18K Film Outs Possible?

Scott Pickering · January 18

Im aware FotoKem has the capability to do 8K film outs onto 65mm film for both 5 perf and 15 perf. I was told for Nolan's films, they only did 4K film outs for IMAX on films needing that. That said, Im wondering if they'll ever design a modern filmout machine to do 18K film outs to 65mm film for IMAX? Im told the resolution off the negative itself is 18K for 15 perf. Of course it gets dumbed down to 12K on the final film print. Since new 16K to 17K video cameras are coming onto the scene, shooting on Digital and filmout to IMAX film would be a possible option to show your films in true IMAX format. They do not yet have a 1.44 to 1 16K digital camera yet, but the ones that are 16k, are widescreen. Could someone not design a film out machine to get the full 16-17K digital file (whether from scanned film or from digital camera) onto the negative? I know the cost is expensive, but i see this as the future of technology advances. It seems redundant to only output 4K onto an IMAX frame, since its capable of so much more. And computers are getting faster these days, being able to handle these such high rez video frames. Look at what they are doing with the Vegas Dome. Shooting on digital and output in full rez to IMAX film would be another option, when shooting on 15 perf film isnt always an option. If they wont do 16K to 18K film outs, then at least 12K. At some point those old CRT film recorders at IMAX are going to give out, so they need to work on their replacements too.

Edited January 19 by Scott Pickering

Geffen Avraham · January 19

The best way might be with an Arrilaser-style system, since 18K displays don't exist.

Laser technology from China has gotten about 100X cheaper since the Arrilaser was invented, so the hardware would be shockingly inexpensive.

However, different color lasers will focus at different points and react differently to lenses. Aligning the different colors is the main challenge. You need micron-level precision pointing of different color lasers, and calibrating their intensity.

Edited January 19 by Geffen Avraham

Tyler Purcell · January 19

Having worked extensively with the MSG post house, where the post is done for the sphere, I literally did the final contract work for the post suite, so I was the guy who tested it all. The entire workflow was 8k and upscaled to the final 16k. There is more support today for higher res workflows in post, but it's not widely adopted. Part of that is infrastructure, working with let's say 13k scans of 65mm material requires a level of storage and computer horsepower that many labs aren't going to invest in. Even if they can scan on the Laser Graphics director in 13k, doesn't mean the files aren't immediately reduced to 8k (or less) for post production.

CRT rerecords were kinda limitless in how they could record and there are some films that have been recorded out at higher than 4k in the past on IMAX, like the visual effects shots in Interstellar. I think they were all done in 8k, but much higher than that requires specialized hardware and honestly, the difference would not be noticeable.

So Kodak did a study many moons ago, when they tested multiple workflows from contact prints of the camera negative to 4th generation lab theatrical prints and asked random people to determine how many lines of information they could see on the screen. The original 35mm negative used, using a magnifying glass, had only 2500 visible lines to the human eye. Obviously we all equate 35mm to just shy of 6k, but reality is when you're shooting a chart, the optics and cameras aren't as good as everyone thinks they are. A contact print from the negative was only 1200 lines when projected and a 4th generation print was 700 lines when projected. There is just so much loss in the process of printing and projecting, what's on the screen is WAY lower resolution than people think, even with IMAX.

I don't watch a lot of movies that aren't presented on film, but sometimes I do like Dune 2 for instance. We saw Oppenheimer on 15P and then Dune 2 on digital (I went to see it on 70mm, but the print wasn't assembled yet it was an early screening) and the 4k IMAX laser projection was way sharper than Oppenheimer, in a different league. Not only were the blacks better, but range of contrast was as well, just beautiful cinematography in Dune 2, Fraser was robbed for best cinematography Oscar. I love film prints, I love IMAX prints the most, but if 4k laser projection is CLEARLY sharper than 15P on the majority of screens, I don't know what to say or think. It's a fake sharpness for sure, using over-lapping dual projections to hide things like screen door effect and brighten the image. However, recording out at higher resolution just isn't as important in my view. 8k is probably going to be the maximum post will ever be consistently done in and even that for 15P seems like overkill.

Edited January 19 by Tyler Purcell

Geffen Avraham · January 19

How useful is it to look at a single frame of 35mm? I think it would be more accurate to sample multiple frames and algorithmically stack them, revealing details hidden by the grain.

