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Comment by Shorel | Hacker News Reader

Anyone who mentions: "the soap opera effect" is someone who used to watch soap operas. The reason they dislike it, is their own bad taste.

I like how it looks because it is "high quality videogame effect" for me. 60 hz, 120hz, 144hz, you only get this on a good videogame setup.

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Just because someone has different taste doesn't make it bad taste. Books have lower resolution still, and they evoke far greater imaginative leaps. For me, the magic lies in what is not shown; it helps aid the suspension of disbelief by requiring you imagination to do more work filling in the gaps.

I'm an avid video game player, and while FPS and sports-adjacent games demand high framerates, I'm perfectly happy turning my render rates down to 40Hz or 30Hz on many games simply to conserve power. I generally prefer my own brain's antialiasing, I guess.

books have infinite resolution thanks to AI decompression filter

Do framerates effect antialiasing?

In the broadest sense of the word, aliasing refers to a problem where an insufficient number of samples create a misrepresentation of an intended signal source. I was being a bit poetic, because in graphics programming, where the term "antialiasing" is most often encountered by lay audiences, antialiasing generally refers to X/Y sampling coordinate correction rather than representations across time. It's not usually considered a major issue in vision, because our brains naturally fill in the gaps pretty easily across time for motion (they already naturally do this for eg blinking, you don't see your eyelids when you blink). So usually antialiasing across time is only an issue in audio domains for the layperson, where a misrepresentation of a sample might be perceived as an entirely different pitch, since our ears need >40k samples per second (for accurate high pitches) vs the 24 samples per second that we are accustomed to getting in old fashioned film. When our eyes "miss" a frame or two, our brain is happy to fill in the gaps, ie "antialiasing."

Edit: to clarify, I'm suggesting that some people might prefer to let their brains "fill in the missing frames" rather than see the extra frames shown explicitly. For example, you might be more likely to notice visual tearing at 60Hz than you are to take note of visual tearing at 24Hz when you're already accustomed to filling in the missing pieces, or to a greater extreme, across two panels of a comic strip portraying motion.

Films use cheap set dec and materials. They use lighting and makeup tricks.

If you watch at a higher frame rate, the mistakes become obvious rather than melting into the frames. Humans look plastic and fake.

The people that are masters of light and photography make intentional choices for a reason.

You can cook your steak well done if you like, but that's not how you're supposed to eat it.

A steak is not a burger. A movie is not a sports event or video game.

The choice wasn't intentional, it was forced by technology and in turn, methods were molded by technological limitation.

What next, gonna complain resolution is too high and you can see costume seams ?

The film IS the burger, you said it yourself, it shows off where the movie cheapened on things. If you want a steak you need steak framerate

> What next, gonna complain resolution is too high and you can see costume seams ?

They literally had to invent new types of makeup because HD provided more skin detail than was previously available.

It’s why you’ll find a lot of foundation marketed as “HD cream”.

that's just progress, so get the 60 fps cream next then :)

> The choice wasn't intentional,

I'm a filmmaker. Yes, it was.

> What next, gonna complain resolution is too high and you can see costume seams ?

Try playing an SNES game on CRT versus with pixel upscaling.

The art direction was chosen for the technology.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jh2ssirC1oQ

> The film IS the burger, you said it yourself, it shows off where the movie cheapened on things. If you want a steak you need steak framerate

You don't need 48fps to make a good film. You don't need a big budget either.

If you want to take a piece of art and have it look garish, you do you.

> The art direction was chosen for the technology.

And it's time for the art direction of films to take advantage of modern technology just like we have games made for HD resolutions toady - including ones that are made to evoke the feel of older systems while smoothing off the rough edges.

> You don't need 48fps to make a good film. You don't need a big budget either.

And you don't need HD resolutions either, but they do make it look even better - and so do high frame rates when the production is up to it.

24fps was never an intentional choice but more of a compromise for economic reasons.

Anyone choosing 24 FPS with a digital workflow is absolutely doing it intentionally. Part of that may be historical reasons or matching expectations, but it's also a factor in some of the illusion that goes into movies.

Not true in all cases - for example Blu Ray doesn't support 48 FPS which is probably the reason why we never got high frame rate home video releases of The Hobbit and Avatar rather than the directors thinking that we should see those movies in 24 FPS when at home.

The "illusion" is simply people being used to 24fps after it has been in use for so long.

Makeup and wardrobe and lighting are all impacted by frame rate.

You can see cheap set decoration at 48 fps. It disappears at 24 fps.

Had the same issue with when TV switched to HD. It is a bad argument.

I agree in part. I'd like to see movies shot at higher framerates if and only if the filmmaker can actually pull off a good result, but I suspect it isn't always viable.

I suspect it's almost always viable without much or any additional effort.

>> The choice wasn't intentional,

>I'm a filmmaker. Yes, it was.

What you are is dishonest. Quote my entire sentence not cut it in half changing its entire meaning

> The choice wasn't intentional, it was forced by technology and in turn, methods were molded by technological limitation.

There was no choice unless you think "just make it look bad by ignoring tech limitations" is realistic choice of someone actually taking money for their job.

>> What next, gonna complain resolution is too high and you can see costume seams ?

>Try playing an SNES game on CRT versus with pixel upscaling.

>The art direction was chosen for the technology.

There was no choice involved. You had to do it because that was what tech required from you for it to look good.

The technology changed, so art direction changed with it. Why can't movie industry keep up while gaming industry had dozen of revolutions like this ?

> You don't need 48fps to make a good film. You don't need a big budget either.

But you can take it and make it better.

