BR 1080p = Best possible transfer of 35mm movies?

[Laszlo]

I just wondered if we ever get better releases of 35mm movies. Does a good BR transfer show ALL the details and colour of a regular 35 mm movie? And how about 70mm movies?

[Suntory_Times]

It depends on many other factors. From most viewing distances for most films shot on 35mm it shows most of the detail (if not all for many films). I am assuming we are taliking only about the grain that contains picture information and not extra grain that does not contain any picture information. For 70mm there is a lot more detail that can be had, however viewing distances limit how much detail you will be able to see (assuming THX recommended viewing distance there is very little room for improvement asides from compression in terms of resolution). That bieng said the percieved sharpness of an image is not just related to the pixel count and there are several other facors that are just as important (if not even more important).

[Flatnate]

You know the follow up question to this is if 35mm film prints have degraded in quality since film makers have begun using a digital intermediate to sort out color, special effects stuff and all sorts of mastering tricks before transferring it back to the final 35mm film that ships to the theaters. For instance would Riddley Scotts Alien from 1979 look better today on film being there was no computer CG or colorist stuff, no digital intermediate (that I know of) than if Alien was released today with current film making techniques? Theoretically 35mm should look much better than Blu-ray but I don't know if thats the case these days? Do you lose something in the digital intermediate filmmakers employ today? Oh and real 70mm should blow Blu-ray out of the park.. for the record.

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by Laszlo

Does a good BR transfer show ALL the details and colour of a regular 35 mm movie? And how about 70mm movies?

Nope.

Film has a much higher resolution than Blu-ray is capable of. Some say north of 8K for 35mm film and even higher for 70mm. There have already been numerous scans of 35mm and 70mm films at 4k, 6k, and even 8k resolutions which are then down-converted for Blu-ray. Sound of Music, just released this week, is one such example.

[Bluyoda]

It's BD.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by kpkelley

Nope.

Film has a much higher resolution than Blu-ray is capable of. Some say north of 8K for 35mm film and even higher for 70mm. There have already been numerous scans of 35mm and 70mm films at 4k, 6k, and even 8k resolutions which are then down-converted for Blu-ray. Sound of Music, just released this week, is one such example.

But on our TV's they should look the same, as some do. Sometimes even better.

Blu-ray is 2k correct?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Laszlo

I just wondered if we ever get better releases of 35mm movies. Does a good BR transfer show ALL the details and colour of a regular 35 mm movie? And how about 70mm movies?

BD should show more detail then was visible in the theatre, but not all that was on the original film (35 or 70). Also since BD is compressed it has less detail then real 1080p, so yes, there is room for improvement. As for colour it is more tricky, the simple answer is that there is place for improvement but the issue with colour is that it is constantly touched up since on film it changes over time, so part of creating a new digital master is touching up the colours (and sometimes change things because the look is/was not what they want)
.

[Flatnate]

Blu-ray at 1920x1080 is a hair away from being the same as 2K at 2048x1080, and is often attributed to the larger chip set used in commercial digital cinema projectors. From what I have read the biggest difference in digital cinema vs blu-ray is not so much resolution but rather a broader color gamut and less or no compression of the video. Still if you ask me a cineplex throwing almost as many pixels on their 35 foot wide screen versus me and my 8 foot screen... well something doesn't add up. Lets all hope our cinema owners adopt 4k or better for the digital projectors.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by saprano

Blu-ray is 2k correct?

not exactly, but yes.

2K is short for 2000
when film is scanned, the width is fixed and has 2048 pixels (for a 2k scanner) wide the height will depend on the film (how high is the pic on it) on the other hand BD is 1980 (x1080) so 2048, 2000 and 1980 are all real close in numbers so they are considered close enough and tend to be used interchangeably but they are not technically the same numbers. On the other hand since film is measured horizontal (2048 or 2K) while TV vertically (1080p) it is important to note that the two are real similar and 2K is not roughly double 1080p

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by kpkelley

Nope.

