Average cinema screen resolution??

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went to watch 2012 few days ago with the lady and the entire film looked really soft and subtle, almost like dvd-quality on a V10 panny.
is this because i'm sooo used to watching HD material? at home i watch nothing but HD material... wether it be sky hd/bluray or pc hd files etc.
i know each cinema screen will probably vary from one another but does anyone what kinda resolution the average cinemas screen has?
 
went to watch 2012 few days ago with the lady and the entire film looked really soft and subtle, almost like dvd-quality on a V10 panny.
is this because i'm sooo used to watching HD material? at home i watch nothing but HD material... wether it be sky hd/bluray or pc hd files etc.
i know each cinema screen will probably vary from one another but does anyone what kinda resolution the average cinemas screen has?

It's not really a resolution at all as it is made from grains similar to salt. However, most of your HD material is taken from this image, and downscaled. Currently, if you want to see true HD you need to watch Pixar movies, or CGI movies like Avatar, as they are the only true HD material around. Red cameras are about to change all of that with true HD digital abilities, but they haven't quite got this right yet. The closest you can currently get to HD in actual film is Baraka, which is downscaled 70mm film using a home built camera, but even this film contains grain. Grain is the missing colours between the grains of salt, and you could call it missing pixels too when it is digitised, although the pixels have been softened by light passing between the two colours either side of them. A lot of film buffs actually like this grain, and they want movies to look like this even in the future.

What this rounds down to is that cinema is about 4k, but with missing colours, and your HD material is about 2k also with missing colours. Wait for Red cameras to change this situation, and you will get true HD.
 
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It's not really a resolution at all as it is made from grains similar to salt. However, most of your HD material is taken from this image, and downscaled. Currently, if you want to see true HD you need to watch Pixar movies, or CGI movies like Avatar, as they are the only true HD material around. Red cameras are about to change all of that with true HD digital abilities, but they haven't quite got this right yet. The closest you can currently get to HD in actual film is Baraka, which is downscaled 70mm film using a home built camera, but even this film contains grain. Grain is the missing colours between the grains of salt, and you could call it missing pixels too when it is digitised, although the pixels have been softened by light passing between the two colours either side of them. A lot of film buffs actually like this grain, and they want movies to look like this even in the future.

What this rounds down to is that cinema is about 4k, but with missing colours, and your HD material is about 2k also with missing colours. Wait for Red cameras to change this situation, and you will get true HD.

Once again Pincho you've muddied the waters, that's no explanation.

to the OP do a search on the forums and you will get a much better explanation.
 
went to watch 2012 few days ago with the lady and the entire film looked really soft and subtle, almost like dvd-quality on a V10 panny.
is this because i'm sooo used to watching HD material? at home i watch nothing but HD material... wether it be sky hd/bluray or pc hd files etc.
i know each cinema screen will probably vary from one another but does anyone what kinda resolution the average cinemas screen has?

Check out these threads :smashin:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/high...re/315206-whats-resolution-cinema-screen.html

http://www.avforums.com/forums/movies-cinema/932234-picture-quality-cinema-v-hdtv.html
 
At it's simplest, digital cinemas range anywhere from 2k to 4k resolution. 2k is only just a little more than Blu Ray at 2048x1080. 4k jumps up to 4096x2160.
 
Watch a flm in 70mm and be prepared to be blown away
Assuming the cinema has a decent quality print. I saw a series of 70mm presentations at the Berlin film festival last year. Some were spectacular (Patton, West Side Story), but some were disappointing (e.g. Ben Hur).
 
Assuming the cinema has a decent quality print. I saw a series of 70mm presentations at the Berlin film festival last year. Some were spectacular (Patton, West Side Story), but some were disappointing (e.g. Ben Hur).


Well i took that the print would be good as a given tbh but you do have a point.... I take it the Ben Hur was the 1995 print which was struck from one of the most hated negatives in existence; the 1968 version, it is truely appalling.. The problem is the original negatives have been mucked about with so much its impossible to create a print in the original format from them.
 
Here we go with Pincho world again.

The image on print film consists of dye not "salt". The silver halide ("salts" if you like) are there to make the film photo-reactive and give the dye something to acrete around. Normal film developing removes pretty most of the silver halide from a piece of film. You are not seeing "salt" you are seeing "dye".

In my experience HD from BD with its associated compression compares a little better than 1k material (1024x768) :ie about half the resolution available from 2k ( 2048x1556) which is what the vast majority of films are mastered at.

HD from BD has a meagre video dynamic range and associated 8bit 4:2:0 component color sampling.

DCi material in a cinema is nearer to print film in terms of gamut and dynamic range.

DCi material on a good 2k projector ( Barco DP100) on a reasonable sized screen looks as good if not better than a 35mm print in terms of dynamic range and color. I speak from experience.

A half decent print still blows away HD video in terms of dynamic range and color but might lose out to it in terms of sharpness. Although with a very good print well projected the film will give little away in sharpness relative to HD.

The 4k Red camera actually captures something more like 3k because of debayering. The color capabilities of the red camera are frankly unpleasant in my opinion and I have never seen Red footage that I personally thought looked as good as 2k film scans.
 
Sharpness is certainly not everything and the obsession with it in the Digital World has always bothered me, its starting to get in the way of the picture especially when some studios seem to be pushing the image that step to far.

