DVD Talk Forum - The Hobbit

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It's not good when, instead of talking about the content of the footage, they talk about how the footage looks.

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Originally Posted by kgrogers1979 (Post 11204321)

News yes, soap opera no.

I don't notice any framerate difference between them and cinema. Do movies at the theater have a slower framerate than movies on DVD? I watch maybe one or two movies at the theater per year, so 99.9% of my movie watching is done at home. I don't know if that makes a difference or not if maybe the framerate is sped up for the home release or something.

Do you have a hi-def TV? You should still notice a difference with a SD TV too. But if you can't notice the difference between video (like a soap opera, or a game show or the news) and film then you just don't know what you're looking at.

Another explanation/discussion of the frame-rate thing here:

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I came to CinemaCon just to see the ten minutes of The Hobbit that Warner Bros showed today. I'm not exaggerating; I don't even have press creds, so I can't get into anything else. The good people at Warner Bros hooked me up with a ticket to the presentation, for which I am indebted to them... and which is making me feel bad for what I am about to write.

The reason it felt important to come to Vegas for this presentation was that The Hobbit was being shown at 48 frames per second. This is the new projection standard that the gearhead titans like James Cameron and Peter Jackson have been touting. The presentation today was to largely sell the CinemaCon audience - 90% made up of theater owners - on buying new equipment to show movies at this frame rate.

As the presentation started I gasped. The footage began with sweeping helicopter shots of mountains, and it was like I was floating over them myself. It looked stunning (this was also in 3D, by the way) and I truly felt like I was seeing something new, something that would redefine the theatrical experience.

And then the rest of the footage played.

I've been trying to figure out how to explain to you why this footage looked bad. First it's worth noting that the CinemaCon honchos bragged that their projection system in that theater was the most advcanced and best ever assembled by man. That's almost a direct quote. So the presentation would almost certainly never be better than what I saw today.

Second, I must say that it's possible there will be lots of post-production work done to offset some of the lighting issues. I also assume that the few 'complete' scenes we saw will continue to be edited before release.

With those caveats out of the way, here's what The Hobbit looked like to me: a hi-def version of the 1970s I, Claudius. It is drenched in a TV-like - specifically 70s era BBC - video look. People on Twitter have asked if it has that soap opera look you get from badly calibrated TVs at Best Buy, and the answer is an emphatic YES.

The 48fps footage I saw looked terrible. It looked completely non-cinematic. The sets looked like sets. I've been on sets of movies on the scale of The Hobbit, and sets don't even look like sets when you're on them live... but these looked like sets.
The other comparison I kept coming to, as I was watching the footage, was that it all looked like behind the scenes video. The magical illusion of cinema is stripped away completely.

As I said above the landscape shots are breathtaking. 48fps is the future of nature documentaries. But if it's the future of narrative cinema I don't know if that future includes me.

It's unlikely you're going to see The Hobbit at 48fps (especially if all the grumbling I heard from theater owners is any indication. Walking out of the theater I didn't hear a single positive remark). You're wondering what I saw in the ten minutes of footage. Here, to the best of my ability, is a rundown of it all:

[discussion of content spoilerized]

Spoiler:

The content seemed strong, it was the presentation that bummed me out. I'm honestly kind of depressed about how much I disliked the 48fps footage. In his taped intro, Peter Jackson said it would take a minute for us to get used to it, but I never did. It looked like shit the whole time.

What I don't understand about the gearhead filmmakers is why they're using these new technologies so early. This is like doing your first test flight of new jet engine with 200 passengers - why not perfect it, get it right, get past the disasters before you bring it to the public? I don't want The Hobbit to be a technologically experimental movie, but that's what it looks to be.

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Originally Posted by TomOpus (Post 11204340)

I am still using an old 24" SDTV. I know HDTV ups the resolution, but I didn't know it changed the framerate that much. I occasionally watch HD programs on my computer monitor (which is 24" 1080p that I use mostly for PC gaming) and still don't notice any framerate difference between HD and SD programs.

I guess I am not hardcore enough. Some cinephiles critically analyze each and every frame for ghosting and artifacts and such. Personally I couldn't care less. Which is why I guess I am still on a 24" SDTV since having the best picture possible doesn't matter to me a whole lot. :lol:

To me comic books are my main hobby, video games second, and movies a distant third.

^To me, the difference between the look of film and video was always obvious, even as a kid. Like most of the sitcoms on on TV when I was a kid were shot on video. Huge difference between the look of that and film.

Remember on old British shows when they'd do interiors on tape and exteriors on film? It was painfully obvious. Monty Python even did a skit about it.

Well the physical look is obvious. Its always obvious that a TV show is on a stage with cheap props whereas movies aren't always obviously on a stage. But the differences between the framerates of the two is certainly not obvious to me at least.

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Originally Posted by Obi-Wan Jabroni (Post 11204393)

This is me too.

I guess I was a retarded kid then.

Watch this and now picture Gandalf and Frodo in a scene like this. That's what it'll look like in 48fps.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gL5oX2Of9Ls" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Fortunately from what I've been reading most theaters will not have the equipment to show the film at 48fps.

