Is resolution as threatening as others make it?

KyleProhaska

Veteran
In light of all the madness going on between the C300 and Scarlet and whatever else, I'm very curious about the future proof mentality I read so much about. I'm a filmmaker and plan to be for as long as I can. My first feature Standing Firm was released in the US on DVD and in foreign markets in about a dozen countries. It's made its money back plus some, and has launched a more legitimate career for me. I mention all that because it has me looking at my past and looking toward the future, and the kind of quality I want to bring to new and future products.

The most common argument for shooting in something like 5k or 4k over 2k or whatever else is so as new technologies come out that can display that footage in its native resolution, your product will look better then anything shot at a lower resolution. It's also a pretty good match for the "technical" resolution of film. All of this I understand, and can agree with on principle. The question I want answers to (or mere opinions) is, how great is the threat to 2k? Why is 4k touted as the only smart persons choice while Roger Deakins sits at 2k? Even if the Arri with T-Link can output really close to 3k, it still seems there's more going on here. Obviously he picks that camera for a ton of reasons, but resolution tends to be the heat of the argument all over the internet.

Theaters are the other consideration, and yet...a movie like Like Crazy sells for 4mil after an all night bidding war at Sundance, after being shot on the 7D. Nobody post and say "content is king," because we all know that.

I've heard 4k TVs are coming soon, but how long before you think they're in homes like 1080p TVs are now? Probably quite a while. On top of that you have the fact that many beloved movies are still coming out on Blu-ray with consumers finally getting used to buying movies that way instead of DVD. It will be MANY years before 4k TVs are popular enough for studios to consider releasing films all over again on a new format. Also what is that new format? Is there such a thing yet? Not that I know of. Of course there's options, but they're a long ways away. Blu-ray hasn't been around in common usage for very long and it's my guess that regardless of TV's advancement technology wise, Blu-ray is going to stick around for a long time like DVD has, and 4k might take way longer to become the standard so many already hold it up to be. Of course it's a higher and better resolution, and will give you delivery options later at higher quality, but how much worse will well shot films posted in 2k look? Can't be that bad. Don't most Hollywood movies post in 2k...that's gotta count for something.

"Future proof" can be such a BS term because if 4k is the new 1080p like some say (or 5K, whatever), then you can be sure a new 4k will rear its ugly head soon enough, and there's already remnants of that. Even if 4k becomes broadcast standard sometime (which would be huge but that's still a long ways away) there will be a new change after that coming and the talk of DVXuser will be 8k or something else. 4k will only last so long.

When is enough enough? How in danger is someone's film who's shooting in 1080p to look like garbage 10 years from now on the typical consumer TV set? People talk as if 1080p is dead already when it's far from it. How long do you think it has left? I hear more talk about the growth of VOD in the next decade, you think 4k is an easy thing to stream? Hardly...even if 4k TV's became a standard, it'll take some more innovation in the simple way we do internet to pump volumes of 4k to TV sets around the country and beyond. For pete's sake, the Apple TV is still 720p.

Lots of questions here...but I wonder what others think.

NOTE: This is NOT a hit at RED or any other camera. Please, do what few in the last week have dared to do...breath...think...then post.
 
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Yep understood and agreed! :) I guess I'm pointing more towards the image, and whether or not a really well shot film posted and filmed in 2k will look as awful later on as many seem to suggest. I say no, but am I wrong?
 
You do what's best for your film. If you're looking to make a Like Crazy just because you want to end up selling it for 4 million dollars, then you might as well play the lottery. So let's get that out of the way first.

Still with me? Then it depends on what you want for your film. There used to be a time when shooting any kind of video at all meant shooting film. It's somewhat nice that 35mm film can actually resolve to about 4-5k in digital resolution. We live in interesting times, and it really remains to be seen what will happen with the SD and HD material that we have now given the home entertainment technology of 30-40 years from now. The question of resolution for your film could easily be applied to anything that costs money and adds production value. You have to balance it out between how much you have in the budget and how much it's worth to you. Ideally, you shouldn't really have to ask because the difference between shooting 1080 vs 4k should not be that big of a percentage of your overall budget. If it is, perhaps you should re-evaluate how much your film means to you?

Frankly, it took a long time to go from SD to HD on the home TV front, but that said, there's absolutely no guarantee that HD will have the same longevity with as fast as tech changes in our modern era. So to sum up, I would say give your film that absolute best you can get away with.
 
I heard Bob Primes, ASC give a lecture on this and I completely agree with him in every single respect.

In a nutshell, he expressed that your concentration should be on creating a beautiful image, period. And that every camera is the best camera for a particular job. It’s not just about how many “K” the camera is capable of, but in your skill as an artist and craftsman of beautiful imagery.

The whole 1080p vs 4k argument is asinine as all hell. None of it will make people a better artist in any way and at most, it helps preserve bad movies and videos more efficiently than HD ever could. Most of the people even barking about this back and forth are the types of internet, pixel peeping dorks who wouldn’t have benefitted the art form in the first place. And this is coming from a geek himself, mind you.

