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The HD Revolution?


Guest dpforum1968

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I read in Video Systems (I believe) that some in the US gov't have proposed that the gov't sponsors and freely distributes the set top boxes that would permit SDTV reception of digital signals via the airwaves, in order to meet the current deadline. It sounds like a silly idea, would the cost of making and distributing such boxes free be justified by the increased revenue to be expected from re-licensing the current SDTV bands?

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OK, that makes sense.  It just sounded like he didn't want to have that comparison because he thought HD was inferior to film when green screen is involved.

don't get me wrong -- i LOVE, absolutly LOVE 35 -- but i also LOVE HD, for different reasons. like most people siad, tool in a toolbox.

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like most people siad, tool in a toolbox.

 

I totally agree with you. They are two completely different creatures, they each have their own looks. Lets not turn this thread into another never ending "HD versus Film" thread. I thought all that died off when "Pete Wright" and his "35mm vs. HD vs. DV vs. Beta vs. the Etch-a-sketch" posts dissapeared.

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But I want this to be another endless 35 vs HD thread!

 

Lets watch these two get it on in a battle to the death cage match!!

 

I'll cheer for 35mm of course :-)

 

RDCB

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Personally with an interest more towards video I am interested by the idea of shooting in High definition video. With more and more people using the laptops to view video footage there is a growing market of people expecting higher resolutions.

 

Checking the Atomic HD website recently they have offered for people to download free HD films to see the difference in quality. The images should be far charper.

 

Of course the end result is not the only thing to concentrate on.

 

I recently watched a short documentary about the green village which George Lucas used for the new star wars. What came out of this was that because the result could be seen as soon as it had been shot there was less need to keep sets up in case of re-shoots thus reducing the time a studio has a certain setup.

 

There are already a few television programs that are experimenting with HD, for example at least one episode of coronation street if my memory is not tricking me.

 

HD will become most interesting when consumer televisions are built to take high definition video.

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I saw that web doc you're refering to about the "Video Village" for the making of Star Wars episode III. Of course shooting a bunch of guys running around infront of green screens with a video camera is hardly filmmaking by any standards. I have a good friend working on EP III at ILM right now, he says all the animators think it's a joke. HD for feature films is now, and always will be, a bad idea.

 

As for the instant playback of HD, you want instant playback? Make a corporate video.

 

As for Coronation Street isn't it exciting! What will poor Rita do?

 

We are six months behind on our Coronation Street episodes here in Canada, so you would know the final outcome of the Rita hitting the boy in the shop scandal. What happens?

 

If "The Street" goes HD, we'll have a higher res looking show, that's all. The cinematic feel will still not be there. Especially since you can tell they really move fast on that show, and don't put a whole lot of effort into lighting. They just don't have the time. And my English Nanna wouldn't notice a difference any way.

 

DC

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There are already a few television programs that are experimenting with HD,

 

Beginning with the 2002-03 season, we have been posting all our shows in 1080p/24 HD, whether the initial network order is for HD or not. In 2001-02, we had only one show in SD. 2000-01 was a mixed bag, and in 1999 or so we did a TV movie shot in HD, but posted SD because the facilities vendors weren't ready. Single camera dramas are mostly 3 perf 35, the sitcoms are all shooting 24p tape.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Hi,

 

As mentioned before, the US film-originated shows that post in SD do look very considerably better than those which were posted in SD. Star Trek Enterprise makes earlier incarnations look extremely mushy.

 

Phil

This is an especially big difference if you're looking at them in PAL. A downconversion from 1080p to 576i will look a little better than native PAL, because it filters to the PAL Nyquist limit digitally. An upconversion from 483i to 576i starts with less resolution than PAL, and loses some more in the resampling.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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But I want this to be another endless 35 vs HD thread!

 

Not me. I just think that if you're going to compare you should do it in every situation. It wouldn't be a true comparison if you didn't test both formats in the same situations. I use, and like, both formats, but they aren't always equal.

Edited by grimmett
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Hi,

 

> This is an especially big difference if you're looking at them in PAL.

 

I am. I've seen examples in both analogue and digital PAL - watching it 16:9 in digital PAL on a channel that encodes at five or six megabits is quite pleasurable, rather like watching a DVD.

 

Phil

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  And a pickup truck full of hard drives compared to a 400 ft load of film. There is what's new and there is the elegant solution to the problem at hand.

 

Speaking of elegant solutions....

 

On a recent HD aerial shoot in Europe using a stabilised 14.5 inch diameter gimbal...

Produced 12 hours of material using 2:1 compression 10 bit SR format

(In the future potentially capable of 4k recording by running tape at double speed? Thats a 22 minute load for $90!)

 

Hardly a" truck full of hard drives"!

 

In fact.....

Weight of 14 hours of stock 8 kilos.

Potential Xray damage nil

Need to process locally nil.

Wasted flight time in needing to land to change mags nil.

Time spent shooting in the air during "The golden hour"...60 minutes.

