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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: "Lawrence of Arabia" 70mm from 4K DI
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-05-2018 09:00 AM
Thanks. I've looked into the light path of xenon machines (and even disassembled a light engine for repair), but not the light engine end of an RGB laser machine. I didn't know that there was no integrator rod, and therefore that there is no white light involved, except where it is desired and thus created by mixing the three primaries in the light engine.
I always suspected that the contrast issue with xenon was something to do with the image of each pixel being closer together on the same sized screen, and guessed that it was possibly caused by the image of one bleeding into the one next to it more than is the case with 2K. From your explanation, it would seem that the optical processing that takes place between the bulb and the lens places an inherent limitation on resolution, which can be mitigated to some extent by using a small aperture lens ... but that costs you light output.
So if resolutions larger than 2K are ever going to become a widespread industry norm, this can only really happen when xenon arc illumination is a thing of the past. With xenon illumination, you either have to eat the higher overheads of using a high contrast lens and a bigger bulb, or live with the contrast hit.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-05-2018 05:55 PM
Oh it is MUCH closer than you think. They are already up to nearly 40-feet now and DCI compliant (Samsung but Sony is also working on it).
Yes, the sound issue has to be solved but the technology is already there to "print" screens and even make them flexible for direct view. Creating sound transmissive screens will probably be here within 5 years.
Consider this in your 20-year prediction.
1998, no DCinema, just film and various "video" for non 1st run release. 1999, 1.3K "Series 0" DCinema based on SXGA projectors, 2004, 2K DCinema projectors (and some are STILL running DCinema!). 2007, the start of DCinema roll out, 2010, DCinema roll out intensifies,(2011-2012, 4K shows up) by 2013, mostly mopping up and finishing up the small town theatres/drive-ins. It happened that fast and we are a tiny industry with a scant 150K screens world wide.
The market for direct view large screen movies is the entire world. The big players, at the moment, are Samsung and Sony. These people have every reason to make high-end, affordable ginormous direct view screens for cinema so they can sell smaller version to the consumer and use the theatre presence as a qualifier/marketing.
It would end the discussion on having a booth and anything else associated with a projector (laser and its speckle/cost, xenon, filters, convergence, focus...etc.). Will there be new problems, sure and they need to figure out how to protect that screen from sodapop being flung against it but the day is coming and it is coming faster than you think, in my opinion, of course.
Oh, and Samsung, they own Harmon, which owns JBL and Crown so they also have incentive to have speakers/amps playing from behind the screen.
If you are a curved screen person like me, I also see it as a way of having the curved screen without the image distortion.
I'm sure they'll have them at CinemaCon this year, check them out and tell me what you think.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 01-05-2018 06:25 PM
The term "OLED" only applies to high end TV screens and other smaller mobile device displays that use Organic LED based displays. I'm not sure what the best term should be to describe LED-based "jumbotron" displays where the RGB LEDs are exposed. Maybe "direct view LED?" In the sign industry they're most often just called LED signs.
Regarding LED displays that allow sound to pass through, I think it's possible to develop such a screen. The LEDs themselves can get very tiny. Currently there are displays that allow pixel pitches as tight 1.2mm between pixel centers, still with a decent amount of black surrounding the pixel cluster to help generate great contrast.
Manufacturers would just have to change the design of the driver board tiles so the backs of the LED clusters aren't completely covered with a bunch of solid, hard plastic, metal and computer parts. Currently no manufacturer has done that. The board would end up having the look of a grille with lots of little square holes in it between the pixels.
I think a layer of some type pourous yet opaque black material might be needed to help hide any wires and other components on the backs of the driver board tiles as well as maintain high contrast. The material could have acoustic properties to cut down on unwanted reflections. That's been a big complaint about other solid screens, like the Torous screens AMC used 20 years ago in some theaters. A traditional LED display with solid driver board tiles would not only require speakers above and below the screen, but it too would be prone to all those bad acoustic reflections.
I'm skeptical about printing large, direct view LED screens. Such displays are modular, with each board having its own components, wiring and other stuff. The LEDs in these boards, especially ones rated for outdoor use are pretty powerful. It's going to take some radical adjustment making the best of this technology fit into a board that's not solid and perhaps even flexible. To print LEDs and supporting circuitry onto a flexible surface and have the resulting display emit the kind of light output needed for a cinema screen would require a lot of technology that hasn't been invented yet.
