Originally posted by: zombie84
No, gate weave is not part of the film--its a by-product of the projection stage, and its visibility is dependent on human and technological factors, including how well the film is threaded through the projector and how well the projector is built. On lower budgeted formats and projectors there will be some slight weave--ie, 16mm film only has one perf for frame--but it should never be visible. In fact, the most essentially testing phase of the camera prep before a crew shoots a movie is called a registration test, and its the first thing that is done in order to eliminate gate weave being built into the film by making sure that the movement of the camera gate is rock-solid.
Inevitably, when you see a movie in theaters there will be some very minor weave that is only noticeable if you look for it--this has to do with the fact that you are seeing less than ideal prints that are getting a bit banged up, and run by a projectionist that likely is not doing his job to the best of his ability because its just a mutiplex screening that gets done ten times a day. However, if you were to watch a carefully made and thoroughly examined transfer on dvd, you will notice that gate weave is totally absent--in fact, many now use stabalising filters to eliminate even the most subtle of weave to make sure that the image is perfectly still and natural, as it should be.
I don't agree. The "stabilizing" filters you speak of are not part of the usual film process, which is why such tampering is sometimes criticized by videophiles. Like I said, I personally don't have a preference, but many videophiles dislike anything that deviates from the movie theater-like experience.No, gate weave is not part of the film--its a by-product of the projection stage, and its visibility is dependent on human and technological factors, including how well the film is threaded through the projector and how well the projector is built. On lower budgeted formats and projectors there will be some slight weave--ie, 16mm film only has one perf for frame--but it should never be visible. In fact, the most essentially testing phase of the camera prep before a crew shoots a movie is called a registration test, and its the first thing that is done in order to eliminate gate weave being built into the film by making sure that the movement of the camera gate is rock-solid.
Inevitably, when you see a movie in theaters there will be some very minor weave that is only noticeable if you look for it--this has to do with the fact that you are seeing less than ideal prints that are getting a bit banged up, and run by a projectionist that likely is not doing his job to the best of his ability because its just a mutiplex screening that gets done ten times a day. However, if you were to watch a carefully made and thoroughly examined transfer on dvd, you will notice that gate weave is totally absent--in fact, many now use stabalising filters to eliminate even the most subtle of weave to make sure that the image is perfectly still and natural, as it should be.
Even waaaaaay back in the dark ages (1993) I'm sure they knew how to properly load the film into the telecine (if their fingers weren't too scabbed up from their knuckles dragging on the ground) and the transfer was state-of-the-art at the time, with plenty of $$$ to buy top-notch telecine equipment (even by today's standards), and I'm sure they did a much better job than the average projectionist at today's local multiplex. The quality issue I think resides not with the telecine process itself (or the equipment used) - but with the fact that the resulting masters were made for a much lower-resolution medium (laserdisk).
Your quarrel seems not so much to be with the exessive gate weave you perceive, but with the film medium itself. I'm guessing you would prefer that all movies were shot digitally, completely devoid of film-related anomalies?
Seeing a movie in a theater is still the zenith that every home-theater buff strives for- and yet movie theaters still use plain-old 35mm film and (*gasp!*) projectors, WITHOUT "stabilizing filters", and WITH sometimes inexperienced projectionists with heavily-used prints and projectors. I wonder why it is that so many are willing to accept a bit of gate weave in a movie theater, but not at home?
In any case, I didn't mean to create acrimony. You see excessive gate weave- I don't. I only see aliasing (in SW- not as much in the other 2) in non-anamorphic DVDs. Guess I'm the lucky one then?
