4K DI options

[Sven Seynaeve]

Ok, Luki,
no offense, but if 3 or 4 companies have jumped on the train for 4k , I think it would benefit scratch a lot to work on this issue now and not later. Me myself, even if I would only have to deliver 2k , I'd prefer being able to output 4k and work in a 4k realtime environment when possible, and assure my investment on a longer term. I'm sure there must be a workaround or a hardware manufacturer able to help you guys out on this. And Scratch being well priced, i still had to scratch my hair when they made me an offer for the san and needed equipment, I'm getting closer to the highpriced systems than I first thought.
Or maby some of your collegues over here are somewhat misinformed and made my future workflow to expensive for what I was meaning. Anyway i asked being able to output 4k dpx files when graded, and having space to put a whole feature on it.

I would regret it I would have to follow my current dp's choice and needs on this and looking at some other system.

On the other hand , I really loved the demo at Ibc, I'm really believing your product should be able to deliver some familiar results, but then you should take it to account that even for a higher price, ( a little bit the same as the red prime price case), then we would choose scratch over the other systems
based on your knowledge and coorperation with red themselves.

 

[Adam Glick]

No matter what the host system is, the real power of these solutions, which exceed the limits of current personal computer technology, are in the DVS designed hardwares, boxxster could also OEM some of these, as the Centauror Hydra Boards etc.

I would recommend to contact DVS to understand their products.

- Am very familiar with the DVS offerings for many years. As I said, they have some nice hardware technology.

Realtime 4K scaling/grading, 2K cross-dissolves, 4K I/O, etc are very nice but mostly irrelevant for for editorial, FX & finishing based on feedback from just about everyone/everywhere.

Most facilities don't want to/need to work at full 4K resolution - and wouldn't be able to see the difference anyway on anything less than a 40' screen...

And, As has been stated, the Sony SXRD projector isn't likely to be something that most facilities need to (or want to) grade/finish on. The few other 4K displays are arguably unusable for grading/finishing purposes.

The added expense, technical overhead, and immature (and expensive) display options required for working in 4K likely outweight any benefits for the vast majority of projects/facilities.

Please tell me where I'm wrong...as I am here to learn as much as share what I (think I) know...

The main benefit would be that you work and edit in 4K realtime with 4K display and 4K display for a 4K camera, not with 75% less reolution. 2K is 75% less resolution.

Again, see above...no measurable benefit that I can see... Maybe I just don't get it though...

If your opinion is that the hundreds of baselight/clipster/iQ customers made a poor choice and should instead buy a regular PC with a Nvidia graphics card and work in 2K instead of 4K thats perfectly ok.

[/QUOTE]

I'm sure that there are many happy baselight/iQ & clipster customers cranking out projects on a daily basis.

Those are certainly respected and powerful toolsets.

Thats why this thread is called "4K DI options".

RED 4K conform works beautifully & reliably on Windows workstations running Scratch. This is the most cost-effective and powerful of the purpose-built "4K DI options" I can think of...



Again, not here to put down anybody or any company - just trying to understand where everybody is "coming from"...

Cheers!

Adam

 

[laguun]

RED 4K conform works beautifully & reliably on Windows workstations running Scratch. This is the most cost-effective and powerful of the purpose-built "4K DI options" I can think of...

scratch is a good software, however, its displaying 2K and has 2K realtime. It cant display 4K. it cant grade at 4K in realtime, and it doesnt edit at 4K in realtime. for a 4k workflow, you might want to edit, grade and display in 4K.

there are many reasons why customers want 4k realtime. one might be productivity speed (changing things in the 4k master in realtime, or not having to render for a version), another might be quality assurance (as you wont be able to spot i.e. sensor noise or keyspill on the full image in 2k for 4k master), another one might be -presenting- your work done with red. to show it in 4k, speedgrade/scratch/color/lustre owner will need to rent at a clipster/baselight etc studio. Not the other way around.

Again, not here to put down anybody or any company - just trying to understand where everybody is "coming from"...
Cheers!
Adam

combustion or digital fusion etc all operate at above 8k. speedgrade or scratch or apple color etc i/o at 2k and have 2k rt. clipster and baselight i/o at 4 and have 4k rt. different markets. All 3 approaches serve different needs
of different customers. And as red is a 4k camera it makes sense to work in 4k. Or would you recommend to master NTSC at 320*240?

cheers as well

p.s.
has boxx anything with 4k i/o in the pipeline or will you guys stay with 2K in 2008? Always liked your system, ehm... boxxes.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

scratch is a good software, however, its displaying 2K and has 2K realtime. It cant display 4K. it cant grade at 4K in realtime, and it doesnt edit at 4K in realtime. for a 4k workflow, you might want to edit, grade and display in 4K.