The point is, this BS doesn’t matter at the end of the day. Whether you shoot at 8mm, super 16, 60D, Alexa or Kodak 500T 5219, a beautiful image is a beautiful image. Point blank.
 
I've heard 4k TVs are coming soon, but how long before you think they're in homes like 1080p TVs are now? Probably quite a while.

Since I was 'digitizing' RS-170 signals at above 640/720 horizontal resolutions that were popular for NTSC in the early 80's, just the fact
that a process can produce 'higher resolutions' does not mean it will be used any time soon...

The industry current has sort of stabilized at about 2K, either 1920x1080, or slightly larger for various projections of digital cinema.

Where the industry can make significant advancement at this point is upping the intensity resolution from 8 bits to 12, 16, per color channel.

This would bring the dynamic range to within spitting distance of matching film film. At the moment, going for higher spatial resolutions could
impact deeper intensity resolution, given that to get a higher spatial resolution smaller 'cells' would be used, or if larger, have more potential for fallout,
and hence more expensive devices.

Perhaps back to the 3 way split prism, and instead of separate colors, digitizing full frames but at 1/3 the time value, so then the readout circuitry need
not e 'as fast' as if only one sensor was read during the 'blanking' interval.

But ultimately, the projection systems at the moment are 2K, and so, it seems that perhaps 4K would give slightly better spatial results, and allow for
slight changes in cropping and spatial adjustments.
 
The point is, this BS doesn’t matter at the end of the day. Whether you shoot at 8mm, super 16, 60D, Alexa or Kodak 500T 5219, a beautiful image is a beautiful image. Point blank.

Sorry... an 8mm image blown up to view on a theater screen is not the same as a 35mm film... unless you've been watching some pretty poor 35mm.

I'm reminded of some of my 'friends' who use to carefully process their 35mm stills with some fancy developer... they never ever matched the tonality of my 4x5, even if I developed
the 4x5 in a toilet (rhetorical remark alert...). Because for an 8x10 print, my 4x5 print was a 2x enlargement, or heck I could get away with a 'small' contact print. For the equvalent
35mm to 8x10 enlargement, that was 8x or so, and there is a loss in the image no mater what one does.
 
Chris Nolan and Pfister shoot IMAX for a reason: the 5.6~8K resolution

You can use a JVC camera pretty soon to shoot 4K, but is that a good 4k? Meaning that is the sampling of the chip (CMOS) and processing sufficient to give me enough COLOR information or will my skin tones look like crap in 4K?

The 5D shoots 1920x1080 video, but it only resolves 500~600 lines of resolution.

I think the question is what are my limitations? What can I afford. If I could afford to shoot IMAX like Nolan for Dark Knight, by golly I certainly would.
But since my budgets are far more limited, I try to stay informed, do tests and get the very best imagery I can balanced with the budget needs for lighting, grippage, production design, convenience and speed etc. all of which are equally if not more important.
 
Sorry... an 8mm image blown up to view on a theater screen is not the same as a 35mm film... unless you've been watching some pretty poor 35mm.

I'm reminded of some of my 'friends' who use to carefully process their 35mm stills with some fancy developer... they never ever matched the tonality of my 4x5, even if I developed
the 4x5 in a toilet (rhetorical remark alert...). Because for an 8x10 print, my 4x5 print was a 2x enlargement, or heck I could get away with a 'small' contact print. For the equvalent
35mm to 8x10 enlargement, that was 8x or so, and there is a loss in the image no mater what one does.

So...is that all you could pick at? Really? The 8mm film bit that was put into context of a much larger point?
Kind of missed the mark on that.
 
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Sorry... an 8mm image blown up to view on a theater screen is not the same as a 35mm film... unless you've been watching some pretty poor 35mm.

So...is that all you could pick at? Really? The 8mm film bit that was put into context of a much larger point? Wow.

To be fair, this somewhat ties into my original point. When Sam Raimi was starting pre-production on Evil Dead, they looked into using 8mm as the acquisition format to help save money, but there was the worry that it wouldn't look that great when projected off a 35mm print. They ran a test and were not satisfied with how the end result looked when blown up to 35mm, so they made the decision to shoot on 16mm instead.
 
There's a difference between choosing between existing formats with an eye toward what may work best for the most common display format, and worrying about some far-flung technology which may or may not be common in the future.
 
There's a difference between choosing between existing formats with an eye toward what may work best for the most common display format, and worrying about some far-flung technology which may or may not be common in the future.

Agreed. But it's tough going back and forth between 4K Red Raw footage and 1080p (at 700ish lines of res) of DSLR footage. The DSLR starts looking really soft and I really like a nicely detailed image. It would be something to keep in mind when picking the acquisition format.
 
