Wall St. Journal: Why Analog is Often Better Than Digital

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imokruok

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I read a nice article in the Wall St. Journal this morning by a famous political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, who laments the loss of quality in society's analog-to-digital transition. (Photos and music specifically.) However, he ends noting that he has found some satisfying digital options.

Visual and audio reproduction have undergone massive changes as their underlying technologies shifted from analog to digital over the past two decades. It's clear that it is far more convenient to snap photos with a digital point-and-shoot or listen to music on an iPod. But whether the quality of images or music has improved is, however, a highly debatable proposition, one that is contested by legions of enthusiasts who have continued to cling to older technologies not out of Luddite resistance to change, but because they believe the shift to 1's and 0's is actually making things worse.
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I was a "Hi-Fi" nut when I was younger. But my 60 year old ears, nor my 60 year old eyes, can hear or see in Hi-Fi anymore. Digital photos and music are just fine for me. 🙂
 
Film is better. Vinyl is better than CD's. Film is better (MUCH better) than digital when making movies. It was true 10 years ago, it's still true today. But for convenience, digital is better.
 
imokruok said:
I read a nice article in the Wall St. Journal this morning by a famous political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, who laments the loss of quality in society's analog-to-digital transition. (Photos and music specifically.) However, he ends noting that he has found some satisfying digital options.
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Interesting, thanks!

One can't help noticing, however, that he makes the typical mistake of comparing yesterday's high-end product to today's low-end product (in his case, for example, >$10,000 turntables to mass-market CD players and iPods). This skews the comparison somewhat.
 
It's nostalgia, an ache-tinged glance in a rearview mirror, however well authored. Choose film or digital. Vinyl or CD. Starbucks or homebrew. Do enjoy without pain. Life is so short.

Personal note re musical appreciation: why not get out of the rut of recorded music altogether - glue your ear to live performances for awhile, as we've done for the millenia prior to vinyl and digi ...
 
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Convenience is not necessarily a sign of progress. But then, we're talking about technologies that are mere accesories to life.

I don't know... I do prefer film, but I like listening to CDs in my car.
 
Film rules?

Film rules?

Film may be better, but convenience is winning out. The other day the WSJ had an interview with Roger Deakins who is nominated for Best Cinematography for True Grit. He said that he loves film and that the quality of film is better than digital, but that it is doubtful that any future projects that he works on will be shot on film. The cost savings and convenience of digital, in his opinion, will carry the day. IMHO, this is really bad news for film lovers, as all the money spent on improving film quality was probably driven more by the movie industry than by the consumer product industry.
 
I do think the state of audio appreciation has gone down. I have no problems with MP3s or even CDs (it's mostly what I listen to), but I do think its true that most younger people consume their music through crappy ear buds. At best, their best audio system is in a car. Which is admittedly better than what it was 15-20 years ago, but still. Even an MP3 can sound great on a real pair of speakers.
 
The biggest problem with audio today is that the recordings suck. By this I mean mostly digital manipulation such as extreme levels of compression. It is sort of like HDR for audio -- provides a quick visual punch, seems to sell well among the riffraff, but it actually looks like total puke.

Other than that, digital sounds fantastic today if you spend some money on it. Of course, those old LPs also sound fantastic, but once again if you spend (even more) money on it. Took twenty five years to get here though. Claims that LPs sound better than CDs were valid in 1990, still valid but not so much in 2000, and not really relevant in 2011.

Likewise, I think most claims that film is "better" than digital, even 8x10, are no longer valid. Different, yes. Preferable to some people? Undoubtedly. However, a lot of 4x5 and 8x10 shooters have gone to digital MF rigs in recent years.

The comments above that Hollywood is sliding toward digital are interesting. Hollywood budgets are so big, you wouldn't think that film costs would move the needle much. Just let directors shoot what they like. Of course, we are probably approaching to the point now that younger directors, who started off on low-budget digital projects, don't actually have any experience with film. If Hollywood abandons film completely, that could have some real consequences for what remains of the film industry.
 
To be philosophical, reality is digital. Particle physics, quantum mechanics, even multiple universes — existence is all 1s and 0s. Enjoy your analog film, but know that it ultimately reduces to digital.
 