Laguun,

What is more correct is:

1) SCRATCH cannot grade the Full Rez. decode of R3D files in realtime.
2) SCRATCH cannot output the entire raster of a 4K file in 4K to an SXRD.
3) SCRATCH can grade 4K RGB in realtime and can edit and playback 4K RGB in realtime.
4) SCRATCH has i/o at 4K in data.
5) There is no such thing as 4K video input. SCRATCH can feed dual-link 2048x1080 RGB in realtime from half-rez R3D, but cannot feed octo-link to an SXRD.

And as red is a 4k camera it makes sense to work in 4k. Or would you recommend to master NTSC at 320*240?

They are not the same thing.... it makes sense to you to work in 4K, and that will be a great workflow for you and your facility. Many other facilities (and other users and artists on Reduser) have spoken to why 2K is a good workflow for them, and it is.

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Want or Need, doing 4k on a PC...

Want or Need, doing 4k on a PC...

I have been working on a uncompressed 4k post system for several years now, most of the Phase 1 work, just enough to do the job on a feature is for Download in "Beta Test" now.

One surprise from all this is just how god awful film is to work with, and that color film does not come close to 4k resolution at 80% MTF in real world use. I have been doing scanning tests with a good 105mm Printing Nikkor and the film grain+Camera lens COF is much larger than pixels at 4k, perhaps 3 to 5 pixels wide, and don't say the focus is off in the scan because the dust and scratches resolve better, maybe 2 to 3 pixels wide. That lens is one of the best ever made for optical printer work. I scanned some footage shot on Sound Recording film which is rated over 500 l/p per mm and got better results but the grain is still at least 2 pixels wide, and that film is 3 to 6 times sharper than any color film. I do not have a camera that is 8k on the scanner yet, but can crop and do not see that their would be much gain in scanning 8k since the grain will just get sharper making it more visable.

The RED ONE (tm) camera does not resolve single pixels at 4k with the OLPF in place at better than 80% MTF in all colors. It probably does not get true resolution in RGB even at 2k at 80% MTF, although with sharpening the monochrome test chart might be fudged to seem so.

To get true 4k RGB for all pixels at 80% MTF from a Bayer filter sensor would require 8k or more.

The increase in resolution on the theatre screen from a 2k DI to 4k DI is small in the low % MTF because the lens used in a 35mm film theatre projector cannot resolve 4k at 80% MTF, and even if it could it is out of focus almost all of the time so what you get is just a slight bit of improvement not double. And if you do get a 4k projector to focus yes you will see more noise on a 4k monitor also at 4k because most of what is in 90% of the frame was never in focus enough when the film or digital was shot to record detail at 4k anyway.

What 4k gets you is less raster in the result, but if are going to compress the end result you have four times as much information to compress, so still frames may look sharper, but moving subjects will show more artifacts when interframe compression is used than using 2k since in 2k the full screen refresh rate can be 4 times a fast for a given bit rate.

4k projection should be coming in a few years, and film out at 4k can show less residual raster lines, so I have been working on the assumption that doing the DI at 4k is worth the 6x to 8x increase in workflow time, because in the future when 4k becomes standard I would have a set of UNCOMPRESSED 4k frames to use for output archived. (see below for the your film will never be seen again point of view).

Since color film fades, scanning now at 4k lets you archive a good quality version, since scanning at 8k will just give sharper grain and dust for the most part.

I also notice that many people sit too far back in many theaters to see much improvement when going from 2k to 4k, to see individual pixels in the blue/green you would need to sit near the front next to the screen, maybe half the screen width, rather than twice the screen width or more that most people sit at now.

As far as I can make out the 80% MTF resolution in many theaters corresponds to about 1280x720 due to poor focus of the projection lens, & has been less that 512x288 at some places I have gone.

I just got through seeing Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon shown on the Castro's big screen in video projection from a Beta SP tape. The resolution of the Beta SP tape was about 2/3 of what the screen usually gets from a 35mm print, maybe, since the focus is not touched up often enough.

