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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Jul 17th 2002 12:07pm





Another New Movie Technology

from the forget-digital,-just-go-faster dept

There's been a lot of hype about digital film technology, but very little acceptance. A lot of that has to do with the price. ABCNews has an article about a startup that's working on a different projection technology that they say is much better. MaxVision48 isn't digital. It just shows 48 frames per second instead of 24. The end result is (according to some people) much crisper. The equipment is much cheaper than digital, and it's backwards compatible. Of course, if I remember correctly, the point at which the human can no longer distinguish a difference is significantly below 48 frames per second, so I'm not sure how big a difference it makes. And, as is pointed out at the end of the article, most movie goers simply don't care. They don't really have a problem with the picture quality of movies that are being shown today (though, they may have a problem with the content itself). If you're improving on technology that is already considered "good enough" by most of your market, then you really need to offer something addtional beyond "better quality".

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jul 17th, 2002 @ 12:18pm

    Just like HDTV versus "regular TV"

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    24 fps

    identicon
    2Lazy2Register, Jul 17th, 2002 @ 12:58pm

    I think 24 fps is ok for still or slowly moving scenes, but I've always noticed a 'jerky' quality to the film when they pan the camera rapidly. I'm wondering if the higher frame rate would clear that up.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: 24 fps

    identicon
    Ed, Jul 17th, 2002 @ 2:10pm

    Yeah, the motion artifacts you see are due to 24fps. I've heard that the reason films are 24fps has nothing to do with visual quality, but with the speed needed to play back the sound strip that was recorded on the film. Earlier, silent films were 18fps.
    I think that the limit of human perception is around 70 fps, although people who have to have the newest, fastest computer to play Quake at 150 fps will claim otherwise.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: 24 fps

    identicon
    Eric, Jul 17th, 2002 @ 3:52pm

    In the visual simulation world, where I work, the standard is 60 fps. Very few people
    notice artifacts at that rate. In high-quality flight or train simulators, 30 fps is not acceptable.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    The Average Human

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jul 17th, 2002 @ 5:29pm

    The 24 FPS is based on an *average*... so some can see the artifacts at that rate, and to some, it looks like normal fluid motion...

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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