently on hdd or bluray, break the law and rip off the authors of the film - sure.

Or you rent the bluray for 3-6 euros.

The only people who get raped by DRM are the people who actually pay for the product! Great incentive! :huh:

No. While CD has -copy protection- and really reduces the consumer rights, a bluray will play in any bluray device as DRM isn´t meant to stop a drive from working but controlling the quality of copies. DRM isnt copyprotection as with busted CDs who break the specification.

 

[Tom Lowe]

If you prefer to download 50 gbyte, spend 10 $/€ to store it permanently on hdd or bluray, break the law and rip off the authors of the film - sure.

Most Bluray rips are about 5-10GBs, and the quality is stunning.

No. While CD has -copy protection- and really reduces the consumer rights, a bluray will play in any bluray device as DRM isn´t meant to stop a drive from working but controlling the quality of copies. DRM isnt copyprotection as with busted CDs who break the specification.

Again, how is DRM helpful to the people who buy the disc? Quality control?? Come on. Pirates will simply get copies stripped of the DRM. Those who pay for the discs are the only ones who suffer from DRM, which prevents them from backing up their discs or putting them on a harddrive, etc.

 

[laguun]

You are actually arguing in favor of DRM?

as the market is now:fully.
I explained why in my posts above.

How will DRM "protect" content when pirates have always been able to defeat every DRM?

bluray in its actual revision is secure. Even if someone hacks it, no problema, the next disc following the spec update will autoflash the player to close the hole.

bluray drm is upgradeable by design and you have on every bluray an area which updates the players electronic if its a model which has been compromised.

Its different from older drm systems, autoupdateing in the field make piracing bluray a race which even only dedicated hackers can win until the next update. And the updates locks the players backwards.

The only people who cannot defeat it are the poor saps who actually paid for their discs and might want to back them up or put them on their laptop harddrive, etc.

no.

you are talking about CD.
blueray doesnt have a copyprotection by screwing the standards - it was designed with DRM, so you can play back a bluray on -any- bluray player. What you need however is a HDCP-signal chain behind it, or you will only get component SD - which you are also allowed to copy on most titles.

i think you are missing one point: DRM is here to protect -us- from the pirates. And after half a year of bluray authoring and testing i can say that it is an awesome system. Mastered correctly, it offer pristine image quality, fantastic sound and i dislike any quality below it meanwhile.

We havent come across a -single- bluray which didn´t playback in -all- players here yet (that includes the popular sonys and pioneers).

 

[Aiden Cornwell]

My biggest problem with bluray is that it has mandatory DRM. This should be up to each producer. If someone wants to release a bluray disk with no DRM they can't. That needs to change.

 

[Tom Lowe]

bluray drm is upgradeable by design and you have on every bluray an area which updates the players electronic if its a model which has been compromised.

Its different from older drm systems, autoupdateing in the field make piracing bluray a race which even only dedicated hackers can win until the next update. And the updates locks the players backwards.

So you think Bluray DRM is going to be the first DRM in the history of the world that cannot be broken?? Anything can be cracked, and will be cracked. It only takes one guy to crack something, and then the other 6 billion people in the world will get the file without DRM... except those who pay for it!

i think you are missing one point: DRM is here to protect -us- from the pirates.

Again, it will be cracked every time, and meanwhile, the only people it is stopping from copying these discs are the people who pay for them.

 

[laguun]

So you think Bluray DRM is going to be the first DRM in the history of the world that cannot be broken??

When was the last time you hacked the airlines booking system or your local powerplant on-line billing? Are you hacking your ebay account everyday or cheat on succesfully on your electronic banking? Do you think on-line gamers (as the millions in blizzards wow) mainly dont pay their monthly fee?

bluray now brings DRM to these levels and is upgradeable. CD had no DRM, DVDs css was weak and not upgradeable, bluray now has an automatic field-upgradeable DRM with near military encription. You won´t have to load once a illegal program and from there on rip any movie. P2P will still be a problem, but the private copy-orgies of usual average joes in the highschool wont work as before.

Anything can be cracked, and will be cracked.

An old and untrue Myth. Tell that the NSA - they have tons of PGP encoded files on their system which they are trying to break.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy

It only takes one guy to crack something, and then the other 6 billion people in the world will get the file without DRM... except those who pay for it!

sigh. i think our industry could be happy if we would have 600 million bluray capable systems out there. DRM is not limiting anyone. It allows the viewer what the author wants. And in the case of bluray just that, no longer preventing playback.

Again, it will be cracked every time,

Hm, rev 2.0 so far remained perfectly stable. And if someone finds a hole, all new bluray media will contain the automatic patch to close the gap.

That stops easily 85% of the rips.

and meanwhile, the only people it is stopping from copying these discs are the people who pay for them.

Sorry Tom, but you are indeed allowed to copy most bluerays - only in SD YUV.

You don´t understand the problem it seems. There are many people with your attitude. I see, when we scan the p2p traffic on our titles, usually 100-200 pirated downloading the titles which sell like 20-80 times a months of the backprogram (thats the 4.99 prices). These pirates are thieves, they steal our work, and they don´t even care. It is now technically feasible to lock out most of them -permanently- from the best quality a viewer can get, and thats an excellent thing.

If you would have dozens of your dvd titles pirated on torrents or edonkey, you might understand this. Our bluray titles so far didn´t show up, and it seems that piracy which is now -quite a bit- more difficult on bluray is much less of an problem.

Naturally there will be always camera rips of recent releases, but that is nothing for the usual audience. And i think you really should think about what side of the industry you are part of- we, the producing side suffer from piracy, and anything which makes the pirates life stressful, slow and complicated is fine.