CGTalk - Look and Feel ?

Amyd

09-03-2003, 09:06 PM

Hello,

I don't think that can be called true 2k because that's just horizontal resolution =) HD is 1920 x 1080, if I recall. The closest thing I've heard/seen/smelled of to actual digital film is the Dalsa camera for Cinematographers. They actually call it a 2k camera, but it's 2k vertically and 4k horizontally - four times that of HD.

2k reffers to horizontal resolution as well, when you talk about film.

For instance, one of the standard used resolutions is 2048 x 1556, also known as Full Aperture. Naturally, that is higher resolution than 1920*1080, but only because it has a different aspect ratio. When we talk about widescreen 35, the aspect ratio would be almost identical (1.85 compared to 1.77), and the actual resolution almost the same (of course, the film image could be reframed thanks to the reserve space - unless they used hard matting).

When we talk about anamorphic formats, of course the resolution stays the same and only the pixel aspect ratio changes, so it's just a matter of using stretching properly in both cases (admitedly easier in the film world, because 50 years of standardization didn't happen in the HD world so far...).

There is already in use a camera that is designed to be very close to the actual 2k resolution as used in the film world, and that is the Viper Film Stream from Thomson, which has a slightly different CCD design, allowing it to shoot both 16:9 and "true" 2.35:1 aspect ratio images, though the practical resolution of the CCD is the same as a "regular" HD camera.

The Dalsa Camera is a 4k camera, because that's how film is also called, based on horizontal resolution. The equivalent of the above mentioned Full Aperture standard at 4k is 4096 x 3112. If you are still confused about the frame formats and resolutions, I recomend you read this page (http://www.cinesite.com/CineonTech/resoultions/ResChart.html), where they are nicely summarized and also this thread (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71619) here, where we talked about film in particular in more detail.

As you can see, in terms of practical usage (meaning taking into account how people frame their shots nowadays in motion pictures), the digital cameras are almost there.

I don't think that's the case. The only way you'll see the chemical colour elements of film is with a powerful microscope. The grain is there at any resolution. I've read about archivers who've used 16k and still haven't reached the limits of film.

The limitation of 4k isn't imposed by the capabilities of film, but by the capabilities of the digital in-between. I don't think even Flame or Shake users can call their performance under 16k or even 8k zippy. And anything that scans at that resolution will cost buttloads and take a LONG time to finish.

You seem to confuse film in general with motion picture filmstock in particular. Sure, there are types of black and white film (for photographic & special usage) that can resolve such high resolutions.

However, the fact that motion picture filmstock has to be used in slightly different conditions (i.e. in short exposure times, with color & so on), makes the practical resolution of the film negative to be - I recall reading in a SMPTE paper - around 3600 lines (meaning the 4k standard is slightly too much), as tested with film stocks in practical use a few years ago (the newer Kodak stocks improved on that, but not very much, as resolution was not the design goal when they created them, but other features).

For some more technical details about the film structure and grainess/granularity, I cannot stop but recommend the excelent introduction from Kodak's website in Exposure Information (http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/support/h1/exposureP.shtml), where you will find a more applied disscusion about the practical world and the effects the silver grains have on resolution. As you will see from there, there are many problems in trying to get to an absolute "pixel-like" number to apply to film, which is why there are other standards and ways to express the "resolving power" of a specific film stock. Sufice to say that I have faith that my numbers are pretty close to what happens in reality. :thumbsup:

Mind you, we're not even talking about the fact that in the real world, a projected film (release print) has not much chance of getting more than 68 line pairs per mm (measured with SMPTE 35-PA (RP 40) test film) which translates to something like 2850 x 2384, based on the scope projectable area. That, in almost ideal conditions, in a well kept and calibrated cinema house.

That one I can definitely empathise with since I'm perpetually broke . Blair Witch was done with a cheap 35mm rental older than the actors. 28 Days was done with a DV cam (not even HD, I think). They both got the exact look that suited the work and did it with less money. THE LOOK as it were, is a goal not a pricepoint. But it will still most definitely cost. Like I said, either in cash or in effort.

Yep, "28 Days" was done only with DV, but you have to take into account that Boyle has been hesitant in his interviews: some times he says it was just because otherwise he couldn't have shot the scenes in London and Manchester in the short time available with a normal film crew/setup, and at other times he says it was also an aesthetic choice. Who knows... :shrug:

Cheers,
Andrei

digital_red

09-03-2003, 11:59 PM

This article gives you some ideas on how to get the film look
http://www.creativecow.net/articles/graham_doug/film_look/index.html

Jamo3D

09-04-2003, 01:16 PM

Hi there!

2k reffers to horizontal resolution as well, when you talk about film.

Resolution is only referred to when using electronic or digital cameras or scanning =). I have never heard anyone refer to any film stock in terms of their resolution in numbers. It's only digital camera makers who refer to that for their cameras. Since the horizontal has a higher number, they use that instead of the usually halved vertical for marketing purposes. Real 2k is measured in the number of vertical lines. Marketing hype 2k is measured in the horizontal. :thumbsup:

For instance, one of the standard used resolutions is 2048 x 1556, also known as Full Aperture. Naturally, that is higher resolution than 1920*1080, but only because it has a different aspect ratio. When we talk about widescreen 35, the aspect ratio would be almost identical (1.85 compared to 1.77), and the actual resolution almost the same

2048 x 1536 is a 4:3 box like most TV's and monitors in use today. The kind that HD tries to break out from to resemble the aspect ratio of movies. They're not at all 'almost similar' =). The only reason why their disparate resolutions would be the same is in deployment. Film res or HD res, if the end result is NTSC, that's the resolution they get downscanned to. YMMV for HD or a DFR, or a DFR that prints in HD for that matter =)

The Viper isn't close to true 2k. The 2k is still the horizontal and the vertical is still 1080. It's still 1920 x 1080. It's still HD. For those who want to go far beyond HD resolution and dynamic range today, there's already film.

As you can see, in terms of practical usage (meaning taking into account how people frame their shots nowadays in motion pictures), the digital cameras are almost there.

The practical use and advantage of digital is not in how film-makers frame their shots =) It's in the convenience and the cost. Cost is another argument, however. Digital tape is cheap(er), but digital cameras are not. Film cameras are cheap(er), but film is not. But with cost and convenience, film and HD lose out big time to lowly DV. With DV, everything's cheaper and a lot more convenient.

Almost there doesn't count, either. :) Film-makers frame their shots using the DoF they know and love with film. With CCD cameras, they are using TV DoF, just at a higher resolution. And even as the technology improves, there is no modularity to the designs. You have to buy the whole camera. Someone ought to show these guys an SLR with a digital back. They ought to tell Sony, Panasonic et al, "See that? Make one of those for an Arri". Instant modularity.

Why would they settle for something that costs 50k for the old Sony camera that's just 'almost there'? Film goes beyond that already and it does so today. George Lucases HD footage will remain HD footage tomorrow. No higher res or higher dynamic range. But tomorrow, film scanning technology improves. Film already gets more detail than HD. Tomorrow, you can get even more.

You seem to confuse film in general with motion picture filmstock in particular. Sure, there are types of black and white film (for photographic & special usage) that can resolve such high resolutions.

Hehe:shame: Film's stock in trade *is* high resolutions and HDR. It's why digital cameras of the still and motion variety are all still trying to reach up to film's capabilities. With every new generation of cameras, the same claim is made that it's jsut as good as film now. But the next generation always puts it into perspective and shows how far they still have to go.:thumbsup:

Yep, "28 Days" was done only with DV, but you have to take into account that Boyle has been hesitant in his interviews: some times he says it was just because otherwise he couldn't have shot the scenes in London and Manchester in the short time available with a normal film crew/setup, and at other times he says it was also an aesthetic choice. Who knows...

Well he did do the DV equivalent of Blair Witch, so he can say anything he likes =) It's a great achievement, no matter how his modesty (real or simulated) effaces it. It shows what can be done with what you've got and a buttload of effort.

Having said that tho', most of us solo-fliers balk at the supposedly miniscule budget of US$8M. Anybody here have 8M lying around? It makes me wonder what Peter Jackson did to convince New Line to give him more than a quarter billion US$ and send it to an offshore account in NZ.

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-04-2003, 02:10 PM

Resolution is only referred to when using electronic or digital cameras or scanning =). I have never heard anyone refer to any film stock in terms of their resolution in numbers. It's only digital camera makers who refer to that for their cameras. Since the horizontal has a higher number, they use that instead of the usually halved vertical for marketing purposes. Real 2k is measured in the number of vertical lines. Marketing hype 2k is measured in the horizontal.

Of course, I was talking about scanning and printing back film stock, because as you may have noticed, the trend for digital grading is picking up speed from the "O Brother" days. So it is a safe bet that even films that are not VFX driven get scanned and then printed back, when the directors wish for more control over grading (that is why discreet and others are so keen to fill in the space left by 5D, and even the mighty da Vinci&Pandora have to change their product line-ups). And in that world, 2k reffers to horizontal resolution. As a matter of fact, you never use the term "2k" in anything but horizontal resolution. :)

You are right, of course, that film stock is not quoted in those terms, for the reasons the Kodak page explains very well. But since people watch films that are scanned and then printed back at 2k, and do not see a problem with them (mostly), it is painfully obvious that the limits of film technology are already reached by the digital one.

2048 x 1536 is a 4:3 box like most TV's and monitors in use today. The kind that HD tries to break out from to resemble the aspect ratio of movies. They're not at all 'almost similar' =). The only reason why their disparate resolutions would be the same is in deployment. Film res or HD res, if the end result is NTSC, that's the resolution they get downscanned to. YMMV for HD or a DFR, or a DFR that prints in HD for that matter =)

Actually, it's not 4:3, that's a simplification, since the Full Aperture is different (notice I said 1556 not 1536, that's a small but very significant mistake that gets made quite often ;) ). Also, obviously that is without taking into account that the final print will also have a little thing called a soundtrack, which of course reduces even further the "resolution" that you need to work in (1828 x 1332).

The fact that most TVs and monitors are 4:3 is pretty irrelevant, imho. Most people seem to have gotten used to black bars when watching DVDs, and Full Frame transfers that chop off most of the frame are getting less and less common. That's one of the main benefits of the DVD revolution, IMHO.

Of course, in the US, 16:9 television broadcasts are not as widespread as they should be (much less HDTV broadcasts), but here in Europe things are looking much better, and at least for the major TV Stations it is very weird if they don't broadcast the motion pictures at least in 16:9, if not with black bars again for 2.35 (2.39).

So the HD cameras are right on the money with their 16:9 aspect ratio. In fact, most of the pressure on HD Camera developers is to offer easy 2.35 aspect ratios, if they want to be competitive. Of course, the preffered way of doing that is by using anamorphic lenses, which are more difficult to implement with 16:9 CCDs, which is why DALSA took a different approach.

Sure, for the people who must deliver 4:3 end results on video, that might be an issue, but to be very honest, I don't think there is much difference in terms of resolution end-product quality if you shoot on film or on cropped HD and then downconvert. It's still Never The Same Color.

The practical use and advantage of digital is not in how film-makers frame their shots =) It's in the convenience and the cost. Cost is another argument, however. Digital tape is cheap(er), but digital cameras are not. Film cameras are cheap(er), but film is not. But with cost and convenience, film and HD lose out big time to lowly DV. With DV, everything's cheaper and a lot more convenient.

You lost me a bit there. I said that for the way most people frame their shots, HD doesn't present a problem with it's "not-real-full-frame-2k" approach. In other words, nobody cares if the film is in fact almost-4:3 and therefore slightly higher resolution, because everybody still uses 1.77, 1.85 and 2.35 for motion pictures. So the aspect ratio is not the issue when deciding the question 35 vs. HD.

As for cost and convenience, totally agreed. Those are the two main issues that come into play. However not all film cameras are cheap(er) (a new Arricam Studio is still - much - more expensive than a Varicam, par example, or even a non-CineAlta HDCAM), so in the end HD still comes on top, even more so every day. That is not to say that sometimes people don't exagerate the cost-savings of HD, when they say that you need less light (not really so, when you want to shoot at pro level) or less crew (count how many Sony, Panasonic,etc. technical consultants are credited on every HD shot movie, including Rodriguez's).

Indeed, DV pushes the cost/performance ratio even higher, but most people in the bigger motion picture market feel that the quality of DV is too much of a compromise, so HD fills that market very nicely. Better than DV, not quite as good as film, but also inbetween as price, and evolving every day.

Almost there doesn't count, either. Film-makers frame their shots using the DoF they know and love with film. With CCD cameras, they are using TV DoF, just at a higher resolution.

Not true, you can shoot with the same kind of DoF on video as well, even on lowly DV cameras (P+S Technik, for instance). And CCD or CMOS technology in itself doesn't forbid producing big enough chips (notice the full-frame sensors that are already on the market for several years), if the workarounds to get the same DoF would really present a problem for cinematographers.

And even as the technology improves, there is no modularity to the designs. You have to buy the whole camera. Someone ought to show these guys an SLR with a digital back. They ought to tell Sony, Panasonic et al, "See that? Make one of those for an Arri". Instant modularity.

That is also not true. Every new digital camera for the cinematography market is modular:

- Sony's HDCAM SR uses an external deck to record the signal from the camera head, but also gives the choice of using an HDD solution, if you don't want to use the tape format from Sony. They can provide only the camera head;

- Thomson's Viper was right from the start only a camera and not a camcorder, and they relied heavily on Director's Friend at the beginning to offer a viable solution for storage of the signal;

- DALSA goes even a bit further, by admitting that for the moment, for the full quality uncompressed stream of their camera, there are no really portable solutions available. So they offer either lower resolutions or lossless compression, to accomodate for todays technology, with the hope that in the near future you will see faster portable solutions;

Sure, in an ideal world, the actual CCD/CMOS module could be upgradable, keeping the digital processing module, but that involves such enormous headaches in terms of engineering that I don't think anybody will apply that idea. They are satisfied for now with the camerahead + recording device modular approach.

The idea of fitting a digital back to an Arri, maybe instead of the film can, is something I have seen discussed, but the fact that it is more expensive and more difficult to build an imager with the same area as a 35 mm film frame, in order to use the same optical path makes this idea also pretty uneconomical, imho.

Why would they settle for something that costs 50k for the old Sony camera that's just 'almost there'? Film goes beyond that already and it does so today. George Lucases HD footage will remain HD footage tomorrow. No higher res or higher dynamic range. But tomorrow, film scanning technology improves. Film already gets more detail than HD. Tomorrow, you can get even more.

Because you can save costs today by shooting in HD (not to mention all the fanpoints you earn by being - almost - the first film director to complete a motion picture shot on HD ).

And as I said before, while film scanning technology improves (notice the new Spirit 2 TK that can do also 4k scanning, not only 2k, thereby removing the need for a dedicated scanner - or almost, the registration problems are still delicate...), the digital camera technology is already at the same level and progressing faster (you'll see once the first DALSA cameras get into use - the demand is enormous). And film doesn't have any more headroom for development in terms of resolution (dynamic range is another question), unless you start looking at bigger frame formats (Vistavision, IMAX, 65 mm, etc.), which is a dead-end already in terms of costs and convinience.

But sure, I do not disagree that if you want the absolute best today, cost being no matter, 35 mm film is still the top choice. I am not sure tho' whether the same will still be said in 1 year from now, that's all.

Hehe Film's stock in trade *is* high resolutions and HDR. It's why digital cameras of the still and motion variety are all still trying to reach up to film's capabilities. With every new generation of cameras, the same claim is made that it's jsut as good as film now. But the next generation always puts it into perspective and shows how far they still have to go.

Yes, film in general, but not motion picture film. Please read the page I linked from Kodak, there you will find a very good explanation about the compromises that have to be made in terms of ratio between speed and grain, if you want to produce filmstock that the cinematographers could use in real life situations.

You are right about claims being made prematurely, that's why I always quantify my verdicts (for instance, in terms of resolution, the new DALSA camera is just as good as 35 mm film, however in terms of dynamic range, it still has some way to go- if you see what I mean).

And the shameless marketing by Sony in particular in tandem with Lucas for the HDCAM format was really annoying and I am glad that there are now other solutions on the market that will - hopefully - steal some part of Sony's marketshare, just to teach them that almost-3:1:1 compression and reduced resolution doesn't equal film.

Well he did do the DV equivalent of Blair Witch, so he can say anything he likes It's a great achievement, no matter how his modesty (real or simulated) effaces it. It shows what can be done with what you've got and a buttload of effort.

I am not sure about "28 Days" being the DV equivalent of Blair Witch, afterall it didn't do anywhere close as well in terms of budget/box-office ratio. It is still as you have said a rather big-budget production.

And it's not even the first major succesful film to be originated on DV, I personally would bestow that honour on "Dancer in the Dark" - there I even felt that the "DV-look" was even more suited to the story and sub-story of the film.

Having said that tho', most of us solo-fliers balk at the supposedly miniscule budget of US$8M. Anybody here have 8M lying around? It makes me wonder what Peter Jackson did to convince New Line to give him more than a quarter billion US$ and send it to an offshore account in NZ.

He invested a lot of (his own) time and a lot of (his own) money into his own VFX studio (WETA, of course) and his own production company, in order to prepare an extensive demoreel of the capabilities that they have to make the project come to life. It didn't come exactly out of the blue...

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-04-2003, 08:18 PM

Hey there!

in that world, 2k reffers to horizontal resolution. As a matter of fact, you never use the term "2k" in anything but horizontal resolution.

That's great but if we were talking about scanning and printing film stock, then we weren't talking about the world of grading now, were we? =) Which probably means a moderator will come in right about now and tell us we should be.

since people watch films that are scanned and then printed back at 2k, and do not see a problem with them (mostly), it is painfully obvious that the limits of film technology are already reached by the digital one.

What is painfully obvious is that the equipment for efficiently scanning, processing and printing film at higher than 2k is not yet in place =). Film technology is not limited to 2k simply because that's what the digital end scans and prints it at. That's a limitation of the digital end, not the film.

Actually, it's not 4:3, that's a simplification, since the Full Aperture is different (notice I said 1556 not 1536, that's a small but very significant mistake that gets made quite often ).[QUOTE]

1556 makes it even more of a box =). My mistake tho'. I admit that I assumed you made an error with 1556 when I thought you meant 1536.

[QUOTE]DV pushes the cost/performance ratio even higher, but most people in the bigger motion picture market feel that the quality of DV is too much of a compromise, so HD fills that market very nicely. Better than DV, not quite as good as film, but also inbetween as price, and evolving every day.

DV evolves everyday, too. DV may be a huge compromise if you're after the full range of film's capabilities, but most people don't need that. And since the worlds of DV and HD aren't actually separate ones (only in capability) then something like 'HDV' would make the expensive high end cameras obsolete and all the budding Coppola's happy.

you can shoot with the same kind of DoF on video as well, even on lowly DV cameras[QUOTE]

With the workarounds and products for workarounds that you mentioned, sure. But why should anyone have to work around it when film already allows them to just do it and apply what they already know? No need to get a new camera just to work around your new camera's limitations. No need to get devices to work around it either. Just use film. Simple =).

[QUOTE]That is also not true. Every new digital camera for the cinematography market is modular:

The examples you gave are not what I meant. Being able to attach a different tape deck to a different HD video camera is not exactly what I would call modular.

Sure, in an ideal world, the actual CCD/CMOS module could be upgradable, keeping the digital processing module[QUOTE]

That's what I meant =) But a lot more than jsut that because I would like the ability to upgrade the processors as well. The headaches of doing that are not in the design, but in the standards. There are none. I am also cynical enough to believe that companies would rather sell more expensive whole cameras than cheaper upgrades.

[QUOTE]Because you can save costs today by shooting in HD (not to mention all the fanpoints you earn by being - almost - the first film director to complete a motion picture shot on HD ).

Or you can save costs by not having to buy or rent a fifty thousand US$ camera just to shoot at lower resolution and dynamic range =). Not to mention getting whole new lenses for it. Imagine all the fanpoints you get by using this technology called film that's a century old and that so many are calling dead and obsolete.

the digital camera technology is already at the same level and progressing faster

Nup, not true at all about it being at the same level. Nothing Kodak says will change that. Progressing faster, definitely. But it's got a way to go still. 2k is the Holy Grail - and I mean that in the vertical, btw =). The point where digital film is reality and not just hype. It's attainable and is in fact being attained. But not today. The closest product is Dalsa's and that won't come out until next year.

But sure, I do not disagree that if you want the absolute best today, cost being no matter, 35 mm film is still the top choice. I am not sure tho' whether the same will still be said in 1 year from now, that's all.

Yes. Film is the absolute best. That's why I said HD and digital aren't on the same level =). Not yet, anyways. In 1 year from now, film will still have higher resolution than HD's 1920 x 1080. HD and Dalsa's camera will probably get cheaper tho', and DV's capabilities will increase. By that time, the argument of HD not being as good as film will be joined by the argument of DV not being as good as HD.

He invested a lot of (his own) time and a lot of (his own) money into his own VFX studio (WETA, of course) and his own production company, in order to prepare an extensive demoreel of the capabilities that they have to make the project come to life. It didn't come exactly out of the blue...

I'm pretty sure that it qualifies as coming out of the blue =).

Jamo
+BIL

Jamo3D

09-04-2003, 08:25 PM

Hey there!

thank you so far, although your statements doesn't sound that encouraging but then again hey that's life .

You're welcome, I hope =) You're sure getting your money's worth in replies, that's for sure. If I said eanything to discourage you, don't let it.

After reading this I guess I will have to restate the whole project thing I got in mind and take a totally different approach...

Well my suggestion's already obvious. Go with film if you can afford it, go with DV if you can't.

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-04-2003, 09:47 PM

That's great but if we were talking about scanning and printing film stock, then we weren't talking about the world of grading now, were we? =) Which probably means a moderator will come in right about now and tell us we should be.

