Blu-ray in the Flesh

[Sony1]

I first saw Blue-Ray at the Sony center in Berlin 2004, and I was blown away by the images that were displyed. They had tourist footage playing on a new Sony HighDef TV, and I couldn't believe how cristal clear the picture was. Can't wait for it to come out here in the US. My only question is the older movies that were shot in the 80's and 90's, even though they were not shot with HighDef cameras how they be able to produce an Image of 720P with older films?

[zombie]

Movies have been filmed with higher resolution than HD provides for decades. Our televisions are WAY behind the times, theatres are not.

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by n2blu

Movies have been filmed with higher resolution than HD provides for decades. Our televisions are WAY behind the times, theatres are not.

Oh yes you're right Thunder, theatres are still the best way to see a movie and will be the only way for some new decades

[thunderhawk]

Untill they invente 3D TV-like glasses (I know it already exists, but its way to expensive) so you can view a movie trough your glasses without a TV set.

[luke kelly]

Film has an infinite resolution, whereas HDTV is limited (currently) to a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Using a process called telecine we "video" a piece of film in order to store it within a computer. Typically we store this information at a resolution of around 4000 x 2500 pixels. You could infact scan the film at any resolution you desired. However exceeding 4000 x 2500 is fruitless as most films are shot on 35mm film stock, and you will struggle to see any detail improvements once a telecine resolution of 4000 x 2500 is exceeded.

This resolution (4000 x 2500) is never used, but is stored instead as a backup so that the film scan will be future proofed. (Well it was used for the latest Batman film in order that it could be projected in IMAX cinemas but this is quite rare).

Instead we convert the super hi-res film scan to a more useable resoultion of around 2500 x 1500 pixels. this is the resolution that you see on the cinema screen once the digital film print has been reverse telecined back to the film reels used in most cinemas.

The good news is that HDTV full resolution movies viewed on a full 1080 line progressive scan monitor will be providing you with 75% of the resolution you see in cinemas, but on a much smaller screen. Lovely.

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by luke kelly

Film has an infinite resolution, whereas HDTV is limited (currently) to a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Using a process called telecine we "video" a piece of film in order to store it within a computer. Typically we store this information at a resolution of around 4000 x 2500 pixels. You could infact scan the film at any resolution you desired. However exceeding 4000 x 2500 is fruitless as most films are shot on 35mm film stock, and you will struggle to see any detail improvements once a telecine resolution of 4000 x 2500 is exceeded.

If film has an "infinite resolution" you could digitize it as much as 40,000 x 20,000 and still get a noticeably better digital image. In reality the grain fineness of the original negative is the limiting factor. Maybe, for most film, the practical limit is about in the range of where you state. Elsewhere in these forums I did an analysis of what is the upper limit of visual acuity and it is above 4,000 x 2,500 but not significantly so for most situations and most imagery.

However, I am curious about the aspect ratio of the numbers you give. The resolution of 4,000 x 2500 is an aspect of 1 : 1.6. Film has an aspect ratio of 1 : 1.85 (with cinemascope at 1 : 2.35 ) it seems unlikely (though dumber things have happened with past conversions of analog media to digital media) that the industry would pick an aspect ratio so far from that of film.

And yes, the HDTV standard is not the same aspect ratio as film (it's 1 : 1.778 ), but that's a long story in and of itself.

Originally Posted by luke kelly

This resolution (4000 x 2500) is never used, but is stored instead as a backup so that the film scan will be future proofed. (Well it was used for the latest Batman film in order that it could be projected in IMAX cinemas but this is quite rare).

Instead we convert the super hi-res film scan to a more useable resoultion of around 2500 x 1500 pixels. this is the resolution that you see on the cinema screen once the digital film print has been reverse telecined back to the film reels used in most cinemas.

The good news is that HDTV full resolution movies viewed on a full 1080 line progressive scan monitor will be providing you with 75% of the resolution you see in cinemas, but on a much smaller screen. Lovely.

How does all this fit with the digital cinema standards (don't recall the standard's designation at the moment) officially adopted the summer of 2004? The resolutions in that standard are 2048 x 1080 and 4096 x 2160. These are just a tiny bit wider than the standard 1:1.85 of film but significantly narrower than the 1:2.35 of the cinemascope film (which is really an optical compression technique which works fine with film but will not work as well with digital media).

[luke kelly]

Hey Shadowself.

The figures I gave are off the top of my head, and the aspects seem to way out I know. But. the cut off on the top and bottom of a 35mm piece of film are still scanned during telecine, this gives the film makers the option of playing with that extra detail if they choose.

I wasn't trying to be technically exact, just trying to explain the basics behind films superior resolution over HDTV. I work as a freelance online editor in the UK and remembered the above details from a conversation with a telecine operator.

Thanks a lot for the exact pixel resolutions and ratios!

