Did The Hobbit unexpectedly journey into something bad?

[admin]

Did you see The Hobbit? What was your take on the new 48Hz frame rate? Here's Wayde Robson's opinion on it...and it's not good!



Discuss "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey...into Bad HT Video Technology" here. Read the article.

[The Chukker]

Never saw it in the theaters as I was waiting for it to come out on BD.
Did hear some rumblings about it; glad I waited for it to come home.

[Grador]

I saw it in HFR 3D to see how it worked out. I think it helped the 3d a lot, there seemed to be more depth, more in focus and more seamless of an effect. That's really where the positives end though.

The most obvious downfall to me was in the CG. Any CG items in motion stuck out like a sore thumb on a non CG background. For those who have seen the movie in non HFR: the scene where they are in Bilbo's hobbit hole juggling dishes around, the dishes looked ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE as they were flying around. Very sharp and clear and not very well animated.

Overall the motion was just really distracting, it's really difficult to describe. I was really hopeful that something recorded in real high frame rate instead of a junky upconverstion done by a Tv would look good, but it had the same effect.

[Rowdy S13]

The wife and I saw it in HFR 3D, and I had high hopes. It was a let down to us, and I don't think I will bother again. It's hard to describe, but it seemed sped up. Anytime the camera was slowly panning it seemed jumpy and sped up. During the action I would guess it was better, but not something I was defiantly noticing. The last 3D movie I saw was Avitar, so I cant really compare the 3D of that to this one. It seemed well done for the most part, but again nothing that really stood out. Overall I didn't like it, it seemed either WAY too noticeable in a bad way, or not noticeable at all. JMO

Sean

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I saw it in 2D at a theater in L.A. The PQ looked great to me. I hate 3D so I never watch anything in 3D. I actually saw the movie with a friend who sells professional movie projectors for a living. He thought it looked great too.

[Grador]

I saw it in 2D at a theater in L.A. The PQ looked great to me. I hate 3D so I never watch anything in 3D.

This reminds me of something I forgot to mention, and answered a question I had.

Though I pretty much hated every aspect of this film I felt that the image quality was by far the best I had ever seen. Everything was very clear and sharp and detailed. I was wondering if it was partially because of the HFR, or just because the theaters I normally go to suck. I guess it was in fact just actually filmed and produced well.

[AcuDefTechGuy]

This reminds me of something I forgot to mention, and answered a question I had.

Though I pretty much hated every aspect of this film I felt that the image quality was by far the best I had ever seen. Everything was very clear and sharp and detailed. I was wondering if it was partially because of the HFR, or just because the theaters I normally go to suck. I guess it was in fact just actually filmed and produced well.

Yeah, PQ was great. No complaints from me. The story sucked, though.

[jotham]

In my opinion, this is just yet another complaint about how the old tech is better than the first iteration of the new tech.

I'm not saying that a higher frame rate doesn't look different and might be unsettling to folks used to a 24 FPS but I think the younger generations that are used to a diet of high-res, high framerate video games will probably adapt to this new approach quite readily.

Other than nostalgia, there is nothing special about 24 FPS that makes it desirable. 3D and higher frame rates are both an effort to try and make movies look more and more lifelike. So is 100 channel sound systems like DTS-SHHD Overlord Audio 92.8 . I'm all for that even knowing that each bump in tech will result in some initial crap as the content creation people work out the bugs.

I applaud Peter Jackson and James Cameron for striving to make movies more realistic even if they seem to focus on the fantastical side of storytelling

[Grador]

In my opinion, this is just yet another complaint about how the old tech is better than the first iteration of the new tech.

I'm not saying that a higher frame rate doesn't look different and might be unsettling to folks used to a 24 FPS but I think the younger generations that are used to a diet of high-res, high framerate video games will probably adapt to this new approach quite readily.

Sorry, I would put myself on the front end of this generation you speak and I thought it was really mediocre. It looked far less realistic, and I do find truthfully find that rather odd. I do applaud the effort, but it really did not work out. Truthfully though even if it did, any and all of the CG really did look far far worse for the use of HFR, so it would still have trouble looking realistic there.

