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the end of civilization

vuk

vuk

\o/ choose anarchy
when the artistic sensibilities of tom cruise eclipse those of the average person, it just has to be the end.

Motion impossible: Tom Cruise declares war on TV frame interpolation
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/05/tom-cruise-motion-smoothing-interpolation

i has to purchase a replacement TV earlier in the year and was on the verge of bringing it back until i messed around with settings, tried messing with various things and found,as mr. cruise has observed, that motion smoothing was making "narcos" look like a 1990s soap opera shot on video tape.

on the surface. some of you may be inclined to interpret this as a minor 1st-world problem, when it's actually an existential catastrophe. the dumbing down of people to this level is precisely what makes them incapable of assessing the problems of donald trump, the republican party, fox news and rachel maddow.
 
First world problem for sure, but I find the factory settings on TVs so far beyond hideous I just can’t watch them.

It takes me a month or two to set up a new TV so I’m really happy with it, and I still do it the ‘old school’ way of taking the colour right out and setting up in black and white for good shadow detail, decent (but not hyped-up) contrast, no blown highlights etc etc and trying to get a good B&W balance across different TV channels and movie sources. Then add the colour, but again in a very ‘non-hyped’ way. I always turn all the effect type settings off and always have done. They either make things look worse or make no difference I can see, so why bother? I just checked and I have nothing of this kind turned on. It takes me a very long time to get to the point I’m no longer fiddling, this not helped by my being convinced that LCD screens ‘break in’ and look much, much better once they have been used for several months! That’s the point I can really dial it in and then leave it alone.

PS The other thing I try to do is not to watch ‘check your brain into the cloakroom’ type Hollywood action movies! My apologies to Mr Cruise.
 
Without wishing to sound like a geriatric judge (I'm only one of those things) I had to Google er, "narcos", to find out what it was. It turns out it is a TV series (although not set on a Greek island as I had imagined) and as such I would imagine it most likely is shot on videotape.
 
Marchbanks said:
Without wishing to sound like a geriatric judge (I'm only one of those things) I had to Google er, "narcos", to find out what it was. It turns out it is a TV series (although not set on a Greek island as I had imagined) and as such I would imagine it most likely is shot on videotape.
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Do they still use videotape? How quaint ;)
 
Good point, I suppose it's all on hard drives nowadays, isn't it. It's a long time since I used to stand in front of an Ampex VR-2000.
 
vuk said:
on the surface. some of you may be inclined to interpret this as a minor 1st-world problem, when it's actually an existential catastrophe. the dumbing down of people to this level is precisely what makes them incapable of assessing the problems of donald trump, the republican party, fox news and rachel maddow.
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'Twas ever thus, though. We've always had bread and circuses for the masses.

A similar manifestation occurs in audio compression, IMHO, which reduces the complex and subtle art of music to something shallow and blunt. I think it's an almost inevitable trend. There are pockets of resistance, but the mass market dumbing down is hardly a new phenomenon.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
'Twas ever thus, though. We've always had bread and circuses for the masses.

A similar manifestation occurs in audio compression, IMHO, which reduces the complex and subtle art of music to something shallow and blunt. I think it's an almost inevitable trend. There are pockets of resistance, but the mass market dumbing down is hardly a new phenomenon.
Click to expand...

The thing that makes me chuckle about this is it being Tom Cruise making the argument. To my mind he typifies the Hollywood ‘script the size of a postage stamp’ dumbed-down stunt/CGI-filed blockbuster. A purveyor of unreality and illusion complaining about another related form of unreality and illusion. I’m not a total snob, I do watch some of this stuff now and again, but I’d never in a million years use it to setup a TV!
 
My TV must be too old to have this feature, but in solidarity I yelled at the neighbourhood kids to get off my lawn and shook my cane vigorously at some skateboard punks.

Joe
 
I don't know what it is at all but after I bought an HD TV and a blue ray player I felt that the scenes were so clear and the lighting so obviously revealing studio sets that I had to smooth the picture on my TV significantly. To the point where I was back to watching with the same detail as my previous player and TV.
 
It sounds more likely that what über douche-bag, and over-compensating ageing girly-boy, Cruise really wants for Christmas is a vintage Donna Mills 'Knots Landing' close-up lens filter.
 
Craig B said:
It sounds more likely that what über douche-bag, and over-compensating ageing girly-boy, Cruise really wants for Christmas is a vintage Donna Mills 'Knots Landing' close-up lens filter.
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That's a bit harsh, the bloke's just been kicked off the next Jack Reacher film cos someone's noticed he's a dwarf.
 
Marchbanks said:
Without wishing to sound like a geriatric judge (I'm only one of those things) I had to Google er, "narcos", to find out what it was. It turns out it is a TV series (although not set on a Greek island as I had imagined) and as such I would imagine it most likely is shot on videotape.
Click to expand...
The notion of filming on "video" as I was used to in my BBC days is long gone. Back then, video was very much the poor relation; limited to 625 line interlaced. At that time commercials and theatrical movies were always shot on film as the video technology produced a much poorer picture.

Ever since Star Wars II (iirc), many (now most) theatrical movies have been shot on "video". Modern digital cameras can be set to replicate the characteristics of film. You probably own a camera yourself which could be used for a professional movie (my 3 year old Panny GH4 is more than capable).

What's really interesting is that film as an acquisition format is still much loved and much used. Amazingly (delightfully) a lot of the top end television programmes are still shot on 35mm; Breaking Bad being a good example. Narcos (season 1) was shot digitally, on a Red Epic Dragon. In my opinion it looks absolutely beautiful.

So the lines of distinction are pretty much blurred these days and 35mm/digital are essentially interchangeable.
 
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