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Compliments, video comments, and a video mode question

 
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:20 am    Post subject: Compliments, video comments, and a video mode question Reply with quote

Well, plc/halcyon lent me his copy of the DVD, and I've watched/listened through a large chunk of the demos and extras. It's a very impressive package overall, congratulations! I'll probably buy my own copy eventually, once you recover from the slashdotting Wink

The video quality is actually beyond my expectations. Since my studies involve fiddling around with stuff like Digibeta recorders (some 100 000 euros for a "simple" VCR) and an Avid Symphony online suite (200 000 euros...), I have some idea how painful and expensive high-quality video actually is Very Happy

The choice of interlaced video is a good one IMO, even though many crappy software players (like the Apple DVD player I tried it on) still can't do deinterlacing to make it look better on a computer screen. TV is the natural watching environment for a DVD, and the interlaced 60 Hz mode better reproduces the fluidity that's essential for many demos. (Remember how it used to be important if an effect runs "one frame", i.e. at full 50/60 fps...)

The overscan-safe framing (=the black area around the demos) is pretty big, which is a bit sad since NTSC is so low-res to begin with. OTOH these demos were never designed with any overscan in mind, so I guess it's better to make sure people are seeing the full image even on grandma's 14" TV Smile

Now, the question - as I was listening to the commentaries, something caught my ear. On Tesla, you said there's some dithering visible because it uses a 16-bit video mode. Not that it matters, but I'm just curious why you ran it at 16-bit? The demo offers a full selection of video modes, and runs pretty fine at 1600*1200*32bit here. Admittedly, it's kind of confusing how the setup screen just dumps each and every mode your video card supports into one huge list Smile
(although I think it's a very good thing to let the user choose the exact video mode, instead of running at a fixed 640*480 or 800*600, or offering just two/three modes to choose from...)

Saffron
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Lawyer77
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Funny, I was logged in, but the message went as Guest anyway. Oh well.
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Trixter
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2003 1:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Compliments, video comments, and a video mode question Reply with quote

Anonymous wrote:
The video quality is actually beyond my expectations. Since my studies involve fiddling around with stuff like Digibeta recorders (some 100 000 euros for a "simple" VCR) and an Avid Symphony online suite (200 000 euros...), I have some idea how painful and expensive high-quality video actually is Very Happy


Drool.... digibeta.... I would almost give my left arm to work on an actual Avid. Those things are so expensive that most people just rent time on them.

Quote:

The choice of interlaced video is a good one IMO, even though many crappy software players (like the Apple DVD player I tried it on) still can't do deinterlacing to make it look better on a computer screen. TV is the natural watching environment for a DVD, and the interlaced 60 Hz mode better reproduces the fluidity that's essential for many demos. (Remember how it used to be important if an effect runs "one frame", i.e. at full 50/60 fps...)


Exactly, and this was why it was chosen. If the demo runs at 50/60, then it should be displayed at 50/60. Motion is almost always more important than resolution, just like in digital sound sample rate is more important than sample depth. Thank you for noticing!

Quote:

The overscan-safe framing (=the black area around the demos) is pretty big, which is a bit sad since NTSC is so low-res to begin with. OTOH these demos were never designed with any overscan in mind, so I guess it's better to make sure people are seeing the full image even on grandma's 14" TV Smile


You got it exactly right. A lot of demos display details right at the edge of the screen, so this was unfortunately mandatory for NTSC TVs. I mastered the whole thing on a typical 20" TV to get the overscan right.

Quote:

Now, the question - as I was listening to the commentaries, something caught my ear. On Tesla, you said there's some dithering visible because it uses a 16-bit video mode. Not that it matters, but I'm just curious why you ran it at 16-bit? The demo offers a full selection of video modes, and runs pretty fine at 1600*1200*32bit here. Admittedly, it's kind of confusing how the setup screen just dumps each and every mode your video card supports into one huge list Smile


I was wrong on the commentary -- I was thinking of another demo. In retrospect, I have no idea why some of the more "smokey" transparent areas, mostly in the beginning of the demo before the music kicks in, look 16-bit (I meant to say "posterized", not dithered). Maybe I mistakenly ran it in a 16-bit mode Sad or maybe the textures were 16-bit. It bugs me, if that's any consolation. Kasparov suffers from it too, although you have to look at all the dark grey areas to see it. It's possible that DVD's 4:2:0 is a factor because my master in 4:2:2 looks somewhat better.

