Keep Calm And Discuss Retro Generally!

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Sega first pulls some ull**** by getting any video with Shining Force 3 or Shining the Holy Ark content taken down from youtube because they are afraid their new game won't top search results.

Now they are sueing Level-5 because they dared to make a game where you control the movement of a player with a touch screen:

http://kotaku.com/5967403/sega-is-suing-the-crap-out-of-level+5

In other crappy Sega news I just learnt that the source code of Panzer Dragoon Saga was lost because of a middle manager in sega was annoyed that the Saga team were taking resources away from his division so sabotagued the source back ups.

At least the youtube part makes a tiny bit of sense, unlike Namco who won't allow people to upload Tekken Tag Team Tournament 2 footage because... eh... well, because they're mental, I reckon.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Yep, 48 FPS cannot be held responsible for how overly clean and artificial the image looks anyway. I know the camera they used for the film is terrific, so there's no excusing how distractingly fake everything looks up on the big screen. Which is a massive shame, because I absolutely love how Lord of the Rings looks - that was a trilogy that used technology both practical and digital perfectly.

Well, I'm not really in favour of the use of digital cameras in films. The end result most of the time, is that they just have this artificial look to them. I was watching the new Muppets movie the other night and as great as that movie was, the digital look was somewhat offputting. Which is a shame, since I think 3D filmmaking can work when it wants to.

o1s1n wrote: »

Ah well, at least we can all still play it via original copies/emulation/modded consoles. Would be nice to see a HD version - but the game is still great as is.

Tell Sega to get Bluepoint to port it. They've been known to make their HD games from using actual retail games rather than just using the original game's source code.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Properly shot, graded and projected a digital image can look absolutely stunning, especially if shot on an Arri Alexa or RED. A considerable percentage of the best looking films from the last few years have been digital - from Prometheus and Skyfall to David Fincher and Steven Soderburgh films. I'm a massive fan of traditional film (The Master in 70mm = ), but we're finally at the point when in terms of cost and practicality digital cameras are actually probably the most viable option for the majority of productions. Done well, you should barely notice the difference, or should be easily forgivable. The problem is many films just haven't used the technology properly, and result in that nasty 'clean' and even uncinematic image. It's often noticeable on Blu-Rays of newer films particularly. The Hobbit (trying to pull this back to a vaguely topical response ) was the first time I think comparisons to the look of modern games was warranted, and that to me is not a welcome development

I think the other real problem with digital filmmaking is that it's not exactly futureproof. The earliest digital films were shot at around 1080 (e.g. Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, but those are story's for another day) and many films (like The Avengers) are only shot on 2K, which isn't much better than 1080. Now that 4K TV's are on the horizon (and possibly 8K in the next decade), they're not really going to do their best to take advantage of the new format. I also read that digital formats are actually more expensive to store than film and that since there are newer codecs that come out from time to time, there is a chance that an older digital film may be incompatible with newer hardware for a future home release...but only time will tell if that is going to happen.

And regarding digital cinema projection, I'm not sure if it really is cost effective for cinemas. While a digital print is indeed cheaper than a film one, the projecters aren't. And don't expect them to be long lasting either. While a traditional film projector, if well maintained, can last about 20 years or more, you're lucky if a digital projector can last more than 5 before becoming obsolete. The constant upgrades just cannot bode well for the cinemas in terms of cost.