Though only made public today, Dolby Laboratories, known for their work in advancing the art and science of high-quality audio, recently improved upon their TrueHD technology with elevated playback performance of lossless audio on Blu-ray Discs. We’ve already used this on a recent project, San Francisco Symphony at 100, which was used as the ‘demo title’ in Dolby’s recent press event announcing this innovation within Dolby Media Producer Encoder v2. You can learn more about the use of this new technology on this release here via Vimeo.

Dolby's TrueHD Logo

“Lossless audio is a key distinguishing feature of Blu-ray content. All things being equal, you cannot improve on the quality of lossless audio coding; however, you can improve on the quality of the source PCM content prior to lossless encoding, and this is precisely what we have achieved with our advanced 96k upsampling technology,” said Craig Eggers, Director, Content Creation and Playback, Home Theater Ecosystem, Dolby Laboratories. “A significant amount of Hollywood content has been captured in native48 kHz. Studios and authoring facilities that implement Dolby TrueHD with advanced 96k upsampling can elevate the quality of PCM audio prior to lossless Dolby TrueHD encoding, ensuring that consumers get the very best audio performance possible from their Blu-ray playback systems.”

This upsampling technology represents a true innovation in audio playback.

“Besides enabling optimum 96k upsampling, this technology features a unique apodizing filter that “masks” the unwanted digital artifacts known as “preringing,” which is introduced during the content-capture and content-creation process. These digital artifacts can introduce an unnatural edginess or harshness to the audio. Dolby TrueHD with advanced 96k upsampling restores the natural tonality of the soundtrack. The effect can be subtle or dramatic, depending on the quality of the source material. Content mastered with Dolby TrueHD with advanced upsampling is fully playback compatible with all Dolby TrueHD enabled Blu-ray™ players and A/V receivers. Listeners are assured the highest-quality playback experiences possible through their systems.

“We were particularly impressed with the excellent results of Dolby’s new Dolby TrueHD with advanced 96k upsampling on one of our most recent projects, the San Francisco Symphony at 100 Blu-ray,” said Luke Fazzary, Director of Operations, Giant Interactive. “We’re very pleased to be able to share the benefits of this technology with our clients and plan to use it on future projects, whether concerts, live-action films, or episodic programming.”

We’ll be offering this new TrueHD upgrade to future clients, particularly those with legacy 48K audio tracks and are proud to be included in the select group participating in this roll-out.

Those interested in learning more are encouraged to download the following PDF white papers: Dolby TrueHD Encoder with Advanced 96k Upsampling and Elevating the Performance of Lossless Audio in the Home Theater: Dolby TrueHD with Advanced 96k Upsampling.

With Hawaii Five-0 Season 2 bonus wrapped and now making its way through post production, Director/Producer David Naylor traveled to the deserts of New Mexico to be on hand during production of one of CBS’s newest pilots, Vegas, which is headed to their fall schedule, announced today. Based on the true story of Ralph Lamb, known as the “Cowboy Sheriff” during his tenure in law enforcement during the 60s and 70s, this new drama follows “…two powerful men – Lamb and Savino – [who] are engaged in a fierce battle for control of the budding oasis, and for both of them, folding is not an option.” (From CBS’s Fall schedule announcement)

James Mangold directs Dennis Quaid as Ralph Lamb and Michael Chiklis as his nemesis, Chicago gangster Vincent Savino. A host of other big names such as Nicholas Pileggi, Greg Walker, Cathy Konrad and Arthur Sarkissian make this one to look forward to.

Check out some of the pictures David sent back:

David Naylor with a Ford Edsel on location in New Mexico.

Cool classic bikes and vintage cars set the scene.

David sits down with Writer & Executive Producer Nick Pileggi (Goodfellas & Casino) to discuss his participation in Vegas.

David and Michael Chiklis share a moment on set.

In part 2, we’ll see “The Man” himself, Ralph Lamb. Check back!

Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes

The the long-term viability and utility of DVD and Blu-ray Discs is an issue always in the back of our minds here at Giant Interactive. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes hit the nail on the head in this recent item in Home Media Magazine, where he noted that disc-based entertainment will continue to be viable for the near term, but that it may also have to become less expensive in order to maintain a hold in the current and future consumer environment.

“[T]he fact that discs are still sold at big-box retailers such as Walmart underscored an ongoing market for sell-through. Bewkes reiterated comments from Time Warner’s May 2 fiscal call where he hinted that packaged-media sell-through could remain compelling to broadband-enabled consumers inundated by subscription video-on-demand and low-cost kiosk rentals, if priced correctly. ‘The bad news is [movies] may have to be cheaper,” he said.’

Anybody in distribution and the home entertainment business will tell you that this environment is undergoing some monumental changes. Digital distribution has grown swiftly to become one of the primary methods of distribution and media consumption in the United States.  Studios are rethinking release window strategies. The old formulas and strategies no longer work.

What does that mean for those of us in the middle of the home entertainment pipeline, providing services to the studios, distributors and content holders in order to deliver to the consumer? In simple terms, it means that prices for services such as those we offer will experience continued downward pressure. As a boutique studio, providing a number of related interactive services including DVD and Blu-ray authoring, we’ve already felt the effect of this.

But it also means, quite honestly, that content owners will also be looking to other areas of their product in order to cut costs and give themselves more latitude to compete. And that means a lower quality of product: Fewer bonus features, less interesting menu designs, less testing and less complicated functionality. It’ll mean more templating.