Although 4k preview might be nice, if it is compressed you are not going to see the film grain from every frame, nor are you going to see the dust and other marks spots and muck that are on each frame as it comes back from the lab. When footage is compressed to take less space you can no longer see what you shot on the preview screen the way you would if you were looking at a workprint in a projector, and since if you look at a workprint in a projector you barely see 1k at 80% MTF. If you did get an uncompressed 4k preview you would see much more grain and noise than the viewers in the movie theatre, if the preview screen displays at 4k RGB on each pixel and you get VERY close to the monitor.

For the grading in my system I use 1024x768 since CRT monitors running at 2048x1536 do not show much more detail and it takes more than 4 times as long to update the screen. Using a 4k monitor would take 16 times as long to update, although that would be a nice option. If you want look that close at a frame, it should be enough to look at a part of the image, like in my Sharp/Soft command where I have a 1:1 zoom crop view on a 1024x768 screen. If you put the 1:1 zoom crop view on a 2048x1536 monitor you can no longer SEE the pixels so it is no linger a 1:1 view. On a 4k monitor you would need a magnifying glass to see the pixels if it was able to display them if you have a 22" monitor on your desk, so to look at details a in 4k image it seems better to just use a zoom crop of the whole image at 1k.

For myself I do not see the advantage of real time 4k preview since the cost of making an uncompressed 4k preview system would be more that I could earn in 5 lifetimes.

For editing uncompressed 640x350 proxy preview seems to work just fine, if you need a close up for looping or looking at the actors lips you can make a zoom crop set of proxy frames.

Some people on this forum have suggested that people cannot tell the difference between HD compressed video and Uncompressed 4k once shown on 35mm film. I for the most part am sure I could tell, and that is why I have been working on making a uncompressed 4k system that any feature filmmaker could use for "freeish" if he wanted uncompressed 4k.

I have been doing some tests, and my program seems to run (at least in part) under XP using NT file system, so it may be possable to get a network hooked up to manage the 25TB to 200TB of frames required. Right now the throughput for 4k uncompressed is very slow, but I may be able to get the speed up 3x someday, I have done some tests to see what makes a difference.

The thing I do notice in the movie theatre from digital compressed source more than low resolution, and 35mm is not high resolution at 80% MTF on the movie theatre screen, is the compression artifacts. In digital projection, and projection of film from compressed digital source, that I have seen, the compression artifacts are much worse than the washed out colors, poor shadow deatil, and twinkling pixels.

People who have seen digital projection from NEW projectors should realize that projectors in theatres are not well mantained due to cost, so the optics get fogged up and the black level goes up in older projectors, so even if digital projection is a little sharper in time film may look better because it will have a black and good color. It seems unlikely that theaters will upgrade to 4k projectors when only a few people show up now. There has been talk of using DVDs rather than 35mm film prints for Repertory Cinema, and I am seeing more medium rez video projection in movie theatres around here (not the previews but the feature).

So does that mean that 4k distribution will only be to the home (for the most part), and if so at what compression level. At that compression level, will the detail in an Uncompressed 4k DI be worth the bother? My brother says that the DVDs of our film tests look BETTER than the film projected because the software filters remove some of the flicker, dust, grain, weave, and such so that the interframe compression can be done. Since 4k may require higher compression ratio than 2k for home viewing, will the 4k show more compression artifacts than 2k or HD (limited bandwith over cable etc.)?

What people seem to like is "beautified" film that has passed through many software filters. In the old days the lack of resolution in the contact printing and optical printing "beautified" the film as well by not sharply resolving the image detail, grain, and muck. If you scan old films at 4k you would need to filter out much of the detail to not see a storm of grain and muck.

4k uncompressed DI can be done on a bank of networked PCs now, probably, if you want to. The software is "freeish", so the main cost is the TB of storage and the CPUs, maybe $25,000.00 to $50,000.00 could get a feature finished in a year. At 2k that same hardware might finish in 3 months, but unless you have a large staff you could not do the editing, grading, scoring, folly, yourself in 3 months. So I have been thinking why not post at 4k uncompressed since if it will take me two years to edit,grade, score, and folly,... the frames can cook on PCs without monitors night and day while I am doing things, so their is not real big penalty for going 4k uncompressed over 2k uncompressed other than needing twice or more as many computers and four times or more as many HD.

I think there is piratical benefit from shooting UNCOMPRESSED in the RED ONE (tm), if they ever get that working, since if you pull the shadows up the compression artifacts can probably become visable as the camera works now, if you use fill light the compression ratio goes up so you lose detail elsewhere in the frame. The compression cuts the bandwith in the shadow areas.

