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Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

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Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#141

Post by twerquie »

anigbrowl wrote: post #47
masklinn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes. I'd argue that they don't. People like what they know, and a different reproduction creates an annoying cognitive dissonance, like hearing a new interpretation of your favorite piece after having listened to the original for decades. It's pretty much the source of the Uncanny Valley issue

Did you know a lot of contemporary music is still recorded onto tape in the studio because engineers and musicians like the character it adds to the signal? Consumer tapes sound hissy partly because the tape is so narrow that they have a low signal:noise ratio. Recording onto larger-size tape reels eliminates that issue, but the distortion/compression from deliberate overdriving of the inputs still sounds pleasing.

Not only that, but modern digital recordings often digitally add a track of tape hiss to warm up the sound. I don't mean a distortion plugin or anything, I mean a recording of a 2" tape machine playing nothing but hiss!

That being said, I agree with masklinn, we do this because people are used to hearing it, not because hiss is intrinsically good sounding.

Will the children of the early 2000s grow to yearn for the sound of 128kb MP3?

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#143

Post by lelandbatey »

chc wrote: post #37
pud wrote: post #16

Humans like flaws. When CDs first came out, people argued that they sounded "cold," even though they're near-perfect recreations of the music that was recorded. People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes. This is also the same reason why people like Instagram filters. Normal iPhone pics are too good. Let's fuzz em up a bit. Also, look at v1 of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other popular sites - they…

> Humans like flaws. > When CDs first came out, people argued that they sounded "cold," even though they're near-perfect recreations of the music that was recorded. People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes. > This is also the same reason why people like Instagram filters. This sounds more like "hipsters like flaws." CDs absolutely ROFLstomped both vinyl and cassette very quickly once they became affo…

I think you're pretty close on this point. I share most of the views from the post above you, but I'd like to expand on them a bit.

First of all, I don't think people like flaws. If you take someone who has never listened to a vinyl record and ask them to listen to one and compare it with a CD recording, I'd bet they would cite the CD as being the better experience.

What people like is what they are comfortable with, and not just because of habit: distinctive patterns, especially in highly emotionally charged areas such as movies and music, generate emotional connections and attachment. Those who grew up listening to vinyl associate it's "fuzzy/scratchy" sound with the moments they spent listening to them. There's very potent emotional attachment to those flaws, and that's why people are attracted to them. When I hear the warbly sound and see the poor quality visuals of old VHS's, I'm taken back to watching Disney movies as a child.

As explained in this article[0], these emotional attachments are the reason why people enjoy Instagram to the degree that they do. The washed out, blurry, grainy photos generated by Instagram hit on the emotional connections to old photographs of our parents and of our childhoods.

Similarly, I think the same follows for 24 fps vs 48 fps movies; think of all the intense moments you've had while watching a movie in your lifetime. How many times have you laughed or cried or gasped at something happening in a movie shot in 24 fps? Given that any movie you've watched up till now has been shot at 24 fps, you've probably done it many times. Each time you feel those strong emotions, every aspect of that moment is associated with that feeling: the smell of the popcorn, the low lighting, the chair you where sitting in, the people with you. All of those details are now associated with that memory and that experience.

Now repeat that process of strong emotional association for every single movie or TV show you've ever seen. With this information, it's obvious why people are so attached to this small aspect of a movie: because there are strong emotions associated with the 24 fps frame rate.

[0] http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/05/14/the-faux-v...

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#144

Post by smiddereens »

chc wrote: post #37
pud wrote: post #16

Humans like flaws. When CDs first came out, people argued that they sounded "cold," even though they're near-perfect recreations of the music that was recorded. People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes. This is also the same reason why people like Instagram filters. Normal iPhone pics are too good. Let's fuzz em up a bit. Also, look at v1 of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other popular sites - they…

> Humans like flaws. > When CDs first came out, people argued that they sounded "cold," even though they're near-perfect recreations of the music that was recorded. People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes. > This is also the same reason why people like Instagram filters. This sounds more like "hipsters like flaws." CDs absolutely ROFLstomped both vinyl and cassette very quickly once they became affo…

Stopped reading at "ROFLstomped".