Why not? The digital scanning, printing, telecine and grading worlds are very closely connected, in general being offered under one roof by one post house (naturaly, that doesn't mean you shouldn't chose other houses if they provided one or more of those services at a better price or with better quality - tho' the issue of calibration of the workflow creeps up regularly). And in all these worlds, when you say 2k, you reffer to only one thing, that was all I was saying. :)

What is painfully obvious is that the equipment for efficiently scanning, processing and printing film at higher than 2k is not yet in place =). Film technology is not limited to 2k simply because that's what the digital end scans and prints it at. That's a limitation of the digital end, not the film.

I would agree with the middle part of that, i.e. the processing, which is indeed more expensive and timeconsuming when you contemplate a 4k workflow. Otherwise, the scanners and the printers have been 4k capable for quite a while now, and the only disadvantage is that it takes longer per frame, you have to move more material (not an issue so much these Gigabit days...) and is slightly more expensive.

And indeed, as I already said, film is not limited at 2k. But my point was that people could and do use 4k, but only when it makes sense. The truth of the matter is that for most shots, with movement & so on, it is very hard to see a difference between 2k and 4k. For static shots with great details, you can indeed spot the difference easier.

That's why most VFX supervisors use a mixture of the two, depending on the content of the said shots. But you have to ask yourself, when you looked at say "Swordfish", did you actually notice when they did 4k and when they went with only 2k? If not, the bottom line is that 2k is enough (think "Lord of the Rings" - entirely graded at 2k digitally, almost nobody complained about the quality of the image).

DV evolves everyday, too. DV may be a huge compromise if you're after the full range of film's capabilities, but most people don't need that. And since the worlds of DV and HD aren't actually separate ones (only in capability) then something like 'HDV' would make the expensive high end cameras obsolete and all the budding Coppola's happy.

If you reffer to DV as in the format DV, I would have to say that I did not see a great deal of evolution. In the amateur and prosumer market, the only changes have been slightly better camera sections (like Canon XL1s or VX2000), with slightly better optics and some "pro" features in terms of use (XLR inputs, manual modes, interchangable lenses) or some features to surf on the trend of 24p and progressive scan.

However, they are still a far cry away from the professional camera bodies, not to mention the lower compression digital video recording formats like D9, DVCPRO50 or Digital Betacam.

What is in fact happening in the prosumer world is rather a change of recording media, everybody trying to use either DVDs, solid state storage or HDDs in order to make the cameras smaller, more compatible & so on. Unfortunately, they also choose even lower quality compression algorithms, like MPEG-4 at low bitrates and that doesn't make "DV" advance, but rather it is a step back.

The one exception is of course the miniHD camera of JVC. That is indeed a very interesting development, but unfortunately I have to say that I have been very disappointed with the quality, not even compared to "real" HD, but also compared to Standard Definition video produced by a camera in the same price range. The compromises of low bitrate MPEG2 and one CCD design hardly make this camera a "HDV" equivalent. Maybe one of their competitors will sniff the opportunity and make a better shot at this previously unexplored area.

That being said, I think you underestimate the difference in terms of overall use between a DV camera and a HD camera. Let's leave for a second the technical quality issue aside, there are still enormous advantages in having a bigger camera body, rugged design, good optical viewfinders or high resolution LCD panels, expensive HDSDI outputs (if you look at the price of a transciever for that, you see it costs almost like a DV camera in itself), professional lens mounts and so on and so forth.

All these areas were sore points in the beginning for HD cameras trying to win the love of cinematographers accustomed to the features of ARRI and Panavision packages, but instead got cameras designed by video engineers. Not a good combination. So, if there was a single field where the advances were truly spectacular in the last year when it comes to HD cameras is exactly that: features to make them better for field use in a motion picture enviornment.

I think you should also take this aspect into account when you say that the HD and DV world are not separated. In my mind, even the HD world designed for TV/broadcast use is very different from the HD world designed for "digital cinematography".

With the workarounds and products for workarounds that you mentioned, sure. But why should anyone have to work around it when film already allows them to just do it and apply what they already know? No need to get a new camera just to work around your new camera's limitations. No need to get devices to work around it either. Just use film. Simple.

Yes, that is a valid point. But to be very honest, when you talk about a bigger sized CCD, like the ones used in HD cameras, the so-called "workarounds" to get shallower DoF are really very straightforward and any decent cinematographer can adapt his or hers workstyle to them without even a hiccup.

And on the other hand who is to say that the current usage of DoF is the way... in the history of cinema, the way DoF was used changed between the periods quite dramatically, varying between shallow, deep and back to shallow both for technical reasons (advances in lenses and film stocks, the advent of color, etc.) and for aesthetic ones.

I really doubt this particular issue is a sticky point for HD (or even for DV). And on the other hand, film has itself other limitations that disappear when you go to "the dark side", which I am sure can compensate somewhat the new camera's limitations.

When it comes to limitations, actually, I miss much more the ramping ability of a film camera (shooting off-speed/slow motion). In fact, for certain areas, like TV commercials, I would rather use a Varicam, even with the lower resolution (gasp, even lower than Sony's brand of HD), just because it can shoot up to 60 fps.

The examples you gave are not what I meant. Being able to attach a different tape deck to a different HD video camera is not exactly what I would call modular.

Then I am not exactly sure what you were expecting. There are basically 4 building blocks in a camera: the lens, the imager device, the processing section and the recording section.

The first HD cameras, being evolved from the video TV world, were designed as camcorders, with the only modularity being the exchangable lenses. Nowadays, all the above mentioned manufacturers have strived to provide greater modularity, allowing users to attach different recording solutions to the camera head. It's hard for me to imagine any more modularity built-in...

If you look at the latest ARRI products, like the above mentioned ARRICAM Studio, you'll see a - ironically - reverse trend, where they try to put into one package features that were once available from different companies, like the video assist, the ultrasonic measurement device (that works properly only with ARRI/Zeiss lenses, of course) or the Timecode generator/burn-in features. They are basically trying to turn it into a camcorder when it comes to ease of use (I am exaggerating a bit, of course).

Or you can save costs by not having to buy or rent a fifty thousand US$ camera just to shoot at lower resolution and dynamic range =). Not to mention getting whole new lenses for it. Imagine all the fanpoints you get by using this technology called film that's a century old and that so many are calling dead and obsolete.

Heh, try telling Lucas he shouldn't jump head first into a exciting new technology playground. If it weren't for him, we would still be editing film on flatbeds. And I have to admit, as much as I like the smell and sights of cutting film with my own two hands (and a splicer), the Avid is simply... better.

The HD cameras btw. start at the above mentioned $50k, which would be the price for a Varicam (720p) or a lower-end HDCAM (no 24p). The real deal comes with the CineAlta, which is around $100k, without lenses. And from there on upwards, with Vipers and the yet-to-be-released DALSAs. :eek:

However, most film-makers do indeed rent. And the rental houses have been quite happy to adopt the new technology, and can already offer rental packages at rates that are equal or lower than the film packages. So, the cost is not so much of a sticking point either.

Nup, not true at all about it being at the same level. Nothing Kodak says will change that. Progressing faster, definitely. But it's got a way to go still. 2k is the Holy Grail - and I mean that in the vertical, btw =). The point where digital film is reality and not just hype. It's attainable and is in fact being attained. But not today. The closest product is Dalsa's and that won't come out until next year.

I said the digital camera technology is almost at the same level. The DALSA is already in working prototype stage and will be introduced sooner than expected because of the enormous demand. But yes, if you look at what is available today in terms of commercial products, there are a few more months of waiting, no doubt.

Btw. I fail to see why you wouldn't believe Kodak! For the love of celluloid, they are pretty much the only ones that still research film stocks and try to squeeze the last drops out of the chemical technology to improve it. Not to mention the world largest film stock producer. If they are saying film is on the way out (which of course they are not, but nonetheless they invest everything on new CCDs and digital projection and delivery methods), you better believe them. ;)

I'm pretty sure that it qualifies as coming out of the blue =).

Why, I mean Peter Jackson spent I believe almost 4 years developing the product before he even went to Hollywood for his proverbial spree of interviews with production studios and in-between managed to make a name for himself with the films he directed and wrote, not to mention a name for Weta as an innovative and cost-effective new FX house (think "Contact", for instance).

It was definately a risk on New Line's part, but I am sure it was a calculated risk. Peter Jackson put together a very convincing plan when he "sold" his ideas.

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-05-2003, 08:50 AM

Hi there!

And in all these worlds, when you say 2k, you reffer to only one thing, that was all I was saying.

What you are saying is that 2k is horizontal because that's what the world of grading and now printing, scanning and telecine worlds refer to exclusively? :)

I don't want to be insulting since this has been pretty cordial, but I have yet to see a film scanner or a printer referred to in it's horizontal resolution - connected to any other world or otherwise. It's always vertical. When I say 2k, it's vertical. When these film scanner or printer companies say 2k, it's vertical.

So just to clarify, everytime I refer to resolution and say 2k, I mean that in the vertical. Dalsa then is 2k and HD is 1k - regardless of how HD camera makers prefer to mention the horizontal.

I would agree with the middle part of that, i.e. the processing, which is indeed more expensive and timeconsuming when you contemplate a 4k workflow. Otherwise, the scanners and the printers have been 4k capable for quite a while now, and the only disadvantage is that it takes longer per frame, you have to move more material (not an issue so much these Gigabit days...) and is slightly more expensive.

Capacity and capability does not equal efficiency. It follows the simple equation: capacity x performance = efficiency. The weakest link slows down the entire chain. That's the disadvantage of using film (not the medium itself) because it's capabilities far exceed those of the digital that manipulates it. Digital can't handle all of it jsut yet.

But for the intermediate of say Winged Migration, I doubt there was a lot of VFX or composition from what I've seen of it. And it would benefit directly from 4k or higher while the performance required would be minimal.

The truth of the matter is that for most shots, with movement & so on, it is very hard to see a difference between 2k and 4k. For static shots with great details, you can indeed spot the difference easier.

Static or moving picture, if you don't display a 4k picture next to a 2k picture, then nobody viewing the 2k picture would know what they were missing. And nobody in their right mind does this, other than at product demonstrations. That higher quality is attainable, and only by film.

The reason using 4k requires any sort of justification is the speed and cost. If the intermediate were faster and cheaper, then it makes more sense. And yet again, film is the only medium that allows it. And yet again, films like Winged Migration wouldn't need much of it.

If you reffer to DV as in the format DV

I wasn't =).

The one exception is of course the miniHD camera of JVC.

That's what direction I meant. It's a first step. I would agree about the quality issues if I had the product demo'd in front of me already. But that won't happen for a few weeks yet. I'm the first guy to ask questions and the last guy to jump on a bandwagon, but HDV as I call it is a promise that makes a lot more sense to me than supposed HD Cinematography.

That being said, I think you underestimate the difference in terms of overall use between a DV camera and a HD camera. Let's leave for a second the technical quality issue aside, there are still enormous advantages in having a bigger camera body, rugged design, good optical viewfinders or high resolution LCD panels, expensive HDSDI outputs (if you look at the price of a transciever for that, you see it costs almost like a DV camera in itself), professional lens mounts and so on and so forth.

Yes, there are definitely advantages to having a large camera body... Like a film camera.:)

Who makes optical viewfinders for HD? Only Dalsa have optical VF for their digital camera AFAIK (which isn't HD). Larger higher-res LCD panels as VF or viewscreen? You don't need a larger camera body or digital for that - you would need to force your cinematographer at gunpoint to pocket his photometer to use it instead, tho'.

An expensive transceiver that costs almost as much as a DV camera is not what I would call an advantage, either. Especially when your options are a film camera that gets more detail than HD can or DV that can go anywhere HD can't.

The supposed ruggedness of a larger camera body for HD is also wrong. If I dropped a DV camera on a carpet, I would check it out and it would probably still run fine. If I dropped an HD camera in the same place, everybody would have heart attacks. It's too sensitive to be called anything rugged. it also costs too much to be used for anything rugged.

Professional lens mounts for HD are an advantage if you happen to be in the business of selling lenses.:) Not one single lens from a film camera can be used on HD. And neither film nor HD lenses are cheap. So for every film lens you have, you have to get the equivalent HD lens as well. And from what I've read, not all of them have equivalents just yet. DV on the other hand has lenses on the cheap and plentiful. Canon even have one for 3D.

And on the other hand who is to say that the current usage of DoF is the way... in the history of cinema, the way DoF was used changed between the periods quite dramatically, varying between shallow, deep and back to shallow both for technical reasons (advances in lenses and film stocks, the advent of color, etc.) and for aesthetic ones.

That's the way because it gives perspective on the big screen. In the history of film it may've changed a lot. But when was the last major shift? But yes, you're right. It's a nit. I jsut had to pick it because it's yet another example of 'why should they have to?'. Why should they have to work around this or that or relearn anything for a format that does less than film and currently so few people can afford?

In fact, for certain areas, like TV commercials, I would rather use a Varicam, even with the lower resolution (gasp, even lower than Sony's brand of HD), just because it can shoot up to 60 fps.

Nevermind 60. Think MV48.

It's hard for me to imagine any more modularity built-in

That camera back idea I mentioned, for a start. But you mentioned four building blocks in a camera. If all of these were interchangable or at least upgradable, then that's what I mean.

They are basically trying to turn it into a camcorder when it comes to ease of use (I am exaggerating a bit, of course).

I don't think that's an exaggeration. That's the ultimate film camera. Something as easy as a camcorder to use with the full capabilities of a film camera.

So, the cost is not so much of a sticking point either.

It is =) Someone has to pay those horrifying prices you mentioned. Wow. I thought 50k was 'it'. Rental or purchase, you will pay more. You would be paying for a format that has less capability than film.

Btw. I fail to see why you wouldn't believe Kodak!

Because Kodak do not decide the fate of film =). And I am also cynical enough to believe Kodak's investment into digital means that I will take anything they say about film's incapabilities with more than a grain of salt. They play both sides and only one side has the digital buzzword on it.

For Digital to be justified, it has to accomplish two things. Better the quality of film while being more affordable - this is a sentiment shared by a lot of peeps. HD does the opposite. it has less quality and costs more.

DV holds the most promise as it costs far far FAR less. It doesn't have film quality, but neither does HD. You won't get HD quality either, but with current equipment, you can already come closer to it. And nothing beats it for convenience or an established base of accessories and equipment - which all share it's lower cost.

And if you want to do it in HD, jsut take your DV footage, tweak it in post - the catchphrase that's a whole other argument altogether - add your HD resolution FX and CGI and record it at HD. Not even a need for an HD tapedeck. you can record it onto DVD.

It was definately a risk on New Line's part, but I am sure it was a calculated risk. Peter Jackson put together a very convincing plan when he "sold" his ideas.

I call that from out of the blue because it was beyond super-amazing that he could convince them to consider something so preposterous a calculable risk.:) What he did was akin to selling them the Brooklyn Bridge, the Coathanger and The Great Wall. What made it more amazing was that he delivered!

I'm pretty sure the book recounting the adventure of the film itself will jsut be as entertaining as the movies he's made. I can't help but think WOW everytime I think of what he accomplished.

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-05-2003, 10:19 AM

I don't want to be insulting since this has been pretty cordial, but I have yet to see a film scanner or a printer referred to in it's horizontal resolution - connected to any other world or otherwise. It's always vertical. When I say 2k, it's vertical. When these film scanner or printer companies say 2k, it's vertical.

Yes, we definately don't want to get insulting, it's just that I have experienced exactly the opposite, both in the - quite a few - times when I had to scan and print film at these facilities and when I looked over the technical specifications.

Let's look at a couple major examples from the very few manufacturers that have such devices in their product-lineup:

ARRILASER Film Recorder (http://www.arri.com/prod/digital/laser/prod/prod.htm) - arguably the best film recorder in the world today:

"ARRILASER Specifications

Frame size :
- 35mm full aperture, 4 perf.
Nominal spot size :
- 0.006 mm (4K resolution)
- 0.012 mm (2K resolution)
Image format :
- 4096 x 3112 pixels (4K resolution)
- 2048 x 1556 pixels (2K resolution)"

Imager XE (http://www.ise.imagica.co.jp/english/IMAGER/index.html) - another candidate for "best of" titles in the scanning world:

"4K - sub-sampled to lower resolution -
IMAGER XE® can scan 35mm 4perfs at 4096 * 3112 pixels in full and 35mm 8perfs at 4096 * 6144 pixels. This can be sub-sampled to 3K, 2K and 1K with retaining the quality of 4K. This also features an option to scan 16mm film including Super 16 and 35mm 3 perfs."

Need I go on? This repeats in every brochure, every shop and every post production house *I* have ever seen: 4k = 4096, 2k=2048, always reffering to horizontal resolution. I await some examples from you to the contrary.

Static or moving picture, if you don't display a 4k picture next to a 2k picture, then nobody viewing the 2k picture would know what they were missing. And nobody in their right mind does this, other than at product demonstrations. That higher quality is attainable, and only by film.

Again, did you see a difference, in such a test? I went to a few such industry tests, most recently one organized by ARRI and believe me, even with identical material projected in extremely good conditions (read: something you'll never find in real-world cinemas) it is hard to see the difference in a shot with lots of movement (especially camera movement) between 2k and 4k. When it comes to a static vista of mountains with foliage in the foreground gently moving from the breeze, yes, even I could spot the difference. :cool:

Did you have complaints about the quality of "Lord of the Rings", image-wise? Cause if you didn't, that's what HD can pretty much do today in terms of resolution, at least when you look at the end-link in the chain, which is the finished product.

Who makes optical viewfinders for HD? Only Dalsa have optical VF for their digital camera AFAIK (which isn't HD). Larger higher-res LCD panels as VF or viewscreen? You don't need a larger camera body or digital for that - you would need to force your cinematographer at gunpoint to pocket his photometer to use it instead, tho'.

Yes, of course DALSA, and I fail to see why you quickly exclude it from the HD world - it is a camera for digital cinematography... but if you look carefully, the Viper also has an optical viewfinder option from a third-party company (Angenieux, namely). And you should definately check out the new viewfinder on the HDC-F950 - amazing quality for a LCD. If you don't believe me, just read the reviews of cinematographers, who were just as thrilled by some of the innovative features - like the 1:1 pixel zoom to see the focus perfectly.

And I also don't understand who says they should give up their "photometer", just cause they have a equally decent alternative. Sure, a cinematographer with brains would recognize in a sec the advantage of having a vectoroscope as well to help him or her. At least then they don't have any excuse when they screw up shooting my greenscrens: you can see right there very clearly the exact exposure.

And while they'll balk at the idea that the client/director can see the final result on the high-def monitor, that doesn't mean they'll lose their jobs. It's still an art, even if it is now slightly more palpable for the non-specialists.

The supposed ruggedness of a larger camera body for HD is also wrong. If I dropped a DV camera on a carpet, I would check it out and it would probably still run fine. If I dropped an HD camera in the same place, everybody would have heart attacks. It's too sensitive to be called anything rugged. it also costs too much to be used for anything rugged.

You underestimate a professional camera body, trust me. Sure, you don't want to drop a $100k body on the floor just to see what happens, but if you look at where it already shot without problems (desert, Antartica, etc.) you'll see that it can survive conditions that a miniDV prosumer camera won't. And remember that the design and safety features evolved from a very demanding market: broadcast field shooting, meaning those fat guys with vests with many pockets that go to Irak and get shot at by tanks and snipers... if I would only count the number of Betacam SPs I saw with bullet holes through them that were still working! :D

Professional lens mounts for HD are an advantage if you happen to be in the business of selling lenses. Not one single lens from a film camera can be used on HD. And neither film nor HD lenses are cheap. So for every film lens you have, you have to get the equivalent HD lens as well. And from what I've read, not all of them have equivalents just yet. DV on the other hand has lenses on the cheap and plentiful. Canon even have one for 3D.

Heh, I have to bring up again the P/S adaptor that can in fact be used without problems for mounting film lenses to HD cameras. But sure, you can say the same about DV. But hey, again the DALSA: standard PL mount - jolly good, eh?

And I would like to see the cinematographer ready to shoot a film with the sorry excuse for lenses that are what commonly is in front of a DV camera... even the Canon line-up, while more decent than the rest of the pack, fades into oblivion once you get the chance to work with some Zeiss DigiPrimes or the equivalents from Fujinon, Angenieux & so on. There *is* a reason why those pieces of glass cost as much as the HD camera (or more).

The funny fact is that almost all lens manufacturers agreed that when they had to make lenses for digital cinematography, they had to use better precision and in the end higher optical resolution, because HD sensors demanded it. Practically today a lens for HD cameras is of better quality and resolution than its equivalent for film cameras. Ask yourself why.

Nevermind 60. Think MV48.

Hey, I was talking about normal cameras. Most film cameras for general use cannot go over 100 fps at most - more common 60 fps. We are not talking about IMAX and other tricks here, but just what everybody uses, right, not formats that "so few people can afford"? ;)

When you need a prism-camera to shoot exploding bombs in agonizing slow-motion, you rent anyway, and yes, you'll shoot film. But hey, I bet when push comes to shove, they'll find a way to do digital high-speed photography - the only current limitation is the storage speed and holographic is just around the corner (ok, a few more years, anyway).

That camera back idea I mentioned, for a start. But you mentioned four building blocks in a camera. If all of these were interchangable or at least upgradable, then that's what I mean.

Ok, they are not *all* interchangable, just 3 out of 4: lens, imager, recording medium. The processing block is too much dependent on the imager section, so it doesn't make sense to not link it like it is today (in most cases you cannot upgrade it either, without the imager section, only software-wise). Of course, there are still compatibility problems and some discussion about standards, but the trend is for standardization. The only one that doesn't fit in this picture is the DALSA, because it cannot use HD lenses, only film lenses. But you could still - if you would be so inclined - use a HDCAM SR field recorder with it... just not for 4k.

For a medium that is so young, it's actually a wonder that they reached such levels of cooperation between competing product lines. If you look at the beginning of motion picture or video, it was almost like every camera had its own particular lens, tape format or film magazine that often didn't work with other products from the same company, let alone from different ones.

Because Kodak do not decide the fate of film =). And I am also cynical enough to believe Kodak's investment into digital means that I will take anything they say about film's incapabilities with more than a grain of salt. They play both sides and only one side has the digital buzzword on it.

