[Frameworks] Digital Video Exhibition: what's the acid test?

[Pip Chodorov]

David,

The pieces I always used to test compression strategies were "YOURS" 
by Jeff Scher and "BOUQUET" by Rose Lowder. These films not only 
change the total image from frame to frame (like Breer's 
"RECREATION") but they also incoporate patterns that resist certain 
kinds of compression - in the case of YOURS this is vertical, 
horizontal and diagonal stripes, and in the case of BOUQET, very 
detailed natural images like flowers and water patterns that flicker 
in a three-frame pattern.
I never get acceptable DVD transfers, but I could make SD ProRes 
files from the Digibetas.

I do have an HDCam-SR master of Anticipation of the Night that I had 
tested for Blu-Ray by Sony DADC and Technicolor in 2005 and 2006, but 
they never showed me the results!

-Pip



At 9:41 -0500 6/12/10, David Tetzlaff wrote:
>Brook notes that some source material will stress any compression 
>system more than others. And Pip holds DVD to be an inappropriate 
>form for experimental work because of intraframe compression 
>problems - problems that do not show up on typical narrative or doc 
>stuff.
>
>So my question is: are there any short works in distribution, for SD 
>and HD, that would serve as an acid test of any display method? 
>Since the test piece would have to be available, that would mean it 
>would have to already be in some optical disc form, but of course 
>some are better than others. The idea would be to start from some 
>technically challenging piece with the best available encoding, rip 
>from the disc into ProRes 422 as a baseline, and then recompress 
>using different schemes and compare artifacting and other possible 
>problems.
>
>So does anyone have a suggestion for something that would be useful 
>for this? Especially if you can note specific points in the footage 
>where problems would show themselves. Are there specific pieces on 
>the By Brakhage releases, for example, that would work?
>