# Why does "live" television look "live"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 30, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463 "2003-05-30T06:02:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2003, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463/21 "2003-05-31T04:01:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*_All_ current prime time dramas are shot on 35mm film, and the majority of sitcoms are shot on 35mm film too. \*\* I must differ with that. Videotape is used in almost every single production currently on the air. There are processes out there that will convert the “video look” to the “film look”, and that process is very widely used. The production is shot, edited, filtered through the “film look” process, then broadcast all using video tape. [Here’s an explanation of one of the processes, and why film and video look different.](http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/feature_video_film.html) My father was involved in the early transfer of film to video and the hurdles that he and his engineers had to overcome were staggering. They finally developed the Videola, which basically was a film projector with a screen, and a mounted video camera would shoot the screen through a specially designed rotating prism, which eliminated the “flicker effect” common in that process. He and his engineers actually won an Oscar for that process. ---
**Author:** ![initech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/439d5e/32.png) [@initech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/initech)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463/22 "2003-05-31T05:12:58Z")
Are you sure about that, Rico? I’m under the impression that almost all, say, primetime dramas are indeed shot on film. The “film look” technology is really amazing, but it just isn’t the same. The newer generation of HD cameras will change all that, but for now I think it’s still done with real film. If not, I’d love to know more about what high-end series are using this technique. I do recall a short-lived soap opera in the mid-90’s called “Sunset Beach.” It used a film treatment applied to videotape, but the technology just wasn’t ready yet and the effect annoyed viewers. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463/23 "2003-05-31T05:13:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rico \* > Videotape is used in almost every single production currently on the air. This statement is true but misleading. My understanding is that many primetime shows (I’m told most) are shot on film, then transferred to videotape for editing etc before broadcast. [“99 percent of episodic television shows are shot on film.”](http://broadcastengineering.com/ar/broadcasting_post_production/) ---
**Author:** ![ricksummon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ricksummon/32/3333_2.png) [@ricksummon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricksummon)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463/24 "2003-05-31T05:39:15Z")
OK, so what about those newfangled digital movie cameras that George Lucas likes so much? Is there any perceptible difference between them and film? ---
**Author:** ![CelraySoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CelraySoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelraySoda)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2003, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463/25 "2003-05-31T06:36:20Z")
I asked the same question back in college when I was acting in short films…(keep your eye on IFC, you’ll see me sometime). The director told me that certain films cut out every other frame or ever other 2 frames shot at a high speed giving a different effect. Normal speed or live TV footage resembles home videos and such and doesn’t have some certain “quality” that is a trademark of feature films. Also, it sometimes cuts back on what he called “background detail” which did something bad to the point of perspectives…I forget what. He was a weirdo, he had really long hair, 5 cats and he smelled like armpits. -M ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463/26 "2003-05-31T12:58:30Z")
There was a thread about this a while ago in which someone referred to Douglas Trumbull’s experimental Showscan format, which was high resolution film shot at 60fps. Trumbull abandoned the filming of a Showscan movie - because the resulting film “looked too much like video”. This suggests that frame rate is an important factor. More at [http://www.urbanfox.tv/production/p11filmlike.html](http://www.urbanfox.tv/production/p11filmlike.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-live-television-look-live/178463.md?page=1)