Video Asylum

Posted by unclestu52 (D) on September 18, 2007 at 12:41:05

In Reply to: RE: Sony had this great hope posted by DavidLD on September 18, 2007 at 05:02:39

conversation with the technical director for a local movie chain. He claimed that after one week, any superiority of film was lost simply because the film sprocket drive stretches the original perforations on the edges of the film inducing jitter. While digital will not have the ultimate resolution of film the matter of this drive induced jitter would render that superiority meaningless. In fact, he told me there are certain film followers that insist on seeing the films on opening or at least in the first few days for this simple reason.

IMHO, this is true, whether using up sampled 480 P software or using true High Def software. What becomes very apparent with the newer players and sets is that one becomes very aware about the depth of view of the cameras used.

In testing a new Blue ray machine I played Field of Dreams, a sort of lack luster issue on DVD: you can clearly see the limitations of the care lenses in looking at detail on the baseline gravel. The focus is sharp about plus or minus 6 feet of the characters and simply out of focus everywhere else. Some producers like Cameron use very long lenses and have tremendous depth in their camera work, but that of course drives the cost of production much higher as details have to be much more accurate. In viewing the Forrest Gump DVD up sampled, It is very clear that Robin Wright is wearing a body stocking in her nude scenes as you can clearly see a 'bikini' style darker outline on her body. I remember the movie when it first opened and that kind of resolution was not really visible in the theater. In fact one amusing aspect of the movie was that in the scenes supposedly taking place in the Vietnamese jungles, you can clearly see that the uniforms are unnaturally clean, even though the actors have mud smeared faces and arms....

In short, for many older movies, I believe the viewer can recognize continuity issues much more readily. That of course, can work both ways. Some hate it, but I find them amusing and not subtracting from the overall meaning of the movie itself.

Stu