Watching HDTV

Brad Grimmett · November 11, 2007

To be honest, I am really, really disappointed that channels like TMC and AMC are STILL not available in HD, whereas stupid crime dramas and hospital shows all are. Talk about injustice!

~KB

I've been disappointed by this also. But I found that Mad Men on AMC is shown on On Demand for free in HD, which is really cool because that show looks terrible on that channel on regular cable. I guess it's the channels compression. The show looks great in HD though.

Walter Graff · November 11, 2007

>They're mostly shot HDV, and you can see the limits of the format's compression in nearly every dissolve or moderately quick movement on screen.

Guess you never shot HDV. One of the most inaccurate statements going on the myth trail.

Michael Nash · November 11, 2007

In related news, it sometimes makes watching certain PBS travelogues hard to watch. They're mostly shot HDV, and you can see the limits of the format's compression in nearly every dissolve or moderately quick movement on screen.

That's usually the result of the compression used by digital satellite or digital cable delivery.

Walter Graff · November 11, 2007

That's usually the result of the compression used by digital satellite or digital cable delivery.

As some have stated here, unless you have a set of rabbit ears or some sort of other antenna to recieve the actual transmission of your station directly, you are watching what amounts ot be usually very compressed video on any cable or satellite system. In some cases, not much beter than a SD signal down the wire. Any artifacts you see are not the result of aquisition or editing but from the MPEG-2 compression used in all digital transmissions, the same compression codec usded on DVDs, in HDV/blueray, and every digital transmission made today.

Phil Rhodes · November 11, 2007

Hi,

Also, you should only see artifacting on dissolves if they're shooting HDV and posting it as HDV.

Obviously any artifacting - yes, typically in fast motion - that occurs in front of the lens is then baked in, but you shouldn't be seeing artifacts on post effects unless someone's posting it on his Macbook. Which I assume they aren't.

Um, please tell me they aren't?

Phil

Walter Graff · November 11, 2007

Phil, why must a professional such as I know you are print such rubbish. Dissolving with HDV material does not cause artifacting in every attempt. I shoot and edit HDV material every day and your statment is egregiously incorrect. And editing on a laptop does not create any more issues with dissolves or any other effects than editing on a 8 core desktop. That's just plain ignorant. Please, Please stop with the rubbish and BS.

THE ONLY REASON ANYONE IS SEEING WHAT IS BEING DISCUSSED HERE IS DUE TO COMPRESSION IN THE TRANSMISSION OF WHAT THEY WERE WATCHING.

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."

-Morpeus from the film The Matrix which describes to me what often lives on this board and others like it.

Below is a link. I just took these clips off an HDV aquisition tape. I encoded them as HDV and edited them as HDV on a Mac Book Pro. I then took the file and reduced the size for web ease, cropped it and encoded it with H264 using media cleaner. There are five dissolves. None have anythign other than a smooth dissolve to them.

HDV is a great inexpensive HD acquisition format. But normally I nor anyone I know edits it in HDV mode just as I don't know anyone that acquires DVC/DV25 and edits it as 25. There are so many great options for good acquisition and editing. Could I make problems for HDV? Yes just as

I could with any acquisition format. But I don't try to. And if it didn't work the way some folks seem to preach with what is clearly not an ounce of knowledge of how it works, then I doubt MPEG-2 acquisition would be as huge and growing as it is.

http://www.bluesky-web.com/HDVdissolvemyth1.mov

K Borowski · November 11, 2007

I've been disappointed by this also. But I found that Mad Men on AMC is shown on On Demand for free in HD, which is really cool because that show looks terrible on that channel on regular cable. I guess it's the channels compression. The show looks great in HD though.

Wow, thanks for telling me this. I was really bummed out about that show in particular only being available in SD, as it's a 35mm shoot, and I am a HUGE fan of this show.

Actually, I think our old CRT TV, I think a 20" SD Sony monitor does a much better job with standard def shows than our HD set does, because everything is compressed so heavily in the digital formats being used (don't tear me apart for not knowing all of the format names and technical terminology please!)

As for HD stuff, the compression is still very annoying, giving that same sort of HDV-esque pixelation for quick pans, quick cuts, and dissolves.

~KB

Robert Glenn · November 12, 2007

I broke down and got an HDTV.. a 32 in. philips LCD.. I love it.. bunny ears can be annoying at times, but I normally have no problem in primetime and can watch CBS, ABC, CW and PBS... I love how LCD provides very crisp color rendition.. what I dont like is the compression that can make a crappy image even over the air.. the 1080i signal from CBS will cause a lot of pixilation when there's a lot of motion, aparently due to the cmpression and some de-interlation/downconverting issues.. and sitting close to the television reveals a bit of a monet effect. Regardless, still shots look awesome. HDTV makes me want to have the TV on a lot more than before, just because it look so dang good from my desk. I do agree however that it accentuates the use of portrait diffusion to the point that it looks silly.. I the scan lines of the old 480i sets hid a lot more than we ever knew

David Mullen ASC · November 12, 2007

I do agree however that it accentuates the use of portrait diffusion to the point that it looks silly.. I the scan lines of the old 480i sets hid a lot more than we ever knew

It's a weird issue because: (1) diffusion is more obvious on a big HDTV image, and (2) diffusion is more necessary on a big HDTV image for some women's close-ups. Super-sharp images look fantastic in HDTV but they are not always flattering to middle-aged actresses (or some older male actors.)