BTW, your ending graphic (the baby) in Tesla totally shapes the meaning of the demo for me, as I indicated at the end of the commentary. Really great work; it's one of my top three favorites for that side.
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Lawyer77
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2003 9:41 am    Post subject: Re: Compliments, video comments, and a video mode question Reply with quote

Trixter wrote:

Quote:

Now, the question - as I was listening to the commentaries, something caught my ear. On Tesla, you said there's some dithering visible because it uses a 16-bit video mode. Not that it matters, but I'm just curious why you ran it at 16-bit?


I was wrong on the commentary -- I was thinking of another demo. In retrospect, I have no idea why some of the more "smokey" transparent areas, mostly in the beginning of the demo before the music kicks in, look 16-bit (I meant to say "posterized", not dithered). Maybe I mistakenly ran it in a 16-bit mode Sad or maybe the textures were 16-bit.


Now that I think about it, it's probably my fault! Very Happy
The textures used are quite dark, with colors in the 0-100 range, so there's a significant loss of color depth there. When you layer dozens of those images you're bound to get posterising...

How it happened was that I received the effects as separate exes and texture files from Yoghurt, and just experimented with different textures until I found a nice look. Instead of using dark textures, I should have asked him to turn down the opacities in the code, but it didn't occur to me. But I guess the posterisation is part of the demo's look now, so maybe it doesn't matter Smile

Quote:

BTW, your ending graphic (the baby) in Tesla totally shapes the meaning of the demo for me, as I indicated at the end of the commentary. Really great work; it's one of my top three favorites for that side.


Thanks a lot for your kind comments (and commentary Smile). Getting feedback even on an older demo feels great, it's just a really vain thing, but I'm sure most demomakers feel the same way Very Happy
(Statix said kind of the same thing in the documentary featurette.. which btw was really good too - hi Jeremy!)

I never thought of the baby ending that way, but it's a very pleasing idea... (As you said on the commentary, the picture was previously released as part of a musicdisk IIRC, you can find it here)

Saffron
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blakespot
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 7:58 am    Post subject: 60Hz interlaced... Reply with quote

I am confused.

The use of 60Hz interlaced mode was praised to preserve the fluidity of the demos (my DVD won't be here until tomorrow!) but NTSC interlaced is effectively 30Hz -- a full frame is not built until two refreshes in interlaced mode.

Most of the demos were 320x240 or so -- would more fluidity not be preserved using NTSC non-interlaced which, unless I am rather mistaken, would give "true" 60Hz video?

Thanks! And thanks for a dream come true with this DVD. I just loaded up the music to Complex's DOPE and have been busting that out all morning on my SGI. Too sweet.


blakespot
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Trixter
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 1:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While the MPEG-2 specification does allow 480p @ 60Hz, no DVD player currently can display it. So the point is moot Smile Since the oldskool demos only go 240 lines down, nothing is lost anyway (each field is a new demo image, shifted accordingly half a pixel up/down depending on the field so that everything looks right).

Another user in a prior thread had a debate with me that interlaced video was not the way to go, but there was no other way to do it. Hardware to capture 480p @ 60Hz is incredibly expensive, and even if I could have done it there are no DVD players that play it (nor non-HDTV display devices that could display it).
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blakespot
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 1:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Can DVD output 240p, like oldschool game consolse such as PSX, SNES, etc. do when hooked to a TV. (Yes, I know the PSX can do 480i). Same scenario as hooking a Amiga to a TV, etc.


blakespot
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Trixter
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 5:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is a specification for MPEG that allows a stream to be tagged as "field-based" instead of "frame-based"... I have come across such a stream and it was half-height data (was 480 lines down but only top 240 was occupied). However, 240p @ 30Hz is not my idea of smooth motion. I also don't know of any tools that support this, so I have no idea how to make it work. I have no idea if DVD players would even play something like that.

When doing C64 or some other device that outputs one type of field only (usually called double-rate progressive), I would retranslate the information into 720x576 interlaced anyway, because I have no idea if what DVD players if any would play field-based 240p/288p material at 50/60Hz.

I've had a couple of people ask (actually, debate Smile ) me if there was a better way to capture and/or interpret the information. There is always a better way Smile but the short answer is: I was not willing to sacrifice compatibility just to gain about 1% more compression efficiency (MPEG-2 correctly handles interlaced material). One person in particular just didn't like interlaced video because his software player didn't interpret it properly. Well, guess what -- I haven't found a software player that interprets 50/59.94/60Hz 480P MPEG-2 files properly, so his point was moot.
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