Improved post processing to plaster over compression artifacts I assume.
Most likely. That's fine with me, since I hate compression artifacts.
<sarcasm>
I can't wait until film in theaters gets replaced by compressed digital video beamed in by satellite, in which case no matter where I watch a movie, on DVD, in theaters, anywhere -- I'll get to see those lovely compression artifacts all the time. Joy!
</sarcasm>
Obviously you got it somehow.
Well, I have it because I work at Apple, and the internal builds of MacOS X all come with QT5.;v) I haven't bothered trying to get it from the external website yet. If there's a problem, try e-mailing the webmaster. I'll try it myself, and if it doesn't work for me, I'll find somebody to gripe to...
Agreed, it looks very nice, especially the final shot. Something about it just grabs me. I really like the way it's photographed. I was also happy with the fact that they didn't try to show the whole damn movie in 2 minutes, which seems to be the standard for most trailers these days.
Slightly off-topic: the Metreon sucks in my opinion. Great sound, but crappy picture quality. If you want to see the best theater in the Bay Area, try the Century 25. It may be a long drive for you, but it's worth it. It's just about the only theater around here that I've seen which actually meets SMPTE recommended brightness levels. Most theater owners have gotten so cheap these days that they are unwilling to buy high enough powered lamps to adequately light their screens. Once you see a movie projected at proper brightness, you'll be saying to yourself, "You mean movies are supposed to be that bright?" You won't want to go back to seeing movies on underlit screens anymore.
Also of note is the fact that Century generally has no advertising before the movie, other than previews. They also take very good care of their film prints. I went to see "Gladiator" at the Century 25 last year a full two and a half months after it was first released, and their print was still in mint condition. No scratches, no dirt. A rare thing these days.
QuickTime and Sorenson might be NURV products, but at least they look good.
Yep, especially the Sorenson codec that's included in Quicktime 5 (still in beta). The thing that impresses me most about it is that older trailers and clips that I have sitting around on my HD look so much better with the new decoder, even though they're exactly the same data! I always thought the real burden for video quality was on the encoder, but in the case of Sorenson at least, a new & improved decoder can make a big difference, too.
If Real is not your preferred format, you can get a version of it which was taped off TV's "Extra!" here, in a variety of formats (including MPEG).
BTW, did anyone else find it strange that even though the movie is being shot with spherical lenses, all the computer-generated lens flares in the trailer are oval-shaped (like those produced by anamorphic lenses)? A minor detail, but it's a tad sloppy. I would have expected them to be more careful about little things like that...
I also recall reading that another factor in the decision was that Gasse wanted too much control over Apple's direction. Steve Jobs wanted control too, but he was far more stealthy about it. He originally agreed to come on only as a "consultant". However, in less than a year, Gil Amelio was gone and Jobs was in charge! Heh.
The guy from the CNet article was guessing. He doesn't know the G4 book is a loss leader.
...is bigger than most laptop screens. I.e. expensive.
Apple very likely got a good deal on that display, seeing as how they are an investor in Samsung, (who is their supplier for LCD displays), so I doubt it's costing them as much as it would other manufacturers.
The most startling element is the idea of Perot buying Microsoft.
No kidding. I'd never heard that before! I'll bet if that had happened, the computing world would be very different today. There probably would have been a severe personality clash between Gates and Perot, what with both of them being control freaks and all. That would have been something.
Because Apple still maintains the booting of Mac hardware as a closely held trade secret.
Only for older Macs. Ever since the early PPC days, Apple machines have booted using Open Firmware. Anyone can write a bootloader for those machines. LinuxPPC did it years ago.
Anybody who claims that Apple has 'opened' their hardware is a very, very sick comedian.
No, they've just been paying attention a little more closely than you have.
That's true. When they announced "wide" screen, I was hoping for the HDTV-standard 16:9 (1.78:1), but instead we get a non-standard 3:2 (1.5:1) display. Oh well, it's not really that important for a computer display, I guess. As long as the DVD player software knows how to make maximum use of it, it's no big deal.
As for having the necessary source code shipping "for years" (huh?), where'd you hear that?
Remember the MkLinux project? It was originally sponsored in part by Apple, and the first release of it was available from Apple's own website starting in 1996. Support for G3s was added to the project in late-1997/early-1998 (see here for reference).
Maybe, but that sounds like it would be bad for color accuracy. The color temp of your display would depend on ambient light.
White LEDs will probably be a big boon to flat-panel displays, since they require less power and don't change color all the time like the current flourescents do. LEDs could figure even bigger if the organic LED technology takes off.
Fight Club, FIncher's last film, had a large amont of CGI...
Not THAT much. And almost all of it was instantly recognizable as compter animation. CGI just isn't as advanced as some movie makers (*cough* George Lucas *cough*) seem to think it is.
Re:JonKatz knows his technology...
on
'Thirteen Days'
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· Score: 2
Seeing a boom mike in frame is not a "projectionist error."
