Quote:
Originally Posted by Lotr_is_Soft
I don't mean to be confrontational. Tell me, though, if you say 2K vs 4K is irrelevant, then why are all the 4K's considered to be the best, like 2001, BR, BR2049, the Shining, Jaws etc. native 4K, while nobody really mentions 2K movies there?
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Mad Max Fury Road has been a big favorite for many ever since it got released. One of my personal favorite UHDs is Ready Player One, subjectively speaking. Some scenes look absolutely breathtaking in UHD with HDR.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlantis Rising
I'm just inquiring into whether this 4K is of optimal quality as the word on the street is that it could have been much better, ie. from a brand-new, state-of-the-art 4K scan of the 35mm negatives with a maxed-out bitrate for a 153-minute movie that we all may one day be projecting onto a 20-30 foot wide screen once that becomes affordable.
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I've worked with film scanning and restoration for quite some time and believe me when I tell you that the work is rarely like you think it is. CG is practically never redone or added into a new scan, unless you're George Lucas. At very most fades (optical or A/B) and credits are recreated digitally with scans of untouched negatives.
I remember one film where the image froze while the title was shown on screen. That dupe neg was simply too shabby for our taste so we scanned the original negatives (35mm Eastmancolor 5247), made the exact same frame freeze for the exact amount of time and combined it with the text on top. Once the time codes matched, I could then start on the color timing, followed by a dirt removal and finally adding a bit of fake grain. Yes, fake grain. Why? Because a digital frame that's been duplicated to stay on screen for like 45 seconds will look entirely static, making the restoration extremely evident. With the fake grain applied, carefully tuned, you honestly wouldn't be able to tell that it was done digitally.
In 4096x3072, I think this single title sequence took me at least three hours to complete. Not because the work is any complicated as far as VFX or color timing goes, but because the work is started from scratch and my goal is to replicate the original experience you'd get from watching a 40 year old print. Of course a print would be softer, much softer, but the colors and timing of the titles were exactly the same - Which is a way to show respect to the creator's intent.
I've also worked close with directors and DPs who are all extremely picky when it comes to color timing and spot inaccuracies right away. Most of them, I'd probably say 90-95%, want to stay true to the original look and are very confident on how their films are supposed to look. At least in Sweden. Very few are like Wong Kar-wai or James Cameron.
Now why am I telling you this?
Because the kind of work you're asking for is so much more than just simple CG that can be re-added. It's about staying true to the original film. The first example shows how time consuming a simple sequence can be to work with. That is not to say that higher resolutions cannot improve, because it surely can, but many directors aren't really this... Technical. They see their work in other ways than we, home theater enthusiasts, do. And I think it's primarily because most people don't care like we do neither. I do all my scans in 4K nowadays regardless of the source, but for those films that I've finished in 2K, I honestly just let them be. For now at least.
And this is without even getting into how difficult it is to recreate CG without altering the original look. We're talking keying, matting, rotoscoping, 3D modeling, shading, added motion blur, fake grain etc... If you can go back to the original project files, if they're even available with all other content you'll need, modern hardware and software may not handle it properly. Going back to older hardware and software may be a solution for compatibility but then the 4K workflow is not guaranteed to be reliable. Of course you can try to build a house of card at the same height as the Empire State Building. Or you can be satisfied with three stories and everyone else will be just as satisfied.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlantis Rising
It will be a massive pain in the arse if the 4Ks we have in 2021 look poor in 2025-2030. That reality is fast upon us.
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Don't buy it then. I'm very selective when purchasing UHDs, especially if it's a film I already own.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlantis Rising
Those 2K DIs and 35mm prints may look great with a 250 mbps bitrate, but when those scenes are in 35-40 mbps, the image could look pixelated on a massive screen. I'm not buying a film on 4K again in a few years! A Superbit 4K?
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Lower bitrate won't give you a more pixellated image. If compression doesn't suffice you will get macroblocking and posterization, which in turn reduces sharpness and textures but not really in the way that you're describing it.
If it's pixellated due to the resolution, a higher bitrate won't change anything.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
) should be able to see the difference in resolution. And for F sake, don't bring up LOTR as an example. It's been addressed in your original thread (that was merged into the sticky for posts that don't deserve your own thread).
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