Ya Mamma (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} diesel_powered) wrote,@ 2006-01-08 01:35:00 |
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You know, maybe it's just OCD of me, but...
I kinda get off on stuff like this:
http://lyris-lite.net/dnr4c.html
It's an article about Digital Video Noise Reduction (DVNR) and it's use in the Simpsons DVDs.
For the record, you may not notice this, but the Simpsons DVDs (particularly the early ones) look like utter shit from a video quality standpoint. Most of this is due to the production companies sticking a DVNR box in their workflow and letting it run unattended over their video streams when they digitize video for use in DVD sets. At least that coupled with the fact that the Simpsons production team doesn't really produce good video transfers to begin with. The thing is, the Simpsons show was all shot on film. That's right. Believe it or not, the Simpsons shows are all animated conventionally, without the use of computers. What this means is that when everything is shipped off to Korea to get redrawn and animated, it comes back on film. The film is then transferred to tape at the studio, where the film is cleaned up, usually with a digital filter that has a higher quality control standard on it (because nobody would tolerate this type of artifact in broadcast). Then, years down the road, the broadcast masters are tapped to be made into DVD. The video is run through a digital filter again (just out of habit) and it results in lines disappearing and noticable video noise.
So why should anyone give a shit?
Here's the deal. Between film and DVD, there are multiple layers of compression, decompression, filtering, and editing. While this doesn't seem like a bad thing individually, each of these processes add artifacts to the final image. I mean, as it is, DVDs by their very nature contain compressed video, which is a slight step down in quality from film.
Think about it this way:
Load a 300 DPI image into Photoshop, then downscale it to 250 DPI, upscale it to 300 DPI again, and then run the "dust and scratches" filter a couple of times and see what happens. It's essentially the same thing that happens when programs are converted to DVD.
This means that you end up with an inferior product in your hands (starting price? $30 for a season of your average show) because the studios won't take a little bit of extra time to find the best quality masters and look closer at their quality control measures. From a longer standpoint, this also means that as master tapes and film deteriorate, there will no longer be high quality versions of these shows available for the future. Kind of sad when you consider how important a show like the Simpsons is to our cultural landscape.
That being said, in my experience the DVD transfers for Family Guy have been razor sharp and generally perfect...
I kinda get off on stuff like this:
http://lyris-lite.net/dnr4c.html
It's an article about Digital Video Noise Reduction (DVNR) and it's use in the Simpsons DVDs.
For the record, you may not notice this, but the Simpsons DVDs (particularly the early ones) look like utter shit from a video quality standpoint. Most of this is due to the production companies sticking a DVNR box in their workflow and letting it run unattended over their video streams when they digitize video for use in DVD sets. At least that coupled with the fact that the Simpsons production team doesn't really produce good video transfers to begin with. The thing is, the Simpsons show was all shot on film. That's right. Believe it or not, the Simpsons shows are all animated conventionally, without the use of computers. What this means is that when everything is shipped off to Korea to get redrawn and animated, it comes back on film. The film is then transferred to tape at the studio, where the film is cleaned up, usually with a digital filter that has a higher quality control standard on it (because nobody would tolerate this type of artifact in broadcast). Then, years down the road, the broadcast masters are tapped to be made into DVD. The video is run through a digital filter again (just out of habit) and it results in lines disappearing and noticable video noise.
So why should anyone give a shit?
Here's the deal. Between film and DVD, there are multiple layers of compression, decompression, filtering, and editing. While this doesn't seem like a bad thing individually, each of these processes add artifacts to the final image. I mean, as it is, DVDs by their very nature contain compressed video, which is a slight step down in quality from film.
Think about it this way:
Load a 300 DPI image into Photoshop, then downscale it to 250 DPI, upscale it to 300 DPI again, and then run the "dust and scratches" filter a couple of times and see what happens. It's essentially the same thing that happens when programs are converted to DVD.
This means that you end up with an inferior product in your hands (starting price? $30 for a season of your average show) because the studios won't take a little bit of extra time to find the best quality masters and look closer at their quality control measures. From a longer standpoint, this also means that as master tapes and film deteriorate, there will no longer be high quality versions of these shows available for the future. Kind of sad when you consider how important a show like the Simpsons is to our cultural landscape.
That being said, in my experience the DVD transfers for Family Guy have been razor sharp and generally perfect...
