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The Hobbit ... Didn't Look So Good
Warners screens 10 minutes at their CinemaCon panel.
April 24, 2012
by Jim Vejvoda

Warner Bros. screened roughly 10 minutes of footage from The Hobbit today at their CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas. The footage was projected in 3D at 48 frames per second for theater owners and press attending the conference.

A taped intro from director Peter Jackson preceded the footage. There is no honest discussion that can be had about this Hobbit footage without emphasizing the 48fps presentation. The film was shot this way and will be digitally projected this way, as well as presented in 3D. So what does 48fps movie footage look like as opposed to your usual 24fps theatrical movie experience? In this reporter's opinion, it looks like live television or hi-def video. And it didn't look particularly good. Yes, this is shocking, but I was actually let down by the Hobbit footage, as were a number of the other journalists that I spoke with afterward.

It looked like an old Doctor Who episode, or a videotaped BBC TV production. It was as shocking as when The Twilight Zone made the boneheaded decision to switch from film to tape one season, and where perfectly good stories were ruined by that aesthetic. Here, there were incredibly sharp, realistic images where colors seem more vivid and brighter than on film, but the darker scenes were especially murky (and the 3D only dims that image even more). Frankly, it was jarring to see Gandalf, Bilbo or the dwarves in action against CG-created characters or even to move quickly down a rocky passage. The whipping of a camera pan or the blur of movement was unsettling.

While 48fps may create a more realistic, "you are there" picture quality, it actually works against The Hobbit from the 10 minutes of footage we saw. This undeniable "reality" kept pulling me out of the movie rather than immersing me fully into its world as the Lord of the Rings films did; the very fantasy element, the artifice of it all (whether it's the wigs, fake beards or CG monsters) was plainly, at times painfully, evident. There was none of the painterly gentleness that film offers a fantasy film, as was so beautifully the case with the original (shot on film) LOTR trilogy. I fully expect the 48fps issue to become the much-talked about "mumbling Bane" flap to come out of CinemaCon.

The best sequence shown was one between Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Gollum (once again played by Andy Serkis). The latter is his old, split personality self as he debates between killing Bilbo or helping him out. Bilbo finally agrees to play a game of riddles with Gollum. If he wins, Gollum will show Bilbo the way to Bilbo's destination. If Gollum wins? Well, it makes you wonder if Hobbit tastes like chicken. One reason why the 48fps wasn't as distracting here was that it was an extended sequence, the longest by far of the clips shown from An Unexpected Journey today. The CG-ness of Gollum was more evident in this digital format than it was on film back in the LOTR trilogy, but you'd be hard-pressed not to feel goosebumps seeing Serkis back in deceitful action as Gollum.

Also back in action in the footage screened today? Orlando Bloom's archer Legolas and Elijah Wood's Frodo Baggins, although we only got a few glimpses of those two characters. There were also scenes shown between Gandalf the Grey and Radagast the Brown, as well as an action-oriented one seeing Bilbo imperiled by three giant troll-like monsters before Thorin Oakenshield and the dwarves come to his rescue. There were some moments of Ian Holm as the elder Bilbo, life in the Shire, and the heroes' journeys across the snow-capped mountaintops of New Zealand, er, Middle-earth. Jackson stressed in his intro that the footage was unfinished, and this was evident in many of the green screen backdrop scenes we saw, such as the Rivendell one between Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel.

I didn't go into CinemaCon expecting to write anything less than great things about The Hobbit, but the very aesthetic chosen by Peter Jackson has made me very nervous about this film. It just looked ... cheap, like a videotaped or live TV version of Lord of the Rings and not the epic return to Tolkien that we have all so long been waiting for. I still have hope for The Hobbit, but I'd be lying if I didn't say my expectations for the film have now been greatly diminished.

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Last year at CinemaCon, James Cameron began his push for the next evolution of cinema — higher framerates. Peter Jackson was the first filmmaker to hear the call to action and shoot a feature film using 48fps. That film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will be released in the holiday season at the end of this yea. It could very well determine the future of how movies look and how films are shot, projected and viewed both theatrically and at home.

A brief primer: Modern films are shot and projected at 24 frames per second. That has been the industry standard for feature films since the mid-1920s after sound motion pictures were introduced. The low frame rate results in a strobing effect when there is moderate camera movement. You have probably accepted this technological artifacting, but it looks artificial and your brain interprets it as such. Raising the framerate makes movement look a lot smoother, and gives the impression of an enhanced resolution. The low framerate is also one of the major factors of why some people experience discomfort while watching 3D movies.

Lets go back in time to last year’s convention. Cameron gave a presentation to a auditorium full of skeptical theater owners/managers (and a few press). And by the end of the presentation, which compared footage shot at 24fps up against the same sequences shot at 48fps and 60fps, most walked away believing they had seen the future of cinema. I was a believer. I wrote:

The footage shot at 48 frames a second looked incredible. The best way to describe it, is to quote Cameron: “If watching a 3D movie is like looking through a window, then [with this] we’ve taken the glass out of the window and we’re staring at reality.”

Cut to one year later: Warner Bros held a presentation which previewed their entire 2012 line-up (you can see my reaction to all the footage in a separate posting). That presentation included over ten minutes of footage from Peter Jackson‘s Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit. Buzz was at an all time high to see this footage, which says something when you’re sharing a panel with Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises. Many people I had talked with were expecting to be blown away by the footage, and especially the new, higher, frame rates. Most of us were not.

Please note: I won’t go into the content of the Hobbit footage in this post, as this is not the point of this article. If you want to read scene descriptions, go elsewhere. If you want to hear some of our reactions to some of the footage, watch our video blog elsewhere on the site. This article is about frame rates and the future of cinema technology.

Jackson recorded a video introducing the footage, being very clear that it was unfinished, featured green screens, and early effects. He said that he chose ten minutes of footage because audiences need time to get use to the new frame rate, time to adjust and see it for what it is. He praised the step to 48 frames per second by saying it gave a new clarity to the footage he shot, comparing it to shooting on 65mm film.

The footage opened up with wide expansive shots of people walking on mountains and over rich green landscapes — those awesome shots that became synonymous with the Lord of the Rings series when it began a decade ago. Thee shots looked incredible — almost like something you would see in an IMAX 3D nature documentary — so extremely vivid and breathtaking, and more real than we’ve ever seen these shots before.

This is the future of Cinema… I thought…

But my amazement quickly came to an end as the sizzle reel transitioned from the landscape footage to the character centric. Everything looked so… different. It was jarring.

The change from 24 frames per second to 48 frames per second is HUGE. It completely changes what every image looks like, the movements, the tone, everything is different.

It looked like a made for television BBC movie.

