Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Funny how the major producers still say film is the holy grail. Even shooting digital at 60fps they still can't match it!
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When is Hi-Res not really Hi-Res?
- Thread starter Kippyy
- Start date
I'd bet even Hollywood types have the same nostalgia/romance issues with analogue, as audiophiles do!
The visual effect that film generates at a creative level is one thing, but the format you'd want to distribute or copy it in is another. Film's contrast curve and dynamic range are used as a visual effect (and can be/are emulated by people shooting on digital only) but it doesn't follow that you'd want to copy the footage using yet another generation of film.
The frame rate issue is fascinating. In TV, video at 25fps progressive scan (for the UK) results in a 'film effect' that is one step removed from reality, and seems to be (over-)used by producers universally as a short cut to a production that looks expensive and sophisticated. 50fps interlaced is used for sports and news and any time a live, or action feel is required. I believe that the producers of The Hobbit film tried higher frame rates in an assumption that faster must be better, but some people found that it looked like a TV sitcom because it showed 'too much' in respect of lighting and fake scenery. Others liked it, however.
http://gizmodo.com/5969817/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-masterclass-in-why-48-fps-fails
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
There are plug-ins for film effect just as there are plug-ins for analog distortion. Dare I say Hollywood wants film because it's more "realistic and organic" 
They might, just as audiophiles are convinced that perfection was achieved around 1962.
An interesting article on digital film making using the Panavision Genesis camera. I saw the film Apocalypto, and thought it looked fantastic, despite being captured without the use of silver nitrate.
http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.co...re/apocalypto-digital-imaging-adventure/10031
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
I saw the Hobbit at 48fps and didn't really care for it
So a different analogy..... if they digitize film, isn't that upsampling? Doesn't all analog tape, be it audio or film, have a limited bandwidth? Isn't that what upscalers do?
That's what a lot of people think. That a slower frame rate, though less 'realistic' and conveying less absolute information, allows the viewer to suspend their disbelief more easily. Higher frame rates are more appropriate for sport, news, comedy. In decades gone by, for studio-based TV drama there were only higher frame rates available, and for all the perception of it not looking as slick and expensive as today's productions, I found the old stuff more intense and intimate. I think this is also the case with live theatre: it is so intense, intimate and powerful that it is an acquired taste, and not necessarily something you want to experience all the time.
Could there be an audio equivalent of this effect? That it is sometimes nicer to experience a sanitised, pre-processed version of the real thing? Maybe with certain technology such as vinyl, you get this all the time (all that stuff about diameter loss, limited dynamic range, background noise, de-essing, mixing bass to mono etc.) while other media can be raw and immediate, conveying all the information - but perceived by some as too raw - or it can be sanitised with various effects like compression and EQ if the producer chooses it to be.
Yes, low resolution digital images can be improved subjectively by sharpening them intelligently. Recently I have been noticing some BBC programmes containing old archive video from the 70s, and they seem to have done something that makes it look almost high definition.
The other form of upsampling is upsampling in time. They can interpolate between frames, identifying the regions that are moving, and filling in a synthetic in-between frame. Some TVs do this don't they? But I prefer to turn that off, and stick to what the producer intended, for better or worse.
I also saw the Hobbit at 48fps in 3D. I found the motion blur to be less noticeable at 48fps. Motion blur is very annoying to me. Especially with 3D material.
As for film vs digital video I am not as picky about video as I am about audio. I appreciate the difference between Bluray and DVD but I don't go to the extreme of worrying if the colors are perfect etc.
As for film vs digital video I am not as picky about video as I am about audio. I appreciate the difference between Bluray and DVD but I don't go to the extreme of worrying if the colors are perfect etc.
Again, it is not just about bits. But bits also, and not the lower 8 bits..
On the Squeezebox forum, people performed compare of the EMI "USB" 24-bit edition of Beatles again simultaneous release on CD. Subtract one from another and amplified the difference. They could actually distinguish some words..
and the difference was at around -60db level.. (not -96db)
Anyway, what I meant originally that during mastering to CD process, the original recording undergo such a massage that it looses more than just bits..
One of the best high-rez recordings I consider today, btw is this one -
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HX5099946405357
And that would indicate that either the differential comparison process was faulty (out of sync), or the files came from different masters.
Forgive me from digressing from the thread topic, but the conversation about audio and film "nostalgia" brought to mind something I read recently.
Essentially, a medium can be more involving if it requires your participation: In the case of 24fps film, the motion artifacts make it easier to suspend disbelief. Music on a tiny transistor radio loses so much information, but provides an opportunity for you to fill in the blanks.
Brian Eno, from a 1974 interview:
So the better audio equipment is, the less easy it is to suspend your disbelief, and the less involving it may sound, because you are no longer filling in your own blanks. Controversial...
Hi Fi News review and rate some of them (together with analysis).. although it is not a forum..
My apologies for awakening an old post, I've been out of town...
Do you have a link? I'm interested in reading how they did the test. For example, did they tweak the level to get the best null? There is a slight level difference between the 24 bit and 16 bit versions.
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
There are also the forums over at Computer Audiophile that people report on what they think sounds good.
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...-24-vs-16-bits&p=582966&viewfull=1#post582966
You will need to scroll back a bit probably
This is an excerpt from an Email I just got from EClassical, where I download most my files. I think their approach to 'transparency' is spot on with regard to the type of original recording that the files are sourced from.....
"We are talking the 3 Symphonies, the Scheherezade and a lot of suites and miscellaneous music, all at a totally competitive price, 50% of the already low original price for the individual records.
Please do observe that we have upsampled the first record to high-res (obviously without charging for it), since the Bundle must have the same bit-rate and the first one only was 16-bit, whereas the other 3 CD:s were recorded in high-res. Lots of music, really well played and recorded at a very competitive price indeed!"
"We are talking the 3 Symphonies, the Scheherezade and a lot of suites and miscellaneous music, all at a totally competitive price, 50% of the already low original price for the individual records.
Please do observe that we have upsampled the first record to high-res (obviously without charging for it), since the Bundle must have the same bit-rate and the first one only was 16-bit, whereas the other 3 CD:s were recorded in high-res. Lots of music, really well played and recorded at a very competitive price indeed!"
The real question is whether or not they do that every single time. For example, there are albums at HDTracks (by Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell and others) where files have different sample rates and are clearly identified as such. However, in other cases this has not been done. Then there is this "new" practice by many labels of taking an album recorded at 16/44.1, upsampling and then remastering, and selling it as "hi-res" because the remastering was done at 24/96, 24/192 or whatever.
If you want to hear something that definitely is high resolution, check out the new Double Rate DSD-128 (twice the SACD resolution) release of Jazz at the Pawnshop.
Transferred from the Analog Master Tapes to DSD. Excellent - $30 at https://naxos.nativedsd.com/albums/jazz-at-the-pawnshop
Transferred from the Analog Master Tapes to DSD. Excellent - $30 at https://naxos.nativedsd.com/albums/jazz-at-the-pawnshop
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