On a completely different topic

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I try not to litter this blog with my political views, except when they are relevant to home entertainment stuff. But if anyone is interested, I’ve had a piece published on Unleashed/The Drum on the ABC website in which I argue for Army exceptionalism.

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No, the Nazis weren’t the first

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Apparently someone has found a couple of half hour 3D movies made by the Nazis back in 1936. Well, what better excuse could there be for expressing one’s amused contempt for America?

This occurs in the UK lefty newspaper The Guardian in what should be a straight forward news story: ‘Nazi 3D films from 1936 discovered‘. It turns out that 1936 was, gasp, fifteen or so years before the initial heyday of Hollywood 3D. ‘Mora believes the existence of the 35mm Nazi films confirms the Germans were decades ahead.’

That statement appears immediately following the paragraph which notes that some 3D film won the 1936 Oscar for best short film. What 3D film? Why, an American one!

So the article accidentally destroys its own thesis.

But how hard is it to do a bit of research? Two minutes in Wikipedia discloses that there are 18 known 3D movies made before 1936. And none of them were made in Germany.

So where were they made? Well, honours goes to France for the first one, all the way back in 1903. Two others were also French.

Two don’t have national origins listed, but since they are called ‘New York City’ and ‘Grand Canyon’, I might be prepared to hazard a guess as to their origin.

The other 13, including the Oscar-winner, are all listed as being made in the US of A.

But, of course, it’s worth ignoring facts in order to have a little dig.

 

Posted in 3D, Cinema, Rant | 1 Comment

What is Blu-ray 3D?

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Last year saw a nearly unique sporting event in Australia. For only the second time in its 113 year history, the Australian Rules football grand final ended in a draw. This is so rare simply because the rules of the game are such that high scores are the norm. This game ended with 68 points all, but scores above 100 points are by no means uncommon.

Since draws are rare, the game has no provision for extra time or other means of resolving a draw. Except for one: a rematch.

That’s what happened with this match. The two battered teams dragged themselves back to the oval a week later and a conclusive result was reached.

The drawn game was special for another reason: it was broadcast in 3D, the first time for an Australian Rules Grand Final match. The broadcast was in limited areas on a trial basis authorised by the government, and it used the side-by-side format.

The following week’s repeat did not receive the same treatment, presumably because no contingent bookings had been made for the special equipment.

Last week The 3D Movie List tweeted that this drawn match was being released on Blu-ray 3D by the Visual Entertainment Group, a local Australian DVD distributor that specialises in a number of niches, including sports. I contacted them and they kindly sent me a copy.

I was intrigued how this was going to be done. Blu-ray 3D employs the MPEG4 Multiview Video Coding format to produce a frame packed (ie. doubled, with images for both left and right eyes) 24 fps output. But this was shot in 1080i50 and broadcast in that format, using the side-by-side arrangement for the frames. Converting to 24fps was always going to be difficult.

But the disc turned out not to be ‘Blu-ray 3D’ as I understand it, but the same 1080i50 side-by-side format. It used the MPEG4 AVC codec (as did the TV broadcast), but at the enormously higher average bitrate of about 32Mbps.

Frame from AFL 2010 Grand Final Draw

Frame from AFL 2010 Grand Final Draw Blu-ray disc

 

Incidentally, you get three different game calls to choose from from three different broadcasters (one TV, and two radio it seems).

Don’t get me wrong. This disc looks good and produces a good 3D effect, and there is no other satisfactory way of presenting it in 3D, but is it really, technically, ‘Blu-ray 3D’?

(One downside: Blu-ray 3D is backwards compatible with 2D equipment. This disc works fine in a 2D Blu-ray player but cannot be watched unless you have a 3D TV.)

Posted in 3D, Blu-ray, HDTV | 4 Comments

Metropolis cometh, Buenos Aires version

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

To say the movie Metropolis is influential would be an understatement. Some 84 years old, it still scores 8.4, putting it at #94 on IMDB’s Top 250 list.