It looked like when you turn your LCD television to the 120 hertz up-conversion setting.

It looked uncompromisingly real — so much so that it looked fake.

More noticeable in the footage was the make-up, the sets, the costumes. Hobbiton and Middle Earth didn’t feel like a different universe, it felt like a special effect, a film set with actors in costumes. It looked like behind the scenes footage.

The movement of the actors looked… strange. Almost as if the performances had been partly sped up. But the dialogue matched the movement of the lips, so it wasn’t an effect of speed-ramping.

It didn’t look cinematic. Not at all, even with a top filmmaker like Peter Jackson at the helm.

“This is the future of cinema,” I wondered?

But it wasn’t just me — almost everyone I talked to, almost every conversation I overheard while leaving the presentation, all centered around how it didn’t look good.

I think it might be too early to completely write off this jump to higher frame rates. I’m trying my best to be as non-sensationalistic as I possibly can.

Could it be that the footage is so unfinished that it just didn’t look right? Miracles can be accomplished in color time and post processing, so who knows?

Could it be that we’ve grown up looking at 24 frames per second and that this newer, presumably better, higher frame rate looks bad only because its something we’re not use to? Possibly? I don’t know. Maybe in 30 years we’ll be looking back at the choppiness of 24fps films and wonder how we could watch something so unrealistic. I really believed this would be possible leaving Cameron’s presentation last year, but this year I’m a lot more doubtful.

I’m a very enthusiastic person, wanting to embrace change. I’m an early adopter of new technology, I welcome improvements whenever I can. 48 frames per second made sense to me, but after seeing real movie footage shot and projected, I couldn’t be more unsure about it.

Vendors claim that a large amount of the digital projectors already in theaters will be easily upgradable to 48fps through a software update (of course, those tech vendors will probably charge for the patch). Warner Bros and Peter Jackson are hoping that most theaters will upgrade before the film comes out in December. Judging from the reaction from theater owners and managers, I’m not sure if that will happen or not. If it does, I do for see that the change to a higher frame rate could be more polarizing than the jump to 3D. If it looks anything like what was presented today at CinemaCon, I think a lot of people will be angry about this change (when they finally see it for themselves).

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Based on the deflated reaction to 10 minutes of footage shown today from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Jackson’s state-of-the-art high-definition epic may or may not forever change the way we view movies, but it will definitely revolutionize the way we talk about that strange, hard-to-describe fluorescent look HD video can sometimes have.

There are two ways to look at the clips featured at the annual gathering of theater owners: As storytelling, the first half of Jackson’s two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is perfectly in sync with the tone and quality of his groundbreaking The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But as a platform for new cinematic technology, the clips received an underwhelming reaction at best. Read on for more details after the jump.

Tech: Get the latest news, photos, and more

The clip began with a filmed intro from a jolly Jackson on the set of The Hobbit in New Zealand, in which he delivered a quick lesson on the history of frame rates that was surprisingly fascinating.

To put it simply: Right now, every second of footage you see in a movie is made up of 24 pictures. In the silent era, it was roughly 16 to 18 pictures (or frames) per second. With The Hobbit, Jackson is leaping to 48 frames per second, resulting in an ultra-crisp image.

Sound promising? That’s what everyone in the 4,100-seat theater was thinking.

Jackson was hoping to inspire the theater owners to upgrade their projection equipment as necessary to showcase the film at the accelerated rate, which he said should be an easy conversion with most digital projectors. “I’m really hoping with the support of the exhibitors, we can start the process of changing the entire industry to higher frame rates, which quite honestly provide a much more attractive experience, especially in 3-D.”

Jackson said the format was “much more gentle on the eyes, without the strobing or as much flicker, and much less eye strain.” However, he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling.

Shooting at 48 frames, he added, “gives you much more the illusion of real life.”

That may be the problem.

The clips Jackson went on to show looked much more like visiting the set of a film than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie. While most films aim for a soft, natural glow, this had a more stark and fluorescent lighting style.

Hopes were high, but reaction in the audience was mixed at best:

“Great Scott, THE HOBBIT in 48 frames-per-second is a thing to behold. Totally different experience. Not all will like the change,” tweeted Variety film editor Josh Dickey.

“Here’s what The Hobbit looked like to me: a hi-def version of the 1970s I, Claudius. It is drenched in a TV-like — specifically ’70s-era BBC — video look. People on Twitter have asked if it has that soap opera look you get from badly calibrated TVs at Best Buy, and the answer is an emphatic YES,” wrote Devin Faraci of BadAssDigest.com, in a thorough drubbing of the format.

“Saw ten minutes of Hobbit in 48fps 3D. Very exciting, but I’m now very unsure about higher framerates. 48fps feature films will likely divide moviegoers — I expect to see stronger hate, more so than 3D,” tweeted Slashfilm.com’s Peter Sciretta.

“Saw the 10 minutes of raw The Hobbit footage in 48FPS 3D. Intriguing, the footage looks amazing, but the 48FPS experience is an odd change,” tweeted Alex Billington of FirstShowing.com

“Saw 10 min of THE HOBBIT in 48fps. It’s def a drastic change from 24fps and many are not going to be on board with it,” tweeted Steven Weintraub of Collider.com

Jackson said he chose to show 10 minutes of footage “because it actually takes your eyes a little bit of time to get used to 48 frames.” And the preview came with the caveat that many scenes were lacking visual effects. “It’s not really showing you a sense of what those shots will look like in the finished film, but it’s allowing you to judge the projection quality,” Jackson said.

Whether that mitigates the negative fallout or not, perhaps Jackson and Warner Bros. should have waited until the scenes were fully completed before presenting the new technology.

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For years, James Cameron has been telling everyone who would listen (mostly his army of high-priced whores) that a lot of the early problems people had with 3D – that it required slower cuts and camera movements because of strobing and blurring – could be solved with higher frame rates, which is relatively easy to accomplish (your TV is already capable of doing much higher than film’s 24 frames per second, for instance). Peter Jackson explained last year:

Looking at 24 frames every second may seem ok–and we’ve all seen thousands of films like this over the last 90 years–but there is often quite a lot of blur in each frame, during fast movements, and if the camera is moving around quickly, the image can judder or “strobe.”

Shooting and projecting at 48 fps does a lot to get rid of these issues. It looks much more lifelike, and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3-D.

Jackson put his money where his beardy mouth is, shooting The Hobbit at 48 fps, and today Warner Bros debuted some of the footage at CinemaCon.

