The ever changing world of Post Production

[Phil Rhodes]

If you are doing DIs for under US$100,000, you're probably doing more or less what I would be doing anyway! What calibration are you using? You must be shooting it off a TFT with a Mitchell fro that money!

 

I have been accused in the past of undervaluing colorists. To me it just seems to be a tiny bit of the skillset of a decent effects person blown up all out of proportion, and technically speaking, the idea that things like Da Vincis are complicated to operate is just ludicrous to anyone who's touched After Effects. Perhaps it's because of the celebrity status given to some people here in the UK who do TV ads all the time, swagger around like Top Gun fighter pilots and take offence when you don't recognise them. I'm also generally quite unimpressed with the tendency to give colorists the credit when it looks good, but blame the DP when it looks bad. You guys really do seem to have it all ways and I suspect that ability as a colorist is vastly more to do with political schmoozing of the client and avoiding bruised DP ego than it is any innate ability to manipulate images. I've seen grading on major TV series (particularly on Lost) which I considered to be pretty much incompetent - cyan skin and yellow foliage, it was awful beyond belief. It's clearly a matter of opinion, and it all smacks far too much of the "golden ears" audiophile thing - the sort of people who buy cables that have been frozen in liquid nitrogen, or something, then claim to be able to hear the difference.

 

It's not so much that I don't appreciate the ability, I guess, it's just the swaggering that goes with it that puts me off the whole concept. Look at me, look at me, I can do 5% of what every After Effects guy can do - but I get to make a lot of money at it because I'm a political operator!

 

Definitely under the heading of "nice work if you can get it".

 

P

[Paul Bruening]

Don't hold back, Phil. Tell us how you really feel.

 

I have had similar thoughts quite a few times.

[Guest tylerhawes]

If you are doing DIs for under US$100,000, you're probably doing more or less what I would be doing anyway! What calibration are you using? You must be shooting it off a TFT with a Mitchell fro that money!

 

 

[sarcasm]

Phil, you nailed it, we found the Mitchell on Craig's List and it was off to the races. And we do 4K scans by pointing our RED camera at the projection screen!

[/sarcasm] :P

 

Certainly the $100K price-point doesn't fit every project, but it's a reasonable price for many indie films. We recently completed an ~$5 mill. budget indie and I don't know the exact total but I know it was less than $100K for the DI and titles. It was shot 35mm, workflow was Spirit 2K log > HDCAM-SR > 10-bit log DPX conform/color > Arri Laser > Kodak Vision. The budget included IN/IP and sound IN. I think there was about 10-12 days of grading.

 

I have been accused in the past of undervaluing colorists.... Perhaps it's because of the celebrity status given to some people here in the UK who do TV ads all the time, swagger around like Top Gun fighter pilots and take offence when you don't recognise them.

 

Well this is certainly not a UK-only phenomenon. That sort of thing goes around here in LA too. You can only blame the producers/directors who buy into it.

 

I'm also generally quite unimpressed with the tendency to give colorists the credit when it looks good, but blame the DP when it looks bad. You guys really do seem to have it all ways and I suspect that ability as a colorist is vastly more to do with political schmoozing of the client and avoiding bruised DP ego than it is any innate ability to manipulate images.

 

There have been some films that I know I have "saved" compared to how they were when they came to me. With rare exception, it was not the DPs fault - it's the lack of proper budget for the camera department and/or because they didn't listen to him and so he had his hands tied. Nevertheless, sometimes these films come to me and they need help. Often times after the release I read critics praising the Cinematographer, etc., etc., and of course I can't help but wish they'd mention the colorist, but it doesn't really upset me because ultimately the DP is responsible for the look so he should get all the credit or the blame, whichever. I've never read the review of a film where they say "oh, what an excellent colorist!". I have yet to see an Oscar or Golden Globe given out to a colorist. There's not even an organized union for colorists. So I guess the grass is always greener, but it doesn't seem to me like colorists are getting all the respect and DPs get no love.

 

I've seen grading on major TV series (particularly on Lost) which I considered to be pretty much incompetent - cyan skin and yellow foliage, it was awful beyond belief.