Last week a new episode of Futurama (‘The Mutants Are Revolting‘) was on TV. Here’s a frame from it:

Futurama frame

And here’s a frame from Metropolis (the 118 minute restored version from Madman Entertainment):

Metropolis frame

That version was released in 2008, I think, and was largely based on the version carefully restored by the Murnau Foundation in Germany. I reviewed it in June 2008, the last DVD review I did (now I do Blu-ray exclusively). But even as Madman was releasing the disc and I was writing about it, someone was finding a print in Buenos Aires. All existing versions had been horribly hacked into different short versions, and suffered considerably in the intelligibility of the plot as a result. The 2008 find has resulted in a new version with lots of previously missing scenes, adding perhaps half an hour to the run time, and making the story comprehensible.

Madman Entertainment is releasing this version on both DVD and Blu-ray on 15 June 2011. This is a must-have.

I do have one complaint in advance: I see that the movie is presented in 1080p24. It seems likely that it was actually shot at 16 frames per second and so much of the drama is sapped by the unintentional comedy of people scurrying about unnaturally.

Still, I don’t suppose much could be done about that. As Wikipedia notes, ‘At which speed Lang intended the film to be projected is still debated, as he gave no clear indications.’

I’ve put my DVD review after the fold.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Cinema, DTV | 2 Comments

The Loudness Wars

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The previous post, Greg Borrowman made reference to ‘The Loudness Wars’ and gave a small explanation. But he has now drawn my attention to a very useful little video that explains what this means in practice. It is here, and it does an excellent job of explaining the technical effect.

But what has this to do with a ‘war’? It is largely to deal with what is sometimes known as the ‘Jukebox Effect’. You are playing a CD at a very enjoyable volume level on a multi-disc player. It comes to an end and the next disc starts. It is considerably quieter and consequently much less enjoyable.

The loudness wars is the marketing response to this. Pressure was placed on recording engineers to make recordings sound louder, lest they seem inferior.

But there’s a problem with this: loudness is subjective sensation, and our assessment of it is largely biased towards a short term average level of the sound. Short peaks only slightly affect the overall sense of loudness.

So to make a bit of music sound louder, you have to raise its average level.

But PCM digital recording is a bounded process. With the CD system, the total number space available is 65, 536. If you push the average to a higher level, there is less room at the top for the peaks. That’s why they have to be reduced in level. That’s why on today’s mainstream music you rarely hear drums with the bite and clarity that is apparent on much music from the 1970s.

The example on the video exaggerates the effect, but it is sound in showing you what to listen for. Having said that, apples are not oranges. Perhaps towering crescendos and percussive spikes shooting forth from the music are not at the moment something attractive to listeners.

So it’s perhaps best to find apples to compare with apples. In other words, digital remasters?

Lot’s of popular and rock music from the 1970s was released on CD during the second half of the 80s and early 90s. Since the mid-90s a lot has been re-released in ‘Digitally Remastered’ versions. Some of these are clearly better than the first releases. But this isn’t always the case.

For example, I have a cheap version of Jeff Beck’s album Blow by Blow on CD, and also the SACD version of it. The latter isn’t a hybrid, so there is no CD layer, and so it is not directly comparable. But I prefer to to listen to the CD. It is much more lively.

I also have quite a few original CDs and remasters. Perhaps it’s about time I did some comparisons between the two sets.

 

Posted in CD, Imperfect perception, Music | 3 Comments

Guest comment on Warner Bros disc policy

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

This is in regard to the previous post, in which I’ve disclosed Warner Bros’ rather strange actions on disc reviews. I passed this on to my editors, as well as to the local head of Warner Bros here in Australia. One of the editors has written to Warner Bros as well, copying them some of my reviews to emphasise the point that on-line access is useless for review purposes.

Another has given me permission to reproduce his remarks here:

Amazing. Simply amazing. I wonder if Warner Music plans to do the same with ordinary CDs? Instead of providing review copies, they may be going to suggest that album reviewers log into a streaming site and hear a crappy MP3 version of the album. You can hear the record execs saying “If you like the music, buy the CD. The sound quality will be much better, trust us.” And why should we trust them? Even the quality of music on CD has been made worse in recent years by record companies, not because of any perceived limitations in the medium itself, but because of the way in which the music is encoded onto that medium (excessive compression, known to audiophiles as “the loudness wars”), which results in flat, unexciting sound. Warner Music might well try to save a few bucks on review copies, to try to recoup some of the US$18 million it lost in the latest quarter as people stop buying the poorly produced CDs they’re making.

