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S16mm at 4k


J Van Auken

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I find it odd that someone would be considering a 4K transfer of S16 when most 35mm scope productions, even 65mm 5-perf. are only scanned at 2K. You can almost count on one hand the number of 4K movies released, ever. Same thing with contact/optical prints.

 

2K is far better than the method that existed before: the optical blow-up.

 

Maybe for a short film it would make sense, or a movie shot outdoors predominantly on '01, or on under-200T films. You really are just sharpening and blowing up grain with 4K scans. Would it cut down on artifacts for transmission? I notice that HDTV has a terrible time with 16mm grain. Watch something like "Friday Night Lights" (Fuji I think mostly 500T) to see what I mean.

 

"Crash" (I guess just the first season, the Starz TV show not the movie) was S16. I would assume the daylight exteriors were '01 or the Fuji 64D. Those look pretty sharp at 1080P.

 

I'd like to see a 4K scan, personally, from S16, I just wouldn't want to have to budget for it ;)

 

Karl totally agree that 4K is probably too much for S16mm but hopefully you're not saying that 35mm wouldn't look any better with a 4K scan... it certainly does. The reason most 35mm films are finished 2K is that most theaters that project digitally trust and rely upon the DLP technology licensed to Christie, Barco and NEC which until 2011 has always been in 2k. That's changing this next year with the release of the new full frame 4K DLP chip http://www.dlp.com/cinema/dlp-enhanced-4k/default.aspx . I expect there will be "see it in 4K" promotions at some flagship theaters towards the end of 2011. I also expect the cost of a 4K DI will be coming down a bit with new technologies for scannign and and increased demand.

 

-Paul

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Karl totally agree that 4K is probably too much for S16mm but hopefully you're not saying that 35mm wouldn't look any better with a 4K scan... it certainly does.

Interesting... Friends at ILM that say they rarely do anything over HD resolution for major features... maybe that's changing with the new higher-end projectors but anything that went film out almost always HD resolution unless there was a specific technical reason on a certain effect for going higher.

 

You guys are doing it everyday so I'm sure you're seeing the cutting edge but I guess I wonder if it really makes that much of a difference if the destination is 35mm prints or HD video.

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No, not at all, Paul.

 

 

I'm a projectionist part time. It's disgusting to see $2,000 35mm prints that have lower resolution than the Blurays at home due to 2K masters and 3 generations of contact printing.

 

 

If I were running a release printing lab, I would come up with a high-speed 4K film recorder that could burn straight onto 2383, and deliver a BETTER product to theatres, one would give even 4K DLP a run for its money.

 

With 2K DIs we have a marginal product, worse than any form of movie projection since the beginning of the color era, clearly designed to bring the bar down low enough to enable 2K digital projection to come in and take over the market uncontested.

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[quote name='K Borowski' timestamp='1293562241' post='340855'

 

If I were running a release printing lab, I would come up with a high-speed 4K film recorder that could burn straight onto 2383, and deliver a BETTER product to theatres, one would give even 4K DLP a run for its money.

 

 

Keep your eye on the Cinevator.

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Paul: Can you be a little bit less cryptic please? :-p

 

If not please send me an e-mail or PM. . .

 

 

The technology would exist by now if there were a demand, and there should be a demand in my honest opinion.

 

 

The remnants of the 35mm slide projector industry (yes, there are still theatres that still use slides/ads on film) are either 1-gen duping E-6 originals onto EDUPE or recording straight to EDUPE in volume. I assume that's 2K or less, but that should be a function of the CRT/laser, not the film transport or emulsion speed.

 

 

I don't understand with the price of memory in free-fall, how someone can't buy a bunch of hard-drives/servers and make this happen. I don't understand how physically transporting 35mm film can still be slower than digital memory in 2010.

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Paul: Can you be a little bit less cryptic please? :-p

 

If not please send me an e-mail or PM. . .

 

 

The technology would exist by now if there were a demand, and there should be a demand in my honest opinion.

 

 

The remnants of the 35mm slide projector industry (yes, there are still theatres that still use slides/ads on film) are either 1-gen duping E-6 originals onto EDUPE or recording straight to EDUPE in volume. I assume that's 2K or less, but that should be a function of the CRT/laser, not the film transport or emulsion speed.

 

 

I don't understand with the price of memory in free-fall, how someone can't buy a bunch of hard-drives/servers and make this happen. I don't understand how physically transporting 35mm film can still be slower than digital memory in 2010.

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I expect there will be "see it in 4K" promotions at some flagship theaters towards the end of 2011. I also expect the cost of a 4K DI will be coming down a bit with new technologies for scannign and and increased demand.

