Welcome to the Blu-ray Lounge 2012: Q&A Session (2 Viewers)

[Chuck Anstey]

More pixels is the easiest feature to implement on a display and far far easier than making better pixels. Images would benefit from a much higher bit depth and a much larger colorspace, ideally covering 100% of our eyes' range. The problem is that all TVs (with maybe a rare exception) are only 6-bit and if you are lucky the last 2 bits are well faked. Even professional 10-bit displays are really only 8-bit with the last 2 bits well faked. So changing BD to have 10 or 12 bits instead of 8 would result in zero changes to the image viewed at home unless you were using a professional monitor or a projection system as many of those are 10-bit (probably also 8+2). Increasing colorspace significantly is going to take a breakthrough in display technology. When an HDTV says they have deep color, it just means they can accept the signal and display an image after chopping off the last 4 bits, not that the TV is actually capable of displaying a true 12-bit image.
The best we can hope for now given current display technologies would be 4:4:4 color and video encoding that is even closer to the original uncompressed image. The impact of those would be pretty subtle for most people so I don't expect them in my lifetime. Video compression is about attaining a certain level of quality in as few bytes as possible, not attaining the maximum quality in a fixed number of bytes.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Chuck Anstey /t/321471/welcome-to-the-blu-ray-lounge-2012-q-a-session#post_3938101
More pixels is the easiest feature to implement on a display and far far easier than making better pixels. Images would benefit from a much higher bit depth and a much larger colorspace, ideally covering 100% of our eyes' range. The problem is that all TVs (with maybe a rare exception) are only 6-bit and if you are lucky the last 2 bits are well faked. Even professional 10-bit displays are really only 8-bit with the last 2 bits well faked. So changing BD to have 10 or 12 bits instead of 8 would result in zero changes to the image viewed at home unless you were using a professional monitor or a projection system as many of those are 10-bit (probably also 8+2). Increasing colorspace significantly is going to take a breakthrough in display technology. When an HDTV says they have deep color, it just means they can accept the signal and display an image after chopping off the last 4 bits, not that the TV is actually capable of displaying a true 12-bit image.
The best we can hope for now given current display technologies would be 4:4:4 color and video encoding that is even closer to the original uncompressed image. The impact of those would be pretty subtle for most people so I don't expect them in my lifetime. Video compression is about attaining a certain level of quality in as few bytes as possible, not attaining the maximum quality in a fixed number of bytes.

Many here do use projection systems though and that's where benefits would come if they could advance the technology.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Many here do use projection systems though and that's where benefits would come if they could advance the technology.

I also have a projection system in a bat cave and have the visual acuity to benefit from 4K, higher bit-depth, 4:4:4 and less compression but they aren't changing the standard just for me and the relatively few others of us (compared to all consumers of BD) who also could benefit. The target customer is a person watching an HDTV in their living room from 3-5 screen widths away. If they won't see a difference, it won't be changed.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Chuck Anstey /t/321471/welcome-to-the-blu-ray-lounge-2012-q-a-session#post_3938125
The target customer is a person watching an HDTV in their living room from 3-5 screen widths away. If they won't see a difference, it won't be changed.

If they don't see a difference then selling 4K even if it's on an already established blu ray format would flop, i say that because i too often read comments like "the DVD is more detailed than the Blu ray" on sites like Amazon from people who clearly do not calibrate their televisions and sit too far away to see the benefits of 1080p and who do not understand the DVD is probably edge sharpened to death.

Reading what the insiders say i believe the plan is to bring 4K to market so that hardware manufacturers can make money from new tech and at least cost possible to the manufacturers.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

If they don't see a difference then selling 4K even if it's on an already established blu ray format would flop, i say that because i too often read comments like "the DVD is more detailed than the Blu ray" on sites like Amazon from people who clearly do not calibrate their televisions and sit too far away to see the benefits of 1080p and who do not understand the DVD is probably edge sharpened to death.
Reading what the insiders say i believe the plan is to bring 4K to market so that hardware manufacturers can make money from new tech and at least cost possible to the manufacturers.

