DVX blown up to 35mm.

Re: DVX blown up to 35mm.

I did use the Panasonic anamorphic (it's the only one available). I didn't use any up-rezzing program, the lab did all up-rezzing (and I don't know what process they use). The lab was www.dvfilm.com
 
Re: DVX blown up to 35mm.

Barry,

OK, i know you did not use SSpline for film print.

1) I mean, in your tests, which SSpline setting (generic ? photo ?) do you use to convert to HD Video ?

2) What are the image size setting you use in SSpline to mainttain the real aspect ratio ?

thanks
 
Re: DVX blown up to 35mm.

I used the "photo" preset, figuring that each frame was basically a photo so the "photo" setting seemed like it'd be the most compatible.

I set the output size as 1280 x 720, and S-Spline Pro automatically took care of aspect ratio conversion.
 
Re: DVX blown up to 35mm.

I saw a DVX100 blow up to 35mm sometime ago, this is what I wrote:

Ok, I went to Du Art yesterday. After getting out of the train station that had armed guards with M16s, I headed uptown. My first reaction to the screening room (before the demo reel started) was that the screen was unusually small. The screen was somewhere between ten and fifteen feet wide, and so I asked the manager (the man in charge of the Tape-to-Film transfers at Du Art) if the image would degrade on a standard size theatrical screen. The manager said that the image wouldn?t degrade to a noticeable degree with a larger screen. According to the manager, a much larger screen might have a slight increase in grain, but given the fact that the audience is further away from the screen, the additional grain wouldn?t be too noticeable. On to the footage. The first images I saw were from the DVX100. Listen up people, the DVX100 blown up to 35mm is excellent! The demo reel actually compared DVX100 60I footage and DVX100 24p footage, all with some man walking out on a beach (on a bright sunny day.) The 60I DVX100 footage appeared like common DV to 35mm transfer footage, that is to say, it had that tell tell motion blur along, with a substantial softening of finite details. The 24p DVX100 footage looked like 16mm transferred to 35mm. I kid you not. The cine gamma function also seemed to really make a difference as it pulled out details in the highlights that non-cine gamma cams can?t (the details it pulled from the highlights looked more like film.) Now, I did see the Turtle and the RC car footage shot with the DVX100, and I wasn?t too happy with it. The reason is this: The rapid motion from the RC car, and the fact that the shot was handheld, really looked blurry to me. I asked the manager about this and he said something about the guy working in 30 frames per second. Now I?m not sure if he said the guy shot the RC car footage at 30p, or if the guy simply edited in 30p. Nonetheless, my conclusion about the DVX100 is that if the lighting is controlled properly, it can pass for 16mm that has been blown up to 35mm. The DVX100 didn?t look like HD to 35mm to me, but the image it did produce was good enough for my future project (a low budget comedy.) Now, on to the big surprise. What DID look like HD material to me was the new Sony IMX MPEG camera. The footage blown up from this camera looked spectacular to me. Not so much spectacular in terms of looking like Lawrence of Arabia, but spectacular in terms of passing for 35mm. But I have to say, the footage from the IMX camera was night exteriors and night interiors, so I don?t know how this camera would handle the DV-grim-reaper of bright exterior panoramic shots. Ahh yes, I also saw footage from the Panasonc VariCam, that looked great, and it was actually comparable to the Sony IMX camera, based on the footage that I saw (which was some kind of musical inside of a studio.) The mother of all cameras, the F900, was displayed as well, and that looked like 35mm to me. BUT, it was a type of 35mm look that was just barely above the 16mm look (hope I?m not being confusing.) Finally, I saw DSR500 and PD150 footage and I was not impressed. I was not impressed because these were INTERLACE cameras, and the motion blur and softening of the details (due to the combining of interlace fields) made it look like video to me. The manager recommended, and I agree with him, that shooting on a progressive 25p or 24p camera is the best way to go for film transfers. However, if you are going to shoot with a prosumer interlace camera, the manager recommended the PDX10 over all other interlace prosumer cams. Oh yeah, they showed Tadpole also and I gave off a sigh of relief. I felt relieved because I once wondered if Tadpole was the best that DV to 35mm had to offer (after seeing it in a theater), and it actually is the worse that DV to 35mm has to offer. It appeared to me that the DP of Tadpole shot it as if it was 16mm, that is, he didn?t control the light, or the camera properly. The result? The motion blur in Tadpole had me on the verge of sea sickness, the video noise was way too much, and the image had a type of fuzziness that made me wonder if my glasses were getting outdated. Interesting enough, when I first saw Tadpole it was on a fairly large screen, and like the manager said, it was very comparable to the image on the smaller screen. It seems to me that whatever venue you end up on (theater, cable, or DVD), 25p and 24p is the safest way to go for Fiction work.
 
