Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unccvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!mcnc!unccvax!dsi
From: dsi@unccvax.UUCP (Dataspan Inc)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Videos, in general
Message-ID: <224@unccvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Jun-85 09:36:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: unccvax.224
Posted: Wed Jun 26 09:36:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 01:30:26 EDT
References: <1584@dciem.UUCP>
Organization: UNC-Charlotte
Lines: 62


    I don't think you've much to worry about. Since 'music videos' have
caught on, CBS has decided to charge rent for airing them, which in major
markets can be up to $2000/mo.  I suspect the other recording conglomerates
will follow suit.

    This will have the effect eliminating minor stains like Ma and Pa's
UHF station attempting to compete with MTV Networks' channels. (Do you
detect a connection here? Noooooo. . .) Perhaps music will then regress
back to being audio only, at least in non-cable households!

    And now, a flame about music videos:

    Just what is it that the music video people don't want us to see? Despite
the best efforts of your SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television
Engineers) to provide you with high quality standards for the production
of both film and videotape programmes, music videos in general look like
death warmed over.  (My spouse would say that they expose the film way 
too much in the toe of the D-logE curve). The blacks are consistently
compressed, the colours are highly pasty and unrealistic, and the programme
in general is always penalized with heavy doses of film grain and / or
electronic noise.

     No, MTV does not have the ultraenhanced look, of, say, The Nashville
Network (which seems to insert their chrominance about 3 dB hot) but 
whoever produces this garbageola needs remedial composition courses. I'll
be happy to show them news actualities shot by tech school grads with 
much more pizzaz!

     Video with music can be an enjoyable experience, disjoint or related
(Cat Stevens' compositions for "Harold and Maude" come to mind here) and
in and of itself isn't such a bad thing. Music videos, on the other hand,
are such a depressing experience, because there seems to be a (not 
necessarily overt) conspiracy to present the visual material in an obviously
depressing way.  No, I don't accept that the present technique of playing
a music bed over actors who obviously don't have the slightest idea of
what they are doing as being some new art form, it is just extremely
poor videography/cinematography.  If videos could convey some sense of 
the acoustic space of the music (which your brain has no trouble interpreting)
rather than present the exact same music we here day after day on top 40,
they would take a giant step forward in maturity and class.

     I just don't buy that most music video productions are high buck
affairs!  If this stuff is going to major national laboratories for 
processing and transfer, then I'd vote for a conspiracy (then again, no
amount of processing can correct for bad composition and exposure). However,
there is better quality control at your local Jiffy Foto Prints-In-An-Hour
place!

    (above paragraph, I meant hear, of course, not here)

    -- Flames off --

    Now, I can see their point of view... they're aiming this crap at people
who obviously don't give a damn about audio, much less video; if the music's
dynamic range is going to be flat, loud, and lifeless, why not the corresponding
video, too.

Whoever follows up to this, please move (or add, as appropriate) this to
net.video/net.tv. Thanks

David