Highly Defined Krunk

I was wandering a Circuit City the other day with a friend and stopped by the TV section to check out the hi-def goodness. Boy, were my eyes opened (uh...figuratively speaking). Front and center was a TV playing Spiderman 2 from a Blu-Ray disc. You'd think that something with that much eye-candy would be spectacular in true high definition, and to a certain extent, you'd be right. I mean, you can see every little web on Spidey's costume in every single frame, but there's also something weird about the way the video is displayed.

It's hard to put my finger on, but here's my theory: standard 35mm cameras used in film making run at 24 frames per second. Normal TVs (NTSC) run at 29.97 frames per second (interlaced). Hi-end HDTVs can push 720p at up to 60 frames per second. Being raised in an world transitioning from analog to digital, I was programmed with (and simply accepted) some of the limits of the technology of the times. That includes motion blur and flicker. Watching Spiderman in hidef running at (judging by the size of the TV) probably 720p was really disconcerting. There was no motion blur. Ever. Every single frame was crisp and clear. It was the fight scene between Doc Ock and Spidey, and even when the camera was rotating around the train and spinning as each character was knocked around, you could clearly see the reflection of the train in the building windows as it passed. That's just wrong.

Now, I know that it was a whole lot of cgi, so when I say "camera" I don't necessarily mean "flicker box loaded with chemically treated photo-sensitive celluloid", but the effect was also apparent on an adjacent TV showing Knight's Tale. The lighting looked...fake. Well, not fake, it looked...it's hard to say...low budget? It looked over-lit, like a daytime soap opera. No shadows. No gradients...I dunno. It's hard to explain.

I do know one thing...I'm not rushing out to buy a Blu-Ray player (or HD-DVD, but that's more because all signs point to dead) any time soon. Nevermind the excessive cost and the anti-consumer DRM measures...it just looks crappy.