Film vs Digital, told through the story of Mr Pixel and Mrs Grain
posted Oct 22nd 2008 1:41PM
The film vs digital debate is one of our favorites. It is easily as interesting as plasma vs LCD or 1080i vs 720p, but has much more history. In today's LCD age where some don't want things to look real, but instead would prefer unrealistically bright colors, it can be hard for some people to understand what there is to appreciate about grain. In fact these same people would probably always say that the word grain, is a bad word. True movie fans know better though and almost laugh when someone proclaims Planet Earth is the best looking Blu-ray Disc ever. So while we've never been really good at explaining what is so great about film, we really got a kick out of Mr Pixel and Mrs Grain, which is three short video clips that explain the benefits of both mediums in a fun way. So if you've always wondered what others see if film, or just looking for some laughs, click on through.
I'd Pixel her grain!
Here's something that doesn't make a lot of sense:
You rip on people for insisting that they should appreciate something that looks real over something that looks unrealistic (unrealistically bright colors on an LCD) and then you go on to imply that film grain is realistic or at least desirable. I don't know about you, but when I look at the real world around me with my own eyes, there is no grain, at least not to the extent that you see with film. I think film grain is a neat "effect", but it's not realistic. When you look at a red shirt in real life, there is no noise, or grain, or anything like that. But on film, you can easily see this noise or grain. So grain = unrealistic.
So unless I'm missing something here the picture on an HDTV could only be truly realistic if it were like looking through an open window. In other words, NO compression, perfectly recreated colors (good luck getting that with an LCD), and NO grain or noise of any kind.
Oh, and if I'm completely off base on the point of this article, I apologize as I can't see these videos at work.
Oops, sorry, I meant to say "you rip on people for not appreciating something that looks real over something that looks artificially unrealistic (unrealistically bright colors on an LCD)"
Oh, and if this article is discussing grain vs. pixelation, I'll take grain any day, obviously.
I agree. Grain reminds me of a low quality source, like a VHS tape. Not realistic at all.
Brilliant! Although, maybe a bit too nerdy for me to share with friends. I mean how many people are really going to get a joke about a Portabrace jacket? :)
Agreed - most people I know would've been lost by the the latitude joke came up in the first video. I, however, laughed my ass off. Great videos!
I don't have to worry about either on my 50" DLP.
What... do you keep your LCD off 24/7?
Or maybe the LG has a "distort the creator's artistic vision" button that changes the way movies like 300 or Iron Man (especially the Afganistan scenes) look.
Either way, I'm kinda glad my TV shows film or video the way it's was made, rather than using some other reference point.
Since when do either of video or film attempt to be real? They both have a 'look' and are never going to look real. Real is when your own eyes see the world and are constantly adapting to things like the intensity of your point of interest and its colour. When shooting with a camera the camera does not do this it is fixed for any particular image. These images are then reproduced usually at a much lower intensity and your eyes adapt differently to this situation. This is before you even consider the addition of noise sources like CCD/CMOS/Film, or the temporal sampling imposed by the capture choices, device gamut/metamerism, etc.
Its an artistic choice, for me they missed out on one obvious in joke... the colour of her dresses isn't quite right across the 3 shorts :-)