It's a little like using diffusion for theatrical features -- due to the size of the image, you have to be more subtle with filtration. Yet you also have to factor in that these faces are really big on the screen, so make-up & lighting is more critical, etc.

I've been looking at "Moonlight" in HDTV, which is shot by Marvin Rush I think. It's super-clean, fine-grained, and I think it is shot on the Panavision Genesis. The image is really sharp for the most part, but occasionally some shots clearly use diffusion filters (like Classic Softs maybe.) Looks rich.

I think it's for HDTV broadcast where the Genesis camera seems to really shine.

Michel Hafner · November 12, 2007

The HD discs of some Genesis films look very good: Apocalypto, Next, Flyboys.

One advantage of using such cameras is that unless you really push it there is no 'grain' people might object to so the itch to reach for DNR comes up less or not at all. Which can only benefit image quality. Nothing worse than going to Madame Tussaud's when you wanted to watch a film instead.

Brad Grimmett · November 12, 2007

I was really bummed out about that show in particular only being available in SD, as it's a 35mm shoot, and I am a HUGE fan of this show.

~KB

Actually, I'm pretty certain it was shot on the F900, or maybe the 900R. I spoke to one of the operators on the show right before they started shooting and remember him telling me it was HD, but that was a while ago so I could be wrong.

Brad Grimmett · November 12, 2007

(1) diffusion is more obvious on a big HDTV image

I've noticed this too. A little bit of diffusion goes a long way when broadcast in HD.

I've been looking at "Moonlight" in HDTV, which is shot by Marvin Rush I think. It's super-clean, fine-grained, and I think it is shot on the Panavision Genesis. The image is really sharp for the most part, but occasionally some shots clearly use diffusion filters (like Classic Softs maybe.) Looks rich.

I think it's for HDTV broadcast where the Genesis camera seems to really shine.

Moonlight is actually shot on the 900R by Marvin Rush. They may have tested the Genesis at some point though, I'm not sure.

K Borowski · November 13, 2007

Actually, I'm pretty certain it was shot on the F900, or maybe the 900R. I spoke to one of the operators on the show right before they started shooting and remember him telling me it was HD, but that was a while ago so I could be wrong.

[THIS IS A TOTAL TANGENT FROM DAVE'S TOPIC, SORRY]

I'm positive it's 35mm, because I've watched all fo the behind-the-scenes footage. There are shots of Panavision 35mm cameras, shots of mag tape, shots of video taps with footage-remaining countdowns on them, and you can kinda tell in SD that it is film, definitely with HD, as I think it's shot predomiinantly on 5218. I mean, it'd be tough with a really good plug in distinguishing 35mm from HD with some grain and dust specs overlaid, except in that there would be more blown highlights with video, and funny skintones, but, for some reason, whenever anyone does this sort of thing, they always seem to use really overdone grain or go for the whole dust and scratches thing which just looks cliche and fake. It'll be great to see it in HD, although I don't like the very neutral color pallette they employ. Frankly, with the color pallette, it does make it look like digital to some extent, as I think it is digitally desaturated as I don't think they're shooting on Vision Expression 500T, although I can't see "Mad Men" as being a saturated, punchy-colored show, given the subject matter. You can sort of tell it's film too from the season finale where they are advertising for Kodak's new slide projector. Kodak would NOT let an F900 show use their company in an episode, I would think.

