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I rip my physical media into my digital library and I know right away when I’m dealing with a film transfer, compression goes to shit. All the grain and noise i

by yardie 3y ago

I rip my physical media into my digital library and I know right away when I’m dealing with a film transfer, compression goes to shit. All the grain and noise inherent to film doesn’t compress well. So I imagine all these AI upscaled film weren’t done for our benefit but to save streamers a bit of bandwidth. Also film was expensive, directors shot a tight 90 minute movie and called it a day. Now, we have 2,3,4 hour movies that meander endlessly.

__s 3y ago
Many old films are really long Gone With the Wind is 4 hours long
- dehrmann 3y ago
  And the 10 Commandments was 3 hours, 40 minutes.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    And Titanic (1997) was 3 hours, 15 minutes, and Che (2008 film) had some road show screenings at 4 hours, 27 minutes. But Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939) was only 80 minutes. Road show movies, with an intermission between the two acts of the film, don't have good economics. Lord of the Rings as three movies sells more ticket than one long one, and you can offer both evening and late shows.
  - BizarreByte 3y ago
    Well if we’re having a contest for posting long movies, Siberiade is an excellent film that will take 4h35m of your time.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  Lol I love people who take outliers to make a point. Look at the median length instead if you want something meaningful.
  - hedora 3y ago
    I just tried to watch Rich and Strange. The first 39 minutes are mostly vacation footage. I usually like anything Hitchcock worked on. Maybe I should have given it another 30 minutes. Anyway, it doesn’t give me the impression that they were worried about burning film stock, even though the movie is only 1:39.
  - __s 3y ago
    I was hoping someone would call me out on that https://stephenfollows.com/are-hollywood-movies-getting-longer https://stephenfollows.com/are-hollywood-movies-getting-long... https://filmandmovielists.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/are-movies-getting-longer-a-history-of-the-length-of-a-cinema-experience https://filmandmovielists.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/are-movie... I track all the films I watch in a spreadsheet, half of them are in 1990-2010, which the last link shows films were becoming shorter for awhile
  - wkjagt 3y ago
    We watched Jingle All The Way yesterday, and even the kids noticed it was shorter than most of today’s films. It’s not even 90 minutes.
- yardie 3y ago
  And they were exceptionally rare. But here are 2 films from different eras with somewhat similar themes: 1985: The Breakfast Club, 1h37m 2023: The Holdovers, 2h13m
wharvle 3y ago
> So I imagine all these AI upscaled film weren’t done for our benefit but to save streamers a bit of bandwidth. You may be onto something here. A 2-hour 4k movie that’s already smooth and blobby encodes down to 10GB or so and doesn’t look so different from the full-fat Blu-ray. A good film transfer at 4k… it’ll start looking off when the target file’s under 30GB, if not sooner. [edit] though, on the other hand, they can do this well enough when they encode for streaming, from a good source, no need to start with something bad, you can just add one extra step to make it bad before encoding. Though then it invites comparison of your “high quality” (but actually awful looking) 4k streams to the much-better original source.
- hedora 3y ago
  If they did that, they’d more than double their labor costs. We really need to shorten copyright terms, if only because the copyright holders are increasingly becoming companies that have never produced any content.
causi 3y ago
Also film was expensive, directors shot a tight 90 minute movie and called it a day This is nonsense. The amount of film shot is orders of magnitude longer than the finished product and many scenes are shot over and over to get a good take. A film with a longer running time doesn't necessarily need more shooting time than a shorter film.
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  Also the cost of film compared to the payroll of all involved must be insignificant, no?
- yardie 3y ago
  > many scenes are shot over and over to get a good take. No, many scenes are done correctly on the first take. Because film, film development, the equipment to edit film, and the staff cost real money. And you don't see if it was a good shot for weeks.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > And you don't see if it was a good shot for weeks. Often the next day, which is why they called them "dailies": > The term "dailies" comes from when movies were all shot on film because usually at the end of each day, the footage was developed, synced to sound, and printed on film in a batch (and later telecined onto videotape or disk) for viewing the next day by the director, selected actors, and film crew members. After the advent of digital filmmaking, "dailies" were available instantly after the take and the review process was no longer tied to the overnight processing of film and became more asynchronous. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailies You had to know quite quickly because the production needed to know whether the scene was captured properly so that it could be determined whether the set could be dismantled and the crew could move on to the next scene.
nmz 3y ago
Play any old movie and you will see the intro meander for a while, opening credits will take sometimes almost 5 minutes. As opposed to now, movies start fast before you click out and watch another thing. Sure, they didn't particularly waste film, but they did meander... or, you could say they weren't meandering but setting the mood/ambiance for the film. One must remember directors were artists, cinema existed for the art not for the audience, there wasn't a whole lot of pandering.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  > cinema existed for the art not for the audience Ars gratia artis, or so says MGM.
rcoilliot 3y ago
Regarding film grain and streaming : https://www.slashcam.com/news/single/Netflix-removes-movie-noise--saves-30--bandwidth-a-17337.html https://www.slashcam.com/news/single/Netflix-removes-movie-n...
ekianjo 3y ago
> Now, we have 2,3,4 hour movies that meander endlessly. And they all suck too. No wonder nobody goes to watch movies anymore.
ravenstine 3y ago
This is off topic, but what do you use to organize your digital library? I just have a humongous hard drive I chuck files into, but I'm looking for a better way.

