Hidden enhanced motion information

[maniacscientist]

Blu-ray video goes in 24/1.0001 fps. Officially. 24 was minimum framerate to distinguish motion from slideshow, and actual screen size in spectator's field of view was no larger than 12". However, this is not acceptable now. Look at pure 24 fps on 56" screen, and your head will ache due to stroboscopic effect. There is no special director strategy for that.

All hi-end video systems has some technology for framerate increasing, Trumotion, Trimension and so on. Theese techs insert interpolated frames between real ones that somehow are made to move objects in position it were between previous and next frame, thus framerate goes up to 48 or even 200. These techs in fact, ARE UNOFFICIAL PART OF BLU-RAY. No idiot will design next-gen video system that have stroboscopic effect!

Ok, but how these framerate-increasing techs work? Some of them are available on PC. Such programs as Splash Player, CrystalPlayer, and SmoothVideoPack take two frames that come from decoder and analyses them to mine enhanced motion information, something more than standard motion-compensation vectors. After that it is easy to build interpolated frames.

This analysis is very calculation hungry. Core i7-930 is bare minimum to process FullHD@30p stream to 60fps perfectly. And I have very strong doubt that TV-sets such as Sony Bravia has such processing power. However, Sony Bravia bundled with some Sony blu-ray player DO show picture that is more as qualitative as from SmoothVideoPack all at max.

Something must be wrong here. If Sony hardware does not process frames honestly but have better results - then it may be cheating. Enchanced motion information may be hidden somewhere in m2ts or AVC stream. May be, even staganographically. Anyway - do someone know stream formats to the meaning of last bit?

Little bit like conspiracy, but I think, it is worth to search for enhanced motion information. If I were Sony - I would definitely give myself such an advantage. No problem - film studios have their movies in high framerate anyway, so, it is a question of codec they use to author blu-ray. Special Sony codec may calculate enhanced motion information and store it in hidden places.

These frame-increasing processors in TV sets works much worse when it comes to TV broadcasted material. Why? Maybe, because they have no hint? ;-)

[jmac698]

I can assure you nothing is hidden, it's easy to demux a stream and see that there are no unexpected bytes of overhead. Btw, The Hobbit is being filmed in 48fps just for this reason. I think the next evolution of video will be higher framerates. They are already working on UltraHD, so with sound, 3d, and resolution taken care of, only more bitdepth and higher frame rates are left.
We might also get more gadgets like DBox motion or even smells or other effects. We might get the ability to look around the scene oursevles or maybe surround like spherical.

[manono]

Look at pure 24 fps on 56" screen, and your head will ache due to stroboscopic effect.
My head doesn't ache. In a movie theater the screen is much larger and still no problem for me. 24fps might bother you but it doesn't bother me, although during certain kinds of movement the jerkiness is obvious. There's no conspiracy here. The TV sets have chips specifically designed to interpolate the frames in real time. I don't use them though, because it changes the appearance or feel of the movie. Now, getting rid of 3:2 pulldown by repeating the frames to 120 or 240fps, that's something useful.

The Hobbit at true 48fps might change all of our perceptions of the optimum framerate. Interestingly, Thomas Edison recommended a speed of 46fps, but because of the cost of film and the fact that 46fps was too fast for the film stock of the day to capture frames well, he didn't follow his own advice for long:

http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/18_kb_2.htm

[Ghitulescu]

Blu-ray video goes in 24/1.0001 fps.


All hi-end video systems has some technology for framerate increasing, Trumotion, Trimension and so on. Theese techs insert interpolated frames between real ones that somehow are made to move objects in position it were between previous and next frame, thus framerate goes up to 48 or even 200. These techs in fact, ARE UNOFFICIAL PART OF BLU-RAY. No idiot will design next-gen video system that have stroboscopic effect!

Ok, but how these framerate-increasing techs work? Some of them are available on PC. Such programs as Splash Player, CrystalPlayer, and SmoothVideoPack take two frames that come from decoder and analyses them to mine enhanced motion information, something more than standard motion-compensation vectors. After that it is easy to build interpolated frames.

.....

Little bit like conspiracy, but I think, it is worth to search for enhanced motion information. If I were Sony - I would definitely give myself such an advantage. No problem - film studios have their movies in high framerate anyway, so, it is a question of codec they use to author blu-ray. Special Sony codec may calculate enhanced motion information and store it in hidden places.

These frame-increasing processors in TV sets works much worse when it comes to TV broadcasted material. Why? Maybe, because they have no hint? ;-)

That's a simple way to end this conspiracy theory: buy yourself the blu-ray book (actually borrow it, since you have to pay each year a lump sum or return the specs) and read it.