Blu-ray in the Flesh

[Sony1]

I first saw Blue-Ray at the Sony center in Berlin 2004, and I was blown away by the images that were displyed. They had tourist footage playing on a new Sony HighDef TV, and I couldn't believe how cristal clear the picture was. Can't wait for it to come out here in the US. My only question is the older movies that were shot in the 80's and 90's, even though they were not shot with HighDef cameras how they be able to produce an Image of 720P with older films?

[zombie]

Movies have been filmed with higher resolution than HD provides for decades. Our televisions are WAY behind the times, theatres are not.

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by n2blu

Movies have been filmed with higher resolution than HD provides for decades. Our televisions are WAY behind the times, theatres are not.

Oh yes you're right Thunder, theatres are still the best way to see a movie and will be the only way for some new decades

[thunderhawk]

Untill they invente 3D TV-like glasses (I know it already exists, but its way to expensive) so you can view a movie trough your glasses without a TV set.

[luke kelly]

Film has an infinite resolution, whereas HDTV is limited (currently) to a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Using a process called telecine we "video" a piece of film in order to store it within a computer. Typically we store this information at a resolution of around 4000 x 2500 pixels. You could infact scan the film at any resolution you desired. However exceeding 4000 x 2500 is fruitless as most films are shot on 35mm film stock, and you will struggle to see any detail improvements once a telecine resolution of 4000 x 2500 is exceeded.

This resolution (4000 x 2500) is never used, but is stored instead as a backup so that the film scan will be future proofed. (Well it was used for the latest Batman film in order that it could be projected in IMAX cinemas but this is quite rare).

Instead we convert the super hi-res film scan to a more useable resoultion of around 2500 x 1500 pixels. this is the resolution that you see on the cinema screen once the digital film print has been reverse telecined back to the film reels used in most cinemas.

The good news is that HDTV full resolution movies viewed on a full 1080 line progressive scan monitor will be providing you with 75% of the resolution you see in cinemas, but on a much smaller screen. Lovely.

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by luke kelly

Film has an infinite resolution, whereas HDTV is limited (currently) to a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Using a process called telecine we "video" a piece of film in order to store it within a computer. Typically we store this information at a resolution of around 4000 x 2500 pixels. You could infact scan the film at any resolution you desired. However exceeding 4000 x 2500 is fruitless as most films are shot on 35mm film stock, and you will struggle to see any detail improvements once a telecine resolution of 4000 x 2500 is exceeded.

If film has an "infinite resolution" you could digitize it as much as 40,000 x 20,000 and still get a noticeably better digital image. In reality the grain fineness of the original negative is the limiting factor. Maybe, for most film, the practical limit is about in the range of where you state. Elsewhere in these forums I did an analysis of what is the upper limit of visual acuity and it is above 4,000 x 2,500 but not significantly so for most situations and most imagery.

However, I am curious about the aspect ratio of the numbers you give. The resolution of 4,000 x 2500 is an aspect of 1 : 1.6. Film has an aspect ratio of 1 : 1.85 (with cinemascope at 1 : 2.35 ) it seems unlikely (though dumber things have happened with past conversions of analog media to digital media) that the industry would pick an aspect ratio so far from that of film.

And yes, the HDTV standard is not the same aspect ratio as film (it's 1 : 1.778 ), but that's a long story in and of itself.

Originally Posted by luke kelly

This resolution (4000 x 2500) is never used, but is stored instead as a backup so that the film scan will be future proofed. (Well it was used for the latest Batman film in order that it could be projected in IMAX cinemas but this is quite rare).

Instead we convert the super hi-res film scan to a more useable resoultion of around 2500 x 1500 pixels. this is the resolution that you see on the cinema screen once the digital film print has been reverse telecined back to the film reels used in most cinemas.

The good news is that HDTV full resolution movies viewed on a full 1080 line progressive scan monitor will be providing you with 75% of the resolution you see in cinemas, but on a much smaller screen. Lovely.

How does all this fit with the digital cinema standards (don't recall the standard's designation at the moment) officially adopted the summer of 2004? The resolutions in that standard are 2048 x 1080 and 4096 x 2160. These are just a tiny bit wider than the standard 1:1.85 of film but significantly narrower than the 1:2.35 of the cinemascope film (which is really an optical compression technique which works fine with film but will not work as well with digital media).

[luke kelly]

Hey Shadowself.

The figures I gave are off the top of my head, and the aspects seem to way out I know. But. the cut off on the top and bottom of a 35mm piece of film are still scanned during telecine, this gives the film makers the option of playing with that extra detail if they choose.

I wasn't trying to be technically exact, just trying to explain the basics behind films superior resolution over HDTV. I work as a freelance online editor in the UK and remembered the above details from a conversation with a telecine operator.

Thanks a lot for the exact pixel resolutions and ratios!

[thunderhawk]

True...

As n2blu stated in some other topic: "Even some movies from the '30 have higher resolution than HDTV." or something like that

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by thunderhawk

True...

As n2blu stated in some other topic: "Even some movies from the '30 have higher resolution than HDTV." or something like that

Yeah ! With some 70 mm film ! ^^