Then you get the issue of will there be a later 4k market for what you are shooting now, or is the product a "here today gone tomorrow," if so then the point of view to go compressed HD and forget any idea of quality says "just do it" and do it as fast and cheep as you can get away with.

BTW If anybody has a few frames of color negative film that is 80% MTF at 4k please send it to me so I can scan it & see for myself...

 

[laguun]

3) SCRATCH can grade 4K RGB in realtime and can edit and playback 4K RGB in realtime.

Hi luki,
thats these statements who mislead customers.
scratch plays back 4k RGB to 2k RGB display. thats 25% of 4K resolution.

4) SCRATCH has i/o at 4K in data.

so do after effect, combustion, shake or nuke.
4K i/o to an astro or ibm monitor, to a sony (or the upcoming jvcs) 4k projector is basing on sdi. Systems as DVS Clipster or Filmlight Baselight offer taht, other systems as iridas speedgrade or assimilate scratch or apple color dont.

5) There is no such thing as 4K video input.

Thats simply wrong.
The sony SRX (which recently won its first order for over 100 cinema screens at landmark) has standard 4K video input via linked sdi.

I am pointing this out as we already had the nasty experience with a fullfeature what can can happen if you monitor at 2k and then screen at 4k.

We graded on discreet with 2K monitoring, 35mm filmout was nice, 2K monitoring was nice, and when we run it through the clipster to the SRX me, director, dp and producer spotted noise and aliasing we never saw before and we had to rework several scenes - this time with 4k monitoring.

SCRATCH can feed dual-link 2048x1080 RGB in realtime from half-rez R3D, but cannot feed octo-link to an SXRD.

Thats what i am talking about.
I dont understand why you claim 4k playback when you only have 2K monitoring. Following your logic any computer could playback 4k, even with quicktime or video for windows.

They are not the same thing.... it makes sense to you to work in 4K, and that will be a great workflow for you and your facility. Many other facilities (and other users and artists on Reduser) have spoken to why 2K is a good workflow for them, and it is.

Many projects are and will be 1080p/2K here as well. But many production shot on red want to use the 4K quality, thats whats this topic all about.

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA[/QUOTE]

 

[Mike Gifford]

post 46 seems to have been sent by both laguun and lucas...

are you both now in agreement ?

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

After all Laguun and Luki deserve drink and dinner together in Las Vegas.

 

[M Most]

The sony SRX ...has standard 4K video input via linked sdi.

There is no such thing as a "standard 4K video input." In fact, there is no such thing as a 4K video standard, period.

I can only speak for myself here, but Laguun, I think your inability to resist posting long, involved, and repetitive retorts to just about anything Lucas says is getting pretty tiresome. Everything you say, you've already said - in great detail - at least 100 times previously. I find some of the things you say interesting and on occasion, insightful, and I find Lucas' posts informative as well. But this constant tit-for-tat nonsense really needs to stop, as its not doing you, Lucas, or any readers here any favors. We really don't need to see a Laguun posting for each and every Luki posting, especially when we've already read what's in it.

As I said, I can only speak for myself. And I don't intend for any of this to be taken personally.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

I can only speak for myself here, but Laguun, I think your inability to resist posting long, involved, and repetitive retorts to just about anything Lucas says is getting pretty tiresome. Everything you say, you've already said - in great detail - at least 100 times previously. I find some of the things you say interesting and on occasion, insightful, and I find Lucas' posts informative as well. But this constant tit-for-tat nonsense really needs to stop, as its not doing you, Lucas, or any readers here any favors. We really don't need to see a Laguun posting for each and every Luki posting, especially when we've already read what's in it.

Now, now, now Mike I agree with you fully, while I reiterate that I have nothing but respect for both those members.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

There is no such thing as a "standard 4K video input." In fact, there is no such thing as a 4K video standard, period.

sounds like a opportunity.

 

[M Most]

sounds like a opportunity.

Huh?

