"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Oliver K]

Going from the assumption that it generally is considered to be adequate to scan traditional 65mm in 8k and the fact that this number will be the maximum vertical resolution of Imax I'd say 11.5k or rather 12k to make it a round number.

[Doctorossi]

That's two in a row for me, isn't it? At this rate, you're going to have to come up with a prize at some point.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Very smart man.
However, if you want to quote somebody, why not quote the person in the U.S. that has scanned more IMAX material than anyone else on earth.

I think that for a very very short time ender from Fotokem had a comparison pic up on AVS that indicated that at Fotokem they had scanned Imax at the equivalent of 11k.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Two Dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you joking? Is it really going to be 2 bucks? Fantastic deal, if that's the case!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Going from the assumption that it generally is considered to be adequate to scan traditional 65mm in 8k and the fact that this number will be the maximum vertical resolution of Imax I'd say 11.5k or rather 12k to make it a round number.

Wicky-pedia says..............

"While traditional 65 mm film has an image area that is 48.5 mm wide and 22.1 mm tall (for Todd-AO), in IMAX the image is 69.6 mm wide and 48.5 mm tall."

Gotta run to a conference.
Later.

[Doctorossi]

Bear in mind, though, that taking-area of the film frame and spatial resolution of the image are not necessarily in a 1:1 relationship, especially when comparing different film formats, each with exclusive lens optics.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Wicky-pedia says..............

"While traditional 65 mm film has an image area that is 48.5 mm wide and 22.1 mm tall (for Todd-AO), in IMAX the image is 69.6 mm wide and 48.5 mm tall."

Gotta run to a conference.
Later.

So if traditional 65mm film gets scanned at 8k which would come out ot to 8000 x 3645, Imax would benefit from a 11480 x 8000 scan, so Imax is closer to 11k than 12k. Seems that I introduced some rounding error because I remembered the AR of Imax to be 1.44 when I should have done the calculations with 1.435.

@Doctorossi:
I have heard about the relatively low resolving capability of the Imax lenses but this would not be the only deciding factor if indeed the goal is to capture the grain structure of the negative stock - if it is the same stock that is used in traditional 65mm productions then Imax would also profit from the higher resolution scan.

Regarding an older production shot in 65mm here is an interesting article that suggests that digitizing at 6k would capture all the useful information in the negative of Lawrence of Arabia. They arrive at this number by taking into account the cameras and Eastman Kodak 5250 Color negative stock that were used in its production and the production environment:

How Many Pixels In Lawrence of Arabia?

They do not mention the necessity to resolve the grain structure of the negative, maybe they did not consider that to be useful information.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

I have heard about the relatively low resolving capability of the Imax lenses but this would not be the only deciding factor if indeed the goal is to capture the grain structure of the negative stock

Very good point, Oliver. To fully resolve the grain structure would require a scanning rate closer to your measurement. I suppose the importance of such an endeavour would be a question for individual filmmakers/DPs. It's an important issue for this question, though. Penton, how are you defining "resolution" for our purposes?

[Penton-Man]

I’m defining “resolution” the same way as does the executive vice president of the Imax Corp. and president of its post subsidiary, DKP 70mm Inc. in Santa Monica, who was an integral contributor to the post production of The Dark Knight.

In short, see the last paragraph…………….
http://www.documentary.org/content/d...s-katrina-imax

Got to get me some lunch now before attending the keynote of the lenser that shot the above action feature film.

Later.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I’m defining “resolution” the same way as does the executive vice president of the Imax Corp. and president of its post subsidiary, DKP 70mm Inc. in Santa Monica, who was an integral contributor to the post production of The Dark Knight.

In short, see the last paragraph…………….
http://www.documentary.org/content/d...s-katrina-imax

Got to get me some lunch now before attending the keynote of the lenser that shot the above action feature film.

Later.

Ah, that 18k figure - it implies pixel densities that I think have not even been used for a modern 35mm production ? That would mean 12.5k for traditional 65mm and 6.2k for Super 35 !

If you get the chance please let that action feature lenser know that large format is addictive and therefore with future action feature films using traditional 65mm instead of anamorphic 35mm would be very much appreciated

[Doctorossi]

I feel odd questioning that authority, but I'm pretty skeptical about Keighley's figures. Then again, this man is among the key personnel responsible for the typical look of DMR-processed features, so maybe I should trust my gut...?

My figuring puts the best case scenario for human visual acuity (in other words, someone with excellent eyesight) at roughly 9k horizontal across the entire roughly 180-degree field-of-vision necessary to meet the peak acuity of the eye's fovea for any focal location on a screen.

So, even if Keighley is right about needing 18k for an IMAX frame (which would translate to 9k of captured resolution) and someday being able to capture and project it all, no one's quite going to be able to see it.

Meanwhile, his company is busy installing (and affixing its once-significant name to) a bunch of 2k projectors all over the place.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Ah, that 18k figure - it implies pixel densities that I think have not even been used for a modern 35mm production ? That would mean 12.5k for traditional 65mm and 6.2k for Super 35 !

