Does "4K" really matter?

[V.Sweeney]

Roger, thank you for taking your time to read this.

I try to pay little attention to what the latest marketing technique is from camera companies, esp. the newer ones, but I was wondering what your stand on this whole 4K debate is, related to cine cameras and projection, since it keeps creeping into general view of any production reading or conversation.

For scanning 35mm film, it seems that everyone agrees that real 4K scans are the best way to get the most out of it. Of course right now we rarely if ever get to see that full benefit in a theater which are projecting 2K, even if they have 4K projectors, or are showing film prints which seem to often be out of focus or beaten up. But it remains that 4K post and archiving seems to be the best or ideal route overall for 35mm and below.

For the web and video games, it looks like 720 is normal for now, but more 1080 is showing up. The best TV experiences that I have seen currently are 35mm originated 1080 Bluray films, playing on a Panasonic 1080 plasma. This at about 7 feet from a 46" screen. I have seen a 4K monitor that looked really impressive up close, but at that same 7 feet, it could have been 1080 or 2K and I'm not sure I'd have known or even could see the difference.

With some current and surely coming cinema projectors being 4K (hopefully their delivery method will catch up soon) how do you feel about using cameras like the Alexa at 2K? What do you think about archiving the 2K you are getting when in ten years we may be looking at 4K+ viewing as the norm, maybe even at home? YouTube has a 4K system in place for what I guess will be higher-end home movie rental via download to your (future) 4K TV.? I guess what I'm getting at is, do you think that 2K digital acquisition is about as far as it needs to go for now and is there much difference the human eye can see beyond it, given how we mostly watch films now? Will your 2K movie be just fine in this next system? (This is all being asked while keeping in mind that there is a lot more to just pixel count in a digital camera!) And with Aaton building a 6K (optical viewfinder) camera, and Sony likely doing a 4K camera soon, you have to wonder how fast the viewing systems will develop to catch up with all of this too. The TV guys need to keep selling and 3D is just today's trend.

The red cameras often don't look any better than some 1080p cameras I have seen projected, or on pro monitors, so I don't think their version of the tech is making a good case yet, after all it was more marketing than anything else, especially at first. Some 1080 shots I have seen look sharper than red's stuff. Not that sharper is always better, but 4K is being sold that way to laymen. Superman Returns was shot 1080p years ago and outside of the odd skin tones and digital look, the technical resolution held up on a full size IMAX screen. Same with Avatar and Tron. But having said that, if 70mm IMAX really is around "8K", it does look a lot different/immersive so my eye can feel that increase, although its because of the huge IMAX screen only, I think, and the unique properties of 70mm film projection which I'm not sure will translate digitally anytime soon. I saw the last Batman movie in a 70mm IMAX and the 15 perf 65mm shots really, really stood out. However I saw it later in a normal theater and they were barely noticeable at all so I am not so sure if more was really any better, outside of a real IMAX system or some future, very high-res screen.

I know everyone feels stagnant if things aren't changing every month these days, but I question a lot of the "progress" decisions being made. Seeing the truth behind the hype is getting tougher although I don't know how valuable knowing more is at this point for me. Do I need to worry about what a distributor is going to ask for 3,4... 10 years from now? Could they be talked into wanting only "4K" material with enough hype? Can I just shoot the next narrative project on what I want to and not worry? Well, it is hard not to worry when you are producing something.

By the way, seeing Black Swan on old 16mm recently was refreshing among all this "progress", I have to admit, and so well done!

[MarcVanOsdale]

There is not a noticeable difference between 1080 and 4K on a majority of the movie screens in the world...how could there be any difference on a 50" television screen. As technology advances, I hope that online distribution whether it be google or netflix will improve their compression rate instead of increasing the amount of pixels you see.

Also, the number of 3D screens in the world has quadrupled in the past 12 months...I don't think it is just a trend of today. It seems like it's become cool to trash the notion of 3D because so many bad films are being released in 3D (as if they weren't making rubbish in 2D 18 months ago). I'm just as clueless as everyone else about what will happen in the next 10 years, but I think it's pretty certain that you'll be seeing a lot more 3D than 4K at home.

[Roger]

There is as much hype about the 'excellence' of film as there is about many of the new digital cameras. How quickly we can gloss over the unstable projection, the scratches and reel change dirt, the quality loss that comes from a poor dupe (any dupe) or a blow up done with a bad optical lens.
Interesting that a film out from the Alexa, which is less than a 2K original, looks far better at 4K than at 2K. And I do mean far better! Just because your projector is 2K, in the short term only, doesn't mean that a 4K original won't look 'better' than a 2K original.
'O Brother Where Art Thou' was done on a very low resolution system but I felt it was still the best approach for the film. It's always a balance. would I have liked to shoot that film at 8K? Of course! I might have screwed with the image to get exactly the same result but I would have liked to have started with something 'better'.
I agree that 'Black Swan' looked excellent but I think that had all to do with the man behind the camera and not the emulsion, or the fact that it he was shooting on emulsion for the majority of the 'film'.

