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Author Topic: Resolution equivalent for 35mm John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-02-2006 07:49 AM                        quote: Larry Myers As you can see, really not all that far off from a very good DVD. Well, I've seen "very good DVDs" projected on a big screen, and typical 35mm release prints projected on the same screen, and the film easily wins that contest. There was pretty clear industry consensus that the original 1280 x 1024 pixel Digital Cinema System introduced seven years ago did not have sufficient resolution to support viewing distances as close as a 35mm print. There's a reason that Digital Cinema had to move up to 2K and even 4K resolution. So to say a "very good DVD" can match a 35mm print is ludicrous.  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-02-2006 08:53 AM                     These threads remind me of the old proverb, "Some people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination". If the "numbers" don't match what we are seeing, then the numbers are not giving us a meaningful scale to measure by. In that case, we need to re-evaluate how these numbers are obtained and what numbers are really meaningful. Also, resolution is only one component of what make a good picture. There is also grey scale and color depth, which I don't see anyone talking about.  |  IP: Logged Josh Jones Redhat Posts: 1207 From: Plano, TX Registered: Apr 2000 posted 05-02-2006 09:13 AM                        here here  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-02-2006 11:45 AM                 Projecting a DVD on a large screen is not what I had in mind. From my point of view, which I think I share with many other photo engineers working on Digital. Viewing something 80 ft wide at 80 ft is exactly the same as viewing something 8 feet wide at 8 ft and is the same as viewing something .8 feet or 9.6 inches wide at 9.6 inches. This is all with 10 inches being the standard view distance from a printed page at 8 lp/mm. Thus the DVD comment.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-02-2006 12:13 PM                        Whether you are looking at the image forty feet from a 20 x 37 foot screen, or 40 inches from a 20 x 37 inch monitor, the SD DVD has less resolution than a 35mm release print or a 2K digital cinema image. Maybe it's time to get new glasses for your far-vision.  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-02-2006 01:23 PM                 All the eye needs is 8 lp/mm. Actually the range is from about 6 to 12. Anything more and it's thrown away. Now all that is needed is to work out the math. If you don't like the math, another way to see this is to get close up to a billboard. If you do, you will notice how fuzzy these billboards can be. Yet they look sharp from the highway. That is because the reduction ratio of 1000 ft vs 1 foot increases viewed resolution from less then .01 lp/mm to 10 lp/mm. That why theaters are getting their asses kicked. It's viewing a high quality DVD's on a 3 foot wide HDTV using progressive scan anamorphic. The results look damn good at 3 feet away. Plus you get 5.1 sound to boot.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-02-2006 02:33 PM                        The issue with DVDs isn't just resolution, but also compression artifacts. For some reason, this seems to be less of a problem with newer disks, but I defy anyone to sit through an entire movie on DVD without seeing objectionable MPEG artifacts. Also, see the post above about color space, contrast ratio, etc. Anyway, there are basically three reasons why people go to movie theatres: to see material that is otherwise unavailable, to see film projected with better picture and sound quality than is available elsewhere, and for the social experience of seeing the films with a large group. Theatres aren't just suffering due to poor presentation quality, but also because there haven't been many good movies released lately (which results in less desire to see the titles which actually get released) and because the social experience has been steadily declining due to cell phones, rude patrons, rude theatre staff, etc.  