4K VS 2K VS HD FOR DCP

Tyler Purcell · September 25, 2017

It was pretty amazing at how little difference, to the eye anyway, between the formats.. and such a wide variety of formats.. not sure the resources he had at hand.. but I believe he was trying to do a fair test.. I thought I saw more grain in the film shots.. but there again some people like that look..

He just choose situations that would prove his point. Had he shot a 15 page script with actors and dialog, with multiple locations, maybe some dynamics to the image, the difference would have been more noticeable.

Also... he treated everything using his proprietary output LUT's which nobody else has but him. So it's not quite a fair test, it's more like showing how skilled he is at making LUT's and how good he is at making digital mimic film.

I also have problems with comparing things without having access to the same or similar display devices.

How did you get around non 4K delivery to netflix then.. ?

They only require 4k for internal productions. If you produce content and SELL it to Netflix, they're fine with 1080p.

Where I personally haven't sold content to HBO or Cinemax, I've been told they accept 1080p as well.

The strange thing is, BOTH of those features were shot in 4k, but the distributor didn't want us to finish in 4k. They wanted 2k or 1080p deliverables.

AJ Young · September 25, 2017

Let's remember the point of Yedlin's demo: he analyzes resolution, not whether or not film/digital is better. His test was designed for streaming and can be downloaded at the lowest compression for offline viewing.

Tyler Purcell · September 25, 2017

Let's remember the point of Yedlin's demo: he analyzes resolution, not whether or not film/digital is better. His test was designed for streaming and can be downloaded at the lowest compression for offline viewing.

His first video was about film vs digital. He used the same techniques on the new video, which really demonstrates his skills at making LUT's. He used his fancy LUT's on ALL the material, not just the digital stuff.

Sean Emer · September 25, 2017

His first video was about film vs digital. He used the same techniques on the new video, which really demonstrates his skills at making LUT's. He used his fancy LUT's on ALL the material, not just the digital stuff.

His display prep video, which is what I assume you're referring to, is still a good demonstration that the limiting factor is our grading/transform rather than a tangible lack of quality in digital compared to film acquisition. He didn't even make adjustments to his alexa footage in reference to the film versions of his shots. As for the resolution demo, which was the focus of referencing Yedlin in this thread (or so I assumed), it is an analysis of 'perceptual experience of resolution' or 'spacial fidelity', and not concerned with digital vs film

Tyler Purcell · September 25, 2017

His display prep video, which is what I assume you're referring to, is still a good demonstration that the limiting factor is our grading/transform rather than a tangible lack of quality in digital compared to film acquisition.

Yes and his display prep is actually a LUT. It's a great demonstration for how advanced LUT's have gotten, especially in the hands of someone with the skills, talent and understanding he does.

As for the resolution demo, which was the focus of referencing Yedlin in this thread (or so I assumed), it is an analysis of 'perceptual experience of resolution' or 'spacial fidelity', and not concerned with digital vs film

My beef is that in the most recent video, he used the same LUT on all of his material, which is something that doesn't exist anywhere else but on his computer.

I would like to see all of his material with no LUT, with zero post processing, strung out A/B comparison's with overlap (butterfly) between formats. I know it's not a "format war" video, but it could be.

Sean Emer · September 25, 2017

I believe he mentioned that he did custom grading on the footage to get everything to look as similar as possible so that the only comparison we needed to make was in the resolution (or halation or noise). That seems like a plus, not a minus.

Tyler Purcell · September 26, 2017

I believe he mentioned that he did custom grading on the footage to get everything to look as similar as possible so that the only comparison we needed to make was in the resolution (or halation or noise). That seems like a plus, not a minus.

Yea, thats true... but it doesn't show the best of all formats by doing so.

Sean Emer · September 26, 2017

Yea, thats true... but it doesn't show the best of all formats by doing so.

The implication here is that changes to luminance and color properties will effect the resolution of the footage, since all we care about in the test is the resolution (actual and perceived). I'm not sure I agree on that, can you go into more detail?

Tyler Purcell · September 26, 2017

The implication here is that changes to luminance and color properties will effect the resolution of the footage, since all we care about in the test is the resolution (actual and perceived). I'm not sure I agree on that, can you go into more detail?

He has a "filter" lying on top of the footage, thus... the "resolution" of the footage would be perceivably different then "actual" resolution.

Plus, when dealing with film, there are so many variables in the chain that it's almost worthless comparing it.

If you bother shooting film with a test like this, you better make it as good as you can make it.