Anime's picture quality

Anime Jedi · Post by **Anime Jedi** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 11:52 am

I was curious on why some anime, the picture on the screen tends to move around. You don't notice this too much on a television screen, but on a computer screen, it's even more noticeable, since you're so close

An example is Evangelion, where screen seems to jerk around. Sort of like a little flinch, moving up and down. Once about every 5 seconds I'd say. This is pretty much only noticeable when there's no action, and the screen is very still.

I though it was only that, but another movie I tried, Digimon : The Movie, had this same thing, only not as noticeable.

Also, I considered maybe it was the DVD Player, but other movies I've tried, Shadow Skill, had nothing wrong with it.

And the rented Evangelion DVD were the same as the ones I have, a little shaky.

Just wondering why this is. And wouldn't there be some sort way to have fixed this before putting it on Tape or DVD?

Ashyukun · Post by **Ashyukun** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 11:59 am

I'd figure it would be a matter of how either the transfer was made, or how the original animation was made.

In traditional cel animation, IIRC, the cells, backgrounds, etc. are laid out and then photographed onto film, then swapped out for the next set, photographed, repeat ad infinitum. Over the course of a day, I'd imagine fluctuations in things like temperature, air pressure, etc. would cause the setup to deform slightly and move ever so slightly. It should happen much less if at all in the newer, digital animation. For movies, the production values and QC are probably a lot higher- so it probably happens less often than on a TV series.

The same thing could happen though with the transfer from film to digital with a movie print, I'd assume. I'd imagine most companies do try and fix it as much as possible, but some still gets through...

I wish I had that Shadow Skill movie... If it's what I'm thinking of, I could really use some of the arena shots for one of the things I'm working on...

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 5:41 pm

It happens alot in GTO I've noticed, and even more in Eva. Gainax wasn't running on excellent funding when they started Eva and it was their first huge hit so the quality of the footage wasn't really up to par. Not only were the master copies telecined really strangely but a lot of edge junk and frame jumping problems plague it. Whats more is I faintly recall reading something about eva actually being scanned in at half the normal resolution, I remember hearing about this somewhere but no details. I'm not sure how much ermac reads the forum these days but if he's reading this his knowledge of Gainax's history is really extensive and I'm sure he could fill you in on all the quirks of eva's video technics.

KLin · Post by **KLin** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 7:52 pm

Hmm, now I'm glad my EVA collection is on VHS instead of DVD.

Isn't that odd?

Anime Jedi · Post by **Anime Jedi** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 10:13 pm

Well, I coould see all of that happening, since Eva isn't exactly new.

You mean there's no problems with the VHS stuff? Lucky!