Well, since a good percentage of our future audience will be watching our work on a smartphone.... ;-)
 
I think we are all talking here in circles. We all know a good film will always mean more to people then the resolution or bit depth a camera can capture.
Almost all cameras will shoot 2k, and to the average Joe... thats more then enough... regardless of lines of resolution.
The true question should be, how much more of a tool will these higher bitrates and resolution actually be.... over what we currently are using these days.
As a GH2 owner, Im faced with using these high bitrate patches over the more modest patches. And for the most part, my Day to Day shooting needs... I just cant be wasting time dealing with these larger bitrates.
This is a small drop in the bucket compared to that of these 4 and 5k shooters... But really, how much more work and slower will it be to edit this 5K footage?
Granted, when using a high end tool, you will have high end storage and processing tools as well.
But at the rate things are progressing, by the time a majority of your distribution mediums match what your camera is actually producing... I would think another greater technology/camera will come along.
Most of what I shoot goes to DVD or the internet still. So I suspect 2k will be more then enough for most people.
The tools such as less noise, lower light and, more dynamic range are amazing... but most cameras will do what you need at 2k for the most part.
I guess the main question would be... what are you primarily shooting for, and how much return do you expect from your camera investment.
Given the evolution of cameras, and the fact that Canon still is shooting around 2k, just higher frame rates and bit rates. I think most cameras can do an effect job keeping your work technologically relevant.
Sure the REDs are king of the hill, but how many people are really pushing the camera to it's limits and actually making use of all that data all the time?
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I dunno how much this factors in, but I'd rather shoot a real 720 lines of 720p than 800 lines of 1080. Irrespective of where it's going to go. We have to live in now. It's dangerous to live in the future as it is to live in the past.

I've always wanted a RAW SD cam. Where I live, whether or not anything happens, we still make money of an SD finish. HD isn't here yet. Not in the least. Yes, even 720p. The only film scanning lab we have scans to SD. Off 35mm. I can live with that.

If I'm picking a camera, I would easily go with a guaranteed full resolved 720p than an interpolated or a rezzed up 1080 or 2k or higher. I feel safer. If my release date is ten years from now, ok I have to make the choice based on that. But I'm much happier with a better pixel than more of them.

That said I never liked resolution. It's misunderstood, it's not only spatial, it's temporal as well, and this seems to be sacrifices vis a vis the tradeoff between pixel count and fps. I'd rather have an SD cam with a good CCD and nice big pixels on the sensor than a consumer HD cam to 'future-proof'.

I'm going to quote from an article by Paul Graham, that combatentropy put up a couple of days ago.

"It takes confidence to throw work away. You have to be able to think, there's more where that came from. When people first start drawing, for example, they're often reluctant to redo parts that aren't right; they feel they've been lucky to get that far, and if they try to redo something, it will turn out worse. Instead they convince themselves that the drawing is not that bad, really-- in fact, maybe they meant it to look that way."

A damn good read and it can argue both sides of the equation, but if you say 'there's more where that came from' you'll be freer in picking other things based on your project, not the projections of future technology. That said, in response to your original post, the threat to 1080p and SD and 2K, in my humble and near irrelevant opinion, is nothing I would worry about. It's hype. Snap! told me not to believe it when I was a kid, and I don't. It makes me shoot more. If I shoot more, I get better. :)

Jimerson 'beautiful image is a beautiful image'. Bam. Nail on head.
 
So...is that all you could pick at? Really? The 8mm film bit that was put into context of a much larger point?
Kind of missed the mark on that.

Sure... the point is there is a minimum level at which the technical aspects of a capture medium do not impair the appreciation in the presentation format... For theater projection, 8mm doesn't work...

Since 2K is currently a theater projection resolution, 1920x1080 is with in 4%-6% of that, depending. As such the only remaining 'difference', would be bit depth. A 'film scanner' can provide greater bitdepth
at the moment...
 
Sure... the point is there is a minimum level at which the technical aspects of a capture medium do not impair the appreciation in the presentation format... For theater projection, 8mm doesn't work...

Since 2K is currently a theater projection resolution, 1920x1080 is with in 4%-6% of that, depending. As such the only remaining 'difference', would be bit depth. A 'film scanner' can provide greater bitdepth
at the moment...

That wasn't the point at all. That was something you were grasping at out of a statement I made to create your own separate point, completely overlooking what I both said and meant in the first place. That wasn't the point of what I said at all lol

And, even if it were [I'll bite], my point on a technical level is a long way away from what 1080p provides compared to 8mm. The "8mm" sentiment was part of a larger point, not THE point to focus on.
 
True resolution - I think there are good things said by GreyMog

The plain fact at the moment is that most 1080 cameras are wooly as anything

Downscale a nice still to 1080 and see it is in a different class to a grab from any sub 100mbs vid cam

As for your question, shoot with what you can afford, as for Alexa V Red , I think the Alexa is probably OK !

S
 
TV is moving online and the internet is moving to hand held devices. Smaller screens.

So is resolution so threatening ?

... for the indie like me its no threat. The last time I saw one of my films projected at a festival they played a standard def DVD and I mastered at 1080p

But if you're a production company making big budget hollywood films then maybe
 
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