Peter Jackson said in a videotaped message that he hopes his movie can be played in 48fps in “as many cinemas as possible” when it opens on Dec. 14.
In his message, Jackson stated that higher frame rates could make cinema “more attractive,” especially in 3D as it is “more gentle on the eyes.” He added that 2D at 48fps also looks “fantastic.”
The clarity Jackson described was visible in the presentation, but since the clips were described as “a work in progress” Warner did not screen footage that was fully color-corrected, or featuring completed VFX work.

And if I could sum up the collective reaction, I’d say it’s something along the lines of “OH MY GOD A WITCH, BURN IT!”

Saw the 10 minutes of raw The Hobbit footage in 48FPS 3D. Intriguing, the footage looks amazing, but the 48FPS experience is an odd change. – Alex Billington, Firstshowing

Oh no. Not a fan of 48fps. Oh no no no. [...] Listening to Cinemacon people – theater owners – this 48fps demo sold NOBODY. [...] THE HOBBIT, frankly, did not look cinematic. -Devin Faraci, BadassDigest

Saw ten minutes of Hobbit in 48fps 3D. Very exciting, but I’m now very unsure about higher framerates #CinemaCon -Peter Sciretta, SlashFilm

Saw 10 min of THE HOBBIT in 48fps. It’s def a drastic change from 24fps and many are not going to be on board with it. #thehobbit -Steve Weintraub, Collider

I had a feeling this 48fps stuff was gonna just look like amped up 120Hz on an HDTV, which looks awful. Seems to potentially be the case. -Kris Tapley, InContention

The fact is that 48 fps 3D is the most startlingly “real” 3D I’ve ever seen in my life. The downside for older types is that it’s too real. [...] In a word, 48 fps 3D looks like high-def video. It doesn’t look “cinematic”, lacking that filtered or gauzy look we’re all accustomed to. -Jeff Wells, HollywoodElsewhere

All of you clever critics there and not one person had there wherewithal to say, “Frame Rates? More like FRAME RAPES!” Talk about a missed opportunity.

Anyway, that seemed to be the general consensus from Twitter. Have you ever tried to watch an old movie on Blu-Ray and it looks all weird like a soap opera? I get the feeling it’s like that. Something to get used to. Meanwhile, Rebecca Murray of About.com writes:

It’s literally like being on the set next to the actors as they’re performing. [...] Once audiences get to see The Hobbit screened at the 48 frames per second rate when it’s released in theaters on December 14, 2012, I can guarantee moviegoers are going to demand all films be presented at 48 fps.

So there you have it, 48fps is either doomed to fail or the new standard all films must follow. Isn’t the echo chamber fun?

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quote: Kris Verhanneman

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The upgrade for this is not only for High Frame Rate. You do get other advantages.

4K projection
better 3D
HDMI inputs for your live events (dolby internal media block)

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Could it be that the footage is so unfinished that it just didn’t look right? Miracles can be accomplished in color time and post processing

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quote: Brad Miller

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4k projection is POSSIBLE, but the upgrade does not provide it. You are still talking a major outlay of even more money on a projector upgrade.

Better 3D? Not for me, but I can see where others may think so.

HDMI inputs are already a reality with a scaler.

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quote: Jonathan Althaus

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What about screens that are already capable of 4k, HFR, and HDMI? No further money needed

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quote: Kris Verhanneman

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HDMI on a scaler OK but that way you still dont get 5.1 decoding on that signal. And why use a scaler if you can do without?

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quote: Scott Norwood

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How does it look when converted to 24fps? Most people will see it that way (either on film or 24fps DCP), so one can only hope that the conversion will look decent.

I can only hope that it does not look like 24fps film shot with a very narrow shutter angle (e.g. some scenes in Saving Private Ryan, etc.)....

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I think this is my third post about this already but here goes again:

No, the 24 fps version of The Hobbit is not going to look like Saving Private Ryan. They used a 1/64 sec shutter, which means that the 24 fps version looks as if they shot normally and used a 135° shutter angle. That’s slightly choppier than the usual 180°, but nothing like Ryan at all (I believe they used a 45° shutter for those famous shots). And they can always smooth it out in post a bit.

I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary motion-wise in the 24 fps 3D Hobbit trailer that I saw.
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-26-2012, 07:05 AM:
 
Well they do not simply have to skip every other frame to make the 24fps. They can just as well merge two 48fps images into a 24fps image, including motion-blur. While this is 'artifical' - it could still result in a 'better' or 'classic' movie experience against HFR, if the HFR stays on the perceptional level that this preview demonstrated.

We'll have to wait...

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 04-26-2012, 07:12 AM:
 
Sure, you can do that, but then you’re going to have to shoot at 360° to get continuous motion blur. Otherwise you get double images. And then the frame-merged 24fps footage will also be effectively 360°, which is very very far from the ”classic” movie experience…
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-26-2012, 07:19 AM:
 
As I say, we have to wait. Since the existing trailers look 'normal', they may have found a way to address the strobing and motion-blur issues in post.

Watching the Hobbit in all these various formats will be a very exciting experience in judging the future of HFR.

I find the reactions on the preview quite strange, after watching the trailer again. The trailer DOES have some 'unusual', 'unfilmic' motion. However, it is very dark and limited to judge on. But, in general, nothing that would irritate me.

10min is a different game, however.
Hard to say what happened there. Maybe it's a strange mix of HFR and unfinished post/fx. It also seems that the HFR is considered 'great' on panoramic shots, but bad on sets with acting and closeups. Maybe HFR needs a more detailed choice of options in shooting. Maybe not everything should be shot in HFR. Mixing 24fps and 48fps on DCI gear is easy - though not advisable in 3D I guess.

When the first HFR trailers come out, we will know more.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 04-26-2012, 08:06 AM:
 
OK, just out of curiosity, I downloaded the trailer and examined the motion blur between consecutive frames. The blur is equivalent to a shutter angle of about 120° at 24fps (or in this case, 240° at 48fps, every other frame dropped). I checked two different shots in the trailer and got identical results. Jackson has stated that they used 270°, but of course they might have varied the shutter speed a bit depending on the scene.

120° is indeed a bit choppier than the ”standard” 180°, which may explain Carsten’s impression of ”unusual” motion”. But still, it’s not even close to the effect used in eg. Ryan and Gladiator.

