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Print Magazine Advises Hollywood Subscribers Not to Panic

The Hollywood Reporter ran a piece about global, shifting market conditions for the entertainment industry. The data comes from PricewaterhouseCoopers and it isn’t very shocking if you’ve read about the trends in the industry over the last few years. What is surprising is the “see, everything’s fine!” analysis. The U.S. is stagnant, or shrinking, over time. Much of the growth is anticipated overseas, particularly in China, and mostly for first-run box office numbers.

Look at this bullet-point on advertising:

Web ads will hit $83.9 billion in 2019, overtaking TV ads, which will generate $81 billion.

Advertising is the primary revenue source for broadcast TV networks, and cable networks. Internet advertising overtaking TV ads before TV is really on the Internet is not a good thing. They should be moving lock-step with the ads.

This piece by THR is the reassuring pat-on-the-back that the old ways are still working. That’s to be expected from THR which still feels compelled to print this at the top of the article:

This story first appeared in the June 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

No, you did not travel through time, it is still June 2nd. Hey wouldn’t you like to buy some dead paper with 10 day-old analysis about how old media is fine?

2015-06-02 18:15:00

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Defocused Q&Anniversary

This Thursday night, Dan Sturm and I are recording a Q&A episode of our podcast Defocused. We would really appreciate any questions you might have. Either tweet them at the show account, or contact us on the site.

It’s been almost a year since Dan and I released the first episode of Defocused. It came from trying to record another podcast. We didn’t even have a name for the show when the first episode was recorded. It’s been a long road, getting from there to here.

We are going to record our “anniversary” episode before Dan leaves for a vacation. It didn’t seem right to make it like other episodes, where we usually discuss a movie, or to make it about one particular topic. It’s also been too soon to do another version of our award/clip show.

We really appreciate all the people that listen, and send in feedback. If you feel compelled to write iTunes reviews for the podcast, or share some favorite episodes with the Internet – what are you waiting for? An invitation?

2015-06-02 13:15:00

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Vimeo On Demand Adds Subscriptions

I originally noticed this story on The Hollywood Reporter, but they left out many of the specific details that the official Vimeo blog covers. This an interesting move for Vimeo and can ultimately serve to make it much more appealing to people producing video content. It does build off of the existing Vimeo On Demand service — what? You didn’t know about that either?

Vimeo On Demand premiered two years ago, and I finally recalled it when I started reading about it. It is/was a storefront for paying for individual videos — either by “renting” them, or by “buying” them. The person paying got access to the video in any Vimeo client signed in to their service, though you couldn’t purchase in every app (like YouTube on the Apple TV). Creators had granular control over how the work was presented, how much they charged, and how long rental windows were. However, it was another storefront, and many of the things there were either available through other storefronts, or not worth singing in to pay for. It was just as unappealing as I remember it being.

This subscription changes things because no one else is offering anything like it. It’s not a subscription for all of Vimeo, which gets divvied up between all the Vimeo content creators, it’s a subscription only to the relevant content creator. The money goes directly to the people that give me what I want, and those people keep 90% of it. If they stop making what I want, I can cancel my subscription for them without affecting my other Vimeo subscriptions. This is sort of like Patreon, in a way, except instead of paying Patreon, and going somewhere else to watch what you pay for, it’s right there.

Video creators can still make certain videos free, or available for rent or purchase, in addition to being available for subscribers. That’s a good way to get people to discover a show and sign up for a month.

In a way, the a la carte nature also hurts Vimeo, and video creators, because people are going to weigh the cost of subscribing more carefully than they would with an ad-supported service like YouTube.

Perhaps they’re still not trying to compete with YouTube? Or offer shows like Netflix or Amazon? Vimeo is mostly still a place for one-off, oddball stuff, and demo reels of very unimportant people.

Maybe something new will grow from this petri dish of experimental stuff, with this broth of financial tools.

2015-06-02 08:30:00

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Google Photos and Bar Snacks

One of the larger announcements at Google’s I/O conference today was that Google+ Photos were being spun off as a separate product, Google Photos. Sorry, “+” I guess you didn’t add a lot of value.

A big deal was made about unlimited, free photo uploads. There are some caveats that they have not been super clear about, so you’ll read varying things from news outlets about when they compress, or resize images, and under what conditions, so go to the source. From Google’s support site:

High quality * Unlimited free storage * Regular cameras: Recommended for phones or point-and-shoot cameras that are 16 megapixels (MP) or less. * Uses: Good for typical printing and sharing. * Size: Save high-quality photos and videos while reducing size.

