Originally Posted by vaporeon800 View Post
But on the opposite end of the spectrum, we're also getting trained to consider garbage cameraphone footage triple-converted by YouTube as acceptable even though it looks worse than any reasonable VHS.

I'm still shocked when I see a news report about a dead celeb or something and the clip of the TV show they starred in is nabbed from YT when just a few years ago that wouldn't have been considered broadcast-worthy; previously they would've pulled tapes from somewhere.
You are right.

Though in that particular instance, it's partly just laziness, and it's partly a feeling some producers have that archive footage shouldn't look too clean otherwise it looks too modern. Sometimes people choose a lower quality option because they don't think the past should look so immediate. Honestly, I know someone who worked in one of the archives at the BBC, and they had the ability to make old recordings sound almost like new, and some producers would say "no, I want the version with all the scratches in so people know it's old"!

It's a recognised trend in marketing that YouTube/PhoneCam/Instagram style looks "authentic".

Cheers,
David.