Very expensive high resolution dark pixels

neilmot · 12-11-2007, 03:28 PM

Now that we've arrived and have the best of the best equipment I have very expensive high resolution dark pixels. At least with DVDs there was some anamorphic and 16X9 material. I know all of the arguments, but..... So what is the good of all of that resolution when most movies will very rarely take advantage of my 16X9 screen. I have a fantastic movie room that I built 15 years ago with an old Zenith 3 gun 270 line projector. I've been upgrading every few years since. I have a(9 ft by 5ft) screen Sony 1080P front projector and Blu-Ray player.....

Cheers,
Neil

neilmot · 12-11-2007, 03:41 PM

if you do the math, a 2.35:1 movie will be 813 by 1911 pixels. That is 1080-813 = 267 dark horizontal lines. Seems like there were more 1.85:1 movies around in the DVD days.....

Fantastic, technology but......

Grant H · 12-11-2007, 04:13 PM

Well, when you consider a scope film (unless it's shot in HD video and matted) tends to have more resolution than one shot flat, you're looking at sharper source material from most scope films. See Spider-Man 1 vs Spider-Man 2.

I'd rather have good presentation of a pristine source than better presentation of a less than pristine source. So I'll take all the extra celluloid I can get. Though some films warrant the muddier appearance shooting lower-res film stock will get you.

Still, there were those clamoring for 20x9 encoding so those black bars wouldn't eat up any resolution. Sadly that didn't happen. With projectors advancing as fast as they are it would come in handy. Perhaps it could be added to the spec and we can re-buy all those scope films some day!

neilmot · 12-12-2007, 09:30 AM

Thank you for the reply! I think the only way that this will change is if the customers (that would be us) start pushing or if there's some competition and those sales are measurably better. Is anyone voicing this issue in large numbers?

I do agree with your pristine comment... It is spectacular!

Thank you,
Neil

neilmot · 12-31-2007, 09:27 AM

Has anyone taken advantage of the anamorphic mode using an anamorphic lense with the new Sony projectors?

Neilmot

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Carlo Medina · 12-31-2007, 11:13 AM

Neil, I don't get what you're asking for: are you asking for directors to stop filming in 2.35:1 just so you can use all of your pixels on your 16x9 screen? (which, by the way there would still be some small amount of "wasted" black pixels since 16x9 = 1.77:1 vs. 1.85:1).

neilmot · 01-02-2008, 09:42 PM

Carlo, 1st of all I've always questioned 16X9 1.777:1 because it was an average of all formats. 1.85:1 may have been a better choice. It would be nice to take advantage of all of the resolution available in our equipment more often. It will be interesting to see what happens when the movie industry migrates to HD digital cameras... I hope it moves more toward the 16X9 advantage.

You can see that this is recognized by the projector manufactures because they are offering anamorphic modes. This coupled with an anamorphic lense will give you 1080 line but you will have to put wider screens in and there is still up-scaling...

For example if you had a 5ft X 9 ft (approx 1.77:1) screen using an anamorphic lense the screen would become 5ft by 11.75ft (approx 2.35:1)

An other option could be to offer multiple formats like letterbox, full screen or anamorphic.....

Regards,
Neil

Douglas Monce · 01-02-2008, 11:11 PM

I believe the live action photography in Spiderman 2 was shot super 35, not anamorphic scope. This would mean that actually less real estate was used for that film than Spiderman 1. The fact that Spiderman 1 used a 2k Digital Intermediate and Spiderman 2 used a 4k Digital Intermediate might have more to do with the fact that part 2 seems to look sharper and less grainy.

Most 4k digital cinema cameras are going to a chip format that can do 2.40:1 with out cropping any of the pixels, so I wouldn't count on more films being shot 1.85:1 but rather the other way around. The CinemaScope or Panavision format seems to be the preferred aspect ratio for most filmmakers. I know I prefer it.

Doug

Carlo Medina · 01-03-2008, 02:33 AM

Neil - I guess I just don't get what you're after. By definition, there are different aspect ratios used in movies (1.33, 1.66, 1.85, 2.35 and several others that were less used over the years).

Seems to me you're always going to have "expensive dark pixels" because I can't think of a mathematical way to get one projector/screen combo to account for all of those possible aspect ratios without having some of the pixels account for the black areas. I think it's just an unavoidable product of having used so many aspect ratios over the years.