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AVS Forum - View Single Post - R&B Films - DRS Mastering for Superior PQ / AQ
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"Well, let me break a secret to you. There is not a person involved in this or any other technology business who would not be proud of wearing the label “good enough.” Good enough means we fully understood what you, yes all of you (see below), needed and delivered just that and didn’t take your money or that of others for things you can’t experience. And I hate to tell you this but this is the motivation behind *both* formats, not just HD DVD. Before hitting the “quote” button, please read the following
.
“Good enough” means that instead of giving you 4:2:2 video sampling that we use when we capture and process anything in a studio/post production house, both formats filter half the color resolution (color has a quarter of resolution compared to black&white in both formats because of this). And then at decode time, we interpolate the missing color samples with, horrors of horrors, with more filtering! Just look the SMPTE color bars on any test discs and look at the edges between the colors. They look soft, don’t they? But hey, it is “good enough” to sell you an HD format so why not? The Gods of BD format who were interested in selling you the best, rather than good enough, must have been sleep that day
.
“Good enough” means that we give you 8-bit color in both formats instead of 10-bits used to (hopefully) create the master. And with it, we cause color banding or introduction of noise to get around its limitation. Think about this for a minute. While folks are hammering to get “24-bit” audio, we give you only 8-bits of luma resolution. This means your signal to noise ratio is a mere 48 db, about half of a cassette tape does for audio! Why? Because well, everyone thought that you wouldn’t know any better. So it is “good enough.”
“Good enough” means that when Sony was putting out its first set of titles, The Fifth Element, XXX, and House of Flying artifacts, they thought that level of quality was well, “good enough.” (sorry, couldn’t resist
)
“Good enough” is Sony using its MPEG-2 encoder until their own AVC codec was ready. Never mind that there were a number of AVC encoders and our VC-1 was already available and had produced better quality in HD DVD than their titles. Because well, they thought it would be “good enough” for you all. And if we were not around, maybe they would still be selling you “good enough” quality.
“Good enough” is designing to build the BD format to be a recording medium first and foremost. Imagine recording the horrible MPEG-2 artifact ridden broadcast TV we have in US instead of the stellar video quality we give you on HD DVD. Sure, a recorder is more expensive and has better sales margins. But between us, I am sure we both agree that wouldn’t have been “good enough” but some of the key people in your camp thought it was.
“Good enough” is building 99.9% of the 5.1 amplifiers and AVRs with a shared power supply so that money is saved. But if one channel gets pushed hard, it causes the power to fluctuate in the other channels causing any dreams of reproducing all the resolution of the source becoming a pipe dream.
“Good enough” is using “24-bit DACs” but not being able to design the electronics such that the thing even produces 16-bits properly, let alone anything better. Since many of you buy the equipment on spec, and without seeing the linearity tests for the DAC, the design is “good enough.” How many of you hammering for 24-bit audio, and watching those bitrate meters, have seen a single test of the DAC in your audio chain?
“Good enough” is buying a sub woofer with a “digital” amplifier which puts out more distortion than your 8-track audio tape but hey, it rattles the room nicely. So it is “good enough.” Never mind that that thing doesn’t even fill the gap between it and the main drivers.
“Good enough” means having underpowered power supplies and cooling systems in your plasma display so that it has to lower its brightness if the area gets too big on screen! The luminance is constantly pumping up and down yet folks buy them happily because well, they are “good enough.”
“Good enough” is buying LCD displays which have little correlation with the color fidelity that was used when creating the master for these formats.
“Good enough” is mastering both formats on CRT SMPTE-C phosphor (!) when none of you, barring the handful who have the Joe Kane designed displays, have such a setting. But hey, you don’t know the difference so it must be “good enough.” Who needs accurate colors when we can argue about peak numbers for the two formats every minute here.
I could go on but by now, you might be thinking, thank heavens Rich is not like these cheap BD/HD DVD and CE bastards to give us such sub-par equipment. But let me break that mirage for you also. He is just as much of a “good enough” as the rest of us.
Instead of taking advantage of HD DVD interactivity, his lucid producer had to come here and in words, describe the motivation behind the special effects and processing used to create his title. Why? Why couldn’t have Rich spent extra money to put him in front of the camera and his effects system/computer to educate everyone who owns the disc rather than the few chasing these threads? Answer is that this would have cost even more money so he thought leaving this out was well, “good enough” for all of us. But it ain’t with those us who realize how much of the creative potential of HD DVD was thrown out the window this way.
Rich could have built a positive relationship with the key technology supplier in this space who is and was willing to help him get the most out of using VC-1. But he did not. Instead, he simply relied on using the post house to do the encoding, and settling with well, “good enough” by your terminology in creating his HD DVD encode. And with it, missed the chance to produce a title with lossless audio with the same visual quality.
Rich’s title is shot on interlace camera even though all of us are experiencing these images on progressive displays. Surely he knows this. Yet, I am sure the interlace camera was easier to come by and was smaller and easier to carry than high-end progressive one. So “good enough” practice was put in use because well, his producer had to live in the real world when it comes to spending his money like the rest of us do.
So the world is full of “good enough” people and let’s be thankful about that. Otherwise, we would have no audio or video equipment that we could afford to buy, and get the enjoyment that both camps are getting out of these formats.
At the end I hope, I really hope, that if we aspire to have a great forum here, we don’t start calling people names this way and put down the passion they bring to this business. And that we start to learn about our entire delivery and production chain and not zoom on in partisan specs which at the end of the day, most of us don’t really understand well enough. Show me that you understand half of the issues mentioned above and discuss then at 10% of the level of rehashing lossless and bitrates, and then and only then, would I consider you to be anything but a “good enough” man, like the rest of us!"
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Diogen.
