Controversial Opinion - Is Digital Better than Film for 4K?

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by crutzulee

I've only upgraded to 4K HDR within the last month and admittedly most of my viewing has been rebuilding my library of classic film titles. I have been blown away by Scarface, Casino, The DEERHUNTER, First Blood etc.

Worth noting a lot of these are remasters, so you're getting a lot of upgrades at once. Not saying the HDR isn't lovely or additive, it absolutely is, but if we're going to compare HDR improvements between film and digital, you'd have to compare the same master (like Goodfellas, Ghostbusters, etc.).

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by crazybeats

Everything will be digital one day. Many UHDs are not 4K at all, they are 2K, here in the UK I've yet to see a UHD player in person. Apart from HMV and Fopp there's only really supermarkets and none of them sell UHD players either so as a physical format it has a lifespan but digitally that stuff doesn't really matter. People will stream from their TVs and as long as it looks good people are happy. That's the way things are for the most part now anyway, the general public isn't buying things like they were even 10 years ago. As long as it looks good it's fine. You have to remember films and TV shows are just entertainment, it's just disposable entertainment, it's just something to fill time and keep you entertained.


I'm sure one day 8K will be a thing but let's be honest, unless you're in your teens or 20's you probably wont live long enough to see the day 8K players and discs and TVs are out in the public lol. I think TV just now is about as advanced as it will be for people, that's as good as it needs to be. I think things will stay the way they are for some time now. Film might have all these advantages over digital but at the end of the day you're not going to sit and see it at their highest resolution, you'll watch it on UHD, blu ray or DVD or through your TV. You don't get to see 5K or 6K or 11K or anything else, you'll watch what you're given and what you're given is a lower quality version of what is really available so no one has to worry at what something is scanned in at......you'll never see it in that quality. The best you can hope for is things look as good as they possibly can in the format you are watching.


I don't think there is a demand from the general public for things to be shot on film anymore or things to be in 8K and beyond. I think people are lucky to have what they have now. I do think the day will come when worldwide.....and it'll take a few years for contracts with TV channels to run out but one day all big studios will have apps....and that's how you'll be watching films from then on. No more big black machines under the TV and £20 for a plastic disc with a film on it, you'll press a button on your remote and you'll pick Warner Bros or Paramount or Sony or Disney and then you'll get what they own. The day wont come where you will be able to buy an 8K disc or even an 8K TV. Things will stay at 4K and things will continue to be shot digitally.

8K players and discs? 3 layer/100 Gb UHD BD's discs are very delicate, they have to be spotless clean and without scratches to play right on most players. I don't think we'll see another optical disc format, my bets are that UHD BD is the last optical disc format.
Even if an ultra-eficient codec is developed for 8K just as it was for 4K compared to BD, I don't think an 8K movie will fit on an optical disc unless they're extremely well manufactured, they come housed in a caddy and new and more reliable disc drives are developed.

[Godzilla360]

I'm no film snob or industry insider, but I love physical media and movies in general. I understand Joker has a 4k DI with grain added to make the film look like it was shot back in the 80s. I personally would like to see an example of a 4k DI UHD that has no grain added in post that isn't animated to compare the two. If any of our forum experts can recommend a title or four, I'd appreciate it immensely. Personally, I'm not a fan of DNR or added grain. Let the 4k home release go commando with the only added artificial ingredient being HDR.

[dcx4610]

I think it's apples and oranges.

With film, you have to look at it more like scanning a document on a copy machine. The higher the DPI, the better it is going to look. To me, older movies shot on film are more impressive because it's like getting to see them how the originally looked in the theaters or even better with the added HDR and restoration. Movies I never had a chance to see in the theaters like Blade Runner, I get to experience what that was like now and it's awesome.

With digital movies, it's a 1:1 copy unless it was shot in 2K. If a movie is filmed in digital 4K, it's like copying that file and putting it on disc (theoretically) so it's the exact same thing.

It's debatable which look better but film technically has more detail and room to work with. The digital version might look cleaner since you don't have film grain but film might come across as sharper.

I enjoy both and I'm glad that after all of these years, we finally have a true movie theater equivalent at home.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Godzilla360

I'm no film snob or industry insider, but I love physical media and movies in general. I understand Joker has a 4k DI with grain added to make the film look like it was shot back in the 80s. I personally would like to see an example of a 4k DI UHD that has no grain added in post that isn't animated to compare the two. If any of our forum experts can recommend a title or four, I'd appreciate it immensely. Personally, I'm not a fan of DNR or added grain. Let the 4k home release go commando with the only added artificial ingredient being HDR.

Transformers 5 is probably the most crystal clear OMG looking through a window experience you can have on home video, IMO. As much as I love film and grain, it blew my mind how clear and crisp it was.

[wallendo]

The original poster keeps mentioning problems with 4K causing major grain issues. If anything, higher resolution should reduce problems such as aliasing and yield less prominent grain and better approximate the theatrical experience.

With some recent movies, film does look much better than digital, but I suspect that much of that difference is film being shot mostly by master cinematographers.

[LoSouL]

After watching it yesterday, I wish The Lighthouse had gotten a UHD release.

[crazybeats]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

8K players and discs? 3 layer/100 Gb UHD BD's discs are very delicate, they have to be spotless clean and without scratches to play right on most players. I don't think we'll see another optical disc format, my bets are that UHD BD is the last optical disc format.
Even if an ultra-eficient codec is developed for 8K just as it was for 4K compared to BD, I don't think an 8K movie will fit on an optical disc unless they're extremely well manufactured, they come housed in a caddy and new and more reliable disc drives are developed.

