Why 4K?

[Lawrence Bansbach]

Ultimately people don't go to see line resolution charts in a movie theater, so you never know what will seem acceptably sharp to their eyes, especially when not in direct comparison to some other format.

Yeah, I always find side-by-side A/B tests annoying when I'm watching a movie in a theater!

 

[Graeme Nattress]

That people in the cinema don't complain about dirty projectors, wobbly images or out of focus projection doesn't excuse us from not pursuing the best image possible.

Graeme

 

[joshua csehak]

I saw The Tracy Fragments (shot on the DVX100) in the theatre, and I thought it looked fine. Of course, people are more accepting of lower image quality with an indie.

I think it makes sense to go with the highest resolution and color fidelity you can afford (though I'll take good color reproduction and raw codecs over resolution any day of the week), and don't sweat it if it's not much. Your audience will excuse you if the content is good. (Except for most commercial work, of course.)

There is NO excuse, however, for dirty projectors. I can't stand seeing scratches in the film when all the projectionist has to do is clean the gate! I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox at an indie theater here (The Kendall) and couldn't believe the giant scratches running up and down the movie, for minutes on end. I expect that crap out of a place like Loews that's staffed by college kids blazing doobage, but not a supposed "art" theater.

</rant>

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Placing emphasis on the plot is the reason why we go for a good plot, not an excuse to go cheap on the visuals or audio.

Graeme

 

[Jim Retar]

Placing emphasis on the plot is the reason why we go for a good plot, not an excuse to go cheap on the visuals or audio.

Graeme

True enough, but if someone has a good plot and the tightest of budgets.... i'd be happier to see it brought to life in SD/HD than left gathering dust until they can afford a 4k cam.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Ah, but if they didn't make the movie at all, it wouldn't cost anything and be in script form, so essentially perfect

Graeme

 

[joshua csehak]

Ah, but if they didn't make the movie at all, it wouldn't cost anything and be in script form, so essentially perfect

Graeme

Which is what they should've done with "From Hell."

 

[Felix K.]

That people in the cinema don't complain about dirty projectors, wobbly images or out of focus projection doesn't excuse us from not pursuing the best image possible.

Graeme

This is of course right. But still I think that there limits to what can be marketed to the majority of the customers.
Many of them seem to recognize if it is a digital projection (2K) because of the missing flickers etc, that you get from celluloid. (Many multiplex cinemas in Germany just started buyin 2k projectors because of all the 3D movies released or to be released.) Other than that they do not really see a difference. Hence there won't be an interest in spending more money on higher quality projections. If of course the ticket price will not change, it won't make a difference. Then again, why should theatres buy more expensive equipment if the audience doesn't really care or thinks that a more comfy seat is more important. Why didn't 70mm film become the standard for cinemas?

Sure, on the production side, more resolution helps everybody involved. But I think there will be a limit to that as well just as with audio. Nobody really would go beyond 192 kHz and 24 bits. There is no point.

I'll be perfectly fine with 3k debayered to 2k. It's actually more than I thought I would ever have.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

It's possible Audiences just don't know what they're missing.

Audiences aren't demanding smell-o-vision but maybe we won't be able to live without it after trying it.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Perhaps the better projection will be along the lines of "our cinema is 4k, their's is 2k - come to our's, it's better". Or perhaps 4k will take off in the home where you can sit closer to the screen and really appreciate the detail.

There's something visually arresting and immersive when you sit close to a very high resolution display. Think home IMAX.

Graeme

 

[Felix K.]

It's possible Audiences just don't know what they're missing.

Audiences aren't demanding smell-o-vision but maybe we won't be able to live without it after trying it.

This of course right, but smelling (not unlike 3D) is a totally new concept, not the improvement of an existing and accepted concept.

As I said, both systems, celluloid and 2k, are present in German mainstream cinema at the moment. So people switch between both, more or less aware of the differences, and apart from the tech geeks, nobody would go and say: naaaah, if I can't have a digital projection, I'll leave. And for every other tech geek, there is the purist going: only celluloid looks right...

 

[Felix K.]