Original * Limited free storage: Uses your Google Account’s 15 GB of free storage. * DSLR cameras: Recommended if you take photos with a DSLR camera and want to maintain the exact original quality. * Uses: Recommended for printing large banners or to store your original files. * Size: Store your photos and videos exactly as you captured them.

Most importantly, you can change your mind at any time. Confusingly, it affects storage sizes going forward and won’t resize items you’ve already stored. Uh… So… Does that mean I can pay for one month, upload 4 TB of UHD video, and 3 TB of 24 MP images, and then switch to the free plan and it’s all there, and not resized or altered? That would be weird.

This also differs from Apple’s iCloud photo storage which divvies up everything from the same bucket as device backups, media, and application data. Google’s plan doesn’t lump this together with Google Drive’s data plan. They’re separate silos. Unless you use the ‘Original’ plan. In which case, you technically have 15 GB of free space with the ‘Original’ plan before you have to pay for anything.

In fact, many people use all their free Google Drive space to upload photos. Drive does have 15 GB of free storage, and won’t do anything to compress, or alter, your photos. You can even toggle on an option to show your images stored in Google Drive in Google Photos. It is not toggled on by default though. That might be because it didn’t work great under a few simple tests.

Test Drive

I made an edit to a test photo and it wasn’t reflected in the local copy in my Drive folder. I deleted the image from the Drive folder and it still showed on the site, but it had a weird gray box where the thumbnail was. Refreshing the page removed the broken thumbnail.

Next test was opening the Google Drive site, where there’s now a Google Photos button — which doesn’t take you to photos.google.com, but shows some text “Stay tuned! Your photos are coming soon.” If I restore the deleted file from Drive’s “trash” the image returns to Photos. Confusingly, the photo that’s restored has the editing adjustments from before I deleted it still applied in Photos, but not in Drive on the web, or in my Drive folder. This is possibly because Google is storing the adjustments as metadata and applying it on-the-fly in the Photos interface — but that is confusing, and not really “syncing”. Also there’s no versioning for those edits, you can only restore to the original, even though Drive is perfectly capable of saving many revisions. Stranger still, it asks if you want to keep changes if you adjust something that was already edited. Not a modern save-as-you-go workflow. The editing options are also a total joke, so I’m not sure that’s a huge loss for me.

What was also bizarre, was opening Google Photos for the first time and seeing images I put up in 2008 … which I guess was Picasa, or something. I’m really not even sure.

Storage Wars

As Jason Snell mentioned on Twitter, “Would be nice if Apple felt some pressure to lower its iCloud photo storage rates, which are twice Google’s.”

Amazon also offers unlimited photo storage for Amazon Prime members, and some paid plans. However, I haven’t really noticed this gaining traction, even though every tech writer in the universe is an Amazon Prime member. You’d think people would be writing about it nonstop.

Dropbox also wants all of your photos. It put a “please let us upload all your iPhone’s photos” button in their iOS app. How else can people fill up the free, two gigabyte tier and pay $9.99 a month (or $99.99 a year) to upgrade to one terabyte?

Flickr has taken some controversial twists and turns over the years (the last turn seems to have been into a ditch). They introduced a free, one terabyte tier a few years ago. It serves gross ads, and offers no first-party syncing, or downloading, off the service. The pro account now offers unlimited photo uploads at $24.95 a year. That’s a great value – if Yahoo hadn’t defecated on Flickr, set it on fire, and tried to put out the fire with urine-soaked novelty T-shirts that say, “We Hate You” in purple Optima.

How Does Google Pay For Photos?

It is not fear-mongering to ask about how this service, and associated apps, are financed by the company. Especially if it is Google, a company that makes most of its income from collecting information and displaying targeted advertising. They have offered no indication how their photo service is paid for, but several reporters have been told that it does not collect personal information to sell ads.

Pete Pachal, writing for Mashable:

The thrust of the new Photos, as described by product lead Bradley Horowitz, is to provide a “private secure, safe place where all of my memories can live without compromise or agenda.”

From the “agenda” part, Google wants to make clear this isn’t Gmail: the Photos app isn’t scanning your photos to sell you things via ads (although it is scanning them for other reasons). Others, including Apple, Dropbox and Lyve, are trying to solve the immensely difficult problem of photo management, but Google thinks it has the best approach, and from a look at the new app, they might be right.

