Movie France  1899 moving walkway - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2019, 10:10:08 pm
content: Unbelievable, no car to be seen but there is a moving walkway4minute 50 seconds in this moviehttps://youtu.be/NjDclfAFRB4https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2019, 02:06:30 am
content: They must have made this film with very special techniques (for back then). This clip is very unusual. Film clips of that era usually has motion not matching real time, and at a lower frame rate. This clip has very smooth movement for a film clip made before 1900!To refresh my memory, I just went to youtube to look at actual WW I clips. The jittering motion in those clips are immediately noticeable.Anyone else observe this or are my eyes going south?

author: LapTop006
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 01, 2019, 03:18:19 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on March 01, 2019, 02:06:30 amIt does say "speed corrected" in the description, the time manipulation tools for video have gotten pretty amazing. Have a look for example at what Weta did with a bunch of WW1 footage:On the topic it reminds me of Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll", good radio play version:

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2019, 09:22:42 pm
content: Quote from: LapTop006 on March 01, 2019, 03:18:19 amAhem, red-faced from embarrassment. I did not see the "speed corrected..." phrase in the description.I was captured by the unexpected visual thinking this clip is odd, may be it is not real, but why would anyone fake such a clip...

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2019, 09:24:54 pm
content: And the moving walkway is well documented as the wiki article confirms, so yeah this was real, realy amazing.

author: aargee
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2019, 02:12:13 am
content: I love the kid in the model boat scene getting prodded out of the shot by an umbrella.

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2019, 05:20:01 pm
content: Are those lamps hanging above it arc or incandescant?

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2019, 06:07:09 pm
content: Awesome video, thanks!

author: barbeque
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2019, 07:01:46 pm
content: Surprised it's not much louder. I wonder where they put the motive power?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2019, 08:57:54 pm
content: I have a feeling the audio is way more recent IF the original material even had sound.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 11:33:58 am
content: Yes the silent film era only ended somewhere around 1920 or so.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 11:49:05 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 05, 2019, 08:57:54 pmYes, the sound is nearly surely artificially added later. It only contains a collage of plain samples and it is stereophonic (way too early for stereo to be recorded in the field). But the movie alone seems to be real. I am a bit concerned about the surprisingly wide depth of field, which is uncommon for early movies, but the movie has many reputable mentions¹, lacks attempts to disprove its authenticity and I believe making a fake this good would cost too much².____¹ Though many of them are only from journalists — I keep that in mind.² GANs are still not good enough to generate stuff that good, without any artifacts.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 12:42:17 pm
content: It looks legitimate to me.The only reason pre-standard frames/sec film looked weird in the past was because there was no simple way to "Standards convert" them, so we usually just gave up & played them at 24/25 fps, resulting in historical clips showing the Kaiser's Army prancing along in a decidedly non-menacing manner.Since the advent of "frame store" technology of various kinds, it is possible to show such clips at correct motion rates.As to the moving footpath, it was certainly achievable with 1890s technology--- probably simpler than escalators which have been around from that time.It does look to have been a bit of a novelty--note the "lads" hopping off one direction & back onto the other direction, seemingly for fun.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 03:44:30 pm
content: The first escalators date back from late 19th/early 20th century, so there is nothing really incredible about this. This was the time when people were starting to use electricity for everything as a miracle technology (that it was at the time).More than 100 years later, we do that all over again with a "green" label that they probably didn't care about whatsoever at the time.As to the movie, it looks pretty obviously remastered. No way it would have looked like this at the time.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 05:49:03 pm
content: Paris was something of a centre for technology innovation in that era. They had quite a fewexpositions universelleswhich would have been about the size of a modern theme park and attracted visitors from around the world.Couldn't help noticing the cyclists cutting in front of teams of horses with inches to spare. Presumably relations of Captain Scarlet, as of course are all modern pedal-pushers.IIRC the frame rate of early film projectors differed from more modern ones, hence the problem of old films usually playing too fast. The early films would probably have flickered quite badly at the correct speed, but I guess modern processing can eliminate that by interpolating frames.

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 06:21:55 pm
content: It was most likely very simple. Similar to a pulled trolley there was likely just a chain drive under the belt that went around on pulleys.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 07:13:16 pm
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on March 06, 2019, 05:49:03 pmIt were the cameras and projectors both that cause the issue, they were handoperated so the framerate is variable and directly dependend on the turnrate frequency of the cameraman and the projectionist.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2019, 07:16:08 pm
content: Here more about the combined camera/projector of the Lumiere brothershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematograph