General Discussion Numerous jump cuts in recent Watch TCM films... (1 Viewer)

[SultanOfWhat]

Has anyone else been experiencing a rash of jump cuts in film on Watch TCM recently?

Here's a message I just sent to the Watch TCM PR person:



Something has gone wrong recently with films viewed on Watch TCM.

I've been noticing this for the last month or so (over 5-6 films), but it seems to have gotten much worse lately.

Three recent examples are "Days of Wine and Roses", "Yolanda and the Thief" and "Romance on the High Seas." In all 3 films (viewed within the last week) there are at least a dozen instances in which there is a sudden skip of what appears to be about 5 seconds. If you want to see the problem pretty quickly, just watch a portion of "Romance on the High Seas" after the characters board the ship. You won't have long to wait.

These numerous jump cuts make it hard to enjoy watching the film, and in some cases important dialogue is missed.

Please have the technicians look into this.



I realize that some films have missing frames (the scene in which Peter O'Toole puts out the match with his fingers in Lawrence of Arabia comes to mind; there is a jump cut as Lawrence leaves the room), but that is not what's going on here.

No problems with Criterion Channel, Amazon, Disney+, etc., so it's not my Roku or TV.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

I have TCM on my DirecTV service and no issues that i have seen.

 

[cinefan]

I watched Murder By Death on WatchTCM on my Roku a couple of days ago and noticed an odd jump of perhaps 5 seconds in the opening credits. It seemed to skip over Truman Capote's caricature and credit -- so I thought perhaps it was a deliberate edit in the released film where they were trying to make Capote's casting a surprise? It was sloppy though -- with a discontinuity in the score. He was credited in the end credits I believe. So I'm still unsure if this was a WatchTCM glitch or just a clumsy late edit.

 

[Mark-P]

Are you sure what you are seeing isn't frame-rate stutter? I've found some streaming services do a poor job of converting 24fps to 30fps resulting in jerky motion. I love the apps that actually support original frame rate rather than converting it to 30fps.

 

[SultanOfWhat]

Are you sure what you are seeing isn't frame-rate stutter? I've found some streaming services do a poor job of converting 24fps to 30fps resulting in jerky motion. I love the apps that actually support original frame rate rather than converting it to 30fps.

No, it's nothing like that.

I'm seeing jump cuts that skip about 5 seconds of the film each time. Hardly ever saw even a single jump cut on TCM until about 6 weeks ago. Very annoying.

No problems with any other streaming service.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Has anyone else been experiencing a rash of jump cuts in film on Watch TCM recently?

Here's a message I just sent to the Watch TCM PR person:



Something has gone wrong recently with films viewed on Watch TCM.

I've been noticing this for the last month or so (over 5-6 films), but it seems to have gotten much worse lately.

Three recent examples are "Days of Wine and Roses", "Yolanda and the Thief" and "Romance on the High Seas." In all 3 films (viewed within the last week) there are at least a dozen instances in which there is a sudden skip of what appears to be about 5 seconds. If you want to see the problem pretty quickly, just watch a portion of "Romance on the High Seas" after the characters board the ship. You won't have long to wait.

These numerous jump cuts make it hard to enjoy watching the film, and in some cases important dialogue is missed.

Please have the technicians look into this.



I realize that some films have missing frames (the scene in which Peter O'Toole puts out the match with his fingers in Lawrence of Arabia comes to mind; there is a jump cut as Lawrence leaves the room), but that is not what's going on here.

No problems with Criterion Channel, Amazon, Disney+, etc., so it's not my Roku or TV.

I just sampled "Romance on the High Seas" after the characters boarded the ship and I experienced no such jumps. Do you have a time stamp?

 

[SultanOfWhat]

I just watched the film (Romance on the High Seas) from 30 minutes in to 1:15 in. No more skips.

Either there was something related to peak demand time affecting the stream when this film (and the others) were skipping (I usually watch films from 10 PM on), or they fixed the issue.