Maybe, but if Kodak stops producing film, who do you think will take their place? Fuji? That would be something to see - cinematographers that complain everywhere about the "Fuji-look" having to live with the admitedly inferior performance-wise film stocks. I doubt Fuji has the capacity to produce the required amounts anyway, or the research staff to diversify their product range like Kodak.

Let's be honest, where Kodak goes, the rest of the cinema world will follow, complaining or not. Just that for the moment they don't sing film's death song yet, because it is still a very lucrative market. But they prepare for the future.

For Digital to be justified, it has to accomplish two things. Better the quality of film while being more affordable - this is a sentiment shared by a lot of peeps. HD does the opposite. it has less quality and costs more.

DV holds the most promise as it costs far far FAR less. It doesn't have film quality, but neither does HD. You won't get HD quality either, but with current equipment, you can already come closer to it. And nothing beats it for convenience or an established base of accessories and equipment - which all share it's lower cost.

Come on, if maybe I exaggerate when I say that HD is close to film today, it's very far-fetched to pretend that DV is anywhere within close to HD quality. It might be there in some years, if the trend JVC started proves to be a commercial succes, but then again it might very well not, if the trend of the rest of the market continues: higher-compression, smaller cams, different storage medium.

HD "costs more" only when you compare it to a second-hand film package. For a new film camera with lenses & accessories you pay about the same. And rental prices are already at the same level or lower in many places.

Of course, if you calculate based on the film camera you already have together with accesories, sure, the investment in a completely new format is expensive. And since the HD market is in such development, where formats become obsolete in only 5 years, it's a bit risky, granted. But there are many cases I know of where an early investment in either Sony or Panasonic's kits have paid off very handsomly already and are starting to make a profit.

And if you want to do it in HD, jsut take your DV footage, tweak it in post - the catchphrase that's a whole other argument altogether - add your HD resolution FX and CGI and record it at HD. Not even a need for an HD tapedeck. you can record it onto DVD.

Yeah, but did you look lately at how cheap real HD full-resolution editing has become? You can put a system together for close to $10k. You can buy a J-series deck that only playbacks HDCAM tapes for another $10k. And then you can still output on DVD...

Sure, these prices might seem high for somebody who is used to paying $2k for the DV editing system and use the camera instead of the deck. But that is not something you would do in a "real" studio.

And when they look at those costs, accustomed to having to pay 1 million each for the telecine, scanner and recorder (count how many HD suites you can equip for that money) just to be able edit/composite at the same resolution (not 4k), they start to get ideas. Not to mention being happy that some day in the future, off-line editing will not be the headache it is today when it comes to matchback. Just edit proxies on the laptop, and redigitize 24p material in the HD suite and voila. No negative cutting, no dupe lists, no opticals, no sound sync problems, nothing.

HD really shines in the post-production world. If it doesn't succed by the frontal attack on the shooting side, I am sure that it will become pretty much a standard for higher-end production on the post-production side.

I call that from out of the blue because it was beyond super-amazing that he could convince them to consider something so preposterous a calculable risk. What he did was akin to selling them the Brooklyn Bridge, the Coathanger and The Great Wall. What made it more amazing was that he delivered!

I have to say I am somewhat less amazed, because I know a bit of how pre-production went on "Lord of the Rings", and the amount of money and time PJAX & his crew invested before they came to the States - but sure, it is an interesting story nonetheless, and I would definately read the book.

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-05-2003, 02:46 PM

Hey there,

Need I go on? This repeats in every brochure, every shop and every post production house *I* have ever seen: 4k = 4096, 2k=2048, always reffering to horizontal resolution. I await some examples from you to the contrary.

Sure =) just look at those brochures again, but remove the 'x'. Unless HxV is quoted wholly, the shorthand is the vertical. I ask a rep what the resolution is and they always tell me '2k' or '4k' or something along those lines. I have never been told the resolution in HxV pixels. When I ask and am told 2k, it's vertical. When I say 2k, it's vertical. When I say HD is not 2k, I mean that because it's not in the vertical.

Again, did you see a difference, in such a test?

Yes =) It all depends on who's doing the demoing, of course. if it's a guy trying to sell his digital projector, they will choose footage that highlights it. I saw footage from a guy trying to sell his shop's 4k capabilities. I would've questioned the guys, as I always do. but I didn't speak Cantonese.

Did you have complaints about the quality of "Lord of the Rings", image-wise? Cause if you didn't, that's what HD can pretty much do today in terms of resolution, at least when you look at the end-link in the chain, which is the finished product.

I have no complaints at all about Lord of The Rings. And HD cannot do that today or any day because HD is only 2k horizontally. If anything in Rings was 2k, it was 2k vertically. Fourtimes HD. Tomorrow, HD will still be that resolution. And if Rings was remade in 4k, then even more wow.

Yes, of course DALSA, and I fail to see why you quickly exclude it from the HD world

Because it isn't HD. HD is a TV standard for Hi Definition Television. It's 1920 x 1080 resolution. I don't know what range is allowed, tho'. Dalsa's camera follows none of the standards for HD, it follows nothing of anything of HD. It is simply not HD. It won't even record to videotape. When I say HD, I mean HD standards.

Sure, a cinematographer with brains would recognize in a sec the advantage of having a vectoroscope as well to help him or her.

If I am not mistaken, the reason you mentioned a good hi-res LCD monitor was as an advantage of having a larger camera body and it's use as a viewpanel, not to have a vectorscope. And why would anybody need a hi-resolution LCD panel just for use as a vectorscopic display? Monochrome does just fine.

You underestimate a professional camera body, trust me.

A complex heavy box of optical electronics will lose to a simpler heavy box of optics and chemicals in the ruggedness department, everytime. In regards to DV being the wimp of the digital brothers, it went to the desert and to antarctica and came back smiling long before HD went and came back for a check up at Sony. Even lowly Betacams came back shot up and still worked, as you said =).

And I would like to see the cinematographer ready to shoot a film with the sorry excuse for lenses that are what commonly is in front of a DV camera

I'd like to meet the guy who made 28 days, too =). I think Sodebergh himself is going DV. But he's a director and that's from the Apple site. That's got even more hype than Sony.

I correct myself then about no film lenses being usable on HD. Film camera lenses can now be used on far lower resolution and dynamic range cameras that cost far more =)

The funny fact is that almost all lens manufacturers agreed that when they had to make lenses for digital cinematography, they had to use better precision and in the end higher optical resolution, because HD sensors demanded it. Practically today a lens for HD cameras is of better quality and resolution than its equivalent for film cameras. Ask yourself why.

To make up for the lack of HD's capabilities. The people who use HD demand it, not the sensors. HD shortcomings mean that solutions and workarounds have to be devised. Lenses are one of them. Can't possibly be the camera's fault =) It cost 100k! Has to be the lenses.

So now they have these far more precise and higher resolution and higher whatnot lenses for a higher price and all for a device that has less capability than film. Having more expensive lenses is not an advantage. Especially when their higher precision is wasted on lower resolution.

Hey, I was talking about normal cameras.

MV48 uses a 'normal' film camera =) jsut with a few mods. I think if anybody's willing, they can jsut simulate it on their unmodded cam. But if 2k (or 4k as you would call it) is DC's Holy Grail and HDV is DV's Holy Grail, MV48 is film's. And it's jsut as attainable. And it's affordable. It's not out yet, so it goes along the same lines as the digital camera that can do film res. I shan't mention it no more.

Come on, if maybe I exaggerate when I say that HD is close to film today, it's very far-fetched to pretend that DV is anywhere within close to HD quality.

I don't think you're exaggerating it =) I think you really do believe it. I jsut don't happen to. It's pretty much why we're having this conversatin, anyways.

I'll jsut clarify what I meant by it. I should've mentioned it by name. When I said that there was current equipment that can get closer to HD from the DV end, I meant the JVC camera. Or HDV as I like to call it.

HDV cameras will become more and more commonplace. I am pretty sure it will far outpace HD development as it's driven by a far larger market. It will likely be the driving force for the convergence of the two, if not outright assimilation of many of HD's markets.

HD really shines in the post-production world. If it doesn't succed by the frontal attack on the shooting side, I am sure that it will become pretty much a standard for higher-end production on the post-production side.

I doubt that. Not for film, anyways. And definitely not for the higher end. As you have said already, 2k (or 4k to you) is already the common practice and it already has more than sufficient speed. I find no reason to go from that to 1k (or 2k to you) - ESPECIALLY at the higher end. If anything, future technologies will make 4k more sensible - which is of course 8k to you.

HD does shine in post, tho'. But if HD shines, DV is supernova brilliant =). And HDV will be on galactic scale, to carry the metaphor further.

I have to say I am somewhat less amazed

I prefer to be amazed =) I've only heard a spattering of stories and the odd conversation with some guy who knows some guy, etcetera. But just because I know how to do a magic trick doesn't mean I am no longer amazed by magic or in fact by magicians. If anything, I gain a higher respect for it all.

Jamo
+BIL

PS
If I don't reply later, I'll reply next week =) Toodles!

Amyd

09-05-2003, 10:11 PM

Sure =) just look at those brochures again, but remove the 'x'. Unless HxV is quoted wholly, the shorthand is the vertical. I ask a rep what the resolution is and they always tell me '2k' or '4k' or something along those lines. I have never been told the resolution in HxV pixels. When I ask and am told 2k, it's vertical. When I say 2k, it's vertical. When I say HD is not 2k, I mean that because it's not in the vertical.

Dude, you are... stubborn. No offence, I am kidding. :)

Of course, they talk about 2k and 4k. It's easier than to say 2048x1556 or 4096x3112, isn't it? But if you look at the technical specifications you will always see in brackets the actual resolution.

Just take a look at ARRI's page I quoted: it's obvious that they equivalate 2048x1556 with "2k resolution", if they said so in the brackets, no? Why would they talk in one place of 2k resolution as horizontal and then everywhere else in the brochures to reffer to vertical resolution as "2k" (same term) without specifiying the change of terms? Wouldn't that be a rather dumb idea, marketing wise?

The same thing applies to any other manufacturer, post house, software that I have seen. Be it daVinci Systems (http://www.davsys.com/2k.htm) (most common telecine grading system), Philips Spirit DataCine (http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/docs/PhillipsCatalog/film/spirit/spirit_data_output_cat.pdf) (most common telecine system), Adobe After Effects (http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/a986.htm) (one of the most popular compositing programs in the world) or Cinesite (http://www.cinesite.com/lo/scanrec/recform.html) (definately one of the names that are in many minds equal to film recording and scanning as a post house), they all use the same standard. Just take a look, you'll see that when they want to write in short, they use 2k or 4k, always as horizontal resolution.

Or if you want, think about it another way. As I am sure you know, when you use a term in English like "2k" or "4k", it's just a short form for ~2000 and ~4000. But there are no standard resolutions that have 2000 or 4000-like numbers as vertical resolution. You have 1556, you have 3112, but that is obviously too far away to be rounded up like that. On the other hand, you have 2048 and 4096 as horizontal resolution, in about any place on the web that you find material related to our topic. Now, if you add 2 and 2 together, isn't it logical that 2k and 4k can only reffer to horizontal resolution? :lightbulb

I have no complaints at all about Lord of The Rings. And HD cannot do that today or any day because HD is only 2k horizontally. If anything in Rings was 2k, it was 2k vertically. Fourtimes HD. Tomorrow, HD will still be that resolution. And if Rings was remade in 4k, then even more wow.

Nope, sorry to dissapoint you, "Lord of the Rings" was graded digitally at my definition of 2k, i.e. 2048 by 1556 (slightly different because of the print format), at the The Post House in New Zeeland, using the now discreet-owned system Colossus/Lustre made by 5D with Colorfront. For further information, read Cinefex or any of the many online sites that ran news or articles about it. For instance here (http://www.colorfront.com/index.php3?n=1&m=17) at the makers of the tools used for grading. If you think I am wrong about defining 2k as horizontal resolution, always remember to read what Colorfront thinks 2k means (http://www.colorfront.com/img/usersguide.pdf).

Because it isn't HD. HD is a TV standard for Hi Definition Television. It's 1920 x 1080 resolution. I don't know what range is allowed, tho'. Dalsa's camera follows none of the standards for HD, it follows nothing of anything of HD. It is simply not HD. It won't even record to videotape. When I say HD, I mean HD standards.

HD is not a TV standard. HD is just High Definition. HDTV might be another thing, HDTV as defined in ASTC standards, yet another. But HD in itself just means High Definition, nothing more. And Dalsa's Origin camera can shoot at 1920x1080, if you chose so. It will just crop its sensor. Can we include it back, please?

Btw. HDTV standards also reffer to 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 color sampling (as per MPEG2 layers and profiles that are used for broadcast). HDCAM is 3:1:1, Viper can be 4:4:4, HDCAM SR can be 4:4:4, does that mean they are not HD as well?

If I am not mistaken, the reason you mentioned a good hi-res LCD monitor was as an advantage of having a larger camera body and it's use as a viewpanel, not to have a vectorscope. And why would anybody need a hi-resolution LCD panel just for use as a vectorscopic display? Monochrome does just fine.

Because most good LCD systems (Astro mainly but also bundled ones) can be used as well as vectoroscopes, even with the Histograms and other more vectoroscope-like display modes overlayed on the image. Now isn't that great, when you have everything right there on your screen, selectable from one button? Sure beats both optical viewfinders+exponometers or simple zebras imho, for shooting HD, but the choice is of course the cinematographers...

A complex heavy box of optical electronics will lose to a simpler heavy box of optics and chemicals in the ruggedness department, everytime. In regards to DV being the wimp of the digital brothers, it went to the desert and to antarctica and came back smiling long before HD went and came back for a check up at Sony. Even lowly Betacams came back shot up and still worked, as you said =).

You will be amazed at how many parts and designs from the Betacam age are in a typical HDCAM body. Sony knows very well what works and they never reinvent the wheel when they don't have to. If the HDCAMs would be as fragile as you seem to think they are, nobody would buy them. Who wants to take the package that makes them $1000 per day back to the service every other day to fix it?

I'd like to meet the guy who made 28 days, too =). I think Sodebergh himself is going DV. But he's a director and that's from the Apple site. That's got even more hype than Sony.

I correct myself then about no film lenses being usable on HD. Film camera lenses can now be used on far lower resolution and dynamic range cameras that cost far more =)

Yeah, Sodebergh already shot a film on DV, using the same camera as in "28 Days", as a matter of fact, none other than Canon XL1s. Let's hear what the Director of Photography had to say about using miniDV:

"If I had shot those on a big negative, it would have looked absolutely stunning," Dod Mantle reflects. "It was extraordinary to see those city streets deserted. I knew how beautiful those could have been, but we made an artistic decision and I stood by it. In those particular instances, of course, we would not have been allowed to shoot and take up so much space [in 35mm] for two weeks at such a delicate time before early-morning rush hour."

And of course he would have never shot it with the normal lenses that the Canon camera comes with as standard:

"Dod Mantle helped matters by securing the higher-resolving Canon EC (6-40mm) and Canon EJ (50-150mm) prime lenses to the camera bodies with Optex adapters. Even though video-lens focal lengths are measured differently than those of 35mm lenses, traditional focus-wheel systems were mounted onto the rods for the assistants, who pulled by eye.

As you can see, good lenses are important even with the low resolution DV cameras. Not only in terms of usability (focus/pull), but also in terms of pure quality, barrel distorsion, resolving power, chromatic aberations, pumping, breathing, a gazillion of factors that affect lower priced "prosumer" video lenses.

If you want to know more about the production of "28 Days" from the cinematographer's point of view, head over to ASC's website for this article (http://www.theasc.com/magazine/july03/sub/index.html), from where I extracted the quotes above.

MV48 uses a 'normal' film camera =) jsut with a few mods. I think if anybody's willing, they can jsut simulate it on their unmodded cam. But if 2k (or 4k as you would call it) is DC's Holy Grail and HDV is DV's Holy Grail, MV48 is film's. And it's jsut as attainable. And it's affordable. It's not out yet, so it goes along the same lines as the digital camera that can do film res. I shan't mention it no more.

Nope they would not, because MaxiVision uses a different sort of film gate, that you need to fit on your camera and also a different 3-perf transport system. Nothing extraordinarly difficult to put in a camera (as both different gates and 3-perf pull-systems are used for the S35 3-perf format), but not standard either. And guess what, nobody uses it, either. :)

And why in the world would be MV48 film's Holy Grail? There are countless other better film formats than the measly MV48, which is basically nothing but a cheap marketing trick (imho, of course), like real 65mm negative shooting (ah, the good ole days) or IMAX (hey, IMAX is *far* more commercially viable than MV48). If film would still have some life in it, it would evolve into those. But fact is nobody wants that, when digital is already here.

I doubt that. Not for film, anyways. And definitely not for the higher end. As you have said already, 2k (or 4k to you) is already the common practice and it already has more than sufficient speed. I find no reason to go from that to 1k (or 2k to you) - ESPECIALLY at the higher end. If anything, future technologies will make 4k more sensible - which is of course 8k to you.

Because it doesn't make much sense economically to maintain different infrastructures for 2k (which is where digital film grading stops anyway in most post workflows) and for the really close HD resolutions. For the moment, this still happens, but once the TV commercial world and even part of the broadcast world will adopt HD bigtime, like it already seems it will, in a couple of years, the costs of post-production for "standard" HD will drop so much that it will be already at SD levels (BlackMagic Design announced just today a SD/HDcapture card for under $2000...).

It might also happen that indeed the HDTV worlds and the Digital Cinema worlds will separate, just like film is separated today from TV. In that case, the only logical step would be to move to a completely 4k workflow, from the Dalsa/etc. camera head to the film projector in the cinema. But my guess this is the unlikely scenario, most will just shoot with the Dalsa/etc. at 4k and then downsample to standard HDTV resolutions for processing. As always, I reserve the right to be wrong - I pray I am, but I know better when it comes to bean-counters... :cool:

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-06-2003, 07:36 AM

Hey there!

Dude, you are... stubborn. No offence, I am kidding.

I've been called that enough times by enough people to know you're not =).

Nope, sorry to dissapoint you, "Lord of the Rings" was graded digitally at my definition of 2k, i.e. 2048 by 1556

By your definition or my definition or anybody's definition, that is not 1920 x 1080 - which I of course call HD. If HD resolution footage is to be brought up to that res, detail will be compromised. The Super 35mm footage from Rings may have been graded at your 2k, but it was scanned in at 4. The reason it was downscanned was to increase it's sharpness - and of course because that's WETA's in-house working resolution.

So the assertion you make of how HD is close to it now is wrong. HD brought up to that res compromises it's already miniscule detail compared to film. Film that is brought down to that resolution (which itself is already higher than HD's) is made sharper. The numbers may look similar enough to you, but the way they got there makes them worlds apart.

HD is not a TV standard. HD is just High Definition.

No, it's a TV standard. 'HD' is not simply something knighted upon any digital technology that can shoot higher than TV resolutions or anything that starts at 1920 x 1080. And yes, the Viper is HD.

The Dalsa is not because it was never designed to merely be a video camera hooked up to or housing a tape deck. Of all the digital technologies out there today, it is the only one that can truly come close to film - as far as they say, anyways. It can't be called HD simply because it can castrate itself to a quarter resolution. That would be like calling the XL1s a webcam.

Because most good LCD systems (Astro mainly but also bundled ones) can be used as well as vectoroscopes, even with the Histograms and other more vectoroscope-like display modes overlayed on the image. Now isn't that great, when you have everything right there on your screen, selectable from one button? Sure beats both optical viewfinders+exponometers or simple zebras imho, for shooting HD, but the choice is of course the cinematographers...

It would be even greater if you had everything right there on your own screen without having to push a button or share it's functions =) Specifically a screen not hooked up to any camera body, larger or otherwise. A high-powered MFD hooked up to the HD cam is not an advantage - of a larger camera body or of HD.

You will be amazed at how many parts and designs from the Betacam age are in a typical HDCAM body.[B]

Or a Handycam body =) Electronics that sensitive will always lose out to the sheer ruggedness of a film camera. And whatever ruggedness HD camera bodies may have, they are at the very least shared by DV.

If the HDCAMs would be as fragile as you seem to think they are, nobody would buy them.

Fragility is not the reason or detriment for people using them (bought or rented). It is yet another HD paradox. More fragile and more expensive than film while offering fewer capabilities. But touted as rugged, cheaper and just as good as if not better than film.

As you can see, good lenses are important even with the low resolution DV cameras.

Never said they weren't =) DV lenses are cheaper and available today. And they are larger in number and options than HD. Even the workarounds for their shortcomings are cheaper.

And why in the world would be MV48 film's Holy Grail?

I said I wouldn't mention this again, but hey =). Because unlike IMAX, it can be fit onto the 35mm cameras in use today. I also said it can be simulated, not actually implemented.

Because it doesn't make much sense economically to maintain different infrastructures for 2k (which is where digital film grading stops anyway in most post workflows) and for the really close HD resolutions.

Equipment that is capable of 2k ([B]however you measure it) will have no problem dealing with HD. Why would people need to buy into equipment and infrastructure jsut to go lower resolution? They would only need to buy if they intend to go higher, not lower.

in a couple of years, the costs of post-production for "standard" HD will drop so much that it will be already at SD levels (BlackMagic Design announced just today a SD/HDcapture card for under $2000...).

In those couple of years, the costs for post-production of higher than 2k (however you measure it) will be lower as well =). And don't forget HDV.

most will just shoot with the Dalsa/etc.

No most won't be able to, tho' most will want to - counting me. Most will still use film. As for the bean-counters, DV takes far fewer beans =).

Within those few years, HDV will be it. So in that time, you'll be having this conversation again. But instead of saying how HD is as good as film, you'll be defending it against someone saying HDV is as good as HD =)

Jamo
+BIL

PS
As again, if I don't answer later, I'll answer next week. Toodles!

1armedScissor

09-06-2003, 08:21 AM

Best compositing advice I've ever recieved was:

"if it looks right, then it's right. If it looks wrong...then it's wrong"

very vague, but if you think about it, it will save lots of time!

