CGI should be 1080p/60? Is Ice Age 1 or 2 a 30p, 60p, or 60i BD?

[CZroe]

Pixar once showed how they digitally reformatted a scene from "A Bug's Life" to fit both 4:3 and 16:9 without pan & scanning. For movies in the digital realm, this kind of thing is possible. Similarly, why not render additional frames of a CGI movie to match home display refresh rates?

Technically, 1080i/60 has much more detail than 1080p/24, "per second," just not more detail "per field" (identical detail per-frame). 1080i/60 ends up dwelling on the source's 24p frames long enough to display all the 1080p detail and then some in the process of 3:2 pulldown, so even 1080i would benefit from such remastering.

I was walking through Fry's Electronics in January and noticed that Ice Age 1 or 2 (I never watched either so I wouldn't know) on display looked incredibly smooth. The difference was immediately noticeable, as I spotted it from the corner of my eye. My brother messed around with the remote and got the PLAYER, not the television, to report that it was running at 60hz (well, 59.7hz or whatever). Is it possible that it was reporting the hz after pull-down and I was just seeing things or was it truly 60hz?

Sure, most movies are still filmed on film at a rate of 24FPS, but are the new digital cameras limited to the same rate? I doubt that because television still uses 60i. None of that matters for CGI movies though, so the next question is: are the new digital cinema's limited to 24p? I can't see why they would be unless the sheer resolution makes it difficult or impossible. If not, even theatrical movies should start shedding their old 24FPS limitation, though there would still be a 24p version on film for older screens.

I would absolutely love to see Ratatouille or Cars in 1080p/60.

[CAB]

In the US it's 24p, 24fps, 24Hz. Human eyes are good to see 16 - 18 fps.

[sonicbox]

Sorry, all commercial movies are 1080p24... yes, including Ice Age 2 that you saw. (Ice Age 1 isn't out yet.) For sets/players that don't support 1080p24 directly, the 1080p24 source is converted to 1080i60 or 1080p60 (if your set can handle it) before leaving the Blu-ray player.

It's possible you viewed Ice Age 2 on a display that has optional motion compensation. Some love it, some hate it.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by CAB

In the US it's 24p, 24fps, 24Hz. Human eyes are good to see 16 - 18 fps.

That's what they can discernibly utilize for individual frame detail, however, it is well known that the human eye can see the difference between 30FPS and 60FPS easily. It reduces eyestrain, flicker, judder (caused by 3:2 pulldown conversion) and is visibly MUCH smoother. That's how I noticed it at Fry's. Try playing a game at 30FPS and then 60FPS. It makes a HUGE difference.

Originally Posted by sonicbox

Sorry, all commercial movies are 1080p24... yes, including Ice Age 2 that you saw. (Ice Age 1 isn't out yet.) For sets/players that don't support 1080p24 directly, the 1080p24 source is converted to 1080i60 or 1080p60 (if your set can handle it) before leaving the Blu-ray player.

It's possible you viewed Ice Age 2 on a display that has optional motion compensation. Some love it, some hate it.

Hmm. I was pretty sure he used the BD remote to see that, and I don't see how useful it would be to report the converted output. And yes, I know that all commercial movies have traditionally been 24p, but this limitation should be falling away now that some films are entirely digital (CGI) and others are neither using film the cameras nor the projectors (digitally filmed and projected). At least for home video distribution of CGI movies, I'd like to see 60p.

If that was motion compensation I saw upconverting to 60 or 120hz, I can't say that I'd want anything messing with the original picture. I can say that it was immediately noticeable, so something with so much easily-obtainable potential as should not be ignored. How hard is it to let the render farms crank for a few more days to prepare for the home video release while the picture is in theaters?

[Bobby Henderson]

CGI movies already must undergo a lot of color processing trickery to imitate the "film look." Rendering and displaying at 24fps helps add to the illusion of it looking like a movie.

If the same movie is re-rendered at 60fps there is a strong chance the end result will be very electronic/video looking and not seem like film.

This is also one of the reasons I leave the Motion Enhancer feature on my Sony Bravia XBR4 TV turned "off." With it turned "on" (especially in "high" mode) the movies look more like they were shot on video rather than film. Not good.

[sonicbox]

CZroe, no. 24fps is not falling out of favor. Even in commercial 2K (and 4K) digital cinema or 3D digital cinema. Well, technically 3D digital cinema is 24fps x 2 (one each eye)... so 48fps. Yes, digital cinema can support 30fps... but it's not a standard practice.

1080p60 content is not supported by the Blu-ray format. You won't see it anytime soon in any consumer delivery format. It would be a huge waste of space/bandwidth/CPU, too. 1080p30 isn't technically supported on BD either; it would need to be flagged/output as 1080i60. I'd personally like to see the color depth in the delivery format increase before increasing the standard frame rate.

Also, don't trivialize re-rendering digital animation at different/higher frame rates. It's more work than you'd expect.