Yes, the idea that frame rate could be changed depending on the scene may sound like a good solution. But to get a rough idea of how it actually looks like, try watching Takeshi Kitano’s ”Dolls” on DVD. It’s a feature that was shot partly on film and partly on 50i video, and at least the Artificial Eye R2 DVD retains the original motion blur of both formats, switching between 24 fps (sped up to 25 fps for PAL) and 50 fps. Watching it on my TV set, I found the changes in frame rate extremely jarring – much more so than changing aspect ratios in some other films. My suspension of disbelief was immediately destroyed whenever the frame rate jumped from 25 to 50; I felt like I was watching bits of behind-the-scenes footage spliced together with the actual narrative! I don’t even want to imagine how that would look on a big screen.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-26-2012, 04:08 PM:
 
I don't like it when something changes frame rates during the movie. It is EXTREMELY jarring. Back when I was a stupid little kid (not even a real person yet) I was watching some made-for-TV movie about someone in a prison about to be executed or something like that, I dunno. There was an embedded news reporter on the inside of the prison. The movie was clearly shot on 24fps film except for the parts where the reporter talked to her news camera, then it was 60i. I imagine that's the effect they wanted but it was totally weird. I didn't like it at all even though I was a child and my opinions didn't yet matter. Now they do matter (more so that everyone else's) and I still don't like it. The framerate needs to stay constant throughout the show.
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-26-2012, 04:19 PM:
 
The framerate can only stay constant for a DCI feature. What can change is exposure time by doubling/halving the image sequence. This happens all the time in movies during fx, slomo, etc. Yes, it hardly goes unnoticed, depending on scene. But that's not the idea anyway.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 04-27-2012, 09:50 AM:
 
Could it be that exhibitors are finally telling the emperor that he has no clothes?
 

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Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 04-27-2012, 12:05 PM:
 
Maybe HFR should be used as a special effect instead of trying to usher it in as an "improved" or "advanced" presentation medium. I've seen 60fps ShowScan, and was always fascinated at the idea that Doug Trumbull wanted to photograph the storytelling elements of "Brainstorm" in traditional 24fps and have the POV fisheye parts of the movie jump to 60fps. I think the effect, though jarring would have worked well without drawing the viewer out of the story.
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-27-2012, 02:35 PM:
 
I always thought that these statements about 'juddering' 24fps were exagerated. When I watch a movie on the big screen, this happens just a few times - and most of the time, the images in these situations do not actually need to be watched with a high degree of analytical sharpness. I mean, a quick pan is a quick pan. They do it for a reason, and certainly not because they want us to read the writing on the wall they are panning over so quickly. If they want us to read it - they do it in a different way.

I don't understand why they go through all these irritations JUST because of some judder or motion blur here and there. This has never been a problem for 100 years.

Yes, maybe we will need an improved system for action packed sequences. I do see weaknesses here and there in that sort of movies. But it seems there are large parts of the same movies where it is simply wrong to shoot them the same way.

Well, at least we have a choice. And I am quite sure the mayority of features will still be shot at 24fps in the future.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Chris Milton (Member # 6960) on 06-11-2012, 07:48 AM:
 
I haven't seen the footage but am looking forward to it. The comments about it looking too real reminds me of when we started getting films shot on digital and they looked like high def video. Miami Vice is a good example of this. They sorted those problems out so hopefully it's just a matter of time before they get it right.
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.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-11-2012, 01:52 PM:
 

quote: Chris Milton

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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.

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quote: Chris Milton

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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.

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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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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 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.
 

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Posted by Frank B. McLaughlin (Member # 6683) on 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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Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 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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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-14-2012, 10:54 AM:
 
Maybe because it's not in 3-D?
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 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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Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 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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Posted by Nils Hoover (Member # 6636) on 06-14-2012, 12:38 PM:
 

quote: Brad Miller

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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.

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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.

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quote: Nils Hoover

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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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quote: Lyle Romer

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Stereoscopic 3D is a distracting effect that IMHO should be used only for 5 minute theme park type applications.

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quote: Nils Hoover

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Soap operas have Vaseline over the lens.

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quote: Nils Hoover

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He found that as the frame rate increased, so did the viewer's emotional reaction.

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

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quote:

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I had a feeling this 48fps stuff was gonna just look like amped up 120Hz on an HDTV, which looks awful. Seems to potentially be the case. -Kris Tapley, InContention

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quote: Ron Funderburg

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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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quote: Scott Jentsch

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I saw both the 2D and 3D presentations within a few weeks of each other, and while the 3D presentation wasn't any better in my mind to the overall enjoyment of the movie, I didn't mind it.

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quote: Scott Jentsch

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Oh, and can we put any comparisons between native HFR and interpolated "smooth motion" HDTV artifacts away? There is no comparison

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quote: Scott Jentsch

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have a control, then introduce a variable, evaluate the result, and then adjust by either changing the variable, or integrating the variable into the control, and introducing a new variable.

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quote: Joe Redifer

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So you paid more for a show that didn't yield any more enjoyment

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quote: Carsten Kurz

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As of now, there are still no theaters ready for HFR projection, though some require only a software upgrade that will be ready in September.

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quote: Joe Redifer from this thread

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we all know why this is happening. It's because most people will think it looks like shit and it's not worth spending the money for.

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quote:

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Trumbull, Muren, and Others Vouch for High-Frame-Rate Cinema

Despite Questions About Cost and Audience Reactions, SIGGRAPH Panel Endorses Judder-Killing Technology

By Bryant Frazer / STUDIO DAILY / Aug 8, 2012

A funny thing happened when renowned VFX supervisor Dennis Muren bought a new Sony TV. He started to become absorbed by the effects of the MotionFlow system that increases image smoothness by interpolating frames.

"I was looking at the old Mac and PC commercials," Muren recalled at a SIGGRAPH panel on high-frame-rate cinema. To his surprise, he found that the "I'm a Mac" and "I'm a PC" actors were funnier with MotionFlow turned on. Why? "The performances are better at a high frame rate," Muren said. "You see more clearly the intent of the actors. This is an incredible thing …. It's a closer thing to reality and I'm a big proponent of it."

The panelists convened by SIGGRAPH sponsor Christie at the Wednesday-morning session spent their time explaining why higher frame rates are the future of cinema. The session kicked off with a lengthy demo reel curated by James Cameron making the case for the dramatic visible reduction in image strobing at 48fps and 60fps. Other panelists vouched for further advantages of 48fps and faster cinematography.

Matt Cowan from RealD mentioned research IBM performed in the early 1970s that demonstrated 72 Hz was an adequate frame rate to meet the flicker-fusion threshold (the rate at which human observers no longer discern flicker in a moving image). He related that to RealD's own experiments with double- and triple-flashing 24fps images to reach frequencies of 48fps and 72fps per eye, in which it found that 48 fps was still uncomfortable for "a big portion of the population", but that flicker disappeared at 72 fps. "Satisfying the human visual system's flicker-fusion frequency of 55 to 60 frames per second seems to be part of moving to the next level of experience," he told the audience.

