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Answerman - What Is "Digipaint"?


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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 6171
Location: USA
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:16 pm Reply with quote
Ah so that is what "digipaint' Is. I figured as much considering how much of animation has evolved and eventually moving more and more to computer monitors. Plus, much of CG too. I would love to see the process from start to finish.
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hissatsu01



Joined: 08 May 2006
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Location: NYC
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:34 pm Reply with quote
Wouldn't 4x3 have been 640 x 480?
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Ashley Hakker



Joined: 31 Aug 2016
Posts: 115
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:52 pm Reply with quote
hissatsu01 wrote:
Wouldn't 4x3 have been 640 x 480?


No, for multiple reasons. Firstly, you're assuming all pixels are squares, in the days of NTSC SDTV they were not, television pixels were not square but somewhat rectangular, so 720x480 makes a 4:3 image, not 640x480.

More over, the article is speaking of wide screen material produced for SDTV, so it's 720x360 of 'usable' information because the top and bottom rows of 60 pixels just black and contain no meaningful information.

This would not include material that was produced anamorphically but not much digipaint television anime of that era was anamorphic.
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hissatsu01



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PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:00 pm Reply with quote
Actually I somehow missed the word "letterboxed" after 4x3. So now it makes sense. Whoops.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:16 pm Reply with quote
Oh yes, didgipaint and the death of " real black" in anime. They got some of it back but it's hard not to compare most night scenes to the film equivalent of "day for night".


It's an odd change though since it's very easy to compare the black in cell animation to the kind of inking you get in black and white comics... manga to put it simply. These days everything usually looks like a key image in full daylight. I wonder if it's a Light Novel concept because I'm pretty sure they should be able to get real shadows these days and not just darker colors or blue filters.

As for that thumbnail image, that's BONES for you. Don't expect them to plot their way to an ending on their own but they knew how to get the animation stuff done.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:18 pm Reply with quote
Justin wrote:
But some early shows use a bunch of now-outdated techniques that make upscaling impossible to do well.

Which techniques are those, out of interest? Is this anything to do with interlacing?
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:24 pm Reply with quote
Chrno2 wrote:
Ah so that is what "digipaint' Is. I figured as much considering how much of animation has evolved and eventually moving more and more to computer monitors. Plus, much of CG too. I would love to see the process from start to finish.


watch shirobako, thought it is not presented in any order.
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AndvariXII





PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 2:07 pm Reply with quote
What about the remaster of Escaflowne that came out in 96 has that been completely redone for 1080
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
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Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 2:18 pm Reply with quote
AndvariXII wrote:
What about the remaster of Escaflowne that came out in 96 has that been completely redone for 1080
That would fall into the "old enough that it was originally shot on film and could be rescanned in HD" category. It's stuff from roughly 2000-2006 that falls into that SD digipaint doughnut hole .

Ashley Hakker wrote:
This would not include material that was produced anamorphically but not much digipaint television anime of that era was anamorphic.
Really? I'd say most of it was anamorphic. I can only think of a few letterboxed shows, like Betterman (the first 16:9 TV anime!), Vandread, Zaion, Aquarian Age*, and SaiKano. Otoh, tons of shows like Noir, .hack//SIGN, Mahoromatic, Abenobashi, Gunslinger Girl, Samurai 7, Last Exile, Avenger, Air, Chobits, Koi Kaze, Yumeria, and likely lots more pre-2006 shows I'm forgetting were 16:9 anamorphic.

*EDIT: added later


Last edited by Zalis116 on Sat Nov 25, 2023 3:59 am; edited 1 time in total
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Parsifal24





PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 2:30 pm Reply with quote
That was informative I've always had an vague idea of what Digital Paint was but it's nice to have it explained. and yeah older series can be hard to watch I had to get rid of my copy of Kite Liberator because the video player software that came with my laptop up scaled everything to Blu-Ray quality and the series was unwatchable.
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residentgrigo



Joined: 23 Dec 2007
Posts: 2404
Location: Germany
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 3:33 pm Reply with quote
Let´s be honest though. It´s the 4 to 3 format that is going to 100% kill these shows, Bebop, Batman TAS and so on for audiences who didn´t grow up with knowing such a format. You could throw all your resources into upgrading the picture quality here but no teen or young adult who comes into my library would ever continue watching these if they randomly showed up in a new Youtube window. These might as well be black and white silent films to them... It hurts but that´s how the cookie crumbles.

Buffy or The Wire tried to fake 16 to 9 conversions recently by working of the original footage but purists don´t want those either and basically no one will be left happy no matter what you do.
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LostTL



Joined: 31 Oct 2016
Posts: 15
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 3:51 pm Reply with quote
One Piece's first year suffers from digipaint woes pretty badly. Presumably there was some rubbish analogue segment of the production chain, as almost all the East Blue episodes are riddled with dot crawl and rainbows flashing around line details. That being said, the 53-206 DVDs look pretty nice upscaled; I'd say they look nicer than the HD-sourced DVDs because they were made with 480p in mind.

Quote:
some early shows use a bunch of now-outdated techniques that make upscaling impossible to do well

I'm guessing that interlacing is one of those problems, because anime is hit harshly be de-interlacing (unless it's IVTC). Any time pre-HD One Piece slowed-down or sped-up footage they'd basically reduce the resolution to 240p in the process.
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Zendervai



Joined: 06 Apr 2012
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:24 pm Reply with quote
residentgrigo wrote:
Let´s be honest though. It´s the 4 to 3 format that is going to 100% kill these shows, Bebop, Batman TAS and so on for audiences who didn´t grow up with knowing such a format. You could throw all your resources into upgrading the picture quality here but no teen or young adult who comes into my library would ever continue watching these if they randomly showed up in a new Youtube window. These might as well be black and white silent films to them... It hurts but that´s how the cookie crumbles.

Buffy or The Wire tried to fake 16 to 9 conversions recently by working of the original footage but purists don´t want those either and basically no one will be left happy no matter what you do.


Yeah, it's not really that big a problem. It might be if there's two versions of a show (like Fullmetal Alchemist) and one's 16:9 and the other isn't, but nowadays, there are lots of people discovering older shows and once the "it was filmed that way, there's nothing wrong with it" discussion is over with, most people just go with it now.
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katscradle



Joined: 05 Jan 2013
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 6:23 pm Reply with quote
Digipaint is why I haven't re-purchased some older shows from this time frame on BD even though they were re-released. How good could they really look to make it worth it?
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 6:57 pm Reply with quote
Parsifal24 wrote:
That was informative I've always had an vague idea of what Digital Paint was but it's nice to have it explained. and yeah older series can be hard to watch I had to get rid of my copy of Kite Liberator because the video player software that came with my laptop up scaled everything to Blu-Ray quality and the series was unwatchable.

Have you ever checked to see if changing the video options on the player is possible? I had interlacing problems with my Guyver and Please Teacher DVDs whenever I played them in VLC, but after turning deinterlacing on, both are perfectly watchable.
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