HFR: Let's Figure This Out

[Frank Glencairn]

Reed Morano, ASC has put up a petition lobbying against the "motion-smoothing" circuits in modern

This issue is really important to me because even though it’s a visual issue — it affects my narrative experience as a viewer because it’s so distracting. I don’t know if it’s just that I “know too much,” but I can see the difference right away when “smooth motion” is on a TV: it turns me off. It cheapens the look of anything shot at 24fps.

With that in mind, I can’t enjoy any film or TV show when that setting is on. It feels too real. I know it’s not the look the filmmaker intended. Add to that, I’m a filmmaker and a cinematographer.
If you took a photocopy of a painting and hung it up in a museum, trying to pass it off as a real painting, it would look cheap and lack texture. That’s what motion interpolation does to the moving image.

I remember the first time I saw my work affected by motion interpolation. A friend of mine had gotten a new HDTV and he called me in to the living room, he was watching my film on DVD,Frozen River. Well, I was shocked to see the film on the TV when I came in the room — the 24 fps effect had been totally wiped out, and it looked like I was watching an episode of “General Hospital.”

It was so disheartening to see that cinematic look I had put everything into completely eradicated — all my work ruined by the default setting of a television manufacturer. Ever since then, I’ve made it my mission to turn this feature off every TV I see. It’s not fair to the artist or the viewer.

One time I tried to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest at Catherine Keener’s house with her and her son and it was like, “what the fuck am I even watching? Is this a Lifetime movie from 1990?” I stopped the movie and sat there for ten minutes going into her TV’s menus trying to fix it, which I eventually did. It just needs to be much easier than that because only a very small portion of the population is that anal and has that kind of patience. Even worse, there was the time a few years back, before I got into the guild, when I was at another ASC D.P.’s house showing him my reel. We put the reel on his TV and everything that was 35mm on the reel looked like video. He had smooth motion on his TV and didn’t even realize.

People often tell me it’s a lost cause to try and change this feature and that the average viewer cannot tell the difference. But I’ve asked everyone I know, and, since starting this petition, I’ve realized that many more people outside of the film industry are disgusted by this default setting and simply had no idea how to change it or had no idea that they could change it.

The bottom line is by allowing it to exist as a default, we are basically throwing away our freedom of artistic expression as filmmakers because someone else is deciding that our work will be seen completely differently in the end. And we have no choice about it. Frankly, I’d rather there at least be an option and let the viewer decide if they want “Sports Look” or “Cinema Look.” I guarantee if it were that easy, most consumers would press the “Cinema” button if they knew it would keep their movies looking the right way.

Even if you’re a person who doesn’t really about visuals and you only care about the story, you should still fight for this cause because the visuals are there to set the mood for you to get into the story. As someone so eloquently put it in the comments section of this petition, “Smooth motion kills emotion.” This issue is really important to me because even though it’s a visual issue — it affects my narrative experience as a viewer because it’s so distracting. I don’t know if it’s just that I “know too much,” but I can see the difference right away when “smooth motion” is on a TV: it turns me off. It cheapens the look of anything shot at 24fps.

With that in mind, I can’t enjoy any film or TV show when that setting is on. It feels too real. I know it’s not the look the filmmaker intended. Add to that, I’m a filmmaker and a cinematographer.
If you took a photocopy of a painting and hung it up in a museum, trying to pass it off as a real painting, it would look cheap and lack texture. That’s what motion interpolation does to the moving image.

http://filmmakermagazine.com/88128-...ainst-tvs-smooth-motion-setting/#.VFNLelappFy

 

[Elsie N]

Reed Morano, ASC has put up a petition lobbying against the "motion-smoothing" circuits in modern





http://filmmakermagazine.com/88128-...ainst-tvs-smooth-motion-setting/#.VFNLelappFy

While I respect his viewpoint and understand his objections from his personal perspective, I disagree with his attempt to make everyone and everything conform to his desired reality. I think he can achieve his goal by withholding his content from those who exhibit in anything other than his prescribed formats. Obviously there is a market for something other than the status quo or the audiences would reject the changes.

 

[Frank Glencairn]

While I respect his viewpoint and understand his objections .....

Her viewpoint and her objections- Reed Morano is a girl.

 

[Elsie N]

Her viewpoint and her objections- Reed Morano is a girl.

Heh! these unisex names get me everytime. '-)

(Which may sound strange coming from me considering my name, but it was supposed to be El sie (L. C.), the el being the male version of "the" in Tex Mex.)

 

[Julio Quintana]

While I respect his viewpoint and understand his objections from his personal perspective, I disagree with his attempt to make everyone and everything conform to his desired reality. I think he can achieve his goal by withholding his content from those who exhibit in anything other than his prescribed formats. Obviously there is a market for something other than the status quo or the audiences would reject the changes.

Wait, but isn't she combatting the trend in which tv manufacturers make all projects conform to their desired reality? As someone who just spent weeks in the DI getting the image exactly right for my story, I also hate the idea of my movie looking totally different because of a default setting designed to sell more televisions. This is like spending years writing a novel, and people reading it on a Kindle that automatically replaces sophisticated words with more common synonyms. That would be absurd and all writers would protest.

Well movies are a visual language and changes to the image can change the meaning, so any self-respecting craftsman should try and protect the integrity of their image.

Elsie, this isn't a shot at you, I just really hate smooth motion tv's.

Julio

 

[David Battistella]

It's the same in print. A typeset, point size and layout have an impact on the read. It's all about how we present and structure things. If everything is just to be one lowest common denominator what is the point of calling any of of our work an artistic endeavor.

Its nice that someone cares enough about this stuff to let people know, "hey look, they use this mode to sell tv's but if you want the most out of it, go into your settings and switch this around." I don't see a problem with that. I also get that they see an image in the store and then get home and say, "woah, this looks to dim, or something."

Basically, are people educated enough in color literacy and such that this matters. It matters to us, but I'm not sure the general population is as estute about what they are taking in.

They might be more about the magic of it all and less about what is behind the curtain.

None of this means that we should not strive for excellence and inform people about seeing things the way they were intended. Its a double edged sword. You need the TV distribution, but you don't want it to destroy the work you have done.

Battistella

 

[Frank Glencairn]

. Obviously there is a market for something other than the status quo or the audiences would reject the changes.

So how about cropping the Monalisa to 16:9, changing her hair color and - while at it - painting nerd glasses and a beard on her face?

 

[Julio Quintana]

So how about cropping the Monalisa to 16:9, changing her hair color and - while at it - painting nerd glasses and a beard on her face?

I could accept the smooth motion craze if it were the end user consciously choosing that look and changing the settings in their tv. How they choose to experience my movie in their own homes is up to them. But it appears to be a default setting from the factory that's difficult for owners to find in the menu to turn off. Every time I've turned it off on other peoples' TV sets, the owner usually says, "Wow! It looks like a movie now!"

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Perhaps the instruction book should be replaced with an instructional DVD (autoplay with no menus/copyright notices and loops when finished) which takes the owner through the basics before explaining what the different image functions are and why they might choose to switch them on or off.

 

[Elsie N]

Wait, but isn't she combatting the trend in which tv manufacturers make all projects conform to their desired reality? As someone who just spent weeks in the DI getting the image exactly right for my story, I also hate the idea of my movie looking totally different because of a default setting designed to sell more televisions. This is like spending years writing a novel, and people reading it on a Kindle that automatically replaces sophisticated words with more common synonyms. That would be absurd and all writers would protest.

Well movies are a visual language and changes to the image can change the meaning, so any self-respecting craftsman should try and protect the integrity of their image.

Elsie, this isn't a shot at you, I just really hate smooth motion tv's.