One problem now is that films are becoming so sharp in there (home) digital formats that they bear no comparism to the look of the original prints and some are so bad they have lost that look of film all together (and I dont mean images that are sourced in digital)

There was an interesting article a few months ago in American Cinematographer with Janusz Kaminski who did a retrospect on some of his work and said if he knew that final interpositives and the latest digital finals were going to be rendered so sharply he would have to ask for new lenses to soften the image down to make it film like again.
 
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went to watch 2012 few days ago with the lady and the entire film looked really soft and subtle, almost like dvd-quality on a V10 panny.

We have been both spoilt at home with good HD systems and material and terribly badly let down by the UK cinema industry who thinks it's OK to show bad prints, out of focus in badly setup and overly bright rooms.

Last time I went the to "local" cinema (digital projection being a different kettle of worms) to see No Country For Old Men I was distracted by trying to see if I could resolve any detail in the plants in the desert scenes - nope. Looked like the equivalent of an SD picture to my eyes. Once I got the BluRay at home I was once again blown away by what should be possible and why I don't really go to the cinema much at all anymore.

On the other hand I did go to the Barbican on Monday (£5.50 all tickets etc.) to see Where The Wild Things Are and it was hard to tell if the projection was digital or just very well setup film print. I never did check at the end.
 
Here we go with Pincho world again.

The image on print film consists of dye not "salt". The silver halide ("salts" if you like) are there to make the film photo-reactive and give the dye something to acrete around. Normal film developing removes pretty most of the silver halide from a piece of film. You are not seeing "salt" you are seeing "dye".

In my experience HD from BD with its associated compression compares a little better than 1k material (1024x768) :ie about half the resolution available from 2k ( 2048x1556) which is what the vast majority of films are mastered at.

HD from BD has a meagre video dynamic range and associated 8bit 4:2:0 component color sampling.

DCi material in a cinema is nearer to print film in terms of gamut and dynamic range.

DCi material on a good 2k projector ( Barco DP100) on a reasonable sized screen looks as good if not better than a 35mm print in terms of dynamic range and color. I speak from experience.

A half decent print still blows away HD video in terms of dynamic range and color but might lose out to it in terms of sharpness. Although with a very good print well projected the film will give little away in sharpness relative to HD.

The 4k Red camera actually captures something more like 3k because of debayering. The color capabilities of the red camera are frankly unpleasant in my opinion and I have never seen Red footage that I personally thought looked as good as 2k film scans.

Mr.D, we were discussing this in another thread recently. I offered that when 'the next format' appears with higher storage capacity/bitrate, etc than Blu-ray Disc, they'd be better off using the extra to improve the colour sampling and decrease the data compression rather than increasing the resolution. Would you agree?

Steve W
 
Mr.D, we were discussing this in another thread recently. I offered that when 'the next format' appears with higher storage capacity/bitrate, etc than Blu-ray Disc, they'd be better off using the extra to improve the colour sampling and decrease the data compression rather than increasing the resolution. Would you agree?

Steve W

Yes. I still think 720p with 4:4:4 color sampling and a dynamic range closer to DCi would be more visually impressive than 8bit 4:2:0 1080p. However bear in mind most consumer displays (even top of the line) struggle to get truly transparent to 8bits anyway.
 
The 4k Red camera actually captures something more like 3k because of debayering. The color capabilities of the red camera are frankly unpleasant in my opinion and I have never seen Red footage that I personally thought looked as good as 2k film scans.

Interesting, I've heard things about RED's colour before. But for 15-20K investment it appears to be as good as one could get. I only mention this as I we're thinking of getting one for our production company.
 
Interesting, I've heard things about RED's colour before. But for 15-20K investment it appears to be as good as one could get. I only mention this as I we're thinking of getting one for our production company.

They are still improving these cameras. It's like digital still cameras, there is a new one out every year that improves on the last, and you can't keep up with them. The colours that the Red camera currently produces look clipped, perhaps due to the speed of capture that is required not allowing for a full pallette. But if you hang on maybe a year they will soon fix this.
 
Thanks for that, though I'm not sure that the speed of the camera has anything to do with its colour issues. I'm pretty convinced if they can shoot big screen stuff like "Knowing, Che and even Wallander" and make it look good, it isn't going to be a problem for us. Though I respect Mr D's very well articulated industry experience - this is in a different league to my line of work - namely corporate films and short drama.

Unfortunately I can't hang on a year, my business is dictating that I get one as the demand has arisen and it was just his comments in this thread that I was drawn to.
 
Thanks for that, though I'm not sure that the speed of the camera has anything to do with its colour issues. I'm pretty convinced if they can shoot big screen stuff like "Knowing, Che and even Wallander" and make it look good, it isn't going to be a problem for us. Though I respect Mr D's very well articulated industry experience - this is in a different league to my line of work - namely corporate films and short drama.

Unfortunately I can't hang on a year, my business is dictating that I get one as the demand has arisen and it was just his comments in this thread that I was drawn to.

It'll cost you more than 20k with all the required bits and then you still need to invest in lenses...ouch.

Still MUCH cheaper than buying most other cinecams though
 
In the long run, certainly.

But we're not a new business, we've got loads of stuff already we won't have to re-purchase like camera support, follow-focus, outboard monitors and some lenses that will help.

The initial outlay will be around £16K plus taxes.
 

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