A Few Words About A few words about...™ 2001: A Space Odyssey -- in BD & HD (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Monce]

Hey Doug,
I think we all agree with that statement. The catch which I was discussing was that the scanning-equipment used, if inferior, can introduce problems such that a scan from a 65mm element looks softer/worse than that of a 35mm element (even through the lens of SD and HD resolution media). So far, this was the typical situation with SD DVD. Now it looks like the trend might continue with HD media until the studios start to invest in transfers using equipment properly optimized for large-format elements.
Hopefully by the time Ben-Hur rolls around on HD, Warner will have learned this lesson. There's just too much beauty and detail in those 65mm elements to toss away on a transfer that looks less-sharp than a conventional 35mm scan!

Oh I agree completely. Ben-Hur is a great example of a 65mm scan that while it looks nice, is a bit on the soft side. I think someone here said that the only high quality 65mm scanner that they know of is at Fotokem, but that it is very expensive to use. I believe that is one reason that Warner has been doing these HD masters from 35mm elements.
Personally I think Grand Prix looks amazing, and I'm not seeing any thing that looks like grain filtering as has been suggested. I don't know if you've had the chance to look at that title or not David.
Doug

 

[Dave Moritz]

I would just like some feedback on this title in HD. Is this title worth buying in HD? And what format should I purchase it or does it matter? I am interested in this title but if the video is not all that great then I will wait to buy it.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Dave,

It's definitely worth the purchase. Better than any hv (home video) format that's come before, and it looks very good. I'm just disappointed that it lacks that ultra-clear "snap" that I saw in the theater.

Both formats use the same video file (identical bit-for-bit) and both offer lossless audio (PCM on the BD and TrueHD on the HD DVD). It's a very "format neutral" release from WB.

 

[OliverK]

Given that 35mm has the equivalent of more than 4k resolution, and 65mm vastly exceeds that, you aren't likely to be able to see the difference between 35mm and 65mm on a 2k HD system anymore than you can see the difference on a 480p system. The only differences you might see would be if the film elements are several generations away from the negative. Also dirt and dust specks will appear smaller coming from a 65mm element. However there just isn't enough resolution in HD to show the complete image detail in 35mm much less 65mm.

Doug,
I think we do not really disagree on matters but you don't really notice it
Let me try again: I do not think that 70mm films should look better on HDM than newer films shot on 35mm. BUT: In most cases they should not have to look worse either. At the moment, not only IMO they do.
Michel has also mentioned Grand Prix and I have the same impression of the HD-DVD. Warner seem to use a way to filter grain that preserves quite a but of HF detail but still Grand Prix does not come close to what it could have looked on HDM. Part of it surely is due to this filtering, hard to say how the movie would have looked without it.
Oliver

 

[HighDefDiscNews]

I totally agree. I got to watch 2001 on Blu-ray before I went to Blu-ray Festival and I was totally amazed by it. I look forward to doing that Review on our site very much. I'm a pretty big Kubrick fan myself. Good post!

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Contrast build-up through succesive generations will sometime make the apparent image sharpness and detail of a projected film print seem higher than it really is. This no doubt presents headaches when trying to figure out how best to represent the same image on video. I did not see any recent film presentations of "2001:ASO" to comment specifically on whether or not this explains David's observations, though.

Regards,

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Given that 35mm has the equivalent of more than 4k resolution, and 65mm vastly exceeds that...
Doug

35mm and 70mm refer to negative size first, not image quality and detail. 35mm and 70mm are merely useful terms for upper limits for image quality. Actual detail on 35mm and 70mm film depends on many factors, especially
- film stock used (is it 75 years old, 50, 25 or 1? Is it slow or fast?)
- lenses, exposure, development, camera movement, object movement etc.
It is simply not so that 35mm = > 4K. It may be so that some very specific 35mm is >= 4K, but the very large majority of it is not for various reasons. When you have seen 70mm and 35mm on a 4K projector you can see the limits of 35mm quickly compared to full 3K or 4K material. And all this on a 4K projector, not 6K not 8K. It's sobering. Full res 4K (and I mean MTF is not much down at 4K) looks like 70mm, not like typical 35mm at all.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

To David Boulet:
To my eye image resolution is screen size dependent. An HD image can look beautiful when properly projected on a screen of nominal size, certainly ten feet or so across, but will begin to fall apart at a certain size. I've never experimented to see what that size is.
RAH