Amyd

09-06-2003, 12:52 PM

By your definition or my definition or anybody's definition, that is not 1920 x 1080 - which I of course call HD. If HD resolution footage is to be brought up to that res, detail will be compromised. The Super 35mm footage from Rings may have been graded at your 2k, but it was scanned in at 4. The reason it was downscanned was to increase it's sharpness - and of course because that's WETA's in-house working resolution.

Actually, you would be amazed to learn that in fact it was not. Most of the footage was scanned at 2k Full Aperture with custom LUTs on the Imagica scanners that we already talked about, only particular shots being brought in at 4k (those that had to be heavily reframed, or that were used as matte painting references, or were very static and with heavy detail). As I already explained, that is standard practice - not every shot needs 4k.

And you do realize that since Andrew Lesnie shot LotR flat in Super35, the actual useful image area was around 2048 x 875 pixels, right? How is that so different to 1920x1080, or rather 1920 x 820, to have the same 2.35:1 aspect ratio? A couple of pixels more on the vertical and a couple of pixels more on the horizontal - surely you must realize that you could never see the difference between the two...

No, it's a TV standard. 'HD' is not simply something knighted upon any digital technology that can shoot higher than TV resolutions or anything that starts at 1920 x 1080. And yes, the Viper is HD.

The Dalsa is not because it was never designed to merely be a video camera hooked up to or housing a tape deck. Of all the digital technologies out there today, it is the only one that can truly come close to film - as far as they say, anyways. It can't be called HD simply because it can castrate itself to a quarter resolution. That would be like calling the XL1s a webcam.

HD is just a moniker. HDTV, ATSC HDTV, EBU DTV, those are television standards.

Viper was also never designed to be a "a video camera hooked up to or housing a tape deck". So why is *it* HD, and the DALSA isn't? Btw. there is talk of a 4k upgrade for the Viper, will that take out the camera from the measly HD world and make it another thing completely?

Of course DALSA is higher resolution, that's the whole point of making a camera for digital cinematography. But if DALSA uses the very shrewd marketing strategy of distancing itself from lowly "HD" cameras that doesn't mean I also have to believe them, do I? :)

It would be even greater if you had everything right there on your own screen without having to push a button or share it's functions =) Specifically a screen not hooked up to any camera body, larger or otherwise. A high-powered MFD hooked up to the HD cam is not an advantage - of a larger camera body or of HD.

I don't follow you here. What do you mean? If you say that you can also have an external preview cart with HD screens and vectoroscopes, agreed, that's nothing specific to larger camera bodies (tho' of course a miniDV camera has lousy preview output, whereas a larger HD camera can usually output real HD-SDI). But which cinematographer would enjoy running around between the camera location and the director's seat just to check and modify exposure?

Or a Handycam body =) Electronics that sensitive will always lose out to the sheer ruggedness of a film camera. And whatever ruggedness HD camera bodies may have, they are at the very least shared by DV.

Where did you see Betacam designs carried over into Handycam bodies? From what I saw of the innards of the few miniDV cameras I opened out of curiosity, everything there, from the optical block, circuit boards, tape transport and shock resistance are new designs, with serious compromises both for space and cost reasons.

A BetacamSP (or indeed any other larger camera body from Sony & co) is a whole different kettle of fish. If you have the curiosity and the opportunity, take a look inside and you will see.

I also fail to see how you came to the conclusion that DV in general shares the same ruggedness with HD camera bodies. Professional DV/DVCAM camera bodies, sure, without question (but they go from $6k up to $20k). But nothing in the Canon XL1s or VX2000 or the JVC HDminicam range. They are just handycams slightly evolved.

Fragility is not the reason or detriment for people using them (bought or rented). It is yet another HD paradox. More fragile and more expensive than film while offering fewer capabilities. But touted as rugged, cheaper and just as good as if not better than film.

Why wouldn't it be? Any serious rental shop would ask first questions about reliability in field work from Sony, Panasonic or DALSA. That's how they think, because rental is their business. And even if it's not a rental shop which buys the camera, if I would invest $100k in it, my second question would be the one about reliability as well.

And speaking of which. How *did* you come to the conclusion that HD cameras are fragile? Did you see some reports about them malfunctioning? Horror stories from field shoots where the camera broke down? I ask because I didn't hear anything like that from the few people that I know... maybe they were just lucky, they didn't have any serious problems, nothing that didn't happen in some form or another on traditional film cameras as well.

Never said they weren't =) DV lenses are cheaper and available today. And they are larger in number and options than HD. Even the workarounds for their shortcomings are cheaper.

They are not in larger number and options that HD lenses. Take a look at the Zeiss, Canon, Funjinon, Angenieux or Cooke line-ups, and count how many HD lens types you see, and how many DV lenses you see. It's a no-brainer, just like with film lenses, most have HD prime kits, with fixed focal lenses (8-10 pieces), as well as prime zooms, normal zooms, various special lenses (tilt&shift, extreme macros, periscopes) & so on. You can find equivalents for DV cameras as well, but not in the same diversity and certainly nowhere in the same league quality-wise.

Or you can do like most people who shoot DV for motion picture do (including the "28 Days" crew), and mount really expensive film/photo/HD lenses (slightly shy of $50k together for the lenses used in "28 Days") with pretty expensive adaptors ($450 for the Optex used) to really cheap DV camera bodies, and then improvising all sorts of workarounds to get the same functionality those lenses would have mounted directly on a proper HD or film camera. Weird way of working, it seems to me, but they probably know better... :surprised

Equipment that is capable of 2k (however you measure it) will have no problem dealing with HD. Why would people need to buy into equipment and infrastructure jsut to go lower resolution? They would only need to buy if they intend to go higher, not lower.

Yes, but my point was something else: they invest in expensive "real2k"-capable equipment, costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then they see that JohnnyDV can buy a Blackmagic Design equipped Apple and do *uncompressed* 10-bit HD editing for $5k-$6k. And the difference in resolution is like I said, a couple of pixels (I am exaggerating a bit, don't start counting the pixels to tell me how many there are... :) ). Think how long you can sustain a working business model out of this, if you are a high-end post-production house.

This issue already cropped up a few years ago, when solutions for full-resolution, uncompressed standard definition editing became so cheap, that almost everybody could afford them. Of course, the answer from the high-end field was to move into HD production workflows, or at least 10 bit Standard Definition, to keep their edge.

Today the question for them is - and it is a diffcult one, for sure - : should we move onwards towards even higher resolutions, full 2k, full 4k, with massive investments, in the hope that HD will become like SD is today, so we can still charge what we used to, or should we rather also invest in cheap HD equipment that becomes so widely available today, and try to sell our creative talent edge and experience and not our tools.

No most won't be able to, tho' most will want to - counting me. Most will still use film. As for the bean-counters, DV takes far fewer beans =).

Within those few years, HDV will be it. So in that time, you'll be having this conversation again. But instead of saying how HD is as good as film, you'll be defending it against someone saying HDV is as good as HD =)

Hey, as far as I am concerned, I'd love to see film stick around for another century. Just that unfortunately it seems the future is knocking on the door, and it's pretty convincing, economically-wise. I don't give film much more to live, *except*, and this is a pretty big cloudy issue atm, for distribution: I don't see any real solution for digital projection that approaches film quality AND that would be cheap enough to retrofit the immense amount of cinemas that exist today.

I would definately also like to see what you call "HDV" happening in just a few years, and I'll be following the JVC attempt with much interest. The storage medium for real "HDV", and not the compressed crap that JVC implemented is already available in the form of BluRay, so both sides of the equation are in place... the only question is how much interest will the general public have for it, and of course how much interest will the manufacturers have to undermine their goldmine of professional HD products. :D

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-08-2003, 09:44 AM

Hey there,

Most of the footage was scanned at 2k

No it was scanned in at 4k. They worked on it at 2k for most and kept it 4k when they felt it was necessary.

there is talk of a 4k upgrade for the Viper, will that take out the camera from the measly HD world and make it another thing completely?

It will probably be another thing completely. But talk of a possible product is even more vague than a product that's as yet unavailable but already exists, like the DALSA.

But which cinematographer would enjoy running around between the camera location and the director's seat just to check and modify exposure?

He wouldn't have to. My point was there was no reason to use an MFD. Especially an expensive high resolution LCD for something like a Vectorscope.

Where did you see Betacam designs carried over into Handycam bodies?

I can't recall the kettle of alphabet soup that the model was named. I never opened it up and have no intentions to =) It was a product demo where the guy was explaining why his DV camera has features in common with an older one while improving upon each aspect of it - blurb, iow. I jsut remembered seeing the form-factor of the tape.

But that's not the reason why I said it. I said it because if HD cameras can have ruggednes sourced from earlier designs as you said, so can DV cameras.

I also fail to see how you came to the conclusion that DV in general shares the same ruggedness with HD camera bodies.

Because DV has been to more places and survived more times than HD has. So to me, they don't share the ruggedness, they surpass it.

Any serious rental shop would ask first questions about reliability in field work from Sony, Panasonic or DALSA.

Minus DALSA =) I should clarify further then, so you get my point. Fragility is not why a user would choose HD over film or DV. I didn't mean one maker's HD cam over another.

Or you can do like most people who shoot DV for motion picture do

Which is what HD does, too =) But even more expensive.

Today the question for them is - and it is a diffcult one, for sure - : should we move onwards towards even higher resolutions, full 2k, full 4k, with massive investments, in the hope that HD will become like SD is today, so we can still charge what we used to, or should we rather also invest in cheap HD equipment that becomes so widely available today, and try to sell our creative talent edge and experience and not our tools.

Here's the question again, but from a far simpler POV that's more to the point: Should we invest in higher quality or lower quality? Or let's just say this sentence out loud and see if it makes sense: Let's spend our money for lower quality!

The Big Boys already have the equipment for better than HD. They already spent a lot of money for it and make a lot of money using it. There's no reason to spend more money to diminish the quality of their work and make less money. It just doesn't make sense.

Creative talent and edge are not exactly in short supply, either. Tho' if you read movie critiques, you'd think the opposite. Charging the way The Big Boys do means you better have something a lot more substantial than just 'we are creative and talented'. Back it up with 'and we can do better than HD' or perhaps 'we have equipment that can make HD look even better'.

Hey, as far as I am concerned, I'd love to see film stick around for another century. Just that unfortunately it seems the future is knocking on the door, and it's pretty convincing, economically-wise.

What's knocking on the door is the salesman from Sony, Panasonic and Thomson - not the future =).

Economically-wise, HDV is a lot more convincing. DV compromises quality, but more than makes up for it in price and convenience. HD compromises quality, but it does not make up for it in price - convenience is there, tho'. HDV's promise is to cost as much as DV but with HD quality.

Film compromises nothing in quality - it is the standard by which HD and DV aspire to and it is far more economical than it's given credit for.

I don't give film much more to live, *except*, and this is a pretty big cloudy issue atm, for distribution

Film lives and will live on for a long while to come - shooting and projection. We do agree on the digital projection part, at least. There is no logic in spending US$100K for a projector that's obsolete before it's delivered and projects at a lower resolution than an ACD. It's not a cloudy issue at all.

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-08-2003, 10:59 AM

No it was scanned in at 4k. They worked on it at 2k for most and kept it 4k when they felt it was necessary.

Actually, I am pretty sure it was 2k. That comes from talking with quite a few of the guys at WETA. But, alas, I have not been there for quite a while now (visiting I mean - I didn't work there!), so I cannot guarantee it 100%. All the reports on the web about this issue agree, though. Perhaps you can ask Jason Schleifer (jschleifer), a member here as I am sure you know, he should be able to settle the matter one way or the other, even though he didn't work for the scanning departament.

He wouldn't have to. My point was there was no reason to use an MFD. Especially an expensive high resolution LCD for something like a Vectorscope.

My point was that it is a very useful trick, that is only possible when you have enough space to mount it and yes, money to pay for it. The reason is of course the way you can cycle through all the display modes with a button, at the camera position, helping you make better decisions instantly - I would call that reason enough to have that kind of equipment. Just one little advantage among the many others, that's all.

Minus DALSA =) I should clarify further then, so you get my point. Fragility is not why a user would choose HD over film or DV. I didn't mean one maker's HD cam over another.

OK, I see your point now. But I think we can agree that it is an important issue, and if people *did* go with HD cameras already, then it must mean they are reliable enough. Of course it would not be the only - or even a very important - reason to choose one format (film, HD or DV) over the other.

Which is what HD does, too =) But even more expensive.

Actually not, because the range of HD lenses has become varied enough to not really need such workarounds. And there are enormous advantages of using native lenses on the camera body, from having proper markings to accessing all the electronic focus/zoom/exposure functions.

You wouldn't want to try to mount a miniDV camera with such a lens adaptor to a crane for instance - you wouldn't get any control over remote in many cases. My point was that there is choice for HD cameras (and film cameras, that goes without saying), but for miniDV handycams you simply have to use such bulky workarounds if you want to have proper lenses...

The Big Boys already have the equipment for better than HD. They already spent a lot of money for it and make a lot of money using it. There's no reason to spend more money to diminish the quality of their work and make less money. It just doesn't make sense.

Actually, some of them do not all have that equipment. Or let me rephrase that: they have some of the parts in place for 2k film work (like the I/O stages and the compositing/grading stages), but not for an end-to-end 2k workflow (which involves editorial, as well). And I am not talking only about big-budget movies, but also about commercials, shorts, independent projects, all of them things that big post-production companies will have to do more and more, because of the market climate (maybe not ILM, but that's about it...).

The disadvantage with the way 2k/4k production pipelines are set right now is that they are not necessarily compatible or indeed, optimized for HD production. There are pieces of the puzzle from companies like discreet, quantel & the like, which promise to offer the remaining missing links in a real 2k/HD universal resolution compatible way, but they are expensive. Some companies already jumped on that bandwagon, but I still see some that are waiting.

And 2k is in the end also problematic. Till recently, you couldn't have real-time transfers. If you *want* to have real-time transfers (at least in the telecine stage), you need to upgrade your tools (costing money of course). But HD already offered for quite a while now real-time transfers and even became a go-between in film workflows, because of that capability.

And the final question is: provided your input material will become more often than not HD-resolution, does it make sense to further invest into your 2k architecture? The answer to that question is up to the market succes of the DALSA (and the like) cameras and the way they will be used. If everybody (like I suspect) will downconvert anyway to HD, then the issue is moot.

Creative talent and edge are not exactly in short supply, either. Tho' if you read movie critiques, you'd think the opposite. Charging the way The Big Boys do means you better have something a lot more substantial than just 'we are creative and talented'. Back it up with 'and we can do better than HD' or perhaps 'we have equipment that can make HD look even better'.

That's a two-way street. In general, I noticed they sell their experience, name and talent. But sure, there is still a lot of gear-fascination in this world: "I'll go to post-house X because they have an inferno, and post-house Y doesn't". However, there is a lot of heat from the smaller, cheaper and more flexible facilities, that want a piece of the action. HD is a wonderful opportunity for them, because they will still be able to offer cheap prices, but at almost the same quality - technically speaking - as the so-called "Big Boys".

What's knocking on the door is the salesman from Sony, Panasonic and Thomson - not the future =).

Economically-wise, HDV is a lot more convincing. DV compromises quality, but more than makes up for it in price and convenience. HD compromises quality, but it does not make up for it in price - convenience is there, tho'. HDV's promise is to cost as much as DV but with HD quality.

Film compromises nothing in quality - it is the standard by which HD and DV aspire to and it is far more economical than it's given credit for.

I already showed you that in terms of major motion picture film production, using DV is not really as cheap as people think it is. And you still have the massive issue of quality with it and the many compromises in terms of ease-to-use (or I should rather say: established usage standards on a film set).

HD is more expensive, granted, but not by *that* much, and it has many advantages, not the least quality-wise (where it is far closer to film than DV, I hope we agree).

HDV doesn't exist yet. It may exist in the near future, but then again, it may not. For sure, at some point, it will become reality, but if that's in 5-10 years from now, nobody will wait.

And film is, no matter how you look at it, more expensive to produce than HD, even though indeed, not as expensive as some HD salesmen would like you to think. But the truth is that when you look at total costs of a given movie production, you simply can do it cheaper in HD. Or, as I would like to put it, you can do it for the same price, but invest more of the money where it counts: in front of the camera and not behind it.

Film lives and will live on for a long while to come - shooting and projection. We do agree on the digital projection part, at least. There is no logic in spending US$100K for a projector that's obsolete before it's delivered and projects at a lower resolution than an ACD. It's not a cloudy issue at all.

Hehe, where have you lived for the past 3 years? The digital projection industry is trying to push their standards against the will of the cinema chain owners and operators and the film industry doesn't exactly know what to do, but they *sure* like the sound of the promises the digital projection industry makes, like Internet secure delivery, no more thousands of very costly film prints and so on. Of course it is a cloudy issue. :)

Because they do think on the long term, and they realize that whoever manages to become a standard will reap the benefits, digital projection companies even go as far as to sponsor massive upgrades of equipment (1000 "free" digital projection systems, for instance) out of their own pockets. And marketing campaigns & so on. Sure enough, some of them go bankrupt and close, but some of them still seem to hang around.

The only good thing about this whole controversy is that the digital projection technology advances at an incredible pace, thanks to the big interests that sponsor it. We already have real 2k (2048x1556) digital projectors (JVC, BARCO) that don't fare very badly in the dynamic range departament either. The only problem is that they cost $150-$200k (without lens). But at the rate things are going, by next year the same type of projection will be available at high-end home theater prices ($25k-$50k) and in another year, it might go under $10k.

It is very hard to say when exactly digital projection will become economical, because it might very well be that by the time theaters begin to really upgrade, exactly the same quality will be available to regular home users. *That* will be a very delicate moment for the cinema chains, because they won't have many arguments for drawing people to their multiplexes: popcorn, "the cinema experience" and that's about it.

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-08-2003, 11:52 PM

Hi there,

Actually, I am pretty sure it was 2k.

I'm pretty sure it was scanned 4k =) They lowered resolution to 2k for working on most of it and even lower than that, I think. But they started with 4k.

My point was that it is a very useful trick, that is only possible when you have enough space to mount it and yes, money to pay for it.

There's room enough using DV =) Money is another matter.

the range of HD lenses has become varied enough to not really need such workarounds.

Alas, at what price these lenses. DV is still cheaper. As for HD not needing workarounds, those lenses you mention *are* the workarounds. And if DV can be used for high movement action sequences like a fightscene, it's pretty happy with the lenses it's got.

You wouldn't want to try to mount a miniDV camera with such a lens adaptor to a crane for instance

If you were using DV, a remote control crane is probably not an option in the first place =) With notable exceptions, of course.

You are applying the more expensive and dare I say modern-traditional film-making techniques to DV. When you use DV, you are a guerilla. You are the rebel. You wouldn't be using a crane, you'd be sending Igor to climb up a telephone pole and keep the damn shot steady, Igor!

Or let me rephrase that: they have some of the parts in place for 2k film work (like the I/O stages and the compositing/grading stages), but not for an end-to-end 2k workflow (which involves editorial, as well).

If they have the parts in place for higher quality work, then they will likely leverage that by buying equipment that complements it, not diminishes it.

Buying into a completely - or as you say 'true' - HD end-to-end workflow makes sense if where you came from was even lower-end. Going higher end means just that, you go higher.

However, there is a lot of heat from the smaller, cheaper and more flexible facilities, that want a piece of the action. HD is a wonderful opportunity for them, because they will still be able to offer cheap prices, but at almost the same quality - technically speaking - as the so-called "Big Boys".

That itself is double-edged. Since HD is so much more affordable to work on and also much faster because of it's limited res and range, these smaller more flexible houses will face competition from even smaller and even more gymnastic options.

If anybody wants to compete with HD, they have to start out with something better than HD because the guy with a desktop can already do that.

It's in video-only production that HD can rule. It's better than regular video so it starts out with higher quality than seen on TV already.

I already showed you that in terms of major motion picture film production, using DV is not really as cheap as people think it is.

What, because of the lenses issue? Using DV is a LOT cheaper than that. It is way beyond cheaper than that.

Hehe, where have you lived for the past 3 years? The digital projection industry is trying to push their standards against the will of the cinema chain owners and operators and the film industry doesn't exactly know what to do, but they *sure* like the sound of the promises the digital projection industry makes, like Internet secure delivery, no more thousands of very costly film prints and so on. Of course it is a cloudy issue.

That's been the same story for the past three years, wherever the hell I've been then =). Internet Secure Delivery is a three-way oxymoron, at best. Instead of fuzzy pictures taken from a hidden camera in the theatre, movie pirates would only have to hijack signals and bribe someone or conspire with them for it's encryption codes.

Digital projection does advance at an incredible pace. An incredibly expensive one. That's why I said a projector bought today would likely be obsolete by the time it's delivered and it will lose it's value overnight without ever having paid for itself before it needs to be upgraded. If standards come, they better be cheap ones.

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-09-2003, 12:48 AM

I'm pretty sure it was scanned 4k =) They lowered resolution to 2k for working on most of it and even lower than that, I think. But they started with 4k.

Can you please show me something to back up that? I am trying to find out straight from the horse's mouth, so to say, but until then, I would like to see some proof either way. Searching the net quickly, the only support for your theory is on Apple's site, where they claim that WETA used Shake to downsample from 4k to 2k, but they do not mention whether they did this for every shot, or just for the ones that they deemed necessary.

On a related note, I did find a very nice quote from Peter Doyle about the practicalities of resolution in film post-production workflows.

Digital Grading Part II @ fxguide.com (http://www.fxguide.com/article29.html)

"In discussing the 2K vs 4K resolution debate, Peter pointed out that as soon as the camera is moved the effective resolution drops to about 1K, and thus the cost and time penalties of working higher resolution are lost. A better use of a features film budget, if it wants to improve the images on screen, is not to spend time and money on higher resolutions but rather focus on the duplication process of the final film."

Very, very true. :thumbsup:

There's room enough using DV =) Money is another matter.

On those handycams? They barely survive being fitted with the lens adapters, I'd love to see such a LCD mounted on them - and by the by, also powered by them from the internal battery...

Alas, at what price these lenses. DV is still cheaper. As for HD not needing workarounds, those lenses you mention *are* the workarounds. And if DV can be used for high movement action sequences like a fightscene, it's pretty happy with the lenses it's got.

The price is exactly the issue. As you see, people are still buying or renting the really expensive HD lenses and then they fit them on miniDV cameras. That, in my book, is a waste of money, quality and time. But they still do it, in the hope they are "saving".

Why should the native HD lenses be workarounds? It seems entirely reasonable to me, that if you want to exploit a lens, you use it with the lens mount and imager size that it was designed for. Film lenses with film cameras, DV lenses with miniDV cameras and, yes, HD lenses with HD cameras. They all have their particularities...

A high movement fight scene is a test - lens-wise - only to the focus controls, maybe (and with a good enough camera operator, even the lousy focus controls of the average miniDV can give decent results - but I am sure that operator would choose proper focus any time of day&night, if given the choice). The optical resolution, chromatic aberations & distorsion parameters can truly be appreciated with static scenes.

If you were using DV, a remote control crane is probably not an option in the first place =) With notable exceptions, of course.

You are applying the more expensive and dare I say modern-traditional film-making techniques to DV. When you use DV, you are a guerilla. You are the rebel. You wouldn't be using a crane, you'd be sending Igor to climb up a telephone pole and keep the damn shot steady, Igor!

Heh, well, if you are the rebel, you probably won't get a film distribution deal anyway ("With notable exceptions, of course." ;) ), so you don't need to bother with image quality.

Now seriously, I fail to understand the reluctance of "guerilla" DV crews to rent decent equipment when it adds to the production value of their films. Just because on some films, the shaky out of focus style fits like a glove, doesn't mean it goes for everything. Actually, for many stories, it just spells "bad cinematography", "lousy film-making", "useless headaches for me as a viewer".

But the crane example was just one of the many ways in which miniDV cameras don't quite fit with a motion picture film approach. And where HD cameras do fit, that was all.

What, because of the lenses issue? Using DV is a LOT cheaper than that. It is way beyond cheaper than that.

No, the lens issue is just another example. If you truly want to play at the "Hollywood level" *and* use DV cameras, your film will end up costing less, but not *that* much less.

Sure, you buy the DV camera for the price of 3 day HD/film camera rental. But then you need lens adapters, lens sets, proper lighting, grip & so on and so forth. In the end, you find out that the rental costs for the film/HD camera were just a small part of the bottom line when it comes to equipping a film set.

Then you edit at home on your FCP. Sure, wonderful, but then you have to uprez your shots (cost), grade them in a professional suite (cost) and then print them to film. Again, you discover that if you would have shot HD, the editing costs you saved are only a small part of the post-production workflow.

Indeed, if you stick to the "guerilla" idea, then you can shoot with natural light, hand-held, grade in FCP looking at the LCD screen and then choose the cheapest film transfer available, but the end quality is so bad, that you'd better have a really solid story that motivates all those compromises so your audience doesn't complain. Which, to be very honest, I have only seen happening rarely.

That itself is double-edged. Since HD is so much more affordable to work on and also much faster because of it's limited res and range, these smaller more flexible houses will face competition from even smaller and even more gymnastic options.

If anybody wants to compete with HD, they have to start out with something better than HD because the guy with a desktop can already do that.

It's in video-only production that HD can rule. It's better than regular video so it starts out with higher quality than seen on TV already.

Ah, but that's my point exactly. HD is a very interesting common ground nowadays. Far above video, close enough to film in terms of quality. Pretty much cheaper than film, not much more expensive than video in terms of costs. While indeed, adopting higher resolution is a way to distance yourself from this common ground, the question is how much sense it makes economically.

Unfortunately, like everything bi-dimensional, any doubling of resolution (like 2k->4k) results in at least a quadrupling of requirements, and since such requirements are for the moment barely fullfiled (if at all) by current technology, it means a tenfold increase in price. And from what I saw, money has become a very important issue, even with major post-production houses.

I cannot think of any other moment when, at least on the post production side, there was such a combination of film-like quality at video-like prices. It will be interesting to see which way the "world" will swing.

That's been the same story for the past three years, wherever the hell I've been then =). Internet Secure Delivery is a three-way oxymoron, at best. Instead of fuzzy pictures taken from a hidden camera in the theatre, movie pirates would only have to hijack signals and bribe someone or conspire with them for it's encryption codes.

Indeed, that is why I said it was just a "promise", from the industry. But even if that Internet thing fails because of security issues, there are still other delivery methods that combine cheap mediums with current day level of security.

Because, after all, as we all know, modern day movie pirates steal preview DVDs and they get annoyingly good quality from a digital source, including 5.1 sound. Filming with the camera in the theater is so... outdated (not to mention dangerous, as I am sure you know, Kodak has patented and uses for some years already a *very* devious watermarking system that tracks the specific print that was used).

Digital projection does advance at an incredible pace. An incredibly expensive one. That's why I said a projector bought today would likely be obsolete by the time it's delivered and it will lose it's value overnight without ever having paid for itself before it needs to be upgraded. If standards come, they better be cheap ones.

The cost issue is a very important one, that's why I mentioned one of the ways digital projection system manufacturers try to "sweeten" the deal for cinemas, by offering free equipment or rental options. The problem is, they cannot do that for everybody.

But the fact still remains that what yesterday was considered state-of-the-art digital projection is available today at home-theater prices ($3k-$5k) and the same will happen with what today is state-of-the-art. The question is for how long will they let this happen, because my impression is that they have reached with these 2k projectors a place where they feel confident that they can replace film projectors without loss of quality - and the post-production industry agrees btw., you can see everywhere such projectors used for preview-ing VFX shots, whereas just a couple of years ago, making succesive test prints was common practice.

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-09-2003, 08:23 PM

Hey there!

Can you please show me something to back up that? I am trying to find out straight from the horse's mouth, so to say, but until then, I would like to see some proof either way.

I'd say Digital Producer, but I can't find it anymore. Maybe it's better to wait until the horse starts talking. Or the Weta, as it were.

Apple may prove my claim, but they are to be taken with a grain of salt. They don't make a scanner so there might just be more cred to it. Especially since the one making the claim isn't Apple for it's products, but a guy from Weta about their methods. But it's still Apple.

The ASC site says for grading it was 2k. But that claim was made by ASC, not anybody from Weta. Imagica claim a max of 4k x 6k resolution for their scanner and they say it was used for Rings. But they didn't say if it was used at that resolution.

Either way, I already made my point about HD and 35mm (Super, in this case). They may converge at a certain res, but they got there by different means. HD fills the image with far less picture information while film has a large excess.

In discussing the 2K vs 4K resolution debate, Peter pointed out that as soon as the camera is moved the effective resolution drops to about 1K

If that's what happens with 2k versus 4k scanned film, I wonder what HD's effective resolution will be as it doesn't have the excess of information that film has to begin with. Makes DV even more appealing compared to HD's cost and that measly 1k film will look a lot better than whatever HD will likely shrink to =).

On those handycams? They barely survive being fitted with the lens adapters, I'd love to see such a LCD mounted on them - and by the by, also powered by them from the internal battery...

What exactly is the size of this humongous LCD cum vectorscope by virtue of MFD that can't fit on a DV camera? You better not be talking desktop sized LCD's here.

Anyways, I am going to summarise what was supposed to be several paragraphs in quotes and in replies about the DV argument.

You insist that the only way to work with DV is spending a load of money to apply these expensive methods and workarounds for DV. In fact by your accord, the only way to use a DV camera is with an expensive lens. HD ones at that. Using adapters. Don't do that. That simply isn't how you use DV.

Whether it be expensive HD and film lenses and their adapters, expensive remote motion control rigs or cranes, expensive high-end grading, or whatever else that can run up the price tag, DV means that you do not have to use any of it. So forget all of that. DV does not mean using the most expensive method. It means using the good alternative.

Boyle + Mantle as well as Soderbergh and others spend huge in terms of DV - including using those mentioned. But they did not spend huge, period. At least not in terms of the playground they are in. And if anything, these guys are the notable exceptions. I also doubt any of them or their DP's attached humongous hi-res LCD MFD's with vectorscope to their XL1's =).

While indeed, adopting higher resolution is a way to distance yourself from this common ground, the question is how much sense it makes economically.

Adopting higher quality is not to distance yourself from the 'common ground'. Adopting higher quality means just that. You can offer higher quality. What happens is that you can make it available for this 'common ground' - especially if you already have the equipment for better.

The economic sense is that people pay for quality. They pay even more for higher quality. Lower quality then is definitely not the path for high-end.

even if that Internet thing fails because of security issues, there are still other delivery methods that combine cheap mediums with current day level of security.

From sending out, in transit, all the way to delivery, digital offers the best and cheapest way to pirate a movie. With digital quality, and with current day levels of security.

But the fact still remains that what yesterday was considered state-of-the-art digital projection is available today at home-theater prices ($3k-$5k) and the same will happen with what today is state-of-the-art.

The thing about digital video projection is that it needs to fulfill the same requirements for HD. For Digital Film Projection or DFP to become viable, it has to do two things. It must equal or better the quality of film and it must cost less. It does neither now.

Unlike HD tho', it will fulfill it's promise. Just not today or any day soon - especially when you consider that what may be seen as good enough now will not be good enough tomorrow. Remember my contention is that high-end will move up to 4k and not down to HD.

btw - where exactly did you find the old digital film projectors that cost 3k-5k? Where can I find more info about them?

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-09-2003, 09:10 PM

I'd say Digital Producer, but I can't find it anymore. Maybe it's better to wait until the horse starts talking. Or the Weta, as it were.

Indeed, that would be best, given the fact that information on the Net is not always reliable - most of the times is either hearsay or misquotes that serve to cloud the issue even further. So, let's wait for the bug. Umm, Weta.

Either way, I already made my point about HD and 35mm (Super, in this case). They may converge at a certain res, but they got there by different means. HD fills the image with far less picture information while film has a large excess.

OK, but let's get back from the place where we started the LotR discussion.

Fact is that for most of the post-production workflow, LotR was manipulated, composited, rendered and graded at a resolution that is extremely close to what HD offers today.

Are you trying to say that just by virtue of a 4k scanning and then downsampling step film has "a large excess" of picture information?

And if not, then I come back to my original question: if you didn't have any complaints whatsoever about the image quality of "Lord of the Rings", why should you have any about the image quality - in terms of resolution - of today's HD cameras?

If that's what happens with 2k versus 4k scanned film, I wonder what HD's effective resolution will be as it doesn't have the excess of information that film has to begin with. Makes DV even more appealing compared to HD's cost and that measly 1k film will look a lot better than whatever HD will likely shrink to =).

Uh-uh. You missed the point. It's not the actual resolution of the medium that "shrinks" when you move the camera but the ability of our eyes to distinguish it, because of both the way human vision behaves and also because of something known as "motion blur" (yes, the smearing of fast moving objects on film/video, when captured with a certain shutter speed/time). In that respect, HD and film behave exactly the same (of course, assuming you use equivalent shutter speeds...).

What exactly is the size of this humongous LCD cum vectorscope by virtue of MFD that can't fit on a DV camera? You better not be talking desktop sized LCD's here.

No, no, it's just a 6" LCD. Here, see for yourself (http://www.astro-systems.com/products/hdtv/wm-3001.htm).

You insist that the only way to work with DV is spending a load of money to apply these expensive methods and workarounds for DV. In fact by your accord, the only way to use a DV camera is with an expensive lens. HD ones at that. Using adapters. Don't do that. That simply isn't how you use DV.

No, again, you misunderstood me. I didn't say that's the only way you can use a DV camera. I said that's the only way to use it on a motion picture set that wants to call itself "Hollywood-like".

Of course you don't have to have the same standard, but fact is, just like you noticed, they do it like that, because - guess what - they cannot do it otherwise, if they want to maintain a certain standard of quality. And they spend quite a lot (no matter to which standard you refer), because just like I said, the few points where DV has definite advantages in cost over HD/film are not the only top items in the budget breakdown.

And when they do manage to spend significantly less, they do it because the whole movie is designed to work within a "guerilla" aesthetic - just like BWP. But again, at the risk of over-repeating myself - that is not something that will work with every story and with every movie.

The economic sense is that people pay for quality. They pay even more for higher quality. Lower quality then is definitely not the path for high-end.

The economic sense is that people pay reasonable amounts for quality. It's called price/performance ratio. That's why "people" don't use 4k everywhere, altough they could, because it's naturally higher-quality.

And that is why "people" will think: do we really need to pay $1000/hour in the 2k grading suite when we could pay $300/hour in the HD grading suite and get - almost - the same quality? Guess what the answer will be most of the times, once that hypotetical "HD grading suite" is actually on the market.

Of course, they might pay those $1000k/hour for a 4k grading suite (the price/performance ratio is better there), but that is not something that anybody is really thinking about producing any time soon. Maybe when 4k gets to the same price levels and confort in use as 2k is today, then I could see an advantage for it.

From sending out, in transit, all the way to delivery, digital offers the best and cheapest way to pirate a movie. With digital quality, and with current day levels of security.

Yes, but why pretend you didn't read what I wrote about how films really get stolen nowadays? It's still through a digital means (the review/preview DVDs), even when we have an almost exclusive traditional film distribution model.

And that's the reality, piracy won't be any easier when you have "digital distribution", because they already found the perfect way to pirate - they won't go to the trouble of decrypting expensive DLT tapes or BluRay sets of discs, that will probably anyway need proprietary machines to read and convert... just like they bother less and less nowadays to film in cinemas and/or steal the film prints to do telecine copies.

Unlike HD tho', it will fulfill it's promise. Just not today or any day soon - especially when you consider that what may be seen as good enough now will not be good enough tomorrow. Remember my contention is that high-end will move up to 4k and not down to HD.

Perhaps, but I sincerely doubt anybody will consider trying to distribute 4k-resolution media to cinemas. 2k is already enough, even slightly more than what positive film release prints can do today, in your average multiplex. If 4k really becomes the high-end, I am willing to bet with you that they will still settle for HD/2k as a distribution resolution.

btw - where exactly did you find the old digital film projectors that cost 3k-5k? Where can I find more info about them?

Umm, I didn't say you find "old digital film projectors". That's pretty much out of the question, given the previous generations were mostly prototypes or distributed in such small numbers that they wouldn't get to second-hand markets anyway.

What I said is that the state-of-the-art technology used then found its way into new models of projectors targeted at the home-cinema market. As for specific models, dunno, look at the established brands like InFocus, JVC, Barco, Runco & so on for their budget lines of native 16:9 DLP projectors and I am sure you will find plently of examples. Sure, they are 1k resolution, many don't have DVI with copy encription support and their black level/contrast quality is problematic - just like the first generations of digital cinema projectors.

If you are willing to go a bit higher with the budget, in the $8k-$10k range, you will find projectors with D-ILA/DLP/CRT projection methods, with resolutions like 1400x768, proper DVI inputs, good contrast/black level performance and not bad image quality either.

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-10-2003, 02:26 PM

Hey there,

So, let's wait for the bug. Umm, Weta.

I just sent an e-mail from their site, so they might answer that one, too.

OK, but let's get back from the place where we started the LotR discussion.

Let's not =) I'd rather not regurgitate the whole thing again jsut to repeat everything said. Weta's response will only tell how much HD will have to be blown up and how much film's excess will be downsampled for sharpness.

Uh-uh. You missed the point. It's not the actual resolution of the medium that "shrinks" when you move the camera but the ability of our eyes to distinguish it

Well you should've said that then =) If the ability of the eyes to distinguish 4k and 2k shrinks to 1k, then HD's will go down, too. I'd like to see what Mantle has to say about that, tho'.

No, no, it's just a 6" LCD. Here, see for yourself.

That'll fit =)

No, again, you misunderstood me. I didn't say that's the only way you can use a DV camera. I said that's the only way to use it on a motion picture set that wants to call itself "Hollywood-like".

And I've already told you the point of using DV, and that isn't to make it Hollywood-like. I think I made that pretty clear already. You just keep missing that and adding stuff to it's price tag for it to be 'hollywood-like' or 'to play with the big boys in hollywood' or to make it look as expensive as HD or a lot more expensive than it should have to be. It doesn't have to be. Mantle may use that, but unless he represents the typical DV moviemaker, that's the wrong guy to use as your example.

Of course you don't have to have the same standard, but fact is, just like you noticed, they do it like that, because - guess what - they cannot do it otherwise, if they want to maintain a certain standard of quality.

I'm assuming you mean Soderbergh and Doyle + Mantle here and their DV method. They can afford that certain standard of quality.

And they spend quite a lot (no matter to which standard you refer), because just like I said, the few points where DV has definite advantages in cost over HD/film are not the only top items in the budget breakdown.

Those other top items don't have to be there if you use DV. I think I made that clear, already. Why do you keep insisting they should be? To be Hollywood-like again?

Guess what the answer will be most of the times, once that hypotetical "HD grading suite" is actually on the market.

If the hypothetical HD grading suite comes out, then so will the hypothetical 4k at lower cost and the hypothetical 2k at even lower cost =). I've already relayed my aversion to talking about technologies and productsf that don't exist yet. 4k and 2k exist in reality, not hypothetically. They will go down in price.

Yes, but why pretend you didn't read what I wrote about how films really get stolen nowadays

I already know how they are stolen. I don't need to read your words to know how. Nevermind pretending not to read them. Puh-lease =).

And that's the reality, piracy won't be any easier when you have "digital distribution",

It will be easier. It's a lot harder to securely move a whole digital cinematic release compared to a preview DVD. That's reality. With a whole cinematic release available, then you open up new avenues for piracy, like the pirate theatre. I don't really like the idea of adding another possible source for pirates. It's not secure just because it's not likely to be used in comparison to other methods.

2k is already enough

Enough is not enough if better gets cheaper. Nobody's going to stop improving that 2k to 4k and beyond for lower and lower prices. That 2k digital projector isn't even a reality at any multiplex and you're already saying it should be enough because today's post does fine with it.

I am willing to bet with you that they will still settle for HD/2k as a distribution resolution.

What you are basically suggesting is that theatres turn into paid large-screen HDTV's. I am willing to bet that theatres already know they have to have something better than that.

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-10-2003, 03:02 PM

Let's not =) I'd rather not regurgitate the whole thing again jsut to repeat everything said. Weta's response will only tell how much HD will have to be blown up and how much film's excess will be downsampled for sharpness

I know, it's a tough spot for you to be into, if you admited no problems with the LotR image quality, while at the same time being shown that the almost (possibly entire) post-production was done at "HD-like" resolution. But it is a very simple question&answer, actually.

The bottom line is that at least in terms of resolution, you can get pretty much the same quality out of an HD camera as you can get from a film processed digitaly at 2k. Sure, there are many other issues that come into play besides resolution, but if I were you I would have insisted on them when trying to prove film is vastly superior.

When it comes to resolution, the issue is very simple imho and already settled (btw. did we agree that 2k is in fact horizontal resolution, or are we still arguing about that? Cause I found some nifty articles online about it as well, while searching for the Weta issue...).

Well you should've said that then =) If the ability of the eyes to distinguish 4k and 2k shrinks to 1k, then HD's will go down, too. I'd like to see what Mantle has to say about that, tho'.

Your eye doesn't care which medium this was shot on. The ability to detect resolution is the same whether you look at a film picture, a HD picture or indeed, a real-world image.

Motion blur is the second part of the question, and there the answer is even simpler: do you really think it makes any difference whether a blur of lines&colors is sampled at 4k, 2k or HD resolution? :D

In order to keep higher resolution even with motion, the only way is to increase the temporal sampling, like MaxiVision48 tries to, for instance. But, hey, many people claim that since everybody got so accustomed to seeing 24fps projected, with the typical blurring and strobing, that's what they consider "cinematic quality". And in fact, most of the tricks that you can apply to video to make it look like "film" start with the frame rate and motion blur.

And I've already told you the point of using DV, and that isn't to make it Hollywood-like. I think I made that pretty clear already. You just keep missing that and adding stuff to it's price tag for it to be 'hollywood-like' or 'to play with the big boys in hollywood' or to make it look as expensive as HD or a lot more expensive than it should have to be. It doesn't have to be. Mantle may use that, but unless he represents the typical DV moviemaker, that's the wrong guy to use as your example.

OK, but then why do you insist that your hypotetical HDV for instance is an alternative to HD, for people that want to shoot "Hollywood-like" films? Or did I misunderstand what you were saying? I was merely trying to show you that the choice of medium is only a small part in the overall budgeting of film.

Let's not forget where this question started from: "Look & Feel" of the Hollywood movies. Fact: HD cameras are better suited to get there, than miniDVs, even cost-wise. That's all.

If the hypothetical HD grading suite comes out, then so will the hypothetical 4k at lower cost and the hypothetical 2k at even lower cost =). I've already relayed my aversion to talking about technologies and productsf that don't exist yet. 4k and 2k exist in reality, not hypothetically. They will go down in price.

The HD grading suite is already here, with a FCP+Decklink HD (and Color Finesse for the picky). The only problem is that it ain't real-time atm. But want to make a bet on how soon it will be, aversion or no aversion?

My claim, based on the "little" I know about the current tools (and a bit about what's down the pipeline) is that low-cost, real-time HD editing will come much sooner than any form of 4k editing (real-time or close to real-time). And that 2k real-time editing (which already exists) will stay at a high price because it only serves a small segment of the market.

It will be easier. It's a lot harder to securely move a whole digital cinematic release compared to a preview DVD. That's reality. With a whole cinematic release available, then you open up new avenues for piracy, like the pirate theatre. I don't really like the idea of adding another possible source for pirates. It's not secure just because it's not likely to be used in comparison to other methods.

Really, you want to say that high-end, expensive, proprietary, encrypted releases distributed through a private system are harder to secure than a 2 cent DVD that everybody can rip on their home computer with tools you can download in about 5 minutes and require one click? You lost me there, to be very honest.

Nobody likes to add potential security holes for pirates, but sooner or later, it will be done. And it's not like they don't have enough ways to do it as it is now. Theoretically, a well designed digital distribution system has every chance of making it difficult enough for the pirates so that they feel it's not worth their while.

But no system is secure. Not even film prints. They can be stolen and tk'ed without any major problems (and have been, and still are), should the pirates wish to do so. And by your thesis, this would be the best way to get a "great" quality copy, because it's after all, originated on film. :thumbsup:

Enough is not enough if better gets cheaper. Nobody's going to stop improving that 2k to 4k and beyond for lower and lower prices. That 2k digital projector isn't even a reality at any multiplex and you're already saying it should be enough because today's post does fine with it.

Of course, but the thing is that every technology has a point where it is good enough and cheap enough to go into the mass-market. 2k projection is almost there. 4k projection is not even on the drawing boards, basically.

And if 2k digital cinema projection will manage to take some significant piece of the market by the time 4k is at the same level (which I suspect will take quite a few years), price-wise, then we will have the same discussion as today about the costs of upgrading.

And I am saying it is enough because I have seen it, and while I know theoretically film could be better, I also know - practically - it isn't. It gets scratched, projected badly, misaligned, out of focus & dirty, at your average multiplex. Digital cinema promises to alleviate part of these problems (not to say you won't need good projectionists to supervise it and maintain it - another false claim made by the digital projection systems manufacturers which has brought the wrath of the projection industry), while offering about the same quality in real-world situations.

What you are basically suggesting is that theatres turn into paid large-screen HDTV's. I am willing to bet that theatres already know they have to have something better than that.

Yep, that's exactly their problem. If they keep holding out for much longer, home theater quality will already surpass them. I mean, BluRay HD discs could be in shops by the end of this year. And if not this year, then certainly next year. Basically, all the pieces fall in place for a HD-resolution end-to-end solution for consumers.

And I sympathise with their dillema, because even *if* they wanted to have something better than this, they cannot, because it either doesn't exist, or it is too expensive. But my feeling is that sticking with 35mm film isn't the answer either.

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-11-2003, 09:29 AM

Hey there,

I know, it's a tough spot for you to be into

That'll only work on a twelve year old, Andrei. Please don't insult my intelligence by trying that again. It's been pretty cordial so far. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Your eye doesn't care which medium this was shot on. The ability to detect resolution is the same whether you look at a film picture, a HD picture or indeed, a real-world image.

Or DV :). Which is great for DV and of course HD and everything lower res than 4k and 2k. Except for the little fact that unless NYPD Blue and reality shows become what we would call extremely low camera-movement, the point is moot.

OK, but then why do you insist that your hypotetical HDV for instance is an alternative to HD, for people that want to shoot "Hollywood-like" films? Or did I misunderstand what you were saying?

The JVC camera is not hypothetical and I think I've already said it A Million Bloody Times that the point of using DV is NOT to make it Hollywood-like.

My claim, based on the "little" I know about the current tools (and a bit about what's down the pipeline) is that low-cost, real-time HD editing will come much sooner than any form of 4k editing (real-time or close to real-time). And that 2k real-time editing (which already exists) will stay at a high price because it only serves a small segment of the market.

I think that real-time HD is already available from Media 100. Not sure.

2k will not stay at a high price for the simple fact that all technology always gets cheaper and aways gets more capable. That's not hypothetical or theoretical. With the advent of the Tezro, Octanes get sold cheaper. That's just one solution.

What I don't get from your claim is why you consider these lower costs to be the reason why high-end would consider downgrading to HD res when they already have 2k and better. Because they can leverage talent only, as you said before?

Obviously, I find that the lower prices of HD res processing means that high-end should at the very least offer HD with something better. They already can and do. They don't need to spend more just to offer lower quality or shackle their talent with less capability.

Really, you want to say that high-end, expensive, proprietary, encrypted releases distributed through a private system are harder to secure than a 2 cent DVD that everybody can rip on their home computer with tools you can download in about 5 minutes and require one click? You lost me there, to be very honest.

No, what I wanted to say was what I actually said. You wouldn't be so lost if you didn't translate it into that mess.:)

What I wanted to say and in fact said was that a digital cinematic release is harder to securely transport than a mere DVD. The difficulty in it means opportunity. You give pirates that opportunity and they will take it. Another opportunity - a digital one at that - means that it jsut got easier.

Theoretically, a well designed digital distribution system has every chance of making it difficult enough for the pirates so that they feel it's not worth their while.

That is a very very very bad bad BAD theory. You underestimate them a great deal. And I don't jsut mean that because nothing is completely secure.

Yep, that's exactly their problem.

And you suggested that they would prefer it :). Tut.

But my feeling is that sticking with 35mm film isn't the answer either.

It is:thumbsup: Today and for a while yet to come.

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-11-2003, 10:31 AM

That'll only work on a twelve year old, Andrei. Please don't insult my intelligence by trying that again. It's been pretty cordial so far. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

I am sorry if that sounded insulting - it wasn't meant to be. Just a simple statement of facts, from what I gathered in our conversation. And the question still remains, btw... ;)

Or DV . Which is great for DV and of course HD and everything lower res than 4k and 2k. Except for the little fact that unless NYPD Blue and reality shows become what we would call extremely low camera-movement, the point is moot.

Uh-uh. There is a big difference between DV and HD, from the point of view (sic) of the human eye. HD resolution is already in the upper regions of human ability, while DV is more than 4 times (if we talk about 16:9 and wider aspect ratios) worse. As with everything, the closer you get to the limits of the system, the harder it is to produce proportional responses in the reciever with the increase in stimuli.

And did you check out lately what percentage of hand-held shots you see in nowadays cinema? It has become a style, and you rarely get to see a still shot - the camera keeps moving at all times, be it travelling, steadycam, crane or simply handheld. And motion blur is of course progressive - the more movement, the more blurring and vice-versa.

To give you an idea of the impact of motion over percieved resolution, I have noticed that even small vibrations transmitted through a less-than-perfect tripod/plate arrangement can make 4k resolution scanning useless - that is to say, it makes it hard to see the difference between it and 2k.

The JVC camera is not hypothetical and I think I've already said it A Million Bloody Times that the point of using DV is NOT to make it Hollywood-like.

And HDV?

Maybe we have been running around in circles, but I still don't get why we do it. :scream:

You say DV is not to make it Hollywood-like. Agreed. Then why are we arguing about HD vs. DV? They are not in the same market, not in the same league, not in the same universe. HD wants to take the place of film, DV remains a prosumer format for enlightened amateurs and "guerrila" film-makers (unless your point was that these film-makers will become mainstream and conquer part of the "Hollywood-like" marketshare - which is another discution entirely). Is that a fair description?

I think that real-time HD is already available from Media 100. Not sure.

It's not. The ones that offer true real-time HD editing are basically Avid|DS (limited), Sony Xpri (quite extensive capability, including color correction), some of the Quantel systems (they scale up to 2k) and most of the FFI/smoke|fire range of discreet systems (they also scale up to 2k). There are a couple of others, but they are less known so I'll let them out for the moment.

What I don't get from your claim is why you consider these lower costs to be the reason why high-end would consider downgrading to HD res when they already have 2k and better. Because they can leverage talent only, as you said before?

Because the current systems will need to be upgraded, sooner or later (that's how the high-end is, a constant spending of money on new technology). And then they will need to choose if they upgrade towards 4k, or - like I preffer to put it - if they "upgrade" laterally towards deep real-time low-cost uncompressed HD editing, so that they can compete with low-cost companies that start with the same kinds of tools.

What I wanted to say and in fact said was that a digital cinematic release is harder to securely transport than a mere DVD. The difficulty in it means opportunity. You give pirates that opportunity and they will take it. Another opportunity - a digital one at that - means that it jsut got easier.

I am sorry, I must be dumb, but I still fail to see your point. It's not harder to transport it securely. It's easier. When you compare it with the preview DVDs, that is, which is - based on my limited English knowledge - what you have just done in your statement.

It's much easier to transport it securely, given all that "mess" that I explained is designed into the digital cinema distribution model.

The opportunity will undoubtedly be there. But when the perfect way to steal the movie is in place, why in the world should they worry about it? They should rather impose more control over the way they distribute their preview DVDs. When they close that security hole, *then* they can worry about the potential problems with the digital distribution model.

That is a very very very bad bad BAD theory. You underestimate them a great deal. And I don't jsut mean that because nothing is completely secure.

Explain what you would do if I would put in your arms, today, a BluRay disc (for which you basically don't have any drives to read), with material encoded with a proprietary codec which is available only as an on-chip solution in one encoder/projector combination made by a certain company, and not only that, but it's also encrypted with a x bit encryption key.

Sure, sometime in the future, after much sweat, bribing (to steal the actual disks or to get access to the internal parts of the projector - which would be sealed anyway) and after many traceable purchases and inquiries into that technology, you could crack it. But is it worth the effort?

Not to mention that, as you may know, one of the current ways to secure releases is to transport them to cinemas right before the premiere date. Naturally, given the way film projection works, you cannot cut that date very close, because the projectionist needs time to build up the print from the reels, attach the trailers and also inspect the finished product to make sure everything is in order.

Now when you ship a few discs or tapes, which load in real-time into the HDD system, you can ship them the same day. Even only a few hours before - tho' I am sure they won't like it to cut it that close. That will definately solve one of the most irritating issues: which is the release by the pirates simultaneously or even before the official release date of the movie. At least, it will solve it up to the point where the pirates don't use the preview DVDs - which they anyway do, if you follow my way of thinking.

And you suggested that they would prefer it . Tut.

No, I suggested they should move quicker into this field, before technology catches up with them from the consumer side. But that costs lots of money. Which they don't really have.

Basically, what I think the projection industry (NATO&co) wants to hear from the film companies and the digital projection systems manufacturers is that they will have a competitive edge over the mass-market. That is, a clear differentiation between the capabilities of "cinema" projectors and "home" projectors, not only in price. Remains to be seen if the industry will offer them such guarantees.

Fact is, the number of digital projection venues is growing, tho' at a very sedate pace. But there are big forces pushing...

It is Today and for a while yet to come.

How long, if I may humbly ask you to venture a guess? Which is the turning point where you would say: "OK, guys, have my blessing, go buy digital projection systems"?

And I notice I skipped over something in the previous reply, about the LCD:

That'll fit =)

Can you explain how you see that working, given the LCD (plus the Sony/AB battery needed to power it, becase the camera cannot supply the power) weighs >2 kilograms, and the miniDV camera - let's say the Canon Xl1s - is about the same weight (from what I remember, aprox. 2.5 kgs with lens&battery)... :eek:

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-12-2003, 02:15 PM

Hey there!

And the question still remains, btw...

And that's all I'll be letting it do =) I'm done with that already. Save it for the next guy, Andre. There's already too much redundancy here and I am not rewinding the conversation just to add more to it.

Uh-uh. There is a big difference between DV and HD, from the point of view (sic) of the human eye.

Oh well in that case, the same still applies =) You see, that reduction of perceived resolution is directly associated with the indominant resolution ONLY.

It actually does a neat little bit of magic. 2k and 4k are perceived to be 1k because that is more associated with the lower indominant resolution. Since the motion reduces the perceived resolution and the distinction between the quality of the two, then it is merely associated with the lower of the two. Hence 2k and HD will be perceived more in association with the even lower HD. Therein lies yet another advantage for DV against HD. When the two are in motion and compared, the percepetion will be more associated with DV.

In addition, there are also limits to what the human eye will allow to be compromised, wonderful instrument that it is. DV won't shrink to the resolution of a webcam for instance, if the two are compared. And a webcam isn't going to look as good as 4k, 2k, HD or DV simply because the cameras are all moving. So DV will likely nudge up to that limit as HD drops like a brick to it.

More importantly, it takes a lot more camera movement than what you mentioned to seriously degrade perception to that level. That's not coincidence, that's by design. The deafening call from any director with all that running, jumping and moving is 'KEEP IT STEADY!'. That's why they invented the steadicam and not the vibrocam. It's also why the software used to steady shots is an essential tool and why the one that jiggles it is an effect.

And HDV?

When you said my HDV was hypothetical and I answered that the JVC camera was not hypothetical, it was real, that meant that I referred to the JVC camera as HDV. If you mean it's significance, then that's even more obvious. HD capability in a prosumer camera. I think that speaks for itself. Of course the JVC is hardly what I would call Grailworthy. But it's real, not hypothetical. It's the first step.

Then why are we arguing about HD vs. DV?

Ah well then =) Let me offer this summary of transpired events. It's not a rewind, mind. So don't get any ideas of repeating anything.

We argue it because to you, the advantage of HD in film-making is cost (which is arguable) over film and it's superior quality to DV. I already made my arguments for film. My arguments for DV were that it is far cheaper than HD and it's footage doesn't suck as much as it's made out to be. In fact, that suckiness actually becomes an asset - it becomes an aesthetic. And it is used specifically for that aesthetic by certain people. Mantle, for one.

We argue also because to you, the use of DV in a hollywood-like production entails it's use basically as a film camera. It has to be tarted up with all sorts of accoutrements just to get there - including use with a remote control crane, if I'm not mistaken. My argument is that the point of DV is NOT to make it hollywood-like. Which I have of course said quite a few times =).

I also argue that DV can also be used very effectively as a complement for the modern-traditional (your hollywood-like). I cited a fightscene as an example. That was about as Hollywood a production can get. It wasn't tarted up for that, as far as I know. Even that has an interesting tale of it's own, but for another time.

Additionally, DV is also used in professional movie productions that are about as far removed from hollywood in all means, ways, shapes or forms. Yet it still occupies the same commercial and professional range of the spectrum usually reserved for movies made with film or HD. And by this I don't mean 28 Days or Full Frontal.

And lastly, we argue because I think you love HD a little too much =). To you, HD isn't jsut the replacement for film, it's the editing solution, the grading solution, the comping solution and even the theatre solution. Far be it for little ol' DV to say otherwise. It reminds me of the elitism film-guys get accused of. =)

I did say that you would be having this conversation again, but instead of holding up HD to film, you would be defending it against DV. I didn't actually think you would be having that conversation with me, and just a day later.

The ones that offer true real-time HD editing are basically

Are basically the systems that I said would become cheaper 2k or more capable at 4k =)

Because the current systems will need to be upgraded, sooner or later (that's how the high-end is, a constant spending of money on new technology). And then they will need to choose if they upgrade towards 4k, or - like I preffer to put it - if they "upgrade" laterally towards deep real-time low-cost uncompressed HD editing, so that they can compete with low-cost companies that start with the same kinds of tools.

You see, that makes absolutely no sense. The high end already have better than HD with their high-end tools and high-end workflow. What you are saying is that they will not only *want* to forgeo that but actually pay money to do so and call it an upgrade. That the high-end will actually pay good money to forego those high-end tools so they can buy the same tools used by the lower-end. That's a head-scratcher, a head-shaker and a 'what the hell?' all rolled into one.

That's like saying Rhythm and Hues will stop using Flame and Smoke for After Effects and Premiere just so they can compete with the lower end guys who also use AE and Premiere. Right now, R&H have work from their discreet systems shown side by side with work done with Adobe systems on MTV and the quality shows. It's why they're high-end. They have high-end quality from high-end tools and high-end talent. They already compete with these lower-end guys and they do it using those high-end tools and high-end talent. They don't switch over to Adobe only mode for broadcast resolution. They're high end!

When buying season starts, high-end and just about every end buys tools that allow them to do more than what they can do now or do more of what they are already doing. Downgrading (which is how I and most other people would put it) the 2k or better equipment in place to HD for editing, grading or whatever else doesn't allow high-end to do more. It forces them to do less quality. It doesn't matter how fast they can do less. It's still less. Less in fact than what they can already do. It makes absolutely no sense at all whatsoever to specifically buy equipment that lowers the quality of your work - especially when you already have equipment that can do better.

I am sorry, I must be dumb, but I still fail to see your point. It's not harder to transport it securely. It's easier. When you compare it with the preview DVDs, that is, which is - based on my limited English knowledge - what you have just done in your statement.

You are not dumb, but from your arguments with previous items and now this, you might be very rich =). The reason why you cannot understand the difficulty of it is because you cannot seem to equate difficulty with cost. As for security, even you recognise that it can be cracked.

btw - my native language isn't english either. But I think yours is just fine =).

Sure, sometime in the future, after much sweat, bribing (to steal the actual disks or to get access to the internal parts of the projector - which would be sealed anyway) and after many traceable purchases and inquiries into that technology, you could crack it. But is it worth the effort?

The answer is a big resounding YES. I cannot even begin to tell you how so so so SO very wrong you are in assuming that it isn't worth their effort - nevermind my distaste for talking about a nonexistant wide distribution system. You open a window to a burglar and you cannot simply say that he won't use it because you installed a great burglar alarm.

And no, you don't need to steal the discs; steal them and keep them, at any rate. You only need them long enough to make an image. Then you can do with the data as you will.

A preview DVD can be secured, transported and delivered by just one guy. Even if a movie were only 4x the resolution of a DVD, the cost and difficulty of securing those four DVD's rises exponentially in comparison to that lone preview disc. It's no mere matter of putting them in other pockets. It's no job for a single person. The value of that digital release is a lot higher than a mere preview DVD.

A delivery has to be handled by more than one guy and is in fact handled by several in succession. Unless somebody's guarding it 24/7 in transit, the opportunity will arise. That's jsut in transit. The receiving end presents it's own problems. That proprietary system means that a proprietary receiving system must also be distributed. With encryption, the decryption system must also be distributed. In both cases, the means of stealing that movie will be widely distributed and all it takes is jsut one at the receiving end to be compromised. Whatever tracing signal can be removed.

I do understand why you say it might not be worth a pirate's effort given 'your way of thinking'. You seem to think that pirates are perfectly happy just peddling VCD's and DVD's. They peddle those because that's all they can get their hands on. Digital distribution, aside from giving yet another means of stealing movies for home video presents the first, fastest, best, easiest and most convenient way of stealing theatrical releases for theatres.

With this, you offer them something new and far better. Right now, there are already pirate theatres that use DVD's. With this, you offer them even better quality for a larger audience. You are just giving them something more and new to steal. A digital copy, at that.

Basically, what I think the projection industry (NATO&co) wants to hear from the film companies and the digital projection systems manufacturers is that they will have a competitive edge over the mass-market. That is, a clear differentiation between the capabilities of "cinema" projectors and "home" projectors, not only in price. Remains to be seen if the industry will offer them such guarantees.

Hell, I can offer them that guarantee today. It's called film!

How long, if I may humbly ask you to venture a guess? Which is the turning point where you would say: "OK, guys, have my blessing, go buy digital projection systems"?

Around the same time you give them your blessing to go higher than 2k:thumbsup: Guessing, wagering and the hypothetical are not my favourite theatres, Andrei.

And I notice I skipped over something in the previous reply, about the LCD

Normally, my answer would be that you get no rewinds, no refunds or returns. But since this was but a reply ago, so hey.

The easy answer is to get a lighter one, but I think you want this one specifically to make a point so I'll go with it. You might even appreciate the answer. You see, I liked the features of it so much, I might jsut get one.

Normally, I prefer the process of 'found on site/at show' to 'get more info' to 'talk to rep' to 'have demo' to 'can I borrow to test it?' to haggling for prices before any actual purchase. Most products are lucky to make it halfway thru that but in this case, I might just say the hell with it and get it. So I'll tell you how it fits when I get it, k?

Anyhoo, if I don't reply later, I'll reply next week. Asta Luego =)

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-12-2003, 04:10 PM

And that's all I'll be letting it do =) I'm done with that already. Save it for the next guy, Andre. There's already too much redundancy here and I am not rewinding the conversation just to add more to it.

Now, please, do not take this the wrong way, but I find it unfortunate that you do not want to clarify those two very simple issues. And I find it unfortunate, because especially in the 2k horizontal vs. vertical problem, you have given the impression that you have no idea what you are talking about. I would like to believe it was only a false impression, but you should be clearer if you want to present a coherent viewpoint.

As far as I am concerned, you basically contradicted yourself in that matter and refuse to admit it. But if you do not want take it further, fine by me.

In addition, there are also limits to what the human eye will allow to be compromised, wonderful instrument that it is. DV won't shrink to the resolution of a webcam for instance, if the two are compared. And a webcam isn't going to look as good as 4k, 2k, HD or DV simply because the cameras are all moving. So DV will likely nudge up to that limit as HD drops like a brick to it.

I already explained to you the fact that the resolution does not behave linearily over the proposed discussion spectrum, because as it is with brightness, colour, hearing & feeling, human senses do not behave linearily. They tend to have a very particular range where a small change in the exciter produces considerable response in the reciever, and above that range, the responses saturate much quicker. Hence, while 4k becomes 2k in terms of percieved resolution in an instant with the slightest movement, 2k doesn't degrade as easily to 1k (it takes much more than a vibration) and so on and so forth.

DV will not "nudge up", it will degrade as well, though of course not to the proportion of a webcam, because we are talking about the range of perception where the human eye has no problems in percieving even minute resolution differences (like for instance between a PAL and a NTSC image - speaking in resolution terms, naturally).

More importantly, it takes a lot more camera movement than what you mentioned to seriously degrade perception to that level. That's not coincidence, that's by design. The deafening call from any director with all that running, jumping and moving is 'KEEP IT STEADY!'. That's why they invented the steadicam and not the vibrocam. It's also why the software used to steady shots is an essential tool and why the one that jiggles it is an effect.

Please try the test with vibration and 4k vs. 2k, and then we talk.

As for the steadicam issue, of course, the point of it is to compensate unwanted motion, not to preclude motion in itself (which is why the Steadicam was invented in the first place). Just because the motion is smooth doesn't mean it doesn't produce motion blurring - for fun, take a famous steadicam sequence of your choice and play it on your DVD player, and freeze/move forward/backwards frame by frame to see how motion blur behaves.

And always remeber, motion blur and human eye behaviour are two different issues, which work *together* against the percieved resolution of the images. I get the feeling you mixed them up a bit in the paragraphs above.

Moving onwards (as we seem to have agreed that the JVC camera is basically a miniDV camera offering a sort of semi-HD capability - btw. if I recall, *I* mentioned it first, for accuracy sake...), I hope you won't mind me addressing a few points of your recapitulation:

My arguments for DV were that it is far cheaper than HD and it's footage doesn't suck as much as it's made out to be. In fact, that suckiness actually becomes an asset - it becomes an aesthetic. And it is used specifically for that aesthetic by certain people. Mantle, for one.

OK, agreed about the aesthetic point, as I already mentioned it several times before. But, can we agree that it is not what anybody would call "main-stream" aestethic? Because, as you know very well, 8mm film is used for aesthetic purposes rather often (less so nowadays, when you can mimick the look in post easily), but that doesn't mean it will be in any way a future-worthy product (and btw. it too is cheaper than HD - it can actually be cheaper than DV too, if you talk just about the camera...).

And can we also agree that Mantle uses DV as an aesthetic means to an end (just like von Trier telecines films to videotape and prints them back to film), but when he actually *uses* miniDV cameras, he uses them like film cameras on the set, with all sorts of expensive gizmos and adapters?

I also argue that DV can also be used very effectively as a complement for the modern-traditional (your hollywood-like). I cited a fightscene as an example. That was about as Hollywood a production can get. It wasn't tarted up for that, as far as I know. Even that has an interesting tale of it's own, but for another time.

You give an example about a specific type of scene. How do you want to decide whether it can be used effectively without a context for the way the scene integrates in the overall production? It may very well be that DV is not the best choice there, while at the same time it could be the perfect choice. However, you can only decide that when looking at the overall picture (sic).

Additionally, DV is also used in professional movie productions that are about as far removed from hollywood in all means, ways, shapes or forms. Yet it still occupies the same commercial and professional range of the spectrum usually reserved for movies made with film or HD. And by this I don't mean 28 Days or Full Frontal.

Can you give me some examples? I admit that besides the indie/low-budget indie film circuit and some commercials where the "DV-look" was intentional (like Playstation 2) , I do not see DV occupying the "same commercial and professional range of the spectrum usually reserved for movies made with film or HD". But I'll be happy to be contradicted (with examples, mind you) here.

And lastly, we argue because I think you love HD a little too much =). To you, HD isn't jsut the replacement for film, it's the editing solution, the grading solution, the comping solution and even the theatre solution. Far be it for little ol' DV to say otherwise. It reminds me of the elitism film-guys get accused of.

Yes, because in the case of HD it makes very much sense to use it as an end-to-end solution. If you just use it as an aquisition medium, you might as well shoot on film, the cost won't be all that great. But when you look at it from the lens to the screen, you see it is the cheapest way for maintaining a decent standard of quality. It's not "love", it's just pragmatism.

I did say that you would be having this conversation again, but instead of holding up HD to film, you would be defending it against DV. I didn't actually think you would be having that conversation with me, and just a day later.

Because I was under the impression that you were suggesting DV is a replacement both for HD and film (speaking for the overall market), which I find ridiculous. I am glad I had the wrong impression on this account.

That's like saying Rhythm and Hues will stop using Flame and Smoke for After Effects and Premiere just so they can compete with the lower end guys who also use AE and Premiere.

Uh-oh. You picked one of the worst examples possible there with Rhythm&Hues to support your viewpoint. :D

They in particular have been one of the earliest and most ardent supporters of low-cost open-source based workflows, especially so in their using of Linux and the choice of tools, like FilmGimp (later CinePaint) - which is not only cheaper than the "high-end" alternatives (Amazon Paint, Photoshop, etc.), it's actually free. And they went with it because it is - obviously - cheaper, it offers pretty close capabilities (but in no way the same, as it still has to evolve quite a lot) to the high-end solutions and since it's a "mass-market" product, they also enjoy the accelerated development cycle - including the ability to contribute their own know-how to its development.

Are basically the systems that I said would become cheaper 2k or more capable at 4k =)

Really? None of those products has shown itself to be very prone to getting much cheaper, except some price readjustments in the discreet range. They are still all well over $100k and up.

And mind you, it's not that the hardware is what keeps the price up. Most of them (again with the notable exception of discreet) run on very run-of-the-mill PC platforms, with only parts of the I/O sections and the accelerating boards being manufactured in-house by the vendors (and that certainly is not a reason for such prices). What keeps *their* price up is the fact that they serve a very narrow market, so the margins are very tight and cannot be compensated by a high-volume sales approach.

You are not dumb, but from your arguments with previous items and now this, you might be very rich =). The reason why you cannot understand the difficulty of it is because you cannot seem to equate difficulty with cost.

The distribution cost will be the same or lower as with current film reel distribution (I assume you *have* seen how a release print looks like and especially how much it weighs...). Of course, sending a preview DVD costs less, but that was not what we were talking about, was it?

What I cannot understand is why it is less secure. Please explain that, so I stop feeling so dumb.

A delivery has to be handled by more than one guy and is in fact handled by several in succession. Unless somebody's guarding it 24/7 in transit, the opportunity will arise. That's jsut in transit. The receiving end presents it's own problems. That proprietary system means that a proprietary receiving system must also be distributed. With encryption, the decryption system must also be distributed. In both cases, the means of stealing that movie will be widely distributed and all it takes is jsut one at the receiving end to be compromised. Whatever tracing signal can be removed.

Look, Jamo3D, now you really lost me. Preview DVDs get sent to film festivals, film critics, reviewers, potential overseas distribution companies, etc. They use a completely different path as the actual release prints (be it digital or film) that go to cinemas. That's why they get stolen, because they get inherently out of control of the film companies. Yet they serve a definite purpose that they cannot live without.

Distribution deliveries go straight from the film printing lab via shipping companies to the cinema. That's a system that has been in place for ages. The fact that they weight 10000 times more than one DVD and that they need a truck instead of one pocket doesn't make them any less secure, neither does the fact that they need to be transited and touched by 5 guys on the way. By your line of reasoning, the fact that the digital film "reels" will be so small and compact should mean they are more secure... :hmm:

As for the encryption and proprietary systems, they are installed at the cinemas by the digital projection manufacturer. That means a very small number of people that know how they work, which means very quick tracing of the security leaks.

I do understand why you say it might not be worth a pirate's effort given 'your way of thinking'. You seem to think that pirates are perfectly happy just peddling VCD's and DVD's. They peddle those because that's all they can get their hands on. Digital distribution, aside from giving yet another means of stealing movies for home video presents the first, fastest, best, easiest and most convenient way of stealing theatrical releases for theatres.

For theaters?!? Sorry, but that is something new to me. I know of no unofficial theaters that show pirated films. I would suspect that sort of operation can be easily found and shut down, if the government of that particular country wishes to do so. Maybe you find such places in Asia or in some of the countries in Russia, but that's an endemic problem with their legal system, nothing that will be solved or affected one way or another by films being distributed digitally or not.

The film production companies don't care about those cases. They are hurt by the VCDs, DVDs and DivX. That's their problem right now.

With this, you offer them something new and far better. Right now, there are already pirate theatres that use DVD's. With this, you offer them even better quality for a larger audience. You are just giving them something more and new to steal. A digital copy, at that.

Let me give you a very easy to understand example:

As you may know, DTS soundtracks get delivered to cinemas on regular CD-ROMs. Not only that, but the actual file system is completely compatible with PCs, the files are not encrypted and they can extremely easily be read and converted.

Now please tell me how many pirated releases you have seen with such stolen DTS tracks? I know of none.

But by your theory, they should already have been a great target for the pirates, because it's a digital copy, it's better quality, it's easy to steal & so on. It's actually easier than recording the film with the camera in the theater. But they don't do it. Ask yourself why.

Hell, I can offer them that guarantee today. It's called film!

But film is on the way out, just ask George Lucas. Kidding, of course. Fair enough, you don't want to make any predictions. But by the by, the wagers were just generic, altough if you ever pass around these parts I guess I could get a beer from you or viceversa... :thumbsup:

The easy answer is to get a lighter one, but I think you want this one specifically to make a point so I'll go with it. You might even appreciate the answer. You see, I liked the features of it so much, I might jsut get one.

Normally, I prefer the process of 'found on site/at show' to 'get more info' to 'talk to rep' to 'have demo' to 'can I borrow to test it?' to haggling for prices before any actual purchase. Most products are lucky to make it halfway thru that but in this case, I might just say the hell with it and get it. So I'll tell you how it fits when I get it, k?

Looking forward to your report, but you should realize that Astro will set you back more than 2 Canon XL1s in price. Even after haggling. ;)

Cheers,
Andrei

jadedchron

09-15-2003, 05:55 AM

wow that's a lot of post-age. my brain hurt just scrolling through it all :D

Jamo3D

09-15-2003, 11:11 AM

Hey there,

Now, please, do not take this the wrong way, but I find it unfortunate that you do not want to clarify those two very simple issues.

You're about to be disappointed some more =). Like I told you, save it for the next guy, Andrei. This time, getting your name right, of course. I'm sure the next guy'll oblige you. I'm already doing too much clarification.

As far as I am concerned, you basically contradicted yourself in that matter and refuse to admit it.

You can take what I said to be anything you want =) Which sometimes bewilders me as to some of the translations you've come up with, but hey. It also means that you don't need any of my clarification too, so even less reason for me to bother.

I already explained to you the fact that the resolution does not behave linearily over the proposed discussion spectrum

Yes, a great explanation it was, too =) Unfortunately, I described it as associative, not linear so you're talking to the wrong guy here. Just because I mentioned them in order doesn't mean I refer to the effect as linear.

DV will not "nudge up", it will degrade as well, though of course not to the proportion of a webcam

That's a figure of speech. Nobody ever says 'nudge down' to anything so neither did I =).

Please try the test with vibration and 4k vs. 2k, and then we talk.

No. You go find yourself a director who wants his shots vibrating first =) Lemme caution you, tho'. I find this part uninteresting and merely bourne out of an insertion by Doyle, of all people. So if there's a big point to be made here, I'd like to see it or I'm killing this one too.

How do you want to decide whether it can be used effectively without a context for the way the scene integrates in the overall production?

You'd have to ask the director for how he wanted to do that =) I think he just got the stunt coordinator to direct the whole scene. It was supposedly just for visualisation and then he liked it so much, it became 'it'.

I admit that besides the indie/low-budget indie film circuit and some commercials where the "DV-look" was intentional (like Playstation 2) , I do not see DV occupying the "same commercial and professional range of the spectrum usually reserved for movies made with film or HD". But I'll be happy to be contradicted (with examples, mind you) here.

Why sure =) I'll even send you a copy. Or to a copy, anyways. Go to your local ethnic centre. Preferrably third-world, not NIC like China. Something like Vietnam or The Philippines. Look for the mainstream movies they sell there. You will not of course find any discs or tapes marked 'made with film' or 'made with DV'. What you *will* find is that many of the newest releases were made with DV. One of the biggest grossing movies in the Philippines during the last Manila Film-Festival was in fact a movie made with DV called Lastikman. Was an FX movie, too. And got nominated for it's FX.

You see, in places like these, HD is a genuine joke. It doesn't exist because there is no Sony rep peddling them off. They are not sold en masse to rental houses where they can be gotten on the cheap(ish). They are an expensive toy that makes no sense because it can't do as much as film (and that's using that Fuji film you malign). Since there is no established HD push, it is not 'as cheap as' film, either. It is in fact a zillion times more expensive. The tape itself can cost as much as a reel of negative - and no, that's not an exaggeration.

Since this discussion is about DV and HD at this point, then I think I ought to mention DV, of course. I just had to mention film's relationship to HD here so you can get some perspective. The advantage of DV is obvious, then. It is genuinely far cheaper than film or the joke that HD is in places like that and it is far more flexible in terms of FX. It is also the one medium that actually does get any sort of digital treatment.

So in these places, DV gets used VERY often for mainstream productions that do occupy the same commercial and professional echelons as film. HD's promise here is a nice one, but that's all it can be unless somebody brings it in - and yes, people have tried. Even then, it will still be far more costly than film and it doesn't stand a chance against DV in the cost department. Which is what makes HDV so attractive.

Yes, because in the case of HD it makes very much sense to use it as an end-to-end solution.

HD is NOT a solution =) None of these are solutions, they are mere options. I would not consider anything, let alone HD, as a solution for a problem that didn't exist. Nevermind an all-encompassing end-to-end one.

Because I was under the impression that you were suggesting DV is a replacement both for HD and film (speaking for the overall market), which I find ridiculous. I am glad I had the wrong impression on this account.

Then be very unglad because you were half-right =). While I never actually suggested it (hence me repeating the point of DV so many times to your misunderstanding of the opposite) I really don't have to. It is being used for that now, regardless of what you or I may say about it.

Uh-oh. You picked one of the worst examples possible there with Rhythm&Hues to support your viewpoint.

Oooh! You mean they're actually going to forego their high-end tools to go all HD and support your viewpoint instead? =) They're not! They're just going open-source with Linux. No mention about 4k instead of HD from 2k here at all, is there?

Nevermind that Cinepaint is complementary software at best right now (I still luv it). Open-source (not specifically CinePaint) is the ultimate example of the 4k and 2k high-end tools getting cheaper and therefore not making an HD only solution worthwhile.

I think you know your argument for HD is a dead-end here. None of these high end guys are going to go all HD for any reason and you know it. You just took your HD fervor a little too far this time =) If you don't want to kill this one, then alright. I'll just keep replying to it.

None of those products has shown itself to be very prone to getting much cheaper, except some price readjustments in the discreet range. They are still all well over $100k and up.

And none of them are those cheaper HD only solutions that you say high-end will be foregoing their established iron for either, are they? =) They do get cheaper thanks to the wonderful world of used machinery - and the sad world of liquidation. The cheaper Octane is of course the best example of what I mentioned, due to Tezro. But these guys will do if better comes along from their manufacturers and makes them cheaper. I have no idea what discreet's policies are for transferral, tho'.

Refer to dead end comment above for further reaction =)

The distribution cost will be the same or lower as with current film reel distribution (I assume you *have* seen how a release print looks like and especially how much it weighs...). Of course, sending a preview DVD costs less, but that was not what we were talking about, was it?

You did say that they'd be distributed by some mysterious 'private system', but nevermind that. This was a discussion about their security, so I wonder what made you refer to what I think are shipping charges instead. That sure wasn't what I meant by difficulty - as itself or as cost is.

You say that it was easier to secure them because of expensive this and that - BluLaser and by your own admission, expensive proprietary systems among others. I therefore correct you by saying NO. It doesn't become easier with more money and more complexity. It just becomes more expensive and complex. To you, it is easier because of the expense and complexity you mentioned. But the fact is, the cost and complexity are what make it difficult. Cost and complexity *are* difficulties.

What I cannot understand is why it is less secure. Please explain that, so I stop feeling so dumb.

Can't help you with that feeling =) What I said was that it is more difficult to securely transport a digital cinematic release than a mere DVD. I think I get what you mistook, tho'. You are taking what I said to mean that digital cinematic releases are easier than DVD's to pirate. Obviously, they aren't. It is more difficult to secure them, that doesn't mean it is easier to steal them.

Look, Jamo3D, now you really lost me.

It's jsut Jamo, thanks =) I just use Jamo3D because somebody already got Jamo when I signed up. Probably me, just that I forgot.

I put the examples and explanations of the swipability of digital cinematic releases in the same paragraph as the DVD to show how much more difficult it is to secure than a DVD, not to show how much easier it is (which it isn't). In addition, it shows also how even with the 'solutions' you suggested for this nonexistant wide distribution system (a secure one for digital since we are talking about security) it can still be defeated.

As for the encryption and proprietary systems, they are installed at the cinemas by the digital projection manufacturer. That means a very small number of people that know how they work, which means very quick tracing of the security leaks.

There are at least two different arguments against that defence. The obvious and first one, cost (cost as difficulty, remember?) and the second one is commonality. All data must at some level remain the same no matter which system it uses. Each individual key is different, but what they unlock must remain the same. In this case, the systems themselves aren't even needed. The resources are just matched to see their difference and the differences removed. For encryption, compare the encryptions.

I'd hasten to add that these are just details of a system that isn't in place yet. Whatever they choose, they will use. Whatever that system may be, someone will find a way to defeat it. It's a pretty lame argument to just generalise it like that, I'll admit. But since it isn't reality, it'll do just fine.

So to this I add yet another disappointment for you. I've already stretched my tolerance for the nonexistant with this. I'm not going to keep discussing something that may or may not be used as security measures. The rest, I'm fine with, tho'. They actually do exist.

that's an endemic problem with their legal system, nothing that will be solved or affected one way or another by films being distributed digitally or not.

It will most definitely be affected by digital distribution =) The addition of digital cinematic releases to a pirate's catalog just means more to be stolen. I don't think the studios are that naive. Or else there wouldn't be such bitching and moaning about piracy. If you're just talking about the medium, the reason pirate theatres don't get their own mention is that they use established pirated media already - DVD. Hence, they just get lumped in with the rest of the VCD and DVD pirates.

Let me give you a very easy to understand example:

As you may know, DTS soundtracks get delivered to cinemas on regular CD-ROMs. Not only that, but the actual file system is completely compatible with PCs, the files are not encrypted and they can extremely easily be read and converted.

Now please tell me how many pirated releases you have seen with such stolen DTS tracks? I know of none.

But by your theory, they should already have been a great target for the pirates, because it's a digital copy, it's better quality, it's easy to steal & so on. It's actually easier than recording the film with the camera in the theater. But they don't do it. Ask yourself why.

I don't want to ask myself stupid questions =) That's jsut the soundtrack!!! I won't even bother explaining that one. That should've been painfully obvious before you even argued it. Or do you just mean syncing a stolen DTS track to a pirated copy? In that case, the reason is because a pirate doesn't bother to wait for the soundtrack to come in before duping the discs.

But film is on the way out, just ask George Lucas. Kidding, of course. Fair enough, you don't want to make any predictions. But by the by, the wagers were just generic, altough if you ever pass around these parts I guess I could get a beer from you or viceversa...

It'll stay =) Film is the ultimate expression of the cinematic experience that cannot be offered at home. I never bet on beer because I've totalled enough cars to know that's a bad idea - hence my perpetually being broke. I wouldn't ask King George about that because somebody asked him what a great new character for his movie would be and he answered Jar-Jar.

Looking forward to your report, but you should realize that Astro will set you back more than 2 Canon XL1s in price. Even after haggling.

I already know that =). It'll be great coz' when I get my HDV cameras, I can use them on that too. It won't of course be Hollywood-like because...

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-15-2003, 02:09 PM

Heh, that's definately a very nifty discussion tactic: declaring yourself "bored" by every single topic that is at the core of the discussion, when you cannot take your arguments any further or when you realize you were mistaken. I should start applying it too... :thumbsup:

Yes, a great explanation it was, too =) Unfortunately, I described it as associative, not linear so you're talking to the wrong guy here. Just because I mentioned them in order doesn't mean I refer to the effect as linear.

Then please, explain why you say that their effect is behaving linearly (like for instance putting an equal sign between the drop in 4k res and the drop in HD res), because you certainly did that. Tho' probably you will be too "bored"... :rolleyes:

That's a figure of speech. Nobody ever says 'nudge down' to anything so neither did I =).

Sure, I say that. Every time I work in Photoshop. :)

No. You go find yourself a director who wants his shots vibrating first.

If you ever worked on a motion picture, I cannot believe you have never seen such an example of a shot ruined or degraded in this way by a certain accident, like setting up the camera too close to that high-traffic high-way & so on. But I suggested trying it in an separate experiment, not with a director.

Before you get "bored", I'll just say that the "big point" in this particular issue is how fast 4k resolution is degraded when you add motion to it.

You'd have to ask the director for how he wanted to do that =) I think he just got the stunt coordinator to direct the whole scene. It was supposedly just for visualisation and then he liked it so much, it became 'it'.

Oh, sorry, I didn't understand the part about it already taking place in a film production. I thought it was just a theoretical example. Which movie was this?

You see, in places like these, HD is a genuine joke. It doesn't exist because there is no Sony rep peddling them off. They are not sold en masse to rental houses where they can be gotten on the cheap(ish). They are an expensive toy that makes no sense because it can't do as much as film (and that's using that Fuji film you malign). Since there is no established HD push, it is not 'as cheap as' film, either. It is in fact a zillion times more expensive. The tape itself can cost as much as a reel of negative - and no, that's not an exaggeration.

Aha, ok. Sure, I can see where you are coming from now. Sure, in *those* places, budget is far more of an issue than in more developed film markets. But your statement was so overbearingly general, that you seemed to me that you were reffering to the "real" film markets as well. Because you see, even though in terms of viewers the Far East might be a big market, in terms of film production it is insignifiant (this doesn't mean the artistic value of the resulting films is insignifiant, I hasten to add).

Now, when you will be able to show me DV taking the place of film (or HD) in Hollywood, Bollywood, Europe & China, then your statement will have some solid ground.

Until then, I will agree that in markets without HD infrastructure (because the purchasing power is so low that the manufacturers do not care about them) and where the budget is more important than picture quality, DV might very well be an ideal medium. But the funny thing is, I worked in such markets, where there was basically no HD camera in sight. They made an effort and shot on film anyway when they realized that they cannot get the HD camera, instead of doing it on standard definition video (DV), even though the budget was slim to none...

HD is NOT a solution =) None of these are solutions, they are mere options. I would not consider anything, let alone HD, as a solution for a problem that didn't exist. Nevermind an all-encompassing end-to-end one.

The problem "that didn't exist" is: find my a way to produce my movie overall cheaper than film, without compromising the quality too much. The answer: you guessed it.

And "solution" was used there in the sense (perfectly accepted in English, if I am not mistaken) of an ensemble of products and technologies that work seamlessly together to accomplish something in a given workflow. Granted, the marketing hordes made its use slightly non-sensical, but...

While I never actually suggested it (hence me repeating the point of DV so many times to your misunderstanding of the opposite) I really don't have to. It is being used for that now, regardless of what you or I may say about it.

Ah, you mean in "those markets"? Right. Ok, I obviously have to agree with you here, I am no expert in "those markets".

Oooh! You mean they're actually going to forego their high-end tools to go all HD and support your viewpoint instead? =) They're not! They're just going open-source with Linux. No mention about 4k instead of HD from 2k here at all, is there?

Umm, I mean they actually did forego their high-end tools already, in the case of CinePaint. And they loved it.

Your argument was that they won't give up their "flames" for "After Effects". I gave you an example where they already did it, even though they lost some functionality by doing that. Is that too hard to understand? Should I try to explain it in a different way?

