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Topic: High frame rate 3D - Cameron on Cinema Con

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 04-06-2011 07:43 PM

A lot of it has to do with suspension of disbelief. It's almost as if my mind goes into a different mode when viewing 24fps than it does when viewing higher frame rates. With 24fps, I am more likely to suspend disbelief than I am at higher framerates. If it's the news or a reality show, then whatever.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 04-06-2011 08:24 PM

I think that you will find that the 24fps thing is one of imprinting since that is what you have grown up with. You associate that look with professional "movies."

The debate on resolution versus frame rate is an absurd one...they each address completely different things.

What the morons that think 4K is only for big screens or for the front rows mis is that your brain receives depth cues from the image, even in 2D. If you ever pay attention to a 2K digital image in a theatre many depth cues are wiped out because there are no pixels to represent them. As such, the image is hyper-flat but also appears to be hyper-sharp. With 4K you should start to get the film-look back. I'm wondering if some will think 4K is less sharp than 2K because it will more faithfully represent what was seen through the lens.

Frame rate improves (lessens) motion artifacts. 24fps is definitely too slow. Anyone that has shown 30fps Todd Ao knows that it does improve the fluidity of the motion WITHOUT giving it that plasticy "Video" look. Furthermore, ShowScan at 60fps (again in 70mm) also did not have a video look to it. What changed (for me) was that the grain disappeared and the depth was deepened. It was the closest I've seen to 3D...without the need for stupid glasses.

-Steve

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-06-2011 10:51 PM

I don't buy the whole 24fps looks like film thing. There is a LOT more to creating the "film look" than merely making the camera shoot 24fps.

I can shoot 1080p/24 footage with my EOS 5D Mark II. I'm sorry, but the footage still looks a lot like video to me. I guess if I did a whole bunch of color grading work then it might look more like film.

Another hole to shoot through the 24fps makes stuff look like film: TV shows.

I don't watch a lot of broadcast network TV anymore since so much of it is that "unscripted reality TV" bullshit. Anyway, a lot of TV series ranging from Seinfeld to Kojak were shot on film, photographed at 30fps and broadcast at 30fps. I have ALWAYS been able to tell the difference between TV shows shot on film from those shot on video. I absolutely HATED the ones shot on video because in my earliest childhood memories I associated the video look with daytime soap operas and the news. The cool TV shows were shot on film. And the Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote cartoons I loved so much were recorded onto film frame by frame.

Film has a certain color gamma to it totally unlike video. The physical CMY film strip is based on a subtractive color model -something totally alien to video's additive RGB color model. Shining light through that strip makes the projected color on that film strip a lot more brilliant than it would otherwise be if reproduced on a "reflective" print piece, but it's still not the same as the gamma from a purely additive color model. Video cameras have only so many steps from white to black in each RGB color channel, and I think that lends itself to the pasty, harsh look video can have. Sony is marketing some new 4K camera that can apparently record in 16:8:8 bit depth. I guess someone will need to contact Lawrence Livermore Laboratories to borrow time on the computer powerful enough to handle that bit stream in uncompressed form.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 04-07-2011 02:16 AM

I don't know who you are responding to, Bobby, I hope it wasn't me because if you are...re-read my post...I never said that 24fps = the film look. I did say that the 24fps was part of the professional "movie look" and made no reference to the grain, color...etc that you just went on about. 24fps does have a look of its own because it does introduce motion artifacts. Just about the only place you get 24fps, historically, is with professional movies.

-Steve

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-07-2011 02:57 PM

Paul,

It would obvuiously take a double stack to pull it off but I bet the other pair were there for back up or they were running the normal frame rate 3-Dee that he was comparing it to. The Christie techs typically have a full back up at any major event screening they do.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-07-2011 03:12 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
I don't know who you are responding to, Bobby, I hope it wasn't me because if you are...re-read my post...I never said that 24fps = the film look.