 

I agree esp. regarding TV shows, where everyone wants ultra-contrast and saturation. But you have to keep in mind that even the big budget shows are only giving them 8-14 hrs. of grading on average, and making the colorists work 12 hr. days (which is hard because your eyes just aren't meant to work intently like that M-F; it gives you headaches). Besides that, a lot of times the colorist is just doing what they ask him to do. I know lots of guys who have tried repeatedly to persuade producers that there is value in subtlety and nuance and not to be so over-the-top, and they've given up on it because the producer just wants it to look like CSI because that's the #1 show (or whatever is "hot" right now). So who can blame the colorist for figuring out that the path of least resistance is going to make the client happy, get him home sooner, and avoid the frustration of talking until he's blue in the face.

 

It's not so much that I don't appreciate the ability, I guess, it's just the swaggering that goes with it that puts me off the whole concept. Look at me, look at me, I can do 5% of what every After Effects guy can do - but I get to make a lot of money at it because I'm a political operator!

 

I'd be among the first to say that VFX artists are underpaid and overworked, which is probably why I stopped pursuing a career in it. I've seen it first hand a lot, and it's one of the reasons my company turns down more VFX work than it takes. I started in visual effects and editing and I still am pretty good with Shake and 3ds max, and I supervise VFX on some films. I'll admit running Shake is a lot more complicated than running a DaVinci. The technical sophistication required is much higher, assuming you're only a Colorist and not also required to know data conform and color management and SANs, etc., etc. (which I do have to know all aspects because when I started the business it was just me and an assistant).

 

That all said, color grading is not a subset of visual effects skills like you make it out to be. It's not just about knowing what the buttons and knobs do, or else more DPs would grade their own footage. You have to have the talent to imagine a look and know how to get there, know how to be able to sustain it over 90 minutes of a feature, have a workflow that keeps your grades consistant so you're not drifting and re-correcting, and develop an understanding of color as a language and its pyschological and cultural impact. On top of that you have to be able to do all of this simultaneously to interacting with a DP and Director in the room in a way that keeps them engaged and entertained even when you're doing something complicated that you'd rather just concentrate but you know you can't let them get bored or feel like nothing is happening. Also, call it politics if you will (but I think every important job in the entertainment industry requires political savvy if you want to be really successful), but you do have to understand the relationship between all the players (DP, Director, producer), the peking order, who is unhappy with who, etc., because you're put at the end of a long, complicated project with passionate people who are full of hopes and sometimes disillusionment with the project, and it's an akward place to be at times so you have to know how to keep out of the fray and yet still say/do what needs to be done to build a consensus. That may not be technical, but it is difficult and requires talent and is a high-pressure job.

 

All of these aspects are something you're mostly insulated from as a VFX artist, where you typically work long hours by yourself with occasional interruptions from your supervisor, who is the only person you need to worry very much about keeping happy. It is why, while we are constantly looking at our VFX artists and thinking who might be a potential colorist, most of them are not good candidates for it, even though they understand lift/gamma/gain/balance, etc. (Also, not all VFX guys really have a deep understanding of color grading's technical aspects either, alot of them get there by trial-and-error.)

 

I spend most my time working with DPs, have a great respect for their talents, and have developed great friendships with several of them as a result of our meeting on the job. Even though it's the Producer writing our checks and the Director as our boss on most films, I've come to view myself as working for the DP, another member of the camera department. The collaboration during grading sessions is the most satisfying aspect of my job. It seems to me, and I hear it said enough to think I'm right, that most of the DPs I work with feel similarly, and find the DI sessions exhilerating and extremely satisfying. SO I guess my point is, if you feel like the DP/Colorist relationship is competitive or adversarial, I think you're missing out and either need to adjust your attitude toward it or find a different colorist, because something isn't clicking like it should.

[Phil Rhodes]

Yes, I completely agree with most of what you're saying, it's just this self-sustaining thing among colorists I've spoken to. Perhaps I've been talking to the wrong people:

 

> it doesn't seem to me like colorists are getting all the respect and DPs get no love.

 

It does - among colorists! I should point out that I am not, in any very high end sense, either a colorist or a DP although I have filled both roles on occasion.

 

I think one of the things that makes people - including me, probably - undervalue colorists is that we're so used to having Photosop/AE/etc. It's quite amusing sometimes to watch some of the hoary old British DPs, who came up shooting 16mm newsreel, spooging (frankly) over a Da Vinci and "isn't it amazing what you can do!", to which the answer of course is no, it's not amazing, it's a completely mundane level of control for digital imaging these days. I've never worked with a real colorist - something I've only done a dozen times to be fair - without wanting to bat his or her hands off the controls and get in there.

