Kevin Cannon
Forum Replies Created
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About 5 months ago I switched from a set-up like your first to a set-up like your second, except I keep the 24″ reference monitor on my desk and have an additional larger panasonic plasma mounted against the wall in front of the couch.
For material that is intended for TV and Web I’m a little more confident in having the client looking at the plasma, but I have a chair behind me as well if I notice that some shot isn’t rendering accurately on the plasma I can invite them back to look at it properly… some clients just want to sit back there anyway…
I haven’t had an issue with communication, except it’s easier for the clients to fall asleep when they’re in front… and once the room is set up with everybody facing that far wall, it’s tough to resist getting a projector…
KC
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
“OK, now let me have it :)”
Since you asked!
I’ve shot a number of projects on my 720p Varicam (720×960 pixels). I’ve projected them in large theaters on high quality 2k projectors. They look as detailed as any 35mm print at the multiplex. And, overall, better than film projection.
If the prints in your multiplex are a few generations removed from the DI (interpositive/internegative etc.) the effective resolution can deteriorate pretty quickly – but a showprint of the same movie well projected might reveal a lot more detail. And watching dailies printed right from the camera negative show just how much detail 35mm has a capture medium…granted that detail that will get lost in either a normal DI or photochemical process, but it’s nice to know it’s there.
“There are very, very few frames, maybe one of every 15 or so, that is sharp. This is due to motion blur and imprecise focus.”
Well, blurry things and out of focus things benefit from higher resolution and less compression as well… and 1/2″ DOF isn’t a feature of the format, just a cinematography choice…
“We just did a test screening of a blue-ray from the 720p Varicam on a large screen. No one will know that it was not a 1080p original, really. And no one will say it looked softer than a normal film at the cinema.”
The last few times I’ve encountered 720p footage intercut with 1080p or 2K (usually from the same cameras as a speed effect) it stood out a lot. Perhaps it benefits from not being compared side by side, or some highly effective up-resing. But from the material I’ve shot and colored, I think there’s a significantly greater perceivable difference between 720p and 1080p than say 2K and 4K. Somebody sitting 10m away from a 12m wide screen should be able to make out a pixel every 3mm (according to Arri) or 4,000 pixels wide… so all of these should be within the boundaries of human perception…
But there are a lot of other factors – Pixar rendered their first Toy Story theatrical release at sub-HD resolutions to dedicate more time and money to anti-aliasing, and it holds up great…
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
Well the screen is bigger but you don\’t sit six feet away. The farther you sit or the smaller the screen, you won\’t be able to perceive differences in resolution.
But ultimately when Transformers comes out, you can sit up-close in IMAX and decide if it was the right choice. But Avatar had a similar IMAX 3D release from 1080p cameras, with few complaints and an Oscar to boot.
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
Check this out, it’s a really comprehensive study by Arri about 2K and 4K systems used in motion picture with theatrical distribution:
https://www.arri.com/?eID=registration&file_uid=3525
One issue it covers is how close the audience has to sit to see a resolution difference between HD, 2K and 4K – a lot of people don’t like to sit close that close (though the Arri study thinks that “limit of visual perception” is much higher than 4K, others disagree.)
A lot of other factors – bit depth, color accuracy, high quality image-processing, lack of artifacts, noise, or compression can be more important than resolution to the look of the final, and the Genesis, f23, f35, and Alexa tend to excel there more than “4K cameras”…
Also, there are no truly 4K or 5K cameras out there – the RED only gets to that resolution through post-process debayering. It’s chip has a bayer-pattern sensor where each pixel of the image has only a Red, a Green, or a Blue photosite. Whereas the Genesis only has 1920 pixels in width, each one has a red, green, and blue photosite. So in terms of the actual photosites, there’s not a large difference – obviously Panavision is disappointed that most people take RED’s resolution claims at face value…
The Arri report concludes that the only way to really get 4K all the way through is shooting 35mm, but we’ll see how things progress…
KC
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
That sounds right, but ask the lab what information they need and if they need particular specs. If you say “DPX 10-bit RGB Rec 709, 0-1023” and perhaps the gamma (again, ask them) they should know what to do and have the necessary LUTs to do it…but definitely ask.
KC
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
I believe those LUTs are supposed to be used when you will output DPX (or other) and need to have legally scaled values in those flies. Without using them, Resolve will always render DPX in the 0-1023 range that it works with internally…
You don’t need to apply those for grading, because if you monitor needs or is set for legally scaled video (likely can be set for either), you can enable “legally scaled values” in the monitoring config right above the “1080p 24 4:2:2” selection. That will scale the values on the SDI and HDMI outputs, but any DPX (or other) renders will still be unscaled. In the deck config you can do the same if you need to scale the values coming in and out of the deck…
You could have your monitors set to expect scaled, Resolve sending scaled to the monitors, and output DPX files in 0-1023 without those LUTs, if that is an acceptable delivery.
KC
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
The Mac OS allows you to edit the keyboard shortcuts for menu bar items in a specific program – go to system preferences > keyboard > keyboard shortcuts and click “Application Shortcuts.” Then you can add shortcuts by pressing the +, selecting Davinci Resolve, and typing in the EXACT name of the menu item, like “Six Vector – Red” or “Enable/Disable Current.”
Works great for the Logitech g13…
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
Ah thanks, guess I never noticed it was a menu item…
KC
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
So to be sure that I’m following this correctly:
There are two places to set scaled/unscaled, in the Deck Capture and Playback config and in the Monitoring config. DaVinci internally uses 0-1023 regardless of these settings (the manual calls this “computer levels”) so selecting scaled in the Deck Capture and Playback makes sure it converts 64-1023 to 0-1023 on input and converts 0-1023 to 64-940 on output, and unscaled leaves it alone.
Whereas the monitoring scaled/unscaled only affects monitoring, so if your display device is expecting a 64-940 range, you select scaled so it presents your internally 0-1023 image correctly. But you’re not really “grading” in scaled, just monitoring. Because it’s still 0-1023 internally and I believe exporting a 10-bit DPX without any LUTs will still give you a 0-1023 image… at least that what Nuke tells me when I spot-meter DPX SMPTE bars.
Does that sound right? For simplicity I have all my monitors at scaled to 16-235/64-1023 even though I output DPX and specify 0-1023 (presuming that the i/o facility will scale as necessary).
But I’d be curious if there was a function somewhere (rather than a LUT) that would use the same math for the DPX output to go out scaled…
KC
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com -
I’ve run into more glitches in the final renders when the source material is ProRes than I have when DPX is the source. Specifically, ProRes 4444 and 422 titles sequences on my last project would render with occasional all-green frames, but when the clips were converted to DPX and then rendered, the green frames were gone.
That said, most of the time it works as advertised.
If you anticipate a lot of dustbusting, the dirt tool doesn’t work on quicktime sources…
prehistoricdigital.com
hardworkingpixels.com