Breathtaking colorized video from 1896 of around the world
Breathtaking colorized video from 1896 of around the world
Set to chill instrumental music. Paris, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Geneva, Kyoto, London, Giza, New York, Germany, Madrid, Barcelona, Venice, Dublin, Moscow, Lyon, Marseille, etc.
Wow. Absolutely stunning. Thanks for sharing
13Anyone know what the machine around 14:50 is? Looks like a walking car.
5I think a form of compactor, like a steam roller. It’s using the weight of the vehicle over a small footprint to compress the dirt
4Ignorant guess, but possibly for some kind of construction or roadwork? The ground behind it seems to be tamped down.
1
Yeah, it looks pretty. But... I dunno. It wasn't what was filmed at the time, and I sort of like that. What we are seeing is gaps filled in and made up by computers, a fiction to make us happy, no more truth than in the original.
But yeah, still cool even if not strictly history.
5I mean, 60fps from 18fps. That's what 42 frames per second "interpolated". That means two thirds of this, as content, are inferred rather than being primary evidence.
Using the terms "low quality" and "high quality" are odd too. Subjective modernisms. Sure, that's fine when denoting something purely as entertainment, but it doesn't hold up as fact.
I don't know why this irks me so much, I guess it shouldn't.
9I think you're right to be wary of it. It's like AI colorization of photos. They tend to be much more desaturated than ones done by professionals. Great colorists take the time to research materials and fashions and make informed guesses about how things should look. When something automated by AI it can be much more inaccurate since no research was done.
I would imagine the same pitfalls could happen with a video like this. It's cool to see the results, but I agree it shouldn't be presented as anything more than an artistic re-interpretation.
9So I think in this case the motion interpolation can legitimately increase the verisimilitude of the footage. The pace and fluidity of the movement being more natural is not a bad thing for the showing off the times, though it is important that it be noted it's a particularly poor reflection on the history of cinema and its cultural impact. The two thirds that are missing have the 1/18 of a second on either side there, so I think there's a particularly low risk in introducing misleading information.
My bigger concerns are actually the upscaling (a bit) and the colorization (more). The former, I guess if you're just sort of presenting this to create the impression of these people's faces and to enhance the immersion in the era for a modern audience, it's not that bad, but you'd want to be very clear what you were doing, and you certainly wouldn't want to say something like, "See what your great-grandfather's face really looked like?" For the colorization, I'd want to know what were the sources, techniques, and tools used. Those would befit from genuine historical research and could be actively misleading about what we're seeing, providing a false certainty in a way that motion interpolation mostly doesn't, and upscaling sort of doesn't.
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What we are seeing is gaps filled in and made up by computers, a fiction to make us happy, no more truth than in the original.
Romantic, but lemme introduce you to smartphone photography!
3Not sure what that's got to do with this... I mean you are right, there's a lot of editing going on with smartphone images, but procedural and untentional. The current scandal over the princess of Wale's clearly photoshopped family portrait is indicative.
But just because one technology messes with things doesn't provide an excuse for that to happen across the board.
And I'm not being romantic, I'm talking about the veracity of primary historic documentation vs the need for someone to see something in colour at 60fps.
-1
The original scenes didn't happen in black and white. I'd argue this is even more accurate to the original (real life).
1Yeah, that's not how primary evidence works.
2
Bah humbug
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What struck me most in this early footage is that everyone in it has definitely passed away by now. With later films you usually can't be sure. Makes you realise even more that the available time we have on this planet is quite limited.
3I prefer old videos and photographs looking the way they were.
1Except that’s not how they were if you were to have been there.
-1I'm saying as the old photos were. Obviously people were in color back then.
1