4K Movies Releases

[Geoff D]

I love 'scope but there's nothing wrong with 1.85. You get more vertical resolution out of a taller image too.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I love 'scope but there's nothing wrong with 1.85. You get more vertical resolution out of a taller image too.

On a flat image. It's the same vertical resolution for an anamorphic one. Captured at least...projected is another story.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I thought it good to post a little bit about HDR’s value to color, since that aspect appears undiscovered by the mass media that now blogs about high dynamic range in regards to helping only/primarily with contrast.

Furthermore, with hands-on, err, should I perhaps say eyes-on practice even by early HDR feature film/episodic television show content creators, the whole thing is quite disruptive (mostly in a good way) because those lucky filmmakers who have been given the opportunity to actually work in Dolby Vision, for instance, haven’t expected seeing even the basic changes in color saturation from scene-to-scene after converting their P3 color graded files to the Perceptual Quantizer (HDR/Dolby) powered brighter color space…..before tweaking from there for the final look.

We've kind of had this same ordeal in one sense with even 709. For years I've talked to projector people that swear three chip DLPs look so much better than other projectors for color. Most of that is attributed to them being significantly brighter than other types of projectors though. If your projector is calibrated to say 14 fL (which is the standard for dark rooms) but you compare it to a projector that is closer to 30 fL (most 3-chip light canons) the difference in color is MASSIVE. This is why I don't understand why there has never been a consistent standard for setting the white point for REC709 for home viewing. I've heard 12 fL, 14 fL, 30 fL, etc. Obviously the point also changes based on whether it is a lit room or a dark room or a flat panel vs projector as well. So you never really have it "as the director intended" because you never have all the same variables and you don't know exactly what the circumstances were when they did the color grade and master. Even the backlighting in the room is going to effect your perception of color and contrast!

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

On a flat image. It's the same vertical resolution for an anamorphic one. Captured at least...projected is another story.

The other issue is playback in theaters. In my area (Seattle) there are FAR more 1.85:1 screens going in the big houses than scope screens. So you walk into to the new Regal RPX and see this massive towering screen in front of you. Then the movie starts and you watch them lower the mask and bye bye big screen. Obviously this isn't the case every time, but I see it more often than not.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

On a flat image. It's the same vertical resolution for an anamorphic one. Captured at least...projected is another story.

Jesus, I thought I was an anamorphic fanboy. Yes Peter, when it's captured it's using the same negative/sensor area, but the simple fact is that a 1.85 2K DCP has 1080 lines of vertical information while a 2.40 show has 858. The 'scope ones do have a bit more in the horizontal, 2048 vs 1998 for flat, but overall you still get plenty more of those darned pixels on-screen for a flat 1.85 DCP.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

The post company that did the DI for the feature motion picture (OAS:TNC) as described to Kris Deering here – https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...s#post10107534 is currently working on an episodic television show to be produced entirely in HDR.

Have a Happy 4th folks.
Root for our women tomorrow.

^ Somebody did – http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/wat...d-479005251906

And again, with this particular broadcast, HDR would have helped because during the 1st part of the match either detail in the shadows or detail in the sun-drenched stands and field was clipped because of SDR delivery.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

We've kind of had this same ordeal...

Well, it’s a rather delightful ‘ordeal’ to have the tool (choice) of a brighter color gamut to do with what you want during color grading, per Director intent, as it now opens up possibilities.

At a recent expo that I attended, I think Brad Bird said it best when asked about HDR and he mentioned he loved it and with regards to its color range….something to the effect that as a kid he felt HDR was analogous to receiving the big box of Crayola crayons (150) as opposed to the small box that came with like 8 crayons (analogy to SDR color).

To go back aways, the concept of more colors and more vibrant colors at higher luminances was touched on at the beginning of a presentation to industry insiders about 2 years ago. This is a condensation of note taking by someonelse from the meeting -

SUMMARY:

The meeting went until 11PM! Many topics were covered. I took extensive notes, which
I condensed (believe it or not) to the below. There was a great deal of info so I wanted to make sure we had it documented.

