Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Sony's 4K push, but are the films in their ad really 4k?

There's a lot of controversy when noise and grain reduction is done to old movies to reduce their graininess -- it really has to be done with a light hand or else you aren't preserving the original information, you are throwing it away, which then isn't true preservation. Just because the old prints couldn't resolve all the information on the negatives doesn't mean that restorations made off of negatives and dupes should be softened digitally to match the look of prints rather than preserve what the camera negative captured.

As for sharpening, that also should be done with a light hand as well, if at all.

Trouble is that some old color titles are restored from recombined b&w separations and sometimes certain edge artifacts that appear are not due to electronic sharpening, but are a combination of optical printer artifacts (if that's how the seps were made or recombined) and other photochemical issues causing edges to become enhanced.

And finally, you don't know in an electronic presentation if any edge artifacts are being generated by the projector settings.
 
future of projection

future of projection

I went to see a so called "restored" print of "orson welles Othello (1952 film)" in which it seems that the timing light change tape was punched wrong at one of the light changes and all the light changes after that were in the wrong places, because shots are not of the same length, not only were the wrong lights being printed, but the light changes now came in the middle of shots at random points the image would snap light or dark for no reason that was in the original intention of the filmmakers. The lab probably wanted to charge to re-print that reel, and so the "cheapskates" if thats the right word, that made that "restored" print thought that they could release the messed up print and "no body would say anything" I guess because the public are all "morons"?

On top of that they mucked with the sound to re-sample the dub to stretch and condense the length of words, making the oratory all contorted.

The contrast was also out of control, looking like very bad lab work all around.

If you had been in the same row of seats at the Castro the night I went to see "Bridge..." you would have seen the same oversharpened mess I did. They seem to have used a contrast sensitive sharpen filter that was passive rather than active, and so produced a "new look" that must be seen to be believed, I hope the younger people in the audience did not think that is what the movie was ment to look like, along with the increase in color saturation making the fake blood look like red paint.

==

My point was that there is not enough money in return to do the quality of restoration needed. The "restored" print of "Lawrence of Arabia (1962)" is not very faded, scratched and full of crazing, but is still like billed as "new restored print", yea, like 15 years ago and 30000 showings.

There is not enough money to do a full new 4K scan, uncompressed DI, and shot by shot color correction plus dust-bust and de-grain for most films that are now just shown off old prints from time to time and have a few people show up.

When the films were new, the master printing negatives did not have so many blemishes, so in my mind to "restore" the film, would at least be to match the original in lack of blemishes, contrast of the original print stocks, color saturation of the original print stocks, and not to increase the "resolution" to just enhance the dust, grain, and muck that the source frames have picked up over the years.

==

The future of 4K projection is better targeted to productions shot on 5K or 6K cameras than to films shot on film stocks, and more so on older film stocks, unless the "restorers" can resist the temptation to compete with the new Digital Cinema Cameras, with Epic image capture is entering a new era of going past even IMAX resolution, and any older films will just be that, normal 35mm did not have that much solid image to back up what in effect ends up sitting very close to a very large screen if you are going to see 4K since the limits of your eyes mean that 4K theatres will be "short throw" type with people sitting twice as close for a given screen width in order to see above the 2K level.

That's why VistaVision and 65/70mm were used, and although todays 35mm stocks are better, Digital Cinema Cameras will soon be way past what even todays IMAX film camera/projector can produce on the screen due to the limits of projecting off film.

So where will IMAX be when all multi-plex theatres are 4K? What happened to their plan to use two 2K projectors (which would be impossable to register due to sub-pixel correction needs)?
 
IMAX will go dual 4K DLP as soon as they have "ported their special sauce" to the 4K DLP projectors, included laser from Laser Light Engines (my tip is that the recently developed Laser light engine and optical block for DLP projectors from KODAK (and Here) will be better, but IMAX always wants their own tech so nobody can copy them).

The reason IMAX went with dual 2K DLP instead of dual Sony 4K in the past was that after a shoot-out between them, the 2K DLP was as good as the Sony 4K. So 2K DLP would be cheaper and better. Now when 4K DLP has arrived, the quality goal has changed.

When it comes to 4K digital projection systems, everything isn't equal. 4K isn't just 4K regardless of projection systems.

