cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/4517587
Christopher Nolan took a playful swipe at streaming while introducing a Los Angeles screening of “Oppenheimer” that was devoted to spotlighting the film’s craft. Crew members reunited for the event Monday evening, billed as “The Story of Our Time: The Making of ‘Oppenheimer.'” The director said a lot of time and energy has gone into assembling the “Oppenheimer” Blu-ray so that it preserves the film’s soundscape, which is one reason moviegoers should buy a physical copy as opposed to waiting for the movie to stream.
“Obviously ‘Oppenheimer’ has been quite a ride for us and now it is time for me to release a home version of the film. I’ve been working very hard on it for months,” Nolan said. “I’m known for my love of theatrical and put my whole life into that, but, the truth is, the way the film goes out at home is equally important.”
“‘The Dark Knight’ was one of the first films where we formatted it specially for Blu-ray release because it was a new form at the time,” he continued. “And in the case of ‘Oppenheimer,’ we put a lot of care and attention into the Blu-ray version… and trying to translate the photography and the sound, putting that into the digital realm with a version you can buy and own at home and put on a shelf so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”
Release date: 22nd November 2023
Tech specs: Blu-ray.com
I feel like there’s something unfortunate going on here.
Part of the premise of my comment was that focusing on a simple numerical metric like pixel resolution is a misrepresentation of the actual quality.
Here, in your response and others, there seems to me to be a continued emphasis on numerical metrics. What’s missing is a treatment of the actual visual presentation on the screen and what differences a human is perceiving. No one “sees” a bit rate, they see the video.
And if we are to keep our focus on actual visual quality and not got distracted by marketing, at some point, you’ve got to bring it down to what the human in front of the screen is actually perceiving.
In this case, I think a simple first step is to emphasise the essential effect of compression, which is that the number of pixels effectively goes down by grouping them together for certain frames in order to save on data rates. Whereas a DVD is “lossless” and lets each pixel display its part of the image freely no matter how subtle its difference from its neighbours is. The result of this is all of the increases color depth and bitrate stuff, which in a nutshell means that DVDs etc are using each of their pixels as well as possible while streaming, even if it puts more pixels on the screen, is getting them to cut corners. The additional information provided by pixels being more independent in the values they display leads to greater amounts of colors and more detail (per pixel at least) and consistently so across the whole image and video such that weird artefacts and glitches from compression won’t pollute the video.
Whether that’s what you intended or not, that’s not the premise of the comment you had written:
My comment answered saying that if you don’t understand the basics of compression and bit depth, then there’s no way to talk to you about video and you need to go learn the basics. Those are not technicalities or a deep analysis. You just need to learn the basic vocabulary of these things and that is very readily available online.
My comment then laid out how it’s very clearly something lost - the video color, audio, and compression are all measurably worse. We know it has been lost. That’s quantifiable. And my post quantified it.
If you don’t understand the jargon, you’re not looking for “someone to breakdown the technicalities”, you’re looking for someone to explain the basics of how digital video works and what the terms mean.
It sounds like you are actually looking for something like side by sides of uncompressed and compressed video. And high vs low color depth. But that’s not what you originally asked for.
First, my comment, though directly in response to yours, was addressed to what seemed to be the general nature of these sorts of discussions. FWIW I upvoted your comment and replied to it specifically because it was the most substantial. There’s nothing personal, directed or venomous from me here. I liked your response and should have opened with “thank you!”
Second, “technicalities” are not limited to the data transfer details, or generally, IT. Visual perception is incredibly technical (more so than than the IT details involved I’d wager, FWIW). In calling for a breakdown of the technicalities, that can and should encompass all that is relevant to the issue. And that’s the point of my critique.
Data transfer rates on their own mean fairly little, and yet they seem to be the go-to description of what’s going on here with matters like color depth and spatial detail handled with a hand wavy mention. I suspect it’s because a bitrate is a single easy number to communicate, and that’s fine. But it’s not a breakdown or explanation.
We don’t need side by side comparisons for this, though that could be nice. And I think this is at a point above defining jargon terms. I think what would be helpful for many here is an explanation of what they see and why. In my particular case, and I suspect many others, you’d be surprised at how much of the components of the issue are already understood, at least to some extent. It’s the complete picture of the process that leads to the differences that is incomplete.
For example, I’d bet many find it plainly unintuitive how a higher resolution could possibly look worse and would somewhat dismiss claims of lower bitrates being important on the basis higher resolutions should just trump that. Why are they wrong, and by how much? Many probably know something of compression and bit/color depth, but don’t grasp how impactful they can be to an image compared to resolution which they’ve clearly seen demonstrated to them repeatedly over time.