And none of them are those cheaper HD only solutions that you say high-end will be foregoing their established iron for either, are they? =) They do get cheaper thanks to the wonderful world of used machinery - and the sad world of liquidation. The cheaper Octane is of course the best example of what I mentioned, due to Tezro. But these guys will do if better comes along from their manufacturers and makes them cheaper. I have no idea what discreet's policies are for transferral, tho'.

Then get an idea about discreet's policies for transferral. You're in for a very nasty shock, as it basically makes your "wonderful world of used machinery" useless, price-wise. Not to mention that you seem to forget one of the basic requirements with such high-end tools, which is the yearly support contract (some preffer to call it "slavery"). Not to mention that the "used machinery" that you can get at reasonable prices is not fast enough to make your flame compete with Shake/Digital Fusion speed-wise on a lowly PC platform. Not to mention that upgrading such "used machinery" is often either impossible or more expensive than buying a new one. That is why people who buy second-hand SGIs usually buy them to turn them into beer coolers (http://home.planet.nl/~mourits/koelkast/). ;)

As for cheaper HD only solutions, naturally, they are not in the same price range (that was my point), there I was talking about FCP+Cinewave, HDBOXX or FCP+DecklinkHD & so on. *They* are in the $10k-$30k price range and - guess what - falling (price wise, naturally)!

You say that it was easier to secure them because of expensive this and that - BluLaser and by your own admission, expensive proprietary systems among others. I therefore correct you by saying NO. It doesn't become easier with more money and more complexity. It just becomes more expensive and complex. To you, it is easier because of the expense and complexity you mentioned. But the fact is, the cost and complexity are what make it difficult. Cost and complexity *are* difficulties.

Again I am having difficulties following you. I never argued it wouldn't be more expensive than a preview DVD. It will cost just as much as with current film reel shippings, most likely. Does this mean that classic film shippings are "harder to secure" when compared to a preview DVD, because they are "expensive"? Doh, yeah, but we weren't talking about security vs. a preview DVD, because as I already explained to you countless times, preview DVDs follow an entirely different path.

What I said was that it is more difficult to securely transport a digital cinematic release than a mere DVD. I think I get what you mistook, tho'. You are taking what I said to mean that digital cinematic releases are easier than DVD's to pirate. Obviously, they aren't. It is more difficult to secure them, that doesn't mean it is easier to steal them.

That's some warped logic, if I ever saw one. You mean they are difficult to secure and difficult to steal? Hmmmm... wasn't that the point all along? If you can make it secure so that people don't steal it, then the investment/effort makes sense, doesn't it? You can make them very easily completely unsecure, but guess what, then people will be able to... tada... steal them.

I put the examples and explanations of the swipability of digital cinematic releases in the same paragraph as the DVD to show how much more difficult it is to secure than a DVD, not to show how much easier it is (which it isn't). In addition, it shows also how even with the 'solutions' you suggested for this nonexistant wide distribution system (a secure one for digital since we are talking about security) it can still be defeated.

Jamo, need I point out to you *again* that if a thief can safely and easily steal a certain item by taking it from the table in the restaurant when there is nobody around looking, he won't choose instead to break into a multi-million secured safe in a bank to get the very same item? Maybe this metaphor will help you better visualize the difference between preview DVDs and digital cinema distribution, and why the fact that the built-in security in it makes sense....

There are at least two different arguments against that defence. The obvious and first one, cost (cost as difficulty, remember?) and the second one is commonality. All data must at some level remain the same no matter which system it uses. Each individual key is different, but what they unlock must remain the same. In this case, the systems themselves aren't even needed. The resources are just matched to see their difference and the differences removed. For encryption, compare the encryptions.

New film projectors are also installed usually by their manufacturer or by an authorized distributor. Strike cost from the list.

You seem to have a great grasp on cryptology, so I would like you to explain to me how you compare two RSA 1024-bit encrypted messages and magically "extract" the differences and then "remove" them. I await breathless, because this promises to be a momentous breaktrough in this particular field of science.

And then, don't forget, after you decrypt, you still have to find a way to playback that film, because it isn't your average MPEG-2 format...

And as for you getting "bored" again, I point out that such security measures are already in place in current projectors. Even to the very basic level of doubly locking with secure locks the video processing cage of the projector (read about that at Barco, par example). They do seem to think of every possibility, if you ask me...

It will most definitely be affected by digital distribution =) The addition of digital cinematic releases to a pirate's catalog just means more to be stolen. I don't think the studios are that naive. Or else there wouldn't be such bitching and moaning about piracy. If you're just talking about the medium, the reason pirate theatres don't get their own mention is that they use established pirated media already - DVD. Hence, they just get lumped in with the rest of the VCD and DVD pirates.

Please, do go more in-depth about these pirate theaters. They are a first to me and I find it fascinating that any two-penny worth of police force cannot track down and close what is basically a public operation that has to be advertised (I guess) in order to function? But hey, I forgot that in such places you can get pirated DVDs anyway at the marketplace, under the nose of the police...

I don't want to ask myself stupid questions =) That's jsut the soundtrack!!! I won't even bother explaining that one. That should've been painfully obvious before you even argued it. Or do you just mean syncing a stolen DTS track to a pirated copy? In that case, the reason is because a pirate doesn't bother to wait for the soundtrack to come in before duping the discs.

Doh, of course I mean synching the DTS track to the pirated copy, so that you don't have the "phased mono" which I saw is standard in such releases.

Oh, and I see, the very same pirates that will go to *all* those troubles to steal those digital cinema releases because of their better quality, against *all* those protection methods and risks and that even setup *all* those illegal theaters, don't bother to wait for the soundtrack before the duping of the disc?

That *is* ridiculous, surely even you can see that.

The real reason is that they simply do not care. They chose the easiest way to steal the film, and they don't make one extra move if they don't have to.

But, I feel you are getting "bored" again.

It'll stay =) Film is the ultimate expression of the cinematic experience that cannot be offered at home.

For me, the ultimate expression of "the cinematic experience" is seeing "2001: A Space Odyssey" projected on 70 mm film. But I've learned to live with less, if you see my point.

And speaking of which, I might soon eat my words about HD/2k resolution being what people will adopt as projection standard. JVC just finished a production-ready prototype of an almost-4k 1.7" D-ILA chip (3840 x 2048). I still think they will take their time before they replace their 2k expensive projector range, but it might be sooner than I thought. I'll be glad to be proved wrong, it just means film's days are that much closer to an end...

I already know that =). It'll be great coz' when I get my HDV cameras, I can use them on that too. It won't of course be Hollywood-like because...

... because your DV/HDV camera will topple and fall when you try to use the Astro mounted on it like that, thereby destroying both, most likely, because the ensemble is way too top-heavy. But, shhhh, let's not ruin the surprise.

Cheers,
Andrei

Jamo3D

09-16-2003, 09:07 PM

Hey there,

Heh, that's definately a very nifty discussion tactic: declaring yourself "bored" by every single topic that is at the core of the discussion, when you cannot take your arguments any further or when you realize you were mistaken. I should start applying it too...

Or maybe you're just boring =) And I think you know where you can stick that one and start applying it =) I realise how hard it is for you to accept that I would find your arguments with me not so much incorrect as uninteresting. I assure you that when I said that was the case, I meant it.

Then please, explain why you say that their effect is behaving linearly (like for instance putting an equal sign between the drop in 4k res and the drop in HD res), because you certainly did that. Tho' probably you will be too "bored"...

Before you start behaving even more like a bitter old lady, I already said that by my mentioning them in order does not mean that I say they are linear. And yes, you're boring me on this one, too.

Before you get "bored", I'll just say that the "big point" in this particular issue is how fast 4k resolution is degraded when you add motion to it.

Well bravo =) Didn't hurt to be straightforward, did it? And here I thought you'd be a bitter old lady for the rest of this message. My point of course IS NOT linear degradation, it's associative.

Oh, sorry, I didn't understand the part about it already taking place in a film production. I thought it was just a theoretical example. Which movie was this?

X2. And don't be sorry, just don't be boring. I'm not sure I mentioned it as an example for that particular item, but it'll do. I saw the movie and found the picture quality dull and lacking (not the movie itself). I muttered to myself about the lack of detail and how they must've used HD for it. The fightscene stood out as brilliant to me. I thought that one scene must've been the one they stuck to film with because it was so much better compared to the rest of it.

Lo and behold, I was to find out later on that the movie was done on film and the fightscene was done with a lowly DV camera used for pre-viz only. So in this case, DV complemented modern-traditional and put a cherry on top.

Aha, ok. Sure, I can see where you are coming from now. Sure, in *those* places, budget is far more of an issue than in more developed film markets. But your statement was so overbearingly general, that you seemed to me that you were reffering to the "real" film markets as well. Because you see, even though in terms of viewers the Far East might be a big market, in terms of film production it is insignifiant

Those are very real film markets, thank you very much. In terms of film production, the far east and asia minor - nevermind asia as a whole - churn out more movies than hollywood does, unless you mean mindshare. In which case, only Bollywood can come even remotely close - which it doesn't by far.

The reason I make such generalised statements is because, whether you like it or not, 'they' are all part of the general movie-making planet. So to you, they may be 'those places'. But for a vast number of moviemakers, it is simply called home. Movies don't stop being movies simply because they are made elsewhere. I simply refer to it that way without mention.

The problem "that didn't exist" is: find my a way to produce my movie overall cheaper than film, without compromising the quality too much. The answer: you guessed it.

This is where things can get repetitive if I start talking about the whole cost issue all over again. I'll just append what I meant by movie-makers as referred to above. In what you call 'those places' and what I refer to as movie-makers overall, HD is not cheaper than film by FAR.

Your argument was that they won't give up their "flames" for "After Effects". I gave you an example where they already did it, even though they lost some functionality by doing that. Is that too hard to understand? Should I try to explain it in a different way?

I think I know my argument better than you do =) I won't bother explaining what a metaphor is because I think you already know. You're just deflecting what is so obviously a dead-end. None of these high-end guys are going to go all-HD for ANY REASON. Free software just gives them more reason not to. Trying to use my own metaphors against me. Tut!

Then get an idea about discreet's policies for transferral. You're in for a very nasty shock, as it basically makes your "wonderful world of used machinery" useless, price-wise. Not to mention that you seem to forget one of the basic requirements with such high-end tools, which is the yearly support contract (some preffer to call it "slavery").

But thanks to Andrei, the wonderful world of used machinery is not even needed anymore because of that great Linux solution you mentioned =) Even more reason why HIGH-END WILL NEVER GO ALL-HD. That will probably be repeated about as many times as 'The Point of DV...' until you get it.

Again I am having difficulties following you. I never argued it wouldn't be more expensive than a preview DVD.

No, you're argument was that it would be easier than traditional film distribution.

It will cost just as much as with current film reel shippings, most likely.

I was NEVER talking about shipping prices, it was security. I think that when I said that we were talking about security and wondered why you were talking about shipping prices, it was pretty clear.

we weren't talking about security vs. a preview DVD

Well it took you a while, but you finally got one =)

That's some warped logic, if I ever saw one. You mean they are difficult to secure and difficult to steal?

Oh boy....

This isn't boring, mind. I realise you're having trouble following me, but I can't be arsed to explain it anymore. So I'll just answer when you finally get what I said instead of you just answering how little you followed it. I already tried simplification and summary but that didn't work, so hey =)

And as for you getting "bored" again

Too late. Me bored.

Please, do go more in-depth about these pirate theaters.

One of the operations I mentioned which use DVD's are basically just a TV and a DVD player that plays pirated DVD's. It uses any venue that's large enough to enclose and put seats in front of a TV or projected image. It's usually a big TV, of course =). These are non-permanent venue operators. Tho' they stay so long in their areas that they might as well be.

The other kinds are actually permanent venues. Almost like what you or I would call a regular theatre. These are high-tech bastards. You'd luv these guys because they're all digital. I have no idea at all whatsoever how they managed to hook up a DVD player to one of those projectors, but they did. And they usually have several. It's VERY hard to believe anybody can be that high-tech and expensive for what they do. Until you see it, I'll understand your skepticism.

One other kind is just the local operator. There is a nuclear family that has one or two members that lives and works abroad to earn dollars. They send back money and duty-free stuff like big TV's and DVD players. They literally operate out of their own home. I'd say they convert a garage, but they might not have one. So it will likely be outdoors or just a big room or even a large tent - a parachute.

These are just three off the top of my head. I am sure there are others but they would probably be describable by any of the above. The likely customers for the pirated digital release and not just pirated home movie would likely be the high-tech bastards. I add that a non-permanent venue operator who's aiming higher is also a possible user.

They chose the easiest way to steal the film, and they don't make one extra move if they don't have to.

See above for why they might feel they have to. You're still thinking that they'll just stick with DVD's and VCD's when I've already told you why they won't. That's why you don't get this. For another thing, they are movie pirates, not soundtrack pirates. So that was a bad example to begin with.

But, I feel you are getting "bored" again.

My feeling bored is lots better than your feeling dumb =) If I don't see any maturity in your reply and just see how I'm going to be bored or GOD knows what else, don't expect me to reply back, k?

... because your DV/HDV camera will topple and fall when you try to use the Astro mounted on it like that, thereby destroying both, most likely, because the ensemble is way too top-heavy. But, shhhh, let's not ruin the surprise.

That's actually the least boring part of your entire reply =).

Jamo
+BIL

Amyd

09-16-2003, 10:48 PM

Ah, I feel flattered, I am right, though boring. I guess I can live with that.

Before you start behaving even more like a bitter old lady, I already said that by my mentioning them in order does not mean that I say they are linear. And yes, you're boring me on this one, too.

Right from the horse's mouth (with my underlining):

"So DV will likely nudge up to that limit as HD drops like a brick to it."

Maybe it was a metaphor...

Well bravo =) Didn't hurt to be straightforward, did it? And here I thought you'd be a bitter old lady for the rest of this message. My point of course IS NOT linear degradation, it's associative.

I am completely straightforward in my boring technological way. You talk about "associative" resolution, like that means anything.... :eek:

Lo and behold, I was to find out later on that the movie was done on film and the fightscene was done with a lowly DV camera used for pre-viz only. So in this case, DV complemented modern-traditional and put a cherry on top.

Really? That's something new to me. I thought the previz stayed in previz, they didn't use the material in the finished product. I searched the Net for some references about that to confirm or infirm, and I failed to find anything. Can you please point me in the right direction?

Because if you mean the fight scene which is commonly reffered to as the "Augumentation Room Fight" between Wolverine and Lady DeathStrikeWhatever, the interviews on the web suggest it was very much shot on film, it involved heavy CG effects (over 90 shots, from rig removals to CG claws) and it took I believe over 3 weeks to shoot.

American Cinematographer is actually pretty clear on this point:

"With the exception of one flashback scene captured on cross-processed color-reversal stock, Sigel shot X2 on Kodak Vision 500T 5279 and the new Vision2 500T 5218."

Those are very real film markets, thank you very much. In terms of film production, the far east and asia minor - nevermind asia as a whole - churn out more movies than hollywood does, unless you mean mindshare. In which case, only Bollywood can come even remotely close - which it doesn't by far.

Oh, really? That is nice to know. Except... the statistics (http://www.afc.gov.au/gtp/acompfilms.html) say something else entirely. Granted, they are a bit old, but I doubt things changed so dramatically in the last couple of years. The entire Asia region can barely equal the US production numbers and it's nowhere near what Bollywood outputs.

Perhaps you have access to better, more in-depth statistics? I'd love to see them.

Moreover, as the MPAA points out (http://www.mpaa.org/useconomicreview/2002/MPA%20Snap%20Shot%202002%20Intl%20Theatrical%20Market.pdf), even in terms of box-office, the entire Asia region is behind EMEA and far behind the US market.

The reason I make such generalised statements is because, whether you like it or not, 'they' are all part of the general movie-making planet. So to you, they may be 'those places'. But for a vast number of moviemakers, it is simply called home. Movies don't stop being movies simply because they are made elsewhere. I simply refer to it that way without mention.

OK. But you just need to ask yourself exactly what influence your film markets have on the global movie making world. And I mean naturally economic and technological influence, so don't hurry to mention the Hong Kong New Wave or whatnot. Whether you like it or not, even your film markets will eventually follow whatever trends the US and Indian markets set. And if that trend is HD, then guess what...

This is where things can get repetitive if I start talking about the whole cost issue all over again. I'll just append what I meant by movie-makers as referred to above. In what you call 'those places' and what I refer to as movie-makers overall, HD is not cheaper than film by FAR.

Now "those places" have become "movie-makers overall" in your mind? Interesting. Soon, they will be the movie-makers fullstop, right? That's like inverse globalization, n'est pas?

I think I know my argument better than you do =) I won't bother explaining what a metaphor is because I think you already know. You're just deflecting what is so obviously a dead-end. None of these high-end guys are going to go all-HD for ANY REASON. Free software just gives them more reason not to. Trying to use my own metaphors against me. Tut!

Heh, that's the problem with using metaphors, dear Jamo. They turn and bite you in the a@@. But my point is very clear, no deflection whatsoever: R&H are known to use lower end cheaper tools, when they make economic sense, even though they make compromises (including quality-wise). We'll see soon enough whether they will adopt HD or not (which will of course depend mainly on how many HD-shot films they will work on), but that much is clear right now.

And a nifty quote from Scott Byrd, PR @ Rhythm & Hues, as a tangent to the whole discussion:

"Our hardware is made up primarily of commodity PC’s, with high-end graphics cards and speedy processors running Linux and NT operating systems. "

Ah, those metaphorical "flames", how they keep diminishing and diminishing and diminishing...

But thanks to Andrei, the wonderful world of used machinery is not even needed anymore because of that great Linux solution you mentioned =) Even more reason why HIGH-END WILL NEVER GO ALL-HD. That will probably be repeated about as many times as 'The Point of DV...' until you get it.

Right, well, you know, my dear Jamo, the newly released smoke on Linux doesn't do even HD, not to mention 2k or higher. Ooops. Perhaps now you get it, though I don't get my hopes up.

No, you're argument was that it would be easier than traditional film distribution.

Yep, and indeed it is.

Let me give you another example of what intrinsec benefits a digital distribution model would have in curbing piracy:

It is entirely trivial (translated for Jamo: cheap, easy, fast) to implement logging in a digital projector, and make it entirely unaccesible except for authorized personnel. This will show all the runs that a particular movie copy had. This means that no employee in a theater will dare to organize late-night empty hall shooting shows, where the pirates have the opportunity to install the camera in the perfect place, frame the screen, expose properly & so on. One more theft avenue closed, just by snapping your fingers. If that ain't easy, I dunno what is.

I was NEVER talking about shipping prices, it was security. I think that when I said that we were talking about security and wondered why you were talking about shipping prices, it was pretty clear.

You kept mentioning expenses, volume & handling, so I assumed you meant shipping. Silly me.

Now I (hope) I understand: you meant costs for securing the movie, right?

Film releases are entirely unsecure (minus the watermarking schemes that destroy the picture quality in recent releases), except by the virtue of the fact not everybody has a telecine. Just like digital cinema distribution would be entirely unsecure if there would be no special encryption/watermarking, except by the virtue of the fact not everybody has a digital cinema projector/decoder.

Hopefully this makes it clear enough, even for you, why all the proprietary nature of digital cinema is not a cost, but a feature. Any security measures (like encryption, DRM or watermarking) would be an add-on to that already pretty secure system, and wouldn't increase the costs in any significant way.

These are just three off the top of my head. I am sure there are others but they would probably be describable by any of the above. The likely customers for the pirated digital release and not just pirated home movie would likely be the high-tech bastards. I add that a non-permanent venue operator who's aiming higher is also a possible user.

It's really easy to hook up a DVD player to a projector. Really, no rocket science.

But again, I ask, how comes these operations are not shut down? Especially the more organized high-end ones? Surely the equipment, advertising & exposure would make them sitting ducks in the face of an investigation.

Let me offer you the answer as well: your police forces are corrupt, your legal system doesn't give a damn and probably all sorts of nasty mafia types are behind them anyway. So the fact that such places exist is an entirely local phenomenon.

If these types of operations would hurt the bottom line of the film production companies, they would be far more vocal about it - because as you noticed yourself, they certainly aren't naive. But, guess what? The VCDs, DVDs and DivXs hurt them much more. Don't explain they lump them together with regular DVD piracy - any bean-counter at a movie studio would see that such a illegal theater for a mass audience is a separate threat.

See above for why they might feel they have to. You're still thinking that they'll just stick with DVD's and VCD's when I've already told you why they won't. That's why you don't get this. For another thing, they are movie pirates, not soundtrack pirates. So that was a bad example to begin with.

Heh, that's again ridiculous, Jamo. If your evil pirates would care about quality, they would take the 2 minutes necessary to sync a DTS track to such a release. It's really a no-brainer. Surely such a quality conscious pirate that setups fancy permanent theaters cannot afford to let their audience hear mono muffled sound, right?

I know you want to make it into a bad example, but sorry, it's actually the perfect example as to why digital distribution is not in any way inherently more vulnerable. Basically, today, pirates have opportunities to steal digital copies of parts of the movie (namely the soundtrack) in order to improve the quality of their "releases", yet they don't do it, even though there are no special protection measures.

Just like tomorrow, pirates won't bother to steal digital copies of the image and digital copies of the sound, when they can get them through other means.

My feeling bored is lots better than your feeling dumb =) If I don't see any maturity in your reply and just see how I'm going to be bored or GOD knows what else, don't expect me to reply back, k?

You know what they say: "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." I myself preffer to admit when I am feeling dumb or ignorant, and try to correct it, but...

Anyways, I think will let the insults and name calling (to which I believe I never demeaned myself with in our dialog) on your part pass , because frankly, I suspect I am the more mature one. But, definately, feel free to go away, though I admit I will miss being amused by somebody who can be so stubborn in defending that "2k" is in fact "vertical resolution"... :thumbsup:

Cheers,
The Bitter Old Lady

P.S.: Should I even dare to bring up "Once upon a Time in Mexico", or will that bore you to death? :D