kye Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 The $200 challenge was fun, and I've been thinking about the next one, and what might be some good rules. I'm travelling and have had slow internet for the last week, and the highest quality I could watch YT without buffering was 480p, and it has been an interesting experience. Obviously the compression basically hammers the video quality into the dust, but some traits remain, and the aesthetic is interesting. I've been watching on my 13" laptop screen, and although things are notably fuzzy and lots of movement has lots of artefacts, some of the really important things still come through, like composition, colour, DoF, editing pace, sound, music, etc. So, I have a challenge and a question.... I challenge you to watch YT in 480p for at least 30 minutes. The idea is to watch some of your favourite films, and to watch long enough to get used to the quality, so that you get a solid impression of the feel of having very low resolution, rather than just a first impression. You should watch for long enough to forget you're watching for video quality and see how much enjoyment you still get. The question is, if I make a next challenge that you have to make a film and one of the criteria is that it must be uploaded to YT in 480p (720x480) would that be of interest to anyone? Zach Goodwin2 and kaylee 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Goodwin2 Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 There have been films that I have watched that looked good on VHS quality or DVD quality and still look good to this day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzynormal Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 I think people would be surprised if they ever went back in time and watched the projections of most movies on the film circuit. The mangled prints that were presented in budget movie houses were ridiculous. Equivalent to 480p would probably be an improvement. Growing up in the Rust Belt and going to sad $1 movie shows was my ideal. I loved it. You really can't appreciate how terrible the IQ was. And that was the movie house. The analog recordings made at home were horrible! BTW, 864x486 is what I still deliver as draft previews to my corporate clients. They don't pixel peep. They just want the content they paid for. Also, if you want something akin to a VHS dub recorded in SLP mode (what almost every 80's kid bootlegging films watched at home on their crappy VCR's and CRT's) you'd need something like 480x270 at .2 Mbps...probably less, honestly. How about 320x180 at .1Mbps? That would be a real challenge! kye and kaylee 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meudig Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 I still watch some of my old physical DVD's on a 36" CRT TV. I would probably watch VHS' too if the player still worked. They are however in my opinion unwatchable on a bigger, say 50" 1080p TV. I'd reckon I could enjoy 480p streaming if codec/bit rate were up to par. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzynormal Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 I still rent and watch SD video on Amazon streaming because it's $1.00 cheaper AND there's no way my eyes can tell the difference from the opposite end of the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueIndigo Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 "I think people would be surprised if they ever went back in time and watched the projections of most movies on the film circuit." -- The second (or third) run houses were pretty bad. I remember seeing Chariots of Fire at my local, and a few minutes coming up to every reel change the image was so scratched it looked like it was raining (a bit strange on the interior shots). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kye Posted September 22, 2019 Author Share Posted September 22, 2019 18 hours ago, fuzzynormal said: I still rent and watch SD video on Amazon streaming because it's $1.00 cheaper AND there's no way my eyes can tell the difference from the opposite end of the room. We used to do this, but we upgraded to a significantly larger TV, and it also does 4k, so naturally we now hire movies in HD instead of SD ????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzynormal Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 13 hours ago, TrueIndigo said: The second (or third) run houses were pretty bad. I remember seeing Chariots of Fire at my local, and a few minutes coming up to every reel change the image was so scratched it looked like it was raining (a bit strange on the interior shots). Yeah, and in my corner of the world, at my economic level, that's pretty much all I could afford to attend. So for me, a love/hate relationship with film image IQ. You can see remastered films look glorious, (anyone seen Gone With the Wind in a modern theatre? My god!). But then I remember film looking like absolute shit too. Film is the IQ king, but film also managed to be the pauper. "Rode hard and put away wet" is an apt 19th century metaphor. You could destroy a beautiful animal by mistreating it. Anyway, point being, you would have to seriously agree to degrade IQ for this challenge suggestion --in order to make it a real challenge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kye Posted September 23, 2019 Author Share Posted September 23, 2019 2 hours ago, fuzzynormal said: Anyway, point being, you would have to seriously agree to degrade IQ for this challenge suggestion --in order to make it a real challenge. I don't have memories of what film IQ was like from back then (it was before I started paying attention) but in terms of this challenge, I figured that the 480p delivery bitrate of YT would take care of seriously degrading the image quality of something!! I've tried to design the film challenges to encourage people to pay attention to some aspect of film-making or other, but in the middle of a bunch of 6K camera announcements / releases I think it might have been too optimistic to think people would be interested in exploring very low bitrate 0.8K video ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leslie Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 pardon my ignorance, why not shoot 4k or 6k and downscale to 480. Throw it open to everyone, those that are going to be involved will be involved for the rest it will be a spectator sport, nothing new there ? but it may as well include some form of holy grail challenge otherwise i wont learn anything? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzynormal Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 4 hours ago, kye said: too optimistic to think people would be interested in exploring very low bitrate 0.8K video OTOH, I think it would be a good exercise to show how creating a watchable video doesn't necessarily require high IQ. But, yeah, that doesn't really fit the vibe of this forum, does it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kye Posted September 23, 2019 Author Share Posted September 23, 2019 2 hours ago, leslie said: pardon my ignorance, why not shoot 4k or 6k and downscale to 480. Throw it open to everyone, those that are going to be involved will be involved for the rest it will be a spectator sport, nothing new there ? but it may as well include some form of holy grail challenge otherwise i wont learn anything? No reason you can't shoot in whatever you like and downscale - 8K RAW if you feel like it! 42 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said: OTOH, I think it would be a good exercise to show how creating a watchable video doesn't necessarily require high IQ. But, yeah, that doesn't really fit the vibe of this forum, does it? I think it does, but maybe not during new camera season... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leslie Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 20 hours ago, kye said: No reason you can't shoot in whatever you like and downscale - 8K RAW if you feel like it! I think it does, but maybe not during new camera season... with eoshd i thought it was open season on cameras ? kye 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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