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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: A New Low in Presentation Standards
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 12-31-2016 06:22 AM
quote: Adam Martin
La La Land is 2.55 inside of a scope container
Why?
We are Screening La La Land in early March. Anything wider than 2.39 is a real pain to do. With digital side masking moves for anything between 1.33 and 1.85, but top has to come down for 2.39. It cannot come down any further. On Thursday we had Carmen Jones as part of the BFI 'Blackstar' season, which was 2.55 of course, and a few months ago we had a similar problem, but to a greater extent, with The Hateful Eight.
We had to shift the lens up, and for The Hateful Eight tilt the projector as well, the bring the picture up to the top masking, and then rig up some temporary bottom masking higher than normal using spring curtain wire stretched across the screen frame and supported at three points across its width on thin strips of wood hidden behind the cloth.
It looked good, but takes two people about half an hour to set up, has to be removed before the next show, and prevents us showing any trailers while it is in place.
Is La La Land really letterboxed to 2.55? If it is then we're going to have to do this again. We cannot show the picture letterboxed within a screen masked to 2.39 s we have some horizontal keystoning, which we are trying to do something about, and it would look terrible.
Café Society at 2.0:1 also caused us problems, in this case we had to tilt the projector down, not enough lens movement, to meet the normal bottom masking. At least in this case the top masking could be brought down far enough.
Don't we have enough different aspect ratios as it is without reviving odd ones which haven't been used for decades?
We're seeing increased use of other ratios for new films as well. About three 1t 1.66 in the last year or so, two at 1.33 or 1.375, and quite a lot of low-budget stuff shot on HD video at 1.78.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-31-2016 12:05 PM
quote: Stephen Furley
Don't we have enough different aspect ratios as it is without reviving odd ones which haven't been used for decades?
I projected for a seminar that Scorsese gave a few weeks ago, which immediately followed a screening of New York, New York. Someone asked him how he went about achieving a 1940s look in the 1970s, to which he replied that his first decision was to shoot in 1.37, which was vetoed by the producer on the grounds that almost no theaters would be able to play it properly, it would end up being shown in 1.85 in most places, and would only ever look even close to right on TV. In the end, he framed it with the intention of it being played in 1.66 (which was how I projected it), but with enough headroom that 1.85 would be just about acceptable.
Scorsese then commented that one of the few good things about digital cinema is that filmmakers can now pretty much choose any aspect ratio they like, without having to worry about the image being cropped in theatrical projection. He could also have added that it also enables DCP re-releases of titles produced in more unusual ratios to be presented in the correct shape (e.g. 1.66, 2.20 and 2.55), too.
The problem is, as you and others point out, that in a house with common width masking, this can only be done at the expense of image size if you want to go significantly wider or taller than 1.85; and at the extremes (1.19 Movietone or 2.79 UP-70), you're left with a tiny image.
I played that Carmen Jones DCP at AFI last month. The DCP transfer is really merciless to the shortcomings of very early CinemaScope: grainy as hell and even medium close-ups have the mumps really badly.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-31-2016 01:15 PM
Far too many people have a romanticized image of digital technology. They believe it is infinitely precise, infinitely flexible and can do virtually anything. The truth is the technology can be very coarse and has its own numerical-based limitations.
For instance, look how terrible SD-resolution digital imagery looks when blown up (and cropped) to HD. I watched a lot of that in recent days with video retrospectives on the news about dead celebrities like Carrie Fisher and George Michael. 80's music videos can look pretty bad when you zoom away the black pillars to fill a HDTV screen. It would not have looked nearly so terrible if the elements they were blowing up were film, not SD video.
Film has its own limitations, but its "organic" nature makes the imagery more flexible.
I don't think the people who drafted current d-cinema standards were thinking clearly about all the best possible choices. They certainly were not considering the situation from a theater's perspective, or even what best to do within the limits of optical technology.
If it were up to me, d-cinema projectors would not have these rectangular shaped imaging chips in them. The 1.9:1 ratio chips seem to require much bigger and more expensive lenses than 35mm film projectors, like those giant Konica-Minolta lenses on the 2K Christie projectors at our old Carmike theater. Optics are circular. It's more efficient to fit a square inside a circle than a rectangle inside a circle. Lenses do not come with oval shaped light paths. It would have been better to use a roughly square imaging chip and project the image through a 2:1 ratio anamorphic lens. A square 4K resolution imaging chip would pack a hell of a lot more pixels than current chip designs yet not need such a huge, expensive lens. True anamorphic content would probably look far better than "scope" does in theaters now.
Unfortunately the standards folks said "no" to anamorphics. And then there is this problem of productions going on the cheap, doing everything in "2K," really 858p "scope." Add to that all the common-width movie screens. Take away the masking. Make it look just like the TV set at home. The ultra-wide aspect ratio imagery that was supposed to be BIGGER than anything else ends up looking smaller and less detailed.
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Tyler Purcell
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 180
From: Van Nuys, CA
Registered: Dec 2015
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posted 12-31-2016 03:41 PM
I've actually made content that was shown in theaters and on our color grading monitors and scopes we would see all sorts of issues with noise. Yet when presented in a standard issue movie theater via DCP ALL of those issues were invisible. It was like someone applied a softening filter to everything. It was quite eye opening to the level of image manipulation modern digital cinema projectors achieve.
The standards for digital cinema projection were setup in the 90's and they were all based around a REC709 color space and 2k imagers. It's been 20 years since the first digital cinema projectors were installed for Toy Story and nothing has changed. We're still distributing films using the same REC709 color space in 2k. It really doesn't matter that SOME theaters have 4k projectors, it's nearly impossible to find that content. In fact, I'm still to this day shocked they don't advertise actual 4k releases because they look so much better.
If cinema's as we know them today stick around, what will happen is that studio's will force theater owners to adopt HDR laser projection systems in order to get a certain title, maybe Avatar 2 or something like that. So theaters will have spend gob of money upgrading so they can get that movie first run. That will set off the first "standards" change since digital cinema started. but as of today, those poor theaters that invested in Laser HDR are being screwed thanks in part to the reluctance of the format catching on. There is NO reason why every movie can't be slightly modified for HDR playback. They spend millions converting movies from 2D to 3D, the HRD conversion is a few hours worth of work, yet they don't do it. Theaters I think will loose their shirts with the HDR Laser upgrades, it's vastly more expensive then standard 2k digital cinema projectors. So if they're forced to make that kind of an upgrade, I fret many simply won't get those titles, what ever they may be.
If I were a studio head, I would ban 2k from even existing! All of the digital cinema cameras shoot close to 4k (The alexa XT being 3.2k). So there is no excuse for filmmakers NOT using a 4k workflow. Even on the little feature I just finished at home, we could have easily finished in 4k, but the studio didn't even want a 4k version. They wanted 1920x1080, they wouldn't even accept our 1.85:1 2k finish! So our movie now has black bars at the top and bottom and won't ever be played back in real 2k. Ohh and this is SONY's specs ladies and gentlemen. You know, the company that pushes for high-resolution technology? Their flagship camera the F65 shoots 8k, yet ALL of the movies shot with it, have been released in 2k. WHAT?!?!?!
Meanwhile in Japan and even China, cinema's have been 4k for decades and ALL of their content is 4k. They adopted digital cinema MUCH later then we did, but when they did the roll out, 4k was already the standard. So they pushed out the film projectors fast and ramped up 4k digital cinema. The Japanese and Chinese studio's all pushed for 4k acquisition at all cost, even if the cameras looked like crap color wise, it was always about resolution for them. Heck, I've heard that there is a real 8k projection solution in Japan that's been adopted by theaters who no longer want to pay for IMAX licensing. They're actually shooting and distributing in 8k and honestly, from what I've been reading, its not been a problem. So if they can do 8k... why the heck are we doing 2k? The main excuse is the hard drives are too costly... really? That's such a lame excuse, it doesn't even compute.
