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Topic: HFR - the reviews are in and it "didn't look so good"

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 06-11-2012 03:34 PM

He basically just said that we needed to get used to it and after we did everything will be fine.

But is it a change that will move the industry forward and improve overall capital gains? No.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-11-2012 10:29 PM

Rolling Stone said it best in the headline of their article about it: (this may not be exact but it's close)

"New technology that could revolutionize cinema...or ruin movies"

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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 06-13-2012 11:22 PM

quote: Chris Milton
I'm sceptical because I don't like the look of television at 100+hz, it looks to me like it is on fast forward.

Isn't this like saying that you're skeptical of HDTV because upconverted SDTV doesn't look very good?

Upconversion is always going to be flawed when compared to native resolution/frame rate.

I for one am willing to wait and see for myself. My guess is that it will be discomforting for some at first, because it's not what we've become accustomed to. However, after some time, 24 fps is going to look choppy.

Bringing it back to the HDTV comparison, one might think that upconverted SDTV is perfectly fine until one becomes accustomed to HDTV. Once that happens, SDTV is no longer acceptable.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

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From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 06-13-2012 11:44 PM

I've been watching 60i for years and years and years on tv. Just take any shot-on-video sitcom that doesn't have any special "film-like" effect added to it...stuff like soap operas and many 80s sitcoms. It looked terrible then, and it still looks terrible now.

I have seen native HFR and it looks just like that. [bs]

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Frank B. McLaughlin
Film Handler

Posts: 76
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Dec 2011

posted 06-14-2012 08:16 AM

We are doing our absolute best to retain the 19th century standards as conceived by the original inventors of the medium(we did permit 24 fps to accommodate sound - which some called a passing fad). Now a generation is coming along raised in the 21st century and we are telling them that what was good enough for us is good enough for you. The great future is in display devices and content will be king. The content owners are not going to restrict their efforts to a single medium.

This message provided by the National Association of Buggy Whip Manufactures.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-14-2012 10:44 AM

Why doesn't 48 fps IMAX (used in the Soarin' rides at Epcot and Disney's California adventure) look like crap like the digital HFR stuff? The Soarin' ride film has a normal film look, just no strobing or motion blur (except the aweful ending scene over LA that was shot as a test and that they couldn't re-shoot correctly due to permits).

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-14-2012 10:54 AM

Maybe because it's not in 3-D?

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 06-14-2012 11:58 AM

There is truth in this...During HFR tests I will often shut one eye to see the 2D version and without exception, the 2D version looked better!

No matter how many ways they want to dance around it, movie 3D does NOT replicate actual stereoscopic vision.

Showscan didn't look like this HFR 3D crap...it simply made the screen disappear and look like it was in 3D (without glasses).

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-14-2012 12:28 PM

You hit the nail on the head about 3D not looking "real". When you watch stereoscopic 3D (with or without glasses) it doesn't look like normal vision at all. The truth is that binocular vision seems to only be a small part of how we see reality in 3D. If you close one of your eyes, your depth perception might not be as good but the world is still in 3D. I've read that the brain uses tiny movements of the head and how it changes your field of view to see in 3D.

Just perspective helps see in 3D also. A 2D painting or photograph can look like it has depth.

Stereoscopic 3D is a distracting effect that IMHO should be used only for 5 minute theme park type applications. When I saw Avatar I spent half the movie closing one eye just to see if it made any difference to the enjoyment. It didn't.

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Nils Hoover
Film Handler

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From: Ithaca, NY, USA
Registered: Nov 2011

posted 06-14-2012 12:38 PM

quote: Brad Miller
I've been watching 60i for years and years and years on tv. Just take any shot-on-video sitcom that doesn't have any special "film-like" effect added to it...stuff like soap operas and many 80s sitcoms. It looked terrible then, and it still looks terrible now.

In all fairness, sitcoms and soap operas look terrible for all sorts of reasons, blaming it all on 60i I think may be a bit near sighted.

Both sitcoms and soap operas have pretty flat lighting, are shot on cheap sets, and are multicamera shoots (further reducing the quality of the lighting, as it is a compromise for multiple angles). Soap operas have Vaseline over the lens.

We all know the feeling of the 60i motion, and most of us either associate it with soap operas or video games, and I think it still remains to be seen whether that is the problem, the association, or if the motion itself is less attractive.

Maybe it will take some real artists to figure out the form appropriately, and because of the economical implications, a film like the hobbit may make or break the opportunity for any one to figure it out properly.

I don't know what his tests were, or how scientific they really were, but Looking at the wiki about showscan it says this:

quote:
Trumbull also did research into frame rate, running a series of tests with 35 mm stock filmed and projected at various speeds, shown to audiences who were instrumented to biometrically test their responses. He found that as the frame rate increased, so did the viewer's emotional reaction.

Which is maybe why little girls and their mothers would get so into soap operas.

I think it is something definitely worth exploring, it is just a shame, as with any innovation, that the exhibition industry is so rigid due to the enormous expenses involved.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-14-2012 12:50 PM

I keep hearing the words "immersive experience" coming from 3D stakeholders.

3D seems at its best when things are "behind the window" so, to me, it seems to have a distancing effect.

"Off the screen" effects aren't immersive because they are typically reserved for isolated instances, with isolated objects. And it calls attention to the technology. So, again, not immersive.

But that's just MY rotten opinion...

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 06-14-2012 01:04 PM

On occasion watching 3D I get the feeling I'm looking at cut out flat pictures (that are moving) laid in front of each other so that you see the depth between the flat pictures. To often it is like there is a cardboard actor in the foreground with another cardboard actor slightly behind him and then the background (again rather flat) behind that. Like I'm looking though a vew-master at it.

The 3D is much improved but some of that still exist to me. That is anything but real.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-14-2012 01:38 PM

I think we have a wealth of history to back up the notion that we don't need stereoscopic depth to make a movie more "realistic" or engaging.

Oh! If only AMADEUS had been in 3D. It would have been SO much more engaging...

But I always have to point out the rare exception is CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS. That movie really WAS enhanced by the 3D.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-14-2012 02:24 PM

quote: Nils Hoover
it is just a shame, as with any innovation, that the exhibition industry is so rigid due to the enormous expenses involved.

I wouldn't say it's a "shame," it's just business. Why does exhibition get painted as the bad guy every time some whiz-bang new technology comes around and we want to make sure it's going to have staying power before investing thousands and thousands of dollars per screen in it?

There are probably lots of exhibitors out there who now wish they hadn't bought into 3-D, even though it's definitely had better staying power this time than all the previous times...but it certainly hasn't "saved" the industry as many pundits would have you believe.

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 06-14-2012 02:28 PM

How many invested in the seat shakers? That was an advancement in technologically or the speaker in the seat feed off the sub channel. Exhibitors can't invest in every piece of technology that comes down the pike or they will not be in business.

Do you really think a seat vibrating will get more customers in the theater? I mean get real.

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