YouTubers are upscaling the past to 4K. Historians want them to stop

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[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

That’s not a view many academics hold, however. Luke McKernan, lead curator of news and moving images at the British Library, was particularly scathing about Peter Jackson’s 2018 World War One documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, which upscaled and colourised footage from the Western Front. Making the footage look more modern, he argued, undermined it. “It is a nonsense,” he wrote. “Colourisation does not bring us closer to the past; it increases the gap between now and then. It does not enable immediacy; it creates difference.”

Oh cry me a river you stuffed shirted fuckwit. This is not just colourisation. This is far more advanced interpolating and general restoration. I could give less than half a shit what someone in an ivory tower thinks about how, somehow, making something seem more recent "creates difference". Note, nowhere is quoted an explanation of how that makes sense. Either this article is fake, and the journalist quoted a lot of people out of context, or everyone crying about it deserves the just scorn of all backward luddites crying about how TV killed radio.

Or as the kids say these days, get fucked boomer. Nobody cares.

[–]PencilPusher55 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Right? I use Sony Vegas to interpolate old footage. Like I have old Bob Dylan concert footage from 1964 and I make it 60FPS. It feels like it was shot yesterday just from the fluidity in motion.... but combined with the AI colorization? This technology is incredible and we should be encouraging it. How anyone could find a problem with it is beyond me.

[–]ReeferMadness 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

There are different ways to do this. Some of them are bullshit, like adding fake data just to make the picture sharper. But you can also analyze a video frame by frame and get new information from how each pixel changes as the image moves. Then use that actual data to sharpen the image. That is a technique that is going to grow a lot with AI learning algorithms.

There was already a demonstration from some college a while ago where they could take any video and amplify movement and color changes so that you could see how fast someone was breathing and how fast their heart rate was. It was literally a video lie detector. That was hushed up pretty quickly.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Just a nitpick, "lie detectors" are not lie detectors. At most they detect elevated mood. There is no special physiological response exclusively for lies, and is very difficult with extensive training for neurological machines to even reach reasonable reliability for that same purpose. Generally speaking, just generally, only because a lie involves more creative thinking on average and inhibition cognitively.

"Lie detectors" are pseudoscience but cops love it when people think they're not, because it gets them a lot of free confessions by idiotic criminals.

[–]ReeferMadness 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

They don't work reliably, and can easily be tricked when you know you are being tested. But there is a response to lying and it does change your heart rate and breathing rate. If you don't know you are being tested you can't trick it.

It can still be an incredibly powerful tool.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Again, there is no consistent physiological response exclusively for lies. The response, that only some people have, is in response to elevated moods like anxiety. They don't work, at all, for anyone who has anxiety. They're unreliable for everyone else, and in particular lack scientific grounding in both validity and reliability (They don't detect lies - not valid - and unreliably detect what they do detect).

The point really needs to be driven home: There is. No. Physiological. Response. Solely. For. Lies. There are simply myths that people have variously invented about such responses, like the claim you "look to the left", that've been invented to more easily excuse chasing people on zero evidence.

[–]galaxybrain 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Is that because they want to hide the past? To make it less accessible? Fuck that, I've seen some of these meticulously restored videos, and they open a window to the past that is fascinating, and they get a LOT more views than some shaky monochrome scan ever would

[–]Porphyria 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Not quite the same thing, but I upgraded my tv from a 1280P to a 4K, and I deeply regret it. Modern "reality" shit like Hoarders and commercials and recentish movies look ok in 4K, but classic movies look like deepfried shit. That really hit home when I tried to watch a vintage horror film yesterday, as I like to do every day in October. The 4K so sharpened all the multiplane "layers" of each scene that it became really obvious how many of the scenes used backdrops, and backdrops painted about as well as those for US High School "drama club" plays. Just awful.

[–]redditbegay 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Its like that for many games too. You could downgrade your monitor or look for a 1440p display instead. One of the cheapest of them -

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16824569005?Description=1440p monitor&cmre=1440p_monitor--24-569-005-_-Product

[–]Porphyria 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks, I'll look into it. :-)

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"Restoration" mostly destroys the past. No matter how sophisticated it is sold as.

I can tell from old maps that were restored from an archive / magazine i worked in.

[–]soyboy77 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So looking at things through a clear(er) lens is a bad thing?

[–]PencilPusher55 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Take a look at this colorized / 60fps tank footage from WW2 if you like this stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxxsIYtYhfU