4K Movies Releases

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I’m not really concerned about new motion pictures ('new', as in those yet-to-be shot or finished) as much, because the HDR grade will be the hero grade (or original grade , if you will) and Directors (or their proxies) are intimately involved in the color grading process of most new feature films from the get-go (LUTs, etc.)

In time, things like an ACES workflow and ST 2086 should aid in facilitating properly mastered and delivered home media incarnations for which direct filmmaker involvement may be more difficult.

But, with the remastering of 'old' movies in HDR, there really is no accurate *template* for the colorist to follow, except the creative vision in the Director’s mind. which mandates his active eyes-on participation in the process. One potential thing I see possibly happening is that for some studios, just in order to get a *Director Approved* stamp on the HDR home version is for the colorist to do all the work on the regrade and send the Director or DP a test disc or draft copy of the nearly completed work. I mean really, at the point, do you really think that the filmmaker is going to throw a monkey wrench in the whole process and advise to do some parts, or the whole thing all over again because the contrast enhanced imagery in some frames isn’t what he was looking for when he shot the film, even if that is how he truly feels in his heart?

^ P.S. I'm using he generically. Consider it he/she, his/hers.

Sure, by "new transfer..." I didn't mean "...of a new movie" because it's horses for courses at that point, nothing's transpiring without the filmmakers' express involvement. What I meant was new transfers of existing movies, whereupon we come across so many different (and contentious) factors for colour and density and gamma and whatever anyway that adding an HDR grade into the mix isn't a huge concern for me.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I know you don't, but thankfully technology doesn't stand still. As you noted previously, the providers of both the hardware and software know that they can't keep trotting out the same stuff to keep people interested, and transfers of old prints just won't cut it I'm afraid.

Although, not “official” as people want to keep their jobs to pay their mortgages, maintain good relationships (you know ‘Hollywood’), etc. but, behind closed doors, colorists with early involvement in the *HDR movement* are complaining about eyestrain in handling HDR content.

And along those lines of viewer comfort and quality of HDR presentation, independent (no commercial incentive or reward) research facilities testing viewers watching HDR content at up to only 30 and 50 min. evaluation time ( I say "only" because imagine watching 2-3 hrs. worth of a feature film) have been met with complaints from test subjects that the backlighting was either too low or too high. The ideal or even satisfactory ambient lighting for new HDR tvs displaying brightness with HDR content mapping be it at either 1000, 800, 600, whatever nits, and also relating that to the size of the display itself, has to solved for everyone’s benefit.

[Penton-Man]

Gotta go, BIG football watching (American) weekend.
Later.

[Geoff D]

Penton - when you're back, natch - what do you think will be the absolute minimum amount of nits that'll qualify as an HDR presentation? If they decide on 1000 nits as the standard, then I should imagine that there won't be too many variances (mapped via metadata or whatever) below that. Obviously you'd need a conventional Rec. 709 grade (I hope ) but they wouldn't want to be adding in too many more, otherwise they'd be grading the thing about half a dozen times. So would an additional grade of 500 nits still be acceptable (meaning you'd have the conventional .709, the 500 nit version and the 1000 nit 'master')?

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Selaboc

Why not? don't you like any old films? do you not want to see an old film that you like looking it's best?

It all comes down to intent and originality.
If it was not shot to look that way then it should not exist that way.
Preservation not renovation

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I think that Mike is taking the long held traditional position of some historically minded cinephiles (a philosophy which has also been argued pertaining to some digital restorations of old analog films) in that…the original version (despite its shortcomings or mistakes) is what audiences should only see, in essence to respect the film’s original look.

Got it in one, totally.
If hdr can make the wizard of Oz look closer to what was shot then I am all for it.
But this worrying trend of dating a master by its colour temp and grading is painful.
In the 90's and 2000's we lived with pink and now it's teal, what's next?

[Geoff D]

But it's not so much a 'working trend' as 'it's how it's always been', i.e. the look of movies on home video has ALWAYS been at the mercy of whatever technical restrictions (at either the mastering or playback end) are present and/or whichever grading style is the flavour of the month.

It's all well and good taking a stand against it, but unless you've got a 35mm projector and prints of your favourite films handy (Tarantino, put your hand down at the back there) then you're never gonna get that 1:1 level of exactitude, and seeing how astonishingly good certain remastered movies have looked on Blu-ray I'll take that version every day of the week and twice on Sundays. If the director has signed off on it, so much the better (brain farts like Friedkin's first stab at The French Connection excepted, natch, but at least the silly sod corrected it).

Yeah, there are "teams" of people out there taking old prints and transferring them to video and cleaning them up, but even then the contrast and densities are all wrong. Prints aren't used for conventional transfers (unless as an absolute last resort) because they're specifically designed to have light blasted through them onto a 20/30/40ft screen, and so their properties don't translate across to video at all well IMO.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

But it's not so much a 'working trend' as 'it's how it's always been', i.e. the look of movies on home video has ALWAYS been at the mercy of whatever technical restrictions (at either the mastering or playback end) are present and/or whichever grading style is the flavour of the month.

It's all well and good taking a stand against it, but unless you've got a 35mm projector and prints of your favourite films handy (Tarantino, put your hand down at the back there) then you're never gonna get that 1:1 level of exactitude, and seeing how astonishingly good certain remastered movies have looked on Blu-ray I'll take that version every day of the week and twice on Sundays. If the director has signed off on it, so much the better (brain farts like Friedkin's first stab at The French Connection excepted, natch, but at least the silly sod corrected it).

Yeah, there are "teams" of people out there taking old prints and transferring them to video and cleaning them up, but even then the contrast and densities are all wrong. Prints aren't used for conventional transfers (unless as an absolute last resort) because they're specifically designed to have light blasted through them onto a 20/30/40ft screen, and so their properties don't translate across to video at all well IMO.

The working was an auto corrected worrying!
I get that prints are not ideal, but the groups do not have access to an IP! (I wish we did)
Sony and now Arrow are prime examples of how to master respectfully of the original film elements.
The French Connection is a perfect example, a beautiful master respectfully done then ruined totally.
Look at Withnail, no new colour grading, no changes just beautiful film like analogue feeling work.

[Geoff D]

worrying trend, working trend, my comments still apply: film to video transfer has *always* been subject to various conditions, and it's only in the last 20 years that the tech has overtaken celluloid (4/35 anyway) in terms of sheer resolving power, with only a wider-spread 'democratisation' of that process happening in the last 10 years or so.

In a funny way perhaps it's a good thing that we've had all these tech improvements and all these various colour differences etc for x movie down the years, because you can only learn by doing and as video is getting nearer to approximating what film can do, the more that people should be at pains to make sure that what we're seeing really *is* indicative of the filmmaker's intent. We're not there yet though, obviously!

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

worrying trend, working trend, my comments still apply: film to video transfer has *always* been subject to various conditions, and it's only in the last 20 years that the tech has overtaken celluloid (4/35 anyway) in terms of sheer resolving power, with only a wider-spread 'democratisation' of that process happening in the last 10 years or so.

In a funny way perhaps it's a good thing that we've had all these tech improvements and all these various colour differences etc for x movie down the years, because you can only learn by doing and as video is getting nearer to approximating what film can do, the more that people should be at pains to make sure that what we're seeing really *is* indicative of the filmmaker's intent. We're not there yet though, obviously!

I get and agree with your points totally, and I know its a personal thing of me not liking it

[Richard Paul]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Although, not “official” as people want to keep their jobs to pay their mortgages, maintain good relationships (you know ‘Hollywood’), etc. but, behind closed doors, colorists with early involvement in the *HDR movement* are complaining about eyestrain in handling HDR content.

I am willing to give HDR a fair chance since it sounds reasonable for video to move beyond 100 nits but it worries me that there is such a push to increase the average brightness. I think HDR is going to have problems if studios end up releasing HDR movies that cause eyestrain in anything less than a brightly lit room.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Penton - when you're back, natch - what do you think will be the absolute minimum amount of nits that'll qualify as an HDR presentation?...

lol, qualify according to whom? Remember? Life of Pi and World War Z *qualifying* as UHD….http://www.trustedreviews.com/samsun...eo-pack-review by Samsung despite the source format for the most part being 2.8K.