The topics covered are:
•El Dorado Demo at 4000 and 2000 nits
•Color volume gamut analysis of El Dorado and other clips
•Perceptual coding and PQ curves
•EDR consumer workflow
•Mapping EDR to lower dynamic range televisions
•Standardization
•Proposed path to affordable displays
•Workflow and production solutions
•EDR display manufacturers and NDA
•IMF Workflow
•Security issues
•General comments from the studio attendees

EL DORADO DEMO:
They did show El Dorado at 2000 and 4000 nits-they said they had some issues on
Monday and wanted to show it again. I found them quite different, actually. As you
already know, it was graded at 4000, and the 2000 was created via an electronic mapping that a Dolby colorist used and then did some tweaks. My take was was that the 4000 had really good detail in backgrounds and very good differentiation in colors, specifically the different tones of red, but blues were also very distinct. I thought all of the color tones were very well represented, but some of the colors seemed "over the top", noticeably the rocks. Others noticed it too. Dolby said it was a characteristic of the monitor. Hmm. My take on the 2000 was that it looked very pale color-wise in comparison all around, though a little more natural in a few spots. They both had a LOT of judder, which they said was a timing issue in the monitor. In my opinion the judder was a real problem. No banding was perceived. Noted that Dolby Pulsar monitor uses P3 primaries, P65 White point

POST DEMO DISCUSSION
They then showed a gamut analysis of El Dorado at 4000 and some other content they
had, which was very informative. Many pixels were out of the usual gamut range and
evident in the plot. As a reference point, using overall10000 nits, in P3, blue is 800 nits. At 100 nits blue is 1nit.
(*Correction, that ^ should say blue is 7 nits).

Concept of color volume is key.
Old films have 10 stops of dynamic range. Comparing an IP scan to negative scan
reveals very different color volumes.In today’s color timings, often, color is compromised to get more brightness. Pushing up the red allows more perceived brightness than just using the yellow. Pat Griffs notes that 4000 nits good but not all the way there. For example, the Arri camera has more information than can be shown at 4000 nits.

PERCEPTUAL CODING, PQ CURVES-Scott Miller
Design color encoding to be tailored to human perception.
With HDR, the cost is that you need more bits to represent it. So use PQ non-linear
encoding to distribute the bits we currently have more efficiently than gamma encoding.
To determine best coding parameters, utilize Just Noticeable Difference (JND) threshold.1JND is at the edge of what can be perceived. They showed an experiment with 26 "patches" of data with different colors, against a grey background at different levels .1 to 500 nits. Plotted how people would perceive the differences at different light levels, colorimetry, bit rates, etc. At 12 bit XYZ the curves look good, the difference between 2K ans 10Knits is .3 JND for the middle color range. At 10 bit XYZ, the JND goes up quite a bit compared to 12 bits, and at 8 bits is quite high.

The conclusion was that if XYZ was to be used it should be at least 12 bits.
Science says that REC 2020 at 10000 nits has the best packing of data, but REC 2020 is not a future proof container. Wendy says that broadcasters would go for REC 2020 for the efficiency, and monitors would build to it. Says that cap-XYZ is really good. Would CE manufacturers put chips in their sets that could do both?
It was noted that true REC 2020 has laser primaries, NHK has a monitor with these
primaries. In general, the use of more than 3 primaries is of interest. There are 4 primary OLED’s today.Craig Todd attended a meeting in London with 85 broadcasters, they saw EDR on UHDTV. They noted that live action content does not go out of P3, but, they were very interested in the luminance factor. Dolby shot a lot of images in nature and they found very little outside P3. PQ is not standardized, it is Dolby IP. Dolby said that ITU was starting a standards effort. However, PQ would be licensed and not given free of IP. Howard Lukk was not happy with that.

