Just to be pendantic, sharpness and resolution are not the same thing.

Anyway, timely post by Victor, I just got home from running up our SI-2K. First person to see an image from the camera apart from me said "Holy %^&*&, that looks like film, what kind of camera is this thing?" Followed by "It's in THAT tiny box?"

Probably the 16mm Cooke S2 lens has a lot to do with the image. However it doesn't look as sharp as a Z1, nothing like it but there's no shortage of resolution. If you want a shallow DOF, all I can say is at T1.3 it's going to be a real chore getting focus set right. I think Victor would be very much at home with this camera.

And the thing I like most about thhe SI-2K, it cames with a preset for 2.35:1 although that does loose a lot of vertical res.


Not every director and DOP follow trends like sheep. The director and DOP of Vacancy chose to shoot on slow 35mm stock and use hard lighting and kept to around T4 for their thriller. Their thinking was that a thriller needs to convince the audience that it's real, in other words they rejected the idea of using grain and shallow DOF to cause the audience to detach themselves from the movie.

Only downside was the talent did protest about how bright the sets were.


Bob.

I've wondered about this, too, Vic.

I don't personally know ANYONE who has an HDTV yet. Maybe I just hang out in a tax bracket that doesn't have the disposable income to blow 2 grand on a T.V. Most of the techno-geeks I know are watching YouTube at 320x240 resolution -- definitely NOT Ultra-HD.

As many on this board have pointed out, if you don't torture the footage too much, well-shot Standard Definition looks pretty damn good projected on a 12' wide screen from a LCD or DLP projector.

So, it's really hard for me to imagine how those of us who aren't shooting for a theatrical release are going to use all this extra resolution. As you point out, 35mm and 70mm may already be overkill. That's one of the reasons they invented 16mm film. We can't all be shooting Imax movies, can we?

Or do we really think everyone's going to rush out and get 4-panel "living room walls" installed, like in "Fahrnenheit 451?"

"Or do we really think everyone's going to rush out and get 4-panel "living room walls" installed, like in "Fahrnenheit 451?""

You mean we dont all have that yet? <grin> I cannot see how that would be entertaining at all other than maybe to put the viewer literally in the middle, smack dab in the movie and the storyline. Kind of cool I guess but damn sure expensive.

Some clever guys at HP have found a way to link mutiple cheap video projectors together to produce more res in a living room than you could ever need, full cine 4K for $12K.

"Do we really NEED more sharpness and resolution"? ... In the bad old days of 35mm production, I personally utilized a lot of softening filters to "take the edge" off of the 35mm look".

Vic, it sounds like you are arguing against fine grain, slow speed 35mm stock, because "it needs to be softened too much." :O)

And I guess you're not going to any 70mm revivals either...

To me, it depends on the content. Some content doesn't work without high resolution and smooth skies. Anything epic certainly needs the best we can squeeze out, otherwise it loses its epic ability. In other cases, a high speed, low contrast, grainy stock may add grit to a certain kind of noir movie (although there is no law saying that a noir movie must be gritty in this way...).

Did you go to the first Star Wars movie to be digitally shot and projected?

I went to one of the best theaters in the nation at the time, and I thought that the picture quality did NOT cut it. The resolution was simply too low, and it distracted from the content. For later movies, the resolution was upped and the problem ceased to be noticeable.

To me, it's no different from choosing different film stocks.

Some DPs have chosen to use multiple formats in the same movie: 35mm (with DI), Viper, and F900; each chosen for different scenes based on what would work best. Now that's an extreme example, but it's not really different from a film DP shooting the DAY scenes on low speed film for sharpness and smooth skies, and shooting the NIGHT scenes on a high speed film stock because it was, if not the only way, the easiest way to capture scenes in difficult lighting.

I have put some padding on the floor around my chair, for use in case you tell me you have never mixed 35mm stocks, so I can be protected when I fall out of my chair (or my jaw drops to the floor). :O[^]

We may have "hit the ceiling" on digital production, as well.

