4 ms·

“A lot of the information is thrown away when you digitize. In sound terms it’s overtones and subtones—things that you can’t consciously hear. An analog medium

“A lot of the information is thrown away when you digitize. In sound terms it’s overtones and subtones—things that you can’t consciously hear. An analog medium has all kinds of complicated cross-talk between the different frequencies of information that you’re getting, which have a particular character to them” Similar to audiophile hokeyness. The dust and dirt on the film must add warmth and character, similar to the hiss and warble of analog tape. If that’s your thing, fine, but having grown up listening to tape and records, the first time I heard a CD, my jaw dropped. It was really that much better. Someone told me once the best record will always be better than the average CD, but the best CD is always better than the best record. I do concede the “loudness wars” have really screwed up digital audio, but it is fundamentally better, and I’m sure uncomprsssed digital video is the same.

frostburg 8y ago
No, he's right about this specific thing. 8K scans do not outresolve 70mm film in terms of lp/mm. 4K projection is just inadequate.
- peatmoss 8y ago
  I’ve watched 4k digital films at two exceptional digitally equipped theaters: https://cinerama.com/Technology.aspx https://cinerama.com/Technology.aspx https://www.geekwire.com/2015/photos-inside-one-of-the-worlds-most-advanced-imax-movie-theaters/ https://www.geekwire.com/2015/photos-inside-one-of-the-world... And I swear each time I’ve seen noticeable digital artifacts (usually where text or some long swoopy line is involved). The digital projection has never given me a “holy crap” hair standing on end visual response. Not so with 70mm or 70mm IMAX (RIP Seattle’s equipment). I saw Interstellar in 70mm IMAX, and the space scenes really were stunning. Like, clearly amazing. When we saw 2001 in 70mm at the Cinerama a few years back, several people in our group all remarked how the initial sunrise almost made you feel heat. Yes, that could be my imagination. But I’ll add that I didn’t even know that I was watching The Master in 70mm a few years ago. I’d watched it with a friend, and I distinctly remember coming home and remarking to my wife how amazing the visual detail was. I’m firmly in the “digital has yet to wow me visually the same as 70mm” camp. And I say this as someone who thinks CD was the most profound improvement in audio quality that I can remember in my life. So, I don’t think I’m just being nostalgic.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    Digital (video) artefacts are definitely a thing. Unlike with the CD, where we got to a point where over an hour of essentially perfect quality stereo music fits on this cheap mass-produced object, digital cinema is in a place where they can do something that's very good - much better certainly than what you'd see in a second rate cinema after a picture has been out for a few months and the print has seen better days, but it's absolutely not perfect and I can well believe it's not going to impress anybody who can see a nice new 70mm print. Basically every frame of a digital movie is a huge JPEG. That's not quite exactly what's happening, but it's close enough. So you don't have inter-frame compression artefacts, as you'd see on a DVD or Youtube video, but artefacts in the individual still images absolutely are present, albeit rarer because they're using a lot of bytes for each frame. And so yes, text would be especially likely to make this noticeable as it is in JPEG on web pages.
mikro2nd 8y ago
Have you ever heard a quality recording on a reel-to-reel tape machine at 15 or 30 ips? Digital cannot hold a candle to it.
- ovao 8y ago
  The only compelling, objective reason to record to analog tape is for its distortion quality. This is particularly true at slower speeds. At 30 ips, I’m not sure it’s an especially useful medium. You may also be able to make an argument for analog tape delay, but — saying this as someone’s who’s been out of the engineering game for a bit, so with some grain of salt — this is digitally reproducible. For playback, digital can hold every candle you can think of. Resolution, SNR, absense of any degradation, ease of use, etc., etc. Given sufficient bit depth and sample rate, it’s as good as any medium ever needs to be (for human hearing).
- dboreham 8y ago
  Because digital reproduces the signal accurately while tape introduces a kind of degradation you find appealing?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tialaramex 8y ago
  Fun thing here: There's a thriving cottage industry taking real studio masters from original tape (from the era when actual studio engineers would use tape) and making copies for "discerning" audiophiles like you to play on their reel-to-reel machines. Very authentic. Except of course each time you make such a copy you'd damage the original irreversibly, and these are the real master tapes, when they're gone that's it. So what they _actually_ do is make a single digital copy and then copy that back to make each of the tapes they sell. So you're getting an analogue copy of a digital copy of the original. By any reasonable thinking that's the worst of both worlds. But don't worry, paying extra for something that's objectively worse is audiophile tradition. Keep it up.
- ferongr 8y ago
  Provide proof in the form of ABX logs.