 

What does make me smile is that so much of this stuff - such as the demos on your site - are putting some punch and zing back into the very flat modern stocks. It is certainly true that a lot of this stuff comes out of the camera looking horribly dull and boring.

 

P

[Jon Rosenbloom]

This is all very informative, but it gives me a headache.

 

As a photographer - usually of boring, narrative films, I just want to put the audience in the room with actors. To this end, I want film in the camera, a prime lens protected from stray light, good lighting, proper exposure - all of which I can take care of during the shoot. Post production would eventually lead to a cut negative, a couple of answer prints, an IN and then the release prints. The process isn't without its challenges and hazards, but it's pretty straightforward.

 

It's not that I don't love the convenience of digital imaging; people can look at my Flickr page, I cut my reel at home and just put it on my website. But what is this thread, and dozens more just like it, really about? It's about the incredible contortions people are willing to make in order to approximate the quality of a photo-chemical workflow. Do you realize that all of these 3DLUTs, and DPX files, and tera-drives, and so-on are not only standing between me and my negative, they all have price-tags that I have deliberate over with the producers? Suppose the incredibly unlikely event they go top-dollar the whole way, we get the best room with the biggest most finely calibrated monitor for our final grade ... This will still be a step below making a print and watching it in one of the side rooms at DuArt.

[Guest tylerhawes]

It's not that I don't love the convenience of digital imaging.....It's about the incredible contortions people are willing to make in order to approximate the quality of a photo-chemical workflow. Do you realize that all of these 3DLUTs, and DPX files, and tera-drives, and so-on are not only standing between me and my negative, they all have price-tags that I have deliberate over with the producers? Suppose the incredibly unlikely event they go top-dollar the whole way, we get the best room with the biggest most finely calibrated monitor for our final grade ... This will still be a step below making a print and watching it in one of the side rooms at DuArt.

 

I can agree and disagree, because it's all a matter of context. If you have a big budget film like Batman Begins that goes all photo-chemical, you have the luxury of time and money to get exactly the look you want practically, without souping it up in post. So in that realm, I can totally see the argument for preferring a traditional finish. I would have to prerequisite that you have the time, the money, the ability to plan in detail to accomplish the look, and most importantly the talent to envision that look and get it all in the lens. But if a production has all those things, I'm not going to argue that they have to go DI.

 

But even on studio features, a lot of films don't have all those advantages. I think more often than not (and since I'm not a DP, you guys can correct me if I'm mispeaking), the DP wanted more time, or had more surprises to deal with than he liked. And even when everything is planned out, something will go wrong. Once you broaden the topic to indie features that never have enough time, especially during production where it seems like the producer has tunnel-visioned on "how few days of shooting can I get away with", there are a lot more things in the image that people aren't quite satisified - especially the DP. So in these cases, the DP seems as much or more enthusiastic than anyone to me in relishing the opportunity to now go in and "relight" or correct some things that have always bugged him - and he probably knew when he shot it that he wasn't happy with the compromise he was making. But now with the DI, he can effect those isolated parts of the image and a lot of times accomplish what he originally wanted to, only now he's doing it in post.

 

So I guess my point is that from a purest POV, yes you can get cleaner, sharper images by going photochemical and doing a contact print. But on a production-by-production basis, you're going to have to wigh that technical superiority against the ability to creatively and aesthetically alter the image in ways you never could outside of DI. And I think the economics and other pressures of modern filmmaking are making it increasingly likely that most DPs in the end would rather have the DI.

[Phil Rhodes]

I'm certainly a fan of the idea of being able to manipulate things digitally - probably because I shoot mainly video and I've always had the luxury. If I was tasked to go out and shoot a feature tomorrow, I'd probably push for viper than take it to someone like Tyler for grading and output, simply because that's the thing I'm most used to doing.

