576 Reply by MartyJ

(23 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I'm afraid the Blu-Ray specs are really rigid when it comes to frame rate (and they don't include 48 FPS, since nobody was using that until now). We've got 23.976p, 24p, 50i, 50p, 59.94i and 59.94p. 50 and 59.94 come from old TV systems (PAL/SECAM and NTSC). Blu-Ray 3D uses the same frame rates as Blu-Ray 2D, it simply encodes separate streams for both eyes.

Displays can have higher refresh rates (like 120 Hz or even 600 Hz) to avoid telecine judder when displaying 24p (and usually have a frame interpolation chip - the aforementioned "TruMotion" thing), but Blu-Ray discs don't encode video at such high frame rates.

You could speed up 48 FPS to 50. In PAL/SECAM countries, a similar speedup is used to air movies on TV.

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577 Reply by MartyJ

(23 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Sam F wrote:

Did the dreamlike quality in 2001 really come from the frame rate?

Not necessarily, but... it would be weird to see it (and other classics) with the 48 FPS fluidity. Just weird.

That whole "heightened sense of reality" thing doesn't appeal to me. It makes sense for documentaries (and "found footage"), but not for fiction.

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578 Reply by MartyJ

(23 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Teague wrote:

Maybe we should be thinking of all this as another gimmicky option we'll have at the theater, and little more.

It would be hard to put true 48 FPS on existing home media formats anyway. The closest thing we have is the 720p50 mode on Blu-Ray. To get a 1920x1080 Blu-Ray (or a standard DVD) we'd have to interlace it (convert all frames to fields), which is a big no-no (we'd lose half the vertical resolution).

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579 Reply by MartyJ

(23 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Lamer wrote:

No. Never again!

Yeah, I know it's not everybody's cup of tea  big_smile I mentioned this movie because of it's dreamlike quality that could be ruined by the "video look" (caused by a high frame rate).

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580 Reply by MartyJ

(23 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Try to imagine your favorite movies with video-like fluidity. Would you like to see "2001: A Space Odyssey", "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Blade Runner" without proper motion blur? I wouldn't. With high frame rates, the mood is simply gone, everything looks like a football game. Movies should not feel that real.

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581 Reply by MartyJ

(26 replies, posted in Episodes)

bullet3 wrote:

(Bryan Singer just isn't a very ambitious or interesting action director, see Superman Returns).

Argh, that movie... It was a bad call, Ripley. Bad call!

I'd be happy to see more movies like "Apt Pupil" or "The Usual Suspects" from Bryan. The best part of his input into the "X-Men" franchise was probably the gay allegory.

Too bad Matthew Vaughn won't direct the new one (Bryan Singer would still be a valuable co-writer).

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582 Reply by MartyJ

(991 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Robert Carlyle as the Doctor... Wow, that could (to quote one of his former roles) stir things up  yikes

Carey Mulligan (Sally Sparrow from "Blink") is extremely cute, I hoped she'd be the companion for the Steven Moffat era (although I'm not complaining about Amy Pond).

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583 Reply by MartyJ

(26 replies, posted in Episodes)

Jimmy B wrote:

Also, the scene after the credits makes Xavier's death scene irrelevant  therefore making Phoenix pretty useless as that was the most important thing she did.....

OK, that "conciousness transfer" thing can be considered just a last-minute cop out... but it's not enough to completely ruin a movie (it didn't ruin "Star Trek II").

"X2" tried to be a character-driven movie, but I feel it didn't fully succeed in that regard. That's why I tend to focus more on the action beats (and overall, "The Last Stand" seems to be better paced than "X2").

"X-Men" and "First Class" (especially the latter) are the only installments that really made me care about these characters.

I must admit the third one is pretty mindless and can't compete with really good comic book movies (like "The Dark Knight" or "The Avengers"). I'm only saying that I found it fairly palatable when compared to the overly-long "X2". "X2" seemed a bit self-indulgent, maybe someone could Phantom-edit it to a more reasonable length (there's something to be said for Aronofsky-style brevity).

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584 Reply by MartyJ

(473 replies, posted in Episodes)

Invid wrote:

Trek was never good at selling toys smile

Apparently they tried to change that by making the Enterprise (2009) look much more toy-ish than ever before (those giant, unbalanced nacelles etc.).

Expect more Ewoks, is my point.

That much is certain.

Didn't we have a "Goofy as Jar Jar Binks" action figure already? I remember it from "The People vs George Lucas".

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585 Reply by MartyJ

(26 replies, posted in Episodes)

I was wondering... Does anyone else here think "X2" was overrated? The action sequence at Alkali Lake didn't seem particularly exciting to me.

"The Last Stand", on the other hand, was IMO a fairly palatable action flick (that, unfortunately, gets no respect from the fans). Since I never read the "X-Men" comic book, the (supposedly blasphemous) adaptation of the Phoenix Saga didn't bother me. You could compare it to "Star Trek" (2009) - Trekkies (like me) are irritated by its various canon blasphemies, but the "general public" can happily ignore them and enjoy the mindless action.

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586 Reply by MartyJ

(431 replies, posted in Off Topic)

We've got dozens of kinds of indigenous mushrooms here in Poland (some of them poisonous), so we can make every pizza unique. You Americans don't even know what you're missing  smile

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587 Reply by MartyJ

(431 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I've been a Down In Front fan for almost a year now, so I guess it's time to drop by and say hello.

My name is Marty (not McFly, but don't call me "chicken"  tongue  ) and I'm a geek from Poland (yup, you've got listeners as far as Poland). I work in computers, I enjoy sci-fi/fantasy and I still wonder why "The Phantom Menace" sucked so much (I know, it's been 13 years... but somehow I can't get over it  big_smile  ).

I first discovered DIF through Zarban's site (or was it through TV Tropes? I'm not absolutely sure...) and it's been my favorite alternate commentary podcast since. DIF introduced me to "The Princess Bride", "The Fountain", "Shaun of the Dead" and some other great movies that I probably would have missed otherwise.

My worst injury was... Well, my cat scratched me countless times when I was a kid.

Pizza? Some extra bacon and mushrooms, please  cool

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