Why is the Soap Opera Effect Considered Such A Bad Thing? - Page 4

IMHO, this is exactly what has been happening with regard to Motion Flow and the Low/Standard setting. It limits processing to specific artifacts while maintaining the overall aesthetic. Could it be better? While I will say yes and I would love to have more user control, I have to say it has gotten better.

Rather than have the argument that frame interpolation "sucks -vs- doesn't suck", I'd rather be more constructive and have a conversation that gives guidance regarding any new coding Sony might attempt. Your comment about limiting the process to specific conditions is exactly the conversation that might help improve a future version of Motion Flow.

I don't know enough about how the process currently operates in LOW versus HIGH. I'm sure R&D has been struggling to address this very issue and it all comes down to cost/performance and what degree of processing is needed to get to the next level. IMHO, the performance has reached a point where they should try to offer user adjustable "sensitivity" to the current LOW/HIGH settings of motion flow.

As others have noted, Back Light strobing is offering a new solution, and Clear and Clear Plus on the hx929 not only works to reduce artifacts, it is also brighter when engaged as compared to other Sony displays or Dark Frame Insertion on my vw90.

If Panny uses Motion Pro 5 on the current ST30 display, I would say it's good on handling motion artifacts up to a certain level.

My motion handling test has been Land Scape panning in Fallout on XBOX, where the game drops below 30fps. The ST30 could not handle panning over a certain speed, even on high. Motion Flow on SMOOTH was able to handle whatever I threw at it and the hx929 does it with fewer artifacts than the ex723.

Now this might be an irrelevant test, but part of the problem I was trying to resolve, was panning artifacts while gaming some 1st person shooters.

So... I would say the Panny might very well provide enough FI for your needs. The Sony MF was a better choice for me.

Actually, I'm referring to the 37DT30. I should have been more specific, but I think the IPS panels are faster then the Plasmas Panny currently offers.

The resolution that digital offers today is more then enough for any theater as of today .
The digital one will be closer to real life since its has better low light capabilty,its shows more colors.

Fair enough. However, we are ultimately talking about a feature that, if working as I described, may alter a couple seconds of a film while leaving the rest untouched. I'm simply not sure the cost/benefit pencils out there.

Great point... may I suggest it has been a growing practice to avoid locked off camera shots. Everyone wants the camera to be moving... a slight push, pull, dolly, pan, whatever they work into the camera setups. Speed of these moves will dictate if they reproduce well or badly. Even Avatar, during most of it's CG scenes, they put moves on the camera. As a result, the heads up display of a terminal operator being panned in the camera, is subject to varying degree of motion artifacts. That's the kind of stuff I love to smooth out or at least make look as good as when it's shown on a CRT display. Know what I mean?

I do. But if your goal is only to match CRT, I think backlight strobing is more likely to deliver better results without bad side-effects, and frame interpolation is a needless sidetrack.

Backlight strobing on other displays (including Sony's) usually came with a brightness hit. The hx929 lumen output changes very little under Clear and only a little more under Clear Plus. Because backlight strobing may just be reaching the sweet spot, perhaps there will be less refinement of motion flow going forward.

On balance, maybe future R&D $$$ should go toward other refinements.

Did I just say that?

yeah i heard there is some oddities in the new panny plasma motions. I think Penndragon mentioned it somewhere.

You're comparing current film versus future digital. Fair?

So? Being an outsider is what made directors like Tarentino so popular. Woody Allen has produced plenty of black and white movies and most of his sound tracks are still in mono, but it doesn't make him any less of a film industry contributor then someone like James Cameron. There is plenty of room for all types of film genre's and all types of directors. It's called art.


Ian

+1 that was what I said in my previous post. You will get the same conclusion when u ask professional photographers. Ease and cheap go digital, which means most of the time. Quality and fidelity is analogue


Genuine question: don't they edit the movies for color, timing, cuts and every other stuff on monitor displays? When we say made for TV I am thinking the main difference is the frame rate ie video, color palettes and aspect ratio

Think a few plasmas do use MILD MCFI. The kuro uses it under the "smooth" option.