CNN’s Heather Kelly, and my request for a clarification:

From an interview with Bradley Horowitz on Medium’s Backchannel:

The information gleaned from analyzing these photos does not travel outside of this product — not today. But if I thought we could return immense value to the users based on this data I’m sure we would consider doing that. For instance, if it were possible for Google Photos to figure out that I have a Tesla, and Tesla wanted to alert me to a recall, that would be a service that we would consider offering, with appropriate controls and disclosure to the user. Google Now is a great example. When I’m late for a flight and I get a Google Now notification that my flight has been delayed I can chill out and take an extra hour, breathe deep.

Now, those of us that skew a little more to the cynical, or paranoid, might read in some hedging. Once all the worlds’ photos are uploaded the trap will spring! Targeted ads for diapers based on your baby photos! MWAHAHAHA!

Ahem.

I don’t see this as being a major concern, or a major obstacle, for most people. Particularly for the billions of Android, and Gmail, users that already agree to actually agree to actual data collection. NBD – as the kids say.

I have a Gmail account. I use Google Maps every day to go to and from work. I’m not going to get on a high horse about the photos, except that there is a certain intimate knowledge that can be gleaned from photos which we’re not used to thinking about. As Horowitz notes in that same media piece, people want the vast majority of their photos to be private.

Loss Leader

Since there are no (current) plans to do anything with the data collected from the photos, and to offer a lot of free, or discounted, storage, then this is paid for by money from other parts of the company. That’s perfectly justifiable. It immediately increases the value of any product Google has which can take, or view, photos.

It’s like snacks, and food, at a bar. You can pay for some sodium-heavy food items, that make you crave paying for a refreshing beverage, or you can just grab some complimentary, salty nuts.

The salty nuts are unlimited.

2015-05-29 09:00:00

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Over the Air, PVR, with a Rube Goldberg on Top ►

Glenn Fleishman wrote up how he’s getting TV at home — with all the modern conveniences of time-shifting! It is convoluted, but completely necessary, and legal, thanks to years and years of precedent. If you thought about making your own PVR system back in the mid-2000s then this will seem very familiar (and perhaps highlight reasons you might have passed on doing so). Not much has changed in a decade except convenience features around shoveling the content. Before that, the biggest innovation was the software to record and playback on a home computer.

This is a diagram of what Glenn wrote in his blog (glog?) post:

Yuck. It all just seems so unnecessary, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be nice to streamline that?

That’s the potential benefit we might see from Apple’s rumored OTT (over the top) service. Yesterday, at the Recode Conference, Les Moonves, President of CBS, confirmed that he’s in talks with Apple to do just that, but that the sticking point is money. Shocking, I know.

2015-05-28 08:30:00

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Desperation Notifier

20th Century Fox rolled out an app, with apparently some text for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety to paraphrase. They’re so excited about this app they didn’t bother to open it, or to apply any critical thought. That’s how exciting this app is. Wee!

It’s an app from Fox Digital Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. They do promotional tie-in apps for Fox’s entertainment properties. You download this free app, which is white-label software from Premiere Digital Services, and then it will notify you of daily flash sales on Fox’s movies in the iTunes Store. There is no special deal brokered between Fox and iTunes.

The sale price is the same in the app, or in the iTunes store. This is merely a way to highlight the film on sale, and provide a countdown timer — including complimentary seconds ticking away! — to entice people to hurry up and purchase something.

Strangely, “Movie of the Day” is by Fox, for Fox, but has no Fox branding on it. It’s also “MovieOfDay” when displayed on your iPhone, which amuses me.

Since no one appears to have opened the application before they wrote about it, allow me to be the first.

Hands-On

First of all, if you go to the store to download the app you are treated to screenshots of films that are not available to download. Not a big deal, right? It’s just demonstrating a flash sale.

Except that the image in the screenshot is of last year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past and the only film available for download happens to be 2011’s X-Men: First Class. Surely, just a coincidence. Surely.

Upon launching the app, you get the best first screen experience anyone can ever hope for:

Keep that in mind, because that’s really the primary goal the company has. The people running this project feel it is their duty to notify customers to purchase something immediately.

The home screen has a share button, which pulls up a standard iOS 8 share sheet to send this important sale to Twitter, or run a Workflow. The “i” pulls up a bar of icons that have no text explanation. Turns out, they’re for cast & crew (just the stars and director), reviews (it doesn’t label where they’re from but it appears to be sourced from iTunes), and a synopsis. I could get more information from the search page in Google, or even by clicking the button in the app that kicks you to the iTunes Store.

