It would be fascinating to shoot a resolution chart with 16mm, super16, 35mm, and the HVX. See how many lines of detail you can approximately get out of each. Wouldn't be too hard either. Just need one frame of each. Of course, the stock used will affect the film to some degree so maybe a selection of a few different common stocks?
HD: What is the equivalent in film?
- Thread starter Deadzone
- Start date
I was referring to super 16. By definition, "2k" means 2,048 pixels horizontally. Sometimes the HD format 1,920 x 1,080 is called 2K because it's pretty close, but it really isn't quite 2K. The super 16 camera aperture measures .493" x .292" (or about 12.52 mm x 7.42 mm). Multiplying each dimension by 100 lp/mm yields 1,252 x 742. There is a danger in equating lines of resolution with pixels (eg, the Kell factor and all that). Suffice it to say, horizontal resolution, as measured in lines (or, more properly, black and white line pairs) is on average no better than about 80% of the measured pixel count. Therefore, a 1,252 line pairs (horizontally) equates to about 1,565 pixels. But that assumes 100 lp/mm. Film stocks in reality yield less, so the effective pixel count is lower.thisiswells said:
I can confirm, super 35mm transfered to digital has a resolution of 4096x3112
regular 35mm is at 3656 x 2664, hd is still far away.
and I dont think they are choosing hd over film because it looks almost as good, actually it doesnt even look close to it... no cinealta, not the panasonic..
its the matter of fact of on set visualisation ( specially with visual fx ) and costs, that why some filmmakers prefer to shoot on hd, if you want quality and sharpness in every way you shoot 35mm.. if u r a film fanatic.. shoot 72mm imax
if u can afford it
regular 35mm is at 3656 x 2664, hd is still far away.
and I dont think they are choosing hd over film because it looks almost as good, actually it doesnt even look close to it... no cinealta, not the panasonic..
its the matter of fact of on set visualisation ( specially with visual fx ) and costs, that why some filmmakers prefer to shoot on hd, if you want quality and sharpness in every way you shoot 35mm.. if u r a film fanatic.. shoot 72mm imax
if u can afford it
SoerenM
Well-known member
Yeah that's something most of the "pro film" people simply forget or don't take into account. I know (@urbanfx) that 35mm is scanned in at 4K most of the time and that the original film from the camera (mostly a high quality film stock is used) really has this resolution. And of course lattitude! Most of the time film is digitized into the Cineon logarithmic format so you have great freedom regarding color correction and darkening/lightening the picture etc.pp. ... however -> what the "customer" sees in the cinema differs from that very much - at least resolution wise.
Most of the time the duplication was made in average or low quality or the print was already shown a few days (for dozens of times) and starts to wear out and so on. Or even the projector wasn't focused correctly or hasn't the best lenses (esp. with anamorphic projection this can get ugly ;o).
I personally have witnesses this countless times... a general rule of thumb today with modern multiplex cinemas that I have access to: if not projected digitally (with a top of the line at least 2k projector) the average projection quality is always below watching the same movie in 1080p at home on my 1920 x 1200 TFT or my 720p (!) projector (of course 720p is only enough at home because the size of the projected image is much lower than in a big multiplex cinema)!!!
(of course I'm only talking about high quality 1080p sources.. I know that there are quite a number of badly telecined or low quality compressed 1080i/p movies out there ;o)
So if you got an all-digital workflow and even digital projection in the end I'd say that 2k is in most cases enough to achieve at least the same "analogue" projection quality that is currently available to the average viewer.
Just my 2 cents...
Most of the time the duplication was made in average or low quality or the print was already shown a few days (for dozens of times) and starts to wear out and so on. Or even the projector wasn't focused correctly or hasn't the best lenses (esp. with anamorphic projection this can get ugly ;o).
I personally have witnesses this countless times... a general rule of thumb today with modern multiplex cinemas that I have access to: if not projected digitally (with a top of the line at least 2k projector) the average projection quality is always below watching the same movie in 1080p at home on my 1920 x 1200 TFT or my 720p (!) projector (of course 720p is only enough at home because the size of the projected image is much lower than in a big multiplex cinema)!!!
