Re: compression

From: Myron Ort (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Jul 09 2008 - 18:27:15 PDT


Thanks Pip, I guess we need to be patient for a technology closer to
our needs and I understand this better now. The "close enough for
jazz" concept doesn't quite work when we labor on every frame in our
making.

Will the original transfers to digital need to be done on a frame by
frame optical printer type set up? Or will master files done on say a
Rank or other telecine machine now be later useable when the blu-ray
or HD technology is affordable for "avant garde style" filmmakers.
Eg. will we have to start the process all over again with the first
stage film to digital transfers? Assuming we save the original files
done before compression.

Myron Ort

On Jul 9, 2008, at 5:02 PM, Pip Chodorov wrote:

> It doesn't if you compare it with betas or a film prints. It looks
> seductive and colorful but if you compare it frame by frame with a
> full resolution reproduction (I happen to have betas of many of the
> same films, and have done this experiment), you see a reduced color
> space and loss of detail. For example on Mothlight, little specks
> of color and detail are lost and replaced by a beige fuzz. Where a
> hundred subtle colors intermingled, the DVD may give you only three
> or four variations of square pixels. Watching at full speed, a
> novice viewer may have the impression of seeing a fine reproduction
> and a rich visual experience, but in fact the reproduction is not
> faithful to the original artwork. VHS may not be great, but an
> analog copy from a first class beta will keep the colors and much
> of the detail intact. MPEG2 was intended for natural, predictable
> motion, so all this frame-by-frame detail gets lost in artefacts
> and macroblocks. Depending on the film, you can squeak by: blurring
> the image 2 or 3 pixels before encoding, using a GOP of 1 and doing
> many passes can give a soft photographic effect to the compressed
> image. But it will always be lossy.
> -Pip
>
>
>
>
> At 16:04 -0700 9/07/08, Myron Ort wrote:
>> Why does the Brakhage Anthology on dvd look quite acceptable?
>>
>> Myron Ort
>>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>

__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.