There is big perceivable difference between interpolating 1 fake frame for 1 real vs 4 fake for 1 real.

Let me pose this to all you 'Film Aficionados' out there: Are the great directors really creating 'The Film Look' or are they merely trying to make the best image they can within the limitations (i.e. grain, 24 FPS, color fidelity etc.) of the medium?

For a starter there are artificial grain. See the first 5 minutes of The Incredibles. It is exaggerated but there is definite distinct film look.

Question is how much is nostalgia and how much is real art. Most art is not about accurate depiction, else there would be no room for paintings.

Right, they edit on monitors but they also have pre-screenings and test audience screenings (it has to look good - the way the director intended - on a moviescreen and it has to work on a moviescreen)
-> Martin Scorsese's screening room http://www.blsi.com/portfolio_scorsese.html

'The Film Look' is absolute first and foremost for any director or DP shooting drama and features. The limits to the medium are sometimes treated with "workarounds" or used as an "artistic expression" (mostly the grain).

The biggest insult to these people is to tell them their images look "Videoish".

I absolutely believe that most movie makers are not making use of any of the inherent characteristics of film for artistic purposes. Instead, I think that almost all of the time, they are primarily interested in telling a story. Some few Directors and Cinematographers do so with some style, but most are technicians engaged in relating a story.

I believe that film was dominant for so long, because of the installed base of hundreds of thousands of 35mm film projectors in local theaters. Even today, the number of film projectors still exceeds the number of Digital Cinemas. Many movies are shot and post-produced entirely in the digital domain, but 35mm distribution prints are still made for the still common film theaters.

I think that - while the artistic argument you guys are indulging in has some merit, and film as a medium with a specific "look" is a valid concept - most of the time (90+%) a movie maker telling a story will be just as happy with digital cameras. In fact, there are many advantages, such as being able to view the actual recording versus a "daily" film or videotape - and the fact that the digital cameras are smaller, less expensive, consume less power, capture many more frames per second, can shoot in much reduced light, etc. etc.

It is of course the economics that are driving the adoption of Digital Cinema, and the fact that efficincy gains are made in many areas. Shooting a digital production costs half or less what shooting film costs. I expect that digital tech will further erode the installed base of film equipment, and that 10 years from now, only major filmmakers with their own independant funding will be able to indulge their tastes for film - all major studios will have completed the digital migration. And 20 years from now, film will be a quaint technology one can see only in a museum.

For my money, and considering how rapidly Digital Cinema is advancing on all fronts, more will have been gained by abandonning film than has been lost. Film was king for 100 years, and now is being replaced.

There's two discussions going on here. One is about whether new movies should be created using higher frame rates, and one is whether old movies using lower frame rates should be altered so that they look as if they were filmed at higher frame rates.

I honestly don't care one way or the other about #1, and think you're right--they will be happy with digital cameras. But when you're talking about films that have already been made at 24fps, I disagree.

Sure, all media are limited, and all artists work with the limitations/characteristics of that medium to create art. Painters may choose oil, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, blah blah blah to achieve artistic effects, and all are in some way limited. I don't think if da Vinci just took a photograph of the model for the Mona Lisa, it would be hanging in the Louvre. Maybe Dorothea Lange would have preferred to take color photos, but even if she did I don't think it would be a good idea to colorize her art after the fact. What she did is done. It's art, it's history.

You can create art at 300fps or 24fps. It doesn't matter. But algorithmically altering old art just to make it look more "modern" isn't really something I could ever get behind.

+1

You make a good point. I'm a BIG Bogart fan and I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play a caricature of him in Woody Allen's Play It Again Sam. The idea of colorizing any one of his wonderful B&W films (among other classic's) makes my blood boil!