Am I to understand that you haven't heard of NHK's 8K (7680x4320) TV standard?

They call it "Super Hi-vision" (as a specific name for their system), or "Ultra High Definition TV" (http://www.nhk.or.jp/digital/en/superhivision/index.html).

So Ultra High Definition TV is no measly "screen door 4K" resolution....

The sound side has also been taken care of, with a 22.2 audio track.

:O)

To me, we have all the resolution we need right now (I'm talking about HD, not HDV). Going for greater resolution is pointless unless you're sitting 1 or 2 picture-heights away from the display.

I would suggest that the next "Oh my Gosh" leap in presentation technology will come in the form of 3D. If done well, THAT would be cool.

"...maybe to put the viewer literally in the middle, smack dab in the movie and the storyline..."

Pat, do yourself a favor: go to your public library and pick up a copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. That's exactly the scenario Bradbury envisions in his classic Sci Fi novel.

One of the great "must-reads" of the negative utopia genre, along with:
1984 by George Orwell, and
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

All three of these guys proved remarkably prescient about different aspects of society. In some ways, all three of these books have come true.

P.S. Then, to top it off, rent a copy of the movie "Brazil" by Terry Gilliam. Make sure you get Gilliam's preferred cut, not the happy ending hack job the studio foisted off on the American public. Or get the "Criterion Collection" edition which includes both versions.

"Am I to understand that you haven't heard of NHK's 8K (7680x4320) TV standard? "

I'm still scratching my head trying to imagine a practical use for this technology.

Movie night at the Rose Bowl with 100,000 in the stands?
Projecting images on the side of the Empire State Building?

Brian, what is this "enough" of which you speak?

:O)

NHK's web site (linked in my post above) offers a specific justification for the higher resolution, based on viewing distances in a home. They indicate the difference in experience between watching "HDTV" (good enough for TV series, etc., according to them) and watching UHDTV (good enough for enjoying a feature film at home even if the popcorn got burned :O).

While they are getting UHDTV sorted out, we'll be busy fixing the basics of HDTV.

I've been watching HDTV at home for 3 years, and most of the time it is just a much more meaningful experience, and this is not just for watching movies. Still, sometimes the sound isn't synchronized (poor lip sync), format flags/aspect ratios are set incorrectly, the program info is incorrect or missing (this is when you channel surf, see something and wonder what it is; pressing "Info" on the remote will tell you what you are watching).

SMPTE is working on the lip sync problem, and the TV station engineers are slowly learning how HDTV works differently in practice from ye olde SD NTSC. This includes also the complications from the need to frequently transmit the same program in SD and HD, and more.

So how much does it cost to watch HDTV today?

I am fortunate to have line of sight to Mt. Wilson, where all the major Greater Los Angeles and Orange County area broadcasters have their antennas. This gives me 30-40 stations in analog, and about the same number of ATSC digital channels offering SD or HD depending on the content. In the evenings, there is usually 5-10 HD channels, and being OTA (Over The Air), I pay no monthly bill at all.

Between this and Netflix, my "TV time" is covered.

Even recording HDTV can be done inexpensively nowadays. The $134.98 Elgato EyeTV Hybrid is a little stick you plug into a USB 2.0 port on your MacBook Pro, it provides Tivo-like functionality (rewinding/fast forwarding/pausing live digital TV), stores as many hours of HD or SD programming as your hard disk(s) can hold, and even records analog NTSC. Recorded programming can be easily burned to DVD, and you can of course make HD disks too with a bit of extra software. Similar products exist for the various versions of Windows, but there is a lot of caveat emptor here, poor software being the biggest problem, followed by poor hardware (tuner sections with low sensitivity, poor video processing, audio problems, etc.). Perhaps somebody here in this forum can recommend something that actually works on Windows XP for those who have it, and Windows XP Media Center for those whose PCs came with this?

So now, what works to watch all this HDTV goodness on without blowing a gasket when seeing the price tag (perhaps your spouse's gasket when she sees it :O)?