Trumbull's Take

"I think frame rates should be variable," said VFX legend Douglas Trumbull, touting the ShowScan Digital system that sprang from the ruins of the high-frame-rate ShowScan system he developed in the 1970s. Because it's possible to shoot a scene at 60fps with a digital camera set to a 360-degree shutter angle (essentially a shutter that doesn't close at all between frames), he says different frame rates for different pixels in a shot can be derived from the original data captures. "You could dynamically change the frame rate on any pixel, object, scene, or character," he said.

Trumbull spoke of a concept he calls "hypercinema," imagining a combination of high-frame-rate 3D footage, an extra-large screen, and extra-bright projection that would combine to make a screening feel more like a live performance. "We can create an experience where you are in the movie and on the adventure of the movie," he said, describing his experiments with projecting on high-gain hemispherical screens and fully 35 foot-lamberts of illuminance. "[The filmmakers could] actually embrace the presence of the audience and take them on the adventure to Pandora."

Hip Hip Hooray (But How Much Will You Pay?)

The session was mostly a cheerleading rally for high-frame-rate cinema, although voices from the visual-effects industry — this is SIGGRAPH, after all — warned of the increased complexity they faced. You might think twice the frames per second at the same resolution means twice as much work for a VFX facility, but Luke Moore of Side Effects Software said the situation is more complicated because perceived detail can also increase. "The effective resolution is much higher at high frame rates," he said, meaning that models might need to be more detailed to pass muster at 48 fps or higher. "You see defects you wouldn't have noticed before." On the other hand, there may be some time savings in eliminating motion blur.

Digital Domain Media Group CTO Darin Grant said the workload will increase dramatically. "It may be two times the data, but it's two times a lot of data," he said. "If you have to do paint-fix and roto in every frame, now you're up to two times the frames."

Producer Jon Landau of James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment had a pointed response to that concern. "There are [also] tremendous complications in going from 2D to 3D," he said. "That doesn't mean it's not worth doing."

But the impact of increasing frame rates for production and post-production budgets was never directly addressed by the panel. Digital Domain's Grant noted, "No one's even asked us to bid on a high-frame-rate film yet."

Cold Hobbit Feet?

Cost was one elephant in the room. The other was the decidedly mixed reception 48fps footage from Peter Jackson's The Hobbit got when it screened at CinemaCon earlier this year (some attendees said the increased frame rate made the film look more like a TV show), combined with a Variety report yesterday that cited an unnamed source who said Warner Brothers was drastically limiting the film's 48fps release to "select locations," and "perhaps not even … all major cities." Panelists largely shrugged off those concerns, with Landau venturing that the studio was simply "managing expectations" for the scale of the rollout.

The big-studio representative in the room was Jim Beshears, head of post-production at DreamWorks, who admitted that he had his doubts when he first saw raw 48fps footage last year but came around after viewing more finished footage. Even now, he said, he thinks 24fps gives more satisfactory results for some types of shots. He also echoed concerns about the costs involved. "150,000 frames in a 90-minute movie is a massive amount of data to move around, and that needs to be addressed through the entirety of the post process," he said. "And we have to be careful. Movies cannot look like television, or we will lose our audience. Otherwise, I'm endorsing it."

Phil Oatley from Park Road Post, which is currently busy on The Hobbit, offered some info about that film's high-frame-rate workflow. He said the production decided to shoot at 48fps because it offered the best prospect for exhibitors to actually have equipment in place to show the film, and a 270-degree shutter angle was selected because it produced motion that was immersive and smooth "but not too video-like," and also because it downconverted well to 24fps with only some shots requiring extra work in post.

The 3D toolkit in use is the SGO Mistika; the stereographer and colorist are working simultaneously. The pipeline incorporates a 24-frame offline editorial workflow that is conformed to a 48-frame online. Anywhere between 6 and 12 TB of camera data was generated on each day of the six-days-a-week production, with about two hours of 48fps 3D screenings taking place daily. A total frame-to-frame equivalent of 24 million feet of film was processed.

Dialing It Up and Down

The main takeaway from the session was the idea that films don't have to be married to a given frame rate, given the costs and complexities involved. If a scene features a locked-down camera and not much motion in the frame, it's not going to benefit from an increased frame rate, and the cost savings of shooting and post-producing much of a film at 24fps rather than 48 or 60 fps could be significant.

On that note, Trumbull — for decades a vocal proponent of high frame rates — pointed out the long heritage of variable-frame-rate cinematography. "In silent movies, projectors and cameras were hand-cranked," he said, describing how certain scenes would be over- or under-cranked on the fly to achieve the best comedic or dramatic effect. "Nothing's new, frankly."

That crack earned the biggest ovation of the day.

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quote: Brad Miller

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At the same time, just like how iNerds will flock to ANYTHING that Apple makes no matter how great or how shitty, Hobbit nuts will drive across the country if need be to "see it in HFR" because they are brainwashed.

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Agreed. And where else might I have seen this before..?

Ah, yes!

You simply MUST see "Dark Knight" in IMAX! OMG OMG OMG IMAX made the story seem sooooo much better. The 100 mile drive was so worth it!

(also WB)


 

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-11-2012, 12:57 PM:
 
I have had people drive over 100 miles to get here to see movies on film! In fact, I remember one guy drove 250 miles with his teenage kids to get here to see Master and Commander since this was the only theatre in the province that was playing it at the time.

He got confused on the road and missed the turn-off (I have no idea how, there is a choice of four roads to turn off on and each one has a big sign) and ended up at the next theatre down the road from me, about a half-hour drive. By the time he figured out what had happened and actually arrived here the show was already over an hour in.

In view of the circumstances, I played the movie again just for him after the scheduled show was over.

Master and Commander. Sheesh. That movie was barely worth walking down the street to watch, let alone driving over hundreds of miles.
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 08-11-2012, 01:11 PM:
 

quote:

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You simply MUST see "Dark Knight" in IMAX! OMG OMG OMG IMAX made the story seem sooooo much better. The 100 mile drive was so worth it!

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On the other hand, there's a slight difference in that this is likely going to be the last thing released in actual imax.

On the other hand, I wouldn't drive 100 miles for it, but I'll certainly take the short bus ride into downtown Seattle.
 

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Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 08-13-2012, 09:03 PM:
 

quote:

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Agreed. And where else might I have seen this before..?

Ah, yes!

You simply MUST see "Dark Knight" in IMAX! OMG OMG OMG IMAX made the story seem sooooo much better. The 100 mile drive was so worth it!

---

Quite a bit different. Things filmed in 15/70 and presented that way actually look noticeably better. And, like said above, Dark Knight Rises was probably the last movie to have footage shot and presented in 15/70. I wouldn't have driven 100 miles to see it but I'm glad I drove 1/2 hour. If HFR actually looked good then it would be worth driving to.
 