What’s the value to the customer? Almost none that I can think of. Unless you really want to be notified every day about an old movie you might not be interested in owning on the off chance that you might want to own one of them.

This seems to want to evoke some of the excitement of bargain bins, with $5-10 DVDs, but there’s no shelf space to clear out, and no retailer with volume to move. Apple can move as much, or as little, as Fox wants. Fox, when left to its own devices, thinks everything it makes is gonna be gold forever and finds it very difficult to markdown their own movies.

That’s why there’s a flash sale with a timer. Artificial scarcity for the customers, and then the panic over low-low prices can subside.

From Variety’s original reporting: “…available for purchase on [on?!] digital HD for $6.99 — ordinarily priced at $14.99.” Perhaps the problem is that Fox is pricing a movie from 2011 at $14.99 the rest of the year? Look, X-Men: First Class was OK, but it’s not like it’s The Godfather.

2015-05-27 08:26:45

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Peddling Risk Aversion

Brent Lang offers up some specious reasoning and doomsaying in Variety today.

“Tomorrowland’s” middling debut points to a nagging problem in Hollywood. As much as people claim they love fresh and unique movies, they’re more likely to shell out money for sequels and reboots.

A few problems with that. First, and foremost, is reading too much into the performance of a single film opening. There are so many factors that can contribute, or detract, from any film opening. Indeed, you can wind the clock back to November and see interstellar box office numbers from … Well, Interstellar. As Brent writes about several paragraphs later:

Some analysts cautioned against reading too much into the failure of one film. After all, original pictures like “Gravity,” “Interstellar,” and “Inception” have enjoyed commercial success.

Brent does highlight that he might not really be using “original” correctly because this is, of course, a feature film tangentially related to a themed attraction. Much in the same way that the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was related to 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Remember those “original” films? They had nothing to do with the ride, really, and the ride was redone to hew more closely to the films.

Brent points out that sequels and reboots are the only things people turn out for, but the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise declined, financially at the very least, after the second one. $46M opening box office for the first one, $135M opening for the second, $114M opening for the third, and $90M for the fourth. More alarming, the fourth had a lifetime gross that’s 80% of the first film.

After four years, they’re going to release a fifth pirates film, but will it be labelled a success or an example of declining sequels? If it has a $50M opening weekend, will Variety run a piece about how audiences won’t turn out for sequels?

I completely agree with Brent that the production budgets put an enormous amount of pressure on films at this scale, but I don’t think the solution is to take fewer risks, as he does. The first Avengers might not seem like a huge risk, but it was, and that risk worked out well. That Tomorrowland isn’t Avengers should surprise no one. That it isn’t as financially successful shouldn’t merit a piece about how people don’t like original stuff.

I’m not worried that this will make Disney less risk averse than they already were. Every few years they release something expensive that doesn’t work out. John Carter and The Haunted Mansion being two films that spring to mind, which had big budgets, but weren’t original, and had disappointing box office numbers.

Disney is flush with cash. They should be taking as many chances as they can.

Just like the other studios trying to mirror the success of the Marvel films at Disney, I worry that other studios will try to dodge these “obvious” failures from Disney. That those studios will look at this piece in Variety and greenlight as many, competing Ghostbusters movies as possible. Only making financially successful movies isn’t a realistic strategy.

Marketing is another area worth dwelling on. Brad Bird has hinted that he hasn’t been completely happy with the trailers. Particularly with the most recent one. This isn’t the first time Brad Bird has had a low opening weekend because the potential movie-going audience didn’t understand what his movie was. Look at The Iron Giant which Bird made for Warner Bros. before they decided they didn’t want to make animated movies, and sabotaged the film. It’s a cult classic, and a risky movie.

Like Brent, I also can’t tell you what is happening in the film based on any of the trailers. There is some place, a pin that lets you see the place, George Clooney’s inventions, a ship, and they have to save something while being chased by [thing that might be a spoiler but is in the trailer]. I still intended to see it, because of Brad Bird, but that isn’t a selling point for everyone. Whatever tension exists between marketing and Brad Bird is reflected in the low turnout and 61% adult audience for this summer “tentpole”. Maybe this is a movie that shouldn’t have been a tentpole? Maybe this is a movie that needs to build with word-of-mouth instead of an explosive opening weekend? That’s all speculation.

The only thing that isn’t speculation is that this isn’t a teachable moment about why original properties should be avoided. That’s not filmmaking, that’s accounting.