(of course I'm only talking about high quality 1080p sources.. I know that there are quite a number of badly telecined or low quality compressed 1080i/p movies out there ;o)
So if you got an all-digital workflow and even digital projection in the end I'd say that 2k is in most cases enough to achieve at least the same "analogue" projection quality that is currently available to the average viewer.
Just my 2 cents...
Bart_Boge
Well-known member
Sounds like the proper bake-off between 1080p and 35mm, and/or SD video and 16mm, would be this--displaying the digital video using a theater projector at native format resolution, and using a distribution print of the film versions in conventional theater film projectors.
Display a resolution chart using this system and measure what actually resolves for the theater audience. Have a knowledgeable projectionist getting the lenses in the best possible focus. That would be an accurate test for best possible end-user viewing resolution.
In fact, if you wanted to make it even a more realistic comparison, have the pimply-faced 11th grader who usually runs the projector at your local multiplex run the charts. Feel free to throw popcorn at the booth and yell "Focus... Focus!... FOCUS, you idiot!!"
I would wager that an HD project projected in HD would possibly be SUPERIOR in perceived resolution than the results of a distribution-grade 35mm print. I have read reviewers who have said so. In fact, Ebert saw one of the SW prequels in both film and digital, and he declared the HD to be higher-res. Make-up artists will have to scramble to make improvements, because in well-lit deep focus shots you can literally see every pore in an actor's skin! It seems that shooting a project in HD and then distributing film prints of it is the worst of both worlds--lower initial shooting res than 35mm, plus the compromises of a film print that is potentially generations away from the original.
Having said that, Ep.III looked fine to me, and I saw it in film, not digital. At some point, only anal film tech types can really discern a difference. Your audience (Remember them? The people buying the tickets in those multiplex theaters with bad projectionists?) won't know or care how you shot the thing. Diminishing returns, indeed!
Display a resolution chart using this system and measure what actually resolves for the theater audience. Have a knowledgeable projectionist getting the lenses in the best possible focus. That would be an accurate test for best possible end-user viewing resolution.
In fact, if you wanted to make it even a more realistic comparison, have the pimply-faced 11th grader who usually runs the projector at your local multiplex run the charts. Feel free to throw popcorn at the booth and yell "Focus... Focus!... FOCUS, you idiot!!"
I would wager that an HD project projected in HD would possibly be SUPERIOR in perceived resolution than the results of a distribution-grade 35mm print. I have read reviewers who have said so. In fact, Ebert saw one of the SW prequels in both film and digital, and he declared the HD to be higher-res. Make-up artists will have to scramble to make improvements, because in well-lit deep focus shots you can literally see every pore in an actor's skin! It seems that shooting a project in HD and then distributing film prints of it is the worst of both worlds--lower initial shooting res than 35mm, plus the compromises of a film print that is potentially generations away from the original.
Having said that, Ep.III looked fine to me, and I saw it in film, not digital. At some point, only anal film tech types can really discern a difference. Your audience (Remember them? The people buying the tickets in those multiplex theaters with bad projectionists?) won't know or care how you shot the thing. Diminishing returns, indeed!
guys I think its unfair to compare 35mm to the hd geoge lucas is shooting...
you forget that first of all,
1. most of the film is cg
2. just the actors are hd + the biggest post production facility worldwide..
having 19 infernos in a studio, not everyone can afford...
they have inhouse tools that will let even hi-8 footage look like 35mm,
yes its when it is projected it will lose a lot of resolution lines, BUT
in 35mm scanned at 4k and downrez. to whatever, you still will see more details,
look closely at "unrotoscoped" (retouched) footage at a actors face specially in CU,
you will find way more detail like pores, nose hairs.. on 35mm then hd, even downrez.. its 1/2 the res.. whats a pixel? > . < divede it by half, and you still have that 50% of it, probably in a 70% grey, something that many times wont even popup in hd..