Ian

This past weekend I watched "Salt" (the Angelina Jolie action flick), and it had a fairly noticeable "video-like" appearance, especially during the outdoor chase scenes. I haven't had my new TV long enough to experiment with the motion control settings much (It's an LG 55LW5600). At present it has the "de-judder" setting turned down very low (but not off), and the "de-blur" setting at a medium value. I should have tried turning both off while watching those same scenes, but my wife wouldn't have sat through my tinkering! I have my Blu-ray player set for 24p output, and the set does 5:1 (or is it said 5:5?) pull-down, at 120 Hz.

I can't quite decide if I like or dislike the video-like look. It seems very clear and sharp, and perhaps over time I'll prefer it. But it does seem "un-film-like".

I watched a DVD the other day of the old Robin Hood movie with Errol Flynn (1938 or perhaps 1939). I thought at first this was a colorized movie, as I remember watching it on TV in black and white. But that may have been because it was so long ago that the TV was just black and white! In any case, the original screen credits indicated that it was shot in Technicolor. And in fact, the colors are very vivid - especially the robes and clothing of the Norman nobles, and the banners, etc. used in the castle interior scenes, the archery tournament scene, etc. Prince John (Claude Rains) was wearing an amazing jeweled tunic or robe that I'd never noticed before. Every time he moved, there were all these multi-color sparkles. I think they were very intentionally trying to show off the new amazing features of filming in color, by using clothing and set designs that used overly-vivid and saturated colors. And it worked!

They used the same technique in The Wizard Of Oz, however the opening and closing scenes were in black and white. It was the dramatic contrast of these two formats that fueled the differences between fantasy and reality. In those days, Technicolor was so new to motion pictures that it was often implemented to overwhelm our visual senses in order to exploit a certain time period, or theme. Now that color is the standard, some film directors use black and white to do the same thing.


Ian

Robin Hood was shot in Technicolor. If you are old enough, you may have watched this in black & white even on a color TV. When the Hollywood studios made available their film libraries to local TV stations for screening on their Late Shows or Dialing For Dollars movies, there was one price structure for B&W and a second for Color. Our local CBS affiliate in Memphis had a B&W copy of Robin Hood that they screened for years.

Technicolor had been around since the silent era (1922) but was little seen until the 1930's. Until 1937, the Technicolor company kept a tight reign on the color spectrum allowed in movies using their process. That year, Warner Brothers lobied for and was eventually granted an exception to use a wider color spectrum for the Robin Hood. This was the first time this expanded spectrum had been used and would lead to many critics complaining for years how technicolor movies were more colorful than anything you could see in real life.

This was especially true at least for Robin Hood. The filming of Robin Hood was done in a state park (can't remember the name) North of Los Angeles. It was fall and the leaves and grass had already turned brown. The producers wanted lush greens and beautiful colors for Sherwood Forest, so the crew got out spray cans and spray painted the grass and leaves a beautiful color of green. Pay close attention in some of the forest scenes and you can see the brown leaves or grass at the edge of the frame.

If you have a Blu-Ray player, this movie as well as Gone With The Wind are two of the most revealing experiences for me on home video. I have seen both films in theaters numerous times and owned copies of both on every media since LaserVision in 1978.

I was 25 years old in 1976 when a local theater did a weekend revival series. Bogart one weekend, Errol Flynn, Betty Davis, etc. The weekend for Flynn the had a double feature of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk. The theater was filled with mostly families who had brought their children to see one of their childhood heros. Most were also unaware that Robin Hood was in Technicolor. You should have heard the applause when the movie started. The best though was after Herbert Mundin (Munch the Miller's Son) had killed the King's deer and was about to be taken captive by Basil Rathbone (Sir Guy of Gisbourne). As soon as Errol Flynn (Robin Hood) and his loyal sidekick Patrick Knowles (Will Scarlet) ride onto the scene, every child in the theater started cheering. No one told them that Errol Flynn was the hero, I guess you could just tell be looking.

Sorry to be so long winded. I don't like the soap opera effect and my collection of DVD's and Blu-Rays comprises more movies made prior to the end of the Technicolor process (Godfater II / 1974) than movies after. A TV with good 24p processing handles this material far better (more natural) than anything with MI. As for anything shot on video, I have no problem watching it, but still can't stand MI as it takes away from the natural look of 60fps video. If anyone is shooting video at a higher frame rate, I am blissfully unaware of it.