Barry_Green said:
So, like I say, if you intend to make a 35mm print, the DVX is not the right way to go. Of course we all knew that, but I believe in going out and testing anyway rather than just accepting "common knowledge". And the tests fared better than I expected (just not as good as I hoped).

But if you did get picked up, I don't think any distributor would say "oh, forget it, we could never make a decent print from this" because they could. They could make a decent film blow-up.
Click to expand...
Barry, would you also not recommend the use of 16mm film in that situation, since the image quality you witnessed from the DVX is comparable to that of 16mm?

Barry_Green said:
If I had been thinking (and I slap my forehead every time I think about this) I would have used the Panasonic anamorphic adapter in front of the mini35's still-camera lens! But I didn't think of it at the time.
Click to expand...
I was actually about to ask that question; wheter or not we could use both at the same time. I don't know why no one's ever thought of it before though.

Barry_Green said:
For a film project I'd probably go with the anamorphic. If you absolutely have to have a super-shallow background, you can always just slap a SoftScreen behind the subject for those shots.
Click to expand...
Or, just attatch the anamorphic adapter over the mini 35 cinema lens, using both right?
 
Gordon JL said:
Barry, would you also not recommend the use of 16mm film in that situation, since the image quality you witnessed from the DVX is comparable to that of 16mm?
Click to expand...
A DVX blowup looks roughly comparable to a regular-16 blowup. 16mm has more latitude, and a lot more grain, depending on the speed of the stock you use. But 16mm is likely to open a few more distribution doors than video origination will.

I was actually about to ask that question; wheter or not we could use both at the same time. I don't know why no one's ever thought of it before though.
Click to expand...
Actually it wouldn't work. This is a very old thread, and I've learned much since then. The anamorphic is optimized for certain focal lengths, and really performs at its best at somewhere around 35mm. It's very difficult to use at 45mm, any longer than that would probably render it useless.


Or, just attatch the anamorphic adapter over the mini 35 cinema lens, using both right?
Click to expand...
Again, it's not likely to work, unless you're using very short focal-length lenses...
 
what do you guys think how the new HVX200, if blown to 35mm, will it stack up against the half mil cameras hollywood uses?
 
that's the 'million dollar' question.

seriously, I believe an HVX200 would be sharper than a blow-up from a DVX100. However, the limitations of the smaller format (less control over depth of field, reduced latitude between shadows and highlights compared to larger formats) will still be tricky to work around.

It is safe to say with careful attention to contrasts (i.e. - lighting) and use of a 35mm lens adapter would put DV-sized cameras in an entirely new league. It's quite possible it could look *as good* as 35mm in many situations, assuming the reduced latitude isn't a giveaway.
 
"THE CAMERA OF POWER IN THE INDEPENDENT'S HANDS"

I believe we're gonna have them running for their money!!
 
Barry, (or anyone who knows)

Just wondering how you feel a 35 mm blow-up compares to digitally projecting from DV. I have had my shorts shown on a number of big screens, but always digitally. I have found that you can get great results, but for most situations, the resolution just isn't high enough, even from the back.