[Walter Graff]

I don't think there is one of us that doesn't want to do it all in camera. Unfortunately we can't always do it. I know for me, when I have the money and the crew, I work towards it. But when I don't, I don't have many options. But then again with film I've always been a big fan of my process after shooting.. Of course I always got yelled at for even suggesting it, but now it seems most folks are seeing the advantages of shooting for the best you can and using the process after to get that much more. I am playing multiple roles from shooter, producer, to audio. Instead of trying to tackle it all, I realize that post can become my third hand in these situations. I just finished a local TV spot for one of my clients. Low budget, me as a one man band kind of thing. Where does post play into this for me? Well in this spot I link to below (video even though I now realize this thread is about DI), all sound other than his interview from hammer, to car door, to horse to car engine is added in post. I could record with the camera mic but it never gives me a nice sound so I add it later. I also shoot these spots on simple DV so rely heavily on post to help me out in color correction, etc. And in this case I also make two spots, one that plays in Mass and the other than plays in Rhode Island, so it's the little things such as me replacing license plates to reflect a local flavor for each spot. Notice the addition of all sorts of color masks such as the pavement of the dealership made blacker. The dirt on the farm shots with a warm orange color added in post, the sky with added filter of blue. By masks I mean actually down streaming various grades of colors over parts of the picture. For instance in the example below you see it as I shot it first. Then how I color corrected it. I overall corrected color and did a bit of crushing of blacks and moved gammas where needed to be. in the bottom right I took an orange color and rotated it to match the dirt on the side of the roadway and overlaid it at an intensity that worked for me. And the sky of course has a blue color added in post (as you can see it leaks over the trees). I actually could have done that a different way and not affected the trees but got lazy. It still works fine for my tastes. You'll notice these colors added throughout such as in two patches or orange in the colorless trees behind the white horses head shot. Overall I was able to add a bit of production value to a local TV spot that I shot alone thanks to post.

 

 

 

Here's the two spots with different plates on the truck. I always hate seeing a spot that has out of state plates. I have a small library of phony plates I always add in post.

 

 

 

And here is the final spot:

 

http://www.film-and-video.com/RICH_CHEVY_MASS.mov

[Walter Graff]

Now that I realize is a thread about desktop DI that I'd be terrified to try it myself. There is something about the chain of doing it with the 'known' methods that makes me happy. And even then I find that sometimes I see subtle things when all is said and done that I didn't expect. And that is using the big houses with all the bells and whistles. And sometimes I also find different results overall with different houses. I wonder if trying 35 at home isn't asking too much.

[Stuart Brereton]

Suppose the incredibly unlikely event they go top-dollar the whole way, we get the best room with the biggest most finely calibrated monitor for our final grade ... This will still be a step below making a print and watching it in one of the side rooms at DuArt.

No offense, Jon, but when was the last time that actually happened? We work in a world where we are constantly asked to make compromises. There is always a better way of doing things. We do the best we can with the tools we have.

[Guest tylerhawes]

No offense, Jon, but when was the last time that actually happened? We work in a world where we are constantly asked to make compromises. There is always a better way of doing things. We do the best we can with the tools we have.

 

I think his point was that even the best top-dollar DI can't beat a simple contact print for purity and quality of image, not that we should expect to have a golden budget for DI on all our films...

[Robert Houllahan]

I think his point was that even the best top-dollar DI can't beat a simple contact print for purity and quality of image, not that we should expect to have a golden budget for DI on all our films...

 

 

Maybe this is why so many prominent studio features have been going back to photochemical finish (There will be blood, American gangster, Batman?, etc..) I think as an indie producer it would become more popular to shoot 4perf and make an answer print for the better quality and lower costs then even a cheap DI.

 

-Rob-

[Jon Rosenbloom]

"I think his point was that even the best top-dollar DI can't beat a simple contact print for purity and quality of image, not that we should expect to have a golden budget for DI on all our films..."

 

Yes. Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

I certainly don't mean to invalidate all of digital post-production. Of course it's great for VFX and looks you "can't" create in-camera. DP's like Elswit and Deakins do great work with it. It works for a master like Anreas Gursky. Heck, part of my last project will need some digital "rescuing." I just read this thread, as well as the one about the Red demo in Vancouver, I've gripped on Genesis shows, and the conversation always boils down to, "We scanned to blah, blah blah drive, down-converted the xxx, up-resed w/ the yyy decompressor, did the final grade in the zzz suite w/ the NEW look up tables, did the film out on the NEW laser ... that image is solid, like we printed it straight from the neg."

[Keith Mottram]

Maybe this is why so many prominent studio features have been going back to photochemical finish (There will be blood, American gangster, Batman?, etc..) I think as an indie producer it would become more popular to shoot 4perf and make an answer print for the better quality and lower costs then even a cheap DI.