> If you want to take a piece of art and have it look garish, you do you.

"Don't have budget to double the framerate" is fair argument. Why you don't use that instead of assuming anything made in better tech will be "garish" ?

Your argument is essentially saying "I don't have enough skill to use new tech and still make it look great"

> What you are is dishonest.

I was being civil, but you're taking this too far. I was wary of engaging with your first comment given the bombastic tone, but I thought you might appreciate my domain experience. I disagree with everything you're saying, but I am not going to engage with you further.

Misquoting people is hardly "civil", is underhanded at best.

If movie makers need to up their set game to make it work then they should do that instead of trying to gaslight us into believing 24 FPS is better. TV also had to improve their sets and effects for HD without crying about it.

Enter the Dragon would have been amazing if it had been filmed at 144 Hz.

The technical limitations of the past century should not define what constitutes a film.

> You can cook your steak well done if you like, but that's not how you're supposed to eat it.

Did you read an interview with the cow’s creator?

It is a well-known description for what each brand calls something different. As I wait in a physiotherapist office I am being subjected to a soap opera against my will. Many will have seen snippets of The Bold and the Beautiful without watching a single episode, but enough to know that it looks 'different'.

The Godfather in 144hz with DNR and motion smoothing, just like Scorsese intended.

My counterargument is this: I would love if Bruce Lee was filmed at 144hz.

He had been told to slow down because 24hz simply could not capture his fast movements.

At 144hz, we would be able to better appreciate his abilities.

24fps was not chosen from technical merit but because it was the lowest frame rate that most people didn't see flicker.

That choice was made long before Scorsese made The Godfather; and so has virtually every other movie made over the past century.

Real artists understand the limits of the medium they're working in and shape their creations to exist within it. So even if there was no artistic or technical merit in the choice to standardize on 24 FPS, the choice to standardize on 24 FPS shaped the media that came after it. Which means it's gained merit it didn't have when it was initially standardized upon.

>just like Scorsese intended.

>before Scorsese made The Godfather

Can you let me in on the joke?

Whether he invented 24hz or not, the film was shot with that in mind, is the point. Just like the lighting of black and white films was very different because of color limitations, or the mannerisms of silent films were different due to lack of dialogue or sound other than a musical track.

Oof, I completely glossed over that. Twice.

It's not a joke it's a mistake! Thanks for the upvotes anyway :]

The director was of course Francis Ford Coppola.

I dunno, the grandparent comment gave credit for The Godfather to Scorsese so I ran with it.

author's intentions for how stuff should be watched are overrated

...that being said motion interpolation is abomination

At the end of the day the viewer should get to see what they want to see. But in my case I usually want to see what the author had in mind, and I want my TV to respect that preference.

I have no qualms for changing it if it makes it look better for me but "what the TV manufacturer wanted users to see" is near always just.. bad

I agree that the viewer should see what they want to see, but I do think they should be made aware what it is and that they're seeing it.

I disliked the effect (of an unfamiliar TV’s postprocessing) without calling it that and without ever having seen a soap opera. What’s your analysis, doc?

Another commenter said something that resonated with me - it feels too real, loses the magic.

Watch cartoons if you don't want 'real'. Those made by Disney are said to be 'magic'.

Sorry for being snarky. It's just that I have large difficulties enjoying 24 fps pan shots and action scenes. It's like watching a slide show to me. I'm rather annoyed that the tech hasn't made any progress in this regard, because viewers and makers want to cling on to the magic/dream-like experiences they had in their formative years.

Real high framerate is one thing, but the TV setting is faking it with interpolation. There's not really a good reason to do this, it's trickery to deceive you. Recording a video at 60fps is fine, but that's just not what TV and movies do in reality. No one is telling you to watch something at half the intended framerate, just the actual framerate.

In principle, I agree with you.

I would vastly prefer original material at high frame rates instead of interpolation.

But I remember the backslash against “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” because it was filmed at 48 Hz, and that makes me think that people dislike high frame rate content no matter the source, so my comment also covers these cases.

Also, because of that public response, we don't have more content actually filmed at high frame rates =)

I wanted to like The Hobbit in 48, but it really didn't work for me. It made everything look fake, from the effects to the acting. I lost suspension of disbelief. If we want high frame rate to be a thing, then filmmakers need to figure out a way to direct that looks plausible at a more realistic speed, and that probably means less theatrics.

I don't have strong feelings on 48fps video as I haven't been exposed to it much, if at all (I kind of just ignore LotR and Star Wars and figure I missed the boat on them at this point), but I will say I have watched and recorded 60fps YouTube videos and I am not bothered by them at all. Maybe something in between 24 and 60 would feel a bit "off" to me, but I'd at least be in favor of stuff going to 60, I think.

It's called the soap opera effect because soap operas were shot on video tape, instead of film, to save money. It wasn't just soap operas, either. Generally, people focus on frame rate, but there are other factors, too, like how video sensors capture light across the spectrum differently than film.

I find the rejection of higher frame rates for movies and TV shows to be baffling when people accepted color and sound being introduced which are much bigger changes.

Maybe the quality of a change matters more than its size? Just a thought.

Higher frame rates are a good change for action scenes. Hell 24fps is notorious for causing flickering during horizontal pan shots.

I call it the "British comedy effect". And it's awful, and if you like it, you're awful too, sorry to say.

wow 2008 called

I haven't thought about or noticed in nearly two decades

My eyes 100% adjusted, I like higher frame and refresh rates now

I cant believe that industry just repeated a line about how magical 24fps feels for ages and nobody questioned it, until they magically had enough storage and equipment resources to abandon it. what a coincidence

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