It was just a general rant, sorry if sounded like I was getting on to you specifically. There is a whole lot of "24fps equals the film look" garbage being posted in various movie related forums in response to Cameron's request for movies to run at higher frame rates.

Some people are trying to suggest that film will look like video if run at 30fps, 48fps or 60fps when the truth is film actually still looks like film (at least it does to me) even at high frame rates. The 24fps induced judder may be gone, but the very characteristic color gamma of film remains.

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Marco Giustini
Film God

Posts: 2713
From: Reading, UK
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 04-07-2011 04:04 PM

quote: Anders Nordentoft-Madsen
As I understand it, there would be no need to double or triple-flash at 60 fps, so actually the DMD should only be able to do 120 fps...

That makes sense. The triple flash is made because the present framerate is very low. They will need to maintain a high flash-rate, about the existing 144fps, but if the framerate increases, so does the flash-rate as a consequence, reducing the need of reflasing the same frame.

Cool, haven't thought of that!

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 04-07-2011 04:27 PM

Bobby,

Film is dead. It's no longer part of the argument.

--Joe

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 04-07-2011 05:17 PM

quote: Greg Anderson
Do you have a lot of movie stars standing outside your window waiting to see you open the curtains so they can act for you?

@Greg: Even if they'd act for me there, it wouldn't be a movie experience. Just some actors acting outside.

quote: Greg Anderson

Again, what's the point of a high-quality picture if you're insisting on some arbitrary (24fps?) standard to put a cap on how crystal-clear it is?

You mean, 100 years of cinema including IMAX and 70mm were only good for inferior-quality picture?

You can serach the forum or the whole internet for any references to 24fps delivering inferior image quality if you like ;-) You may find some Cameron quotes, though.

quote: Paul Mayer
For this particular setup at the Caesars Palace Colosseum, we were on a 70' silver MDI screen with a throw of 118'. The 3D was via RealD's XLW (XL Widescreen) optics.

Paul, did you get a closer view of the RealD XLW system? Is it any special compared to a standard XL?

- Carsten

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 04-07-2011 06:05 PM

As far as I know, XLW just has bigger glass than XL, so it can be used for really big screens or for short and wide throws.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-08-2011 01:59 PM

quote: Joe Redifer
Film is dead. It's no longer part of the argument.

Then video should stop trying to look like film. It should retain its native video look (the image quality would actually be better). And certain people should not use the term "film" as a verb when describing their actions of shooting footage with a video camera.

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Victor Liorentas
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 800
From: london ontario canada
Registered: May 2009

posted 04-08-2011 09:30 PM

Yeah Bobby!
I hate when the word film is used even if no film was used!
Or record when only compact disc or digital files exist!

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 04-08-2011 11:35 PM

Record as a verb is fine (because you are making a recording). Film as a verb is not.

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Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 04-09-2011 12:01 AM

Just please never use "lens" as a verb to mean "shoot a movie."

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Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 04-10-2011 09:59 AM

There has been work done which suggests that the human visual system is more relaxed when watching images that the brain "knows" are not realistic (such as images projected from film; and at speeds such as 24fps).

The thinking is that as frame rates are increased, and particularly if images are projected via digital video (no grain, no slight jump and weave) the brain actually becomes less comfortable because the images become more and more "real".

The visual system as it has evolved is attuned to be on the alert for potential threats - thousands of years ago it would have been a predator waiting in the grass; today it may be an oncoming vehicle.

Sitting in the dark in a cinema (but for the reflected light from the screen) could be looked upon as a "threatening" environment on a primitive level, with the viewer needing "reassurance" - i.e. relaxation of the visual system.

This relaxation is further believed to be aided by the shutter interruptions inherent to film projection, as the brain has less image "processing" to do.

An important paper on the response of the visual system to projected film and video images, entitled The Film Look: Can it Really be Defined?, was published in Image Technology (Journal of the BKSTS) in the January / February 2005 and April 2005 issues respectively, and is well worth obtaining.

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