Show me a lens that can do that and I'll show you 1,000 cinematographers' jaws on the floor.

Originally Posted by Oliver K

If you get the chance please let that action feature lenser know that large format is addictive and therefore with future action feature films using traditional 65mm instead of anamorphic 35mm would be very much appreciated

That goes for me, too.

Or, hey... best of both worlds: bring back Technirama!

[GabrielB]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I’m encouraged to report that some people over at WB are indeed passionate about movies and very open to discussion and more importantly…. change.

They are acutely aware of the fact that RAH and myself are quite unhappy with what we both consider to be suboptimal (actually far from optimal) picture quality of the recent Amadeus Blu-ray release……..as to its generalized lack of detail with resultant smearing effect.

I know I'm a few days late. Well thank you for your implication and efforts.

Could you share a little bit more with us? Anything concerning this change like when we can expect it to take effect? And its meaning. Is everyone opened to completely eradicate DNR in their mastering and encodes practices? (unless desired by director or DP)

I assume some people over at WB are opened to change while some are not... Are we to still assume it's still really not that simple?

Well I don't know what to say. Jeff didn't seem too optimistic (my perception) about when WB would put in place new practices. It seemed the "who knows when..." and "WB is a big corporation; it thinks about its short term revenues and change can be dangerous, will cost money and is complicated" beliefs were still in place.

Anything you are able to share with us. Your own optimism about the issue perhaps. Your understanding of its current status. Are we almost there?. etc. You know what I mean. As much as you can share with us without putting yourself in a frail position.

In their defense, WB lost about 10% of their manpower in Burbank around the time of the Inauguration and the Home Video dept. got hit about twice that hard, so things are tough over there.

??? ????
What does that have to do with getting optimal BDs out of the castle?

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by GabrielB

??? ????
What does that have to do with getting optimal BDs out of the castle?

... especially since the problem is that they're doing too much to the image, not too little!

[Vincent Pereira]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

...
Would anyone care to venture as to how high of a resolution scan (in “k”) it would take to capture all the details of picture information on a single frame of negative recorded in IMAX format?......hint, it isn’t 8k despite the fact that current technology/practical storage limits us to this.
Another hint…..it’s the same rez as the contact prints that were made from the IMAX negatives of a feature film that some people here may have already seen on Blu-ray...

I recall the American Cinematographer article on THE DARK KNIGHT mentioned that the contact-printed footage from the IMAX negative (i.e., the IMAX stuff that underwent no digital manipulation whatsoever, just clean negative capture to print) was the equivalent of 16K resolution (EDIT- I don't have the article in front of me, but reading the links above I think it might have actually said the 18K figure).

Vincent

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Ah, that 18k figure...

18, eh? Clearly a "conspiracy"....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_(symbol)

[Robert Harris]

Also keep in mind that scanning 65mm at 8k is the same whether scanning an 65/5 or a 65/15. Simply the equivalent of 3 frames. Same "k," more MPs.

We did some testing on a 1960 65/5 neg as well as seps... that would be 5248, and even as a still data frame projected in 2k on about a 12 foot screen, there was a finite difference between running the 8k files and the 4k downrez. Once you get back to film, ie. neg and print, the difference would disappear.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

We did some testing on a 1960 65/5 neg as well as seps... that would be 5248, and even as a still data frame projected in 2k on about a 12 foot screen, there was a finite difference between running the 8k files and the 4k downrez. Once you get back to film, ie. neg and print, the difference would disappear.

Yes, this matches everything I understand from folks like Galt and the TDs at Double Negative doing FX work on The Dark Knight. The latter party did early pre-test work to 8k, but once they'd had a chance to do projection tests, they switched to 5.6k, since they couldn't see a difference. So, maybe they did an 18k film-out, but it was only of upscaled 5.6k (and a few 8k) shots.

Penton, I'm afraid you've opened a can of worms with this question!

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

Also keep in mind that scanning 65mm at 8k is the same whether scanning an 65/5 or a 65/15. Simply the equivalent of 3 frames. Same "k," more MPs.

We did some testing on a 1960 65/5 neg as well as seps... that would be 5248, and even as a still data frame projected in 2k on about a 12 foot screen, there was a finite difference between running the 8k files and the 4k downrez. Once you get back to film, ie. neg and print, the difference would disappear.

Could the lack of difference noted be more a factor of the digital project method employed? Ie., if/when 8k projectors are commonplace, would that not become an issue?

Yes, there is a law of diminishing returns, but we're talking Imax here... If we're really going to get digital PJ to outpace the photochemical realm of that capture/projection medium, when's enough enough?

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Yes, there is a law of diminishing returns, but we're talking Imax here... If we're really going to get digital PJ to outpace the photochemical realm of that capture/projection medium, when's enough enough?

It sure isn't the 2k units they're busy stuffing into shopping malls with no advertising/branding regard for the radically lessened experience they're selling you!

... not that I'm bitter or anything...