Weird effect I noticed when watching movies off bluray/dvd

[Gingerbread Demon]

Is this some kind of optical illusion / effect?

I noticed this on a few movies in both bluray and dvd that if I fast forward a scene it suddenly seems to become sharper and it really feels weird to see this kind of effect. Yes you see the scene in fast forward but the picture seems to look sharper on the edges and then when you return to normal playback it just changes back to what it was before.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, film images tend to look like video when fast-forwarded. I think it's largely because video has a higher frame rate, so when the frame rate of film is sped up, our brains interpret it more like video. Also maybe because the film grain blurs together and smooths out, or something? I don't know exactly why it works.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yeah, film images tend to look like video when fast-forwarded. I think it's largely because video has a higher frame rate, so when the frame rate of film is sped up, our brains interpret it more like video. Also maybe because the film grain blurs together and smooths out, or something? I don't know exactly why it works.

It's weird isn't it?

I've always wondered why movies are not recorded in this kind of manner if the image is clearer?

 

[Christopher]

I've always wondered why movies are not recorded in this kind of manner if the image is clearer?

Tradition. People like film to look like film. When video came along, it was associated with lower production quality, things like soap operas and sitcoms, so at least in the US, film was seen as classier. Also it's a softer image, which looks better to many people. It's not really a matter of clarity, just sharpness. Film is innately high-definition, so it's actually clearer than standard-definition video. It just has a different visual texture.

There have been some attempts to make movies at higher frame rates like 60 fps. The Hobbit trilogy was made that way, giving it a very lifelike appearance. I kinda liked it that way, but for many audiences, it was too different from what they're used to. So it's never really caught on. Douglas Trumbull tried it decades earlier -- I think he wanted to shoot Brainstorm at 60 fps -- but he couldn't get studios or theaters to go along with it, IIRC.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Tradition. People like film to look like film. When video came along, it was associated with lower production quality, things like soap operas and sitcoms, so at least in the US, film was seen as classier. Also it's a softer image, which looks better to many people. It's not really a matter of clarity, just sharpness. Film is innately high-definition, so it's actually clearer than standard-definition video. It just has a different visual texture.

There have been some attempts to make movies at higher frame rates like 60 fps. The Hobbit trilogy was made that way, giving it a very lifelike appearance. I kinda liked it that way, but for many audiences, it was too different from what they're used to. So it's never really caught on. Douglas Trumbull tried it decades earlier -- I think he wanted to shoot Brainstorm at 60 fps -- but he couldn't get studios or theaters to go along with it, IIRC.

That's really interesting to learn

 

[Non Sync]

The compression process takes starts with one full frame image and number of subsequent frames that one contains the image information that changed from the previous frame. After a number of those frames, it then starts again with another full frame image. This method works great for static images or images with little motion.

The processing gear goes crazy on things like basketball where the camera is quickly following a player running down the court with the crowd in the background. Or New Year's Eve when they drop all the confetti. Things also get really weird when the stream loses frames.

Douglas Trumbull tried it decades earlier -- I think he wanted to shoot Brainstorm at 60 fps -- but he couldn't get studios or theaters to go along with it, IIRC.

Trumbull called the process Showscan and wanted to use it in Brainstorm for just the sequences showing the recordings of people's perceptions and sensations. Having two different projection systems just wasn't practical.

 

[Christopher]

Trumbull called the process Showscan and wanted to use it in Brainstorm for just the sequences showing the recordings of people's perceptions and sensations. Having two different projection systems just wasn't practical.

Oh, that's right, I remember now. He had to settle for using widescreen for the VR and standard aspect ratio for the real-world stuff.

 

[Kor]

Another recent high-frame-rate feature film was Ang Lee's Gemini Man, done in 120 FPS and in 3D (only shown that way in certain theaters, though). The closest you can get to replicating that experience at home is the 4K UHD disc which is in 60 FPS (technically 59.94) and not in 3D. Even at 60 FPS, to my eye it makes it look too much like a Playstation 4 game or UHD footage of the super bowl or something. Maybe a lot of this boils down to what we as audiences have been conditioned to. Whatever the case, the higher frame rate on a huge screen can create a kind of sensory overload, with the potentially motion sickness-inducing illusion that everything is moving faster than normal, even though it actually isn't. Many viewers reported feeling dizzy and nauseated from the high-frame-rate showings of The Hobbit.

While the typical feature film frame rate of 24-ish FPS comes with its own set of issues, it still has that 'dreamy' quality with a certain level of abstraction and more perceptible motion blur that gives the whole thing a cinematic feel, rather than the hyper-realistic feel of sports or news footage that can take the viewer out of the illusory fantasy of cinema.

Kor

 

[Non Sync]

I know I don't like how higher frame rates make movies look like video rather than film. Conversely, I also don't like video at film rates in an effort to reproduce the film look in video.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The point about the difference between TV and movie frame rates is interesting. Of course, the TV field rate was twice the frame rate for NTSC: 59.94 Hz versus 29.97 Hz. Two field scans were required per frame with the field lines being interlaced on screen. For PAL and 1080i/50, the field and frame rates are 50 Hz and 25 Hz. In PAL and 1080i/50 broadcasts that use speed-up to show movies, each pair of fields is scanned from a single frame of film, which results in a movie running in about 4% less time - which is probably not a very significant difference for the brain to notice. I don't notice any difference in sharpness during fast forward so perhaps the hypothesis could be correct. I do know I don't like watching unfamiliar movie frame rates. The Hobbit gave me a headache.

 

[Christopher]

I do know I don't like watching unfamiliar movie frame rates. The Hobbit gave me a headache.

I'm surprised it didn't give me one, since I'm generally pretty sensitive to sources of sensory discomfort. But I actually found it enjoyable once I got used to it. A lot of the CGI looked like video game cut scenes, but that wasn't the fault of the frame rate.

An odd psychological quirk, though -- it often seemed to me like the image was moving in fast-forward, even though the characters were moving normally. I guess my brain subliminally sensed the increased frame rate and associated it with watching fast-forwarded video.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Oh yes, I also sensed that the action in that movie seemed unnaturally fast - particularly in the CGI-dominated goblin king scene when the dwarves were escaping. I don't think my poor old noggin could cope with the sensory overload.