I have read with great interest some of the discussion about the
differences between digital video and 35 mm film.
At this same time, I have been converting some of my old films to digital video for
preservation and convenience. I am really dazzled by all the progress made by digital
video over the past few years, but as I
watch some of those cheesy "Super 8" era movies, I find myself more and more in
love with the "look" of film.
In the same way, I still like vinyl for music. I am convinced that under ideal
circumstances (a top notch turntable, for one thing) vinyl records DO sound better
than MP3's or even CD's. Many people describe it as "warmth", but we do
know that digital recording IS inherently reductionistic. Every byte of sound is a
precise
mathematical expression, at a time when our data storage capacity is still relatively
limited (even if a 75 GIG drive sounds impressive to you). Analog recordings
"mimic" sound and video. They record a kind of mirror image of what they
see and hear, rather than "process" it. But when a digital camera or
recorder scans images or sounds, it translates it into a string of data bits that refer to
parallel data structures that try to reconstruct the image or sound on your computer.
We know that in order to fit this data onto a computer disk, the data has to be
limited and restrained, because there is an immense amount of data in a picture or a
sound.
Film and tape have limits too. These limits are defined by the maximum (or minimum, depending on how you look at it) granularity of the medium. Film has developed to the point where it's granularity is quite good. It takes a big computer file to match the true resolution of a 35mm picture.
The key point is that if there is a really, really strange color out there, a computer may not be able to match it to its internal references. But a computer is clever. It won't crash just because it can't find an exact color match. It will simply adopt the nearest approximation.
Logically, digital media will likely eventually catch up to the
best films or vinyl records, as they continue to expand storage capacity and accuracy of
the scanners (the CCD or the microphone), but it may be many years before digital video
really compares favorably to film for the subtlety of colours and shades, or vinyl for the
subtlety of overtones and reverberations.
Interesting aside: didn't Marilyn Monroe consider her mole (which apparently
"moved" around on her face) a distinctive beauty mark? It may be the flaws that
give something beautiful "character" and richness that people really want to
experience.
