
Motion Smoothing Is Ruining Cinema - gilad
https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/motion-smoothing-is-ruining-cinema.html
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deathByEntropy
At its core, tastes are subjective, and this is no exception.

The appearance of video is harsh and artificial. It's cold, but also at times
exceptionally clean, crisp and vivid.

Music videos (as the very term suggests) often display a mastery of this style
of production, which, when met with intent, can prove evocative in its own
way.

If you approach movies knowing that the motion smoothing is a side effect of
the monitor, it's actually an interesting way to rewatch old movies and shows.
It has a surreal effect, and the movies themselves are otherwise impossible to
truly change. It is unquestionably the technology introducing a new layer of
distortion.

Which can only mean one thing: the preference is generational, and with time
it might just so happen that a generation gap will erase all knowledge of the
way things were, and there will arrive a new normal, distorted and alien to
those who grew up exposed to the original norms.

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jgalentine007
I don't really agree. I think motion smoothing is a gimmick. Like 3d and
curved TVs before it. It gave another metric (besides size) for manufacturers
to compete on - 60hz, 120hz, 240hz etc.

Motion smoothing just doesn't look better, especially when it is poorly
implemented (the norm) - the motion tends to speed up and slow down, which is
worse than the judder it is supposed to fix.

Even properly sourced hi frame rate material looks bad - I saw the Hobbit in
HFR and it was difficult to watch the seemingly fake production - my mind
could no longer be tricked because there was so much detail in each second for
it to reason with. Nevermind the extra lengths that Peter Jackson had to go
through to properly light the film, and the extra detail needed in the set
work, costumes and makeup.

Change my mind!

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dTal
It's still a generational, subjective, relearn-able thing. Assuming it's true
that high framerates make it harder to trick the eye - so what? Nobody
complained about Yoda blatantly being a puppet. There are lots of dimensions
in which you can suspend your disbelief. If your assertion is true, it simply
means we have to suspend our disbelief in makeup, set design etc just a little
bit more, in exchange for vastly more realistic motion and artistic space in
which to put detail. I think it's a win - I bet set design got a lot harder
with the switch to color, too.

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m463
I remember I got a tv a many years ago that had a cinema setting with accurate
colors.

The only problem was that you pretty much had to watch it in dark room (LCD
before LED backlighting).

During the day I had to switch back to vivid.

I will say that most aspect ratio problems have gotten better over the years
(excepting maybe youtube)

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rasz
Old man yells at cloud. I bet he reminisces the "good times" at Yale learning
on hand cranked 16mm. Dont want Motion Smoothing? Start shooting in 60Hz.

> motion smoothing is fundamentally ruining the way we experience film

and fluid perception of reality is ruining this journos life I bet

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pfranz
> Dont want Motion Smoothing? Start shooting in 60Hz.

A few like James Cameron and Peter Jackson have tried. Nobody liked it because
it looked like a soap opera. I'm not against higher fps, but film has some
historical limitations it clings to that remind us it's "film" such as 24fps
and widescreen.

The big complaint is that it's on by default--it's not something people are
(explicitly) choosing.

Personally, I hate motion smoothing. It's just a gimmick to add a bullet list
to the box. I figure it might be useful for sports (I would say video games,
but it generally introduces a noticeable lag). It sucks that it's on by
default and not consistent or obvious to turn off. If you're happy to opt-in,
you do you.

~~~
im3w1l
I thought it looked fine. Besides, if you use a high framerate you can always
sell a downsample and leave open the possibility of a remaster should tastes
change later.

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pfranz
The problem is the shutter value, which is another artistic choice that
differentiates "film" from video and will contribute to the choppiness.

Standard for film is a 180degree shutter (half open half closed when
capturing). Originally, you had to physically advance the film to the next
frame while the shutter was closed. Video would be effectively always open
giving you a longer blur. If you shoot at a 60fps instead of 24fps you're
going to have 2.5x less blur (and also 2.5x less light). So downsampling
wouldn't look right at 24 or 30fps.

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Someone
If I’m not mistaken, video already is broadcast at 50/60 Hz. If so, how do
broadcasters turn a 24 frames per second movie signal into a 50/60 frames per
second video signal?

I would guess they use some (advanced) interpolation. If so, isn’t the problem
one of a) interpolating twice instead of in one go and or b) using lower
quality software inside the tv?

~~~
paulryanrogers
IIRC it's called 3/2 pull down. Basically they double a frame every so often.

