What a nice time capsule. All praise to the cameraman for doing long steady shots and not replacing the audio with music or commentary.
It makes me wonder if this is B-roll footage for a news piece.
Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
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Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#22I believe these are AI-generated photos, and perhaps content. Look at the back of Dave Compton’s shirt carefully, and you’ll notice that the left side starts to have garbled text. It’s very impressive, though. If I’m wrong, and these are real, then I’m very interested why Dave was wearing that shirt. Back in the day, it wouldn’t have been normal to have a custom shirt like that with different font sizes with your own…
This site has become completly insufferable with the incessant AI accusations IN EVERY SINGLE THREAD, often over the most benign posts.
I think the fact that this happens on HN, where the users are generally more tech-savvy is signaling that trust in media in the online age is in severe decline.
As AI gets better (and there seems no reason to believe it won't for video production) believing what you see online (or on the TV, which already tends to source video for some events from phone footage) will no longer really be a thing.
We have been in a sort of post-truth world for some time but this is a whole new level. Maybe we will go back to newspapers? Physical print can't be switched on you 1984 (the book) style and is delayed enough for there to be some fact checking.
Definitely living in interesting times.
Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
This site has become completly insufferable with the incessant AI accusations IN EVERY SINGLE THREAD, often over the most benign posts.
I think the fact that this happens on HN, where the users are generally more tech-savvy is signaling that trust in media in the online age is in severe decline. As AI gets better (and there seems no reason to believe it won't for video production) believing what you see online (or on the TV, which already tends to source video for some events from phone footage) will no longer really be a thing. We have been in a sor…
The fact that it was a brand new account just means HN is susceptible to bot accounts with these tech savvy people using AI to make those bots. When the AI accusations are from new accounts like this, I don't think it speaks too much about HN comments as the GP thinks. Not being able to understand that the account is new doesn't say much about the GP either
Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#24Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think so. Perhaps AI-upscaled? The footage looks legit and would track with the tube cameras that would have likely been used at that time. Although it sucks that it's deinterlaced to 30fps. Video like this really needs to be preserved without immediately throwing out half of the motion
Yeah, this doesn't look like AI generated. It was probably filmed on super 8 film stock. The clothing, hair cuts, manufacturing process all scream early 80s. I could see a cheap restoration introduction artifacts as a more likely reason for the look.
It looks more like video to me, honestly. It appears to be a smooth 30fps rather than the 18fps I'd expect from Super 8. There are also telltale stair-stepped sloped lines that demonstrate the effect of the deinterlacing. There did exist luggable 3/4" U-Matic recorders which I'd have to imagine CBS would have been using in 1980.
Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#26Fun fact - Atari threatened to sue me for my “clone” of Battlezone. https://youtu.be/bf7Ert1wkg4
That's hilarious. God bless the old Atari who wanted to sue the world. The irony now of course is that Atari no longer own Battlezone's IP. Rebellion managed to grab it when Atari went bankrupt in 2013.
Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#27Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#28I believe these are AI-generated photos, and perhaps content. Look at the back of Dave Compton’s shirt carefully, and you’ll notice that the left side starts to have garbled text. It’s very impressive, though. If I’m wrong, and these are real, then I’m very interested why Dave was wearing that shirt. Back in the day, it wouldn’t have been normal to have a custom shirt like that with different font sizes with your own…
It totally would have been normal to have a custom shirt like that back in the day. I had a few. In the late 70s and early 80s, there were custom "iron on" T-Shirt shops in most malls. They would have a wall of larger iron-on decals, primarily logos of sports teams and rock bands, but they also had custom letters, usually in the Cooper typeface. You'd tell them what you wanted, the size and color of your shirt and le…
As they say, it was a different time.
I'm friends with someone that worked at Atari around that era and he'll be the first to tell you it was a very loose atmosphere there.
Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#29I believe these are AI-generated photos, and perhaps content. Look at the back of Dave Compton’s shirt carefully, and you’ll notice that the left side starts to have garbled text. It’s very impressive, though. If I’m wrong, and these are real, then I’m very interested why Dave was wearing that shirt. Back in the day, it wouldn’t have been normal to have a custom shirt like that with different font sizes with your own…
I don't think so. Perhaps AI-upscaled? The footage looks legit and would track with the tube cameras that would have likely been used at that time. Although it sucks that it's deinterlaced to 30fps. Video like this really needs to be preserved without immediately throwing out half of the motion
YouTube/Google doesn't give a shit anymore. They will mangle your video and audio and serve users "enhanced" "improved" "upscaled" encodes without telling you.
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"YouTube secretly tested AI video enhancement without notifying creators" - Aug 25, 2025
https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/08/youtube-secretly-test...
"YouTube will let you opt out of AI upscaling on low-res videos" - Oct 29, 2025
https://www.theverge.com/news/808717/youtube-automatic-ai-up...
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Not only that, YouTube turned many old videos shot in portrait (from the 2010s and before!) into engagement-boosting "Shorts" crap which get horribly mangled in their own way.
"Notice a weird beauty filter on Shorts? YouTube says it's on purpose" - Aug 26, 2025
https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-shorts-upscaling-ex...
Re: Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
#30Are there any articles on how vector graphics were developed for arcade games?
I vaguely remember there was also one home game console that attempted vector graphics but cannot remember the name
Was fascinated with it at the time but with only access to a TRS-80 such things were impossible to learn back then