now the question is do you want to see the nose hairs of an actor?
usually not, but u get the idea
as latitude and color, film still cant be reached..
take film trow into davinci,lustre or whatever -> at the end you will have way more amazing details in blacks,whites, colors, whatever
but that all depends on the cc artist too, post can fix almost everything, but they can "f*** up" everything too.
ive fixed 100$cam dv footage to look bombastic.. so close to film that the whole audience was blown away, dps, directors, "rest".. where discussing if this now was 16mm or 35mm..
when the director showed them the camera, they couldnt believe their eyes
im my opinion more important then the medium it is recorded at....... is the lense, the scenario, the DP <<<<< and the cinematic in an actors face.. the good combination of all, you will be able to have amazing results, all that if you can afford hours and hours of post..
if not, usually raw material transfered on a telecine with a little cc from 35mm
and hd cc in lets say final cut... same footage... same location.. you will be able to tell an enourmous difference
my 2 cents, im going back retouching
you forget that first of all,
1. most of the film is cg
2. just the actors are hd + the biggest post production facility worldwide..
having 19 infernos in a studio, not everyone can afford...
they have inhouse tools that will let even hi-8 footage look like 35mm,
yes its when it is projected it will lose a lot of resolution lines, BUT
in 35mm scanned at 4k and downrez. to whatever, you still will see more details,
look closely at "unrotoscoped" (retouched) footage at a actors face specially in CU,
you will find way more detail like pores, nose hairs.. on 35mm then hd, even downrez.. its 1/2 the res.. whats a pixel? > . < divede it by half, and you still have that 50% of it, probably in a 70% grey, something that many times wont even popup in hd..
now the question is do you want to see the nose hairs of an actor?
usually not, but u get the idea
as latitude and color, film still cant be reached..
take film trow into davinci,lustre or whatever -> at the end you will have way more amazing details in blacks,whites, colors, whatever
but that all depends on the cc artist too, post can fix almost everything, but they can "f*** up" everything too.
ive fixed 100$cam dv footage to look bombastic.. so close to film that the whole audience was blown away, dps, directors, "rest".. where discussing if this now was 16mm or 35mm..
when the director showed them the camera, they couldnt believe their eyes
im my opinion more important then the medium it is recorded at....... is the lense, the scenario, the DP <<<<< and the cinematic in an actors face.. the good combination of all, you will be able to have amazing results, all that if you can afford hours and hours of post..
if not, usually raw material transfered on a telecine with a little cc from 35mm
and hd cc in lets say final cut... same footage... same location.. you will be able to tell an enourmous difference
my 2 cents, im going back retouching
well man, lets say it like this..
Im inferno/fire operator.... I get to see new footage like 10 times a day at work,
i have not seen anything in hd that could compare jet to 35mm and we get a ton of it.
do you have some screen grabs? Im not sure if I ever seen footage of this two
Im inferno/fire operator.... I get to see new footage like 10 times a day at work,
i have not seen anything in hd that could compare jet to 35mm and we get a ton of it.
do you have some screen grabs? Im not sure if I ever seen footage of this two
SamEdwards
Well-known member
I'm a film compositor and I've worked with film and HD for years, including Star Wars films and Spielberg projects. There's huge variation in the quality of all of these formats. But in general a 2k scan of film has tremendous dynamic range compated to HD video. You can take a good film scan and change the exposure by several stops and have a decent image. In HD they better be looking at their scopes because if they blow the exposure by even a quarter of a stop there will be losses that can never be recovered. Forget about doing a convincing day for night from HD video in post.
BTW Looser: 2.35 films are generally shot and scanned anamorphic so that they use the entire 35mm frame. The pixel resolution is a full 1828x1556 stretched 2:1.
I think the future of HD will be something that has 8 times the data rate of DVCpro HD. Look at a 16 bit RAW file from a digital still camera compared to a JPEG from the same camera and you'll get a good idea of the difference between a good scan from 35mm and what comes out of an HD video camera.