I haven't seen footage from a z1/fx1 on a big screen yet, but would be interested to hear what that is like too.
 
we have a dv film fest in Los Angeles (Dec 2005) that should answer some questions on digital projection at 1080 Interlaced or progressive .
Hopefully you have some festivals in your areas .
Ill post some impressions if I go to the L A fest
Cheers
Bruce
 
I think digital projection looks better, especially with a decent projector. Every uprez of DV I've seen on film tends to look mushy once scaled to film. You can test what it'll look like on film by scaling a still in After Effects to 2K. You'll notice the artifacting and limits of DV compression pretty quickly.

I haven't seen any Z1/FX1 footage but from a resolution standpoint it should look a lot better than standard DV.
 
Isaac_Brody said:
I think digital projection looks better, especially with a decent projector. Every uprez of DV I've seen on film tends to look mushy once scaled to film. You can test what it'll look like on film by scaling a still in After Effects to 2K. You'll notice the artifacting and limits of DV compression pretty quickly.

I haven't seen any Z1/FX1 footage but from a resolution standpoint it should look a lot better than standard DV.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: The scaling in after effects is a great idea
But my question is
Once you see the artifcating and I would guess " limits " (having to do with rendition in highlight to shadow areas ) does the fact that it is moving at 24fps make it more or less tolerable or should I say ,,visible ?
Thanks for a reply
Cheers
Bruce
 
I would say it's less tolerable when you scale it up. All the artifacts are enlarged so the noise which wouldn't normally be obvious on a SD screen can look pretty bad at 2k. You could definitely use that noise as an artistic tool. I think a lot of Hollywood horror films would benefit from shooting DV and bumping to film. They would have less gloss and more mystery.

A lot of posthouses use after effects for uprezzing. Some places have hardware uprezzing and their own algorithms, but you could definitely uprez on your own if you wanted too. Disjecta used Photozoom Pro to uprez his footage to 16X9.

Shooting at 24P is a great option because at least you divorce yourself from the motion characteristics of video, but you can only stretch SD so far. But at least 24P makes things fairly tolerable.
 
Can't wait for the hvx200 and it's capabilities. Still if you know that theatrical is where you want to go and 35mm is the look you want. Shooting 35 is the way to go. I know it's expensive, but 35mm is 35mm. DV can only do so much. Most of us will be lucky (understatement) to get anything up on the big screen, so DV is definately an avenue for us to take. With the HD's improving maybe the gap between film and digital will be closer and make life easier for us. Transfering from DVto35 is as expensive as shooting with 35mm. cheers
 
Results of screening dvx 100 images at the DV FILM FESTIVAL

Results of screening dvx 100 images at the DV FILM FESTIVAL

tktk said:
Can't wait for the hvx200 and it's capabilities. Still if you know that theatrical is where you want to go and 35mm is the look you want. Shooting 35 is the way to go. I know it's expensive, but 35mm is 35mm. DV can only do so much. Most of us will be lucky (understatement) to get anything up on the big screen, so DV is definately an avenue for us to take. With the HD's improving maybe the gap between film and digital will be closer and make life easier for us. Transfering from DVto35 is as expensive as shooting with 35mm. cheers
Click to expand...
:beer: :thumbup:
correct
we are shoting two chapters of a feature in 35m and dvx 100a .
What I saw at the dv festival with a pansonic projector called the "7000"(most likly less than 2k in projection of defined lines resolution) was dvx100 footage shown at :
1) 30 foot throw
2) 18ft screen
It was in my opinion
acceptable
if you where at the center and slightly behind the projector .
on going closer the image turned to mush .
But I believe that small theatrical venue for dvx 100a is very possible
close ups looks great
long shots and exteriors look video ish
and not so good with apparent artifact etc .
Chers
Bruce :beer:
 
DVX transferred to 35mm then projected either film or digital looks very different then DVX SD clips digital projected .. IMO almost a day & night difference. you can see this on movies that were been shot on video then transferred to 35mm and the 35 transferred for DVD release - look at the extra scenes or deleted scenes many were not transferred to film ... totally different feel/look
 
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