Would you buy the 48 fps (HFR) version of the Hobbit? - Page 2

I would buy a version that had both options in one package but I wouldn't buy a 48fps only version.

Buy the regular BR and just turn on that motion flow effect on your TV , pretty much looks the same if you really want that soap opera effect.

Minus the detail plus the blurring

Saw it (real)IMAX 24fps and definitely noticed it on quick pans and scans. There was no detail, and the whole screen was artificially blurred to the point of detail lost at every level. Normally, things close should lose detail, while things far should stay in focus.

Apparently the digital blur was over used a bit too much. Slow pans, and otherwise, it wasn't as noticeable.

I keep seeing this blurring mentioned on the 24fps IMAX 15/70 showings, but FWIW the digital 3D 24fps screening I saw had superbly clear panning shots, maybe the best I've seen. I still wanna see it in HFR if I can, but there's nothing near me at all.

Be interesting to see if they can come up with some sort of 60Hz halfway-house version for Blu, while we wait for a possible update to the BD spec to accomodate HFR. I'd buy it just to have a look see.

From my experience they're usually unable to sync at 48hz though.

I was less than thrilled with the 48fps experience, but if a real 48fps capability is added to the BD spec, hopefully the engineers that design it are smart enough to include an option to drop half the frames, and in that case I don't see a reason not to get a 48fps disc.

I believe 4K is 4 times the resolution of 1080p. Doesn't that mean we need the BD to be at least 200 GB?:confused. At the moment BDXL is 100 ~ 128 GB. Ritek claimed they produced 250GB prototypes which never came into fruition. I really really hope BDA develops higher capacity BDs that can comfortably accommodate 4K contents without having to split a 4 hour film into multiple discs.

IIRC, 4K is ~ 4000x2000 and current 1080 HD is ~ 2000x1000....how is that 4x the resolution?

I'll bet a buck engineers will find a way to use the BD format for 4K.

BD DL? never in a million years, BD XL maybe, but the 150gb + discs only.
And I am not aware of any player that can read them bar pc drives

That would be twice the space, A 150 would be ok for a 90min with no extras and a few soundtracks

Not quite twice, its better but we have discs now that are crammed onto a 50 no way I want that softness or macro blocking in 4k

I hope we see it (even if it's a niche like LD was), but I wonder if there will be a 4K physical media format.

I'm very dubious about the H265 efficiency claims. It's twice efficient as what? 1080p H264 at 35mbps? An 8mbps internet stream? AAC is extremely efficient compared to MP3 at 64kbps, but it still sounds like ass; at 320kbps there's no real difference at all. At some point you run into the fundamental limitation of needing enough information to describe the image accurately. If whatever upcoming 4k format has worse compression ratios than BD, I think they're jumping the gun and delivering a half-baked format. Compression is the main thing limiting BD's transparency to the source, even BD's maximum data rate isn't enough to not introduce obvious artifacts.

Do you really see a lot of artifacting on a well produced bd? I am not doubting that 4k might need a little more room to breath, but I have compressed some of my blu rays down by more than 30% from the original and find it takes some serious zooming/pixel peeping to notice the difference. You either have a huge projector setup and sit very close, or I need to have my eyes checked, because I don't see a lot of artifacting on my 65" panasonic from only a few feet away. The only noise I see appears to be in the original source (film grain/digital noise) or from a poorly mastered transfer and not a result of the actual limitations of bd spec.

I love niches, I miss that superior elitist laserdisc feeling

There was no digital blur added, the film was shot with a 270° shutter angle (1/64 of a second) to preserve just enough motion blur for the 24 fps version (films are typically shot with a 180° shutter angle). I've only seen the HFR version, but I can't think why motion blur would simulate focus issues, unless there was a focus issue with the projector (again, haven't seen it on imax yet).
It's also possible the iMax DMR blowup was to blame (most likely culprit, which is a shame, especially since the film was actually shot at 5k, but mastered at 2k).

