Probably just needs to be color graded. That's usually what causes the "soap opera" effect.

I'd suspect the color grading too. Some of the first Todd-AO 70mm were done at 30fps and they looked great (Technicolor!) Now that's not as fast as 48fps - but it's definitely above the 'fugue' state of 24fps.

Peter Jackson responds here.

Bob..

So, now image quality matches the writing in Cameron and Jackson movies?

>>>>It does take you a while to get used to,” he said ( Jackson ).<<<<

Like when you walk into a rum that smells like somebody has just taken a dump in the middle of it and your sense of smell adapts after a while so you perceive it as smelling less? Somebody should tell him it's kind of a defense mechanism, not something we need kicking in when watching movies.

He should get into that submarine with Cameron and take another dive. Settle down at the bottom of Mariana trench and not come up again until they realize that we need better writing and not crap in 3D no matter what the frame rate is.

One would think Peter Jackson would know better than to show a work-in-progress. First impressions are hard, if not nearly impossible, to over come.

Deusx wrote, "need better writing and not crap in 3D"

I think real 3D movies (like Avatar) are awesome.

Maybe you should get your eyes checked to see if both eyes are working stereoscopically. Some people have one slightly out of focus or slightly off angle and so the brain discards half the info. But that can give headaches in a stereo movie.

Another think I have noticed is that if you get to far away from a 3D screen it becomes less immersive. The immersion seems to work best when the view fills most of your vision, but not to the point of having to turn your head to see the edges.

The first time I saw Avatar I had to sit at the back of the theater. I was constantly becoming aware that I was looking through a window into their world instead of feeling like I was actually there on the planet. Sitting closer helped with that.

Many people seem happy with crappy MP3s too ;-(

geoff

Please don't compare equally the screenwriting of Jackson and Cameron !

geoff

I still don't get this knee-jerk negative reaction to 3D, for crying out loud folks, we see in 3D (and color, too!) But then, what do I know, I'm also a fervent proponent of higher frame rates.

I still don't get this knee-jerk negative reaction to 3D

I think it's mostly because of the CRAPPY way 3D is used by most directors. They think that "in your face" 3D is the way to do it. Like turning up the saturation on every color instead of going for a more natural look. Or excessive "ping pong" effects in the stereo audio track.

Eventually, I hope, most will learn ... but it may take a while.

>>>I still don't get this knee-jerk negative reaction to 3D<<<<

I don't mind 3D even though I'd never watch a serious movie in 3D. It would work for action movies and stuff like that.

The problem is that crap is crap no matter how many dimensions it's in and Avatar should be a cause for capital punishment. I have not seen such garbage in a long time. It contains all of the worst elements of writing. I don't think you could squeeze any more into it. That is my problem with Avatar.

Hobbits on the other hand I didn't mind so much when watching them in the first Lord of the rings, after that it was just more of the same; characters go from point A to point Z fighting various enemies at points B, C, D......... That trilogy should have been a single 2-3 hour movie, but of course greed wins and you can make three times more with basically the same thing shown three times. Now we get more hobbits running around without a script or a clue. How many movies this time around?

Two movies this time around.

However I think the LOTR trillogy and the Hobbit are trying to accurately cover the books, in a reasonable time frame, more so than create a single and short self contained story.

Here is a much shorter version here:

How many books were there ? Complain to Tolkien.

geoff

"Many people seem happy with crappy MP3s too"

You know, *most* MP3 encodes distort the audio material far, far less than MPEG encodes distort the video.

Encode some good pristine audio at even 128Kbps, then sync it to the original file and paste/invert it. Result is near flat-line, meaning very little difference.

Encode some good pristine video at a moderate 5Mbps DVD rate, then do the same comparison to the original. You don't get a black screen. You get a ghostly outline of the images, with enough data to actually follow the action. Quite a bit of difference.

Yes, MP3 can be bad, most most of it is pretty darned good.

My problem with Avatar was that there wasn't a single original bit in it. Absolutely every aspect of that movie i had already seen in other movies.