Is Blu-Ray Becoming the Last Chance for Certain Kinds of Movies?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by PhysicalMediaNut

If it’s shot on 32mm I feel like we should see it on Blu-ray and or 4K. If it’s shot on video or 16mm it really doesn’t need anything above DVD.

16 MM and Super 16 MM can resolve at 1.5K to 1.8K respectively making them well worth at least a blu-ray as blu-ray offers 1.92K resolution. DVD resolution is approx. one sixth that of a blu-ray.

See this conversation among professional cinematographers regarding film resolution in digital terms:

18k = IMAX 15-perf (or 36K?)

12-13k = 70MM 5-perf

6K = 35MM 4-perf

3K = 35MM 2-perf

1.8K = S16MM

1.5K = 16MM

720p = S8MM

480 = 8MM

"In terms of optimal scanning resolution, if 6K is optimal for 35mm, then 12K is optimal for 5-perf 65mm and almost 18K is optimal for 15-perf 65mm IMAX."

https://cinematography.com/index.php...on-equivalent/

"Generally "2K" (2048 pixels across) is considered adequate to capture all the grain and detail off of a Super-16 negative (since 16mm is half the width physically of 35mm, scanning it at 2K is the same as scanning 35mm at 4K.)"

"HD is usually 1920 x 1080, which could be called 1.92K in terms of horizontal pixel resolution."

All quotes above from David Mullen, ASC cinematographer:

https://cinematography.com/index.php...mm-resolution/

https://cinematography.com/index.php...mbers-numbers/

Even a video taped source can look better on blu-ray, and there are over 60 video tape formats and the quality can vary widely between them, and resolution is only one measure of quality. For example, blu-ray uses Rec. 709 vs Rec. 601 for DVD. Blu-ray supports 1.8 times the color space of a DVD.

"Rec. 709, among other things, improved (or at least certainly changed) the way luminance was defined as a ratio to RGB color. HDTV’s Rec. 709 changed the RGB luma coefficients to 0.2126, 0.7152, and 0.0722—different than DVD’s Rec. 601. This may be more of a change than an improvement, but Blu-ray also supports wider color spaces, like xvYCC which is 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space."

http://www.audiogurus.com/learn/news...d-upgrade/2616

4K UHD (and 8K for that matter) uses rec. 2020, aka BT.2020, and this image compares Rec. 2020 to Rec. 709:



There is more to image quality than just resolution. The resolution difference between 4K and blu-ray is certainly noticeable, but the improved color space and HDR are far more so and many people feel that these two things are the real selling points of the 4K format, not the mere uptick in resolution.