Finally.. 4 perf 35mm camera negative resolves around 5k. So if you shoot anamorphic 35mm, you're dealing with an image that's pretty close to 4k. Once you make an IP, IN and release print, that resolution drops substantially. Final 35mm release prints are around 800 horizontal lines worth of resolution. So they're pretty darn close to 2 DCP, yet they're 4th generation! A 5k digital scan of 35mm negative, digital color correction and a 4k laser out, resolves MUCH higher resolution then the classic photochemical finish. Then there are larger formats like 5/70 which look fantastic when high-resolution images are scanned onto it. A great example would be the 5/70 print of 'Interstellar' and 'Batman v Superman', both finished in 4k. So if the old 50's workflow is no less quality then our "modern" digital workflow, then why the F are we mucking around with it?!!?! Goes to show, it's all about pencil pushers in the long run.
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Daniel Schulz
Master Film Handler
Posts: 387
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 12-31-2016 07:38 PM
quote: Tyler Purcell
The standards for digital cinema projection were setup in the 90's and they were all based around a REC709 color space and 2k imagers. It's been 20 years since the first digital cinema projectors were installed for Toy Story and nothing has changed. We're still distributing films using the same REC709 color space in 2k. It really doesn't matter that SOME theaters have 4k projectors, it's nearly impossible to find that content. In fact, I'm still to this day shocked they don't advertise actual 4k releases because they look so much better.
DCI color space is P3, with substantially more of the visible color spectrum covered than Rec 709.
As to resolution - although I would definitely be all on board with moving all of D-Cinema to 4K, I don't see 2K digital projection as a giant stumbling block. I see quality differences in motion picture imaging that are much more related to the choice of camera used in image acquisition, talent of the DP, and talent in color grading, irrespective of whether the final product is 2K or 4K; I'd rather see good 2K than mediocre 4K, at the typical screen size and viewing distance for cinema. And I'd much rather see HDR 2K than SDR 4K.
As noted above, the real limiting factor with 4K DCPs isn't the principal photography, it's rendering time and cost for the VFX. I think Moore's Law, coupled with the evolution of home video via UHD Blu-ray and the streaming 4K services, will push motion picture production into 4K pipelines.
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Bill Brandenstein
Master Film Handler
Posts: 413
From: Santa Clarita, CA
Registered: Jul 2013
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posted 12-31-2016 08:02 PM
Tyler, Interstellar 5/70 was purely photochemical on any shots permitting it.
And I agree that it's pencil pushers to blame. That, and the movie-going public is ignorant of what they're seeing and hearing.
Now, if you will, let me redirect this excellent discussion back on-topic. I went. To Universal AMC. With my family. It was great.
So we celebrated New Year's Eve by going to Rogue One in Imax 15/70 and Sing in 2D. You can see my detailed presentation comments for each title on the review threads: Sing, and Rogue One.
I'm not dismissing the concerns voiced above and on Yelp; expensive cocktails in a plastic cup that can't leave the bar area, $10 popcorn buckets, confusing queues, and shoddy projector installations are real issues here. But please remember that the Santa Clarita community is a city of 200K serviced exclusively by 2 lackluster Edwards' cineplexes. They're not awful; but don't go expecting the presentation to thrill you.
This did. Imax on film rocks, but you knew that. More importantly, I stuck my head into about 8 other screens and saw brillant, colorful laser images on all of them, including the largest ones, and immersive sound speakers all over the place, including subwoofers in the middle of the side walls. So while I don't think this necessarily qualifies as Dolby Cinema, it is SO VERY MUCH BETTER than average, even your best and brightest DLP, what is the point of quibbling when the Dolby Cinema houses are so few and far between?
Let me address Daniels's very reasonable complaint. It appears that screens 1 and 14 (the massive, balcony-equipped ones at the front left and right of the complex) have incorrect lenses. The screens are very large, the throw is modest, and the picture indeed doesn't quite fill the edges. That's just stupid. The ads are shown full-screen, then masking drops and the Rogue One scope image uses the bottom portion, meaning that the bottom corners "smile." But at least the masking is there and adjusts.
As for all the others, the alignment and edge-to-edge brightness was fine, with the exception of screen 13 where we viewed "Sing." As I noted on the "Sing" review thread, it was a dual-head projector with a portion that was slightly out-of-focus, and the very bottom left edge was half brightness because the projector wasn't entirely high enough to clear the port window.