Mark, I think you know better than that. Standards are set by standards setting organizations to allow manufacturers and others to build devices that conform to a single set of rules. They are often (but not always) sanctioned internationally and are based on what is determined by a group of interested parties to be the best ways to represent things like interfaces, signal formats, and equipment interconnects. Standards setting entities are things like the SMPTE and the EBU. When individual companies come up with proprietary devices and formats they are not "standards." Just because Sony - or Panasonic, or Apple, or Red - declares their own proprietary format a "standard" does not make it so. So setting a standard is not an "opportunity," it is a responsibility of the standards setting entities this industry supports. That's why, for instance, the DCI specification is not a "standard." It is a specification that spells out, in great detail, a framework for eventual acceptance as the basis of a standard. The standard will be written by the SMPTE, specifically by a SMPTE committee called DC28. And it will not be proprietary to any particular company.

It is, of course, true that companies often submit parts of their own intellectual property to be considered as a partial basis for a standard. That is the case with Microsoft's Windows Media Video (the basis for the VC-1 standard) and a number of others. Now, if you want to talk about "de facto standards," like, say, Quicktime, those are proprietary formats that attain enough market penetration to be significant. But they are not "standards," and you won't often see things like hardware interfaces being designed without real standards.

 

[laguun]

I can only speak for myself here, but Laguun, I think your inability to resist posting long, involved, and repetitive retorts to just about anything Lucas says is getting pretty tiresome.

Hi,

in this thread its the exact opposite. please read the thread from the beginning. Luki was adressing me directly, not the other way around.

As much i respect luki, when he post completly wrong technical information about the most widely used 4K projectors (as the sony srx would have 4 seperate panels), gives wrong price quotes of other manufacturers systems as baselight (a employee of them corrected luki on this), or gives wrong information of their different models (as baselight 8 would be necessary for realtime 4K, its the baselight 4) or when he claims that a 2K system as scratch has 4k playback, then its no surprise that i, employees of baselight, owners of srx 4k projectors will comment on this. I fully respect lukis enthusiasm for his employer and their products, and i think that their product is a good product. That however is no reason to post wrong or, lets say, rather marketing driven information.

I find some of the things you say interesting and on occasion, insightful, and I find Lucas' posts informative as well.

same with your posts.

But this constant tit-for-tat nonsense really needs to stop, as its not doing you, Lucas, or any readers here any favors.
We really don't need to see a Laguun posting for each and every Luki posting, especially when we've already read what's in it.

Its the exact opposite.
Read the thread from the start - and you will find that luki was directly adressing me.

As I said, I can only speak for myself. And I don't intend for any of this to be taken personally.

no bad blood - not taken personally (especially not on internet forums). its also getting on my own nerves, however this thread is about 4K DI options, not about them being unnecessary or why 2K systems as iridas speedgrade, assimilate scratch, apple color can playback a 75% scaled down 4K. Its also nothing personal for me and luki - i think when we once meet at a tradeshow we will probably have a good time.

There is no such thing as a "standard 4K video input." In fact, there is no such thing as a 4K video standard, period.

The DCI, Kodak, Sony and many others have clear standards for this:
http://www.dcimovies.com/

Without mediablock as in DCI, -all- the houndreds of 4K installations use quad and/or octalinked HD-SDI or DVI.

Also the existing 8K and UHDTV systems use HD-SDI, here is a photo of the rear of the NHK 8K camera:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/98/Uhdfuji0000.jpg

While i share your skepticism if 4K will be the dominant cinematic distribution resolution within the next 5 years (i personally rather expect 90-95% 2K and 5-10% 4K, with ~20% 2K 3D) and also agree basing on many years of first hand experience, that for viewers who sit quite distant from the screen 4K and 2K are no visible differences, i personally had my experiences how important 4K for 4K DI mastering is.

Furthermore, it makes a -huge- difference in the creative workflow if you have to rerender everything for 4k or simply press play, and astro, jvc, panasonic are bringing 4K products as displays and projectors to the market and we will hopefully have more 4k displays at lower pricepoints to choose from this year than ever before.

And finally, back to the topic - there are many great uses for 4K besides cinema.

We have done -many- multi-HD installations and special venues, cinerama-style, with many displays or projections side by side. From arts to trade show. Before red we had to use several hdcams together to shoot such things, now with red we can shoot for 4 displays at once, and for these kind of movies 4k for 4k is crucial.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

For me it's as simple as this,

when we have to put up a huge amount of money where risk is naturally envolved, you always want to make sure you don't did your homework wrong or this could have catatrophic results for you and your company.

We and the market are talking about 4k more often and often, some manufacturers start creating displays and projectors, there are editing and coloring applications that can handle it, but ..... Scratch being introduced to us on different ways with always the mentioning that the R3d files are 4k and that you could use them, they all could get away if they speak about systems who doesn't cost the price of a house, but these REALY are big amounts of money, where we have gotten used to through the years of being in the biz...
but it doesn't say we must not ensure ourselves.