A quote by someone who knows both systems well as an answer to a question about the quality difference;
"Are you kidding? the sony is like an old worn out crt by comparison SOFT ALL OVER. It's all about the ansi contrast ratio, the sharpness (MTF), the definition of the pixels and the incredible colorimetry.
If DLP beat 15/70 hands down at this event, 15/70 was always superior to SONY Cinealta." :piggy:
 
Promoting 4K

Promoting 4K

M Most said:
My not-so-scientific surveys indicate the same thing. The real reason for 4K DI mastering at this point in time is more about archiving than it is the current theatrical experience.

Consumers vote with their pocketbooks. If they like what they see, and they enjoy the overall experience, they come back to that particular theater. If they don't, they don't, and it usually has nothing to do with the number of "K"s except as a part of an overall experience.
Click to expand...

This sounds rather like a replay of HD and broadcasters; how many opportunities did they have to self-promote HD and yet remained silent? For any new service there has to be awareness (via some form of promotion) fair pricing and decent availability or else there will be a pre-determined outcome...
 
Iannis Holwech said:
IMAX will go dual 4K DLP as soon as they have "ported their special sauce" to the 4K DLP projectors, included laser from Laser Light Engines (my tip is that the recently developed Laser light engine and optical block for DLP projectors from KODAK (and Here) will be better, but IMAX always wants their own tech so nobody can copy them).

The reason IMAX went with dual 2K DLP instead of dual Sony 4K in the past was that after a shoot-out between them, the 2K DLP was as good as the Sony 4K. So 2K DLP would be cheaper and better. Now when 4K DLP has arrived, the quality goal has changed.

When it comes to 4K digital projection systems, everything isn't equal. 4K isn't just 4K regardless of projection systems.

A quote by someone who knows both systems well as an answer to a question about the quality difference;
"Are you kidding? the sony is like an old worn out crt by comparison SOFT ALL OVER. It's all about the ansi contrast ratio, the sharpness (MTF), the definition of the pixels and the incredible colorimetry.
If DLP beat 15/70 hands down at this event, 15/70 was always superior to SONY Cinealta." :piggy:
Click to expand...

Having seen a 2K DLP presentation on the same screen as a Sony 4K presentation, I can honestly say that I prefer the Sony image to the DLP hands down. It's sharper, clearer, and pixels aren't visible. Now, I haven't seen a dual 2K DLP IMAX presentation in a few years, but if my memory serves me correctly I think I still like Sony's 4K projectors better. But I'll be seeing a movie in D-IMAX soon so that might change.
 
Stuart English said:
This sounds rather like a replay of HD and broadcasters; how many opportunities did they have to self-promote HD and yet remained silent? For any new service there has to be awareness (via some form of promotion) fair pricing and decent availability or else there will be a pre-determined outcome...
Click to expand...

If you really believe that broadcasters were "silent" about HD, I don't know where you were when they were putting banners at the beginning of almost every show, or when they were promoting sports (Fox STILL mentions it during every single sports event they carry), or when companies like ABC were promoting the advent of ESPN HD. I really don't know how much louder they could have been without shouting from the rooftops.

Making people aware of something is one thing. They then have the right to determine for themselves whether what's being thrown at them is worth spending their money on. And these days, most people have a lot more important things to spend money on than better movie or television images. Or stereoscopic ones, for that matter. That's not to say we shouldn't strive to improve all of these things, of course we should. But I really don't think promotion, fair pricing, or decent availability are the issues that determine current levels of acceptance. So we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
 
When you see a decent digital cinema screening, you aren't particularly hit in the face by visible pixels or feel that the original photography is being muddied up by the presentation -- in fact, the 2K screenings tend to be sharper than the 35mm print screenings.

I only notice stairstepping in the lettering in titles but I think that has more to do with how they were rendered than the projector resolution.

I've seen Sony 4K presentations of 2K DCP's and it's a bit of a wash compared to 2K DLP presentations -- the 4K projection of 2K files looks a bit smoother in texture but the blacks aren't as good. As a DP, decent blacks are important to me because they affect perception of saturation, shadow detail, etc. I'm looking forward to Texas Instrument's future 4K DLP technology.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top