When something moves fast in real life, there is a blur.

When something moves fast in a traditional movie, there is a blur.

When something moves fast in one of those 120mhz shitfest tvs, there is no blur. To me, THATS why it looks artificial. I hope this isn't the future of cinema.

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Originally Posted by Osiris3657 (Post 11204428)

Watch this and now picture Gandalf and Frodo in a scene like this. That's what it'll look like in 48fps.

Fortunately from what I've been reading most theaters will not have the equipment to show the film at 48fps.

I watched it and didn't notice any framerate difference. Framerate is just how fast it animates, right? I didn't notice any difference in how fast things move in that clip versus a cinematic movie. So I guess I am either blind or retarded. I just had my eyes checked three months ago, so it probably isn't the former.

...yea, I don't know what to tell you if you can't see the difference between that scene and a cinematic scene. Maybe your eyes really are bad :lol: Yes, the framerate refreshes faster...which means the picture is more life-like. For movies, this is a bad thing (in most people's opinions). It looks like you're watching a stage play instead of a movie.

Devin of BadassDigest does a decent job of explaining it:

"The 48fps footage I saw looked terrible. It looked completely non-cinematic. The sets looked like sets. I've been on sets of movies on the scale of The Hobbit, and sets don't even look like sets when you're on them live... but these looked like sets.
The other comparison I kept coming to, as I was watching the footage, was that it all looked like behind the scenes video. The magical illusion of cinema is stripped away completely."

The scaled-down 24fps trailer I saw looked just fine to me. As long as those look normal, I'm not worried about it. I've no interest in 3D so hopefully there are some 24fps projections available when the time comes.

Don't they need some fancy schmancy playback monitor to get it to look cool? What system did they use? The way I initially heard was that they needed to install special equipment in theaters to get it to playback properly.

?????

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Originally Posted by Osiris3657 (Post 11204502)

Maybe your eyes really are bad :lol:

Well I have worn glasses since I was 8 years old. Those old thick ass lenses that look like they are made from coke bottles... that was me.

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Originally Posted by kgrogers1979 (Post 11204445)

I don't understand why these guys don't just explain it to you.

I mean I guess I can see the difference between a soap opera and a movie, but I don't understand what I'm seeing and why they look different do I'd be interested in a good explanation too. I wouldn't necessarily say that the soap opera looks bad either. It just looks different.

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Originally Posted by SuckaMC (Post 11204444)

When something moves fast in real life, there is a blur.

When something moves fast in a traditional movie, there is a blur.

This isn't true. When something moves in real life, there is no blur, although your eyes may perceive a blur due to the limitations of human vision.

Film has a relatively slow framerate, basically as slow as it is possible to get without disrupting the illusion of motion for most people. The additional blur this low framerate creates was an unintended artifact, not a desired effect, but over a century of using this framerate for films have cause people to associate the framerate and its attendant blur with a "cinematic" experience.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kgrogers1979 (Post 11204445)

I watched it and didn't notice any framerate difference. Framerate is just how fast it animates, right? I didn't notice any difference in how fast things move in that clip versus a cinematic movie.

That clip is only presented in 30fps, which isn't drastically that much faster than 24fps, so it's not surprising you didn't see much of a difference. The differences between films and that clip have more to do with the choices of lighting, framing, sets, and sound than with framerate.

However, a faster framerate isn't about faster motion, but smoother motion. A particular action that's shot at 48fps takes the same amount of time as if it was shot at 24fps (assuming both are played back at their native speeds), but the action on the 48fps should look smoother.

Going back to the original question:

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Originally Posted by kgrogers1979 (Post 11204217)

I'm not a cinephile, so can someone explain to me in layman's terms why 48 fps is bad and 24 fps is good? I know in the video game industry, more frames are always good, and PC gamers want to get as close to 60 fps as possible. But movies are the opposite and want less fps? It doesn't make sense to me because video games with too low lps are choppy and look more like a slideshow. A 24 fps video game wouldn't run very smoothly. Even console games with less powerful hardware than PCs try to maintain at least 30 fps.

It's not so much bad vs good as what's expected. Films have almost always been shot in 24fps, and video has almost always been shot in 50hz or 60hz (originally 50/60 interlaced fields, but now with progressive video, 50/60 frames). So we associate the smoother motion of a higher framerate with video, and the blurrier, flickering motion of the lower framerate with film.

Originally, framerate wasn't the issue with shooting on video. The problems with video related to resolution/detail, the ability to shoot in varying levels of light (especially extreme levels of light), and color reproduction when that came along. These were all inferior to film, and video struggled for decades to catch up to film in these areas.

In fact, the higher framerate of video was something that some pioneers in film aspired to. Special Effect wizard Douglas Trumbull experimented with framerates in the late 1970s, finding that people actually became more emotionally engaged the higher the framerate, eventually peaking at 72fps. He invented a filming/projection format called Showscan that used 70mm film at a 60fps framerate (presumably for TV compatibility). It didn't catch on, and neither did a later attempt at 48fps film called Maxivision, due to the fact that higher framerates used more films, and the economic and physical problems that caused:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showscan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxivision

Meanwhile TV adopted the use of film, especially for dramas, shot at 24fps, although occasionally at 30fps. Only cheaper shows, sitcoms in the 70s and 80s, and shows shot live or very quickly (soap operas) used video. So video was associated with cheap and forgettable, while film was associated with more classy fare. Video=bad and film=good, and the framerates and the look they gave were tied to their associated formats and associated judgements of quality.

As digital video has improved in almost all other areas (resolution/detail, lighting, color, etc.) they've also attempted to replicate framerate. This made it easier for films shot on video to transfer to film for screenings before digital projection came along, but it also made the digital video look closer to film, which was a look people were aspiring to.

It also doesn't help that TV manufacturers have given faster framerates a bad name. LCD manufacturers combated the ghosting of earlier models by boosting the refresh rate, going to 120hz and 240hz. With this faster refresh rate they can actually show higher framerates too, but nothing is shot at those speeds. So instead, they invented a process that takes, say, a 24fps source, and puts additional frames in between each actual frame, interpolating (i.e. guessing) what those frames would look like. The process may also attempt to remove the motion blur associated with the lower framerate. This means it takes a film source and makes it look closer to video. Also, since it's basically guessing (albeit very good guesses), it can cause artifacts like unnatural looking motion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation

You mention watching movies mainly at home. It's possible if you have a newer HDTV, it may have came with some of these "enhancements" on by default. This may be why you don't see a difference.

For PCs, higher framerate is typically desired with FPS or possibly 3rd person games moving around in a 3D environment. You're typically sitting extremely close to the screen, much closer than when watching TV or a movie in a cinema. You're also interacting directly with the images on the screen. Thus, slower framerates with their choppier motion are much more noticeable and distracting, while faster framerates create smoother motion, which also increases detail, making it easier and more enjoyable to play the game. The choppier motion is also partly why many people don't like to sit too close in a movie theater, as it has a bigger effect the closer you are to the screen.

So, to sum up, 48fps isn't, in itself, inherently bad. It's the associations the different framerates have had with various formats in the past, and viewer expectations, that has made it distasteful to many in regards to what they want in a "cinematic" experience.

You know what I meant :) We perceive a blur, so why would the removal of said blur seem anything but foreign to the human eye?

Here's a generalization of what most people were saying as they were walking out of Warner's presentation:

"The Dark Knight Rises looks awesome, but what the fuck happened to The Hobbit?"

My brain is mush as I'm operating off four hours of sleep due to Paramount's late night screening of The Dictator last night, but yes, it looked like I was watching a BBC production in 3D.

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They've been holding most of their presentations this year at The Colosseum and if anything like the past few years, 4K projectors are always the norm. The studios bring in their own equipment as the setup changes from presentation-to-presentation. For example, there will be a laser projection demonstration occurring tomorrow morning.

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Originally Posted by TomOpus (Post 11204337)

It's not good when, instead of talking about the content of the footage, they talk about how the footage looks.

That's where I am as well. I understand there has to be a landmark movie to introduce a new technique and technology every now and then, but not in the middle of an existing series - everyone just wants the Hobbit movies to look and feel like the previous LOTR films. It'll be a miracle if that happens. Same with the SW prequels... save the early tech experiments for the right project.

But, LOTR doesn't have much to lose as these truly are the last films.

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Originally Posted by SuckaMC (Post 11204609)

You know what I meant :) We perceive a blur, so why would the removal of said blur seem anything but foreign to the human eye?

A faster framerate can't remove blur caused by your perception. If an object moves past you and you see a blur, seeing a video playback of that object and motion on the same scale as the original isn't going to remove the blur, not matter how fast the framerate.

In short, a faster framerate is closer to reality, since reality has an infinite framerate. The motion blur associated with slower framerates is an originally unintended artifact that we've gotten so used to that we expect it from films, but it's not reflective of reality at all.

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Originally Posted by TomOpus (Post 11204337)

It's not good when, instead of talking about the content of the footage, they talk about how the footage looks.

It's the press, they're going to go with what the story is. And by all accounts, there's no problems with the acting or special effects, but the framerate has caused a minor controversy. It's what was most noteworthy of the footage.

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Originally Posted by Artman (Post 11204616)

..everyone just wants the Hobbit movies to look and feel like the previous LOTR films. It'll be a miracle if that happens. Same with the SW prequels... save the early tech experiments for the right project.

Of all the problems I had with the Star Wars prequels, the tech they were shot with were the least of my objections. I wish the shooting tech was the most troublesome aspect of those films.

minor? I'd say it's major. Everyone is complaining about it according to people who were there.

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Originally Posted by Osiris3657 (Post 11204633)

minor? I'd say it's major. Everyone is complaining about it according to people who were there.

It's all relative. I meant "minor" in the sense that it's not likely to make the evening news on the national networks, or probably even on "Extra". It's major news within the cinephile community maybe.

Note that I don't mean to belittle the issue: it's definitely of interest to me.