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#145

Post by anigbrowl »

r0s wrote: post #135
anigbrowl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, no. You don't necessarily want endlessly increasing information content because that's more work for your brain to filter. As I pointed out below, 48 FPS has been well within our technical capabilities for a long time - far longer than the current polarized-3d technology, for example. Yet there isn't a body of 48 FPS films out there, in contrast to 3d, super-widescreen, movies with vibrating chairs, 'smell-o-vis…

> most people just don't want beats coming at them that fast. I'm sure people used to say this about Rock & Roll, or Jazz. The revolution in speed is probably just a decade away, judging by past acceptance. I want increasing information content ad nausium, because it's simply a pale shadow of real experience. When we actually achieve comparable bandwidth with real life, we'll talk. The day the holodeck is seamlessly…

The revolution in speed is probably just a decade away, judging by past acceptance.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. This is about 15 years old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0-BWdABmhY

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#146

Post by mprovost »

twerquie wrote: post #141
anigbrowl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know a lot of contemporary music is still recorded onto tape in the studio because engineers and musicians like the character it adds to the signal? Consumer tapes sound hissy partly because the tape is so narrow that they have a low signal:noise ratio. Recording onto larger-size tape reels eliminates that issue, but the distortion/compression from deliberate overdriving of the inputs still sounds pleasing.

Not only that, but modern digital recordings often digitally add a track of tape hiss to warm up the sound. I don't mean a distortion plugin or anything, I mean a recording of a 2" tape machine playing nothing but hiss! That being said, I agree with masklinn, we do this because people are used to hearing it, not because hiss is intrinsically good sounding. Will the children of the early 2000s grow to yearn for the so…

At least one study has shown that younger listeners prefer the 'sizzle' sound of MP3s over higher quality recordings, presumably because it's what they're used to.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music...

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#147

Post by dakimov »

I know what's wrong with high FPS: with quality being improved, including the time domain, you more clearly see the scene being filmed, but that scene is actors, decorations and computer graphics, as in your video game, but higher quality, and it is not so convincing anymore. The films, the movements in them, are not used to be so polished in the time domain. With the new time resolution you see all the motion more precise, and it just sucks, it is not as good as you used to think of it when it was in 24 FPS. Despite the stupid myth, the 24 FPS is way below what you need to feel the picture as realistic. Now the moving picture starts looking realistic, but what you realistically see is actors, decorations, and CG, the old approaches are not convincing anymore. The film makers just need to adapt to the high-definition time domain, to make films look cool again with the new level of precision.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#148

Post by bad_user »

chc wrote: post #15

I hear writers moan and wring their hands about the high-framerate version of The Hobbit, how it doesn't look "cinematic" or what have you — but anecdotally, nobody I know had the kind of complaints you hear from film insiders. Nobody I know complains about it looking like a PBS show; nobody feels like they can see the actors' makeup. Those who saw both versions unanimously liked the HFR version better (a common reas…

> Nobody I know complains about it looking like a PBS show

I went to see it with a friend before reading any articles on it. I didn't even know what HFR meant. And this is exactly what I thought about while watching it ... that it felt like a freaking TV show.

My friend didn't get the same feeling, but on the other hand he nearly felt to sleep.

Looking back, it was a good movie, too bad I ended up seeing the HFR version.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#149

Post by hetman »

anigbrowl wrote: post #120
jerf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quasi-pop psychology: The human brain is a remarkable machine. It is fantastic at extracting data from any stream of data it can find. It is aided in this by the neural ability to accommodate and model constant elements of the stream. In the simplest form, you can see this effect with the simple persistence of vision phenomena [1], but the effect can also be applied to fantastically complicated phenomena by our overp…

Hmm, no. You don't necessarily want endlessly increasing information content because that's more work for your brain to filter. As I pointed out below, 48 FPS has been well within our technical capabilities for a long time - far longer than the current polarized-3d technology, for example. Yet there isn't a body of 48 FPS films out there, in contrast to 3d, super-widescreen, movies with vibrating chairs, 'smell-o-vis…

It might only be coming into vogue now because strobing effects are far more noticeable in 3D than 2D and so the limitations of 24 FPS are becoming apparent as never before.
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