Film has a much higher resolution than Blu-ray is capable of. Some say north of 8K for 35mm film and even higher for 70mm. There have already been numerous scans of 35mm and 70mm films at 4k, 6k, and even 8k resolutions which are then down-converted for Blu-ray. Sound of Music, just released this week, is one such example.

Whilst this is correct this includes both grain that contains picture information, as well as the grain that is essentially leftovers and contains no picture information. Yes film does have a higher possible resolution then blu-ray, but blu-ray currently is not the limiting factor (at least if you comply with thx standards). The viewing distance is.

[Flatnate]

Any thoughts on how the digital intermediate process effects the resolution of the actual 35mm print sent to theaters now? Could one argue that current releases on 35mm are no better than 2k as well due to this?

Edit: I realize I'm throwing this one out there if anyone knows, and that in many ways it has nothing to do with the Blu-ray we watch at home.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Flatnate

Any thoughts on how the digital intermediate process effects the resolution of the actual 35mm print sent to theaters now? Could one argue that current releases on 35mm are no better than 2k as well due to this?

Edit: I realize I'm throwing this one out there if anyone knows, and that in many ways it has nothing to do with the Blu-ray we watch at home.

That is correct, in fact 35mm prints will generally have less detail due to generation loss.

[Flatnate]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

That is correct, in fact 35mm prints will generally have less detail due to generation loss.

Awww Jeez, thanks Suntory_Times that was not what I was hoping to hear but kind of what I suspected.

35mm film should be better by a good bit but the resolution of that intermediate seems like a big hurdle to cinema picture quality, couple that with scratches, dust, and generation loss as you mentioned; I can see why people would prefer blu-ray.

A theater 30 miles away from me just installed a 4k projector, I haven't seen it yet but I'm hoping that 4k tech entices studios to use a higher resolution intermediate process.

Is 2k still the standard for digital intermediates? Or are they moving to greater resolutions for that process? I know Baraka was 70mm and scanned at 8k, but are there many other new releases put out like that?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Flatnate

Any thoughts on how the digital intermediate process effects the resolution of the actual 35mm print sent to theaters now? Could one argue that current releases on 35mm are no better than 2k as well due to this?

Edit: I realize I'm throwing this one out there if anyone knows, and that in many ways it has nothing to do with the Blu-ray we watch at home.

yes and no, it is not always a 2K intermediate.
But for the rest let's assume 2K intermediate. Then yes it is limited to 2K there was no more detail then that to begin with. On the other hand when that 2K image is printed to film it will get "distorted" by the film so it will appear to have more, but it won't be real detail.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Flatnate

35mm film should be better by a good bit but the resolution of that intermediate seems like a big hurdle to cinema picture quality, couple that with scratches, dust, and generation loss as you mentioned; I can see why people would prefer blu-ray.

A theater 30 miles away from me just installed a 4k projector, I haven't seen it yet but I'm hoping that 4k tech entices studios to use a higher resolution intermediate process.

now you are mixing things up. If there is a digital projector then it is not film so there is no film step after the digital intermediate. There is a digital file that is created, that digital file is then distributed to digital cinemas, if it is an old fashion film theatre then they get a film print.

On the other hand one of the biggest issue to the viewing experience in theatres is that they tend to have degraded screens and (on purpose or not) the projectors are not focused properly.

[Flatnate]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

now you are mixing things up. If there is a digital projector then it is not film so there is no film step after the digital intermediate. There is a digital file that is created, that digital file is then distributed to digital cinemas, if it is an old fashion film theatre then they get a film print.

On the other hand one of the biggest issue to the viewing experience in theatres is that they tend to have degraded screens and (on purpose or not) the projectors are not focused properly.

Oh sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like I was mixed up there. I guess I sorta switched gears mid way through that post.

I understand that the digital intermediate is still used to make a film print for 35mm projectors. I was under the impression that a film print projected on 35mm would ALWAYS be better than anything digitally projected. However, given what you have told me about the intermediate process and how film is now printed to the release print from a digital file, I get why a 2k DCI files on a digital projector often looks better than a traditional 35mm print.