Actually, it can be. Many 1.85:1 aspect ratio movies use what's called a "soft-matte" to achieve their framing. The movie is shot in wide-open 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and then printed that way. It is then up to the theater to mask it to 1.85:1. But if they take that 1.85:1 area from the wrong part of the frame, they may end up with stuff on the screen that shouldn't be there, such as boom mikes.
There has been a bit of discussion about this on rec.arts.movies.tech. Go there and look for the thread "'Thirteen Days' needs a hard matte!".
Naturally, the solution is that filmmakers shouldn't be so dependent on theaters to do their framing for them. I'm frankly surprised that this happened. I would have thought that in this day and age of 16-year-old untrained "projectionists" running movie projectors, people would know better.
The "soft-matte" process can work if, as you describe, the cinematographer were to take care to keep microphones out of the entire negative area, and not just the "intended" area. Beats me why they didn't do that on this movie. If they really needed the microphones that close for some reason, then they should have used a hard-matte for the release prints.
Re:But who gets to teach history? And about genera
on
'Thirteen Days'
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· Score: 1
Wow, thanks for the informative posts. Too bad you didn't get modded up, though. If I had moderator points, I'd give 'em to you!
No kidding. I was in an electronics store the other day, and there was a DirecTV promo playing on one of the TVs. The woman onscreen was saying "It's digital, so you get crystal clear quality (blah blah)..." Meanwhile, the background of the room she was standing in was FULL of horrendous compression artifacts. It was laughable!
One thing I've found is that computer types are the WORST about this. Usually, these supposedly technically literate people seem to think that ANY digital system is automatically better than ANY analog system. For people like that, I've got a new 1-bit/1-KHz digital audio system I'd like to sell them.
They were seizing stuff from pawn shops without warrants?! And now they're seizing this kid's computers?
I'll bet half of that stuff that they seize as "evidence" gets sold for profit, which then goes straight into the officers' pockets. What a racket. Someone should do an audit on that police department's evidence room. It would probably turn up quite a few irregularities...
Yeah, Apple really gets people on the hard disk and memory. I always go into the build-to-order and maximize processor/video, while minimizing memory/harddisk. I'd rather upgrade those things later at reasonable prices using generic brands.
Although I think the reason for the high price in this case may be due to the ultra-low profile aspect of the HDDs that go into the new Powerbook. According to this page this thing is actually smaller than a Sony VAIO! Getting a 30 GB drive into that kind of space is probably not too cheap.
The resolution is 720x480 always. It's just that the pixels are considered square or non-square depending on whether the video has a bit set indicating 16:9. If you try to show 16:9 video on a 4:3 display, it's up to the player to scale it down and add letterbox borders to make it fit.
Yes, there is a "region zero" code for DVDs which is playable anywhere. The recent re-release of Carl Sagan's Cosmos on DVD uses this code. I sure hope iDVD will allow you to pick that as your region code when burning a DVD.
Slashdot Mirror
Most likely. That's fine with me, since I hate compression artifacts.
<sarcasm>
I can't wait until film in theaters gets replaced by compressed digital video beamed in by satellite, in which case no matter where I watch a movie, on DVD, in theaters, anywhere -- I'll get to see those lovely compression artifacts all the time. Joy!
</sarcasm>
Obviously you got it somehow.
Well, I have it because I work at Apple, and the internal builds of MacOS X all come with QT5. ;v) I haven't bothered trying to get it from the external website yet. If there's a problem, try e-mailing the webmaster. I'll try it myself, and if it doesn't work for me, I'll find somebody to gripe to...
Hmm, works for me. (I got the link from TheOneRing.net originally.)
Slightly off-topic: the Metreon sucks in my opinion. Great sound, but crappy picture quality. If you want to see the best theater in the Bay Area, try the Century 25. It may be a long drive for you, but it's worth it. It's just about the only theater around here that I've seen which actually meets SMPTE recommended brightness levels. Most theater owners have gotten so cheap these days that they are unwilling to buy high enough powered lamps to adequately light their screens. Once you see a movie projected at proper brightness, you'll be saying to yourself, "You mean movies are supposed to be that bright?" You won't want to go back to seeing movies on underlit screens anymore.
Also of note is the fact that Century generally has no advertising before the movie, other than previews. They also take very good care of their film prints. I went to see "Gladiator" at the Century 25 last year a full two and a half months after it was first released, and their print was still in mint condition. No scratches, no dirt. A rare thing these days.
Yep, especially the Sorenson codec that's included in Quicktime 5 (still in beta). The thing that impresses me most about it is that older trailers and clips that I have sitting around on my HD look so much better with the new decoder, even though they're exactly the same data! I always thought the real burden for video quality was on the encoder, but in the case of Sorenson at least, a new & improved decoder can make a big difference, too.