Julio

From a content creator POV I completely understand your viewpoint. All I'm saying is, we have become such a hurry-up world that the masses consume content in distracted mode (unless in a theater where their short attention span is lengthened) and I think TV makers just try to get us through our distracted watching by using settings that cause the fewest complaints by the general public.

That leaves us as content creators, the movie theater as our only hope for getting our story before the public in something close to what we intended. But to really have control, we have to even control the venue (mobile movie theater using a Laser Projector) and oversee the exhibition one-showing at a time... because as pointed out many times here on REDuser, even movie theaters differ in the projection of content.

So how about cropping the Monalisa to 16:9, changing her hair color and - while at it - painting nerd glasses and a beard on her face?

I suppose you will think me blasphemous but I once did almost that very thing. That is, I took old paintings (in the public domain) and digitally smoothed out the canvas matrix and changed the colors or the shape of the people within. Even added subtitles. '-)

I had great fun doing that and in my mind, improved on the original.

Perhaps the instruction book should be replaced with an instructional DVD (autoplay with no menus/copyright notices and loops when finished) which takes the owner through the basics before explaining what the different image functions are and why they might choose to switch them on or off.

Exactly! When we buy a new computer there usually is a tutorial on settings and whatnot... so an included USB thumb drive, especially when the TV is 4k, to help the user get the best out of the TV using some included 4k footage for reference would do wonders for the watching experience.

 

[Frank Glencairn]

F

I suppose you will think me blasphemous but I once did almost that very thing. That is, I took old paintings (in the public domain) and digitally smoothed out the canvas matrix and changed the colors or the shape of the people within. Even added subtitles. '-).

You are blasphemous.

 

[Elsie N]

You are blasphemous.

Am not.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Just wanted to toss some gasoline on this treads fire....

To view movies the right way you need a viewing instrument that gives you 1/48 of a second of black then 1/48 of a second of an image that was shot with 1/48 of a second sinewave additive exposure... then you pretty much got the standard for film viewing right. So basically if you go see a real movie, lets say 120 minutes long at the movie theater Then you where watching a black canvas for 60 minutes and only for the other 60 minutes you saw pictures....

But as it is you LCD screen or OLED or Plasma and pretty much every TV set out there and also digital projectors does not do black in between frames, the refresh rates are simply not there yet. If they where I'm sure TV's would have that as a setting as it would drastically improve the film feel. The smoothing, or the high refresh rate stuff, or even the old shitty 50 or 60i shit is all simple bad tricks to get around the fact that they can not do what the film projectors have been doing since day one an that is to shut the light between frames.

But I think it's not so far fetched that we will soon see TV's that has the enough speed to be able to dip to black in sinewave between frames when viewing 24p. Personally I'm really looking forward to it.

 

[Frank Glencairn]

But I think it's not so far fetched that we will soon see TV's that has the enough speed to be able to dip to black in sinewave between frames when viewing 24p. Personally I'm really looking forward to it.

That's exactly what I meant, when I said "a motion mount for the display".

 

[Stefan Scherperel]

Bjorn, I agree with you, that that would be amazing to have televisions that could truly replicate the cinema viewing experience, however I don't think that will ever make it to the consumer world. Right now consumers buy TV's based on specs. That is why manufacturers are constantly promoting 120hz, 240hz in big bold writing on their televisions. Even televisions that can do true 24 or 48hz playback do not promote those features. .. why? because the numbers are not impressive.
They petition above was not asking that television manufacturers get rid of HFR playback on televisions, rather it was asking that they do not make it the default viewing experience, which is then in turn changing the original productions viewing intention. However, like I said, manufacturers sell televisions based on specs, and what sells more than high numbers, side to side comparisons saying "This side looks better. . see?" or blasting the color saturation and turning on strong plastic noise reduction as default settings.
So in short, manufacturers do not make money with the best intention of the film makers at heart. They make money over what sells to the average consumer, and a TV that promoted giving a black frame every other frame would never sell in a world that promotes seemless, flawless faster than the eye can see tv's that make a plastic barbie world out of everything. It's truly a shame, and I hate seeing my hard work end up in plastic vision! it truely drives me crazy!

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Bjorn, I agree with you, that that would be amazing to have televisions that could truly replicate the cinema viewing experience, however I don't think that will ever make it to the consumer world. Right now consumers buy TV's based on specs. That is why manufacturers are constantly promoting 120hz, 240hz in big bold writing on their televisions. Even televisions that can do true 24 or 48hz playback do not promote those features. .. why? because the numbers are not impressive.
They petition above was not asking that television manufacturers get rid of HFR playback on televisions, rather it was asking that they do not make it the default viewing experience, which is then in turn changing the original productions viewing intention. However, like I said, manufacturers sell televisions based on specs, and what sells more than high numbers, side to side comparisons saying "This side looks better. . see?" or blasting the color saturation and turning on strong plastic noise reduction as default settings.
So in short, manufacturers do not make money with the best intention of the film makers at heart. They make money over what sells to the average consumer, and a TV that promoted giving a black frame every other frame would never sell in a world that promotes seemless, flawless faster than the eye can see tv's that make a plastic barbie world out of everything. It's truly a shame, and I hate seeing my hard work end up in plastic vision! it truely drives me crazy!

One clarification.

120Hz, 240 Hz, 480Hz, 960 Hz and other high Hz figures you see in TV specs are primarily related to LCD backlight, and not the actual frame rate.

Motion interpolation and backlight frequency are two different things. In "Cinema/24p" modes, frames are simply multiplied (to a certain level which is not the maximum frequency of the backlight) and interpolation is not used.
Viewer is not seeing your work in HFR. He is seeing the same temporal sampling.

TV can have high frequency backlight while you can watch 24p as it actually looks. As much as an LCD can represent it, due to inert nature of liquid crystals. Lower frequencies of LCD backlight are annoyingly pulsating and more eye-straining, which is greatly reduced this way. Another reason for this is dealing with motion blur, because typically a 1080p LCD screen is not actually 1080p any more once the camera starts moving, which is caused by its nature and nature of the human eye. In case of plasmas, 2000-3000Hz frequency is also not related to motion interpolation.

Apart from films, for majority of content motion interpolation actually helps, so since majority of content gets more viewing time, manufacturer's choice is not unreasonable as it may seem to the storyteller.
They do make some survey's before developing roadmaps and investing billions.

 

[BrendanLeahy]

That's exactly what I meant, when I said "a motion mount for the display".

I did a test that I still need to upload, but I found something interesting...

I filmed a ceiling fan spinning, and at first played with the frame rate and shutter speed to see what would match what my eyes were seeing in the spinning fan in terms of motion blur. Mind you, this was on an MX sensor without a motion mount, so there were a bit of rolling shutter issues.

What I found actually was that shutter angle and base frame rates couldn't match it too well. It wasn't until I pushed the aperture from T/2.1 up to about T/22 that I felt the blur was very close to what I saw with my eyes.

Does the motion mount do this without a huge loss of light when it adds blur? I know Phil mentioned it can make things look more pleasing, but I wasn't sure how close it could come.

 

[Maik Müller]

Again the gaming-sector has something here thats looking interesting. G-Sync and Lightboost. Two technologies that hopefully will work together soon (at the moment you have to choose one of them) and get adopted to TVs. It might not be the biggest breakthrough, but it's a nice step.

Getting some video-software ready to use that stuff will be a bit complicated...

 

[Maik Müller]

On a side-note: Youtube allows HFR-content now, up to 60fps but limited to 1080p. The max fps for 4k stays at 30fps.

 

[Frank Glencairn]

Bjorn, I agree with you, that that would be amazing to have televisions that could truly replicate the cinema viewing experience, however I don't think that will ever make it to the consumer world.

It just need a fancy new name/acronym and something with a higher number, and they will buy EVERYTHING.