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Posted by John Thomas (Member # 6509) on 08-13-2012, 10:24 PM:
 
I'm curious enough that at this point I'd drive 100 miles just to make sure it sucks.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-13-2012, 10:30 PM:
 
They have taken great pains to point out that the footage shown at CinemaCon was unfinished and hadn't gone through "post production" yet.

I think the telling indicator will be if they show any completed HFR footage at ShowEast, which is in October. Surely the movie will be 99% completed by then if not 100%.

If they DON'T show footage there, we'll know that HFR sucks even with completed footage and they're scared of more bad press.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-13-2012, 11:26 PM:
 
It would be funny if they ran the "normal" footage at 18FPS and then HFR at 30FPS just to get better reviews, sort of like how on the initial 35mm to DLP comparisons they showed old faded scratched to hell prints alongside a clean video transfer from the camera negative on DLP.
 

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Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 08-14-2012, 01:55 AM:
 
With all due respect, I think I will wait until I have the chance to see the final product with my own eyes before I decide whether or not 48fps is the bomb or just a bomb.
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-14-2012, 06:30 AM:
 

quote: Lyle Romer

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Quite a bit different. Things filmed in 15/70 and presented that way actually look noticeably better.

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I do agree with this. I'd say this is a fact.

However, in the case of DKR, I don't think it would've added to my enjoyment of the movie. Seeing it in 35mm is not to blame for the fact that I have issues with the story.

My point is that I agree with Brad's statement -- fanboys will gladly "drink the Kool-Aid."
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-14-2012, 06:46 AM:
 
I guess we should at least give HFR a try. I don't think anybody should compare HFR to Stereoscopic 3D.

Stereoscopic 3D is just a flawed technology and no matter how you put it, it will never work this way. As mentioned before, it is a nice gimmick on a 5 minute theme-park ride, but after that, it becomes a tiresome experience. So, maybe we can just let it die and don't bother to look into it, until we got technology that realistically can reproduce a light field.

I don't think HFR is flawed by design, quite the opposite. We already know that it is a tool that can help us to create more realism. But, maybe it can also be used to create a more immersive fantasy.

I guess, Suspension of Disbelief requires more sophistication, if the tools we use to create an alternate reality become more and more able to reproduce reality. Of course, there are many historical examples of this, but quite recently we've seen the transition from SD to HD on TV. This also required quite some rethinking on many levels. Presenters and actors suddenly needed better makeup and the old sets suddenly looked fake.

So, are we sure that in the case of this Hobbit preview, it is really just the HFR that makes it look stupid?

Does anybody remember Public Enemies (2009)? That movie was almost entirely shot on digital cameras. A lot of people complained about the TV-ish looks of that movie and I also noticed it. It just didn't fit. You could easily blame the digital camera work here, but other movies that preceded and followed it, managed to produce that "cinematic" look just fine, using exactly the same cameras.

I guess, a bit of post production and some more experience with different shutter settings can also make HFR a great experience. You can still add some extra motion blur where needed, while finally, after about 90 years or so, stuck at 24 fps, getting rid of the omnipresent and (in my opinion) very distracting judder.

And if we get rid of Stereoscopic 3D, I guess almost all DCI installations should be able to play HFR with just a minor software update I guess? Because current 2K 3D is practically already at 48 FPS. So 2D HFR would just be at the same bitrate as "normal" 3D. So, lets get rid of the sunglasses and embrace 2D HFR please .
 

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Posted by Chuck McGregor (Member # 6826) on 08-14-2012, 01:03 PM:
 

quote:

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Manny worte:
I don't think HFR is flawed by design, quite the opposite. We already know that it is a tool that can help us to create more realism. But, maybe it can also be used to create a more immersive fantasy.

I guess, Suspension of Disbelief requires more sophistication, if the tools we use to create an alternate reality become more and more able to reproduce reality. Of course, there are many historical examples of this...

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I agree with that 100%.

Another example is that the aesthetic debate between analog and digital audio still goes on for these very reasons, most certainly in non-film audio.

The point here is that the aesthetics of audio or visual recording has always involved post-processing. For audio the post processing that infuses "life" into what would otherwise be a sterile recording may be as simple as whatever the studio acoustics contribute to the sound (think lighting for visual) to extensive use of electronic or other post-processing.

Higher resolution, in whatever form that comes, has always meant simply paying more attention to the finer details of what one is capturing. To make any "capture" aesthetically pleasing one must know how to manipulate what is being captured and/or how it is being is captured and/or how it is post-processed. This basic process doesn't change no matter what the specific nature of the audio or visual systems placed between the visual or audible source "image" and the receiver's eyes and ears in perceiving that image.

The fact the Hobbit clip might have looked bad seems to be for the same reason some people (but not all) find Ricky Martin's "Livin'la Vida Loca" intolerable to listen to - bad production values (near zero dynamic range being the prime culprit). The medium conveys the message. If you don't like the message don't blame the medium. Blame its users.

(Going back to my cage now.)
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-14-2012, 02:48 PM:
 
You can't really compare the difference between standard and HFR to, say, the difference between 35mm and 70mm or the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray, or even the difference between film and digital.

Un-sophisticated viewers often can't see much difference between any of the format pairs I listed above. But with HFR, anybody who watches it will definitely be stunned by the difference. It's not subtle, it's dramatic.

I think HFR will have a bit of a PR problem from the start, because it'll be promoted as the "next big thing" for 3-D, which is automatically going to make people think: "Great! They've figured out a way to get rid of the glasses" because that's been the major complaint about 3-D. Then they'll be disappointed when they find that the glasses are still required.
 

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Posted by Chuck McGregor (Member # 6826) on 08-15-2012, 01:36 AM:
 
There is a fundamental difference in the comparisons cited between DVD/Blu-ray, 35/70 mm, film/digital, and between 24/48 fps. The former are differences in visual resolution in terms dimension. The 28/48 fps comparison is differences in visual resolution in terms of time. You get additional information in a given time frame allowing primarily finer resolution of movement enhanced by lower flicker times. Anyhow, its a bit like comparing improvements in apples to improvements in oranges.

This article indicates that there are perceivable differences between frame rates to around 60 fps, depending on the conditions:

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Flicker_fusion

One relevant conclusion another commentator wrote based on that article is that "the larger the stimulus area, the faster the frame rate needed to saturate human perception...[This] concept directly applies to screen size, meaning that higher frame rates may be more useful on a theater screen than a small monitor."

I see no problem of HFR regarding the "art" of film. In basic terms one's visual data will have a higher time resolution. This primarily means an expansion of the range of things that can be done with that data.

