Missing Nix frames

[David G. Healy]

I believe the MPI Z-film version is missing the last frame....

You are correct! (I'll edit my post accordingly).

In the missing final frame, one could easily argue some combination of "lazy" and/or "thinking for us" i.e., MPI determined that there was nothing of value in this frame and merely ignored it.

The more I closely examine their work, the more I wish they'd make the individual frames in all their various zooms, etc, available for purchase in full-resolution.

dgh: John Costella PhD. Physics (HOAX contributor) pointed that out to us a few years back, Frank. Not I.....

In defense of MPI, they had no idea the backlash they'd receive from JFK DP phot/film research community, they just did a simple job for the Zapruder family, making the Z-film available, in current viewable media form, for public consumption and our viewing pleasure... and made pretty good money in the process.

FWIW: they, MPI, won't be making anything available to the assassination research community, they won't answer any questions regarding the Zapruder DVD/VHS project...

[David G. Healy]

Frank, I wonder if you have found out

the exact aspect ratio change Z to published MPI in pixels or percent.

did they stretch lengthwise or compress vertically. Either way changes the data somewhat but compressing definiotely 'deletes'

the frames are not all level, I suppose you've noticed that. In particular when resizing this 'relocates' items in a way that makes some fine measurements dodgy.

Could this be the source of the skewing or distortion seen in the Msplice. Ie the splice needs to be treated as two separate images and aligned properly first before any resizing, restoration.

dgh: regarding MPI DVD imagery720x480 MPEG2 DVD format (2:1)

base NTSC video imagery is 640x480 (4:3)

scale 90-91% horizontal (only) should get you in the ballpark....

Have a nice New Year's guy's!

Edited December 31, 2006 by David G. Healy

[Ashton Gray]

Frank, I wonder if you have found out

the exact aspect ratio change Z to published MPI in pixels or percent.

did they stretch lengthwise or compress vertically. Either way changes the data somewhat but compressing definiotely 'deletes'

From incomplete and frustrating attempts to resolve that exact question, I'm so far of the opinion that there is not a uniform simple ratio: that there is distortion in unequal distribution in the MPI frames—or in the mpeg of the Zapruder film I have that I'm attempting to resolve the MPI frames to.

I've been trying with Z:220 because it has black diagonal lines in it running down from top left toward center, and several pretty well defined horizontal and vertical points to keep aligning to.

So far, the ratios that seemed promising in some relationship were (expressed in percentages):

W: 78

H: 62.4

W: 76.7

H: 62.1

W: 78.3

H: 62.2

All are wrong.

When I get a vertical sizing that aligns, I cannot (so far) get any horizontal sizing that aligns at all points. There seems to be unequal "stretch" in places across the horizontal that I can't figure out. There may be some fundamental flaw in my approach, but I haven't identified it.

Ashton

Edited December 31, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[David G. Healy]

Frank, I wonder if you have found out

the exact aspect ratio change Z to published MPI in pixels or percent.

did they stretch lengthwise or compress vertically. Either way changes the data somewhat but compressing definiotely 'deletes'

From incomplete and frustrating attempts to resolve that exact question, I'm so far of the opinion that there is not a uniform simple ratio: that there is distortion in unequal distribution in the MPI frames—or in the mpeg of the Zapruder film I have that I'm attempting to resolve the MPI frames to.

I've been trying with Z:220 because it has black diagonal lines in it running down from top left toward center, and several pretty well defined horizontal and vertical points to keep aligning to.

So far, the ratios that seemed promising in some relationship were:

W: 78

H: 62.4

W: 76.7

H: 62.1

W: 78.3

H: 62.2

All are wrong.

When I get a vertical sizing that aligns, I cannot (so far) get any horizontal sizing that aligns at all points. There seems to be unequal "stretch" in places across the horizontal that I can't figure out. There may be some fundamental flaw in my approach, but I haven't identified it.

Ashton

dgh: here's the SMPTE (Roland Zavada's organization established in 1915) benchmark:

http://member.melbpc.org.au/~cksm/Formats.html

* * * * * *

8mm film, in size is 1.33:1 (as it was in 1963) - simple shorthand, a 4:3 screen ratio (4 being horizontal/3 the vertical) all standard NTSC video is 4:3 or 1.33:1. If your dealing with film imagery converted to DVD you have the *added* problem of dealing with the MPEG format which the film will be converted to when burned to the DVD, which is 2:1 near frame ratio. Scaling those images to 90%+/- horizontal will bring the 8mm images back to 1.33:1

Edited December 31, 2006 by David G. Healy

[Frank Agbat]

8mm film, in size is 1.33:1 (as it was in 1963) - simple shorthand, a 4:3 screen ratio (4 being horizontal/3 the vertical) all standard NTSC video is 4:3 or 1.33:1. If your dealing with film imagery converted to DVD you have the *added* problem of dealing with the MPEG format which the film will be converted to when burned to the DVD, which is 2:1 near frame ratio. Scaling those images to 90%+/- horizontal will bring the 8mm images back to 1.33:1

[/color]

One has to wonder if MPI took into account the PIXEL aspect ratio of a television (arguably their target for the DVD production) vs. that of a monitor. Computers use (almost) square pixels, whereas video (TV, et al) use pixels that are rectangular. It would be nice to think that MPI would have corrected for this (After Effects, Premier, et al, have plenty of facilities to handle Pixel Aspect Ratio and to produce correct videos for both Digital and Analog (TV) targets). Considering they couldn't even get the frame numbering correct, it is rather a stretch to imagine them working out the subtleties of aspect ratios.