Max speed of the heli 130knots (Wescam is 85 knots)

Extra time available to shoot due to high speed of transit... 2 hours!

Complete shipping weight of HD package including heli bracket was only 280 kilos

 

Picture Quality? Remarkable! rock steady with lenses from 4.7 to 400mm on 2/3 inch format.

A coffee table book is planned using the frame grabs.

 

HD has its applications, the benifits are primarily to the audience and producers.

 

But this is a cinematography list so who cares about the producer :)

 

 

Mike Brennan

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Bah! Mike Brennan, take your HD cameras and toss them overboard next time you shoot from a helicopter. The faster they hit the ground the better!

 

Artists will always shoot on film.

 

DC

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"Artists will always shoot on film."

 

That's a brash and massivly uninformed statement. And might I add absurd.

 

"Artists will always use oil based paints. Acrylics are hype."

 

An artist will use whatever makes the shot. Why limit yourself?

 

I hate to keep up this board's constant (but well deserved) praise of David (I'm sure it's nice to have your ego massaged, but I also bet it can get embarassing) but the guy can seem to make beautiful pictures with whatever camera is put infront of him, HD or 35mm.

 

I think Artists should only use RED cameras. Those cameras that are not RED must be painted RED or be rendered unfit to make art. If it is not RED it will be used to shoot reality tv.

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Sorry, the vast majority of those folks shooting features in HD only do so because they lack the budget for 35mm. If they had the money for 35mm they would surely use it.

 

Let's take your argument to it's logical conclusion, we'll give David Mullen a VHS camcorder, after all as you say, "the guy can seem to make beautiful pictures with whatever camera is put infront of him."

 

You sir are the one making absurd statements.

 

It seems ironic you would make such claims on a web-site called "Cinematography.com". Did you notice that pic in the top left? That is a 35mm FILM camera, why do you think it's there?

 

Perhaps you'd be happier posting on the Videomaker.com web-site.

 

DC

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You are clearly demonstrating a bias against video to the point where you are unable to see or admit that some nice photography can be done with HD cameras. Personally, I resent being told that somehow I stop being an artist the moment I start shooting with an HD camera.

 

Yes, 35mm looks better generally in most image categories you want to list: resolution, latitude, color depth, etc. That doesn't conversely mean that HD looks bad in all of those categories. Saying that film is the only artistic medium for cinematic images is like saying that oils are the only artistic medium for a painter or that marble is the only artistic medium for a sculptor.

 

It also ignores the fact that moviemaking is an artform where the image capture technology is only one aspect of the total work -- maybe one of the most important aspects, but not always THE most important aspect. In past decades, before digital, some filmmakers deliberately chose to make movies in 16mm, not just for costs, but because it was the smartest choice for the type of movie they were making. No doubt some small-minded people were telling them back then that they weren't "real" filmmakers because they weren't shooting in 35mm.

 

This is a community of filmmakers and camera people and it serves no practical purpose to insult half the people here and call them non-artists because they are working in video. The point is to be inclusive not exclusive, tolerant not intolerant. Or is it your intent to see half the people leave this forum so it can be exclusively for film shooters?

 

Don't take my word for it -- ask Tim Tyler if he thinks the term "cinematography" and the forum in general excludes video and the people who shoot it.

 

I just left Jon Jost's website -- a very respected artist working now in video, film before -- and read his strong opinions that film was basically a nostalgic format that was dying and film schools should only be teaching digital cinematography if they want to do their students any good. I don't really agree with him either. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, as usual. Film is still a healthy and viable medium and will be for years to come; plenty of artistic work is being done using digital technology, which includes video cameras.

 

Besides, "art" does not imply that the highest quality imagemaking technology is always employed. If that were true, the most artistic cinematographers would be the ones shooting in IMAX, then below them, the ones shooting in 5-perf 65mm, then below them, the ones shooting in 35mm, then below them, the ones shooting in 16mm, etc. If you give the average person a 35mm camera and Vittorio Storaro an HD camera, which do you think will most likely come back with artistic images?

 

I can't believe it's 2004 and people who shoot with video cameras are still having to prove that they can be artists. Video art dates back a couple of decades.

 

As for people only shooting HD because they can't afford film, that's nonsense -- all eight of my HD features could have been shot on film with their budgets. Half of them had budgets over a million dollars and could have been shot in 35mm. If you can afford to shoot in HD, you can afford to shoot in film. In 2003, I shot a 4-mil feature in 24P HD, then a $600,000 feature in 35mm, then a 3-mil feature in 24P HD.

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You can say what you like. The term "filmmaking" implies you are shooting film. Shooting in HD is "video making."

 

Actually from my perspective, from a strictly business sense I'm glad cheap HD camcorders are coming out. This means more people will use those and there will be even fewer people learning film. That's a good thing for those of us working ONLY in film.

 

It's already happening with the glut of film school grads who have only done projects in DV, and have zero film shooting experience.