2015-05-26 12:45:00

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Bag of High‑Dynamic Hurt

The Hollywood Reporter ran a story last night that Fox will be the first studio to put out media for home viewing in UHD “HDR”. I’ve updated the Wow Factor Cheatsheet accordingly.

It helps that the UHD Alliance president is also the CTO at Fox.

Speaking last month at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, UHD Alliance president Hanno Basse — who is chief technology officer at Fox — asserted: “We want to have a first version [of a quality spec] later this year to coincide with the Blu-Ray Disc Association (which is introducing Ultra HD Blu-Ray with HDR support).”

Remember that “HDR” isn’t a standard, but the UHD Alliance’s HDR will be a standard. The Blu Ray Association will support “HDR” from a variety of sources, including Dolby Vision. Dolby is also a member of the UHD Alliance. So that is going well.

I haven’t found any information on the technical differences, but sources familiar with the matter (that’s right, jerks! I have a source!) told me that the UHD Alliance is adopting Samsung’s SUHD as their draft, and the “HDR” that Fox is using.

Disney is releasing Tomorrowland which was mastered in Dolby Vision for the Dolby Cinema experience (just put ‘Dolby’ in front of every word.) They haven’t announced what they’ll back for home video release. Disney is also a member of the UHD Alliance.

Does that mean we’ll live through another format war over home video formats? Instead of HD DVD and Blu Ray, are we getting Ultra Blu Ray with UHDA HDR and Ultra Blu Ray with Dolby Vision? Since the technical differences might come down to different metadata, would we potentially see discs that support both? It’s really unclear. I imagine that there will be non-technical (money, ego) reasons beyond technical ones.

If you buy an SUHD TV now, will that mean you’re future proof? Maybe? It certainly doesn’t support Dolby Vision, but maybe it won’t ever need to. Or at least, not if you only like Fox movies.

What about disc players? Considering that part of the UHD Blu Ray move is about larger capacity, it’s not clear if firmware updates would allow older players to read the extra capacity on the disc (might not physically be possible), even then, the hardware would have to be capable of handling 4x the pixels. None of the gaming consoles offer UHD playback from streaming sources but we might see updates. Again, no one is saying.

The new Ultra Blu Ray discs are backwards compatible, so you will have your traditional Blu Ray experience if you load the new discs in old players. Awesome, right? Totes worth paying a markup on that disc, just like those combo DVD-BR discs. Totes.

That means you can’t really count on any existing market momentum. In addition to buying a new TV, a new Ultra Blu Ray player, and new Ultra Blu Ray discs. All of them agreeing on the supported format, Dolby Vision or UHD Alliance HDR, to pipe from the disc to the panel.

At this point in the article, it’s probably worth recalling Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Blu Ray:

Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It’s great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace.

It never took off in the marketplace. The licensing, alliances, and a looming format war over brightness and contrast make that particularly clear.

To quote from Steve again, in an email he sent to a MacRumors reader, Siva:

No, free, instant gratification and convenience (likely in that order) is what made the downloadable formats take off. And the downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals (iTunes) so storing purchased movies or TV shows is not an issue.

I think you may be wrong - we may see a fast broad move to streamed free and rental content at sufficient quality (at least 720p) to win almost everyone over.

Obviously, we are a little ways past 720p, but Steve’s opinion that streaming will win out over discs still seems to hold true.

Then the question really becomes a combination of what “HDR” flavors the streaming media companies will support, and which of those your TV will also support. You’ll have the same problem if Netflix backs something your TV manufacturer doesn’t. Apple doesn’t even seem likely to include UHD content at this rate.

And the “4K” UHD is mostly going to be scaled up from 2K. Because VFX.

Yaaaaay…

2015-05-20 16:30:00

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Shelved Prototype and TVKit Rumors

More Apple TV rumors popped up yesterday. One rumor was about a shelved TV panel that’s locked away in some lab. I have no interest in what they are rumored to not-release.

There’s still some simmering excitement over “4K” with some news outlets saying it’s possible, and some saying it’s not on the table at all. I’m very inclined to believe it’s not on the table. “4K” is really UHD, which is a way to sell panels, not content. Even with the Blu Ray Association revising the disc standard to allow for UHD content, there will still be a paucity of people excited about rebuying a library of discs for UHD. Particularly when most TV and film is not output for the format.

Since the rumors around Apple’s OTT service center on American broadcast stations, and a select number of cable networks — none of which show UHD content — I don’t think it’s a remote possibility. Particularly when Apple is competing against cable networks on that OTT service and those networks aren’t rolling out UHD channels either.