Now, come on, would you really shoot a show set in 1960 on an F900?! In another less-than-serious tangent, I find it funny that a show set in NYC is actually shot in Los Angeles in the middle of the summer. If any show screams "SHOOT ME IN NEW YORK!", wouldn't it be this one? They must spend a fortune with the shots that are set in winter, looks like heavy use of digital effects in some of them. Another thing that sort of kirks me about this show is an episode where Don Draper is taking some drunken home movies at a party. Now, having watched just about every snipet of promotional material for this show, they go and say how they are devoted to maintaining total realism with the show, and here is a guy shooting home movies indoors with color film (when they cut to "footage" from the camera it is color, with some hokey-looking dust, scratches and grain from some sort of bad film emulator program from the scanned 35mm footage, no doubt) without ANY sort of lighting. I want to say that, in 1960, the fastest color amateur R8mm was Kodachrome 40 or maybe Kodachrome 25, which would be an ASA of 8 or 12 indoors. Also, the camera he is shooting with, did NOT make the noise a R8 camera would make, and I don't think it was even running in the shot! Shame on you Mad Men, you're working with film, you should know that you need to light for it! Also, a lot of the still photographs on the show look to be digital, although again it's hard to tell with HD. One place I do give them the utmost credit with the realism is in the season's finale with the slide projector, they got the look of Kodak slide films just right, from what I've seen of them. There was something about Ektachromes of the time, almost like Kodachrome that just gave them these sort of punchy skin tones, and they either did an excellent job of digitally tweaking scanned film or digital files or actually went out and dug up some of the older Ektachrome stocks out there, like 6117 or 6118 the old Ektachrome 64[T]s, or EPP 6105 Ektachrome 100 saturated. Kodak just pulled the plug on three of their older Ektachromes, including 6117, so it seems a fitting sendoff for them to get air time once more. I also really like the episode where Betty Draper goes back into modeling; they got the lighting exactly right with the old quartz lamps, I think they may have had some tungsten hot lights, and they definitely got it right with the 4x5 Graphic.

If the show is available free On-Demand, I'll see if I can't put some Mullen-esque frame grabs up to illustrate what I mean here.

~KB

David Mullen ASC · November 13, 2007

I was watching an episode of "Moonlight" with a night scene at Hollywood Forever cemetary, and I saw some vertical flaring from a flashlight that is associated with the Genesis. Also, it doesn't look as deep-focus as an F900 show, but I could be wrong.

"Mad Men" definitely looks like film from what I can tell, but again, I could be wrong.

K Borowski · November 13, 2007

It certainly does ;-)

Edited November 13, 2007 by Karl Borowski

Brad Grimmett · November 13, 2007

Jeez, you guys are kicking my ass!

I guess I remembered wrong about Man Men. Funny, I've been very impressed with the look and was a bit surprised it was HD. I guess there's a good reason for that.

Regarding Moonlight, I spoke to my friend who just operated on one episode and he said they used a 900R. He never saw a Genesis on that episode, but that doesn't mean they haven't used one at some point.

K Borowski · November 14, 2007

Jeez, you guys are kicking my ass!
I guess I remembered wrong about Man Men. Funny, I've been very impressed with the look and was a bit surprised it was HD. I guess there's a good reason for that.

Regarding Moonlight, I spoke to my friend who just operated on one episode and he said they used a 900R. He never saw a Genesis on that episode, but that doesn't mean they haven't used one at some point.

Don't feel bad Brad. What are friends for? ;) Besides, I wouldn't have time to idolize this show and nitpick every little fascet of it if I actually had a job in the industry, like you do.

What you probably heard was that it was being acquired in HD, not shot in it. I honestly can only tell in a few shots that it looks "filmic". Usually, I can only tell when something is NOT film, like when there is a blown highlight or the fleshtones look sort of sickly.

If one, just one, of the camera manufacturers out there would address the REAL problems which digital, not resolution or color accuracy, but flesh tone rendition and color depth (sorry, but 8 and 10 bit just don't cut it for me), they would instantly convert me from a fierce rival into a zealous advocate.

I actually think that there are a lot of HD acquired shows on TV that are still shot with SD in mind more than HD. How can you diffuse one way for SD and another for HD without shooting every scene twice? I don't mind the excesses to make a show look good in SD as that is still what the majority of what most people watch TV on, standard definition sets. Just as you can tell a lot of the effects in the old Star Trek were shot for tiny TVs, most of them B&W, you'll probalby be able to look back on broadcasts thirty years for now and tell they're "turn of the millenium, end of SD" stuff.

What really needs to be addressed are makeup and diffusion for actresses. Forget the name, but the one actress in one of the CSI's either New York or Miami has way too many wrinkles for my liking in HD, and I don't think it is intentional; they're still stuck with doing it as they would have with SD broadcast. This may continue for longer than had originally been anticipated though. I don't think people in the United States are adopting HD nearly as quickly as they have in Europe or Japan. It may be because there is no real "push" for it, and unlike with the introduction of color it costs more for HD programming, often significantly more. We only have the local channels in HD (which you can get for free) and StarzHD, A&E HD and I think some Fox Sports programming in HD, yet we still get charged extra for that service. God help you if you want to get anything else in HD with cable; it's pricey! So hopefully one of the cable or satellite companies is going to get with it and offer more HD programming for free, and then the other will follow suit so that people finally get convinced to go out and buy their first HD sets. Hopefully this will also be the end of the "stretch" feature too! To me it is worse than pan-and-scan to take a picture (often pan-and-scan to begin with) and then stretch it out to fill a 16:9 screen.

Edited November 14, 2007 by Karl Borowski