In my experience 16mm for example looks far sharper in motion than paused.

Tyler Purcell · January 19

19 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

How useful is it to look at a single frame of 35mm? I think it would be more accurate to sample multiple frames and algorithmically stack them, revealing details hidden by the grain.

In my experience 16mm for example looks far sharper in motion than paused.

Well, you can't watch negative back through a magnifying glass when in motion, so that's why they used a still frame. Mind you, it's about optically viewing image, rather than digitally. The projected image tests are perceivable sharpness by human eyes in motion via a print projected onto a screen at optimal viewing locations throughout the theater.

Moving grain tricks your brain into thinking there is more sharpness, but it's a trick, not reality. When doing scientific studies to determine actual sharpness and resolution, using a still image weeds out any discrepancy in the camera, capturing system or film stock itself.

Robert Houllahan · January 19

There are very high res monochrome LCD panels now and a 12k or 15K recorder with sequential RGB and multi flash RGB could possibly be built for recording. 8K recording can be achieved to some degree with some of the new JVC pixel shift Laser light source LCOS projectors.

Geffen Avraham · January 20

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Well, you can't watch negative back through a magnifying glass when in motion, so that's why they used a still frame. Mind you, it's about optically viewing image, rather than digitally. The projected image tests are perceivable sharpness by human eyes in motion via a print projected onto a screen at optimal viewing locations throughout the theater.

Moving grain tricks your brain into thinking there is more sharpness, but it's a trick, not reality. When doing scientific studies to determine actual sharpness and resolution, using a still image weeds out any discrepancy in the camera, capturing system or film stock itself.

But as the film moves, grain appears in different places randomly. A tiny feature that was previously obscured may now be visible. Our eye stacks these, just like astrophotographers stack exposures to extract more detail.

So I would argue that the resolution of a single frame and of a moving reel are fundamentally different but interconnected measurements.

I would venture to guess, although I have no proof, that 120fps 35mm would also appear sharper than 24fps, even if you’re recording a static test pattern.

Someone should ask Steve Yedlin I’m sure he tested this.

Steve Switaj · January 20

39 minutes ago, Geffen Avraham said:

I would venture to guess, although I have no proof, that 120fps 35mm would also appear sharper than 24fps, even if you’re recording a static test pattern.

Someone should ask Steve Yedlin I’m sure he tested this.

Ask Doug Trumble. This was one of the ideas behind his Showscan system.

Doug experimented with various framerates and eventually ended up using 70mm cameras at 60 fps.

He picked a high framerate to eliminate the perceived flicker, but he was always adamant that it also dramatically increased sharpness because at some point the eye integrated the images through persistence of vision and could no longer see the grain pattern in the film - it simply changed too fast.

He was quite insistent that you could empirically prove this through testing (which he did a lot of), and that there was a point where the image would stop feeling like a movie and change to a window into another scene.

Scott Pickering · January 20

It makes me wonder how they came up with the idea that IMAX 15P is 18K in resolution, or the IMAX film print at 12K, based on what I read here? It makes me wonder why 8K laser projectors for IMAX have not yet come into existence, even if its 2 projectors stacked. Certainly the quality would be unmatched at that point. Currently there is no high rez camera at the true IMAX frame ratio of 1:44 to 1. All sensors today seem to be either 16:9 or widescreen 2.20 to 1. Im surprised this hasnt been designed yet.

Geffen Avraham · January 20

The DLP chips in IMAX 4K laser projectors are not in the right aspect ratio either

All modern IMAX laser systems, as far as I know, use vertical anamorphic lenses to make the aspect ratio correct

Geffen Avraham · January 20

3 hours ago, Steve Switaj said:

Ask Doug Trumble. This was one of the ideas behind his Showscan system.

Doug experimented with various framerates and eventually ended up using 70mm cameras at 60 fps.

He picked a high framerate to eliminate the perceived flicker, but he was always adamant that it also dramatically increased sharpness because at some point the eye integrated the images through persistence of vision and could no longer see the grain pattern in the film - it simply changed too fast.

He was quite insistent that you could empirically prove this through testing (which he did a lot of), and that there was a point where the image would stop feeling like a movie and change to a window into another scene.

