4:3 Epic

[Tom Lowe]

They don't care about 65mm film, because the screens themselves are nowhere near the size they once were. But they are screwing themselves over though, because they have reduced the theatrical experience to the point where it is actually less than that of sitting at home and watching the DVD.

This is why IMAX is the future, IMO.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Would 4:3 anamorphic fit onto VistaVision? Get biggest and let everything else be worked on it. It looks good going from big to small, than small to big.

The VistaVision negative is roughly 1.5 : 1 -- if you put a 2X anamorphic lens on the camera, you'd get a 3:1 image unsqueezed.

There was an anamorphic VistaVision (8-perf 35mm) process called Technirama, which involved using 1.5X anamorphic lenses to create a 2.35 image.

 

[M Most]

They don't care about 65mm film, because the screens themselves are nowhere near the size they once were. But they are screwing themselves over though, because they have reduced the theatrical experience to the point where it is actually less than that of sitting at home and watching the DVD.

Then I suggest you try to come up with a business plan that will allow profitable creation, distribution, and exhibition of 70mm prints. The advent of multiplexes with smaller screens, and the decline of movie palaces with larger screens was not dictated by the studios, it was dictated by business principles. And the studios' reluctance to have 70mm releases is due at least in part to the lack of venues to exhibit them in, not to mention the high cost of their creation, since much of the infrastructure that allowed that in the past is now gone.

It's easy (and apparently popular) to claim that the home viewing experience rivals the theater. The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, it's just not true, at least not until a lot more homes have 20 to 40 foot screens, much larger multichannel digital sound systems, and an audience.

 

[Joseph Ward]

Is Super Hi-Vision or Ultra High Defintion by NHK the same as 65/70mm?
http://www.nhk.or.jp/digital/en/super_hi/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4320p

 

[Tom Lowe]

It's easy (and apparently popular) to claim that the home viewing experience rivals the theater. The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, it's just not true, at least not until a lot more homes have 20 to 40 foot screens, much larger multichannel digital sound systems, and an audience.

Well, 1080p blurays are often sharper and carry more picture detail than movie prints shown at multiplexes. Also, you don't need a 50ft screen when you are sitting 8 feet away from a 56" 1080p flatscreen. I think sound is not really an issue if you have a nice system. Not to mention that I can drink beer, fool around with my GF, and rewind or FF any scenes I like if I watch a movie at home.

What the movies really have going for them is the communal experience. It's enough to get me to drive 30 miles and sit in traffic and deal with parking and pay extortion-style prices for a Coke, so there must be something to it!

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

What the movies really have going for them is the communal experience. It's enough to get me to drive 30 miles and sit in traffic and deal with parking and pay extortion-style prices for a Coke, so there must be something to it!

I still think that the 50 foot screen adds a lot to a movie experience, especially when you have a 2:40:1 film. It becomes a real larger than life experience.

 

[Darren Orange]

It's simple people like being with people. It's part of the experience why do you think all these midnight showings are doing so well. Anything that improves that experience the more it attracts people.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

It's simple people like being with people. It's part of the experience why do you think all these midnight showings are doing so well. Anything that improves that experience the more it attracts people.

I love midnight screenings especially when it's the last of the trilogy and they show the first 2 before hand.

I remember watching the matrix on 35mm film and thinking how much more detail I had missed out on by only having seen it on dvd and VHS.

 

[oldphart]

The VistaVision negative is roughly 1.5 : 1 -- if you put a 2X anamorphic lens on the camera, you'd get a 3:1 image unsqueezed.

There was an anamorphic VistaVision (8-perf 35mm) process called Technirama, which involved using 1.5X anamorphic lenses to create a 2.35 image.

I like the idea of a next-generation camera for the VistaVision format. If you could use the best 35mm still optics rehoused for cinema needs, there would not be any problems getting the lenses you need. There is no lack of lenses for any conceivable use. I'm quite fond of my old 20mm Flektogon, it is totally distortion-free and with digital processing I can correct the slight darkening in the corners.

Bandwidth is not going to be a problem in a couple of years. Each new networking technology is 10x faster at the same or lower cost. The processing power will not be a problem, either. When storage and processng go through another improvement cycle, we may even get rid of the optical low-pass filtering in the camera. Just make a sensor which resolves more than the lenses, and the lenses will do the filtering for you.

One aspect of very high resolution nobody has mentioned, is that you get much better positional accuracy for details in the picture. Modulation Transfer is not the only limiting factor.

We can see this in book printing. A professionally made offset master at 2400dpi will give visibly better results than a 600dpi laser printer, even though you can show that the printed page can barely resolve 600dpi with the paper you use and the individual dots are too small to see with the naked eye at normal dstance.

I believe the future display format will be something like 12k @ 72fps with 12 bits depth, and probably more than three colours in order to widen the gamut. Not the near future, but more or less inevitable unless somebody comes up with a practical holographic continous-spectrum method. A digital Lippman-process in 3d would be awesome!

 

[Alex G. Cohn]

I believe the future display format will be something like 12k @ 72fps with 12 bits depth, and probably more than three colours in order to widen the gamut. Not the near future, but more or less inevitable unless somebody comes up with a practical holographic continous-spectrum method. A digital Lippman-process in 3d would be awesome!

12k seems a bit much. How do you expect someone to pull focus on a motion picture that is being projected at that resolution? I've seen stuff that looked perfectly sharp at 2k, but was actually slightly out of focus when seen at 4k. I'd imagine that that problem will only be worse at 12k.

 

[Tom Lowe]

12K does seem like a lot. Keep in mind that this would totally leave all 35mm films & TV shows shot over the last 100 years utterly obsolete on such a viewing system. At least at 4K, 35mm can be scanned and might hold up at that resolution, if the film or TV show has been preserved well.