by yardie 3y ago

__s 3y ago

Many old films are really long Gone With the Wind is 4 hours long

dehrmann 3y ago
And the 10 Commandments was 3 hours, 40 minutes.
- eesmith 3y ago
  And Titanic (1997) was 3 hours, 15 minutes, and Che (2008 film) had some road show screenings at 4 hours, 27 minutes. But Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939) was only 80 minutes. Road show movies, with an intermission between the two acts of the film, don't have good economics. Lord of the Rings as three movies sells more ticket than one long one, and you can offer both evening and late shows.
- BizarreByte 3y ago
  Well if we’re having a contest for posting long movies, Siberiade is an excellent film that will take 4h35m of your time.
ekianjo 3y ago
Lol I love people who take outliers to make a point. Look at the median length instead if you want something meaningful.
- hedora 3y ago
  I just tried to watch Rich and Strange. The first 39 minutes are mostly vacation footage. I usually like anything Hitchcock worked on. Maybe I should have given it another 30 minutes. Anyway, it doesn’t give me the impression that they were worried about burning film stock, even though the movie is only 1:39.
- __s 3y ago
  I was hoping someone would call me out on that https://stephenfollows.com/are-hollywood-movies-getting-longer https://stephenfollows.com/are-hollywood-movies-getting-long... https://filmandmovielists.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/are-movies-getting-longer-a-history-of-the-length-of-a-cinema-experience https://filmandmovielists.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/are-movie... I track all the films I watch in a spreadsheet, half of them are in 1990-2010, which the last link shows films were becoming shorter for awhile
- wkjagt 3y ago
  We watched Jingle All The Way yesterday, and even the kids noticed it was shorter than most of today’s films. It’s not even 90 minutes.
yardie 3y ago
And they were exceptionally rare. But here are 2 films from different eras with somewhat similar themes: 1985: The Breakfast Club, 1h37m 2023: The Holdovers, 2h13m

wharvle 3y ago

> So I imagine all these AI upscaled film weren’t done for our benefit but to save streamers a bit of bandwidth. You may be onto something here. A 2-hour 4k movie that’s already smooth and blobby encodes down to 10GB or so and doesn’t look so different from the full-fat Blu-ray. A good film transfer at 4k… it’ll start looking off when the target file’s under 30GB, if not sooner. [edit] though, on the other hand, they can do this well enough when they encode for streaming, from a good source, no need to start with something bad, you can just add one extra step to make it bad before encoding. Though then it invites comparison of your “high quality” (but actually awful looking) 4k streams to the much-better original source.

hedora 3y ago
If they did that, they’d more than double their labor costs. We really need to shorten copyright terms, if only because the copyright holders are increasingly becoming companies that have never produced any content.

causi 3y ago

Also film was expensive, directors shot a tight 90 minute movie and called it a day This is nonsense. The amount of film shot is orders of magnitude longer than the finished product and many scenes are shot over and over to get a good take. A film with a longer running time doesn't necessarily need more shooting time than a shorter film.

jnsaff2 3y ago
Also the cost of film compared to the payroll of all involved must be insignificant, no?
yardie 3y ago
> many scenes are shot over and over to get a good take. No, many scenes are done correctly on the first take. Because film, film development, the equipment to edit film, and the staff cost real money. And you don't see if it was a good shot for weeks.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > And you don't see if it was a good shot for weeks. Often the next day, which is why they called them "dailies": > The term "dailies" comes from when movies were all shot on film because usually at the end of each day, the footage was developed, synced to sound, and printed on film in a batch (and later telecined onto videotape or disk) for viewing the next day by the director, selected actors, and film crew members. After the advent of digital filmmaking, "dailies" were available instantly after the take and the review process was no longer tied to the overnight processing of film and became more asynchronous. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailies You had to know quite quickly because the production needed to know whether the scene was captured properly so that it could be determined whether the set could be dismantled and the crew could move on to the next scene.

nmz 3y ago

Play any old movie and you will see the intro meander for a while, opening credits will take sometimes almost 5 minutes. As opposed to now, movies start fast before you click out and watch another thing. Sure, they didn't particularly waste film, but they did meander... or, you could say they weren't meandering but setting the mood/ambiance for the film. One must remember directors were artists, cinema existed for the art not for the audience, there wasn't a whole lot of pandering.

dehrmann 3y ago
> cinema existed for the art not for the audience Ars gratia artis, or so says MGM.

rcoilliot 3y ago

Regarding film grain and streaming : https://www.slashcam.com/news/single/Netflix-removes-movie-noise--saves-30--bandwidth-a-17337.html https://www.slashcam.com/news/single/Netflix-removes-movie-n...

ekianjo 3y ago

> Now, we have 2,3,4 hour movies that meander endlessly. And they all suck too. No wonder nobody goes to watch movies anymore.

ravenstine 3y ago

This is off topic, but what do you use to organize your digital library? I just have a humongous hard drive I chuck files into, but I'm looking for a better way.