AVS Forum - View Single Post - R&B Films - DRS Mastering for Superior PQ / AQ
***************************************************
"Well, let me break a secret to you. There is not a person involved in this or any other technology business who would not be proud of wearing the label “good enough.” Good enough means we fully understood what you, yes all of you (see below), needed and delivered just that and didn’t take your money or that of others for things you can’t experience. And I hate to tell you this but this is the motivation behind *both* formats, not just HD DVD. Before hitting the “quote” button, please read the following
“Good enough” means that instead of giving you 4:2:2 video sampling that we use when we capture and process anything in a studio/post production house, both formats filter half the color resolution (color has a quarter of resolution compared to black&white in both formats because of this). And then at decode time, we interpolate the missing color samples with, horrors of horrors, with more filtering! Just look the SMPTE color bars on any test discs and look at the edges between the colors. They look soft, don’t they? But hey, it is “good enough” to sell you an HD format so why not? The Gods of BD format who were interested in selling you the best, rather than good enough, must have been sleep that day
“Good enough” means that we give you 8-bit color in both formats instead of 10-bits used to (hopefully) create the master. And with it, we cause color banding or introduction of noise to get around its limitation. Think about this for a minute. While folks are hammering to get “24-bit” audio, we give you only 8-bits of luma resolution. This means your signal to noise ratio is a mere 48 db, about half of a cassette tape does for audio! Why? Because well, everyone thought that you wouldn’t know any better. So it is “good enough.”
“Good enough” means that when Sony was putting out its first set of titles, The Fifth Element, XXX, and House of Flying artifacts, they thought that level of quality was well, “good enough.” (sorry, couldn’t resist
“Good enough” is Sony using its MPEG-2 encoder until their own AVC codec was ready. Never mind that there were a number of AVC encoders and our VC-1 was already available and had produced better quality in HD DVD than their titles. Because well, they thought it would be “good enough” for you all. And if we were not around, maybe they would still be selling you “good enough” quality.
“Good enough” is designing to build the BD format to be a recording medium first and foremost. Imagine recording the horrible MPEG-2 artifact ridden broadcast TV we have in US instead of the stellar video quality we give you on HD DVD. Sure, a recorder is more expensive and has better sales margins. But between us, I am sure we both agree that wouldn’t have been “good enough” but some of the key people in your camp thought it was.
“Good enough” is building 99.9% of the 5.1 amplifiers and AVRs with a shared power supply so that money is saved. But if one channel gets pushed hard, it causes the power to fluctuate in the other channels causing any dreams of reproducing all the resolution of the source becoming a pipe dream.
“Good enough” is using “24-bit DACs” but not being able to design the electronics such that the thing even produces 16-bits properly, let alone anything better. Since many of you buy the equipment on spec, and without seeing the linearity tests for the DAC, the design is “good enough.” How many of you hammering for 24-bit audio, and watching those bitrate meters, have seen a single test of the DAC in your audio chain?
“Good enough” is buying a sub woofer with a “digital” amplifier which puts out more distortion than your 8-track audio tape but hey, it rattles the room nicely. So it is “good enough.” Never mind that that thing doesn’t even fill the gap between it and the main drivers.
“Good enough” means having underpowered power supplies and cooling systems in your plasma display so that it has to lower its brightness if the area gets too big on screen! The luminance is constantly pumping up and down yet folks buy them happily because well, they are “good enough.”
“Good enough” is buying LCD displays which have little correlation with the color fidelity that was used when creating the master for these formats.
“Good enough” is mastering both formats on CRT SMPTE-C phosphor (!) when none of you, barring the handful who have the Joe Kane designed displays, have such a setting. But hey, you don’t know the difference so it must be “good enough.” Who needs accurate colors when we can argue about peak numbers for the two formats every minute here.
I could go on but by now, you might be thinking, thank heavens Rich is not like these cheap BD/HD DVD and CE bastards to give us such sub-par equipment. But let me break that mirage for you also. He is just as much of a “good enough” as the rest of us.
Instead of taking advantage of HD DVD interactivity, his lucid producer had to come here and in words, describe the motivation behind the special effects and processing used to create his title. Why? Why couldn’t have Rich spent extra money to put him in front of the camera and his effects system/computer to educate everyone who owns the disc rather than the few chasing these threads? Answer is that this would have cost even more money so he thought leaving this out was well, “good enough” for all of us. But it ain’t with those us who realize how much of the creative potential of HD DVD was thrown out the window this way.
Rich could have built a positive relationship with the key technology supplier in this space who is and was willing to help him get the most out of using VC-1. But he did not. Instead, he simply relied on using the post house to do the encoding, and settling with well, “good enough” by your terminology in creating his HD DVD encode. And with it, missed the chance to produce a title with lossless audio with the same visual quality.
Rich’s title is shot on interlace camera even though all of us are experiencing these images on progressive displays. Surely he knows this. Yet, I am sure the interlace camera was easier to come by and was smaller and easier to carry than high-end progressive one. So “good enough” practice was put in use because well, his producer had to live in the real world when it comes to spending his money like the rest of us do.
So the world is full of “good enough” people and let’s be thankful about that. Otherwise, we would have no audio or video equipment that we could afford to buy, and get the enjoyment that both camps are getting out of these formats.
At the end I hope, I really hope, that if we aspire to have a great forum here, we don’t start calling people names this way and put down the passion they bring to this business. And that we start to learn about our entire delivery and production chain and not zoom on in partisan specs which at the end of the day, most of us don’t really understand well enough. Show me that you understand half of the issues mentioned above and discuss then at 10% of the level of rehashing lossless and bitrates, and then and only then, would I consider you to be anything but a “good enough” man, like the rest of us!"
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Diogen.
