December 26th 2007
Warner bitten by Bluray problems yet again
On December 21, news broke that Warner Home Entertainment's release of Terminator 3 was marred by a problem. It appears that whoever was doing the encode for Warner was doing a "Fake PiP" second encode. "Fake PiP" is a trick whereby a second encode of a film is done which includes the PiP commentary window "pre-encoded" into it (such as used by Lionsgate in the past) to get around the limitations of Bluray's BD 1.0 "profile", which is unable to decode two video streams, such as how it is done by ALL HD DVD players.
However, it appears that an error was made that forced the playback of the "PiP" version of the movie to only playback in 1080i, instead of 1080p.
The report came only a day after news broke of problems with the company's release of "Blade Runner" to the Bluray format. As a result of apparent Bluray production issues, the fifth disc in the set was actually an incorrectly labelled copy of the first disc.
This news, in turn, came only a week after ANOTHER Bluray manufacturing issue saw HD DVD discs, incorrectly lablled as Bluray, inserted into the Bluray version of some Harry Potter giftsets.
It is unknown what steps in the Bluray production and manufacturing are causing all these problems, but I'd imagine that Warner could NOT be all that happy about it - particularly as it has caused them to receive complaints from customers.
In a post to the one of the forums, an unverified insider who claimed to have insider info on Warner made the following statement:
The blu-ray production problems are pissing people off big time at the company. **'Harry Potter' set, 'T3', and 'Blade Runner' were mentioned by my contact. He said it was turning into some kind of "running joke" within the division but he's been hearing grumbles about it from just about everyone. The most interesting thing he told me was concerning the 'Pirates..' production problem and "at least Disney got it too". I asked my contact about Sony supplimenting Blu production for the Warner inventory and all he said was "that's the only reason certain people here haven't had heart attacks over it."**
As mentioned in the post, Warner is certainly not the only studio to be hit with Bluray production issues, but Warner is certainly the most critical studio for Bluray, if they are to stay in the game.
However, if I were Warner, it would be just another indication that Bluray might not be the best way to go...
HD NOW Online - Warner Bitten by Bluray problems again
Warner bitten by Bluray problems yet again
On December 21, news broke that Warner Home Entertainment's release of Terminator 3 was marred by a problem. It appears that whoever was doing the encode for Warner was doing a "Fake PiP" second encode. "Fake PiP" is a trick whereby a second encode of a film is done which includes the PiP commentary window "pre-encoded" into it (such as used by Lionsgate in the past) to get around the limitations of Bluray's BD 1.0 "profile", which is unable to decode two video streams, such as how it is done by ALL HD DVD players.
However, it appears that an error was made that forced the playback of the "PiP" version of the movie to only playback in 1080i, instead of 1080p.
The report came only a day after news broke of problems with the company's release of "Blade Runner" to the Bluray format. As a result of apparent Bluray production issues, the fifth disc in the set was actually an incorrectly labelled copy of the first disc.
This news, in turn, came only a week after ANOTHER Bluray manufacturing issue saw HD DVD discs, incorrectly lablled as Bluray, inserted into the Bluray version of some Harry Potter giftsets.
It is unknown what steps in the Bluray production and manufacturing are causing all these problems, but I'd imagine that Warner could NOT be all that happy about it - particularly as it has caused them to receive complaints from customers.
In a post to the one of the forums, an unverified insider who claimed to have insider info on Warner made the following statement:
The blu-ray production problems are pissing people off big time at the company. **'Harry Potter' set, 'T3', and 'Blade Runner' were mentioned by my contact. He said it was turning into some kind of "running joke" within the division but he's been hearing grumbles about it from just about everyone. The most interesting thing he told me was concerning the 'Pirates..' production problem and "at least Disney got it too". I asked my contact about Sony supplimenting Blu production for the Warner inventory and all he said was "that's the only reason certain people here haven't had heart attacks over it."**
As mentioned in the post, Warner is certainly not the only studio to be hit with Bluray production issues, but Warner is certainly the most critical studio for Bluray, if they are to stay in the game.
However, if I were Warner, it would be just another indication that Bluray might not be the best way to go...
HD NOW Online - Warner Bitten by Bluray problems again