I suppose this means, like 2D to 3D conversions, there will eventually be a way to interpolate 24 fps stuff to "improve" it to 48 fps.

>>> See [insert film title] remastered in stunning "Forty-Eight" !!! <<<
 

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Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 08-15-2012, 07:53 AM:
 
"One relevant conclusion another commentator wrote based on that article is that "the larger the stimulus area, the faster the frame rate needed to saturate human perception...[This] concept directly applies to screen size, meaning that higher frame rates may be more useful on a theater screen than a small monitor."

I seem to notice flicker more in my peripheral vision instead of the center of view. I don't notice the flicker when looking directly at the screen, but do notice it if looking to the side of the screen. This might be a result of natural selection. We may be more sensitive to motion in our peripheral vision so we could see a predator that we were not looking at. Here, the larger screen puts more of the screen in our peripheral vision making flicker more apparent.

Harold
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-15-2012, 08:25 AM:
 
Another reason why I don't think this is an issue of adoption - people seem to think that higher oder lower frame rates are just a 'relative' issue. They are not, because our vision system is not a multiscan monitor. As we all know, at around 60-80fps (depending on individual, brightness, etc.), consecutive played frames fuse into perceived continuous motion. This is an absolute aspect of our perception. 24fps will always have a certain 'imperfect' look that warrants cinematic perception of narrative content, not 'realism'. Aside from that, how long will we have to wait until a major part of our daily narrative media consumption will be HFR? Would adoption work at all with a mixed 24/48fps experience?

I agree that probably a lot of people will not actively perceive HFR as a 'bad experience'. The problem is, it could still leave them without enthusiam of cinema experience. Means, the cinema experience could be flawed, and that could lead to patrons giving up on cinema as a whole.

That said - Motion interpolation in displays and projectors usually is configurable, and some of these settings seem to result in some smoothing without 'too much' of that soap effect. Maybe they will find ways to reduce the soap effect with native HFR capturing as well. Maybe they need to apply something in post, or maybe they need to experiment more with framerates/shutter speeds. Maybe mixed 24/48fps features is the way to go. When I watch current 24fps features, I think that only a few scenes could benefit from HFR. Why not use HFR only for these scenes?

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-15-2012, 08:56 AM:
 
I believe the threshold for perceiving MOTION is a much lower frame rate -- around 12fps.

You may be confusing motion with FLICKER fusion, which requires about 50 flashes per second or higher to appear as a constant, uninterrupted beam of light. 24fps x2 flashes per second yields 48 flashes per second which is "close enough" but imperfect. This is why some projectors have a 3 blade shutter -- to increase the flashes to 72 per second, which is well above the flicker fusion threshold.
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-15-2012, 09:17 AM:
 
I'm not talking about the lower end of motion perception - the fact that there is 'flicker fusion' also means that there is a higher end. And that is an absolute barrier, even though it may be a moving target somewhere between 60 or 80 fps, depending on the individual. Cameron, Trumbull, etc. did tests and they say that there is a very slight benefit in going from 48fps to 60fps, but nothing that justifies going higher than 60fps.

That is in digital projection, so 'flicker fusion' is not applicable in it's own sense, although of course high contrast scenes qualify for the term sometimes even in digital projection.

Fact is - our perception has an absolute limit where increasing frame rates are no longer perceivable. From this limit on, we perceive sequential frames like continuous motion as in our normal vision.

And I doubt that getting close to that barrier makes the simple 'adoption argument' valid for HFR.

It may be just 'adoption' from 12fps to 24fps, or 16fps to 24fps, as it happened in cinema history.
But not when approaching that absolute perceptive barrier around 60fps.

Flicker-fusion is a bit on the higher end of that limit, simply because of the very high stimulus (=contrast). 'Motion-fusion' as I would call it, will usually need somewhat lower frame-rates, as we see from the numbers discussed.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-15-2012, 05:43 PM:
 

quote: Harold Hallikainen was the last to post

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the larger the stimulus area, the faster the frame rate needed to saturate human perception

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quote: Manny Knowles

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this whole HFR thing has nothing to do with true quality -- it's marketing -- instead of making good films with good characters and stories, they're now using technology to draw in the crowds

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quote: Mike Blakesley

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Well that's certainly nothing new...after all, they were touting "talkies" in the 1920s and then color, wide-screen, cinemascope, then stereo/surround, then digital sound.

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I think the difference is that all of those technological advances had a positive impact on storytelling.

And it's likely that innovations like sound and color were anticipated from pretty early on. People just needed to figure out how to accomplish it.

We haven't exactly been sitting around waiting for the day when movies will FINALLY run at a higher frame rate.
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-16-2012, 04:15 AM:
 
Again - Cameron and Jackson did not suggest HFR for general use, but currently ONLY for 3D. And not because the higher motion resolution is a value per se, but because of the parallax sequence frequency. At first, this is more a perceptual approach than '24fps is outdated' what a lot of people make out of it. I'm sure they would be perfectly okay with the classic 24fps look IF they could overcome the issue with stereoscopic perception of moving scenes.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-16-2012, 06:22 AM:
 
Actually, I've been waiting for HFR though not for 3D...I've always found 24fps to be an annoying frame rate...it interferes with camera motion and does not realistically portray motion (to me). 30fps was a great improvement when I have run it (both for Todd AO and even for NFL films on 35mm). 60fps really did show quite a bit of potential with ShowScan. As much as I like HFR 2D...I totally dislike what I have seen of HFR 3D...closing one eye while watching it improved the experience (for me).
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-16-2012, 09:27 AM:
 
Maybe the box office will sell you an eye patch for $3.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-16-2012, 11:37 AM:
 
I'll just skip the 3D experience as I do now. I just don't like it, for the most part.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-16-2012, 12:33 PM:
 
So all 2-D showings of The Hobbit are going to be downconverted to regular 24fps? I guess I can see why.....if you want to see the big new thing you'll have to buy the higher priced 3-D ticket. But it's too bad, I was kind of wondering how HFR would look in 2-D.
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-16-2012, 04:11 PM:
 
FWIW I choose the 2D shows too.
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-16-2012, 05:08 PM:
 
Originally, they were also planning 2D HFR versions. But who knows now what will really happen then with the recent news.

Quite sure we will see a HFR 2D version sooner or later.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-16-2012, 05:31 PM:
 
They ought to have all of the 2Ds be 48fps. Every DCI compliant system can run that...and, quite frankly most, if not all of the series 1 stuff can too (including the servers of the Series 1 era)...2D @ 48fps was always in the DCinema spec.

If they have 48fps available for 2D and 3D one will see what is the bigger draw and know what to waste...er spend the money on.
 