I’d suggest to Warner Bros Home Entertainment that they could save money on the new movie site by dumping it, and instead sending movie reviewers the script instead. Just tell them who’s playing in what roles and they can review the movie based on that. After all, the story is what it’s all about isn’t it… that’s why reviewers don’t have to be concerned about the cinematography, or the ‘Bonus Extras’ (which is one reason Blu-ray was introduced in the first place).

Greg Borrowman, Editor, Australian Hi-Fi Magazine

Posted in BD-Live, CD, DVD, Testing | 2 Comments

Corporate madness

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I have kind of heard this before, but only today have I gotten around to confirming it. Warner Bros Home Entertainment no longer supplies review discs—Blu-ray or DVD. Instead it has some kind of online facility which reviewers are supposed to use to view movies.

I’ve seen some silly ideas in my time, but that one takes the cake. Apparently it comes from corporate HQ back in the US.

In my reviewing my desire to be yet another prognosticator on cinematic values is held firmly in check. We’re talking about discs. The great majority of content has previously appeared at the cinema, and often has been very widely reviewed. If you are uncertain about the content or general quality of a movie, you can examine its entry at IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes or some other site.

Being human, in my reviews I do devote some space to what I think about the movie. After all, my insights are obviously worthwhile!

But what my reviews really offer is stuff about the disc. The quality of the transfer. The details of the extras. Oddities such as BonusView PIP content and so on. The type of audio used. And, increasingly, the effectiveness of the 3D content.

None of that is available from some online viewing platform. Not even quality.

Many a movie on Blu-ray consumes 20-30GB of space. Until very recently my monthly download limit was 12GB. It is now 50GB. I haven’t checked, but I assume they offer only a low bitrate standard definition version of the content. Even if they offered something comparable to the Blu-ray, though, there’s no way I could download my reviewing requirements.

So as far as Warner Bros goes, no more reviews from me, which means no more reviews in the three magazines for which I do reviews*. Warner Bros makes some glorious movies, and I shall buy them on Blu-ray for my own personal use, but other studios also make fine movies, and all of them (even 20th Century Fox has gotten over its NDA madness now) make review discs available to me. It would be tremendously unfair to bump their discs in order to fit in a Warner Bros one.

I will do so on the demand of an editor, of course, but otherwise, Warner Bros gets no reviews.

Meanwhile, thanks to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, I have a a ‘Testmold’ of Monster House on Blu-ray 3D to give away. I found this movie quite charming, and the 3D effect enhanced the quality of the movie. The disc has no label, no box and no slick. But its content is the same as a bought one. First to request it in comments may have it. Australian postal addresses only.

 
* Actually, I still intend to review Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (previously supplied by Warner Bros) when I have a free space in my reviews of music-related discs.

Posted in Blu-ray, DVD, Giveaway, Testing | 4 Comments

Tilting the lens on The Social Network

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The other night I watched The Social Network on Blu-ray, and soon I’ll be writing a review of it. But I wanted to highlight here one brief part of it: a section starting around 84 minutes into the movie, called ‘The Henley Royal Regatta’. This has a couple of the characters competing in this famous UK rowing race, and the most startling imaginable photography is employed.

It goes under the name ’tilt lens’ from the way it was traditionally practiced. These days the same effect is often achieved simply by manipulating the picture digitally afterwards. Here’s a detail of a frame near the start of the picture:

Frame from The Social Network

I had to crop before resizing downwards. Shrinking the whole frame to size diminished the effect too much. Now when this scene appeared on the big screen, I literally said ‘Wow.’ And then I peered more closely. The scene looked so much like a miniature that I had trouble convincing myself that it really was a live shot scene employing the tilt lens effect. But the next couple of dozen shots in this sequence employ the same technique, so it soon become apparent that this really was a manipulated live shot. Loot at it: the whole thing looks like a miniature tableau in a museum.

