Resolution vs Pixel Count (by Steve Yedlin, ASC)

combatentropy said:
This comment makes me wonder if you watched the video. He's not talking about watching on a small screen, from far way. In fact, he said just the opposite...
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I watched the 4K/6K video and began to watch the 1080p video (but quit after a few minutes and unlikely to go back).

And, after thinking about it a while more, I think my original point stands. Most people can tell 4K from 2K at reasonable distances. Most people like seeing the detail that 4K brings. Depending on one's screen size - and, as I had posted in the 4K TV thread, there are already affordable faux 4K projectors that can do 100" on the low end and 140" on the high, depending on the room layout, ambient light, screen or lack thereof, etc - one might want 6K and even 8K. And then there are those transparent OLED screens from LG that could glue to the wall and have the wall size theater. In other words, the hyper-realism of the "Long Halftime Walk" worked against Ang Lee's artistry but should work wonders for the NFL, MLB, tennis, golf and every soccer match across the globe. And any and all news, fake or otherwise.

Noise-wise, I didn't notice any in the 4K/6K video. Granted, I didn't look for it. But I didn't notice it. It didn't jump out at me. If it's a sampling noise, then it's a problem with an in-camera signal processing. If it's a high ISO noise, then every one knows a given sensor's limitations. That said, Canon C200 Raw Light looked good even at 12,800 ... after the high ISO noise was removed in post.

Where he is indeed right is that one want higher quality pixels. Which makes Alexa65 the top of the line model currently employed. Because it's both 422 4K (17.6 MPX) and medium format. And priced accordingly. My hunch is that, whenever Sony comes out with a full frame/Vista Vision Back Side Illuminated sensor 6K/8K piece that can record uncompressed Raw 6K and 4K at 120p, then it'll be deemed just as good and offered for much less than ARRI.
 
Bruce Watson said:
Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing. I assure you that if I spent the money and the time to upgrade my HT to 4k I would certainly see the difference too. At least, I'd be adamant about it with my wife. :cheesy:

Sony says that in a theater, all you really need is 2k. Unless you're sitting close. The argument is really about how close is close enough. This is why IMAX works -- all the seats are close enough that you can actually take advantage of the higher resolution.

That said, I just got back from seeing Dunkirk at my local 70x52 foot IMAX screen. Apologies to Nolan and Hoytema, but I thought Dunkirk's visual quality just a little short of what I saw from Mendes and Deakins' Skyfall, shot at 2.8K with Arri cameras and projected at 2k at my local theater, where I tend to sit about the middle of the screen height, so fairly far back. Skyfull was sharp, clear, visually stunning. I couldn't ask for more.

From Dunkirk I could and do ask for more -- more things in focus. It doesn't matter what kind of resolution it can carry if 90% of the screen in any given frame is out of focus.

There's a lot more to visual quality than simple resolution. Mendes and Deakins know this. Nolan is more into film than he is into visual quality IMHO. Sacrilege, I know. Yet there it is on screen for all to see.
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https://vimeo.com/226822159
Watch these in 4k if you can,if you dont see a vast improvement over HD your eyesight is worse than mine.
 
We shoot 4k for the same reason why we prefer higher dynamic range or 24bit audio.

Overhead.

Sure 2k is awesome and the vast majority of movies shot on film and digital over the past 100 years will likely never look better than 2k. 2k is 2k however and it has no overhead to work with. Just like how 10bit video or 16bit audio are more than good enough if you get it 100% right away.

James Gunn shot GotG2 in 8k because the VFX were actually easier when it came to wire removal. The wires had more definition and were easier to paint out. Even in photography it is typically better to have a higher resolution source to touch up even if delivering a wallet size photo. We are approaching an era where VFX with a 2k or 3k frame just doesn't cut it anymore.

