Re: Pro film dropping faster then consumer



Philip Homburg wrote:
In article <43EE4F29.1070702@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Gordon Moat <moat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Resolution is not everything. An image that has lots of resolution can sometimes look soft, or all the extra details could be lost.


Why do you think that lost of resolution is going to look soft? A LF
contact print isn't soft, is it?



Depends upon the viewer, or their distance from the screen/contact print. I think 5 lp/mm has been an accepted limit, though I have seen as high as 8 lp/mm mentioned by some writers.

Of course, details can get lost.


Exactly.


Take a piece of paper into a movie theatre, and hold it up at arms length so that the movie screen is mostly covered; many find out that the screen is not really that large compared to the average photo print. I think 4K is the limit of reasonable resolution, in that any more will either look soft, or contain detail information so small that 90% of the audience will not see it. Contrast and edge definition can be more important.


I think it depends on the aspect ratio. With the very wide screens that
are common, you can probably use up a lot more horizontal resolution than
in a typical 8x10" print.


True enough . . . perhaps a piece of legal paper would be more accurate. However, the main point is that while the screen is indeed huge, the area actually in front of your vision is smaller, and can be represented by a smaller area.


Another thing is that with digital there is essentially no longer a
copying cost. This means that if the projectors become cheap enough,
you have probably more opportunities for optimizing the angle of view
of the public, than with traditional projection.




The copying issue has also become the number one security issue. I think I mentioned this previously, while the projector cost is one issue, the person running a digital projector needs to be more highly skilled than someone running a film projector. There is also a variability in that operator, as has been mentioned by some who have gone to various film festivals; the colour judgement of the operator can affect the look of the movie, sometimes adversely. So the digital projector costs more, you need a better operator to run it, and there is a security issue for pirating . . . . . probably all those things will get solved little by little, but these are not easy.


The cost of putting 35 mm film into a 4K editing environment is huge. Of course, considering that a system like the daVinci starts at $US 1 million, the conversion would only be a small part of a film production expenses.


The question is of course how long such systems remain at that price point.
Any manufacturer involved in HD editing is likely to go for slice of that
market.



You need a very fast server environment to handle 4K data streams. A daVinci comes with a dedicated server set-up and very high speed connections, much beyond your average type of gear. Some of the SGI top of the line gear comes close, and Discreet are working on a 2K solution currently (inferno) . . . target pricing just over half a million. The lower priced daVinci system is for HD1.5 and 2K, with an option for HD2.

While there might be lots of copies of Final Cut Pro installed on many computers, there really has not been much increase in the number of films being made, and only a very slight increase in entries at film festivals. The DV (digital video) "revolution" happened before "digital" photography, but in never really got too big. Editing still takes lots of time, and technology only changes that a tiny amount by simplifying some steps.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
<http://www.allgstudio.com>

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Oh, by the way
    ... The resolution of 35mm film is somewhat greater than even HD can ... if you're talking about the potential resolution of a single ... frame-to-frame registration in the projector, imperfect focus, ... "cinema" AR, of course). ...
    (rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: Wow - Sony 3D Camcorder
    ... projector, ... Film with all it's processing, ... resolution in all the intermediate steps, that in the end it's close to 2k. ... if the workflow supports 4k all the way trhough. ...
    (rec.video.desktop)
  • Re: OT Gone With the Wind editions mess
    ... because Blu-ray has less resolution than ... Blu-ray might have less resolution than film, but a Blu-ray is almost always ... usually displayed without the optical degradation of a projector. ...
    (rec.music.classical.recordings)
  • Re: Digital vs 35mm camera optics
    ... For a good ISO 100 color film such as Velvia, ... > MP digital cameras, obviously, right?). ... > resolution tests for Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, Zeiss, and so on. ... then why isn't aliasing a problem in every image the Kodak SLR's take? ...
    (sci.optics)
  • Re: Vinyl to Digital
    ... projector, displayed RGB time sequentially, and eye movement was enough ... moving your eyes was enough to tip the process over ... I'd assume that if Kodak put on a `big display using Carousel slide ... all carrying Kodak film, ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)