The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Blu-ray (and Blu-ray 3D) Up for Pre-Order - Page 2

IMO,The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Blu-ray 3D, in 24 fps, will benefit me and possibly many fans that may think 48 HFS is too similar to a soap opera look. After seeing the film in both versions, I personally like the traditional exhibition experience. My conditioning has made it a more natural feeling.
i.e. With 24fps, the Make-Up, Sets, and special-effects seem natural to my conscious perception, bringing me great enjoyment through believability when I'm in fantasy mode. HFR pulls me out of the fantasy. I pick up on make-up, choreographic fighting simulation (seeing the missing impacts/contacts), and stage set-design awareness.

All In all I think the BD 3D and BD versions will benefit the franchise greatly through a perceived familiar relationship in-entertainment experience.

Paul

He's saying that the 24 fps version hid the flaws better. HFR brought them glaringly to life.

I beg to differ: HFR pulled me much more into the movie. Also saw both versions, and both in 3D. In fact, the 24 fps 3D was IMAX, while the HFR one was not. Still prefered HFR 3D...NOTICEABLY! Looking forward to Blu-ray 3D since the high def picture will benefit similarly, IMHO.

Dan is correct. That is exactly what I experienced. My theatrical viewings were 3D versions, 3D 48 HFR and 3D 24 fps at our local cineplex.

I saw it in both HFR and non-HFR, both 3D and both at Imax, and I thought the HFR was a million times better for action, though in the very first opening sequence with Bilbo's hobbit hole it looked super cheap/fake at first. But the action shots (especially the combats, they were INSANE), the eye NEEDS those extra frames to catch all the motion. You just can't process that much data, you need the extra frame rate to follow all the cool moves and counter moves the dwarves do. From the dishwashing songs, to the outdoor panning shots with the wargs, to the goblin orgy of violence and bodies bashed about, I thought that HFR gave me literally double the action. I will never buy in in 24p, and I use frame interpolation all the time on my movies from my HTPC, even though my PC can only handle 720p for now (1080p is often too high...though it depends on the bitrate).

Watching The Avengers in 60fps was SO good using SVP, though there are still some minor shimmering artifacts visible in other shows, it really depends on the rez and bitrate. Once I can get 1080p video up-converted from 24p->60p in realtime, next step is 48hz in3D. I am one of those crazy guys who'd probably even upscale 48p to 60p while I'm at it. It'll be processed, sure, but just that much more snippy. Now if only my projector could accept 144hz so I could double flash 72p rather than triple flash 24p, that would be super cool. I remember setting my mouse refresh to my CRT's refresh, like 72->85hz back in the day, and it is so much smoother. Just move the mouse around and you see/feel the difference immediately. 60hz is still too low, we need 72hz or even 120hz per eye. But in Blurays, I get why he did 48hz, since movie projectors often double flash 24hz to 48 anyway, but I wish they'd designed 3D Blurays to support up to 60hz per eye. Maybe it's just a question of encoding? I don't see why, other than the space required, you couldn't have a 60p 3D 1080p Bluray disc, even if you need two for a movie like The Hobbit. I'd rather buy a movie that uses two discs, old school style like the DVDs of LOTR, than 1/2 the frames.

Of course, then the problem becomes, my projector doesn't accept more than 1080p/30, but that's another issue I can solve with another upgrade.

I absolutely cannot stand the inter-frame "guessing" or interpolation of these newer TV's (that's where you get the unnatural movement and "speed up"). When watching regular HDTV like sports (and that's at 30 to 60 fps depending on the content) it doesn't look sped up or have weird motion. They need to have a straight, no fuss frame rate multiplier (matched to whatever the source's native frame rate is) to eliminate image flicker and that's it.

Looks like The Hobbit is the latest film to get an early release via online distribution:

Vudu: http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/395761/The-Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/hobbit-unexpected-journey/id598661920?ign-mpt=uo%3D2
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey/dp/B00BMVTS1S/ref=sr_1_1?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1363134815&sr=1-1&keywords=the+hobbit

I'm certainly not suggesting these are a substitute for Blu-ray, the sound and picture quality is bound to be better on disc than via download. However, I do find it interesting that all the "major" films released on video lately enjoyed a digital-only early release.
Edited by imagic - 3/12/13 at 6:15pm

The problem isn't frame interpolation per se (since every single 60hz display did 3:2 pulldown, some better than others), for the longest time, it's the artifacts. But that improves every day, and also depends on the source material. I tell you, the Avengers copy I have looks PERFECT in 60hz, and the action at the end sequence is 1000x better with more frames. A lot of other movies do not look good all the time, and have shimmering halos with SVP, not sure why that is, but the shaders are indeed getting better all the time. Then again, it would be perfect if my projector could do interpolation in 3D, since there's no way to do that upstream since the HDMI 1.4 bandwidth budget is blown in 1080p as soon as you pass 30hz.