That overhead is also just great to have when viewing. Sure most people can't see it. Then again a lot of people can't tell the difference between a DVD or Blu-Ray or don't realize that $30 Blu-ray they just bought was upscale from an SD master. Yes it happens a lot. Same with the Ultra HD Blu-rays. I laugh every time I walk into Target or Bestbuy and a movie I know was mastered and released in 2k suddenly is on the shelf in Ultra HD Blu-ray. Why 4k is important however is some people do see it and they want it. This is exactly why Netflix created a 4k service and would prefer not to hoodwink people when they say the stream is 4k. Netflix is attempting to be the only honest studio on the planet when it comes to 4k delivery. Like it or not but 4k is a thing and more and more people will start to appreciate the overhead it delivers. Just like 14+ stops of dynamic range or 24bit audio that overhead becomes important in post production and important to the delivery when a customer expects a certain level of quality and they can actually see it. As screens get larger the importance of 4k will be greater. Of course not everybody will see it but some will and if you want to create the best possible experience for every customer you should shoot for 4k which can always scale down to every other customer.

Honestly there is little to no reason not to shoot 4k anymore. If somebody wants to cling to their precious camera like a crutch that's their problem. Cinema has never been about a specific camera and the rest of us are moving on. Besides in the Alexa world you are going to see a rather rapid shift to the Alexa 65 in Hollywood. Cameras are not a big deal in Hollywood and the Alexa XT will become the low budget camera for romantic comedies.

I'm not saying shooting 2k or even delivering 2k is bad from a 4k shoot. some of my favorite movies of all time will never look better than 2k and I will still greatly enjoy them. im not about to ditch Deadpool or GOtG vol1 because they look a bit softer. At the same time I wouldn't mind having those movies in 4k. Even if that means I only notice it when I walk past the TV to hit the head until I can afford to turn the entire wall in my living room into a display.
 
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flinty said:
HD is all i need,mm i guess my eyesight went when i moved to 4k because i saw a BIG difference.As i see it a lot of people with 4k kit love to lower the sharpness as low as possible making films look HD.
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It's not surprising that Steve's points about pixel counts and spatial fidelity fly over the heads of many without the patience to see his presentation through to the conclusion. But to recap his most important demonstration, he takes a 6k full frame image from the Alexa65, downsamples it to 3840x2160. This image is thereby a true UHD master. Then he downsamples another from the same 6k frame to make a 1920x1080 HD image. The HD image is subsequently rescaled back up to 3840x2160 to make an upsampled UHD image. Now he has two UHD images with the same dimensions 3840x2160 but one is true UHD and the other is upsampled from an HD frame. Two UHD frames, one native, one upsampled. Although they are both the same dimensions, the upsampled image is still only 1/2 UHD resolution because you can't get more resolution than the HD image started with. Now he crops into them 2:1 to display each UHD image portion pixel perfect 1:1 on a 1920x1080 display, image crop magnified 2:1. Toggling between the native and the upsample, you can't see any difference until he zooms in many times where you can finally start to notice.

Steve reiterates the point that once you meet the minimum threshold for having enough pixels, adding more doesn't make it any better. What you think you see as "the big difference" is not the difference from pixel resolution counts. Steve's demonstration shows that the difference between HD and UHD when both originate from a native high quality 6k source is practically indistinguishable at 4k when viewed 1:1 even magnified. Steve further makes the points that other factors have a far greater influence on the perception of resolution, such as edge enhanced sharpness processing which he also demonstrates. I have cautioned about the obsession with resolution pixel counts as Steve does, being a marketing tool that targets consumers wanting an easy number to describe overall picture quality, which pixel count resolution does not.

Steve concludes that other factors, image processing, scaling, contrast are more important once the threshold of the minimum number of pixels necessary has been reached which he said has already happened, and that more resolution without better pixels wastes storage, file size and bandwidth. He further concludes that 4k image display is more relevant to perceptual image quality than 4k image capture.
 
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Great series, but I'd like to see him run it again using cameras that mortals can afford. Cameras that have heavy compression built in. Canon DSLR (HD & 4K), GH4 & 5, C100, FS5, A7SII, A6500. BMPCC thrown in there just for fun. I'd like to see what he gets when he downsamples some of these 4K camera images to 1080p and compares them to the 1080p native cameras.