 

-Paul

 

There is a 4K Sony equipped theater not far away that I have been to but do you think they have shown anything but 2K files so far? I saw a couple shows there but didn't notice much of a benefit over the last 2K digital theater I was in so I have to conclude they are doing a cart before the horse kind of thing here.

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There is a 4K Sony equipped theater not far away that I have been to but do you think they have shown anything but 2K files so far? I saw a couple shows there but didn't notice much of a benefit over the last 2K digital theater I was in so I have to conclude they are doing a cart before the horse kind of thing here.

 

Hey Vince... Unless they've changed things over at Sony Colorworks they're still looking at 2K from those Sony 4K projectors. Go figure. It's a SAN bandwidth thing I believe. They have an enormous central SAN (3+ PB) but I don't think it's particularly fast. I went over there all excited to see some full resolution 4K too and was a bit disappointed when I found out they weren't showning 4K.

 

Sort of a pet peeve of mine. I can count at least four DI / Post companies in LA that have "4K DI Theaters" where you only ever get to look at 2K. Basically you color grade in 2K and bake the looks into the 4K master. That's no fun! When we build our 4K DI theater at Cinelicious I promise we'll be looking at the real thing :)

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Paul: Can you be a little bit less cryptic please? :-p

 

The Cinevator is the only high speed film recorder out there. They can make prints in realtime and are currently capable of 2K resolution. If anyone is going to build a fast 4K film recorder Cinevation would be the company to do it.

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I don´t know if it has been said before but when shooting on S35 going through the optical process all that ends on the screen varies between 750-900 lines. I talked with a well known guy in Europe about this issue. His family is in film business for about 100 years in Switzerland, and he confirms this. Saying so even HD printed directly would produce the same quality. This in my eyes only will change with digital projection since then the differnece will be clearly visible. So the discussion can not only go around 2k-4k issues. It must have more than just technical view to it as for instance that 4k will carry more information concerning gradation and contrast and resolution is just a part of the game.

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Of course an IMAX movie doesn't originate on 16mm but I thought it was relevant to the discussion...

 

From WikiPedia...

 

IMAX digital currently uses two 2K-resolution Christie projectors with Texas Instruments Digital Light Processing technology alongside parts of IMAX's proprietary technologies. The two 2K images are projected over each other, producing an image that is potentially of a slightly higher resolution than common 2K digital cinema. Originally, IMAX had been considering using two Sony 4K projectors.[30] Some reviewers note that this approach may not produce image quality higher than using one 4K projector, which are available for some non-IMAX theaters,[29] including AMC's own.[31]

 

This is just a projection format and has nothing to do with the origination. If the projectors are 2K then is there still a real advantage to working in 4K with all the additional processing power and time involved?

 

I would come back to the story and if the visuals are worthy of the incremental increase in quality until a complete 4K release workflow is finalized. Until I'm asked to produce the next Transformers I would probably spend the time & money on other things. Although it's very interesting as a thought experiment.

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The new IMAX Theatres are a joke and are going to permanently tarnish the brand's image.

 

 

They're no better than any of the big three theatre chains "premium experiences" just big screens blowing up a crummy 2K digital image.

 

4K Sonies (sp.?) are capable of showing 4K. That's if the theatre hasn't shipped the single "2D" lens back (3D uses a split lens that uses less than half the chip for each "eye" - for 2D they are usually too lazy to change, so it basically becomes a sub-2K projector in this common mode). There are brightness issues with Sony 4Ks, but if it is real 4K, I don't care!

 

My understanding is that the issue is a near-complete lack of content. Even IMAX 70mm DNR blowups are only at 2K! (This is an astounding waste of money on super-high-resolution 70mm print stock).

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The Aaton-K is a 4K recorder which will shoot directly to print stock, Int and Neg and while 2.8FPS is not as fast at the Cinevator it is pretty good speed for a recording. I would also think it would toast the Cinevator for Pic Quality. http://www.aaton.com/aatonk/

 

I also think these "Sub 1K" pixel specs for release prints are misleading, to my Eye a contact printed release print looks better than a 4K DI print which in turn looks better than a 2K DI print. I have also been completely unimpressed with the 2K and 4K DCI projection I have seen compared to a nice print, like Inception.

 

I think 4K end to end might be a bit much for S-16mm but certainly a 3K S-16 scan that is even down rezzed to 2K looks pretty impressive. I have not seen Black Swan yet but Hurt Locker and The Wrestler looked pretty great for S16.

 

-Rob-

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