I noticed the problem on 5-6 films over the past 6 weeks. It will be interesting to see if the problem returns when watching at peak demand times in the future.

 

[RPMay]

TCM, and especially TCM On Demand thru Spectrum has this problem.
This service needs some serious technical upgrading. On Demand programs are much less sharp than their direct broadcasts. Audio has a heavy hiss whenever there is no other sound going on.

 

[Richard M S]

TCM, and especially TCM On Demand thru Spectrum has this problem.
This service needs some serious technical upgrading. On Demand programs are much less sharp than their direct broadcasts. Audio has a heavy hiss whenever there is no other sound going on.

I stopped watching TCM OnDemand thru Spectrum just for this reason. The slight jumps always took me out of the moment - and yes, the hiss is far more pronounced and the picture is not as sharp as a normal broadcast presentation.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I just watched the film (Romance on the High Seas) from 30 minutes in to 1:15 in. No more skips.

Either there was something related to peak demand time affecting the stream when this film (and the others) were skipping (I usually watch films from 10 PM on), or they fixed the issue.

I noticed the problem on 5-6 films over the past 6 weeks. It will be interesting to see if the problem returns when watching at peak demand times in the future.

Do you get Watch TCM from Spectrum? If so then apparently that's the source of the issue.

 

[SultanOfWhat]

Do you get Watch TCM from Spectrum? If so then apparently that's the source of the issue.

Yes, I have Spectrum. But for me, this is a very recent problem, as I've been watching Watch TCM via Spectrum since it first became available on Roku in December 2018, and I've only had skipping issues in the last 6 weeks.

I've seen no issues with picture quality on Watch TCM, as many of the scans have been excellent, and some sub-par, but that seems to be due to the transfer they have available. You can usually tell just from the titles what sort of transfer you're going to get of the specific film you've selected.

 

[cinefan]

Last night we decided to watch "Rachel, Rachel" on WatchTCM, but had to give up about 10 minutes in because of the video quality. There is probably a more accurate technical way to describe it, but the picture was "stuttery" for lack of a better term -- it was especially noticeable and "jerky" anytime the camera panned but really was almost constantly noticeable. Very odd. I tried rebooting my Roku device (actually a TCL Roku TV), but it made no difference. So we resolved to watch something else -- I also had "This Land Is Mine" on my WatchTCM watchlist and we decided to give it a try. I feared similar results but it looked great and was problem-free. So I think it was something about the "Rachel, Rachel" upload/transfer in particular that was problematic.

(By the way, I can't resist an aside to say I LOVED Jean Renoir's "This Land Is Mine" after not having seen it in perhaps 35 or 40 years. Charles Laughton gets to really ham it up in what is undeniably a very of-its-time and manipulative propaganda piece -- but such a beautifully done one. And George Sanders gives I think one of his best and most subtly shaded performances as a tragically conflicted Nazi collaborationist. Plus Maureen O'Hara and Una O'Connor and Walter Slezak -- all great.).

 

[warthree]

I've noticed that TCM web access movies tend to do this [i.e. stutter on pans and movement]. It's why I don't usually watch them. DVR does not have that effect.

 

[Bob Cashill]

I've had this problem for years regarding TCM, which I mostly watch via DVR on my Spectrum cable box here in Brooklyn.

 

[cinefan]

I've noticed that TCM web access movies tend to do this [i.e. stutter on pans and movement]. It's why I don't usually watch them. DVR does not have that effect.

It was interesting that it was extremely noticeable on "Rachel, Rachel" but not at all immediately after on "This Land Is Mine" nor on another movie I watched later last night ("The Pumpkin Eater"). I feel like I have noticed it intermittently streaming on WatchTCM (on Roku) but not usually (I remember seeing it on "In The Heat of The Night" a while back though definitely not as severely as "Rachel, Rachel"). I guess I'm now concluding that it seems more like a function of the film rather than the time I'm watching (as it would likely be if it were a transient bandwidth problem for example). Oh well, I guess it's neither here nor there since there's nothing I can do about it regardless.