[FirstReflection]

I saw it in HFR 3D, and...I kinda loved it

Honestly, I went in expecting to hate it. I loathe interpolation on televisions (aka. "soap opera effect"), so I expected to hate the 48fps presentation just as much. But, to my surprise, even though I had a lot of caveats, I saw a number of scenes where I felt the HFR look was extremely pleasing.

It IS difficult to explain in words. To begin, when the movie first started, I honestly thought that something was wrong. Not just an "oh, that looks different and strange". I truly thought that there was something wrong with the projector, and that the file was being played incorrectly! The best way I can describe it is that it looked like when you play a movie at 1.5x speed. It didn't look sped up to the point of being on fast forward, but it definitely looked like it was being played faster than it should have been. Like I say, the closest experience is watching a movie at 1.5x on a disc player or computer.

But then we got to the Shire, and that's the scene where the HFR look put a great big smile on my face. Everything just looked very realistic - like watching a live play rather than a movie. I went into the movie with worries about this very effect. I had heard that it sometimes looked like a play, rather than a movie, and I was worried that it would take me out of the fantasy setting, and just remind me that I was watching something fake and made up. But, to my delight, the realism of the HFR look during the bright, colourful outdoor scenes in the Shire really just gave me the feeling that this was a real place. A place that I could go and visit in real life. And I personally found that to be more engaging and engrossing, vs. the regular movie look we're all used to, which sort of keeps us at a distance, and makes everything just a bit "otherworldly". In HFR, I believed I was seeing a real place in the Shire. When I watched the movie again in regular 24fps, it had the normal movie look, which gave me the feeling that the Shire was someplace else - a place that didn't really exist. Again, tough to put into words, but the HFR look was definitely more realistic.

Then I noticed that 1.5x look again when Bilbo (the older version) was on screen and quickly moving around. Everything about his movements looked sped up and very unnatural. But then Frodo walked into the scene and his movement (which was slower) looked phenomenally real - again, much like watching a play.

So one of the things I realized is that actors will have to adjust to the new HFR look, just as lighting, makeup and effects must all adjust as well. It's a bit like when television went from SD to HD. The old ways of doing makeup and lighting just didn't look right in HD. Changes had to be made. And similar sorts of changes will be necessary for HFR as well, IMO. This being the first major release in HFR, the adjustments have not yet been discovered and made, so some images look very strange. But I fully believe that things could be adjusted.

This contrast between things that looked sped up and unnatural and things that looked amazingly real and lifelike continued throughout the movie for me. I never fully grew accustomed to the HFR look. I was always rather aware of it. But there was a definite back and forth as to the way in which I was aware of the HFR. One scene, it was looking really fantastic and real - giving me that sense that these were real people in a real place that I could physically go and visit myself - and then the next scene, it was looking oddly sped up and entirely unnatural. It was a very strange back and forth.

And the CGI effects fell into that back and forth as well. Certain effects looked much more fake because of the HFR look, while other CGI creatures - like the Trolls - had a great new sense of realism that I really enjoyed!

So the term, "mixed bag" has never been more appropriate. Peter Jackson used a lot of sweeping camera movements to show off the smooth, judder-free pans. And they looked fantastic when it was a wide-angle shot outdoors. Being The Hobbit, there are no shortage of scenes with people taking long walks outside Those looked great as the camera swooped by. But indoors and up close, those camera movements were distracting and looked sped up. I found that wide shots and close ups both looked better in HFR, but medium-distance shots seemed to be what suffered the most from that odd 1.5x speed look.

So, to me, HFR holds a lot of promise. When it looks good, it looks really good! I was surprised how much I liked it! I just really loved the sensation I had of seeing an actual, real live place and people. But when it looks bad, it looks very strange. So, like I say, I just think adjustments need to be made. It's a learning process, and this really is just the first major feature to use HFR for a wide public release - so growing pains are to be expected. But once it gets nailed down, I'd very much enjoy watching movies this way. Not ALL movies, mind you. But I see HFR as being just another option and choice for a director to utilize if he or she wishes to do so. It's not the right choice for everything, but it's far from all bad, either.