"The comments above that Hollywood is sliding toward digital are interesting. Hollywood budgets are so big, you wouldn't think that film costs would move the needle much. Just let directors shoot what they like. Of course, we are probably approaching to the point now that younger directors, who started off on low-budget digital projects, don't actually have any experience with film. If Hollywood abandons film completely, that could have some real consequences for what remains of the film industry."

I think this is dead on. How much of a percentage of the cost of the making of a movie can film possibly be? But I'm sure the convenience of digital wins out -- and the directors/DPs who grew up with digital find it easier to use those same workflows rather than learning the characteristics of different film stocks. Too bad. Someone needs to sit them down and show them "Lawrence of Arabia."
 
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Actually, an advantage of digital may not be the cost of film so much as the convenience. I bet it is nice to be able to look at what you shoot immediately, rather than developing and digitizing film at the end of the day. When you're spending multiple $100K-per-day on a crew, actors, and sets, I can imagine that it wouldn't go so well for some old-fashioned directors if their shooting times drag out for extra days and weeks due to film issues.

The second tipping point is likely to be the money people. Producers and studio execs. When the generation of "yeah, I love film too" guys passes on, to be replaced by "why are we wasting time with this ancient nonsense and the people who cling to it," people, directors will have to drop film for career reasons. If you tried to show a money person the difference between film and digital in a test case, they probably couldn't tell the difference. They are money people, not artistic people. If the jokes are funny, the explosions are big, and the girl's tits attention-grabbing, it is the same to them.
 
misc. quotes from Niel Young:

Neil Young on digital:

"The mind is fooled, but the heart is sad."


"Digital is a Huge Rip-Off" by Neil Young

(from Guitar Player, May '92, p.14)


Digital, CDs - I hate them. Digital is a disaster. This is the darkest age of musical sound. ... Digital is a huge rip-off. It's completely premature and completely wrong. It's a farce.


Digital has to be taken three or four levels higher. Sampling rates have to quadruple - at least - to get to where analog was. And digital music has a very limited therapeutic effect, if any, whereas real music has an incredible effect for the calming of nerves. Any therapeutic application of sound HAS to be analog, or it won't get results. You can search around, but the sound isn't there.


Let me use a window as an illustration. When you look thru the glass, imagine that's sound out there. And then look out thru the screen. See all the little squares in the screen? If you get right up on them, all different kinds of colors come thru the screen holes. Well, that has to be averaged out to only one color per hole for digital. That's all you get, the dominant one.


They've got sampling enough now so that when you 1st start listening, you say, "Hey, that's music." But your brain and your heart are *starved* for a challenge. There's no challenge, there's no possibilities, there's no imagination. You're hearing a simulated music. Your brain is capable of taking on an incredible amount of information....


That's why these records have got to be remastered from the *analog* originals every time there's an improvement..... technology is just not there for that kind of sampling rate. It's a real shame, because music is not being captured. It's an insult to the brain & heart & feelings to have to listen to this and think it's music.


I've been making records for 26 years, working in the studio... and I'm telling you: From the early '80s up till now and probably for another 10 to 15 years is the darkest time for recorded music ever. We'll come out the other end and it'll be okay, but we'll look back and go, "Wow, that was the digital age. I wonder what it really sounded like? They were so carried away that they didn't really record it. They just made digital records of it." That's what people will say - MARK MY WORDS.
 
Although I care passionately about photography, and about the written or spoken word, recorded music just ain't that important to me. Sure, I can hear differences as the kit gets more expensive, but beyond a certain (quite low) level, I just don't care very much. Most people feel the same about photography, i.e. not enough to make the extra efford or pay the extra money. That's the important bit, as applied to photography: most people don't care about most things.

Cheers,

R.
 
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Personal note re musical appreciation: why not get out of the rut of recorded music altogether - glue your ear to live performances for awhile, as we've done for the millenia prior to vinyl and digi ...
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Bravo! Likewise one could just look at stuff rather than take photos of it - sorry, couldn't resist 🙂
 
Old photos discovered from WW1 in France

Old photos discovered from WW1 in France

The discovery of these very intact plates from the 1914-1918 conflict has historians abuzz here. Many of these young men would have simply gone missing in action. Of course I post this and think would we have them if the war had been shot digitaly?

Sorry I can't upload link but here it is:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/r...r-boys-at-war-and-at-play-20110226-1b9bf.html
 
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