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Robert Harris
Film Handler
Posts: 95
From: Bedford Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2003
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posted 01-07-2018 08:31 AM
A few thoughts on Aurens in 70mm OCN, 70mm dupe, and 4k...
Based upon the quality of the intermediate stock that arrived from Kodak in the 1983 as 5243, we were allowed a superior grain structure, that even going two generations away from OCN, showed virtually no discernible difference in projection.
What will be noticeable to some is a slight reduction in apparent grain, which under a microscope, can be seen as the softening of the granular edges. Nothing more.
This means that the difference between an OCN test print, produced in 1988, vs a dupe is virtually nil on screen.
David Lean & Freddie Young preferred the dupe, for its slightly more velvety overall image quality.
Harvesting an 8k scan from OCN, and various other extant elements gives us a totally different beast.
Far more highly resolved in projection (at 4k) than anything on film.
Without a shutter, continuous film movement, bob & weave, etc, the eye is actually viewing the original as scanned and modified to create the digital facsimile of the 70mm prints.
Take that 4k data and record it out to a 65mm negative (not an easy feat), and print it to 70mm stock for projection, and you have a more than adequate means of replicating the filmed experience.
It's neither as stable, nor highly resolved than projected 4k data, but it's fine. And those seeking a 70mm experience, will get one. It's not a matter of smoke and mirrors.
Keep in mind that taking stocks in the 1960s were far more highly resolved than printing stocks, and all 70mm prints were produced on optical printers directly from the OCN, normally via auto-select single strand.
With our more finely grained printing stocks today, the difference between a 1960s-'70s 70mm OCN print and a 70mm print derived from a 4k data file is further blurred.
While a few 70mm prints can be produced from the digital negs (we also produced one for MFL, like LoA, as an archival analogue element), the main rationale for that production is not toward print-making, but rather as a polyester-based back-up, for negatives that are essentially no longer printable.
While I enjoy viewing 70mm prints, my current preference for Lawrence is the 4k data files. Same for MFL.
As an aside, and the discussion regarding 5283 vs 93, I can tell you that 93 is an odd beast. The original concept, as I understand it was as a higher contrast alternative to 83, akin to ENR processing.
It's a beautiful stock, and useful in certain circumstances, in my opinion, probably best suited for animation.
We tested both stocks for The Godfather, which as you know needs deep rich blacks, with a bit of air above true black.
Based upon a recorded 4k restoration negative, we saw the following results. While 83 gave us lovely quality, it was unable to hit anything close to true black.
And problematically, 93 could not allow that bit of air just above black.
Neither was able to give us what we needed to properly mimic the looks and texture of the original dye transfer prints.
4k came much closer.
As pertains to Aurens audio, I prefer the original mix that we did in 1988. The work performed in 2002, beyond re-cutting music, which was later fixed, over cleaned all of the work that was done to hide the various generations and types of audio used to in the audio reconstruction and restoration. Not a fan.
RAH
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-07-2018 10:59 AM
quote: Robert Harris (my emphasis)[/quote
The work performed in 2002, beyond re-cutting music, which was later fixed, over cleaned all of the work that was done to hide the various generations and types of audio used to in the audio reconstruction and restoration. Not a fan.
Amen to that! Comparing the 2002 DTS LOA audio to the DTS audio for 2001:ASO, done at around the same time, reveals exactly what you are talking about. The HF in 2001 is amazingly detailed, while the bass has substance, but without sounding like 1990s gangsta rap. Listening to the music cues actually evokes the sound of hearing a 1960s Deutsche Grammophon LP played through a high end cartridge, tube amp and speakers; the 2002 LOA DTS sounds like an MP3 file heard through an iPod.
If only the audio could be remastered by someone who knows what 1960s magnetic audio is supposed to sound like and is trying to recreate that, rather than single-mindedly killing tape hiss as if (s)he was gassing termites, never mind what other parts of the signal are killed along with it.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-07-2018 11:59 AM
quote: Robert Harris
Take that 4k data and record it out to a 65mm negative (not an easy feat), and print it to 70mm stock for projection, and you have a more than adequate means of replicating the filmed experience.