[70mmDP]

I saw True Grit just this evening on a 2k projection system, and I admit that I am a real stickler for image quality... It really didn't do it for me. The film was beautiful, Roger you did a grand job, but I kept seeing pixels in the 2k projection and when I see that it takes me away from the story.

I would dearly love to see a film print of the movie.

Congratulations on the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award!

James Neihouse

[Roger]

I understand. We had a screening at the Academy a few weeks ago and I asked them to project a digital copy. I don't know what projector they have but I thought the image quality was excellent. No pixels to my eye. It was also very sharp and very steady! When you go through a DI process the problem is that the film will never look as good as the DI file. There is always that image quality loss because of the printing process. I prefer digital projection even at 2K, though I recently heard from a friend who had seen the film on a 4K projector! One day.

[70mmDP]

Ah, yes, I forget that it must be filmed out from the DI and there will be a quality loss there. I'm slowly catching up to this digital thing.

We had the similar issues with our last IMAX space film, we shot in 15 perf. 65mm but it was only scanned at 5.6K, then filmed out to 70mm, just didn't look the same as the prints from an I.N.

[citizen yo]

I prefer digital projection even at 2K,

you prefer a digital projection to a 35mm projection?

[Roger]

Th way I have seen some film prints projected lately, yes, I prefer to see digital projection even if it has to be 2K. As I said, there is no quality loss from the scanned negative to the digital projector at any theatre the film might be viewed in - other than the down res from 4K to 2K if the projector is 2K and the film scan is 4K. With film there is the loss of resolution from the output neg to the print and even further loss if the print is made from an IP/IN.

[dotes]

This seems like a good topic to sneak in a related question to Roger.
I wonder how do you handle the inherent difference in color space between release print film and digital master. In the grading process do you aim to produce the same looking film in both outputs (lowest common denominator), or do you embrace the differences (deeper cyan hues available in film, deeper red hues possible in current generation digital, if I recall correctly) and grade specifically for each? The first approach sounds more practical, and the second should be using the technology to its limits.
Also, somewhat related: how do you find the color sensitivity of the Alexa? Does it exceed (or mimic?) the typical color response of film?

[citizen yo]

agreed. I was a the movies yesterday, and I saw a 35mm trailer of "somewhere". It looked grainy, but in a ugly way. I don't know if it had to do with resolution but I'm sure harris savides would have not recognized his own work...

[Roger]

I have always had a problem with skin tones since I have been finishing through a DI. Faces seem to take on a red blotchy look which I am forever suppressing. If the negative were being printed directly there would not be an issue, as I have seen on the occasions when I have printed film dailies of a shot. Otherwise I have found few colour transfer issues. Where I have had problems in the past it has been with contrast rather than colour rendition.
The Alexa seems to have better, or should I say more accurate, colour rendition than film. I say that especially because of the way the camera renders the subtleties of skin tones, which is not short of extraordinary. The camera has a greater exposure latitude than film, which is also very helpful in the DI suite. From the tests I have done, taking the Alexa file through to a final film print, I expect to spend less time in a DI suite than in the past.

[Subhadip]

There's an excellent whitepaper from Arri which answers the question. In short, yes, 4K does matter.

[Marco]

Roger, do you know, if "True Grit" will be presented in 2k, 4k or on film at the Berlin Film Festival? The "Berlinale Filmpalast" (the main cinema at the festival) is a great cinema and I am very excited to watch the movie there!

[Roger]

Sorry, I don't have that information right now.

[V.Sweeney]

Back to what I saying then... if 4K does matter for big screens, or even in the not too far off future of home viewing, then why is the Alexa "2K" and how do you feel about shooting with something that will need to be "uprezzed" to fit that standard not long from now?

Is it a case where even when uprezzed for a 4K DI, the Alexa still looks better (or is more practical) to you than other digital cameras/35mm?

I guess I'm talking mostly about longevity here. For example, if I were shooting a specialty doc project that I knew would be shown in some theaters, and it was going to take two years+ before it was going to be finished, then might that 2K/1080 spec be a (small) problem at the time of screening?

Of course content will rule, like always, but trying to future proof as much as you can in this frustrating time is a concern.