EDR CONSUMER WORKFLOW
The use of the HEVC/H.265 codec was discussed for the EDR application.
Dolby is trying to use existing hardware-two 8 bit H.264 decoders to get the EDR signal
for HD-upper layer and lower layer. Can do this on a tablet. This way cold deploy
quickly. This also leaves the bottom layer as being backward compatible.
For UHD, can use one H.265/HEVC and one H.264/AVC decoder. Dolby “Composer”
adds these together into 12 bits. Output of composer cannot be shown directly on todays tv’s, the content needs to be mapped Another concept that was discussed of using a 10 bit decoder capable of 60 fps at 24 fps so can push extra bits thru it.
It was noted that 10 bit XYZ at 500 nits is worse than current BD. Lower luminance
levels show a great increase in JND error. Dolby says to do XYZ, have to do 12 bits in
order not to have this JND error in the lower luminances. Rec 2020 10 bit with PQ is a
little better. The eye is sensitive between 100-500, above that, goes to logarithmic
Going from gamma encoding to PQ encoding buys about 2 bits overall

MAPPING EDR TO LOWER DYNAMIC RANGE TELEVISIONS
Typical TV ranges from 350 to 1000 nits. 500 nits is often used as the average. Will
have 2000 nit displays in 3 years.
There was a long discussion of finding a method to map EDR onto lower dynamic range
TV’s and maintain hues and perceptual intent of peak values to average. This involves
sending EDR “DM” metadata along with the EDR signal, possibly utilizing OTT.
The mapping is created by taking a histogram of pixels in the EDR scene or still image
and taking a metadata snapshot of it. The metadata is generated based on the artistic
intent of the original piece. Can be edited by the colorist. Can view at several operating
points and can modify the algorithm. The metadata is per scene, can switch on a frame
CE vendors are talking about putting mapping into their displays for brightness and color volume to the TV’s capability.Greg Gewickey said the demos show you can get 97% there by automation, but then want to do some tweaks. Wendy says they should work with the colorists to make sure the mapping works at a lot
of different points. Said would use LCD versus laser display. Would not master on laser and then do a trim pass on an LCD. Dolby says you have to master at the widest possible range. Craig Todd saying that ITU said to master in highest quality, which was REC2020. Dolby blocked because they think we need to be ACES, openEXR, etc.

STANDARDIZATION-David Brooks
EBU and SMPTE do not want constant luminance. Curves proposed to ITU were PQ
REC 2020 at 10000 nits. Wendy says need to apply at PQ curve to cap-XYZ at 12 bit.
Dolby says they are working on a solution for projection that is very much more dynamic
range. Show in 6 weeks. Current is 2000/1. They are talking about 10000/1. Not only
brightness, but the black level as well. Some core changes would be needed to the MPEG codec. To what extent will what we are asking for effect the base codec or just a change to parameters?

PROPOSED PATH TO AFFORDABLE DISPLAYS
Dolby working on a monitor using “quantum dots”.
In a typical HDR monitor, there are 18000 White LED’s for the backlight. These LED’s
go off with no image. Replace these LED’s with Blue LED’s at $.05 each. This makes a blue backlight, need an “optical stack” sheet in front of the backlight to deal with this. This stack has the ability to give exact wavelengths. These quantum dots “re-emit” the color of choice-for example, red and green. This is then side lit. Saw a demo that looked pretty interesting of a prototype quantum dot monitor that was side lit against a “broadcast monitor”. Looked promising. It was noted that in an RGB system, blue is only used 15%, but those LED”s are the most efficient. OLED’s are only good for 1000 nits for a couple of weeks.