 

-Rob-

 

Or maybe they can afford to spend all the time on set making sure everything is just right, then hire the best colour timers in the business and blah blah blah... besides batman could have done with a DI in my opinion. which it of course did in a manner of speaking prior to being transferred to digital formats.

 

DI's could well save an indie production a lot of money. I could produce all the versions I need - DVD/ Bluray, HDcam, Filmout all on an eight core (with color) with a calibrated Sony CRT hired in. Which would cost fu** all apart from the scanning and would be done with the same LUT's in the same colour space (in some case better- some top end suites still aren't in floating point last time I checked). As for a projector they're for clients anyway the grade is always on the CRT (which is about £350 a week to hire). Sure a good colourist is essential but a load of money and a spotty kid delivering you sushi is not...

[Guest tylerhawes]

...and would be done with the same LUT's in the same colour space (in some case better- some top end suites still aren't in floating point last time I checked). As for a projector they're for clients anyway the grade is always on the CRT (which is about £350 a week to hire).

 

Any worthwhile LUT is always proprietary, because it must take into account your entire chain of post, your specific room/display and workflow. So how would you get the LUTs you need and know how to use them?

 

Also, the projector is definitely not for the clients, it is for the colorist too (at least, if we're talking features and not television). I never use the CRT unless we specifically want to see how it is translating to video. Other than that, it sits there turned off. I don't know any DI colorists who work off a CRT or anything but a DLP projector, unless it by neccessity because they don't have a proper projection environment. It is important to have the projection environment, because emitted light from a CRT vs. reflected light from a screen will lead to much different color decisions. The CRT is too bright and high-contrast, too small. I'm not saying you can't get a good result with a CRT, just that it is far from optimal for theatrical grading.

 

Obviously all my comments make the assumption we're talking about movies and not TV.

[Keith Mottram]

Any worthwhile LUT is always proprietary, because it must take into account your entire chain of post, your specific room/display and workflow. So how would you get the LUTs you need and know how to use them?

 

Also, the projector is definitely not for the clients, it is for the colorist too (at least, if we're talking features and not television). I never use the CRT unless we specifically want to see how it is translating to video. Other than that, it sits there turned off. I don't know any DI colorists who work off a CRT or anything but a DLP projector, unless it by neccessity because they don't have a proper projection environment. It is important to have the projection environment, because emitted light from a CRT vs. reflected light from a screen will lead to much different color decisions. The CRT is too bright and high-contrast, too small. I'm not saying you can't get a good result with a CRT, just that it is far from optimal for theatrical grading.

 

Obviously all my comments make the assumption we're talking about movies and not TV.

 

Tyler I stand corrected, last time I was in a feature grading suite the colourist was never happy with his projector and so worked mostly from his Sony (because, and i paraphrase, 'the projector is too dim and too low contrast'...). This was a couple of years ago, but at one of london's top DI places so everything from the lighting to the projector to the baselight was the best. two years is obviously a long time in the world of post...

 

As for LUT, obviously they are geared to workflow, but I meant that you could use an Arrilaser LUT for Color in the same way you could use it for a baselight. I all for perfect enviroments, but with a few exceptions technically you will get the same DPX out of an apple based system than you will with a system costing a hundred times the amount.

 

BTW if the CRT is too bright/ high con cannot this be changed with a LUT?

[Guest tylerhawes]

As for LUT, obviously they are geared to workflow, but I meant that you could use an Arrilaser LUT for Color in the same way you could use it for a baselight. I all for perfect enviroments, but with a few exceptions technically you will get the same DPX out of an apple based system than you will with a system costing a hundred times the amount.

 

We use Color here too, so that is not an issue, you can get the same accuracy of color management with it as with any system provided you're using TrueLight, CineSpace, etc. The issue is that generic LUTs, such as a generic Arri Laser LUT, will not actully allow you to get an accurate preview of the film out. You actually need to profile the Arri and the display, choose a colorspace, and use those three profiles to create a LUT that compensates for all the discrepancies. This is the same for any 3D LUT scheme (Baselight, Cinespace, etc.) to get usable LUTs. So if you have an Arri Laser LUT that is generic, it's only addressing half the problem.

 

BTW if the CRT is too bright/ high con cannot this be changed with a LUT?

