I’ve been watching The Wire series recently with a buddy of mine- we’ll call him “Amir”… because that’s his name. So Amir and I watched all of Season 1 at my house. When Season 2 came around Amir requests that we watch it at his house this time...
You need to understand that I’m very particular about my TV/movie watching. I like a nice sound level where you can feel the action. I don’t like open windows that cause glare on my screen. And I want a nice size Television set with a high resolution so it looks as good as possible.
Amir assures me that he just got a new Samsung TV that’s top-of-the-line! So I sigh audibly... and then reluctantly agree out of respect to go to his house (since he made the trek to my house so many times before). So... Season 2... The Wire… Amir's house...
We pop in the DVD in his PS3, start the movie… and immediately I noticed something was off…
As the new opening titles rolled, I asked him if his new Samsung TV was on a weird setting. He reassured me that this was a new TV. Top-of-the-line. The guy who installed it set it to the optimal setting.
I sat there confused…
Then I wondered if HD was becoming more prevalent when Season 2 of The Wire was being shot- and they just fucked it up. However, I quickly dismissed that since I heard that all of the show was shot in film so it couldn’t have been that.
The show started and I really analyzed what I felt was wrong with the picture quality. It seemed to me that the actors moved in a peculiar way; I described it as they were moving like vampires. It wasn’t smooth. They kinda... jumped around. It was as if I could see every frame more clearly and it was, ironically, creating a choppy effect.
After watching the first episode I played with his settings and found that his contrast was set at 100%. I, of course, criticized him for boosting his contrast to its max setting. His response,
“Can you really have too much contrast? Have you ever had a piece of chocolate and said ‘Well, this is just too chocolate-y’?” To which I responded
“Well, have you ever had coffee and said “that’s too strong’?” If he didn’t understand my point there then he was never going to get it. I lowered his contrast to 60% and we started the next episode…
Lowering the contrast helped a bit; still, it seemed off somehow. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. After the 2nd episode I found this setting that said Auto Motion Plus 120hz. I switched that fucker off and I skipped to the middle of the episode again…
“Thank God! You must have this on anti-juddering or something.” I tried to explain to him that Spielberg’s Cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, did this thing in Saving Private Ryan where he adjusted the shutter angle to reduce the natural blur that gives the illusion of motion- so the end result feels choppy; that’s kind of like what anti-juddering achieves in a digital way…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_disc_shutter
His blank stare and half-hearted "uh-huh" suggested to me that he didn’t really know what I was talking about. And I also realized that I didn’t know what I was talking about so I did some research...
Most of us know about the different types of resolutions, anything from 480p (enhanced-Definition TV at 4:3 aspect ratio, 720p (HDTV, with a 16:9 aspect ratio), and then you have your 1080i (interlaced) and your 1080p (progressive). These are considered “full HD” and are similar to 2K digital cinema technology…
Most programming I believe is in 480p. HD programming as well as PS3 and Xbox 360 gaming requires 720p and very little, save for Blu Ray- or the rare video game or show, gets up to 1080p. Anyway, it gets a bit more complicated than this- and beyond my own understanding- but for now this makes my point. 1080 seems to be the best solution for watching films on your television…
Except that these high-end televisions are 60hz which means they refresh their image 60 times a second. This produces a clearer image- ideal for digital films shot in 30 fps (frames per second). However, for traditional films shot at 24fps, they have to do what’s called a 3:2 pulldown which means that for every three frames that are displayed there is a single video frame being displayed twice. This is necessary when converting 24 fps to 30fps (or 29.97fps) but it can cause a jittery effect when a lot of motion is taking place in the film- this was later termed “juddering”.
The manufacturers' answer to this problem is the 120hz televisions. Now you can display digital film shot at 30 or 60fps, and you can also display 24fps, as it divides evenly (120/5=24) as well…
Since the refresh rate has doubled to 120hz, each frame is super sharp. Not only that, but to further eliminate that “nasty blurring” that can be found on a single frame they created something called “anti-juddering”- or motion interpolation technology…
Different manufacturers have their own market-friendly names for them like Sony’s Motion Flow, or Sharp’s TrueD, or Toshiba’s Film Stabilization, or in Amir’s new LCD Samsung: Auto Motion Plus 120hz. However they wanna deem it, the aimed effect is to “smooth” out the image, creating what has been referred to as a “soap-opera effect.”
Here’s the thing: a lot of people are digging this effect because they say it looks more real. Sure, if you’re watching football, Planet Earth, or anything originally shot in HD I’m sure its fine, but lets go back to film history for a second here.
The film industry decided decades ago that shooting 24 frames/second was the cheapest and most effective way to recreate real life on the big screen. If you record things in fast-motion and analyze an individual frame you will see a blurred image. This tricks the eye into thinking its really seeing something in motion, when actually you’re looking at 24 individual frames per second…
Now if we were to artificially go into these still frames and “clean them up” by removing that blur so they appear “sharper” what you’ll be sacrificing is that illusion of proper movement. When I was watching The Wire, which again was shot at 24 fps, the characters seemed to strobe- I felt like I was high and highly perceiving each individual frame.
So this is where the debate lies…
Some people swear by this anti-juddering technology that sharpens the image. I, myself, am a purist and I want to watch my films- on my Television- as close to what it would be like to actually project the image onto my television. Most film connoisseurs I know, whether they’re directors, cinematographers, or just fans, prefer it this way as well. And it’s the people who can’t perceive the difference- or don’t care- that are baited into buying these “high-end” TVs.
Why, if people think that soap operas look cheap, would they want to invest in a television that creates a “Soap-Opera Effect”? I don’t get it.
By the way, you can turn off anti-juddering but you cannot prevent your television from displaying at 120hz if its that type of television. I already think its bad enough to have an overly sharpened film, but adding anti-juddering goes too far.
In the end, I get watching sports, or gaming with one of these TVs, but as far as The Wire goes, trust me, if I could project that shit onto my TV in 24fps I totally would. For now, I’m going to wait until technology settles this little mess out and TVs drop in price.
~ JW
If by "settle this little mess" you mean some kind of an anti-juddering vs. anti-anti-juddering rivalry ala VHS vs. Beta or HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray I don't think there is anything to be settled. The anti-juddering can be turned off on any TV that has the function, so you can turn it off for movies and turn it on for sports. Since you have the option to have it on or off I see no downside to buying a TV with this technology, save for the extra cost. But if you are worried that someday all of the TVs will either be one tech or the other with no option to turn it on or off I don't see that happening. There are too many people that strongly perfer one over the other and as long as there is a demand for both markets and they don't seem to be having any difficulties adding a setting that can be switched on or off it will probably remain that way. Now,iIf you want them to get rid of 120Hz televisions that will probably never happen because no one in their right mind should want added frames from 3:2 pulldown. If fact they are now even marketing 240Hz televisions so my prediction would be to get used to the idea of 60Hz TVs becoming less and less available.
ReplyDelete-Mikey Newman