[CZroe]

Thanks for all the fi.. er, input guys.

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

CGI movies already must undergo a lot of color processing trickery to imitate the "film look." Rendering and displaying at 24fps helps add to the illusion of it looking like a movie.

If the same movie is re-rendered at 60fps there is a strong chance the end result will be very electronic/video looking and not seem like film.

This is also one of the reasons I leave the Motion Enhancer feature on my Sony Bravia XBR4 TV turned "off." With it turned "on" (especially in "high" mode) the movies look more like they were shot on video rather than film. Not good.

Because the content is supposed to be 24FPS, I would turn the feature off too. I want to preserve what there is, not use some trick to simulate more detail, but if the source was 60p and it retained it on the home video format, I wouldn't have a problem. It's the 24p theaters that would have the scaled-back version. My Bravia KDL-52XBR3 is not a 120hz set like yours, so I can't observe the same feature, but wouldn't that make it look like 120hz instead of 60hz with that TV? If the look of film changes, the need to look like film should also change. It would still remain a holy-grail, but what impresses me about CGI films is exactly how different and detailed it can be when compared to film. Also, film isn't the only content source to match thanks to broadcast. I long marveled at how my local newscast looked better in standard definition (sharper, semingly higher resolution) than even a progressive-scan deinterlaced DVD.

It seems to me that 1080p is completely useless without 24p or 120hz displays due to the fact that 1080i displays more detail "per second." 1080i essentially *is* 1080p if there is no 1080p/60 because the two source fields could come from the same source frame and create a full 1080p/30 frame intentionally without deinterlacing/reverse pulldown.

Yes, I had long been aware of the Nine Inch Nails Beside You in Time BD being flagged at 1080i/60 so that they could squeeze the maximum quality onto the disc (high-end receivers should properly deinterlace that to 1080p/60), but I didn't realize that there was no such thing as1080p/60 (1080p is *not* twice the detail of 1080i without being able to match the refresh rate). I thought that it was because they didn't have a 1080p/30 flag and the source wasn't 60p. After all, television content was going to continue being 60FPS, so it didn't make sense to ignore that when nailing down the specs. Sure, you can't just update the HDTV broadcast specs, but HDTV content on home video would have that to take advantage of if the source equipment was able to match it.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by sonicbox

CZroe, no. 24fps is not falling out of favor. Even in commercial 2K (and 4K) digital cinema or 3D digital cinema. Well, technically 3D digital cinema is 24fps x 2 (one each eye)... so 48fps. Yes, digital cinema can support 30fps... but it's not a standard practice.

1080p60 content is not supported by the Blu-ray format. You won't see it anytime soon in any consumer delivery format. It would be a huge waste of space/bandwidth/CPU, too. 1080p30 isn't technically supported on BD either; it would need to be flagged/output as 1080i60. I'd personally like to see the color depth in the delivery format increase before increasing the standard frame rate.

Also, don't trivialize re-rendering digital animation at different/higher frame rates. It's more work than you'd expect.

I understand that it's not "less work," but it wouldn't be as much work if planned from the start. To minimize extra effort, the in-betweens could be automatically interpolated without direct involvement and then scheduled for rendering as soon as the final renderings are done and sent out to be put on film. nVidia trivialized rendering when they showed Final Fantasy Spirits Within being rendered in real time on a workstation laptop with Quadro hardware long ago (Quadro = professional graphics hardware derived from consumer GeForce products).

[HD4me]

The human eye can see over 90fps if the monitor is refreshing that high or more (100, 120hz, etc.)

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by HD4me

The human eye can see over 90fps if the monitor is refreshing that high or more (100, 120hz, etc.)

Which is why 80hz PC CRTs at the intended resolution were considered "minimum" to reduce eye-strain with 100-120hz considered "recommended." I say "were" only because people could care less about CRT PC moniotrs these days. Your forward-vision has much more persistence, but looking through the side of your eye will easily show the flicker on sub-75hz displays, even in a movie theater.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by CZroe

are the new digital cinema's limited to 24p?

No. But doing anything other than 24fps will require additional work in post. That's additional money that has to be budgeted.

I can't see why they would be unless the sheer resolution makes it difficult or impossible. If not, even theatrical movies should start shedding their old 24FPS limitation, though there would still be a 24p version on film for older screens.

Say there's a technology that enables you to shoot 35mm films at 60fps. The budget for the film stock alone will almost triple because of the faster frame rate. Then you come to post, where again it'll take a longer time to scan the film into the computer for online editing/VFX work. Then the VFX companies will have a longer time to ANIMATE shots because they have to do it at 60fps. Once the final cut is done, they have to make copies of the film to distribute worldwide. That cost will also triple.

Even if the movie was shot using a digital camera at 60fps, you still incur additional cost at post/VFX and when you make copies on 35mm; digital cinema distribution has minor additional cost ie harddrives.


fuad