4K Blu-ray content on the horizon?

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by singhcr

As I said earlier, practically all movies made from the mid 2000s to today were finalized at 2k by scanning the 35mm negatives, and BD is essentially 2k.

4k is the resolution that is equivalent to an original 35mm negative. 35mm has been used for basically every movie made to date. Any movie that didn't use a 2k digital intermediate would max out at 4k resolution.

16mm movies, however rare, top out at roughly 1080p resolution.

70mm/65mm/IMAX movies are roughly equivalent to 8k. There are only a handful of these movies made.

So in the history of movies, you get this very rough breakdown:

35mm [4k]: (1898-2005), ~95% of all movies made
Digital Intermediate (DI) [2k scan of 35mm negative] (2005-present) ~4% of all movies made
70mm [8k] (1960s-1980s) <1% of all movies made
IMAX [8k] (1990)<1%
16mm [1080p] <1%

As I said earlier, with the exception of 70mm/IMAX and new content, 4k covers essentially all movies made to date. TV shows also top out at 4k if they were shot on 35mm film, like Star Trek: TNG.

Star Wars was shot on 35mm film. It will get no more detailed than 4k. Once you buy that, you've essentially bought the original negative. This makes me wonder if studios will ever release a home copy of a movie where you'd never need to upgrade again.

But Star Wars was shot in Panavision, therefore in an extent 2 times 35mm, so 4k would be proper for Super 35mm, 35mm, Techniscope Movies. Movies shot in Panavision looks best in a 6K Scan.