Once you go to 8K or beyond, 100 years of entertainment will be lost, and only material acquired on new cameras would fit the newer, higher-res format. For this reason alone, I think 4K will be the new gold standard (the new 1080p) for some time to come.

 

[M Most]

1
Once you go to 8K or beyond, 100 years of entertainment will be lost, and only material acquired on new cameras would fit the newer, higher-res format. For this reason alone, I think 4K will be the new gold standard (the new 1080p) for some time to come.

Huh?
We now have HD. Have you seen any loss of television material that was either shot or posted in SD as a result of that? Old formats are converted to new formats. That is something that is done all the time and has been done for years. I don't understand why you would think that suddenly ends.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Dude, you can scan 35mm at 1080p, 2K or 4K... you cannot scan it to 8K or 10K without essentially upsampling it, similar to upresing a DVD to 1080p. DVDs and NTSC look like crap on a 1080 screen, once you are used to seeing real 1080p footage.

My point is, once you move past 4K, then 90% of stuff shot over the last 50 years or more will look like crap on the display compared to native 8K or 10K or whatever. Therefore, 4K is as far as you can push resolution before you start to lose most of the entertainment created over the last 50 to 100 years. Yes, you can still play 4K on a 10K screen, but it's going to look like garbage compared to footage acquired at 10K. This is just common sense stuff.

 

[Craig Ryan]

It's going to be quite a while before the general public gets used to something beyond 4k as a standard for all content; for instance I doubt regular television programs, as we know them today, will ever be shot at something greater than 4k because the experience becomes too immersing for the variety of content we see on TV everyday. And most films/movies also don't even require anything beyond 4k either. There's only a small variety of content that's suitable for the immersive quality beyond 4k, so in theory, even if 12k systems become common place in the future, they will only be used for a small amount of content. I don't see the typical sitcom being produced in 12k; but I could see it produced in 1080p. So really, even when the average Joe gets a taste of higher resolutions, I think all of the content that's been produced over the last 100 years that wouldn't hold up at 12k or even 4k, would still be plenty acceptable in the future; my philosophy when it comes to imaging formats is simply, time and place for everything. Then there's the concept of virtual reality, which I think would require a whole new type of content that doesn't exist yet. So no matter what technology comes about in the future, there will always be a place for the lower resolution content thats already been made, even when Joe Schmo has a 12k home theater.

 

[Peter Majtan]

It's like SACD/DVD-Audio all over again. All thought that we needed to go up from CD quality. Welcome to SACD/DVD-AUDIO specifications. As much as I have Onkyo SACD player and few titles (my favorite is Sting's "Sacred Love" - which sounds stunning on my 7.2 THX system) - it doesn't change the fact that the industry actually moved backwards. More then half of music sold today is in MP3 (or AAC) format - lower then the plain CD. Why? Because the consumers demanded it...

I think 4K is going to be "SACD" - only for selected few... Most people will stick with HD (compressed on too...) for years to come. Any true revolution will not be related to resolution, but rather other aspects of visual experience, such as richer colors, HDRI, stereo, etc...

Just my two pesos...

PS: I will not master any of my own project in anything else then 2K for at least 5~10 years from now...

 

[Pawel Achtel]

It's like SACD/DVD-Audio all over again. All thought that we needed to go up from CD quality. Welcome to SACD/DVD-AUDIO specifications. As much as I have Onkyo SACD player and few titles (my favorite is Sting's "Sacred Love" - which sounds stunning on my 7.2 THX system) - it doesn't change the fact that the industry actually moved backwards. More then half of music sold today is in MP3 (or AAC) format - lower then the plain CD. Why? Because the consumers demanded it...

I think 4K is going to be "SACD" - only for selected few... Most people will stick with HD (compressed on too...) for years to come. Any true revolution will not be related to resolution, but rather other aspects of visual experience, such as richer colors, HDRI, stereo, etc...

Just my two pesos...

PS: I will not master any of my own project in anything else then 2K for at least 5~10 years from now...

Totally agree, Peter. That's 4 pesos already :greedy:

 

[Tom Lowe]

PS: I will not master any of my own project in anything else then 2K for at least 5~10 years from now...

We'll see if you're still saying that 2 years from now when Epic 5K (True 4K) is ruling the lands.

4K may come faster than many people think. It will not only be driven by new 4K cameras, but also by gamers. Already, I can play games at more than 2K, which goes beyond the 1080p bluray specs. Once 4K monitors start really hitting the scene, things might move faster than most of us expect. Of course, Sally Homemaker and Joe Six-Pack might lag behind, but that is true of 1080p now. Most gamers have computers that could outpower Joe Six-Pack's PC about 20 times over. :weight_lift:

 

[Joseph Ward]

4:3 S35mm, VistaVision/Technirama S35mm, 65/70mm sizes will do just fine!:weight_lift: Anything under seems backward anything else over is just overkill. Not if anything overkill is a bad thing. lol:biggrin:

 

[Peter Majtan]

Tom, I have no doubt that 4K will become "mainstream" for acquisition when it comes to digital cinema. But I will still run my DI at 2K for my own projects. When paying client demands 4K I would be happy to oblige, providing he is willing to pay the cost. I just can't justify the heavily increased cost for everything associated with 4K-DI, from humungous storage, CGI rendering times, film-out - I could go on and on... In the end most people won't be able to tell the difference between 2K & 4K at normal viewing distance - be it at home on 4K-TV's or on a 30' screen in the theatre...

And Yes - we are planing on getting Epic - just to be clear...

My two pesos...

Man I better cut down on the pesos, or I won't be able to get Epic...

I take one back...

 

[Tom Lowe]

Lol, Peter, don't worry. The Peso will soon be worth more than the Dollar.