I've been debating picking up a used first gen C100 lately. I've been shooting side work with my GH4 for the last year. It's a great little camera that has paid for itself several times already. But there is just something about that C100 footage I love. Every time I pick that camera up at my day job I get some magic out of it that I don't quite get out of my GH4, despite the fact it's only giving me a 1080p file. But I'm hesitant because I feel weird jumping back from 4K and I can't afford the Canon 4K offerings. In a way this video proved to me what I already knew, resolution is not everything when it comes to image quality and characteristic. That should be enough to make that choice, yet I still hesitate.
 
Part of the conversation that often gets missed is all in the words:

Resolved detail vs pixel count.

"Resolution" is often too connected to pixels.

The other thing, is not everyone has shyte eyesight. When I sit in the living room or a movie theater, I can tell the difference between a 2K screen and a 4K screen. But here is the thing, I have a harder time telling the difference between 2K content and 4K content.

"What?!" you say.

Yes, that is because TV's and Projects have jagged little pixels, whereas content can have a smoother gradient from pixel to pixel. So, while I don't miss detail that is not there, I do see the jagged pixel edges when it is there. 2K content is fine, but 4k displays are important to enjoying media.
 
Internally we refer to this entire debate as optimizing "resolvable resolution" and the bottom line is that footage shot at native 2K doesn't look nearly as clean as a 2K deliverable captured at 4K. In fact, we say that 4K becomes "true HD" at 2K/1080 when you look at gained resolvable detail. I figured this was widely understood but maybe not. The reason for shooting on 5K, 6K and 8K cameras is not really for higher resolvable resolution at a 2K or even 4K deliverable, because it's true that you hit a wall where detail is just deleted when you downscale, but rather for added flexibility in post, i.e. reframing, FX work, and cleaner deliverables after heavy grades as well as getting a more organic deliverable from finer grain and texture.

The differences might be subtle but when you're spending $20K a day shooting on a backlot, then why the heck would you not want that added flexibility if needed later on?!
 
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Here is what I don't understand. 2K looks great in my opinion. I haven't upgraded my TV and continue to collect blu-rays rather than anything higher because I think it looks great. I can see the difference between 2K and 4K but it's not drastic enough for me to care that much. But aside from 3D and dynamic range, reality looks a lot better. So I assume there is still room to grow somewhere to get to the point where something is indistinguishable from reality. It seems like resolution would be part of that equation and it doesn't seem like 2K or even 4K would be enough. So why is it enough for a flat screen? Am I missing something here?
 
If you look at the most recent specs issued by the "governing bodies", the aim is 8K @120p.

As to 1080p, there's the Bayer 1080 (2.1 MPX) and then there's an RGB 1080 (6.3 MPX). Your basic consumer camera is 2.1 (and the DSLR's will skip//bin lines to get there). The ultra high end (of the yesteryear) F35 had a 12 MPX RGB "stripe" sensor that gave a 1080p ( http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?318627-F35-Beginners-What-is-the-sensor). Likewise, there are 4K sensor with 8.8 MPX (as in the GH4, ASI/II, G7, etc.) and there are 4.5K/5.7K (11-17 MPX) cameras that deliver 4K.

Now, I am no Yedlin but I surmise that an F35 with its extra photo sites will deliver roughly the same quality image as a GH4 that is downsampled into 1080P RGB but it won't match the resolution of the 17.6 MPX sensor of F65. Hypothetically, Raw footage from any camera can go through multiple passes during an upscaling process to render resolution of something with many more pixels. Olympic OMD EM1 shift their pixels in a stills mode to produce 3-4 the stated sensor resolution. The problem is that the inexpensive processors aren't yet powerful enough even for portraiture in real time. At some point, they will be. And soon after that, you'd be able to get 4K video out of a 2K sensor and no one will be wiser for it.
 
