film out resolution ?

N

Neil Rowe

Rowe Cine LLC
so ive been doing alot of thinking and testing lately(whats new?), and i would really like to have a project i did projected @ 2.35:1 scope . it was shot using the anamorphic adaptor, and then matted in post. i just fell in love with the framing soo much when i was playing around , that ive decided thats the way i want it to be . it just looks so much more cinematic, and intimate with the framing. and on the other hand, i did not want to lose all that resolution when going to film out. espescially noticeable because most 2.35:1 screens are somewhat larger than the 16:9 ones. i mean you cant just crop the dvx resolution at will like 35mm and expect it to still look good on the blowup. so heres my ?

there have been films in the past shot on dv in 60i with cameras that cannot resolve as many lines as the dvx, and then have been deinterlaced for another big resolution hit, and then projected. even if they were using an anamorphic adaptor, and then cropping to the scope ratio, their final resolution would have been far worse than that of the dvx. and those films looked alright on the big screen. so projecting a scope image from the dvx to the silver screen should look satisfactory or better in my estimation. much sharper than 28 days later anyway. anyone have any thoughts on this.
id really like to hear from others who have done some test projections..

ive even wonderd about just leaving it letterbox matted to scope and projecting 16:9.. which would of course be fine and suffer no resolution loss, but most theatres have rules about showing letterbox content, and some/most are adamant that the full screen must be used.. so i considered only matting some of the time , and using the full 16:9 alot as well, so that it was more of an artistic thing for times in the film, but the film would still be considered 16:9 full frame material.. but some theatres even have rules about that as well.

well again, any insight would be much appreciated..
 
Re: film out resolution ?

have you tried upressing to HD?
 
Re: film out resolution ?

no, although that is the route i will most likely go for projection at the festivals. waaaay cheaper than film out. do you think that the results would be more satisfactory if i first uprezed to hd, before any film out was done. i should have mentioned that was the route i was planning on taking. but do my calculations sound correct anyway. im figuring that all said and done even the cropped 2.35:1 image from the dvx should have better results than (full frontal-28days later- dancer in the dark-ect.)

to restate ? would the hd uprez hold better imagery for projection or film printing? ive researched this topic before, and hav only come to determine that it depends on the hd uprez equipment/algorithms used. am i correct in this?
 
Re: film out resolution ?

WM9 does an easy uprez to HD then you can give that to the film out. For art history today they are doing the exact thing and it is being shown at the Whister Film festival (as one of the panel/conferences, not as an entry) this weekend.

Microsoft is also really pushing WM9 as a viable projection source.. ( In microsoft fashion, they went balls out and bought 200+ theaters just so they could outfit them with WMV capable projectors)

Just wait.. soon enough you will be able to buy DVD players that play WMV right off the disc.
 
Re: film out resolution ?

so art history is being cropped to 2.35:1 and projected via wmv uprezzing? cool. you guys did a great job with that may i add. i was going to ask a friend of mine who has a cinealta if he would do the uprezzing on his equipment, because sundance an others requires the hd to be the sony hdcam format. so you think it looks ok once uprezzed and projected though, or is this what youll be finding out from the showing?
 
Re: film out resolution ?

I will know this afternoon.. thanks for reminding me I almost forgot already.
 
Re: film out resolution ?

cool. and hey, ... if you could just keep me informed on how it turned out id be most appreciative.. thanks for the input :)
 
Re: film out resolution ?

Here's another option: shoot with the mini35, and use anamorphic film lenses. You'd get all 480 lines, instead of just 360 (or 270, if you cropped it all the way down). Anamorphic primes would give you a 2.66:1 ratio so you'd crop a little on the sides but maintain full height, it'd be a much higher resolution way to go and if you can swing the rental rates, it'll provide probably the best final image.
 
Re: film out resolution ?

definitley a choice setup.. - but too late for this particular feature. thanks though barry! ill have to keep it in mind for my next one. that is if i dont spring for a cinealta 950 (head in clouds.. hey why not..!)with all my mega monies from this ones release...
 
Re: film out resolution ?

3 questions.

1. Just how easy is the upresing in WM9? I assume this isn't the downloadable freebie version, but a pro version?

2. Any reason one shouldn't upres before a transfer to film? I never hear of people doing this. Is the line doubling a little weird, perhaps?

3. Unless I'm really missing the joke, Xbox can't play wm9, can it?
 
Re: film out resolution ?

Oh yeah, loser, I would ask forum member Shai about the 2:35:1 format. He did it on a short (going to film supposedly) "Der Besuch". It's on this forum under the clips category. Check it out, I think it looks great, and the thread offers some ideas about this aspect ratio.
 
Re: film out resolution ?