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Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 08-17-2012, 02:06 PM:
 
Agreed. I would be very interested in 2D HFR, as I intend to see The Hobbit in 2D first, and then maybe in 3D. I'm still not the biggest fan of 3D, and I don't think HFR is going to change my opinion of it.
 

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Posted by Chuck McGregor (Member # 6826) on 08-20-2012, 06:00 AM:
 

quote:

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Mike Blakesley:
I was kind of wondering how HFR would look in 2-D.

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In retrospect and just to be clear, my previous comments about HFR were made with only 2D in mind. That is where I think the advantage is to providing a wider range of technological options in the "art" of the filmmaker over existing 24 fps. Especially true compared to 35 mm in providing both higher visual and time resolution. HDTV is on this dual bandwagon finding higher refresh rates in playback - 120 Hz and higher (effective I'm told, never seen a comparison) on top of the existing increased visual resolution.

Possibly dumb question. If higher refresh rate technology is effective in providing clearer motion for a given digital frame rate how might that compare with an actual higher frame rate. Or is the former mostly smoke and mirrors?
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-20-2012, 11:05 AM:
 
(Possibly dumb answer)

I would imagine that the higher refresh rate on an HDTV is similar to adding a third shutter to a film projector -- increasing flashes per second, with no change to frames per second -- it serves to render the flicker less noticeable. I can't imagine how it could affect the appearance of motion -- and why would it be necessary? Standard Def never had this problem.
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 08-20-2012, 05:18 PM:
 
I think it's both smoke-and-mirrors and something real.

They churn out sets that are 120 Hz to natively support 24, 30, and 60 fps material. But when they get stuff that's 3D 24 fps, they need to add in the ability to do 48 fps, so they churn out stuff that's got 240 Hz for that.

But then they want to reuse this tech in multiple TVs (including non-3D ones) and so they advertise the 240 Hz feature even if it won't be noticeably different...

Although I believe Manny is right about the reduced flicker so depending on how perceptive you are to flicker that could come into play.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-20-2012, 11:18 PM:
 
Manny's pretty much right. High-refresh HDTVs just flash the same frame more times. But you can also enable a mode which is called "Shit Vision®". This may sometimes be referred to as Motion Flow or some other nonsense. This adds frames between the real frames giving the impression of a higher frame rate. It's pretty nasty and unfortunately this is usually defaulted to "ON" on most if not all HDTV sets, you you have to go in and turn it off and most people don't know any better. This in itself might make HFR movies in theaters more acceptable to the idiots who can't figure out how to turn this stuff off. I don't think any TVs accept native frame rates higher than 60fps per second.
 

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Posted by Chuck McGregor (Member # 6826) on 08-21-2012, 03:44 AM:
 
Ironically, I'm glad to hear that the "Motion Flow" (interpolating frames) doesn't pass muster, your word alone being certainly definitive enough to convince me.

I edited a paper about interpolating between two sonic impulse responses. The mathematics required were not your high school algebra. (No. I didn't edit that stuff, just the text.) From that perspective I'd say this was a trivial task compared to interpolating images. This is because interpolating images involves more parameters and these have to be applied to all those pixels. This has got to significantly raise the complexity of the math.

"Motion Flow" is probably a good example of technology tripping over itself. Digital opens the door to doing this "because we can." When music CDs first appeared the sound quality generally sucked. That's because the various choices of math first used for the Nyquist filters did exactly what they were designed to do: provide a steep cut-off at the Nyquist frequency. However it really screwed up the information below, like the stuff we could hear! Eventually it was realized that people actually had to LISTEN to this filter.

Similar problems exist with digital processors to this day, especially those for loudspeaker management. Set two filters on two different brands of processors to exactly same values and I can virtually guarantee they will measure differently, sometimes significantly at higher frequencies (Nyquist filter raising its ugly head). It's all in the math.

In the digital world it is easy to come up with math to do something with video or audio. However once the nuances of human perception are imposed upon that math, history has and continues to show that some super geek fresh out of MIT isn't going to get the math right, no matter what's in his/her books. Extremely reputable companies on the audio side still don't get the math right and we're about 30 years into this.

The engineer who wrote the aforementioned paper had to actually invent his own DSP algorithms to create some audio filtering he needed for loudspeaker processing (patent 8081766). He had read all the relevant PhD+ level books on digital signal processing and none had the answers he needed. Where human perception is involved the math for digital processing can get very non-trivial.

If your interested here is what the filtering he invented does:

Loudspeaker DSP

That this new "Motion Flow" interpolation kinda sucks does not surprise me one...so to speak...bit, let alone the mega bits involved.

Moral of the story (I guess for now): If you want more frames, shoot and display more frames

Just my 2 x 1 cent worth
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-21-2012, 08:30 PM:
 
It does indeed suck -- I nearly returned my TV when I turned it on and saw that horrible image.

Note -- It is interesting that the floor models in the store always has this feature turned off. Everyone knows it sucks.

Shit-Vision indeed.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-21-2012, 10:19 PM:
 
Manny, cinema HFR is very similar to Shit Vision® on these new 120Hz televisions.
 

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Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 08-22-2012, 03:49 AM:
 

quote: Manny Knowles

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Note -- It is interesting that the floor models in the store always has this feature turned off. Everyone knows it sucks.

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quote: Jim Henk

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The guy turned the feature on for me, and when I turned green...

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Oh my. It's worse than I imagined? Where I live it's a trek to get to a store where I could actually see this marvel of technology. However, I'd say the audio counterpart is all those wonderful audio "enhancement" settings one finds on home AV receivers (hall, jazz, concert, movie, et al). Every one of them sound dreadful. Mine is always set for A.F.D. (Auto Format Direct - like you don't know what that means). Imagine such settings being incorporated into cinema processors and in the hands of whatever passes for "projectionists" these days in digital houses.

So...if I get a "Shit Vision®" TV I could set the playback modes for both "Video Suck" and "Audio Suck" !! Maybe this would make movies like Ed Wood's stuff, old Godzilla, or maybe even Monster A Go-Go truly memorable viewing experiences...

In the world of PA systems there has long been a whimsical desire among mixing operators to outfit all mixing consoles with a "Suck Knob" or its inverse a "Talent Knob" -- as in, "I need more talent in the PA."

My take on all this is that all this consumer-enabled processing has gotten out of hand. The notion of artists presenting their art to the viewer in some reasonably intact form is going out the window. I can see it now: instead of offering a carefully rendered print of, say, the Mona Lisa, you only get to buy a tiff file with a copy of Photoshop. Art appreciation becomes an oxymoron.
 

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Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 08-22-2012, 09:05 PM:
 

quote: Chuck McGregor

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Oh my. It's worse than I imagined?

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