DLD said:
If you look at the most recent specs issued by the "governing bodies", the aim is 8K @120p.

As to 1080p, there's the Bayer 1080 (2.1 MPX) and then there's an RGB 1080 (6.3 MPX). Your basic consumer camera is 2.1 (and the DSLR's will skip//bin lines to get there). The ultra high end (of the yesteryear) F35 had a 12 MPX RGB "stripe" sensor that gave a 1080p ( http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?318627-F35-Beginners-What-is-the-sensor). Likewise, there are 4K sensor with 8.8 MPX (as in the GH4, ASI/II, G7, etc.) and there are 4.5K/5.7K (11-17 MPX) cameras that deliver 4K.

Now, I am no Yedlin but I surmise that an F35 with its extra photo sites will deliver roughly the same quality image as a GH4 that is downsampled into 1080P RGB but it won't match the resolution of the 17.6 MPX sensor of F65. Hypothetically, Raw footage from any camera can go through multiple passes during an upscaling process to render resolution of something with many more pixels. Olympic OMD EM1 shift their pixels in a stills mode to produce 3-4 the stated sensor resolution. The problem is that the inexpensive processors aren't yet powerful enough even for portraiture in real time. At some point, they will be. And soon after that, you'd be able to get 4K video out of a 2K sensor and no one will be wiser for it.
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Which is one of the reason's "our" 2/3" 3x CCD broadcast ENG cameras STILL look so good, even native 720P cameras like my tape & P2 VariCam's.
 
Ultimately, the debate itself is a little bit useless because a seeming majority of people simply refuse to acknowledge or pay any heed to the concept of circle of confusion (which renders the majority of the discussion null and void).

Steve puts it all about as clearly as can be said, in his presentation. But it just doesn't register in most people's brains for some reason.
 
Grug said:
Ultimately, the debate itself is a little bit useless because a seeming majority of people simply refuse to acknowledge or pay any heed to the concept of circle of confusion (which renders the majority of the discussion null and void).

Steve puts it all about as clearly as can be said, in his presentation. But it just doesn't register in most people's brains for some reason.
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Steve is primarily talking about cameras. That is because in motion photographed images, resolution becomes less of an issue in resolving reality. There are no perfect edges in reality. Most edges are actually gradients when you zoom in.

Increasing pixel count has benefits in smoothing fine detail, not increasing perceived sharpness. HD/2K has a terrible look when sharp. 4K doesn't need to be sharpened, it can have a smoother and more aesthetically pleasing look while still being naturally sharp.

In Steve's comparisons, the 4K/6K resolutions had much smoother detail than 2K. The 2K had a hard edge to it, that looked less flattering. It is particularly important in rendering pore structure on actors' faces. That said, 2K doesn't have to be so over sharpened, and it can look wonderful.

The argument for me, is less about resolution, and more about not seeing pixels. I see the actual pixel stair step edge on 2K projection and HD TV's.

Most of us can agree that a GUI benefits jumping from HD to 4K, in how it resolves text. But the benefits in resolution on video is much less pronounced. But guess what is the first thing we see when a movie starts? yep, graphical text in the title and credits. On HD TV's and 2K projectors, our first impression of these films is this jagged edge text, and makes the thing feel low quality at the very start. This never happens with a 4K screen, even if the source content is 2K.


I do not believe that Steve Yedlin is advocating HD/2K is superior, but that pixel counting is not improving viewing satisfaction on its own; that we don't need to compare and choose cameras based on one specification or salesmanship.

"If we want to be authors and not shoppers..." - Steve Yedlin
 
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James0b57 said:
Most of us can agree that a GUI benefits jumping from HD to 4K, in how it resolves text. But the benefits in resolution on video is much less pronounced.
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I thought that was avery good argument he made when he said we need 4K monitors more than 4K cameras. The general consensus usually goes the opposite way. But he made a good point that video is always a gradient but graphics are not.
 
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