I don't understand, are you saying it will flop because people already can't tell the difference between DVD and BD but they are going to bring it to market anyway?
There is no hook to sell consumers 4K displays in the next 10 years. There is no format that is 4K and there are no plans for one. For nearly everyone it is visually indistinguishable from 2K (well 1920) even if such a format existed. Unlike HDTV over standard def, there is a visual difference for most people even if they find no value in it. The 3D push does have a visual difference for most people and there is content so that can be pushed hard because if you don't have 3D then you are actually missing something visual even if you don't care about it. People can buy much cheaper, non-3D TV but the hook of "But you might want 3D in the future so you can see 3D at home like the theater" is far stronger than "You might want 4K in the future even though you can't perceive any difference between it and HDTV on your 65" screen at 10 feet".

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Chuck Anstey /t/321471/welcome-to-the-blu-ray-lounge-2012-q-a-session#post_3938141
I don't understand, are you saying it will flop because people already can't tell the difference between DVD and BD but they are going to bring it to market anyway?
There is no hook to sell consumers 4K displays in the next 10 years. There is no format that is 4K and there are no plans for one. For nearly everyone it is visually indistinguishable from 2K (well 1920) even if such a format existed. Unlike HDTV over standard def, there is a visual difference for most people even if they find no value in it. The 3D push does have a visual difference for most people and there is content so that can be pushed hard because if you don't have 3D then you are actually missing something visual even if you don't care about it. People can buy much cheaper, non-3D TV but the hook of "But you might want 3D in the future so you can see 3D at home like the theater" is far stronger than "You might want 4K in the future even though you can't perceive any difference between it and HDTV on your 65" screen at 10 feet".

4K will likely come first via computer displays and laptops, what i am saying is that some people sit too far away from their televisions and do not appreciate blu ray quality, if let's say the typical home television bought in the UK is 42 inches then they need to sit five feet away to see all the resolution in a 1080p display, if they are in fact sitting ten feet away and many do then it's no wonder they don't think it's a big leap over blu ray, now for 4K they would have to sit even closer and it would make no sense on smaller displays at all.

4K is coming and sooner than 10 years, the Playstation Orbis ( 4 ) will be 4K ready, likely 1080p for games but 4K ready, ready for what ? ready for 4K content to be released, that console will come 2014.

You mention 3D, well i see a benefit of 4K and that would be how good 3D could potentially look with this new format, unfortunately it requires more bitrate and higher disc capacity for 3D and if they are going to use BD-50 discs i doubt it will be of any use to improve 3D content.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

You mention 3D, well i see a benefit of 4K  and that would be how good 3D could potentially look with this new format, unfortunately it requires more bitrate and higher disc capacity for 3D and if they are going to use BD-50 discs i doubt it will be of any use to improve 3D content.

You are either missing my point or purposely ignoring it. It isn't that some people can't see the benefit of 4K, I sure can without even trying in my setup, it is that the group of people that see that benefit is inconsequentially small.
I did forget the most important new feature coming and I think it will be the one that drives the next round of "must buy new TV/projector"; that would be 48p. I would much rather have higher frame rates than higher resolution, although again the average consumer would simply turn on frame interpolation and say "close enough" and given how good the implementations have gotten (depending on display), I can't say they are that wrong.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I did forget the most important new feature coming and I think it will be the one that drives the next round of "must buy new TV/projector"; that would be 48p. I would much rather have higher frame rates than higher resolution, although again the average consumer would simply turn on frame interpolation and say "close enough" and given how good the implementations have gotten (depending on display), I can't say they are that wrong.

Missed it, i'd never ignore a person's opinion.

I agree with you regarding 48fps.

 

[Doctorossi]

I would much rather have higher frame rates than higher resolution

And the good news is, you don't have to choose, because higher effective resolution (resolve) is a free bonus of higher frame-rates.