Perhaps the better projection will be along the lines of "our cinema is 4k, their's is 2k - come to our's, it's better". Or perhaps 4k will take off in the home where you can sit closer to the screen and really appreciate the detail.

There's something visually arresting and immersive when you sit close to a very high resolution display. Think home IMAX.

Graeme

There is something behind that logic that I'm think I do not understand properly:
I see that if the resolution of a screen is higher, I can sit closer without seeing individual pixels. But at the same time, my field of view diminishes. The actual surface of perception is smaller than before. So as long as, e.g. I watch a movie with a 2:! aspect ration, I can only go so close that I can see the whole frame, because I sure don't want to just see the left or right half of the frame. Right now, I can blow up 2k to a 100" screen. That should do fpr the average home, right?

 

[joshua csehak]

I'm definitely all for 4k projection, even if it's for film in which the grain is less than 4k resolution, cause pixels are ugly but grain is okay (maybe our kids won't feel that same aversion to pixels?).

I bet 4k is really nice at home, too. I've been watching Mad Men on blu-ray for the first two seasons, but I only have the third in SD on the DVR. It suuuuuuuuuuuucks! Especially the Christopher Manley episodes! (edit: watching them in SD sucks, not the episodes themselves, of course.) If I hadn't gotten used to HD, I probably would've been fine with it, but I think I might just wait till it comes out on blu-ray.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Sorry if this goes way OT but...

Well, that sort of starts to fall into those types of "interactive" cinema where the audience can choose where the story goes, in the sense that you are talking about cinema where the audience chooses what to look at, what to zoom in on, what angle to see the action from, etc.

While that may happen on an experimental basis -- and it's the basis of gaming -- it works against the basic act of storytelling, which is that the storyteller selects the tools and the technique that he feels best tells the story, and that story is an expression of his artistic vision based on the creative choices he makes.

So giving those creative choices (shot size, etc.) over to the audience sort of works to diminish the power and importance of the storyteller. One would assume that most audiences want to be told a story by someone better at storytelling than themselves, just as most people would want to buy a house built by someone who is better at designing and building houses than they are, or would want to go to a doctor who has more medical knowledge and skill than they do.

I find the notion of interactive cinema a fascinating one. The enormous success of games like the Silent Hill series shows that there is indeed an appetite for this kind of entertainment, and that particular genre of game is one example of the gaming industry successfully harnessing cinematic dramatic storytelling and making it interactive without diminishing the art of storytellng in the way that David is describing.

One genre of film that is most apt to be transformed by interactivity is the procedural police drama. I think that the gaming industry has failed to capitalize on this for two reasons, and these two areas are where film and television have a distinct advantage.

First and foremost is the storytelling. Game development and execution are primarilly led by programmers and animators rather than experienced dramatists and cinematographers.

Second is their business model. An interactive mystery more than a thriller is a one off or two time experience in that it is somewhat disposable once you know whodunnit, but the gaming industry would have you pay $60 for that experience. To most consumers that seems to be a poor value. Those same consumers are accustomed to paying $15 or so to purchase a DVD, or $5 for a rental/on demand viewing.

I wonder if the only reason why this has yet to be exploited by Hollywood is the fact that writers, directors and cinematographers have yet to see the potential or identify and embrace the new storytelling opportunities that interactivity presents.

 

[Krishna Rajan]

the "4K" debate is interesting but i have a more philosophical question / observation

when do we reach a limit on the resolution war 4k, 5k 12k? in other words is there a natural limit beyond say 5k or 12k when the difference between higher resolutions become impossible to detect? so who would it matter if its 5k, 12k or for that matter 100k, our eye wont be able to see the difference or am i missing something?

but of course Jim's original argument is more about delivery mechanism so if we capture content at say 12k resolution and display it using a 12k project we will still be happy even though our eye balls can probably see less then 12k.

again, i might be wrong but just something to think about ....