 

I take comfort in the fact that several Hollywood heavy weights have vowed to never shoot in HD, like Steven Spielberg for one. And LOTRs Peter Jackson also shunned HD to make his new King Kong film, that says a lot. George Lucas shooting in HD means nothing, his "films" now are designed to sell Chinese made plastic toys, that's all. (FYI: The head of ILM quit today).

 

People working in HD are short sighted in many regards, first the HD cameras and formats become obsolete rather quickly. One inch is gone, 3/4 is gone, BetaSP is almost gone, HDCam will also come and go. Film is forever.

 

Second, HD will never match the way film captures light and shadow etc. Can you imagine the Sopranos shot in HD?

 

Yes I'm sure there are applications for HD, but I still stand by statement that film is a more artistic medium.

 

DC

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No one will disagree with you that film has superior image characteristics over HD. That being said, a DP who wants to have a career these days must be familiar with and be able to create good images with any format required by the production.

 

I appreciate and share your love of film, but am concerned that you so wholheartedly poo-poo HD. After all, it's not all about getting the best looking footage for a reel, but rather shooting content which is appropriate to and serves the narrative content of a film.

 

From a business standpoint, would you honestly turn down a project if it was offered to you but was going to be shot in HD? There will come a point when we are all (if lucky) shooting digitally because technology will have caught up to film.

 

This thread would be more appropriate in the HD or Video forum.

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Hi,

I own a magazine published in 1982.

In this magazine the famous director antonioni says "film is dead"

Antonioni had just discoverded betacam SP and shoot a feature with it.

Of course all his film after that are shoot in 35mm.

Why do we want to kill film? Don´t you like it? i love it

It seems like we always want to invent the wheel again.

You can shoot with minidv and makeup with flour. i´m sure this is going to be very cheap, but as i don´t personally pay the raw stock i always suggest film.

That´s my job, making the best look possible

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You can say what you like.  The term "filmmaking" implies you are shooting film.  Shooting in HD is "video making."

 

and a cd is not a record, yet we talk of recording music. the english language will always adapt, brand names become verbs- 'hoovering' for example. great filmmaking comes from the artists involved not the medium it's made on. give a 35mm camera to a talantless hack and suprise suprise you end up with rubbish. HD has its place, as does all the formats- you are showing great ignorance with this attitude. The look of HD can be very flexible and it is unfortunate that people seem to think that it's not right if it doesn't look like film. What does film look like anyway, every captured image is a subjective lie. and what about grading at what point do we say oh this isn't film anymore look at the colours etc etc. whatever your mate at ILM says, I'd genuinly rather work with grainless HD than film for post work. Badly shot HD is almost as bad to work with than badly shot film.

 

At the end of the day it all depends on where you take the image and what you want to convey, having worked for the whole year on a film which is 90% blue screen, i can tell you for a fact that the whole team would have had a lot easier time if the footage had come in on HD and the results would have been superior. If you want something to look 'classical' then there is no point in trying to recreate that digitally, but not everyone wants that. A good filmmaker is open minded.

 

Keith

Edited by keith mottram
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If you use bad lighting, bad acting, bad script and more then the film's result is going to be of low quality. It would be the same with both HD or film.

 

In a period of 9 months around two years ago I went to see over 90 films at the cinema and I don't see why those films couldn't be shot with HD rather than film. If you're shooting a teen movie then the meaning and impact of the film will not be affected by whether it was shot on film.

 

Film should be reserved to a certain quality of film. The cinema industry is so worried about being on schedule and doing things fast, turning out films for profit that shooting HD seems a viable option.

 

If really you want to argue about superior image quality then get yourself some 70mm film and go shoot imax movies. The image will be huge, high resolution and then there is a great difference.

 

Is technology like HD seen as "cheap" or "amateur" compared to film?

 

Isn't film a general term used to describe the art of story telling through pictures? Whether it is shot on tape or film the result is the same. Both tell a story.

 

Why isn't the term movie maker moved more? We go to the movies. It doesn't matter on the method of capturing the moving image that way.

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Hi,

I own a magazine published in 1982.

In this magazine the famous director antonioni says "film is dead"

Antonioni had just discoverded betacam SP and shoot a feature with it.

Of course all his film after that are shoot in 35mm.

Why do we want to kill film? Don?t you like it? i love it

It seems like we always want to invent the wheel again.

You can shoot with minidv and makeup with flour. i?m sure this is going to be very cheap, but as i don?t personally pay the raw stock i always suggest film.

That?s my job, making the best look possible

 

 

Hello, I heard Lucas told it in 1972 too.

Today in our institute was seminar of kodak. its about competituon between s16 and digitals. (sony hdw 900 and panasonic dvcproHD)

even s16 much better than newest digital technology but some dp's talking that is same. I think they are not professional enough they have to look on monitor to see picture because they cannot see it directly to eyes.

 

can you scan this magazine and send it by mail ?

I need it to show some digital fanatics.

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