Sony Pictures1 Preparing your customers and your facilities for Blu-ray A powerful format that leads to new challenges in authoring and creative design

Sony Pictures2 Exceeding expectations After several years of development, consumer and industry expectations are high DVD was a leap in complexity, BD will be as well Expect a transition to happen over the next year in how titles are developed The best products are expected to have not only great picture and sound, but also added value that drives product sales

Sony Pictures3 Blu-ray data structure

Sony Pictures4 DVD vs. Blu-ray Mature authoring tools Ubiquitous MPEG2 video Mature audio codecs Mature subtitles creation Little or no programming possible Mature QC processes Creative design built around DVD capability New authoring tools New compression codecs New audio codecs New subtitles New programming environment New QC complexity New creative process with many possibilities

Sony Pictures5 SPE authoring tool development

Sony Pictures6 The current DVD world with PAL and NTSC compression At present, most Film based DVD content sold in Europe plays 4% fast in order to manage the difference between 24fps film and 25fps PAL video This affects the consumer experience, the video speed is not noticed, but correspondent change in audio pitch is obvious Studios have to conform elements and compress video for both NTSC and PAL standards adding cost and complexity to DVD manufacturing

Sony Pictures7 The European standard Movies can and should be encoded to one standard - worldwide EICTA – “ HD ready” sanctioning body Basic Requirements (information copied from license agreement) The display device accepts HD input via: Analog YPbPr and DVI or HDMI HD capable inputs accept: 50 and 60 hz progressive (“720p”) and 1920 x 50 and 60hz interlaced (“1080i”) The DVI or HDMI input supports content protection (HDCP)

Sony Pictures8 Blu-ray Video Codecs AVC – computation intensive, some LSI implementations exist, but typically uses blade servers VC1 – also computation intensive, software implementations MPEG2 – less efficient at very low bit rates, but equivalent performance at >15mbps. Encoding and decoding readily available. Master tape quality – results of tests

Sony Pictures9 New audio codecs Both Dolby and DTS have new codecs included in Blu-ray Studios are already expressing interest in using “lossless” coding Decoding hardware needed before new codecs can be used

Sony Pictures10 New subtitles HD resolutions Both Unicode and BMP available 256 colors available – excellent anti-aliasing New standards for delivery New methods of delivery – network

Sony Pictures11 BD-J A programmable environment Blu-ray provides an implementation of Java that can be used to create newer forms of disc interactivity DVD authoring and BD-J authoring are not the same skill set Game / web development skills are converging with packaged media development Keeping order – spiraling complexity

Sony Pictures12 Blu-ray Movie Mode Similar to DVD functions with improvements Ideal for first titles Can provide a better user experience than DVD The first step in player development and compatibility Low level conventions are used in BD-J

Sony Pictures13 QC for Blu-ray What display Consider scaling artifacts – full resolution avoids this Screen size, two to three picture heights Professional versus Consumer devices Interlace artifacts – should allowances be made? Interactive disc QC Network connection Game style capability

Sony Pictures14 The creative process Balancing improved performance and graphic complexity Re-educating the industry on what can be accomplished Providing better tools to eliminate redundancy Balancing format capability with time to market

Sony Pictures15 Priorities – before the first order Staffing - Blu-ray has capabilities through Java programming that are not in the typical skill set of most DVD tool users Video encoding – MPEG2 encoders are available and can do an outstanding job for this application. Adoption of alternative codecs may not be needed for a while Data handling – can your network and storage systems handle HD? Quality control – How will you check HD video? Display choices are limited.

Sony Pictures16 Launch timing (estimated) JANFEBMARAPRMAYJUNJULAUGSEPOCTNOVDEC - BD players in market - BD authoring in progress from Nov 05’ On time! - BD software in market - BD software with Java based navigation -BD player/software network usage Demand for software and players

Sony Pictures17 Summary Blu-ray will launch in the Spring – the time to prepare for compression and authoring is now 24p encoding worldwide is a win – win Consumer broadcast experience with HD is uneven, packaged media should set the benchmark… again… The distinction between authoring games and authoring movies will start to blur. Hiring for development and QC needs to adapt accordingly