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Comment by bananicorn | Hacker News Reader

The video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spB4ezsQ6II

Absolute travesty to view that video via YouTube though, as the compression destroys the frames when there are hundreds of colorful balls in view.

Anyone know of an alternative source, ideally without the typical internet-friendly/heavy compression?

Here's a 4k "remaster"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UXS6DBD6g0

The problem is not "1080p vs 4K on YouTube" but using YouTube at all for quality video. It's always been bad on YouTube, but videos like this make it extra obvious. For example, this shot: https://i.imgur.com/NRT0AOW.jpeg even in 4K it looks horrible, because of the compression YouTube does even to 4K.

I've tried finding some better version (not on YouTube) but been unable to, maybe it is lost to the passage of time.

The description of that higher quality upload says they sourced it from a retail demo disk, that's probably the best quality version in the wild. Maybe there's a direct rip of that disk on archive.org somewhere? Otherwise someone could ask them to upload their copy if they still have it.

Blu-ray was just getting started in 2005, and Bravia TVs were 1366x768[1], so the demo disk is likely a DVD. I think someone would have to persuade Sony to remaster their original film, or release it to an archivist.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_Bravia_television...

> that's probably the best quality version in the wild

Probably not, would be my guess. Uploading the very same source video to somewhere else than YouTube (and ideally a place that doesn't do heavy compression at all) would lead to an higher quality version easily, someone somewhere must have done just that.

That's what I meant, that the source video for that YouTube upload is probably the best version out there, as you say the second-hand re-encoded version served by YouTube is inferior. I didn't word that clearly, sorry.

Try pulling different codec versions from YouTube? Maybe it got upped to Vimeo or something before? Also YouTube got rid of some resolution options a couple years back and that kinda adds to the problem of compression-rot of sorts.

There's a 2010 copy taken from iTV on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/14504562

Similar but slightly larger file from henry.tv at https://vimeo.com/293364002

The high-quality extended version Sony originally published at bravia-advert.com/includes/vid/bravia_150_sec_high.mov was 700x394 apparently.

> that kinda adds to the problem of compression-rot of sorts

I dunno, when even the 4K version (offered by YouTube) shows the very same compression artifacts on a 4K modern TV, then I kind of feel like you screwed up. At least from the perspective of a viewer, of course from the perspective of the business that saves a lot of money from it.

Something's a bit wrong with the colour on that though - it looks really oversaturated.

The high contrast edges of foliage breaks it too. It seems like a release from the original source would be very doable. And maybe other versions exist if it was considered for (and won) various awards. And the initial Sky broadcast may have been high quality too?

Tagging onto this, curious if anyone has preferred AI-based 1080 -> 4k+ upscale workflows.

The same problem with confetti and snow in videos, due to compression:

<https://tensorpix.ai/blog/video-compression-snow-confetti>

Video compression functions best where little of the shot changes frame-to-frame. This is also why rapid-cut video performs poorly online.

I watched it, it's not so bad. Anyway, it's not like TV doesn't use compression, and back then it was more primitive MPEG-2.

This was a commercial produced for European television in 2005. Barely anyone even had an HDTV back then. I certainly saw it in standard definition when it aired.

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