 

Yes and no. The only way for a LUT to decrease brightness is by making the whites dirty, essentially map white to some shade of grey (or off-grey for color temperature adjustment). But this is throwing away SNR and can lead to serious banding, and is always compressing another part of the image going to the monitor because you're essentially squeezing the same signal through a smaller pipe.

 

It's better to reduce the brightness in hardware, which will be better, but sometimes you can't go dim enough. Also, CRTs are optimized for a certain range of brightness, and when you operate at much reduced brightness, you're working on a different part of the power output curve, which may mean you get a less linear (accurate) response.

 

Even if the brightness issue goes away, there's still the issue of reflected vs. emitted light, image size, and resolution (which I didn't mention before, because you can't see all the detail of 2K on a CRT). '

 

All of that said, it doesn't mean a colorist can't work with confidence on a CRT, but it does mean it is not ideal and that you will respond differently and therefore make different (and perhaps not as good) decisions on a CRT vs. a projection environment.

[Jon Rosenbloom]

Forget what I said. I happened to do a grading session on a DaVinci 2k on a standard-def video film a couple of nights ago. I'll take selectively de-focusing highlights over cinematic purity ... :)

[Guest tylerhawes]

Forget what I said. I happened to do a grading session on a DaVinci 2k on a standard-def video film a couple of nights ago. I'll take selectively de-focusing highlights over cinematic purity ... :)

 

:lol:

 

Seeing is believing, aye? The power of DI is addictive. And that was just a regular old DaVinci tape-to-tape video workflow, from the sounds of it. Get into a data-based modern DI workflow, and the instant gratification, work in context, and power/flexibility of software-based tools take you to another level beyond that. Once you start, you can't stop...

[Jon Rosenbloom]

Yes, I have another tape to tape grading session in a few weeks, I'm licking my chops.

 

I read your article on "The Road to Empire," and I don't quite get why when using the Spirit for film to HDSR you had to lock yourself into a 1.85:1 frame. Why wouldn't you still transfer full gate and be able to add the mask and repo during the DI sessions?

Edited March 26, 2008 by Jon Rosenbloom

[Guest tylerhawes]

I read your article on "The Road to Empire," and I don't quite get why when using the Spirit for film to HDSR you had to lock yourself into a 1.85:1 frame. Why wouldn't you still transfer full gate and be able to add the mask and repo during the DI sessions?

 

There were several articles written so I'm not sure which you got. Some of them were a little loose on the facts and quotes unfortunately, and gave the wrong impression on certain details. I learned from that to only give the press exactly what you want them to print, not to give them all the info and trust them to make a story out of it. They will get confused and not even know it. The thing they consistantly misunderstood (so must've been our fault) was that we recut in Final Cut Pro because we didn't work with Avid, which we do all the time.

 

Anyway, the frame on HDCAM-SR is actually 1.78:1, so you have a very small amount of room to repo up/down for the 1.85:1 framing. SR doesn't hold full aperture unless you pillar box, which we actually did do on a very select few shots where we knew we'd be doing camera stabilization and it would be needing all the frame. For the rest, we just spotted the repos we needed ahead of time in the Avid offline and then did them in the telecine session.

 

Does that make it clear?

[Jon Rosenbloom]

Yes, of course. Makes sense.

 

"SR doesn't hold full aperture unless you pillar box"

Are you singling out HDSR, or does this apply to transfers to all native 16:9 media, hdcam, dvcpro hd, d5 etc?

Edited March 26, 2008 by Jon Rosenbloom

[John Sprung]

Yes, of course. Makes sense.

 

"SR doesn't hold full aperture unless you pillar box"

Are you singling out HDSR, or does this apply to transfers to all native 16:9 media, hdcam, dvcpro hd, d5 etc?

It's the same for all 16:9 formats. You could pillar box or squeeze it anamorphically. The squeeze is built in to the Spirit.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Paul Bruening]

How are the 8 core Macs performing? Any quirks? AMD announced 2 x 4 Phenom almost a year ago and I haven't found any MBs on the market yet. How much faster would you estimate the 8 core Macs are over, say, a dual core AMD? Can the 8C Macs realtime a 2K X 24fps image?

[Guest tylerhawes]

Can the 8C Macs realtime a 2K X 24fps image?

 

I'll just say yes to that last one since I do that no problem, but the rest I'll let you take to a computer forum :)