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Topic: Interesting 4k vs. 2k article I found.

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 04-10-2007 08:45 AM

I know they have to use and risk the original negative for some purposes like creating dailies, Mark.

However, anyone with any lick of sense would have to agree that it is very retarded to draw some favorable judgment on using 2K over 4K based on some bullshit test where the 4K scan is done with lesser quality material suffering from generational loss. They're basically saying, "we can keep using 2K as long as we scan the original negative." Again, why not scan the negative in 4K if you're going to scan it at all? Why even fuck around with 2K?
[Roll Eyes]

All of these people know full well 4K is a hell of a lot better than 2K. They know the technology has already been sufficient for years to support it through an entire digital work flow. Yet they want to still keep using pansy excuses to stick with 2K.

Frankly, a bunch of these studios are pussies for having that kind of attitude on quality. They should look back at all the real risk taking that took place 20-30 years ago when it came to special effects and compositing work. Back then you had a lot of very talented people "pushing the envelope" by attempting to do things no one had ever tried before. 4K is an already proven process. It already works. Modern rendering farms can handle it. The simple, unavoidable fact is Hollywood is just playing it safe by sticking with 2K.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-10-2007 05:26 PM

Like I said in the previous post.... you would be eating your words if you saw "Shooter" the same place I did. What I git out of the article makes sense.... Scanning at 4K makes a much higher rez copy with less ailiasing(artifacts)problem. With the ailising gone or at least very minimised from the master any prints bumped down to 2K are certainly going to look a hell of alot better even projected at 2K resolution without that visible ailising. That day I didn't see any of the typical artifacts that I am used to seeing, even title crawls looked the best I've seen. What I did see was an image that looked very close to Dailies quality.

Mark

Mark

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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

posted 04-12-2007 06:04 PM

I don't dispute that typical release prints in 35mm suck. They are soft, have excessive motion, don't seem to have the color and otherwise seem to have little care put into them.

I do find this lowering of the bar thing annoying.

Why does DCinema use film's worst (least amount of film used) format... 1.85 flat with a .446x.825" aperture can compare it to DCinema's BEST (most pixels)? Even with these unfavorable odds, the accepted resolution when Digial captures essentially all of the detail (resolution wise...not necessarily color or contrast) is at the 4K level.

However, for Scope films (if shot scope)...the tables get thrown all out of wack...Anamorphic photography increases the resolution of film (more grain density per inch), yet for DCinema, the pixel count goes DOWN...there by making 4K inferior to film, let alone 2K. Now if the film was shot in Super-35, then the difference is similar in that one reduces the height on the film but make it slightly wider...this is likewise done for Dcinema.

However, Super-35 is accepted to have less resolution than anamorphic photography and is used for other artistic reasons (no anamorphic artifacts). It isn't inherently better than shooting in scope. As others have poited out...we are not even discussing shooting in 65mm and comparing that. Never mind that we have had that capability for over 50-years...which means it should be the goal to beat (not just reach).

So sticking with just a capture medium...if film is used...4K should be a MINIMUM for all 1.85 and Super-35 photography and for anamorphic photography (or 65mm) it ain't nowhere near good enough. This is regardless of the display medium that is used...film or digital.

What is with this lowering the bar?

As for a projection medium...digital remains too expensive and too volitile for mainstream.

Steve

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 04-12-2007 06:21 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Like I said in the previous post.... you would be eating your words if you saw "Shooter" the same place I did.

I've seen what Shooter looks like in 2K. Yeah, it's decent. But it really is not much better than some Blu-Ray disc played on a HDTV. Audiences aren't going to notice the difference. That's a huge marketing problem waiting screw commercial movie theaters everywhere.

On top of that, the only way I would agree with you that 2K material is "dailies quality" is if the cinematographer screwed up and did shit work -or just originated the stuff on video.

4/35 has a hell of a lot more detail capability than what a mere 2048 X 858 pixel image can even display. And according to the article that inspired this thread, the data in those 2K images isn't even starting out as good as 2K. It's getting blown up to that! It's starting out at resolution levels below that of 1080P HDTV!
[Roll Eyes]

A scan at truly native 4K (with no bullshit 2K crap thrown into the mix to bottleneck the quality) is going to capture more image detail than 2K. That's just mathematical fact. The only way it isn't going to work very well is when the original photography is puerile shit -or something shot of freakin' video.

