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OT – Filmmaker mode on UHD TVs
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Yedlin’s findings in his exhaustive resolution analysis continue to be the definitive statement on the issue:
https://ascmag.com/articles/a-clear-look-at-the-issue-of-resolution
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmprods
tallmanproductions.net -
Every time I get that article pulled up with this same argument I ask the same questions. If resolution truly doesn’t matter beyond a certain point, why did any films ever use 65mm? Or super 35? Why isn’t everything 16mm? Why did people want to see imax? Would Lawrence of Arabia have worked as well using a super 16mm camera?
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
Films shown in a cinema, and tv in your living room, are surely two different things. Cinema screens got bigger in the 1950s to make the visit more of an event, and take you away from this new fangled tv thing – that in the big market of the US, was free.
If you make the screen bigger, you need a higher resolution origination, hence 70mm etc. You go along wanting to be impressed for your money, so big screen and big sound are important. At home, most people TVs are part of the environment – you talk, cook, clean, whatever – and mostly you don’t concentrate nearly as hard as when you went out and spent a fortune.
Would Lawrence of Arabia have worked as well on Super 16?
Hmmmm……..
At some point – actually very early on for most – the story is more important than any technical thing. A long time ago I was loaned a copy of a Harry Potter film that hadn’t yet been released. It was on rough third hand VHS – a very ripped off rip off. Did I watch with my young son? Of course. Did we enjoy it (mostly him)? Yes we did. 4k, 8k, any k you like, is so down the scale compared to “Is it a good story?” .
I have a projector here – part of my teaching gear – that can put an enormous picture on my wall. Combine it with some decent sound, and it would be a match for most current multiscreen cinemas. Do I do that? No, can’t be bothered. I watch the most tv here in front of a standard HD 21″ monitor about 2ft away, with good 5.1 sound if available. I could afford any of those huge screen TVs from Currys or John Lewis but it’s all down to viewing angle – if I had a huge screen I couldn’t sit here, I’d have to be across the room so as not to keep having to turn my head all the time.
In the end, story is all, even if the cinematography and editing is superlative, if the story is crap – click.
Bernie
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“If resolution truly doesn’t matter beyond a certain point, why did any films ever use 65mm? Or super 35? Why isn’t everything 16mm? Why did people want to see imax? Would Lawrence of Arabia have worked as well using a super 16mm camera?””
I don’t think the point of Steve Yedlin’s demo is that resolution doesn’t matter, I think it’s to illustrate that higher spacial resolution (more k’s) doesn’t mean more perceived detail to the viewer. Cinematographers choose specific camera systems, aspect ratios, film stocks and formats for a variety of reasons – resolution as most people think about it, is probably near the bottom of the list. I mean, he did shoot Star Wars: The Last Jedi on the Alexa 65, the XT and the Amira, so he must have some idea of what he’s talking about. ☺
Did you find Hurt Locker or Black Swan of lower visual quality than say, Interstellar or Avatar (assuming you saw those films)?
Shawn
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Shane: Odd…I can’t “QUOTE” anything.
Yes, definitely broken. I hope you may have noticed that we’re doing some major renovation at the COW right now. Look for something considerably grander than just fixing the quote mechanism, coming soon!
Shane: Are TVs not durable anymore?
In general, no, they’re not. We were not even vaguely in the market for a new TV, but our old one was losing vertical lines. Instead of responsive sets of pixels, it’d just be a column of blue, next to a column of red, green, etc. A few more vertical bands of solid color would appear every few days. When about a quarter of the screen wasn’t viewable any longer, we thought, hmmm, next sale, let’s hop on something.
So our thinking was, if we’re gonna keep this for as long as we possibly can, it’s silly NOT to get 4K and HDR, especially for $400-ish. If we get similar mileage out of this one that we got out of the last one, that’ll take us to 2025-ish, when all this stuff will be old news, and 8K will have become all but ubiquitous.
We’re at an inflection point like we were for HD at the turn of the century. There were screens showing the right number of pixels, but they didn’t actually look BETTER than a super-clean composite video signal path on a true broadcast monitor (to say nothing of SDI). Just wider pictures. I can’t even tell you the number of people who came into my office, saw our pristine U-matic or laser disk images showing letterboxed content and said, “Wow! That HD is incredible!” Nope, just good old NTSC done right.
And getting HD was kind of hard, and it wasn’t all very good-looking, but then it got easy, and looked a lot better. It didn’t take long, but it was definitely a process.
The logjam was less the pipe per se than compression technology. We’re pretty well on top of that these days.
In the meantime, not all 4K sources are created equal, but Netflix’s 4K HDR programming is pretty jaw-dropping. Most of Amazon’s originals are in 4K and look terrific. In fact, here’s a list of originals on each of those channels, updated earlier this month.
https://www.trustedreviews.com/how-to/find-netflix-amazon-hdr-content-2942413 (Sorry for the busted link! We’re working on it!)
There’s a bunch more channels that I haven’t attached myself to, but both Apple and Disney+ are going for it in a big way, too.
(By the way, go to D23.com, sign up for a free Disney fan account and get Disney+ for $3.92/mo locked in for 3 years. Total no-brainer, AND unlike Netflix, they’re not charging extra for 4K….but only until Sept 2!)
And yeah, I feel like 8K is where we’re going to land for a good long while. The Olympics have something to do with that, but I feel like there’s also a three axis curve where price, picture quality, and screen size line up.
I actually DID go in for 3D TV (a vastly superior experience at home than in any theater I ever visited) and can tell you categorically this isn’t anything similar to that. It’s much more like HD. 4K and HDR aren’t a fad, nothing you buy will become obsolete any more than your NTSC or 1920/720 HD.
But really, the main thing is, like I said, we’re planning on keeping this for as long as we can, and if the next format is already available for a few hundred bucks all in, it’s silly not to. We’d have saved maybe $75 going HD-only. That would have made no sense at all.
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Totally agree Shane. I had 6 42″ and one 50″ Panasonic Plasma’s from many years ago and they look great. Only a couple of them started to lose a bit of their brightness. Loved the image, but even more the off axis color.
Even sold a 31″ Samsung 4K because the off axis was so bad. I’m not always sitting exactly perpendicular to the screen!
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com
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