That’s not to say that they will never, ever do it, but there’s no reason to expect it in the fall, or even next year. Not until things you can watch in UHD show up. Crazy, I know, but most people don’t want to sit at home and watch a handful of Netflix episodes and some demo footage of a scenic waterfall, or canyon vista.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Apple is in talks with programmers to create a bundle of TV channels delivered over the Internet to its devices, according to people familiar with the matter. It has told media companies that it hopes to unveil the service in June, and begin programming in the fall, they said. Whether Apple makes that announcement may depend on the progress of those talks.

There are also rumors about “TVKit” which will allow third party developers to create their own apps for the Apple TV.

Our sources add that a new version of Xcode, known as “MuirTrail” internally, includes a new feature called “TVKit” for developers to build third-party Apple TV apps.

Many people, including MacStories’ Federico Vittici are interpreting that as gaming on the box:

TVKit rumor: http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/18/app…

Thinking about the possibilities of Metal and haptic feedback powering future Apple TV games…

While that is possible, I would like to point out that it’s just as likely that this won’t have anything to do with gaming. It’ll allow for richer brand-engagement with custom menus and interfaces for apps that serve streaming content. Think about the networks that have apps on your phone. Now imagine those apps on your TV. Imagine someone on stage at WWDC talking about how easy it will be to develop apps for both devices with “TVKit”. Also imagine that it’ll focus on analytics, possibly through iAd, because I still see analytics driving advertising as the primary motivation for these networks to take OTT services seriously. Like Roku’s deal with Nielsen.

I mean, yes, I’m sure “TVKit” is for super-fun games. Sure.

2015-05-19 08:45:00

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Wow Factor Cheatsheet

A few things I want to reiterate about 4K, UHD, Dolby Vision, HFR, and HDR:

  • “4K” is not actually a standard, UHD is. It’s still used by many to refer to the resolution.
  • UHD is about frame rate, color, compression, and different resolutions, including 4K. Officially, the whole thing is Rec. 2020, or BT 2020.
  • Blu-Ray doesn’t play back UHD content, but it will.
  • HDR is also not a standard. It means “high dynamic range”. In terms of TVs, it’s usually used to refer to Dolby Vision.
  • Dolby Vision is a proprietary standard of (suspense accent) Dolby. They’re very eager to license it to people.
  • Dolby Vision has the same Rec. 2020 color gamut as UHD, but it has a greater range of luminance. Whites are whiter, darks are darker. I recommend reading the very short PDF on it.
  • Dolby Vision can be any resolution. When it initially premiered, it was pitched as a competing technology to UHD. However, there are “4K” Dolby Vision displays.
  • Dolby Vision is even supported for laser projectors in theaters. It’s not the same as a Dolby Vision TV in a home. The specification allows for this variation (mostly because they can market it all as Dolby Vision).
  • HFR means “high frame rate” and it’s not a standard. It basically just means anything higher than 24 FPS, the standard frame rate for film. 30 FPS was common as part of the NTSC standard, but it doesn’t really count. People are usually referring to 48+ FPS when talking about HFR. It hasn’t been very popular with critics, or audiences.

It’s about more than just the TV, it’s the pipeline of how stuff got to your TV. Whatever a person watches on their TV is only ever going to be as good as the worst part of that pipeline. If you’re watching satellite broadcasts, they’re compressed. If you’re watching a movie that was transferred to UHD, but your display is Dolby Vision, you’re not getting that amazing color and contrast. If your source material was an episode of Doctor Who shot in 1976 then no fancy TV is going to help very much.

A major limitation is getting the content into homes, with the Blu-Ray Association announcing another revision to their disc format to accommodate UHD (but not Dolby Vision), and only a handful of streaming services. Even Apple’s magical, unicorn TV coming this fall is rumored not to have 4K support.

In terms of color, and brightness, there’s a ton that’s available in older material that’s not been represented to people in their homes. Some recent productions are using an ACES pipeline to try and keep color, and brightness, as lossless as possible through the whole mastering process.

Movies from the last 20-ish years had their effects mastered in about 2K-ish resolutions. Even modern film and television shows are not mastered to take advantage of the new technologies appearing on the market. Some do, like House of Cards which had its’ third season mastered in 6K (6 times HD). Even Disney’s Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron had the intricate effects for The Vision’s face delivered at a final resolution lower than UHD.

Will the person sitting at home perceive variations in quality? Probably not. I’ll know they’re there, damn it. I’ll know they’re there, and I’ll judge you all.

2015-05-18 09:00:00

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