Cheers,
Sam
BTW Looser: 2.35 films are generally shot and scanned anamorphic so that they use the entire 35mm frame. The pixel resolution is a full 1828x1556 stretched 2:1.
I think the future of HD will be something that has 8 times the data rate of DVCpro HD. Look at a 16 bit RAW file from a digital still camera compared to a JPEG from the same camera and you'll get a good idea of the difference between a good scan from 35mm and what comes out of an HD video camera.
Cheers,
Sam
SamEdwards said:
sam.. its loser .. not looser.
and were not talking really about dynamic range or color or anything else.. strictly resolution, resolution really has nothing to do with dynamic range. a 2k image is a 2k image. ..and many films are shot in super 35mm and then are simply cropped to the desired aspect ratio. in general id say anamorphic shooting is fading. ....anyway point is it doesnt matter whether they scan an anamorphic image at 2k or a straight cropped image at 2k.. its still just 2k which is my point... that speaking strictly resolution wise.. HD is considered comparative with 35mm for projection.SamEdwards
Well-known member
Hi Loser,
Sorry, no slight intended on the name. The name of the thread is "HD: What is the equivalent in film?" My answer is simple: there isn't one. If all you measure is resoltion than a mp3 file is the same as the CD it was burned from, and a half tone photo in a newspaper is as good as a color print from the negative. Resoltion alone is a very misleading and incomplete measure of the final quality. A format that is less flexible in post is inferior. Anybody that tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.
Can we agree to disagree?
Sam
Sorry, no slight intended on the name. The name of the thread is "HD: What is the equivalent in film?" My answer is simple: there isn't one. If all you measure is resoltion than a mp3 file is the same as the CD it was burned from, and a half tone photo in a newspaper is as good as a color print from the negative. Resoltion alone is a very misleading and incomplete measure of the final quality. A format that is less flexible in post is inferior. Anybody that tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.
Can we agree to disagree?
Sam
..i dont think we disagree. i think your just comparing the 2 mediums on different facets than the rest of us. my statements concerning soley resolution dont seem to rub you the wrong way except that you dont seem to think its of any value to compare resolution alone. but the point of comparing resolution alone is to discern how well the image will hold up when projected on the big screen. obviosly an interlaced hi -8 camera wouldnt do so well.. so i think the intent of the original question was to discern how well the HD filmout or projection would hold up in terms of the crispness or softening. colors and gamma and all that are an entirely different ballgame.
as far as those things are concerned, id say 35mm film certainly has more capeabilities than standard HD cams as far as an image capture medium (setting aside the digital processing and control available with HD cams) is concerned. ..however with the introduction of 4k HD 4:4:4 cameras like the dalsa origin and panavision genesis... well, those cameras will make alot of people eat their words.
certainly we can disagree if we actually do though.
as far as those things are concerned, id say 35mm film certainly has more capeabilities than standard HD cams as far as an image capture medium (setting aside the digital processing and control available with HD cams) is concerned. ..however with the introduction of 4k HD 4:4:4 cameras like the dalsa origin and panavision genesis... well, those cameras will make alot of people eat their words.
certainly we can disagree if we actually do though.
scharky
Veteran
Well yes, the new panavision, Arri and Dalsa cameras may surpass film, but now we are batting in a whole new ballpark, where shooting with these cameras is not only more costly than film, but is and even slower workflow than film. I remember seeing an interview with the director of the new Super man movie, and he is saddened to hear that it will take longer to get the footage from the new Panavision in workable form, than it would be to get the film processed and scanned.
So I would say there is HD, for film makers, such as the HVX200, New JVC, Varicam, Cinealta, and then there is HD for people that have a completely unlimited budget. IT isn't even the same ballpark.
So I would say there is HD, for film makers, such as the HVX200, New JVC, Varicam, Cinealta, and then there is HD for people that have a completely unlimited budget. IT isn't even the same ballpark.
stephenlnoe
Well-known member
Film has more like 5000 lines of resolution (depending on the clarity of the lens). No DV comes close to what film is capable of i'm afraid. Maybe in the future....