HDTV Quality Downgrade?
Mar. 31st, 2008 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_clangerDespite having pontificated the other week about not wanting or needing a TV I am having vague longings in that direction after all. For starters, I realise that if I've spent much of the day in front of my computer I don't want to stay in front of it to watch all my TV or film. Also, you shouldn't underestimate the desirability of collapsing on the sofa to watch something, which isn't really an option with the computer route. So, when I've been near electronics stores of late, I've been having a peek at the new HDTV LCD sets to see what the fuss is all about. In doing so, I've noticed something odd.
The other day, I was in John Lewis and looking at a widescreen LCD showing Raiders of the Lost Ark.The picture looked somehow odd. Not wrong of itself, but wrong for the subject. What was meant to be a motion picture somehow looked as if it had been shot as a TV programme. In fact, that was exactly what the problem was - the HDTV was making film look like video. Everything was too crisp; worst of all the sets, no doubt designed and lit for film, looked painfully like sets.
We're all familiar with the difference between TV programmes shot on film and those shot onto videotape. It's most evident on older programmes, where the change in resolution, contrast and colour was very clear, especially if (as often used to be the case) film was used for outdoor shots and video for studio work - a lot of classic Dr Who was filmed like that. These days video cameras are much better and post-processing techniques are often used to make video look more film-like. Nonetheless, if you watch older TV - especially British programmes more than ten years old or so - you'll know what I mean.
And this was the weird thing about the HDTV I was looking at. It took an expensive Hollywood film and made it look like it had been shot by the BBC Comedy Dept around about the era of The Goodies. Technically it was an excellent picture, it just looked wrong. A bit of googling showed that I'm by no means the first to notice this, and that there's an explanation: the processing aimed to overcome LCD TV's tendency to motion blur can go too far the other way, and make the natural frame-by-frame slight blurriness of film look more like video.
It looks like this is something you may be able to twiddle on most sets, and perhaps the one I saw just wasn't set up well. But it does show that Newer isn't automatically Better, at least not in the world of video tech.
The other day, I was in John Lewis and looking at a widescreen LCD showing Raiders of the Lost Ark.The picture looked somehow odd. Not wrong of itself, but wrong for the subject. What was meant to be a motion picture somehow looked as if it had been shot as a TV programme. In fact, that was exactly what the problem was - the HDTV was making film look like video. Everything was too crisp; worst of all the sets, no doubt designed and lit for film, looked painfully like sets.
We're all familiar with the difference between TV programmes shot on film and those shot onto videotape. It's most evident on older programmes, where the change in resolution, contrast and colour was very clear, especially if (as often used to be the case) film was used for outdoor shots and video for studio work - a lot of classic Dr Who was filmed like that. These days video cameras are much better and post-processing techniques are often used to make video look more film-like. Nonetheless, if you watch older TV - especially British programmes more than ten years old or so - you'll know what I mean.
And this was the weird thing about the HDTV I was looking at. It took an expensive Hollywood film and made it look like it had been shot by the BBC Comedy Dept around about the era of The Goodies. Technically it was an excellent picture, it just looked wrong. A bit of googling showed that I'm by no means the first to notice this, and that there's an explanation: the processing aimed to overcome LCD TV's tendency to motion blur can go too far the other way, and make the natural frame-by-frame slight blurriness of film look more like video.
It looks like this is something you may be able to twiddle on most sets, and perhaps the one I saw just wasn't set up well. But it does show that Newer isn't automatically Better, at least not in the world of video tech.