I use a $499 (on sale) Gateway FPD2185W 21" LCD monitor with DVI and S-video inputs hooked up to a $199 Samsung SIR-T451 ATSC tuner plus an old VCR for receiving NTSC analog respectively. (The LCD also has built-in component and composite inputs, I don't need those). These two tuners get their signal from a $19.95 Zenith ZHDTV1 (now Philips PHDTV1) tabletop UHF antenna.

This LCD monitor is a computer monitor with high quality TV/film video circuitry built-in, including Faroudja processing for picture and pull-down. The picture is only 21" diagonal, but because it is so incredibly clear, it can be viewed at a short viewing distance with great pleasure.

For Large Popcorn Movies, I use an Optoma front projector. This cost my company a lot more money (it's one of their better models), but I bought it for work and use it for work, so my home use is incidental and I don't need to charge myself for it.

So for a few hundred bucks, it is possible to get a great HDTV experience. If I was to set up a new system like this today, I would get Gateway's also-made-for-video FPD2485W 24" 1920x1200 LCD , available for about $599, or HP's 2330 which has more inputs.

There are all kinds of 32" etc. LCD TVs being sold even in office supply stores today, for as low as $499, but I have been quite underwhelmed by the picture on these low quality, low resolution screens (more expensive 720p screens can look very good, these don't).

Truly video-aware computer technology is still King of the Hill for low cost HDTV watching at high quality.

And it really doesn't take long to get used to...

I'm still scratching my head trying to imagine a practical use for this technology.

I'm right there with you, Brian.

Earlier today, quite by accident while looking for something else, I came across an old quote from Steven Spielberg:

"... I think in our romance with technology, and our excitement at exploring all the possibilities of film and video, I think we've partially lost something that we now have to reclaim. I think it's time to renew our romance with the word."

And I couldn't agree with him more.

Perhaps he meant "storytelling?"

As opposed to a series of stunts with some minimal structure added afterwards for the sole purpose of connecting the stunts.

That has become quite common these days.

There seem to be at least two different types of shooters; the storytellers going for the "once removed" look by using 24P, shallow DOF and film-type gamma. Then there are the documentary folks that want it as real as it can get, transporting the viewer to places they have never been or could never realistically go. (I happen to be in this camp.)

I saw the SI-2k, the RED and the NHK systems at NAB this year. I was particularly stunned by the NHK. They were showing demo footage on a rear projector of maybe 60" and the scene was a very wide shot looking down on a snow-covered valley with a little village at the bottom. I was standing maybe two feet from the screen and could see two guys shoveling snow on a rooftop in the village. I could even tell what color jackets they were wearing. I had never seen this level of detail from any video or film format. On the 60" screen, these two guys were maybe 1/4" tall. It was a "you are there" type of experience, I almost felt as though I was standing at the top of the mountain looking down on the valley. The only thing that was missing to complete the effect would have been 3D (and surround sound.)

Sitting right next to this monitor was an identical monitor displaying the same scene downrezzed to 1920x1080p. When comparing the two, it was like the difference between SD and HD. I say "bring it on", I'm anxiously awaiting 16k or 32k systems.

John

If you sat through the Sony demo of their 4K projector and saw the difference between Star Wars (1080) and Baraka (65mm scanned at 4K) I'm hard pressed to imagine how anyone could argue against more resolution. I was in the second or third row and the Baraka footage had me conviced I could have taken a few steps forward and been in Mecca.

One of the evils of most HDV is the use of too much edge enhancment to make the image look sharp. The use of high resolution imagers, top shelf optics and projection avoids the need for this artifice and a number of side effects.
25p from out V1P looks very juddery. 24p from the SI-2K looks smooth as silk, figure that one out. That's with the V1P at 360deg shutter and the SI-2K at 180deg.

Bob.

But what exactly does "360 deg. shutter" mean on a V1P with its unusual sensor scanning pattern?

And Baraka is poetry in motion... what a super treat.

Have you seen it in 70mm also to compare with 4K projection? I'm just curious about which is better at this time.