BTW, did anyone else find it strange that even though the movie is being shot with spherical lenses, all the computer-generated lens flares in the trailer are oval-shaped (like those produced by anamorphic lenses)? A minor detail, but it's a tad sloppy. I would have expected them to be more careful about little things like that...
I also recall reading that another factor in the decision was that Gasse wanted too much control over Apple's direction. Steve Jobs wanted control too, but he was far more stealthy about it. He originally agreed to come on only as a "consultant". However, in less than a year, Gil Amelio was gone and Jobs was in charge! Heh.
The guy from the CNet article was guessing. He doesn't know the G4 book is a loss leader.
Apple very likely got a good deal on that display, seeing as how they are an investor in Samsung, (who is their supplier for LCD displays), so I doubt it's costing them as much as it would other manufacturers.
No kidding. I'd never heard that before! I'll bet if that had happened, the computing world would be very different today. There probably would have been a severe personality clash between Gates and Perot, what with both of them being control freaks and all. That would have been something.
Only for older Macs. Ever since the early PPC days, Apple machines have booted using Open Firmware. Anyone can write a bootloader for those machines. LinuxPPC did it years ago.
Anybody who claims that Apple has 'opened' their hardware is a very, very sick comedian.
No, they've just been paying attention a little more closely than you have.
That's true. When they announced "wide" screen, I was hoping for the HDTV-standard 16:9 (1.78:1), but instead we get a non-standard 3:2 (1.5:1) display. Oh well, it's not really that important for a computer display, I guess. As long as the DVD player software knows how to make maximum use of it, it's no big deal.
Remember the MkLinux project? It was originally sponsored in part by Apple, and the first release of it was available from Apple's own website starting in 1996. Support for G3s was added to the project in late-1997/early-1998 (see here for reference).
White LEDs will probably be a big boon to flat-panel displays, since they require less power and don't change color all the time like the current flourescents do. LEDs could figure even bigger if the organic LED technology takes off.
Not THAT much. And almost all of it was instantly recognizable as compter animation. CGI just isn't as advanced as some movie makers (*cough* George Lucas *cough*) seem to think it is.
Actually, it can be. Many 1.85:1 aspect ratio movies use what's called a "soft-matte" to achieve their framing. The movie is shot in wide-open 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and then printed that way. It is then up to the theater to mask it to 1.85:1. But if they take that 1.85:1 area from the wrong part of the frame, they may end up with stuff on the screen that shouldn't be there, such as boom mikes.
There has been a bit of discussion about this on rec.arts.movies.tech. Go there and look for the thread "'Thirteen Days' needs a hard matte!".
Naturally, the solution is that filmmakers shouldn't be so dependent on theaters to do their framing for them. I'm frankly surprised that this happened. I would have thought that in this day and age of 16-year-old untrained "projectionists" running movie projectors, people would know better.
The "soft-matte" process can work if, as you describe, the cinematographer were to take care to keep microphones out of the entire negative area, and not just the "intended" area. Beats me why they didn't do that on this movie. If they really needed the microphones that close for some reason, then they should have used a hard-matte for the release prints.
Wow, thanks for the informative posts. Too bad you didn't get modded up, though. If I had moderator points, I'd give 'em to you!
No kidding. I was in an electronics store the other day, and there was a DirecTV promo playing on one of the TVs. The woman onscreen was saying "It's digital, so you get crystal clear quality (blah blah)..." Meanwhile, the background of the room she was standing in was FULL of horrendous compression artifacts. It was laughable!
One thing I've found is that computer types are the WORST about this. Usually, these supposedly technically literate people seem to think that ANY digital system is automatically better than ANY analog system. For people like that, I've got a new 1-bit/1-KHz digital audio system I'd like to sell them.
I believe he meant 2 in addition to the existing 1 mouse button, not in place of.
Wow. Interesting story. Where did this take place, BTW. In California?
I'll bet half of that stuff that they seize as "evidence" gets sold for profit, which then goes straight into the officers' pockets. What a racket. Someone should do an audit on that police department's evidence room. It would probably turn up quite a few irregularities...
There is also a book about T-shirts at Apple. The book only covers up to about 1995, but still there are over 2500 shirts listed in the book!
I'll bet you're right. Thanks for that link. I'd scream "MOD THAT UP!", but as we all know, nobody mods in stories that are more than 5 minutes old.
"Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball."
Although I think the reason for the high price in this case may be due to the ultra-low profile aspect of the HDDs that go into the new Powerbook. According to this page this thing is actually smaller than a Sony VAIO! Getting a 30 GB drive into that kind of space is probably not too cheap.
The resolution is 720x480 always. It's just that the pixels are considered square or non-square depending on whether the video has a bit set indicating 16:9. If you try to show 16:9 video on a 4:3 display, it's up to the player to scale it down and add letterbox borders to make it fit.
Yes, there is a "region zero" code for DVDs which is playable anywhere. The recent re-release of Carl Sagan's Cosmos on DVD uses this code. I sure hope iDVD will allow you to pick that as your region code when burning a DVD.