And what size would the TV need to be to see the benefits of 8K? Baring in mind here in the UK where I am the satelite and cable companies still charge for HD channels, most people aren't even watching TV in HD let alone buying blu rays and 4K discs. I'm not saying they wont exist but it will be a very niche market. I haven't seen a UHD player in any UK supermarket, never touched one, never saw one in real life. I'm sure I would need to go to Currys or Richer Sounds to see one. In the entire UK, 2 shops I can go to to see it in person and I don't blame the shops for it. I don't blame HMV or Fopp or supermarkets because people in general are only going to pay so much for anything. The average person isn't going to spend thousands of pounds on a TV or £20 on a film. And about the TVs again, this is the UK, let's face it, houses here are small, most people don't live in big houses or have big living rooms. The culture and way of life just isn't there to facilitate it.


And I've often talked about HDR and it's effect on releases today and clearly some director's want to pull back on it. Everything is going to go digital anyway, regardless, the future will be watching movies streamed on your TV. There's no stopping that and when you add that in with the size of TV people will have in their living room, the fact that most people watch TV in Standard Definition anyway, 4K will be fine and sufficient and much like HD is some 13 years after it was introduced in the UK, I'm sure 4K content will be priced nice and expensively for the next decade or so. Much like HD and blu ray, there's not gonna be any push to educate people or make it affordable, it will be aimed at those who have the disposable income for it so HDR is going to be whatever you make of it and if you like it on the digital versions then good cause eventually everything will be digital so hopefully they do a good job on it from the get go.


And just on a side note about HDR. This forum has a lot of film buffs, you can go in any number of threads on this forum and you will see people talk openly about buying "Day 1" and pre ordering because they can't wait to see certain scenes in HDR. I was in the IT Chapter 2 thread and they're going on about the HDR when Pennywise is on screen. If you read reviews of movies on 4k the bits about HDR tend to talk about certain scenes where things are colourful. That's what HDR means to many people, that's what they expect it to be, they expect it to be the screen filled with reds and yellows and oranges and blues and the TV is meant to light up like a firework show. There's no talk about things being dark and dreary or some person sitting eating their dinner in their kitchen. Everything about HDR including discussion on this forum is about the colours. People right now are not only pre ordering films ahead of time but THINKING ahead of time about REWATCHING certain scenes just because of the HDR.

So maybe people do need educated on what it is and of course it doesn't help the fact that there is no set standard across TVs, everyone will be watching something different but even on this forum and I can't say anything bad about them because they are spending a lot of money supporting this format. That's why I posted in the Joker thread that clip and I have fibre internet, I can stream 2160p just fine, there's lots of 4K clips on Youtube with HDR and I am interested......is what I am streaming what that scene looks like with HDR or is it more what it looks like in SDR. I bet you when that disc has been out a few weeks and more and more reviews start coming out, when they talk about HDR it's going to be him in the studio with Deniro, it's going to be the makeup, the dancing. They're not going to talk about him walking in the rain or catching the bus. The talk of HDR will be all about colours.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by wallendo

The original poster keeps mentioning problems with 4K causing major grain issues. If anything, higher resolution should reduce problems such as aliasing and yield less prominent grain and better approximate the theatrical experience.

HDR can boost grain in certain circumstances, which is why DNR has been making a comeback. The early Sony 4k scans show what a raw scan of the negative can show in 4k with HDR. I personally love that look, but a lot of people don't.

That said you can "manage" grain without becoming a DNR disaster, as some recent remasters have shown.

[moreorless]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

HDR can boost grain in certain circumstances, which is why DNR has been making a comeback. The early Sony 4k scans show what a raw scan of the negative can show in 4k with HDR. I personally love that look, but a lot of people don't.

That said you can "manage" grain without becoming a DNR disaster, as some recent remasters have shown.

I tend to think the biggest factor though is simply that people are used to BR/HD versions of films that were heavy on the DNR, something like Blade Runner being an obvious example.

As a photographer sometimes working with 35mm film(mostly with digital) I do see the clear advantage of scanning at higher res which some might consider needless because its "only resolving more grain". I mean for one thing grain and resolution aren't totally divided as one is built from the other but even so I think that more finely resolved grain is more pleasing to the eye.

Watching HD/BR versions that I assume are taken from the same master pre HDR like say Angel Heart and its the lower res version were the grain is more unpleasant(although still preferable to heavy NDR) for me. In that sense I think you could argue UHD with 35mm film is less about having more detail/contrast than HD can theoretically achieve and more about being able to retain that detail because your having to apply less DNR due to more pleasing grain.

I can see UHD actually working better with 35mm for some people in that its giving you extra detail in the HD range which they care about. With digital on the other hand I can see some people being happy with HD even if the source was recorded with higher resolution that UHD could bring out.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Transformers 5 is probably the most crystal clear OMG looking through a window experience you can have on home video, IMO. As much as I love film and grain, it blew my mind how clear and crisp it was.

That's definitely Gemini Man. It's amazing and disgusting and stunning and horrible at the same time.

[KubrickKurasawa]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

That's definitely Gemini Man. It's amazing and disgusting and stunning and horrible at the same time.

Surreal 4k.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

That's definitely Gemini Man. It's amazing and disgusting and stunning and horrible at the same time.

Very interested to see my reaction to it next week. Might actually make me watch a movie the week it comes out.

[moreorless]

A big issue really I'd say is that UHD isn't really about both formats trying for the same look. If anything its just the reverse, about looking to play up what many people like about both formats.

I suspect it will probably act to entrench not lessen a divide in format, film makers who prefer to stick with 35mm will be more likely to do so now that home media plays up its nature more.

[KubrickKurasawa]

In the right hands it doesn't matter to me.

[emailking]

yes. No grain and (I think?) no DNR. Best of both worlds.