That’s unfortunate. We’re confident that, like other authoring studios and interactive firms, our erstwhile competitors, we provide a service and one which can seem invisible…until it’s done poorly, with little care, with more attention paid to the cost to produce than the value. And then we all take the hit.

I’ve seen critically acclaimed programming on discs with downright boring menus (I’m talkin’ to you Downton Abbey). Conversely, I’ve seen discs with pretty smart menus (Hello, Ghost Protocol) which clearly showed some thought and design effort went into them. Unfortunately, the latter is becoming rarer.  My home cinema experience the poorer for it.

Movies on disc may need to get less expensive, but I hope that there’ll still be a demand…and allowance for…delivery of a quality experience: Careful and knowledgeable encoding, the latest audio technology, smart design, engaging ‘bonus’ features, widely-compatible discs, to name a few.

Just because something is less expensive, doesn’t necessarily make it a better value.

It’s our aim to keep providing services in that sweet spot, that perfect mix of economy, skill and quality. We won’t be accepting  every project, true, but I hope that we’ll continue to attract, collaborate with and serve distributors, studios and others who are looking for product which captivates, impresses and enthralls.

While there will be others who write of his passing with greater eloquence and knowledge, for myself I can say that Mr. Yauch and his fellow Beastie Boys definitely had an impact on my life. The Beastie Boys and Run DMC were the first rap groups to be heard by these tender suburban ears and they certainly opened my musical tastes to far greater vistas than they’d previously been aware.

His work as an social activist is perhaps one of the best examples of a musician using their public profile on behalf of the forces of good. Identifying a wrong and taking a public stand takes courage. His support of the Dalai Lama (see O-Scope Labs’ release Compassion in Emptiness) delivered knowledge and inspiration to a larger audience, myself included.

His success as an entrepreneur and businessman was also something to be admired. In an age where seemingly every rock star and celebrity has a label, a company and an clothing line, Mr. Yauch led by example, picking quality films and building a team which has had a profoundly positive impact on the indie world.

We offer our condolences to Mr. Yauch’s family, coworkers and friends.

MESA noted in their recent blog post: “Earlier in April, Nielsen stated that 88 percent of U.S. tablet owners and 86 percent of U.S. smartphone owners use their device while watching TV at least once during a 30-day period. Those findings — compiled from a Q4 2011 survey of connected device owners in four countries — also showed that more than a quarter of U.S. tablet owners (26 percent) and smartphone owners (27 percent) use their devices while watching TV several times a day.”

And this seems to be just the beginning of a revolution in media consumption which may be just as important as the introduction of television itself in the 50s. By 2014, an estimated 89.5 million people in the United States will use tablet computers, up from 54.8 million users in 2012, which provides an amazing opportunity to both studios and media companies to engage their audiences in new ways based on behaviors for which viewers have already shown a tendency.

The same MESA post puts numbers to the trends, noting “…37 percent look up information related to the TV program they are watching, 27 percent look up product information from a TV advertisement; and 47 percent visit a social networking site during the program the are watching.” What was once a relatively solitary, uni-directional experience has grown up to be something much more interesting, exciting and multi-directional.

Even while Giant’s app developers have been busy with video streaming apps, social-link-up apps, and so much more, we’ve been brainstorming how second screen or companion apps can help media companies improve the stickiness of their programming, strengthen their brands and retain viewers.

When the iPad first premiered, one of the first projects Giant’s app development team conceived and developed was an app which delivered an fully-realized annotated guide to a historical miniseries, providing additional information and links, images of primary documents and maps, social media integration and a game. We designed the app to address all three of those basic ‘second screen’ behaviors.  Principal features provided more topical links and supplementary information, thereby increasing viewer involvement and program ‘re-watchability’.  Links connected to an ecommerce opportunity. Integration of  the top social media sites allowed users to share with friends and involve their real and virtual communities in their interests. An entire new dimension was added to the experience.

In other early efforts, we developed concepts for both pilots and current shows which also addressed this same fundamental troika. In essence, these concepts grew organically from the users interests and required a fair amount of user interaction.

But the latest work in 2nd screen apps goes beyond this and attempts to anticipate what viewers want and serve it up in real time. Start-up Flingo, created by Ashwin Navin, just completed a funding round to build “… software that will automatically figure out what viewers are watching. That way, it can bring them more information about what’s on the screen, and/or help them tell their pals about it.”  It seems like this will be a platform, a Shazam-type app for broadcast programming. Great idea, but the technical hurdles will not insignificant.

There have been numerous articles, blog posts and commentary written about this burgeoning field. Chuck Parker’s post and infographics in The Growth of Second Screen and its Impact on Consumer Data and IT, published in March, bring a new perspective on this rapidly evolving mediascape. There are many players out there, with impressive backing, credentials and brain power, yet no one company has ‘solved it’.

We had a client in our NY studio a few days ago who had been in about a year ago to discuss a project. Reviewing what we’d proposed last spring, he commented that the business was changing so fast that the concept we’d discussed very seriously then just wouldn’t fit the current market.

Consumers and media companies are still feeling their way along. Viewers know what they like — sharing, information, and links…all at their fingertips. Media companies know that they like — ratings, ad revenue. It falls to the developers and interactive companies to find ways to service both constituencies and will undoubtedly require a combination of art, science and a good sense of timing.

Let’s get started.