It's neither as stable, nor highly resolved than projected 4k data, but it's fine. And those seeking a 70mm experience, will get one. It's not a matter of smoke and mirrors.
By what measure? Certainly not by resolution. 4K has but the resolution of .446" of film in height, IF it were to use all 2160 pixels. But, they don't , they have 1816 pixels (presuming a flat container and not a full container, as 65mm origination should receive). And .446" is not .870" (70mm projectable image height).
8K probably didn't really capture all that was on the negative, it was then squished into a 4K work space, manipulated and then output to 65/70mm.
I don't doubt that YOU could point to some metric that has this output being superior but as an overall statement, it would be pure opinion. The math isn't going to back you up, nor do I think the most units of quantitative measurement in a cinema. And the shutter? That does not come off of resolution, color...etc. It is an unfortunately artifact of film presentation in that it introduces a "flicker." I agree, I'd prefer presentations without it and prefer "3-wing" presentations to normal double-flash. But that won't sway me to 4K DCP.
Thus far, I've yet to see a DCP of a 70mm title that compared favorably to its 70mm version, including prior DCPs of LOA. It is an example, for me, of just how BAD DCPs of 70mm titles are. Naturally, I'd have to judge this latest effort on its own merits (or lack thereof). Thus far, for me, of 65mm workflows that outputted to 4K, the best I've seen has been "Samsura." It wasn't 70mm but it was damn good 4K! For classic titles, maybe Oklahoma! The image was respectable (definitely not 70mm though and there was something not right about the 30fps look as compared to the 70mm 30fps look but my time between seeing it in 70mm Todd AO and the DCP was too great to make an honest comparison). The Sound on Oklahoma! DCP as a travesty though (I did not hear it in an Atmos theatre so I have not heard it in all forms but the 5.1 and 7.1 renditions Sucked bad).
I'm not trying to convince you what you should like better (it would be futile as well as inappropriate) but I'm not buying what you are selling on 4K versus 70mm. EVERY chance I've given it has been met with disappointment. Mind you, I'm not ecstatic with most of the recent 70mm releases either. 70mm is my favorite format so the bar is VERY high for me on it. I was let down with Hateful Eight (way too much image motion, in the print) and the focus was all over the place and not representative of 70mm). Even some of the more recent dupes of LOA or 2001 have lost some of their luster, particularly around the edges of the frames.
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Bill Brandenstein
Master Film Handler
Posts: 413
From: Santa Clarita, CA
Registered: Jul 2013
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posted 01-07-2018 02:36 PM
Mr. Harris, I am grateful and honored that you would post here. Thank you for these important details and assessments. I'd love to see the 4K restoration in RGB laser, and hope someday to have the pleasure. All the best to you and thanks for the amazing work you do and have done!
Leo, I grew up on mag sound - as all of us of this age did - and that, along with my years of audio restoration and mixing experience, make me salivate at the idea of putting my hand to a new soundtrack edition. However, since nobody in Hollywood knows me nor would see the need to do this, that will remain a dream only!
quote: Steve Guttag
By what measure? Certainly not by resolution. 4K has but the resolution of .446" of film in height, IF it were to use all 2160 pixels. But, they don't , they have 1816 pixels (presuming a flat container and not a full container, as 65mm origination should receive). And .446" is not .870" (70mm projectable image height).
Maybe I'm foolish to argue with someone who's seen far more 70 than I have, but Steve, the issue isn't image size of the format but resolving power. I just don't think there's as much in the photochemical molecules as you think there is - not that I can prove it! Unfortunately we all know that real-world resolving power is often far inferior to what's possible under perfect conditions.
Perhaps indeed some trailing-off fine detail is lost in such a 4K scan as this, but it's very significant that the efficiency and clarity of what's preserved within the image "bandwidth" has made Mr. Harris believer. I mean, obviously he's seen a lot more of Lawrence than any of us.
And over the decades, I've been amazed recurringly at how much more grainy and soft 70mm has tended to look against my expectations. For example, "Far and Away" should've been cleaner, as just one example of many. "It's a Mad 4x World" at the Egyptian in 2016 was far grainier than expected. However, the c1990 prints of Ben Hur would've given 4K a run for its money if my recollection is right.
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