Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The next generation of digital

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-12-2002, 02:32 PM:

This from the starwars.com website:

quote:

The Next Generation of Digital
June 10, 2002
For Star Wars prequel producer, Rick McCallum, the rest after the release of Attack of the Clones is a short one. Later this week, McCallum will be leaving for Japan to help promote that country's Episode II's release on July 13. "I can't wait to get there because there's a huge anticipation for the film," smiles McCallum. "They have about nine digital theaters, which I'm really excited about. When we went to the last fan convention in Tokyo, it was just as intense and insane as Celebration II in Indianapolis. The costumes were great and the people were very vocal about their excitement. You may think of Japanese as restrained, but they're not when in comes to Star Wars."
However, McCallum's work in Japan isn't stopping with promotion. The Producer, along with High Definition Supervisor Fred Meyers, expects to meet with both Sony and Fuji to talk about the next generation of digital cameras and lenses that may be used for Episode III.
"The Sony 24p camera that we used for Clones had a resolution of 2.2 million pixels," explains McCallum, "but Sony is developing and working on a 10 million pixel camera. We're really hoping they'll get that together in time for us, even if it's just a prototype."
"Plus, there's a whole new generation of lenses that's competing with the Panavision lenses. Isis is coming out with them, Fuji has a third generation and Canon is coming out with some interesting product. We're excited about the competition and what's going in the marketplace. With these new cameras and lenses, we're going to get a new heightened level of reality that film cannot capture."
The added detail captured with the new equipment will bring the greatest benefit to audiences watching movies projected digitally. "Even the current generation of digital projectors can interpolate anything that's given to them," says McCallum. "When we first started we had a Mark 4 Texas Instruments projector... now they're already on the Mark 8."
"For the first time, the movie industry is in the same world as the computer business. Every 18 months we're getting twice the value at half the cost."
McCallum speaks with great enthusiasm of the interest in digital projection from theater owners, studios and filmmakers that has surrounded the Episode II release. "We had a digital summit here on the Ranch with some major filmmakers who are interested in the technology -- including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, and Robert Rodriquez. We talked a lot about the best ways for the audience to see the movie you spend so much time and money on."
McCallum is aware of at least 20 major motion pictures this year who have committed to delivering digital versions. "That's what we need. These are going to be small incremental steps. It's an educational process. There's a lot of fear out there, a lot of politics and we have to deal with each issue as it comes up. There are standards issues and the main issue of who's going to pay for all this. It's not happening as fast as we wanted, but it's starting to happen and that's a really good feeling."

Ok fine, so by the time Episode 3 comes out the video technology will be 5 times over what it was for Episode 2. So why couldn't George shoot Episode 2 on film like he should have and waited for this technology to catch up to the quality of film and then shoot Episode 3 on video??? As it is, George will go down in the record books as having the lowest quality major motion picture shot in this century hands down.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-12-2002, 04:07 PM:

Think of Ep2 as Digital Cinema v1.0. Version 1.0 of any product is always compromised and to be avoided.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-12-2002, 04:59 PM:

Version 1.0 of Final Cut Pro was pretty damn good and kicked much ass.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-12-2002, 05:29 PM:

As far as the "lowest quality image" honor goes, I think Steven Soderbergh wins that one with his latest "film" (not) shot using Canon XL-1s MiniDV pro-sumer camcorders. The XL-1s is a decent camera, but it is only appropriate for industrial-video applications and areas where near-broadcast NTSC quality suffices. It is certainly not a replacement for 35mm or even 16mm film. Not by a long shot.

Rick McCallum's comment "For the first time, the movie industry is in the same world as the computer business; every 18 months we're getting twice the value at half the cost" is very very odd. If I was one of the fanboys of "digital projection" this is a comment I would never say out loud to anyone. Movie theater operators do not ever --i mean ever-- want to hear about having to replace or upgrade film projectors. They want to buy it once and leave it alone. Only film projection with its century old proven standard delivers such a guarantee on hardware. Nothing digital lasts.

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 06-12-2002, 06:00 PM:

"Even the current generation of digital projectors can interpolate anything that's given to them," says McCallum.

GIGO

------------------
Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 06-12-2002, 06:13 PM:

I was threading a movie and Greg beat me to it!

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 06-12-2002, 06:29 PM:

10 million pixels is still less than what you would get if you shot 35mm and scanned at 4K resolution.

Bobby: agreed. Today's trend of shooting movies in miniDV format will likely one day be remembered as a low point in the history of filmmaking.

Posted by Mark Lucas (Member # 791) on 06-12-2002, 06:33 PM:

Great news. It's getting better.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-12-2002, 06:42 PM:

The scary thing about the whole DV movement is that 1" C-type (a comparatively ancient video format) still looks a hell of a lot better than the newer "digital" format, yet many people seem to be making a big deal about how great DV looks. I mean, it's a very nice home format, but it's _not_ appropriate for the big screen or even for ordinary TV broadcast, despite the fact that some TV stations are dumping Betacam in favor of DV for at least some of their news programming. (But depressing trends in the TV industry are off-topic in Film-Tech, of course.)