I have been making 1920x1080 WM9 at 8Mbs uprez using Sorenson Squeeze. The uprez looks very nice and I project from the CPU using DVI.

If going to film, I don't know if I would go to a compressed format first, HDCAM is compressed enough for that process?

Michael
 
Re: film out resolution ?

zot . im familiar enough with how to shoot for the given aspect ratio. the question left at hand is only what sort of resolution it holds when actually going to the film out, and if upconverting to hd first offers any discernable advantage.  but i have seen shai's " trailer many times.. its very good.

say micheal. i was planning on converting to hdcam (for projection , and later possible film transfer) using one of sonys hd boxes. are you , or anyone else for that matter familiar with the results, and if they do a good job?  
 
Re: film out resolution ?

iamloser, this is a question referring to your first post. You say you shot your project in 16:9 with the adapter lens and then matted the image in post. does this mean you edited in 16:9 widescreen and then matted a 4:3 image with the full widescreen image? that might be hard to understand, but basically i'm asking if you brought your full widescreen image into a 4:3 image, how did you do it? hope the question is not too confusing, thanks.
 
Re: film out resolution ?

well,
the projectwas shot in anamorphic 16:9 by using the adaptor -yes.
the project is edited in a 16:9 editing mode -yes.

to answer your question of how you would take a 16:9 project and put it into a 4:3 video.. you would letterbox the 16:9 project. ..in other words you would shrink the whole 16:9 window untill the width of it fit into a 4:3 window, and you would be left with black bars at the top and bottom.  thats what letterboxing is for. you may be confused about letterboxing , because the dvx doesnt letterbox like this. it simply mattes the top and bottom of a 4:3 full frame video-leaving a 16:9 window in the middle. however. letterboxing was developed so that when the original full frame video was of th 16:9 or 2.35:1  ratio , you would shrink it down into  the 4:3 window, and be left with the black at top and bottom.. youre not cutting anything off then. your shrinking it so you can fit it all in there. the dvx just masks the video so that it gives the appearance that that is what has been done, or give the same framing that you would have if shooting in 16:9.  a 4:3 window that has been letterbox masked once(like the dvx does) leaves a 16:9 window in the center-- now if you took thet 16:9 window in the center, and letterbox masked that, you would have a 2.35:1 window left  in the center

anyway.-no thats not what im doing(i'm asking if you brought your full widescreen image into a 4:3 image)

what im doing is masking the top and bottom of the 16:9 project(like the dvx does letterboxing with the 4:3 window) which leaves a 2.35:1 ratio image left in the center. so im cutting off the top and bottom (or wherever i feel it needs to be framed) of the 16:9 project. once this is done, i would expand the center image to fill the whole 16:9 window, so that i have a 16:9 window with the content that looked stretched tall. ( like the 4:3 window of the dvx lcd when using the anamorphic adaptor) and that is projected anamorphically stretching it out to the 2.35:1 ratio by "unsquishing the tall window.    but what i will likely do is have it upconverted before  doing the conversion to make the 2.35:1 video fill the whole 16:9 frame for anamorphic projection, so that the conversion is done in higher quality. ... sides i need to leave the video as a 16:9 ratio project masked to 2.35:1 for the dvd , because dvds can only be flagged as 16:9 or 4:3 .. if you want to show a 2.35:1 dvd, you need to have a 16:9 or 4:3 project, with the 2.35:1 video letterboxed in it.

ive probably gone about explaining this the long complicated way.. sorry if its confusing- but if you get out a sheet of paper. and just try to draw it all out . you will get bored. but probably it will make more sense if you could visualize it . anyway hope this helps or has been somewaht informative :)
 
Re: film out resolution ?

[quote author=MichaelP link=board=Events;num=1070371958;start=0#13 date=12/03/03 at 04:51:14]I have been making 1920x1080 WM9 at 8Mbs uprez using Sorenson Squeeze. The uprez looks very nice and I project from the CPU using DVI.

If going to film, I don't know if I would go to a compressed format first, HDCAM is compressed enough for that process?

Michael[/quote]

Hey Michael,

Did you see my up-rez S-Spline stuff on the DVXvsJVC thread? I looked at your site and saw that the Avid codec does the 4:1:1 chroma smoothing, so I thought -- hey, I'll just export the stills from Avid FreeDV!

Two questions:
a) does the codec included with FreeDV do the smoothing?

b) how on earth do you get it to export a still? I tried for half an hour, and although it said it would, it just wouldn't actually export it!

Alternately, could you just download that file, convert the DVX portion (the first 104 frames) to stills and send those back to me? It'd be nice to see what it looks like up-rezzed without that 4:1:1 blockiness!
 
Re: film out resolution ?

no there was a small political incident that prevented us from checking it out.. its done we just havn't seen it yet. I will let you know as soon as I do.
 
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