WORKFLOW AND PRODUCTION SOLUTIONS
Noted that today’s film stock has a very wide dynamic range, as good as digital.
Scanners are getting better too. Howard mentioned the Panasonic organic CMOS with 26 stops. Need to preserve dynamic range thru the process. Raw footage has more range than the DI, and usually no one goes back to see that footage. By having the EDR displays, can see this up front. For ACES workflow, Dolby says they have a better IDT. Current ones throw away a lot of data. Having a better IDT means you don’t have to do an initial color grade to get back to what you had. XYZ can be converted to ACES and back in floating point without loss. Even for DI, should do initial grade in HDR to see what you have, even though you need to go down from there for D-Cinema.
In Post, Dolby CM (content mapping) tool would create metadata that describes each
scene in terms of its dynamic range. Can see min and max in interior and exterior scenes. This is created algorithmically. Can override for 100 nit, for example, to crush blacks. Can copy and paste metadata when cutting back for the same scene. Metadata is frame based, can change it dynamically if needed when moving from dark to light for example. For editing, would we be able to do a CM proxy that would let the director see more in the Avid. Howard says doing a lot of on-set color correction, then make DNX-HD, straight toediting. No colorist. Dolby said they are working with Film Light (baselight) and Resolve to get the CM tool into their toolkit. Would be an OpenFX plug-in to the baselight. The same Dolby software guy is working on this who did the auto 3D. Dolby wants feedback on which tools to support. Group felt Baselight, Resolve, Film Master, Misitika and Scratch VFX pipeline will be critical for the EDR pipeline. Nuke is a primary tool here. Concept discussed of saving different versions of CM metadata for different light level media. Archival master must come from the EDR grade. Archive would be EDR master in half float? The metadata would be part of the elementary stream on a BD.
GG asked about Fragmented MP4 for OTT. Some asked about watermarks in base content. Wendy had a concern about putting the metadata directly into the stream early.

IMF WORKFLOW
Metadata track can be in the servicing master for IMF and played by the CPL. Metadata
is XML, will be able to be in IMF OPL. Mezzanine file would be J2K, 12 bit EDR
EDR DISPLAY MANUFACTURERS AND NDA
Wendy asked about display manuf that can support HDR, Dolby says cannot say, they
have an NDA. Wendy asked that these manufacturers talk to the studios. Hanno says
can do thru Movielabs. We may be contacted. Dolby Also talked to the SOC manuf….by using dual AVC encoder approach, need to add very little real estate.

SECURITY ISSUES
Wendy putting together provisions for next gen hardware that will include security needs. Hanno says the layered approach Dolby proposed has issues with security
Was noted that payTV people also interested.

GENERAL COMMENTS FROM STUDIO ATTENDEES
Wendy says HD is the current SD. Can’t call HD a premium experience to be monetized. WB looking at EDR as the next thing, but it needs higher security.
Hanno says they are going after the 85” UHD, support 10 bit from the beginning.
Scalable approach-deliver 12 bits with a scalable codec. If you have 8 or 10 bit device,
would only decode that much. Hanno saying BD wants to go EDR, just don’t know how to handle the costs. Wants to only output EDR and figure it would work out. This conversion from EDR to standard has to be in the players up front so the studios don’t have to supply more SKU’s. Premium copy with UHD, HD and DST

[Penton-Man]

^
Note : ‘Hanno’ as in Basse…..http://www.uhdalliance.org/board-of-directors/
‘Wendy’ as in Aylsworth (past Pres. of SMPTE)….

SMPTE President Wendy Aylsworth Previews Technology Summit on Cinema - YouTube

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

e.g. HDR formatted commercials should be nailed to the same parameter set for HDR programming and conversely, non-HDR compliant commercials should not be placed with HDR programming.

Why? Because of the speed of light and dark adaptation by our eyes.
(outside reading for mike and spectre while on sabbatical -> 'the Watson-Yellot model',

I’ll save discourse on the rods and cones aspect of it -
Friedburg, C., Thomas, M.M. and
Lamb, T.D.(2001) “Time course of
the flash response of dark- and lightadapted
human rod photoreceptors
derived from the electroretinogram.” J.
Physiol. 534.1, pp. 217-242

for later date, if needed.

you assigned homework?

oof

I did read some stuff though, every interesting

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by spectre08

you assigned homework?...

Welcome back…..http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/beh...i-s-new-807076
Now where’s mike? Geoff, is mike back too?