If there ever is such an official standard negotiated amongst all those with vested interests…as to a minimum, I would say that it would come in near the luminance (100% white signal input) of the least bright 4K OLEDs LG will carry in their consumer line.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

...So would an additional grade of 500 nits still be acceptable (meaning you'd have the conventional .709, the 500 nit version and the 1000 nit 'master')?

In terms of the high luminance grade, I imagine what will transpire in the future is that when content becomes free flowing and everyone in the professional realm is beyond just the start of the learning curve where some kind of experienced routine has become established, that content will end up being graded once at a peak white of ~ 1000 nits (maximum) in an environment of ~ 10-20nits (based on reference white) which is much higher than in current practice with SDR content (standard dynamic range) at Hollywood post facilities, but much less than would be recommended according to guidelines of ITU- R BT. 500 (http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BT.500/en ) after which the consumers’ HDR capable displays will then take matters from there.

P.S.
For those who don’t know, or totally understand, what a ‘nit’ is, I refer y’all to my young niece, who is an official spokesperson on the topic with an expert, distinguished career made known to me by her about a year ago....https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...gs#post8764829

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

lol, qualify according to whom? Remember? Life of Pi and World War Z *qualifying* as UHD….http://www.trustedreviews.com/samsun...eo-pack-review by Samsung despite the source format for the most part being 2.8K.

If there ever is such an official standard negotiated amongst all those with vested interests…as to a minimum, I would say that it would come in near the luminance (100% white signal input) of the least bright 4K OLEDs LG will carry in their consumer line.

Yeah that bugged me also, plus they had lossy audio

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

lol, qualify according to whom? Remember? Life of Pi and World War Z *qualifying* as UHD….http://www.trustedreviews.com/samsun...eo-pack-review by Samsung despite the source format for the most part being 2.8K.

If there ever is such an official standard negotiated amongst all those with vested interests…as to a minimum, I would say that it would come in near the luminance (100% white signal input) of the least bright 4K OLEDs LG will carry in their consumer line.

According to whom? That's why I'm asking!! Now that's there's an official UHD Alliance of manufacturers and content providers (which is by no means the full gamut (heh) of companies, granted) it'd be nice to think that there'll be some sort of baseline HDR standard, no? Unlike, say, upscaling 2K masters into 4K, I hope that there's a bit less fakery when it comes to something like HDR. But I take your point that even though it's been announced as mandatory for UHD BD, there could well be very little consensus across the industry as to how they'll implement it within their ranges themselves.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

According to whom? That's why I'm asking!! Now that's there's an official UHD Alliance of manufacturers and content providers (which is by no means the full gamut (heh) of companies, granted) it'd be nice to think that there'll be some sort of baseline HDR standard, no? Unlike, say, upscaling 2K masters into 4K, I hope that there's a bit less fakery when it comes to something like HDR. But I take your point that even though it's been announced as mandatory for UHD BD, there could well be very little consensus across the industry as to how they'll implement it within their ranges themselves.

Is that not a 28 days later situation?

[Geoff D]

No idea what that means, unless I'm about to wake up in a deserted post-apocalyptic Croydon (which isn't too different from pre-apocalyptic Croydon in terms of the state of the place).

[Spike M.]

The brightness standard with HDR does worry me. As is, most reviewers and calibrators are turning the backlight of LCD's down 45-65%. Even at 35% I still need decent ambient light to not fatigue my eyes with my Vizio set.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

The brightness standard with HDR does worry me. As is, most reviewers and calibrators are turning the backlight of LCD's down 45-65%. Even at 35% I still need decent ambient light to not fatigue my eyes with my Vizio set.

Well, it is a Vizio after all...

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Well, it is a Vizio after all...

There ya go again being too judgmental, Peter! On the plus or half glass full side, speaking as an owner of both 4K tv brands, one could argue that with the Viz, owners are getting more for their money. For not only are they getting a supposedly inanimate device, but with Vizio’s implementation of full-array backlighting with local dimming, an owner/user is getting something that is kind of alive as it appears to breath…. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...c#post10089063

Sooooo, one need not go out and get a cat, dog, parrot etc. as another living companion. The Viz is a multi-purpose entity. My wife and I have a living creature down there in our San Diego place which is better than a plant because it talks and we don't have to worry at all about feeding it, walking it, or having it rip up our furniture when we're up here in the LA/OC county environs.