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Quality improvement from the first video to the second is impressive, but from the second to the third is not.

by p1esk 7y ago

jonplackett 7y ago
Yeah I agree. And I don't mind the grain in the second one. The third one looks unnatural - just looks like the smart sharpen tool in photoshop, rounding off the highlights and flattening texture. Don't get what all the fuss is about.
- jerf 7y ago
  You brain subconsciously picks up on cues that you don't even necessarily realize. The low frame rate combined with "black and white" screams old timey, and that detaches us from the people in the footage by classifying them as "old timey", which given the ways this footage is used in our culture, ends up classifying them adjacent to "cartoony". Probably courtesy of all the montages of old failing flying machines, which also gives them a "goofy" vibe, and the fact we tend to run the clips about twice as fast as we should, making people jump around and generally look silly rather than human. For me, YMMV, the digitally-restored version still triggers that classification in my head. However, the upscaled one does not. It looks like normal people boarding a normal train, except in black and white. It's really the frame rate that does it for me. This allows a more visceral connection to a time period, and allows us to replace our mental image of "goofy people who are probably just about to drive the train off a cliff or something" with real human beings from a long time ago, doing something mundane and normal. It isn't there yet, but it's a promising start. Add a decent, realistic colorization and we'll really be cooking with fire. YMMV, because you may not have this subconscious associations with oldtimey footage or you may be triggering on cues still present in the new footage and still classifying it mentally as "old timey", so you don't see any change. For instance, there's still a very large cue coming out of "black and white video" that may result in your subconscious still classifying it as "old timey" for you. But for those who do have our subconscious classify it differently, as I do, it's an impressive effect. None of this is meant to be critical of you personally, merely an explanation of why it may be that some people are having a different reaction than you. People are different. I will also criticize myself and say that consciously, I'm well aware that my mental model of "old timey" is completely broken and they were real people back then, just like today, but being consciously aware doesn't affect my feelings anywhere near as much as seeing the upscaled footage does. Humans gonna human. The tech will only get better.
  - jonplackett 7y ago
    Hey thanks for this. Something interesting to consider! Made me think.

Quality improvement from the first video to the second is impressive, but from the second to the third is not.

by p1esk 7y ago

Quality improvement from the first video to the second is impressive, but from the second to the third is not.

Yeah I agree. And I don't mind the grain in the second one. The third one looks unnatural - just looks like the smart sharpen tool in photoshop, rounding off the highlights and flattening texture. Don't get what all the fuss is about.

jerf 7y ago
You brain subconsciously picks up on cues that you don't even necessarily realize. The low frame rate combined with "black and white" screams old timey, and that detaches us from the people in the footage by classifying them as "old timey", which given the ways this footage is used in our culture, ends up classifying them adjacent to "cartoony". Probably courtesy of all the montages of old failing flying machines, which also gives them a "goofy" vibe, and the fact we tend to run the clips about twice as fast as we should, making people jump around and generally look silly rather than human. For me, YMMV, the digitally-restored version still triggers that classification in my head. However, the upscaled one does not. It looks like normal people boarding a normal train, except in black and white. It's really the frame rate that does it for me. This allows a more visceral connection to a time period, and allows us to replace our mental image of "goofy people who are probably just about to drive the train off a cliff or something" with real human beings from a long time ago, doing something mundane and normal. It isn't there yet, but it's a promising start. Add a decent, realistic colorization and we'll really be cooking with fire. YMMV, because you may not have this subconscious associations with oldtimey footage or you may be triggering on cues still present in the new footage and still classifying it mentally as "old timey", so you don't see any change. For instance, there's still a very large cue coming out of "black and white video" that may result in your subconscious still classifying it as "old timey" for you. But for those who do have our subconscious classify it differently, as I do, it's an impressive effect. None of this is meant to be critical of you personally, merely an explanation of why it may be that some people are having a different reaction than you. People are different. I will also criticize myself and say that consciously, I'm well aware that my mental model of "old timey" is completely broken and they were real people back then, just like today, but being consciously aware doesn't affect my feelings anywhere near as much as seeing the upscaled footage does. Humans gonna human. The tech will only get better.
- jonplackett 7y ago
  Hey thanks for this. Something interesting to consider! Made me think.