For me it's clear , it seems that assimilate won't do an effort in the short time and that probably other systems will open up being able to import the R3d files sometime, maby due to a payed upgrade, but I prefer paying double when knowing what I'm getting instead of feeling ripped of sometime or owning equipment that didn't last enough time to make enough out of it....


It 's up to them , if they take this discussion into acount , or if they still want to lose as many installations as there have been spoken of lately by a couple of post houses.

 

[Andrew Madu]

I can only speak for myself here, but Laguun, I think your inability to resist posting long, involved, and repetitive retorts to just about anything Lucas says is getting pretty tiresome.

It is imperative that, and as non to shabby investment figures are involved, product information presented here is done so in a clear and concise manner for the benefit of all, be they experienced or not so experienced.

FilmLight has already been forced to correct information presented to this forum, by a rival company, which was simply incorrect.

 

[M Most]

The DCI, Kodak, Sony and many others have clear standards for this:
http://www.dcimovies.com/

1. The DCI document is not a standard. It is a specification. The DCI is not a standards setting entity.

2. Nowhere in the current DCI document (version 1.2 is the current one) is a physical interconnect for 4K mentioned. Dual dual link is mentioned, but it is referred to in terms of being able to deliver 2K at 48fps. The only references to 4K have to do with the media itself, not any specific method of feeding it to a projector - which is basically not in the scope of the DCI's work.

3. As I mentioned previously, it's not up to Kodak or Sony to define standards. Anything they do is proprietary to their products, and represents only one way of doing it. Standards are set by standards organizations. At this point in time, there is absolutely no such thing as a "4K video standard." That doesn't mean there aren't any ways to feed 4K worth of information to a display that can show it, but it does mean that there isn't a standard in place that defines how to do it.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Its about the 4K

Its about the 4K

When I started this thread I tried to limit the scope of the discussion and included some arbitrary givens. Of course humans, being humans, took the thread on quite a tour.

First off, the 2K vs 4K banter is perhaps entertaining but not the point of this thread. Notes about the poor quality of many theatrical presentations and how close you need to sit to see the benefits of high resolution imagery are important in the larger context but I think this discussion will be more efficient if we consider such factors stipulated as fact.

Currently shipping and NAB '08 show ready products that can work with and output 4K are very much of interest and IMHO on point for this thread. My thesis assumes that in "x" number of years that 4K display tech will see the penetration that HD is finally seeing now. I think specialty venues will lead the way, as Laguun mentioned there is demand for imagery where the head turning factor is a value add.

I am interested in this issue because I wish to sell the benefits of 4K and to do that effectively I need to be able to show people what I am talking about and for that I need 4K display. Like others mentioned there is also the critical issue of making sure that your 4K masterpiece looks dynamite when the client sees it on the big screen, nasty surprises at that stage can be problematic to say the least.

I don't expect to be doing 4K uncompressed for less than $50K plus display before 2011. What I am hoping is possible is to use modern wavelet compression to allow 4K real time workflows within a year. How to make that happen? Here is my completely speculative road map:

Workstations running Linux, Mac or Windows incorporate the next generation of CPUs, GPUs, memory and bus architectures, etc.

A PCIe2.0 special purpose card that can do hardware de-bayer of RedCode on the fly. Limited updates via firmware would be nice.

A GPU that can crank out 4K via current multi-link topologies or, better yet, a new connection standard for the next decade, please.

4K display tech for under $10K. I keep expecting Apple to offer a 3,840 by 2,160 LED backlit LCD monitor but no love yet. The Red Leader has teased us with 4K delivery options, including projectors, but the timetable is uncertain.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Projection evolution status

Projection evolution status

For those of you wondering about the current status of digital projection this article about ShoWest has some interesting points

http://displaydaily.com/2008/03/13/3d-dominates-showest/

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Compressed 4k, what ratio?

Compressed 4k, what ratio?

When I started this thread I tried to limit the scope of the discussion and included some arbitrary givens. Of course humans, being humans, took the thread on quite a tour.

First off, the 2K vs 4K banter is perhaps entertaining but not the point of this thread. Notes about the poor quality of many theatrical presentations and how close you need to sit to see the benefits of high resolution imagery are important in the larger context but I think this discussion will be more efficient if we consider such factors stipulated as fact.