Of course, the entire process is fraught with danger. The analog/optical portion of the process can introduce any number of issues even before the digital domain enters the equation. The transparency or film scanning process is *probably* going to be a square-pixel device. Again, one would like to think (!) that MPI managed to preserve the original aspect ratio through these two steps. The result should be a digital image with the correct aspect ratio in a square-pixel format... Hopefully. If properly authored, the DVD product will have the correct aspect ratio for rectangular pixels... Hopefully.

The NFV sources are another matter entirely, as I'm now convinced that the DVD originates from a Video source that was captured and digitized.

This is why (among other reasons) I strongly caution against using these types of images for microscopic examination. They are useful for many, many things, but not for all things.

[Bill Miller]

Frank, I wonder if you have found out

the exact aspect ratio change Z to published MPI in pixels or percent.

My understanding is that MPI stretched the images horizontally by 17%. No stretching was done vertically from what I recall.

Bill

[Frank Agbat]

Bronson sequence - stabilized / color corrected / gaussian deconvolution. Source: NFV/Groden

[Frank Agbat]

Bronson sequence - original version:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f280/fra...-orig-small.gif

Larger version of the stabilized sequence:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f280/fra...l-enh-anim2.gif

[John Dolva]

This one should be very easy to sync. (Frank check out a.gif at FTP site). The hand movement that Jackie makes that fixes the Nix and Z are there. Also through the foliage one can see the guy running diagonally towards Altgen in Z.

a composite of all the Bronson gif frames. (image)

[Frank Agbat]

This one should be very easy to sync. (Frank check out a.gif at FTP site). The hand movement that Jackie makes that fixes the Nix and Z are there. Also through the foliage one can see the guy running diagonally towards Altgen in Z.

a composite of all the Bronson gif frames. (image)

The only major problems I see with establishing sync with this clip are:

1) The shortness of the clip

2) The low frame rate of the camera (12fps)

3) The distance from the camera to the limo.

Ostensibly, Toni Foster might, again, make a reasonable starting point for establishing relative sync/timing.

[John Dolva]

I don't know Frank, I think (look at a.gif) the exact same hand movement is there. Toni's 'quickstep' is also clear.

One very good thing is the relative absense of distortions at this distance for the centre of the frames field of view. In knowing the sync and frame rate a lot of measurements like ditstance travelled over a time period, given the fixed points in the background, and working out where he stood can confirm the Z313 location and hence the correc/incorrect placement of M42 as headshot.

I haven't looked at the zoomed frames yet. It might be interesting to get a triangulation of the fragment trajectory. IOW three lines, irrespective of exactly when the occured, if they are the same line then haivng three views of that line from three positions should enable an exact fragment trajectory.

[Ashton Gray]

In knowing the sync and frame rate a lot of measurements like ditstance travelled over a time period, given the fixed points in the background, and working out where he stood can confirm the Z313 location and hence the correc/incorrect placement of M42 as headshot.

On the "working out where he stood" issue of the Bronson film: this has nagged me for a while, and you just had to bring it up, di'n't you? I have ridiculously little time today (yes, on a holiday) but I took a few minutes to set the following up, and really, once I went at it, it didn't take long at all to convince me that the film was made from as far back as a window in the southwest turret of "Old Red."

Well, I couldn't spend long at all trying to finesse it all and get an "exact" duplicate, but the tree foliage in the left side of the frame makes it so any ballpark estimate tells the story:

There is no other tree (1963 vintage) that I can find that possibly can qualify other than the one just to the north of the south peristyle.

That shot above roughly approximates, at least, the Bronson framing.

Here it is from the infield, at roughly the elevation of the top of the pergola (I was winging, not measuring, but still...):

That window where the arrow points is approximately the elevation I had the camera set to in the previous image, so it all seems to snap into line. Of course it possibly could have been shot from as far back as the new courthouse with a longer lens, but I tend to doubt it, and don't have time to screw around with it to find out if there's actually any angle from there between Old Red and the tree. (It doesn't look like there is to me.)

I have no idea what monkey wrench this might throw into the works, but I call 'em as I see 'em.

Ashton

Edited January 1, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[John Dolva]

A good line of sight, but he mistakenly had the wide angle lens in action. There's a tree right rear of Nix and I think maybe he was standing about there. This means the fragment direction may not be so easy to calculate as his perspective was similar to Nix. But he took a wide angle view and if I'm picking thee right frames for the headshot, the fragments are visible for longer. I can't figure out yet whether he was to the right or left of Nix.

[Ashton Gray]

A good line of sight, but he mistakenly had the wide angle lens in action. There's a tree right rear of Nix and I think maybe he was standing about there.

Okay. It's the same tree. Based on wider angle I put the camera arbitrarily at 8' elevation at the location where Don has Bronson, on that riser of the south peristyle/reflecting pool area behind Nix, and indeed the tree can get in the frame with a wider angle. Of course this is all very rough, and working with two-dimensional illustrated "trees" I can't control at all where the "foliage" and "limbs" fall, but here is what you described (based loosely on Don's plat location) with shadows turned on (but ignore the big monolithic shadow across the sky—too much to explain):

Sorry, mate; sorry; sorry. As you were. Carry on.

Ashton

Edited January 1, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[Bill Miller]

Bronson stood on the pedestal on the southwest corner of Main and Houston. In the opening sequence of his film, I can see the shade from that tree he later filmed through as that shade from the said tree passes out into the street. (see opening sequence of the Bronson film)

Bill Miller