Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Comparing resolutions of different formats

This is topic Comparing resolutions of different formats in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 07-30-2001, 01:59 PM:

Is there a chart, or description somewhere showing all formats (70mm, 35mm, 16mm, DLP, VHS, Beta, etc.) and what quality it offers using a standard scale or description (like pixels)?

I was talking with a friend, and he asked if the best 8mm was better than the best DVD. I thought it would be nice to have a list, in order of quality, of all the formats, starting with what the human eye is capable of seeing.

I suspect that like many things, it may take more than one parameter to accurately convey quality, but for simple use it'd be handy to know. Thanks!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-30-2001, 02:11 PM:

Here is a link to the Kodak Cineon scanner and recorder film format specifications:
http://www.cinesite.com/CineonTech/resoultions/ResChart.html

For a 35mm full frame image scanned at 4K resolution (4096 x 3112 pixels), there are over 12 million pixels. A 35mm VistaVision frame can be scanned at 4096 x 6144 pixels, or over 24 million pixels.

For consumer photography, the high-end digital still cameras are still only 3 megapixels.

Commercially available large screen digital projectors are typically only 1280 x 1024 pixels.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 07-30-2001, 04:09 PM:

In the back of The Art and Science of Digital Compositing, by Ron Brinkman (1999, Morgan Kaufmann) there is a table of image areas on film in different formats in relation to each other. There is also a table showing typical scanning resolutions. Full resolution full aperture (silent) 35mm is 4096 by 3112, according to the table. So, just take the aperture dimension for full aperture (which is 0.980 inch, according to the book, and that's probably camera aperture). So, that's 4179.6 pixels per inch. Using that information, you can take any aperture dimensions and multiply the inch figures by 4196.6 and you'll get the pixel resolution. Of course, that is only meaningful if 4096 is indeed the resolution of full aperture width on 35mm. That's simply a scanning resolution, which may or may not be the actual resolution of the film, but at least it's a number to work from.

So, using Scott Norwood's rec.arts.movies.tech FAQ, it is stated that 8mm aperture is 0.192 by 0.145 inch and Super 8mm is 0.224 by 0.163 mm, which gives scanning resolutions of

8mm: 806 x 609
Super 8mm: 940 x 684

These resolution figures do look much better than video resolution (DVD 720 x 480), but I'd be very suspicious, since all 8mm I've ever seen has looked very grainy when transsferred to video. Amount of film grain noise is not taken into account here.
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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site