 

[Douglas Monce]

You are either missing my point or purposely ignoring it. It isn't that some people can't see the benefit of 4K, I sure can without even trying in my setup, it is that the group of people that see that benefit is inconsequentially small.
I did forget the most important new feature coming and I think it will be the one that drives the next round of "must buy new TV/projector"; that would be 48p. I would much rather have higher frame rates than higher resolution, although again the average consumer would simply turn on frame interpolation and say "close enough" and given how good the implementations have gotten (depending on display), I can't say they are that wrong.

Given the fact that the Hobbit preview at 48fps has gotten rather negative reactions from those who have seen it, I'm not sure there is much future for higher frame rates. At least not for narrative film making.
Doug

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Given the fact that the Hobbit preview at 48fps has gotten rather negative reactions from those who have seen it, I'm not sure there is much future for higher frame rates. At least not for narrative film making.
Doug

Reading the details of preview and my own experience with a higher quality interpolation to 48fps on my Sony 95ES projector, I would say those people didn't know why film looks like film and simply assumed that >24fps is video or really did see video (explained below) but assumed it looked that way because of 48p. This is a very common reaction judging by the people who discuss using that feature and I experienced the same feelings and visual oddity at first too. However film looks like film because of its non-linear response to light at the dark and bright end whereas video is linear and therefore when video is redisplayed it looks more natural to real life. Also there was a chance that the preview they saw was still linear and had not undergone the non-linear conversion to make the digital recording look like film, that unreality that film brings to the image. The commentary by Peter Jackson after the response to 48p made it sound like he was just trying to show the advantage of 48p and did not perform the film look conversion and incorrectly assumed these people would understand the difference and not equate 48p = video look.
Just as Peter Jackson said about his experience with 48fps, after I viewed a little bit (2 movies) at 48fps (using FI on low), I now always see film regardless of the apparent higher frame rate because it doesn't really take long to get over a lifetime of bias where 24fps = film and >24fps != film if you are willing to. Now the high frame rate interpolation has a lot more artifacts and is still a little weird so I don't use that mode at all.

 

[mig0]

Need clarification. This question and answer do not appear to go together:

Q
How has the Walmart disc to digital initiative been going?
A
Paul Erickson: In terms of 4K for consumers, I think it is still quite new and honestly will not be mainstream (snipped)

Doesn't look like that DtD initiative question was answered.

 

[Kosty]

Need clarification. This question and answer do not appear to go together:

Q
How has the Walmart disc to digital initiative been going?
A
Paul Erickson: In terms of 4K for consumers, I think it is still quite new and honestly will not be mainstream (snipped)

Doesn't look like that DtD initiative question was answered.

Or that the initial transcript was wrong. Happens.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Reading the details of preview and my own experience with a higher quality interpolation to 48fps on my Sony 95ES projector, I would say those people didn't know why film looks like film and simply assumed that >24fps is video or really did see video (explained below) but assumed it looked that way because of 48p. This is a very common reaction judging by the people who discuss using that feature and I experienced the same feelings and visual oddity at first too. However film looks like film because of its non-linear response to light at the dark and bright end whereas video is linear and therefore when video is redisplayed it looks more natural to real life. Also there was a chance that the preview they saw was still linear and had not undergone the non-linear conversion to make the digital recording look like film, that unreality that film brings to the image. The commentary by Peter Jackson after the response to 48p made it sound like he was just trying to show the advantage of 48p and did not perform the film look conversion and incorrectly assumed these people would understand the difference and not equate 48p = video look.
Just as Peter Jackson said about his experience with 48fps, after I viewed a little bit (2 movies) at 48fps (using FI on low), I now always see film regardless of the apparent higher frame rate because it doesn't really take long to get over a lifetime of bias where 24fps = film and >24fps != film if you are willing to. Now the high frame rate interpolation has a lot more artifacts and is still a little weird so I don't use that mode at all.

