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The digital revolution stops at the border
Jun. 7th, 2004 08:22 amAt least, at the border of Analog and Digital, and it's got no visa or passport, so it's not crossing the border into Analog. Or at least, not on my digital highway. I made this vid for the Vividcon premier show and for the first time tried to use more effects (which, with iMovie, doesn't really mean much, because there aren't many effects to use, even with the time-motion effects plug-in package I bought). There are really only four things I used, and they seemed fine on the computer screen. When I made a full-quality DV file and burned a dvd, then played it on my hi-def TV, everything seemed hunky dory except the anime slo-mo effect. I fiddled with that a bit, and got it to a tolerable - not great on a couple clips, but tolerable, place.
Then I took it to someone's house who has a regular old analog TV/dvd/vcr combo, and it was a total mess. The simple fadeouts that I'd used to punctuate the music and clips turned to pixelized blobs of light every time there was a fade (which there are rather a lot of). The slo-mo and anime slo-mo (a simple effect that stills the frame and then blends those frames together to create the kind of faux slo-mo that you see sometimes in anime movies) jitter and flash on the screen, worse than they did the first time I checked them and found the problem I thought I'd fixed. Anything slower than 2.5 times normal speed vibrates and flashes. It was monumentally depressing to see that all my hard work won't play on 99% of the screens of people who would get this on a disc.
Most people I know don't have digital TVs, and many folks I know still can't play dvds on their computers. Even though I now have some vids online, I still make my vids with the large screen in mind -- I don't like the visual quality and smallness of vids online, and this one was an especially rich palette and strong visuals to play with, and one where I'd tried very hard to build the color palette along with the story, so that not only do the clips get more intense, but so do the types of visual treatments. Knowing that almost no one would be able to play this on the disc we're making for distribution is just... really frustrating, because it's a vid I was really proud of and something I wanted to get out there to fellow fans, to share. I'm not a known vidder, so having it only be online would not really reach many folks.
If the projector at the con is digital, it may still work to at least show it there, but I wouldn't be able to include it on a con disc, since most people would be watching the discs on an analog TV. And it's weird that I haven't heard about this before... I've used slo-mos from this plug-in on another vid (not as heavily, though) and it seemed fine on the analog TV I played it on. I've seen vids that are much more effects-heavy than this pathetic thing, and they seemed fine on analog sets (though probably were made with more sophisticated programs, though I'm not sure why all of a sudden that would make a difference). I'm not smart enough to understand why this particular vid, using almost all the same effects I've used before, and very simple ones at that, turns blacks to pixelated mush -- if they can handle fadeouts elsewhere, why not here? Is it just sheer volume that freaks out an analog TV -- it can't process that much info from a DVD-R? I'm not sure I totally get it, and I'm not smart enough (I wouldn't even rate private first class in the digital revolution army, man) to figure it out. Or problem-solve.
The vid that was in my head is what's on screen. I don't even know how to remake it -- this is the way it formed in my mind, and I'm not one of those people who can easily alter an artistic vision once I have it. I suppose in the long run it doesn't matter -- there's probably a limited audience for a vid like this anyway, so far of the people who've seen it, few have bothered to say much about it. Maybe something strange is happening with the DV files; I noticed the fadeout at the end of our other vid we showed also freaked out the analog TV. But crummy TVs and low-end players are more the rule than the exception, so that means that since online is the only way it'll play well, online it's gonna have to be, I suppose. Arg. I know a lot of the frustration, too, is that I put more work into it than normal, and it's hard to realize your baby has a mustache and looks ugly to others.
I should disable comments since this is nothing but a whine, but I'm curious if anyone else has found a problem with effects-heavy vids playing poorly on analog screens, or if it's just because I use little old iMovie and iDVD. Everything else I've ever done on those programs, though, has played beautifully. I don't get why my Digital passport has suddenly become unwelcome in Analogland.
Then I took it to someone's house who has a regular old analog TV/dvd/vcr combo, and it was a total mess. The simple fadeouts that I'd used to punctuate the music and clips turned to pixelized blobs of light every time there was a fade (which there are rather a lot of). The slo-mo and anime slo-mo (a simple effect that stills the frame and then blends those frames together to create the kind of faux slo-mo that you see sometimes in anime movies) jitter and flash on the screen, worse than they did the first time I checked them and found the problem I thought I'd fixed. Anything slower than 2.5 times normal speed vibrates and flashes. It was monumentally depressing to see that all my hard work won't play on 99% of the screens of people who would get this on a disc.
Most people I know don't have digital TVs, and many folks I know still can't play dvds on their computers. Even though I now have some vids online, I still make my vids with the large screen in mind -- I don't like the visual quality and smallness of vids online, and this one was an especially rich palette and strong visuals to play with, and one where I'd tried very hard to build the color palette along with the story, so that not only do the clips get more intense, but so do the types of visual treatments. Knowing that almost no one would be able to play this on the disc we're making for distribution is just... really frustrating, because it's a vid I was really proud of and something I wanted to get out there to fellow fans, to share. I'm not a known vidder, so having it only be online would not really reach many folks.
If the projector at the con is digital, it may still work to at least show it there, but I wouldn't be able to include it on a con disc, since most people would be watching the discs on an analog TV. And it's weird that I haven't heard about this before... I've used slo-mos from this plug-in on another vid (not as heavily, though) and it seemed fine on the analog TV I played it on. I've seen vids that are much more effects-heavy than this pathetic thing, and they seemed fine on analog sets (though probably were made with more sophisticated programs, though I'm not sure why all of a sudden that would make a difference). I'm not smart enough to understand why this particular vid, using almost all the same effects I've used before, and very simple ones at that, turns blacks to pixelated mush -- if they can handle fadeouts elsewhere, why not here? Is it just sheer volume that freaks out an analog TV -- it can't process that much info from a DVD-R? I'm not sure I totally get it, and I'm not smart enough (I wouldn't even rate private first class in the digital revolution army, man) to figure it out. Or problem-solve.
The vid that was in my head is what's on screen. I don't even know how to remake it -- this is the way it formed in my mind, and I'm not one of those people who can easily alter an artistic vision once I have it. I suppose in the long run it doesn't matter -- there's probably a limited audience for a vid like this anyway, so far of the people who've seen it, few have bothered to say much about it. Maybe something strange is happening with the DV files; I noticed the fadeout at the end of our other vid we showed also freaked out the analog TV. But crummy TVs and low-end players are more the rule than the exception, so that means that since online is the only way it'll play well, online it's gonna have to be, I suppose. Arg. I know a lot of the frustration, too, is that I put more work into it than normal, and it's hard to realize your baby has a mustache and looks ugly to others.
I should disable comments since this is nothing but a whine, but I'm curious if anyone else has found a problem with effects-heavy vids playing poorly on analog screens, or if it's just because I use little old iMovie and iDVD. Everything else I've ever done on those programs, though, has played beautifully. I don't get why my Digital passport has suddenly become unwelcome in Analogland.