[thunderhawk]

True...

As n2blu stated in some other topic: "Even some movies from the '30 have higher resolution than HDTV." or something like that

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by thunderhawk

True...

As n2blu stated in some other topic: "Even some movies from the '30 have higher resolution than HDTV." or something like that

Yeah ! With some 70 mm film ! ^^

[TruBlu]

From what you folks say, it must be true that most cinemas have been "dumbed down" by going digital compared to just a few years ago when film was still in use in cinemas..?

I'm not a heavy cinema goer but I do notice even on plain old analogue TV that the B/W films of old do seem to have a lot more tonal detail and magic to them. Am I right?


TruBlu

[thunderhawk]

it must be true that most cinemas have been "dumbed down" by going digital compared to just a few years ago when film was still in use in cinemas..?

No, thats incorrect. Those movies were on a film with magnetic particles. That's the difference. Todays movies have better quality then movies from 1960+. However the year can have been sooner 2, please correct me there...

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by thunderhawk

No, thats incorrect. Those movies were on a film with magnetic particles. That's the difference. Todays movies have better quality then movies from 1960+. However the year can have been sooner 2, please correct me there...

Theatrical film had a higher starting resolution than the digital cinema of today. The limit of the resolution was the granularity of the silver halide crystals (and other chemicals) on the film itself. As I understand it there were no magnetics involved at all. Even the sound track(s) were done by optical means.

The 70mm film systems had even better resolution.

One use of this extra resolution was the cinemascope effect. Typical theatrical releases had the 1:1.85 aspect ratio. Cinemascope used 1:2.35 aspect ratio. To get this wide angle effect special lenses were used. They effectively compressed the recorded imagery in the horizontal plane. The lenses did the "optical compression". The film media had enough additional resolution (above the minimum necessary to hold a good picture at 1:1.85 resolution) to hold all the information. It was just compressed (squeezed horizontally) onto the film. With high quality film it was effectively a lossless compression.

Thus HD even at 1080p will not have the spatial resolution that theatrical film has had. The theatrical community has tried to make up for most of this with the 4096 x 2160 standard.

The biggest drawback to film is that it degrades over time and use. This is noticeable for films that show for a long time. If a theatre uses the same reels for a long time (a few months) the scratching of the media is noticable. The picture quality is noticeably poorer than when it was shown the first time. This should not happen once the shift to digital cinema is complete. Also of archival purposes film stored for 50 years is poorer quality than when it was brand new. It then has to be "restored" and transferred to new film stock. The new film is NOT an exact duplicate of the original 50+ year old film. However with digital and proper error correction coding the original can be recreated.

There are many other reasons to shift to digital cinema. Among them are lower distribution costs (think of sending a theatrical release even at 4096x2160 on a single 200 GB Blu-ray disk to each theatre versus the huge reels of film); easier editing (done on computers where non linear editing is practical versus cutting and taping the film stock); easier compositing and insertion of FX (many FX are done by computers these days and more are done that way as time goes by, digital media makes this easier); etc.

However better resolution is not a reason to move away from film.

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by Shadowself

However better resolution is not a reason to move away from film.

End Of Line

[thunderhawk]

Thanks for clearing the mist m8

[TonyR]

This reminds me a bit of the difference between vinyl records and compact disc (or DVDA if you prefer =). Whenever you digitize media you are just taking a "sample" of the original source. When it comes to an audio recording from the 60s - 70s I still prefer an analog copy, but I cannot say the same for film/video. Maybe it's because I was born in the 80s and when I really got into movies the DVD was already on it's way to the top, but I'm very excited about the future of HD digital works.

Please forgive me, I quickly got off topic there, but thank you to the two film/video editors/pros for the info on modern film and HD.

[Jamesont]

I would suggest that your tonal detail is in fact a placebo because your senses are data starved so your brain makes up for it. Just like a blind man will have much higher audio accuity, it doesn't mean his ears are any better physically then ours, just that more processing time is devoted to them.

[James Morrow]

You might suggest it, James - but that doesn't make it correct. There is plenty of evidence to indicate that vinyl records are capable of much higher sound quality than CDs - but then again, CD was never designed to be a high fidelity music medium ... At least 192/24 DVDA and SACD are a step in the right direction ...

[john_1958]

there are movie theaters that can do 4k res so why not have hollywood display it and produce more movies like it

[KC-Technerd]

Any resources for finding which theaters have 4K digital projectors?

[AV_Integrated]

Originally Posted by KC-Technerd

Any resources for finding which theaters have 4K digital projectors?

I'm not positive, but I believe that Texas Instruments had a section under www.dlp.com that listed digital cinemas. Are any 4K (do they have 4K?)? I don't know.

I'm not sure if Sony has anything with SXRD stuff that is listed anywhere on their site. They tend to be a VERY consumer unfriendly company when it comes to little things like that.