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-12-2002, 07:00 PM:

Actually the Canon XL1 exceeds what I have seen from broadcast video... by far. All too often on the major networks I will see HUGE blocky chunks especially in anything red. And with digital cable becoming the norm it gets even worse. If DV originated footage was broadcast in analog I think it would look great. But with the major recompression the stations are doing pretty much everything looks like crap no matter the source.

The XL1 is great if your final viewing destination is a TV monitor, but certainly not for a movie!!!

I think Blair Witch Project looks worse than Full Frontal.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 06-12-2002, 07:09 PM:

I like how Rick says that the next generation cameras will provide a depth that no medium today can capture... HELLO FILM???

Dave

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 06-12-2002, 07:14 PM:

Yes this is off-topic but the move from Betacam to DV represents a net improvement for the viewer here.

Less expensive cameras means more of them in the studio
Cheaper nonlinear editing solutions
Original quality from camera through editing and final output

I certainly prefer it

And my 35mm prints of commercials have turned out looking better than the Beta stuff

I know film is best, but my clients don't have that kind of money and I don't have the manpower at hand

As for movies...well...we know what's best, I don't have to repeat what's been said about that

Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 06-12-2002, 08:35 PM:

1. Im stumped. What is GIGO?

2. I havent seen anything on FULL FRONTAL except the teaser trailer.
Is there a full length one now or are TV shows running footage from it?

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 06-12-2002, 09:06 PM:

James;

GIGO is an old computer saying, Garbage In Garbage Out
quite catchy dont you think

------------------
"Film is made of silver, video is made of rust"
'nuf said

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-13-2002, 08:09 AM:

Kodak believes "There's More to the Story":
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/story/start.shtml

Kodak has developed state-of-the-art digital imaging technology:
Kodak Research and Development Projects/
Kodak 16 Megapixel CCD
Kodak Digital

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-13-2002, 10:33 AM:

John, you do realize that Kodak accidentally placed one of the S's BACKWARDS on the page that your first link points to, right? Unacceptable.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-13-2002, 10:36 AM:

Joe said: "John, you do realize that Kodak accidentally placed one of the S's BACKWARDS on the page that your first link points to, right? Unacceptable."

A web page created by the same folks who inspired you with "digital beards" .

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-13-2002, 05:09 PM:

I wanted to hit another point in this discussion regarding interpolation since Rick McCallum seems to think it is just fine.

Whenever I hear or read the word "interpolation" I think of some bottom-of-the-barrel quality flatbed scanner someone is trying to sell for $60 and claiming "9600 X 9600 ppi resolution (interpolated)" when the thing really has an optical hardware resolution of only 300ppi.

You have to have enough real pixels of image detail to get anywhere. Interpolation creates no new image detail. It just blurs and smooths what little you have in the first place.

Line doublers and quadruplers for home theater viewing are nice, and they deal with the very low levels of detail carried by home video sources. Film projection already has a great deal of native detail on the film strip. Changing that for something that is heavily interpolated is a big step backwards.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-13-2002, 05:22 PM:

Bobby, you just don't get it. If Rick McCallum says it is good, then it is good. Do you think Rick McCallum would ever speak of anything he doesn't fully understand? Surely not.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 06-14-2002, 09:26 PM:

DAMN that was an annoying piece.

You wade through all the blah....blah....blah...blah like a sanitation worker wadeing thru a sewage tank, and it's the same old tired BS. But then you come to the wonderfully unexpected, really chunky stuff:

> "When we first started we had a Mark 4 Texas Instruments projector... now they're already on the Mark 8." <

Bobby is totally on the money here -- this guy is shooting himself and all the other digital evangelists in both feet with a freakin bazooka. Can you see the exhibitors running for the door the second they hear this? How stupid is this guy? Bet Technicolor which bought up 1000 Mark 4 DLPs for their give-away plan is REAL happy to hear that they already have obsolete equipment by four generations. Pretty soon they won't be able to *PAY* anyone to take their free DLPs.

More from Mr. McCallum....
> "For the first time, the movie industry is in the same world as the computer business. Every 18 months we're getting twice the value at half the cost." <

Whoa....THAT should make exhibitors feel good! Excuse me, but I know what it is like to have a computer as do most exhibitor execs -- yeah, you don't exactly get twice the value at half the cost because you still have to junk your original investment 18 months after you bought it. And the new equipment never is HALF what you paid for your old computer -- give me a break -- it's always just about the same price as the old one, maybe more, because they make sure there is more stuff to buy with it. You always have to pay through the nose for state-of-the-art. So every few years you plunk down $2,000 and throw the old computer out because you can't even GIVE a 486 away, just like I couldn't give away my 8086 with its HUGE 30Mb hard drive (physically the the size of a Buick), as I couldn't give away my 286 or my 486 (I skipped the 386s) or my Pentium I 75Mhz. Every new computer cost me around $2,000. Over and over and freakin over. So who is this dumbass trying to kid?! Makes you wonder what they are smoking out there at "the ranch."

Frank