I guess I don't understand your assertion that "Normally, things close should lose detail, while things far should stay in focus." Are you referring to positive space 3D elements, or just the style of the cinematography? I also ask because I may see it again in a different format (my local theater had 4 available, including HFR and iMax -- no iMax HFR though), before I decide if it's worth seeing the next 2 in HFR.

I mentioned blur as someone mentioned using their TV settings to get the 48fps look

I finally got around to seeing an entire film on someone's TV with TruMotion (or some equivalent 120/240hz crap) turned on. Every detail in the image was smeared from the frame interpolation. Brightness was also turned up way too high. Possibly my least favorite viewing experience of a good movie I've ever had. I was so glad the Hobbit did not suffer from any similar artifacting in HFR (even if the motion characteristics were difficult to get used to).

That's the advantage of native HFR instead of a TV's best guess.

Why is there argument over whether 1080/48p will be added to the Bluray spec? Displays won't accept 48p input, so it wouldn't matter if it was added to the spec.

It's fairly obvious that if there is a Hobbit HFR Bluray release, it will simply be 48p wrapped in 60p at a 1:1:1:1:2 cadence. 48p does nobody any good if nobody's display will take 48p in. Even if it was a PC-only file as suggested earlier, which frames are you going to duplicate to display it at 60 or 120hz?

48p 3D? Yup, wrapped in 720/60p. Again, even if 1080/48p 3D was added to the Bluray spec, good luck finding an HDMI port that will accept that as an input.

Every HDTV I've ever owned can support up to 1080p @ 60fps when connected to a computer.

wouldn't buy any version of it... and proud of it.

Wow, 'proud' you didn't buy a movie? Sounds to me like you need to find some other hobbies to actually be 'proud' of. Who seriously applies pride to not buying a movie they didn't like/don't want?

Displayport 1.2 for 4K2K up to 60p, current generation GPUS for AMD and Nvidia have it

Whitepaper from AMD
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/50279_AMD_FirePro_DisplayPort_1-2_WP.pdf

I'm planning on skipping 4K adoption and waiting for 8K with backward compatibility. Since both are part of the UHD family, why bother settling for the 720p of the next generation?

They should be able to create a Blu-ray with a 720p60 version of the movie (not in 3D). They would need to use a 3:2 pull down method similar to the way 24fps is converted to 30fps.

Of course this would lose some resolution and lose 3D, but would be an interesting experiment, and should work on all existing equipment. Could be a bonus disc to accompany a standard 1080p24 version of the film.

Watching the Hobbit HFR (High Frame Rate) was like watching a high budget video production shot in 3-D. The locations looked like sets, the performance looked like people acting on a stage (rather than characters living in a magical land) and for the first time in a movie theatre, I felt like I was watching moving images from a video projector. There's nothing film like about it.

I might as well have been watching the attempts of acting from the director's chair or witnessing the making of a high budget video while standing behind a video camera.

HFR leaves nothing to the imagination. With that much visual cues blasting onto the screen, there's no time (or room) for the mind to disconnect from reality, to be taken to that magical world or allow for escapism. The brain is left with having to deal with unbelievably unrealistic situations, along with people dressed up for a acting roll. A performance I would not want in my home theatre.

What I fear is a onslaught of "movies" being captured in the HFR format, simply because they can. 48 fps is even too much for soap operas since much of what's taking place in that world is unbelievable.

The only thing HFR is good for is porn and sports.

"I might as well have been watching the attempts of acting from the director's chair or witnessing the making of a high budget video while standing behind a video camera."

You sound exactly like the people that came out of Avatar yelling "Bah! 3D will never catch on! Look at all these problems!!1". Yes, Avatar was bad 3D. Avatar being bad doesn't mean that Prometheus wasn't subtle and masterful in it's execution of 3D.

HFR kind of sucks right now. It will find a happy medium though, where dramatic scenes are shot at 24fps while panning and action shots are 48fps finally allowing us to get rid of the nasty judder and blur of quick movements.

More technical options is not a bad thing.