Currently shipping and NAB '08 show ready products that can work with and output 4K are very much of interest and IMHO on point for this thread. My thesis assumes that in "x" number of years that 4K display tech will see the penetration that HD is finally seeing now. I think specialty venues will lead the way, as Laguun mentioned there is demand for imagery where the head turning factor is a value add.

I am interested in this issue because I wish to sell the benefits of 4K and to do that effectively I need to be able to show people what I am talking about and for that I need 4K display. Like others mentioned there is also the critical issue of making sure that your 4K masterpiece looks dynamite when the client sees it on the big screen, nasty surprises at that stage can be problematic to say the least.

I don't expect to be doing 4K uncompressed for less than $50K plus display before 2011. What I am hoping is possible is to use modern wavelet compression to allow 4K real time workflows within a year. How to make that happen? Here is my completely speculative road map:

Workstations running Linux, Mac or Windows incorporate the next generation of CPUs, GPUs, memory and bus architectures, etc.

A PCIe2.0 special purpose card that can do hardware de-bayer of RedCode on the fly. Limited updates via firmware would be nice.

A GPU that can crank out 4K via current multi-link topologies or, better yet, a new connection standard for the next decade, please.

4K display tech for under $10K. I keep expecting Apple to offer a 3,840 by 2,160 LED backlit LCD monitor but no love yet. The Red Leader has teased us with 4K delivery options, including projectors, but the timetable is uncertain.

Since I am working on uncompressed non-realtime 4k post, I have some questions?

1) What compression ratio are you planing on using for the frame data, 100:1, 1000:1?

You can sumulate what the end result will look like by taking a good 2 1/4 slide and having a high rez scan made, then make downsample JPEG2000 images of the end result. The slide should be underexposed so that you need to do gamma and color correction on the scan after it has been compressed, since raw footage from a camera will be under exposed and require color corection. Take the JPEG2000 images in and out of every program you can think of that will be needed so that the images accumulate double, triple, or quadruple re-encoding losses. Then duplicate the frame and view it from your compressed "4k" stream. If the compressed stream involves interframe compression than you need to have motion and brightness changes, so using computer generated source frames may work better than a slide scan. When I take high rez computer generated images and compress them with JPG there is an immediate and obvious loss even at the high quality settings, having the image un-compressed then re-compressed several more times would not make it better.

2) If every pixel in the images is going to be processed in filters for "opticals", do you propose doing those with a real time 4k preview?

It can take 15 minutes or more per 4k frame to do complex filters, to do those things in real time at 24fps would not be piratical on a PC of any kind I have ever seen. At some point I think non-realtime processing will be an issue for you to look at, as will using lower rez proxy frames.

3) If you avoid re-compression losses by going to uncompressed frames for work footage, then making 4k compressed proxy frames, the load time for the uncompressed frames and then the save time for the compressed proxy frames will be longer than the play time (by many times on a PC), in such an arrangement what does "real time" mean?

Try loading a uncompressed 4k frame on your PC then saving a compressed 4k frame, multiply by 126720 to see how long it will take to output 88 minutes of 4k compressed images to view for 4k playback. 4K 24bpp frames are 4096*2304*6=56,623,104 bytes each, times 126720 is 7.3TB. At 100MB/s it takes 20 hours just to copy those frames, doing something to them would take longer. So if you figure the compression ratio from 20/1.4 you get a compression ratio of about 15:1. 300MB/s HD do not realy work at that speed on a PC all the time.

Just as a general observation, there seems to be a steady erosion of the meaning of resolution fromats for marketing, 4k 24fps is when you have a 4k image that has unique color at 24bpp+ for each pixel, and each pixel is unique on each frame. Live video has lost its live look now because everything is compressed. Film will soon be lost to the ages and we will never see ALL the grain change on every frame again. Just calling something 4k playback where 90% the frame is an "approximation" and the screen has parts that refresh at 6fps or even 4fps, would better be called something else, except for the desire to make it sound better than what it realy is, artifacts and all.

 

[Dj Joofa]

1.
3. As I mentioned previously, it's not up to Kodak or Sony to define standards. Anything they do is proprietary to their products, and represents only one way of doing it. Standards are set by standards organizations. .

Big, high-profile companies have their representatives at the standardization committees and hence, can sway the standards to be formed in a way that favor their internal specifications.

In addition, there have been examples of private companies proprietary way of doing things becoming international standards. For e.g., see the H.239 standard.