Compare that with this shot:

Japanese miniature street scene

This one really is a minature. I photographed this at the Edo museum in Tokyo back in 2003. Those people are beautifully crafted, and each stand only about a centimetre tall! The photograph is a closeup. Consequently the depth of field is very shallow, with the foreground and the background very much out of focus.

Normally a live photography shot of a distant scene would have everything in sharp focus. The tilt lens effect throws the foreground and background out of focus and this makes the scene look close and small. Wikipedia even has a specific article on this effect.

But why does it make these scenes look small and close? Why does focus matter so much?

Well, as I keep saying, depth perception is an illusion. Our visual mechanisms (eyes and video processors in the brain) use certain cues to present us with a good-enough representation of the world around us. ‘Good-enough’ means one that allows us to avoid dangers, find food, protect our mates and children, and that kind of thing … human universals going back at least 100,000 years. For 99.99% of that time we did not have computers or tilt lens photography.

So, to our eyes and brains: shallow depth of field means that something is close to us. Our brains go a step further and make humans look like little dolls, because it assesses distance in part on the size of known objects. In this case, I’d say, the shallowness of the depth of field trumps the size cues, so the brain doesn’t hook them into the ‘human recognition’ centres of the brain.

Posted in Blu-ray, Imperfect perception, Video | 2 Comments

Old cables, new, and HDMI puzzles

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Recently I was using a 3D full HD front projector, and I was pleased to find that my old 10 metre Kordz ‘Diamond’ HDMI cable worked fine with it, including with full Blu-ray 3D. Then a few days later I switched out the receiver I was using for a different one, and suddenly there was no more 3D*, although all other HDMI video formats were working, including 1080p24 and 1080p60. This last requires significantly more bandwidth than 3D (which requires about the equivalent of 1080p48). I fiddled around with cables and found that I could get this working using a 5 metre Kordz ‘Diamond’. But this required some rather precarious stringing across my office, so I sought a new ten metre cable.

I settled on the 10 metre Kordz EVX. This has a ribbon form which makes it far more manageable.

But when I put the new EVX in place, it didn’t work in 3D! For a moment. The 5m ‘Diamond’ I had been using was plugged into HDMI 2 on the projector, so I switched the new cable to HDMI 2, and it worked there fine. Further experimentation revealed that for some reason HDMI 1 on the projector worked fine with all signals, except 24p(fp) (frame packed — ie. Blu-ray 3D format). That included normal 1080p24 and 1080p60. But HDMI 2 worked with all signals including Blu-ray 3D. And it worked with both the old Diamond and the new EVX cable.

Nothing in the projector manual about it, so goodness knows what’s going on.

 

 

* What do I mean by ‘no more 3D’? That could mean that a 2D signal was coming through, or it could mean that no signal was coming through. It was the latter. That suggests that the other components — the receiver and the Blu-ray player — thought that all was fine on the 3D front, and therefore continued passing through the 3D signal, but for some reason it wasn’t being received by the projector.

Posted in 3D, Blu-ray, Cables, HDMI | Leave a comment

The imaginary world of colour

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Colour is a construct of the mind. Out in the real world what we perceive as colours is simply a small subset (less than an octave) of the wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. Evolution has endowed us with a mechanism for distinguishing between these wavelengths, thus providing additional useful information about the world around us.

I knew this already. What I didn’t know was that the three pigments in the colour-sensing cells in our retinas are consumed in the process of detecting the colours, and are continually replenished. I found this by watching some very informative videos on the Oscars website. Yes, as in movie Academy Awards. In particular, is has a number of pages dealing with its ‘Solid State Lighting Project‘.

On the right of this page is a section called ‘Symposium Videos’. These are each about five minutes. I recommend ‘Perception of Color’. This (towards the end) makes clear why this optical illusion works (look at the black + in the middle and wait):

Purple Circles optical illusion

Posted in Imperfect perception, Video | 1 Comment