The 4k projector near me is digital yes but I assumed anything they play on it would be based off a 4k native resolution DCI file... so 6 terabytes worth of data or something like that. So I'm hoping that the need for DCI files at that resolution for those kinds of theaters forces them to print 35mm releases to all theaters from a digital intermediate scan that is greater than 2k as well.

Hope I'm making sense here with that?

I know they played Inception on that 4k projector and that would lead me to assume Inception had a 4k digital intermediate to produce that DCI file for release.. perhaps if you watched on a 35mm film print of Inception you would have noticed a increase in quality due to to the care they took to release that DCI file to those 4k capable theaters based on the higher resolution digital intermediate?

Did I lose anyone here? Sorry.

[Suntory_Times]

Inceptions 35mm scenes, and 1080p shot scenes where edited at 2k, it's 65mm (or 70mm) scenes where edited at 4k. Honselty the difference the ye sees is notable, but no where near as large as you would think. For example the super slow motion scenes in the car where shot using 1080p digital cameras and looked extrmely sharp, although in imax the difference between 35mm and 1080p scenes and 70mm scenes is extremely noticable. But outside of imax, I doubt anyone views there films at such a large relative size.

Most films 4k projectors play are just an upscaled 2k file. That bieng said 4k projectors have lot more going for them, including generally better colours and contrast which result in a much nicer looking image (remember resolution, or equivelant resolution for film is only a small part of the equation of picture quality).

Originally Posted by Anthony P

yes and no, it is not always a 2K intermediate.
But for the rest let's assume 2K intermediate. Then yes it is limited to 2K there was no more detail then that to begin with. On the other hand when that 2K image is printed to film it will get "distorted" by the film so it will appear to have more, but it won't be real detail.

Also for many years most 2k prints where actually upscales of around a 1.8k image.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Flatnate

Oh sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like I was mixed up there. I guess I sorta switched gears mid way through that post.

no prob, happens to all of us.

I understand that the digital intermediate is still used to make a film print for 35mm projectors. I was under the impression that a film print projected on 35mm would ALWAYS be better than anything digitally projected. However, given what you have told me about the intermediate process and how film is now printed to the release print from a digital file, I get why a 2k DCI files on a digital projector often looks better than a traditional 35mm print.

It depends. DI can mean many things. For example all the processing might be done on film (old school) and then scanned in for digital projectors (and home media), then if you are watching it in a theatre that has film there was no DI and so the 35mm presentation will have the resolution based on the film element. On the other hand a film with a lot of CGI will be scanned right after filming and all the CGI added to that scan and the film edited in digital, so if it is projected digitally it will get that digital file but if you see it off of film then it gets printed to film and so the film is limited by the resolution of the DI scan.

The 4k projector near me is digital yes but I assumed anything they play on it would be based off a 4k native resolution DCI file

maybe. If it was a 2K DI then there can be upconversion, on the other hand if it is a 3D movie then it could be a 2x2K image you are seeing



but usually when scanning the best practice is to go beyond what you want, for two reasons.
1) archiving: in the end just because X is enough resolution now, it does not mean it will be enough later on.
2) Manipulation: algorithms look at surrounding pixels when manipulating data (DNR, compression, colour correction…), having more detail means that it can do a better job.

[Flatnate]

Thanks for all the clarifications on the theatrical release quality guys. You know I guess ultimately it does get back around to how well Blu-ray stands on its own two feet in comparison. I'm probably one of the few that enjoys the the theater experience when it is done well so I'm hoping that 4k and maybe 65mm/70mm makes a come back (especially if 3d flops). Something to be said for real showmanship at the theater that we have lost over time. Great movies like Inception shown in IMAX or 4k Dcinema can actually pull me out of my man cave, but most of the time its no wonder I stay home for so many movies.

[Clark Kent]

At the average theater viewing, a well-done transfer to Blu-ray will surpass the theatrical film print. A perfect film print run at a world-class theater will still be the better viewing experience.