 

[Todd M.]

the "4K" debate is interesting but i have a more philosophical question / observation

when do we reach a limit on the resolution war 4k, 5k 12k? in other words is there a natural limit beyond say 5k or 12k when the difference between higher resolutions become impossible to detect? so who would it matter if its 5k, 12k or for that matter 100k, our eye wont be able to see the difference or am i missing something?

but of course Jim's original argument is more about delivery mechanism so if we capture content at say 12k resolution and display it using a 12k project we will still be happy even though our eye balls can probably see less then 12k.

again, i might be wrong but just something to think about ....

There are many factors to consider regarding the optimum resolution for a specific application but one of the central considerations is the resolving power of the eye. There was some discussion of this in the "ISO, ISO" thread. THIS POST from Adrian T. describes the human eye as being able to resolve >5000 lines when looking at a 16:9 image from a distance equal to the width of the image. So you can imagine that if you are further away resolution can decrease without the human eye being able to discern that decrease and if you are closer to the image you could see even finer detail so may be able to resolve more lines in the image (though they may not all be in your field of view at the same time). I am not an expert in this regard, only an avid reader of this forum, so I would suggest reading through that thread for more detailed info.

Just to add a real world example to your question think of video installations like the "Comcast Experience" in Philly where they might have a need for ultra-high resolution imagery (in this instance greater than 10MP). Right now they use 3 cameras to stitch together panorama's for the display. I can't seem to find the exact resolution specs for this display but at the aspect ratio it displays, 3.28:1, knowing it is at least 10MP, it would need more than 5750 horizontal pixels to fill the screen. This means you would want a Bayer pattern sensor of nearly 7200 pixels to get a properly de-bayered image for this resolution.

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

the "4K" debate is interesting but i have a more philosophical question / observation

when do we reach a limit on the resolution war 4k, 5k 12k? in other words is there a natural limit beyond say 5k or 12k when the difference between higher resolutions become impossible to detect? so who would it matter if its 5k, 12k or for that matter 100k, our eye wont be able to see the difference or am i missing something?

but of course Jim's original argument is more about delivery mechanism so if we capture content at say 12k resolution and display it using a 12k project we will still be happy even though our eye balls can probably see less then 12k.

again, i might be wrong but just something to think about ....

I dont think the resolution war will stop at a certain resolution. You could argue the merits of working to ceiling based on the perceived resolution of the typical human eye (in much the same way that you dont record audio thats outside the human range of hearing, accept maybe in adverts for dogs)- but that is something that is biologically difficult to measure. If you google 'human eye resolution' you'll find lots of stupid and pseudo-scientific ideas - my favourite being someone who believes that humans can barely see past 1080p. Interestingly he was also offering his services as a wedding videographer with a nice 1080p camera, but I'm sure that was just a coincidental juxtaposition...

 

[Krishna Rajan]

There are many areas of super specialization where a extreme hi rez makes a lot of sense for example in the field of medicine or even Todd M's example of panorama so there is no question that higher rez would make sense but am sure those camera technologies costs in millions. The question is do you need it for watching a nice film on a television set?

sorry dont want to sound like the wedding videographer in Gary Paul Waler's reply because i am also very much looking to scarlet and epic with 5k rez but just something which stuck me as odd that in our quest for hi rez is there a ultimate sealing. i guess only time will tell.

I will def check out the post that Todd M referred to.

cheers

-krish

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

sorry dont want to sound like the wedding videographer in Gary Paul Waler's reply because i am also very much looking to scarlet and epic with 5k rez but just something which stuck me as odd that in our quest for hi rez is there a ultimate sealing. i guess only time will tell.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn blasting the videographer because he was selling himself - I just meant that his view was biased towards marketing his product rather than a scientific approach, which (as Todd M. masterfully pointed out0 there is pleanty of bona fide studies on the issue.

Like you i'm looking towards the S35, and hopefully that'll be all the resolution I'll need.
I take my hat of to Red, and the gurus who use them who strive for higher resolutions and refined technology. I dont know if a resolution ceiling will ever be hit - but if it does I'm pretty sure companies like Red will start to look at the implimentation of different technology in its image capture. Once resolution is at an agree 'best possible' what can be next? Better 3D? Smell-o-vision? 360 Panoramic films?

 

[Henri H]

When can we expect 65 mm (70 mm) RED CMOS sensors?