There's a great online resource for those curious about technicolor, movie audio, and just about all the technical aspects of film making:

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/

Turner Classic Movies once ran a documentary on the development and evolution of the technicolor process that was of great interest. If you watch the credits on most Technicolor movies made prior to the mid 50s you'll see that there was a "technicolor advisor" credit given to a "Natalie Kalmus". She was the ex-wife of the guy who invented the process and won the right to be color advisor (choosing colors for sets, costumes, makeup, etc) on all technicolor productions up to a certain date as part of the divorce settlement. The director of Gone With The Wind actually had her thrown off the set. Ironically perhaps, Ted Turner was one of the early proponents of colorizing BW films (he's since recanted).

It should be noted that Technicolor films made in England had a noticeably different look vs American productions--more muted partially because natural light there is more muted and partially because Natalie's contract did not extend to foreign production

Tim Burton had to make some concessions to the studio to get Ed Wood made in black and white, and it's probably the last widely released BW film made in America. Frank Darabont wanted to make his sci-fi movie The Mist in BW but couldn't get it green lit unless it was shot in color. A separate BW version is on the dvd.

The fires on Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan were altered to create vertical flares in imitation of the original newsreel footage shot by the Army Signal Corps--the negatives for which were water damaged--definitely in aid of telling the story.

Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, The Mariachi, Dusk 'til Dawn) convinced me of the undeniable advantages of video production with regard to cost and time savings in his commentary for Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

I think it's undeniable that directors manipulate the look of their product to aid storytelling. There's a whole genre of films (Film Noir) named for their atmospherically dark look. One need only listen to Coppola's commentaries on the Godfather films to know that he and his cinematographer manipulated the look of those films (over the objections of the studio).

This doesn't mean that digital production negatively affects the ability to manipulate a movie's "look" in aid of storytelling, if anything it's probably easier. The Other Boleyn Girl is an example of a digitally shot film with atmosphere.

There expressed quite succinctly, is the paradigm shift I have been talking about for 4+ years. Today we have:

1) A very few movies shot on film, and fewer still post-produced and distributed entirely on film.

2) Many more movies shot on video, and some in which a few scenes are shot on film which gets digitized, and then all scenes are digitally post-produced.

3) Animated films which are entirely created in the digital animation studio.

4) Web videos which are entirely digital in origin, captured by webcams or uploaded from digital phones or digital cameras.

With all of this assorted content, film is playing an already small and ever-shrinking share of our video. The timeframe when film will have a zero or near-zero contribution to what we watch is already foreseeable. At that time, when one never sees any film material it could not play any role as a reference for what constitutes "good home video".

In fact, I say that film has already lost any value as a reference. I say that the new reference for what constitutes "good home video" is what one sees with the eyes - and I don't think we will be abandoning that standard any time soon. In fact, I consider it a damned peculiar aberration that "the look of film" was ever a standard for anything.

This is the #1 reason why I'm not ready for LCD. I don't think I should have to tinker in order to get natural flow. When that is solved, then I'll upgrade.

Now that is not a good reason at all. Most of these plasma sets are worse off without a calibration than the LCD's I see the reports of. Hell a g10 S10 v10 panny series were horrible unless you used service menu calibration. So so many bought them cause of the excellent reviews not realizing how horribly bad they were unless you service menu adjusted them.

So youd rather buy sets that are out of calibration further generally speaking, and need service menu adjustment to get as good an image. But you wont play with a simple user menu adjustment. Even knowing that it can be tweaked to no SOE.

Thats just making up reasons imo.

I have a question to Purists,Plasmaists, whatever you want to call it

How many of you (love to see a real honest poll on this though you'd never get the real answer i'm afraid) Have your sets even if for movie watching only calibrated to 17ftl?

If you do not you can throw directors intent out the window of your argument. Becausse thats what the directors intent is roughly 17ftl or less.