![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
Apr. 17th, 2023 09:36 pmRewatched it recently.
It wasn't super well received, but I did like it. The commentary on obsessive fandoms was interesting.
Also, there's a point where they have to review some video footage to fill in a memory blackout. There was a segment that wasn't clear enough, so one character asked if it could be enhanced.
Most shows and movies today the tech would press a button and it would be cleared up. Not here. The video editor said something like "Sure, I'll have to redigitize it, it'll be a few minutes".
This is actually plausible. The cameras and tapes that were used, given the era and budget this person was working with would almost certainly have been analog. To work with it on a computer as they were doing it has to be converted to a digital format, and replacing a continuously variable signal with a series of discrete samples will necessarily lose data. It's fundamental to how analog to digital conversion works. If he'd used a preset optimized for speed or file size, there could have been room to digitize with other settings and get a useful increase in quality, since he could go back to the original source which had more data to work with. But it would take time, it wouldn't be pressing a button and magically having it enhanced, especially on late 90s hardware. Even professional workstations would take a bit of time to do that. And it didn't turn a freeze frame of video into top end still photography, it still looked like home video equipment, just a bit closer to the top end of what such equipment was capable of.
So it was interesting to see a bit of actual realism in that scene, and it didn't hurt anything. Plots that actually hinge on editing wizardry? It would be an active improvement. They could have handwaved this with random technobabble to get on to the weird shit, but they didn't. CSI and others have no excuse.
It wasn't super well received, but I did like it. The commentary on obsessive fandoms was interesting.
Also, there's a point where they have to review some video footage to fill in a memory blackout. There was a segment that wasn't clear enough, so one character asked if it could be enhanced.
Most shows and movies today the tech would press a button and it would be cleared up. Not here. The video editor said something like "Sure, I'll have to redigitize it, it'll be a few minutes".
This is actually plausible. The cameras and tapes that were used, given the era and budget this person was working with would almost certainly have been analog. To work with it on a computer as they were doing it has to be converted to a digital format, and replacing a continuously variable signal with a series of discrete samples will necessarily lose data. It's fundamental to how analog to digital conversion works. If he'd used a preset optimized for speed or file size, there could have been room to digitize with other settings and get a useful increase in quality, since he could go back to the original source which had more data to work with. But it would take time, it wouldn't be pressing a button and magically having it enhanced, especially on late 90s hardware. Even professional workstations would take a bit of time to do that. And it didn't turn a freeze frame of video into top end still photography, it still looked like home video equipment, just a bit closer to the top end of what such equipment was capable of.
So it was interesting to see a bit of actual realism in that scene, and it didn't hurt anything. Plots that actually hinge on editing wizardry? It would be an active improvement. They could have handwaved this with random technobabble to get on to the weird shit, but they didn't. CSI and others have no excuse.