[Geoff D]

Nah, he's had enough of being hounded by the mods.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Welcome back…..http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/beh...i-s-new-807076
Now where’s mike? Geoff, is mike back too?

and they're mastering in 4K too *squeeeee*

I wonder how the Alexa 65 compares to the Red Epic Dragon

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

presentation to industry insiders about 2 years ago....

STANDARDIZATION-David Brooks
EBU and SMPTE do not want constant luminance.

Prior to the note taking covering the meeting ^ on next-gen video , yes, the more esoteric non-constant and constant luminance issue was quite controversial as exclusively revealed on another thread in the Tech forum back in the day - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...nt#post7361160

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by spectre08

the Alexa 65

Had a fabulous Hollywood launch last December at the Linwood Dunn Theater that impressed cinematographers of some notoriety….http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/beh...lexa-65-755601 , which also served as a call-out to projector system manufacturers and the SMPTE Digital Cinema Technology Committee (21 DC) to get cracking and create a larger pipeline.

But alas, will it really matter if this release windowing becomes a future trend, or the new normal? - http://variety.com/2015/film/news/pa...ws-1201536116/

[spectre08]

I came to a realization about 4K, that I've been thinking about it all wrong.

My initial thoughts on 4K was that the movies I want to see most in it, or where it will benefit the most, are the big sci-fi spectacles. Big shots of space, aliens, monsters, etc. I thought that your average drama or more "talky" movie would be less important.

But after watching most of the 4K content available I realize that I was completely backwards.

For one, sci fi generally moves too fast. Most of the scenes are usually chaotic or have a lot of elements. It doesn't really linger.

But with dramas on the other hand, 4K adds new depth to skin tones, textures, backgrounds, and everything else. For a movie where the camera lingers on people and things, takes really sharp focus on objects to emphasize their importance, etc. 4K really makes the move feel more realistic and immersive.

So watching Jurassic World in 4K would be fine (if it existed) but watching The Master in 4K would be sublime.

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by spectre08

So watching Jurassic World in 4K would be fine (if it existed) but watching The Master in 4K would be sublime.

Speaking of which, can anyone with the latest American Cinematographer confirm whether JW has a 4K master or not?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by spectre08

I came to a realization about 4K, that I've been thinking about it all wrong.

My initial thoughts on 4K was that the movies I want to see most in it, or where it will benefit the most, are the big sci-fi spectacles. Big shots of space, aliens, monsters, etc. I thought that your average drama or more "talky" movie would be less important.

But after watching most of the 4K content available I realize that I was completely backwards.

For one, sci fi generally moves too fast. Most of the scenes are usually chaotic or have a lot of elements. It doesn't really linger.

But with dramas on the other hand, 4K adds new depth to skin tones, textures, backgrounds, and everything else. For a movie where the camera lingers on people and things, takes really sharp focus on objects to emphasize their importance, etc. 4K really makes the move feel more realistic and immersive.

So watching Jurassic World in 4K would be fine (if it existed) but watching The Master in 4K would be sublime.

That ties in nicely with Penton's post about the 4K finish for Tomorrowland: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=5355, that finishing dark or hectic VFX shots in 4K didn't offer any appreciable benefit over a 2K shot.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

That ties in nicely with Penton's post about the 4K finish for Tomorrowland: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=5355, that finishing dark or hectic VFX shots in 4K didn't offer any appreciable benefit over a 2K shot.

what really convinced me was watching Sense8 on Netflix.

There's a fair bit of action in that, but a LOT of close-in character building. Where the 4K difference stood out the most was in the tight shots of people and the wide shots of landscapes.

The opening credits to Sense8 alone looks like one of the LG demo videos they play in store.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

Speaking of which, can anyone with the latest American Cinematographer confirm whether JW has a 4K master or not?

I believe it is a 2K master.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by singhcr

I believe it is a 2K master.

Close enough….......2398 x 1556 to be exact.

Probably not mentioned with such ^ pixel precision here…http://www.studiodaily.com/2015/06/p...urassic-world/
but nice interview anyway with John Schwartzman.