In digital imagery, it is always better to have more native pixels of detail in an original scan. It will absolutely always be worse to start off with a lower res image and then try to blow it up to something bigger. Just because the image resides in the "digital" realm doesn't mean one can do just whatever bullshit he wants to it without paying for it in terms of getting shit quality.

Again, Hollywood studios are being just a bunch of cheap-asses by not demanding their CGI and DI work be done natively in 4K. The computer hardware has already been there to support that standard for years. Hollywood is supposed to push the boundaries on the technology barriers. Right now they're a bunch of pussies playing 2nd fiddle to the real innovations happening in the computer gaming industry. And that's exactly the judgment they deserve until they stop screwing around with this bean counter cheapskate bullshit. I have the "world's smallest violin" playing for them when they cry about losing crucial talent to the gaming industry and other areas. Frankly, Hollywood does not deserve any of the cutting edge talent when they are just going to skate along and cost cut on old standards. The talent is going to go where the challenges are, and there really isn't any challenge in farting around with HDTV quality stuff. On top of that, the movie industry doesn't pay graphics people very well at all. You make more money designing environments and characters for computer games.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-12-2007 10:26 PM

I've been wondering about digital dailies recently.

Are they really scanned at the final DI resolution (4k or 2k)? Since that scanning seems to be expensive, and a presumably you shoot a lot of film you're not going to use, might it not make sense to scan at a lower resolution and then rescan after the EDL is produced? [And what do people do for dailies if they shoot on 5299?]

With regard to this article, I was quite puzzled by this part:

quote:

Figure 6: Comparison of 2K and 4K origination as displayed on a 2K projector (simulated). The 2K scan represents a 2K image directly projected from 2K data. The image on the far right represents a 4K image downconverted and projected at 2K. (Images courtesy of Cintel International Ltd.)

They appear to be claiming that a 4k scan from the o-neg that is downsampled to 2k will look better than a 2k scan from the same o-neg. How could that be?

--jhawk

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 04-12-2007 10:36 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
I do find this lowering of the bar thing annoying.

quote: Steve Guttag
we are not even discussing shooting in 65mm and comparing that..

Yesterday I attended a private screening in Los Angeles of a recently-shot 65mm demo which was sponsored by ARRI in an effort to raise awareness of how good images can actually be. The images I saw were among the most impressive I've ever seen!

So there are others well aware of and disappointed with this lowering of the bar. Most, however, agree that it is an uphill battle trying to convince the powers that be to raise the bar.

I'm writing up something on the event and will post again when it is completed.

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Cameron Glendinning
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 845
From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia
Registered: Dec 2005

posted 04-12-2007 10:55 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
On top of that, the only way I would agree with you that 2K material is "dailies quality" is if the cinematographer screwed up and did shit work -or just originated the stuff on video.

Having seen 35mm rushes presented of a super 35mm production that I worked on about 10 years ago in a lab's preview theatre, I cannot agree with you on this one comment. A print off the original neg is so vastly superior to a standard release print in the era before digital post that it really did surprise me.

I tend to agree with the article, It makes sense that digital post can and slowly will improve post production. The generation losses through internegs and printing stages were very noticable, by working with 4 K of the original neg it seems logical to me that this quality loss would be minimised.

The most noticeable improvements through digital post at this stage however is with low budget productions that use either super 16mm or 2 perf 35mm/ super 35 and is the removal of the optical blow up stage, this has vastly improved the end result on the 35mm release prints.

35mm films biggest advantage in my opinion is in it use on location, Film neg simply captures so much more information, not neccesary definition but exposure latitude. Negative film can capture detail far in excess of that possible to be printed on a positive 35mm print or a jpeg 2000 file. Information is captured that is in the shadows, or in the brightest highlights. This allows a great margin of error with exposure. Far more possibility with gradeing, creating a unique look and an ability to cheat. This actually saves money for a production by minimising the need for reshoots or by extending the working day into periods of failing light. The cost of film starts to look cheap compared to the wages bill of a huge crew and talent.

Personally I see video, reversal film and 2K Digital as being very similar to shoot, What you see is what you get, best results are when you under expose by at least 1/3 of a stop to preserve the highlights & minimise grain. Negative film is a totally different world.

[ 04-13-2007, 01:48 AM: Message edited by: Cameron Glendinning ]

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