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-02-2006 02:53 PM                 Again don't get me wrong. I also like film. Yes, I can see resolution differences between film and a DVD. My point is most people can't. What differences do I notice? Lets take Moulin Rouge. The Kodak Vision stock film looks great. Very sharp. On one long stage shot you can see a guy with a flute wondering around like he doesn't know where he is going. You can clearly see the flute and as you look at him you ask yourself where is he going as he heads off stage. On the DVD you don't see him at all much less the flute. But then again, on a 8 foot wide screen he is only 2 inches tall. On the other hand, in close-ups, the actors skin tones and highlights look every bit as good in both the DVD and film. With film it's on a 8 foot screen viewed at 8 feet away and the DVD is on a 3 foot HDTV viewed at 3 feet. Maybe it's my old eyes but both are damn close. [ 05-02-2006, 04:17 PM: Message edited by: Larry Myers ]  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-02-2006 03:29 PM                     quote: Dan Chilton Am I way off on these assumptions? definitely off a little. Most digital film releases comes on a HDD where the files are actual raw uncompressed video data...of 300 to 700 Gb's. These are then loaded in on the main server's HDD's for playback to the assigned projection unit servers that has an address per each unit's server.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 05-02-2006 03:30 PM                        quote: Scott Norwood I defy anyone to sit through an entire movie on DVD without seeing objectionable MPEG artifacts I almost never notice any MPEG compression artifacts on DVDs. Not saying they're not there, just that I don't notice them. Edge & detail enhancement are a different issue but I don't think they're related to compression. I definitely DO notice compression artifacts on HDTV though. NBC seems to be the worst, at least judging from what the Eugene NBC affiliate is sending out.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-02-2006 04:17 PM                     course, we have to realize that DVD's uses the MPEG2 compression - which has a larger filesize rate due to the increased resolution than the more common MPEG which can only hold much smaller resolutions, yet also yields smaller filesizes. Satellite TV services uses the MPEG2 format for transmissions of video signals.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-02-2006 05:44 PM                     I still say Larry is trolling. He keeps repeating the same crappy half-truths, spun numbers and all sorts of oddities. HE IS NOT LISTENING TO ANYBODY, no matter how hard anyone tries to reason with him. You can clearly refute what he says, and he'll come right back and repeat the same garbage a few pages later. Like I said:  |  IP: Logged Dan Chilton Expert Film Handler Posts: 191 From: Springfield, MO Registered: Mar 2004 posted 05-02-2006 05:46 PM                        quote: Monte L Fullmer Most digital film releases comes on a HDD where the files are actual raw uncompressed video data...of 300 to 700 Gb's. So are these digital films then shown on a 2K projector?  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-02-2006 09:10 PM                 Well then all you have to do is fill in the blanks. Typical resolution of sunlight______ Typical resolution of a bees wax candlelight_____ Typical resolution of a good lens at f-4______ Typical resolution if a slow speed camera negative______ Typical resolution of a dup neg_________ Typical resolution of a good quality high speed print_____ Typical resolution of a low quality high speed print____ Typical resolution of the eye_____ Typical resolution of a slightly out of focus image_______ Typical resolution of a fuzzy image______ All you got to do is fill in with the CORRECT answer. Oh, I know, all these values really don't exist so why worry about it.  |  IP: Logged Aaron Haney Master Film Handler Posts: 265 From: Cupertino, CA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 05-02-2006 11:24 PM                     A few quick facts: Resolution of the eye: Forget lp/mm, let's make it easy and take distance out of the equation. One can simply measure the resolution of an image sensor (such as the eye) in terms of the angle subtended by the smallest detectable detail. In these terms, most sources will give you a figure of 1 arcminute for the human eye. For a 2.39:1 movie at the standard SMTPE recommended viewing distance of 2 screen heights, the screen will cover just over 60 degrees of the field of vision (the math behind this is an exercise for the reader). Given that figure, one can clearly see the need for at least 3600 pixels across the width of the image for it to appear totally smooth. Quite a bit more than DVD or even HD-DVD. Resolution of film: As demonstrated above, viewers need more than 2K. 4K will meet the requirements, with a little extra headroom. EFilm has a page talking about 4K digital intermediates which also discusses the size of the data: http://efilm.com/spotlights_detail.php?id=27 They give it 50MB per frame, which works out to between 8 and 9 terabytes for a typical 2 hour movie. Remember that it's more than just 1 or even 3 bytes per pixel, since feature film formats such as Cineon or OpenEXR encode more than 8 bits per color channel. We're talking at least 4 bytes per pixel, sometimes more. Footnote: I left out an important detail about the resolution of the eye. Can anyone guess what it is?  |  IP: Logged

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