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AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

nytimes.com

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Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#161

Post by rightbyte »

nostromo wrote: post #66
dmitrybrant wrote: post #10

My biggest gripe with these AI film enhancements is that they are adding information that was never there. You're no longer watching the original film. You no longer have a sense of how contemporary film equipment worked, what its limitations were, how the director dealt with those limitations, etc.

The originals still exist and you’re free to watch those instead. This just provides a new way to watch older movies should you choose to do so. Or not.

To watch Star Wars as it was originally you need to break US law.

Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#162

Post by Adverblessly »

I watch AI enhanced movies and/or shows every day when I use Anime4K, a real-time ML upscaler for anime https://github.com/bloc97/Anime4K

If you give shit-tier blurry DVD messes, it turns them into nicer blurry messes.

If you give it the usual bitrate starved streaming quality show, it looks almost as nice as a blueray.

If you give it a blueray... It basically comes out looking exactly the same. I'll usually still add its "darken lines" filter since I'm a fan of strong linework.

Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#163

Post by incrudible »

zo1 wrote: post #129
moomin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you pointed that out, because literally all the “after” images look dreadful. But then im also of the opinion that most HDR content is too damn dark anyway.

That is a matter of opinion, and in all the comparison images, I think the AI upscaled one always looks better.

It is not qualitatively bad, it is inappropriate, but also you do not get to see what the unprocessed 4k image would have looked like. That film grain looks great at higher resolution.

Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#164

Post by thriftwy »

In the age of analog you could adjust brightness, contrast and color of the image. Still there and there are even presets, but not used much.

I imagine in ten years you will be moving AI sliders to adjust brightness and contrast of the movie. Want to have everything super sharp? Art house? You can do that.

At the same time, directors may spend more time on the actual story and less on the picture.

Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#165

Post by SrslyJosh »

pimlottc wrote: post #22
procflora wrote: post #15

Wow, that tweet they link to with a super punched in shot looks really really bad! Hard to believe Cameron thought this looked better than just a normal 4k transfer, yikes. Was really looking forward to a UHD release of The Abyss but now I'm not so sure... https://twitter.com/RazorwireRyan/status/1735753526167347232

Direct image link: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GBaikRhX0AEcjuy?format=jpg

What the actual FUCK is that???

Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#166

Post by yreg »

dusted wrote: post #158

It used to be that (rational) people would be fairly in agreement that one cannot extract information which is not there. That's why we laugh at the "zoom -> 9 pixels -> enhance -> clear picture -> zoom ->.." trop in movies.. AI does not change this.. It adds stuff that's not there, sure, it adds stuff that might be there, or could have been there, but it literally cannot know, so it just paints in plausibility.. Whi…

> That's why we laugh at the "zoom -> 9 pixels -> enhance -> clear picture -> zoom ->.." trope in movies..

> AI does not change this..

It kind of changes it in some cases. The information might be there, but superhuman pattern recognition might be needed to extract it.

And of course, in case factuality doesn't matter, the missing information can be generated and filled in. This obviously doesn't work when you are looking for a terrorist's license plate or when you want to watch an original performance in a movie.

Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#167

Post by dagw »

Mashimo wrote: post #128
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it can do something about the muffled, mumbled dialog in modern productions.

Turn up volume on center speaker.

I wonder what percentage of home movie watchers have a centre speaker that they can turn up the volume on? Or is the thinking more that if you don't have a centre speaker you can turn up the volume on, you're not really into movies and thus not part of our target audience?

Re: AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them

#170

Post by r_c_a_d_t_s »

dusted wrote: post #158

It used to be that (rational) people would be fairly in agreement that one cannot extract information which is not there. That's why we laugh at the "zoom -> 9 pixels -> enhance -> clear picture -> zoom ->.." trop in movies.. AI does not change this.. It adds stuff that's not there, sure, it adds stuff that might be there, or could have been there, but it literally cannot know, so it just paints in plausibility.. Whi…

I agree. "AI-enhanced" is just the latest badge to put on content in the hope that some suckers will pay more money for the "same" content they already have. There's no striving for a better version here, just a drive for more profit.
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