My own estimation is that around 95% of the "film look" comes directly from the 24fps rate. Shoot the same action, with the same camera and settings at 24fps and then at 60fps, and the different is noticeable instantly by almost everyone who sees it. I've done this experiment myself and it always gets the same reaction. People often think the two shots were made with different cameras. The 60fps shot is almost always thought of as looking "cheap" or like a soap opera. Those that saw the Hobbit preview had much the same reaction. They describe the film as looking cheap, and the sets looking fake.
The film look as little to do with the "non-linear" nature of film, having seen several ShowScan presentations (70mm film shot and projected at 60fps) I can tell you that it was amazingly sharp, and looked for all the world like a soap opera shot on a video camera.
Doug

 

[Chuck Anstey]

So you are saying that you cannot tell the difference between film and video from a still shot? The look of film has everything to do with how it captures light and film looks like film whether in motion or not. Now you may be making the argument that a motion picture has the 24p look and that TV has a 30i/p / 60 i/p look but that has nothing to do with film look versus video look.
The image captured on those ShowScan films didn't change because they were recorded at 60p vs 24p. The individual frame images are still the same. Now it is possible to make film look like video to a point with some work and also depending on the dynamic range of the lighting in the scene, the image captured on film and video can look similar.
This right here gives away the problem as being the individual bias

My own estimation is that around 95% of the "film look" comes directly from the 24fps rate. Shoot the same action, with the same camera and settings at 24fps and then at 60fps, and the different is noticeable instantly by almost everyone who sees it. I've done this experiment myself and it always gets the same reaction. People often think the two shots were made with different cameras. The 60fps shot is almost always thought of as looking "cheap" or like a soap opera.

Did your camera suddenly become cheap and lousy at capturing images because you went to 60p? Nothing about the camera or the individual images changed yet a person thinks they see something different. As I said, I think Peter Jackson made a mistake thinking that people can separate the two when he showed that preview. He had forgotten it took him a little time of being exposed to >24p to get over his natural bias of 24p = film and !24p != film and see what is actually there.
For a good example of video vs film look, look at some British comedies where they use video inside and film outside. The inside / outside images look nothing alike and it has nothing to do with frame rate.

 

[Douglas Monce]

So you are saying that you cannot tell the difference between film and video from a still shot? The look of film has everything to do with how it captures light and film looks like film whether in motion or not. Now you may be making the argument that a motion picture has the 24p look and that TV has a 30i/p / 60 i/p look but that has nothing to do with film look versus video look.
The image captured on those ShowScan films didn't change because they were recorded at 60p vs 24p. The individual frame images are still the same. Now it is possible to make film look like video to a point with some work and also depending on the dynamic range of the lighting in the scene, the image captured on film and video can look similar.
This right here gives away the problem as being the individual bias
Did your camera suddenly become cheap and lousy at capturing images because you went to 60p? Nothing about the camera or the individual images changed yet a person thinks they see something different. As I said, I think Peter Jackson made a mistake thinking that people can separate the two when he showed that preview. He had forgotten it took him a little time of being exposed to >24p to get over his natural bias of 24p = film and !24p != film and see what is actually there.
For a good example of video vs film look, look at some British comedies where they use video inside and film outside. The inside / outside images look nothing alike and it has nothing to do with frame rate.

It has EVERYTHING to do with the frame rate. I can very rarely tell the difference between a still taken with a professional digital camera, and a still taken with modern film stock. The same is true with motion pictures. When I saw Get Smart for example, I didn't know it had been shot digitally, or was being projected digitally. Now this may have more to do with the modern film stocks, and they way they are color graded than the actual display of the image. However it it had been shot at 60fps, it would have jumped out like a neon sign. 60fps is what people associate with live video, IE soap operas.
The image of ShowScan changed precisely because it was shot at 60fps. Several of the ShowScan films I saw were shot on the same filmstock that Far and Away was (they were made at roughly the same time) but Far and Away looks like "film", ShowScan doesn't.
Interestingly Jackson seems to be backing away from the whole 48fps thing. In recent comments, he has been saying that he and the DP prefer the film in the 24fps down conversion.
Doug

 

[Doctorossi]

Interestingly Jackson seems to be backing away from the whole 48fps thing. In recent comments, he has been saying that he and the DP prefer the film in the 24fps down conversion.

Well, there's a development.