So installation was sloppy. This is still so far ahead of what I typically see at the movies that it's hard for me to get too worked up about it.
However, to be fair Daniel, I'd love to know where you consistently enjoy going for movies. Arclight? Do you really think Arclight's images look as good as AMC Universal's lasers?
Sherman Oaks, Burbank, and Universal City are all 25-30 miles from home, and today was a rare day to pry my family out of our home valley to see this show. In fact, it's been (regrettably) a whole year since the last time.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-31-2016 08:33 PM
quote: Daniel Schulz
As noted above, the real limiting factor with 4K DCPs isn't the principal photography, it's rendering time and cost for the VFX. I think Moore's Law, coupled with the evolution of home video via UHD Blu-ray and the streaming 4K services, will push motion picture production into 4K pipelines.
Native 4K (and higher) resolution content faces serious uphill battles.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray format is walking on proverbial thin ice. The format itself, despite technical superiority to regular Blu-ray, is up to this point a sad joke. Very few titles on UHD BD are true 4K. Most are fake 4K, blow-ups from 2K sources.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray format, like all physical optical disc retail products (software, music, movies), depends largely on brick and mortar retail channels for sales. All of the specialty music/movies stores are dying. Video rental stores are nearly extinct. Retailers like Walmart and Target are their last hope. Online merchants like Amazon sell lots of music and movie discs (sales tax free of course), but Amazon has a big and growing business in streaming movies and music. The movie studios themselves have been reducing their movie disc releases to mere bare bones products. If the movie does have ample extras the studios divide up extras between Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon specific products. And then the studios give preferential treatment to their own "HD Digital" download products, offering them up for sale 2 to 4 weeks earlier than when the Blu-ray version hits retail shelves.
4K streaming might take off, but only when really fast Internet connections become widely available. Currently only a small minority of Americans can stream true 4K content without it dumping to 1080p or 720p. Of those who can stream 4K content, how many will bother paying extra to do so? If I recall correctly Netflix has an upper tier subscription costing a few bucks extra per month to unlock 4K.
And then there's the studio bean counters. Moore's Law is definitely working in terms of advancements in GPU technology. nVidia stock has been one hell of a great investment in recent years. Their GPUs are being used in pioneering artificial intelligence. Still, the bean counters see that "4K takes 4 times the amount of rendering time" equation. It doesn't matter if the render time is being brought down to faster and faster times. 2K will still always remain 4 times faster and more profitable.
Even those 4K UHDTV sets have pushed 2K sets aside in electronics stores, they're probably going to be stuck playing 4K content from consumer GoPro cameras, smart phones and computer displays.
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Tyler Purcell
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 180
From: Van Nuys, CA
Registered: Dec 2015
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posted 12-31-2016 10:17 PM
Most people still color in Rec709 because it meets all deliverable criteria. Thus, they don't need to do any conversion of color space which may upset the over-all look of the image. Studio's don't require P3 deliverable, they take 12 bit 444 REC709 2k files and make DCP's out of them for projection.
In terms of 4k being a limitation for rendering, that's hogwash. I work for a few VFX houses, supporting their server infrastructure and client workstations when I'm not out making movies. They do everything in 4k and the difference in render time is negligible because they only render final approved outputs in 4k, everything else is 1080p. So the time it takes to render out 250 special effects shots in 4k vs 2k is what, maybe 3 extra days tagged onto post? Disney/Pixar have been rendering their all CG movies in 4k for over a decade. Yes they have one of the best render farms on the planet, but you never hear them complain about 2k vs 4k rendering.
On those same lines, most movies don't have big VFX shots, so they have no excuse.
I render 2k and 4k out of DaVinci on a daily basis, 2k will render at slightly above real-time and 4k will render slightly below real-time. We're not talking about minutes per frame, this isn't the 90's. So if DaVinci has no problem conforming 4k on my nearly 10 year old workstation, then movies without heavy visual effects shots, have no excuse.
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![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Passing off "black everything" as an advantage when it's really just a cash saving tactic. I hate all-black auditoriums; they're depressing. I'm sure the thinking is "who cares what color it is when the lights go down?"
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