Yes.

Thanks Bob. Pretty amazing now what can be done and for a fraction of the cost. Finally Vegas can edit feature films and has come of age.

Vegas always could, no better or worse than it's always been from what I can see. The question is why would you do that in Vegas. The cost of a film out is staggering relative to the cost of Vegas or FCP or the entire Adobe suite. Bottom line is the cost of a film out hasn't changed much, you're still using film and expensive equipment. The cost of shooting cine grade images has come down a lot in the last few years, so have the post costs.

There's many gotchas in the process, you mentioned one of them, the slight difference in frame rates. It can sound very trivial or your sound can be right off at the end of the movie.

Bob.

Also consider that HD doesn't even come close to the resolution of 35mm film. Probably not even close to 16mm. Maybe just a tad better than 8mm, maybe not, maybe the notorious bad quality of 8mm is more due to the cheap consumer grade optics than the film format itself.

Actually, Kelly, that isn't correct.

The average theater release print (35mm) resolves about 1000 lines, while standard HD resolves 1080 (excluding Ultra HD).

Depends how you look at it.
Many films are done today through a 2K DI and I'm kind of surprised at how few pixels there are in them, gets worse too in 'scope, around 850 pixels vertical res.
However, what really counts is what's in those pixels and that's where you can get yourself really messed up. There's not too many cameras around today that can fill all those pixels with the same goodness that comes from scanned film.

Of course if you're comparing HD to a full photochemical path then all bets are off.

Bob.

Jay is correct in my opinion. Film viewed on my 1080P most of the time has visable grain and is not as sharp as programs shot in HD. The films tend to look like a .001 gausian blur was applied.
JJK

No, Bob, it doesn't depend on how you look at it. In this case, you don't know what you're talking about.

Film resolution is not measured in pixels, it's measured in lines.

Theatrical release prints resolve about 1000 lines. Depending upon projection, such the len' resolving capability, screen surfaces, etc., that can be reduced to 850 LINES not pixels.

From my orginal post:
Many films are done today through a 2K DI and I'm kind of surprised at how few pixels there are in them, gets worse too in 'scope, around 850 pixels vertical res.

Theatrical release prints resolve about 1000 lines.

With a 'scope 2K DI at 852 pixels vertical res I'd be mighty interested to see how I will ever get 1000 line out of that.

From page 14 of the DCI specification Version 1.0, level 2 container objects:
Ph = 2048
Pv = 858
AR = 2.39
PAR = 1:1

A 2K film scan, full frame at 2.35:1 yields 2048 x 871.5 pixels,
again please explain how one gets 1000 line of vertical res out of that?

Source for those figures:

http://www.digitalpraxis.net/zippdf/useful_information.pdf

Page 8, Film Format Pixel Tables. Sorry but I can't find the SMPTE specs but I'm certain Praxis are only quoting them.

Of course I'm kind of cheating with those numbers but only if you shoot anamorphic and not everyone does or can afford those lenses.

However if shooting HD at 16:9 you're slightly under the specs at 2048x1107, still not too shabby compared to 1920x1080. Again though I say a 35mm scan will yield far better things in those pixels that a HDV camera is ever going to give you, not least of all because it's 1440x1080 but then again the original post didn't say HDV, I'm guessing that's what was perhaps meant.


35mm is of course capable of way, way more res than those figures. Some would rightly argue that the figures could be as high as 8k lines of res ( print quality not withstanding). Part of the confusion seems to come about because video specs vertical line resolution and film horizontal. To even further add to the confusion some video people quote res in line pairs.

Bob.

A release print may only be around 1000 lines, but film starts out at significantly higher res than HD. So if film ends up at 1000 for release prints, because of the printing steps it goes through, then HD will not look as good (assuming it goes through the same steps after the negative is created).

By the way, regarding 35mm film scans, 4k is the point of diminishing returns. The film itself has a resolution of about 6 to 8k, but over 4k you can't really see the difference. Thats' why for theatrical work, 4k is where it's at these days. Our FX work for Titanic was at 2k (2048x1556) but it was really problematic and should have been at 4k, because things like rigging and railing tended to be too low resolution. For that reason, some of the railings and rigging in the shots of the models (and some live action in wide shots) were replaced by CG rails and rigging. And it was a pain in the butt to get them lined up.

Going over 4k for a film scan is probably only best suited for things like film preservation and restoration, where you want to be sure you've got EVERYTHING from the negative. Those files will, of course also be huge. :-)

And when that 4k film is shown and transmitted through the broadcast medium it is no better than HD and in fact shows up worse than HD.
JJK

And then there's RED.

Interesting ... the figure i had always seen was that motion picture film had a resolution of around 4000 lines per inch (grain not withstanding, of course). So a 35mm frame at that resolution would be about 3780x2520. I can understand loosing sharpness when making prints, but it seems like the resolution wouldn't be affected that much.

There are different ways of measuring resolution...

Bob I was just curious thats all. You could go out and buy the new sony EX1 cam And make a feature film. If it was good enough it could be transferred to 35mm Not that I would likely do that but its just amzing now the possibiities.

I believe that Video is video and film is film all this hype with the RED camera being comparable to film is ridiculous you cant even measure film resolution in the same way. The two looks are completely different. If I wanted to make a film my first choice would be film no matter how every film director using the RED becomes a convert. ITS still just a HD video camera with bells on.

> Probably not even close to 16mm. Maybe just a tad better than 8mm, maybe not,

As someone who works in high-def every day I don't agree at all.

Anyway, a company here it Toronto cine-byte advertises an aggressive $1000/minute for film outs from a digital file. So, it's possible and happens every day.

Movies have been shot on SD and transferred to 35mm. The first one I saw (Rust Never Sleeps) looked absolutely aweful but that was a long time ago. Today SD to 35mm looks a bit better than that.

But as other have rightly pointed out going from HD to film things do tend to go downhill and today there's less reason to go to film. For what the transfer costs you can buy a digital projector and go show the movie yourself on a medium sized screen. This has been done and rather profitably, several times down here. Once more cinemas install digital projectors things might change too.

Bob.

Film is still the way most films are shown in the cinema at the moment though.

My point was that you could make a film for little money and perhaps have it shown at the cinema if it was good enough. After all isnt that what the RED project is all about? Giving film makers a chance to play with the big boys. Although really thats not true because by the time you pay out for all the reds peripheral equipment it costs perhaps more including as you said having it transferred to film. Because for now even those using the RED to make feature films will have to get it transferred to film if its going to have a theatrical release. Why not buy a camera like a konvas and buy real film?

I really hope the future means major films wont be shot in HD. Personally I dont like the video look at the cinema. Even if it has lots of defination.

Reality has an infinate variety. Pixels have a set shape Something about Video that can't capture reality as well as film. Film is organic and infinate in its representation of the world.

This kind of sounds like the vinyl/CD debate. Nobody wins, nobody looses.
JJK

Film is organic and infinate in its representation of the world.

Film is digital, video is analogue, always. That's from Kodak!
If you understand how film works it is indeed true.
The halide crystals in film are either on or off (1 or 0), CCDs accumulate charge from the photons and hence are analogue.

Bob.