Steve, did you ever get to work with Doug Trumbull?

My dream as a child was to become his apprentice. But sadly, I never got to meet the man.

Before he passed, I know he was planning to direct an epic movie of his own on the scale of 2001. I wonder what happened to it, and if his plans for it still exist or are remembered somewhere.

Steve Switaj · January 20

32 minutes ago, Geffen Avraham said:

Steve, did you ever get to work with Doug Trumbull?

My dream as a child was to become his apprentice. But sadly, I never got to meet the man.

Sadly, I only got to work with him once.

I got into VFX at about the same time Doug got burned out with Hollywood and went off to the Berkshires to set up his own place where he could experiment with special venue films. So for most of my career he was only rarely floating around the LA production loop.

I was introduced to him a few times, but I was never on one of his projects. I did get to do a little bit of work with the Showscan system on Terminator 3D, but that was mostly run by Paradise at the time.

However I did finally get to work with him on Tree of Life when I lived in Austin for a few years in the early 00's (long story).

I did a little bit of motion control for them because I knew one of the FX supervisors.

Terrence Malick was apparently a big fan of Doug's, and talked him into coming onto the film as a consultant to do some of the effects in a more old-school practical way to give them a more organic, less digital feel.

It was a short but cool shoot. Doug was a blast, and we had lot's of neat cloud tank work and things like that.

Tyler Purcell · January 20

2 hours ago, Scott Pickering said:

It makes me wonder how they came up with the idea that IMAX 15P is 18K in resolution, or the IMAX film print at 12K, based on what I read here? It makes me wonder why 8K laser projectors for IMAX have not yet come into existence, even if its 2 projectors stacked. Certainly the quality would be unmatched at that point. Currently there is no high rez camera at the true IMAX frame ratio of 1:44 to 1. All sensors today seem to be either 16:9 or widescreen 2.20 to 1. Im surprised this hasnt been designed yet.

It was mathematically created, because optically it's basically impossible. So they took the "known" practical lines of 4 perf 35mm and simply scaled it up. It's very hard to actually get true perfect focus/sharpness on a motion picture camera that's very worn and busy on a film set. When new, when in a lab setting, when using test equipment like Kodak did in their test mentioned above, then it's possible but sadly it was never done with 15P. The only tests I know of are with 4P 35mm and partially because that was the defacto projection format globally. IMAX is its own thing, with its own theaters, so they would have needed to do that test internally and at the time, they just shot stuff and projected it. What they saw was better than anything else on the market.

Tyler Purcell · January 20

6 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

But as the film moves, grain appears in different places randomly. A tiny feature that was previously obscured may now be visible. Our eye stacks these, just like astrophotographers stack exposures to extract more detail.

So I would argue that the resolution of a single frame and of a moving reel are fundamentally different but interconnected measurements.

But you can't project negative, so it's kind of a moot point. If you scan negative and punch in to see a line for instance, whether it's a still or moving, doesn't matter. I have done this test multiple times, there is absolutely no difference in how many physical lines you can see when magnified in the digital world. This is true with digital cinema as well, it also has grain. We have proved this by comparing digital still cameras with digital video cameras, both at the same resolution, both with the same lens and both shooting raw.

6 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

I would venture to guess, although I have no proof, that 120fps 35mm would also appear sharper than 24fps, even if you’re recording a static test pattern.

Someone should ask Steve Yedlin I’m sure he tested this.

Oh you're absolutely right that it would appear sharper, but the physical number wouldn't change.

If anything, Yedlin's test proves what I'm saying.

Daniel D. Teoli Jr. · January 30

On 1/20/2026 at 1:32 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

But you can't project negative, so it's kind of a moot point. If you scan negative and punch in to see a line for instance, whether it's a still or moving, doesn't matter. I have done this test multiple times, there is absolutely no difference in how many physical lines you can see when magnified in the digital world. This is true with digital cinema as well, it also has grain. We have proved this by comparing digital still cameras with digital video cameras, both at the same resolution, both with the same lens and both shooting raw.

Oh you're absolutely right that it would appear sharper, but the physical number wouldn't change.

If anything, Yedlin's test proves what I'm saying.

Where are the test photos Tyler? Put them up at the Internet Archive so we can see them.