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Will Smith's concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines

(waxy.org)
363 points jay_kyburz | 2 comments | 26 Aug 25 04:11 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ulrikrasmussen ◴[26 Aug 25 06:15 UTC] No.45022875[source]▶
I think AI-"upscaled" videos are as jarring to look at as a newly bought TV before frame smoothing has been disabled. Who seriously thinks this looks better, even if the original is a slightly grainy recording from the 90's?

I was recently sent a link to this recording of a David Bowie & Nine Inch Nails concert, and I got a serious uneasy feeling as if I was on a psychedelic and couldn't quite trust my perception, especially at the 2:00 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yyx31HPgfs&list=RD7Yyx31HPg...

It turned out that the video was "AI-upscaled" from an original which is really blurry and sometimes has a low frame rate. These are artistic choices, and I think the original, despite being low resolution, captures the intended atmosphere much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X6KF1IkkIc&list=RD1X6KF1Ikk...

We have pretty good cameras and lenses now. We don't need AI to "improve" the quality.

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lm28469 ◴[26 Aug 25 10:12 UTC] No.45024523[source]▶
> Who seriously thinks this looks better, even if the original is a slightly grainy recording from the 90's?

Whatever you had as a kid feels "natural", these things feel "natural" for new generations.

Same things for a proper file system vs "apps", a teenagers on an ipad will do things you didn't know were possible, put them on windows XP and they won't be able to create a file or a folder, they don't even know what these words mean in the context of computers.

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hliyan ◴[26 Aug 25 10:42 UTC] No.45024755[source]▶
This sounds like two completely different things. I know people from my parent's generation who would say that the scenes on new TV's look "weird" until the motion smoothing is switched off. This is neurological, not generational.
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1. lm28469 ◴[26 Aug 25 10:53 UTC] No.45024830{3}[source]▶
> I know people from my parent's generation who would say that the scenes on new TV's look "weird" until the motion smoothing is switched off

That's my point, older people feel the weirdness, kids have been growing with smoothed videos and can't tell it's weird

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2. hliyan ◴[26 Aug 25 11:13 UTC] No.45024982[source]▶
In that case the answer is even simpler: what few young people I know (yes, N = small) have been the loudest in complaining about the feature. They seem to prefer "cinema quality" the same way some people of my generation like vinyl records.