frostburg 8y ago

No, he's right about this specific thing. 8K scans do not outresolve 70mm film in terms of lp/mm. 4K projection is just inadequate.

peatmoss 8y ago
I’ve watched 4k digital films at two exceptional digitally equipped theaters: https://cinerama.com/Technology.aspx https://cinerama.com/Technology.aspx https://www.geekwire.com/2015/photos-inside-one-of-the-worlds-most-advanced-imax-movie-theaters/ https://www.geekwire.com/2015/photos-inside-one-of-the-world... And I swear each time I’ve seen noticeable digital artifacts (usually where text or some long swoopy line is involved). The digital projection has never given me a “holy crap” hair standing on end visual response. Not so with 70mm or 70mm IMAX (RIP Seattle’s equipment). I saw Interstellar in 70mm IMAX, and the space scenes really were stunning. Like, clearly amazing. When we saw 2001 in 70mm at the Cinerama a few years back, several people in our group all remarked how the initial sunrise almost made you feel heat. Yes, that could be my imagination. But I’ll add that I didn’t even know that I was watching The Master in 70mm a few years ago. I’d watched it with a friend, and I distinctly remember coming home and remarking to my wife how amazing the visual detail was. I’m firmly in the “digital has yet to wow me visually the same as 70mm” camp. And I say this as someone who thinks CD was the most profound improvement in audio quality that I can remember in my life. So, I don’t think I’m just being nostalgic.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  Digital (video) artefacts are definitely a thing. Unlike with the CD, where we got to a point where over an hour of essentially perfect quality stereo music fits on this cheap mass-produced object, digital cinema is in a place where they can do something that's very good - much better certainly than what you'd see in a second rate cinema after a picture has been out for a few months and the print has seen better days, but it's absolutely not perfect and I can well believe it's not going to impress anybody who can see a nice new 70mm print. Basically every frame of a digital movie is a huge JPEG. That's not quite exactly what's happening, but it's close enough. So you don't have inter-frame compression artefacts, as you'd see on a DVD or Youtube video, but artefacts in the individual still images absolutely are present, albeit rarer because they're using a lot of bytes for each frame. And so yes, text would be especially likely to make this noticeable as it is in JPEG on web pages.

mikro2nd 8y ago

Have you ever heard a quality recording on a reel-to-reel tape machine at 15 or 30 ips? Digital cannot hold a candle to it.

ovao 8y ago
The only compelling, objective reason to record to analog tape is for its distortion quality. This is particularly true at slower speeds. At 30 ips, I’m not sure it’s an especially useful medium. You may also be able to make an argument for analog tape delay, but — saying this as someone’s who’s been out of the engineering game for a bit, so with some grain of salt — this is digitally reproducible. For playback, digital can hold every candle you can think of. Resolution, SNR, absense of any degradation, ease of use, etc., etc. Given sufficient bit depth and sample rate, it’s as good as any medium ever needs to be (for human hearing).
dboreham 8y ago
Because digital reproduces the signal accurately while tape introduces a kind of degradation you find appealing?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tialaramex 8y ago
Fun thing here: There's a thriving cottage industry taking real studio masters from original tape (from the era when actual studio engineers would use tape) and making copies for "discerning" audiophiles like you to play on their reel-to-reel machines. Very authentic. Except of course each time you make such a copy you'd damage the original irreversibly, and these are the real master tapes, when they're gone that's it. So what they _actually_ do is make a single digital copy and then copy that back to make each of the tapes they sell. So you're getting an analogue copy of a digital copy of the original. By any reasonable thinking that's the worst of both worlds. But don't worry, paying extra for something that's objectively worse is audiophile tradition. Keep it up.
ferongr 8y ago
Provide proof in the form of ABX logs.