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Analog support doesn't sample individual pixels in a grid format. That's why it's rather meaningless to talk about the resolution of analog photos or video, the

by simias 6y ago

Analog support doesn't sample individual pixels in a grid format. That's why it's rather meaningless to talk about the resolution of analog photos or video, the actually information density will vary depending on a large number of factors and may not even be the same depending on what you measure. For instance old school analog TV had significantly more information in the lumas than in the chroma. And then you have old school lenses vs. modern lenses and many other factors. I agree with the parent that the end result is an amusing novelty but if the intention was to fool me into thinking that it was actually an ancient recording I don't think I would've fallen for it. It's too sharp, the blurring effect on movement feel wrong too and the dynamics are off I think (film has amazing contrast that digital sensors still struggle to emulate).

schrijver 6y ago
> For instance old school analog TV had significantly more information in the lumas than in the chroma. That’s the case for the large majority of digital content as well, in a codec like H264 the chroma resolution is a quarter of the luma resolution. > but if the intention was to fool me into thinking that it was actually an ancient recording To be fair, no one claimed this. I think it’s almost impossible to do because so many factors come together.
crazygringo 6y ago
Sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to say resolution of analog is "meaningless". I'm not aware of a precise quantitative measure of film "resolution", but simply from a qualitative sense of resolving detail, it's quite meaningful and useful to say that 35mm film is generally considered to lie somewhere between 4K and 8K. Which is far higher than 1080p. In other words, if you're watching a 1080p video and complaining it appears too "high-resolution" to have been transferred from film, that's almost certainly incorrect, and it's something else that cluing you in it wasn't film -- probably grain and/or color characteristics.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Isn't the opposite the case? If I see aliasing and sharpening, I see it as digital distortion you wouldn't expect from film. When I see a bunch of digital artifacts on a film transfer, I think of it as a bad transfer.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    If it's overly sharp, yes. But most commercial video footage isn't digitally sharpened, for a host of reasons (mainly that it usually looks bad, harms more than it helps). So high resolution doesn't mean sharpening has been applied. If it came from film, it just means the film had that level of detail to begin with.

by simias 6y ago

schrijver 6y ago

> For instance old school analog TV had significantly more information in the lumas than in the chroma. That’s the case for the large majority of digital content as well, in a codec like H264 the chroma resolution is a quarter of the luma resolution. > but if the intention was to fool me into thinking that it was actually an ancient recording To be fair, no one claimed this. I think it’s almost impossible to do because so many factors come together.

crazygringo 6y ago

Sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to say resolution of analog is "meaningless". I'm not aware of a precise quantitative measure of film "resolution", but simply from a qualitative sense of resolving detail, it's quite meaningful and useful to say that 35mm film is generally considered to lie somewhere between 4K and 8K. Which is far higher than 1080p. In other words, if you're watching a 1080p video and complaining it appears too "high-resolution" to have been transferred from film, that's almost certainly incorrect, and it's something else that cluing you in it wasn't film -- probably grain and/or color characteristics.

pessimizer 6y ago
Isn't the opposite the case? If I see aliasing and sharpening, I see it as digital distortion you wouldn't expect from film. When I see a bunch of digital artifacts on a film transfer, I think of it as a bad transfer.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  If it's overly sharp, yes. But most commercial video footage isn't digitally sharpened, for a host of reasons (mainly that it usually looks bad, harms more than it helps). So high resolution doesn't mean sharpening has been applied. If it came from film, it just means the film had that level of detail to begin with.