It really depends what you are looking for and what quality your HD is. Concerning the 8 bit limit of consumer HD and the restricted color gamut it's visible at any image size. Looking at studio quality 10 bit 4:4:4 SR tapes you are looking at something quite close to 2K DI data except for the color space. So it holds up as long as 2K holds up.
Looking at consumer HD discs at lot depends on the quality of the mastering and compression. If there's EE and DNR artifacts it falls apart for me on normal HD TV monitors. No need to go 2 or 3 meters wide. If there is no EE and DNR, it's well compressed and everything is state of the art it holds up like in a cinema (not counting the 8 bit and color limitations). You can project a top BR disc on a 2K DLP in a cinema and it looks very nice.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

The acid test on 2001 is whether you can read the instructions for the Zero Gravity Toilet. The HD DVD is pretty good in that respect; they're readable at least half the way down, but then they get a bit smeary. Prior home video versions were quite illegible.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

The acid test on 2001 is whether you can read the instructions for the Zero Gravity Toilet. The HD DVD is pretty good in that respect; they're readable at least half the way down, but then they get a bit smeary. Prior home video versions were quite illegible.

With decent upscaling on a 720p or better display, one can make out the text for the first few steps pretty well off of the remastered SD-DVD before the zoom out.
Regards,

 

[DaViD Boulet]

The toilet instructions are not an acid test on their own. If they weren't legible in a 35mm print then they won't be legible in HD. If they were legible in a print, then they should be legible now.

No matter what aspect of the film you select, the only valid litmus test is whether or not it captures the full fidelity of the original projected print. 35mm-reference is generally the rule for HD reproduction. But at not time should an HD transfer taken from a larger-format source (65mm) look inferior to a transfer from a sister 35mm copy.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

From what I have seen so far with regard to 65/70mm movies out on DVD and HD the detail of these movies is always below what can be seen on the very best discs available in either format. This certainly is not due to a lack of detail in the original negative and what you say indicates that RAH is unfortunately correct when he says 6k scans are not what Warner usually does for their large format stock. From watching Mutiny on the Bounty, Battle of the Bulge and Grand Prix I would say that none of these come close to making full use of the available resolution in the original camera negative. If they did these would be among the most detailed movies available in the HD format but sadly they aren't.
Oliver

So, was this a "4K" scan?
Which HD Discs use a "6K" scan?
I thought "Grand Prix" was indeed held in very high regard, when it was first released, as an HD Disc transfer. With both "MotB" & BotB", easily besting their SD DVD counterparts. Wining many fans in the HD format.
Which transfers do you see as "the very best discs available in either format"?
Thanks.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

The instructions are legible on a print (though they go by very fast and you don't have the benefit of a pause button). Back when they had campus film societies I went to numerous showings of 2001 and at one time made a point of checking whether they actually could be read, and they could. This obviously was 35mm (or possibly even 16mm, I'm not positive).

 

[Douglas Monce]

= 4K, but the very large majority of it is not for various reasons. When you have seen 70mm and 35mm on a 4K projector you can see the limits of 35mm quickly compared to full 3K or 4K material. And all this on a 4K projector, not 6K not 8K. It's sobering. Full res 4K (and I mean MTF is not much down at 4K) looks like 70mm, not like typical 35mm at all.

Michel,
Of course there are many factors that can effect the resolving power of 35mm film. A film like Robin Hood from the middle 30s probably doesn't have more than 2k of resolution, given film stocks of the time and the nature of 3 strip technicolor photography. Frankly the biggest factor is the fact that many of these films are using a digital intermediary now, which instantly restricts the film to what ever it was scanned in at. In some cases its 2k, others its 4k.
But frankly we are talking about HD here which is not even close to the resolving power of a 4k projector that has a 4.4.4 color space. I have no doubt that at 4k you can start to see the limits of some 35mm elements. As I said a quality first generation 35mm element has just a little more than 4k of resolution.
Another factor that can make HD seem to be sharper than 35mm film is the fact that there is no gate weave. Gate weave can quickly reduce the apparent sharpness of projected 35mm film.
But as for HD at home with compressed video, I still say there isn't enough resolution to be able to tell the difference between 35mm and 65mm with quality elements.
Doug

 

[OliverK]

So, was this a "4K" scan?
Which HD Discs use a "6K" scan?
I thought "Grand Prix" was indeed held in very high regard, when it was first released, as an HD Disc transfer. With both "MotB" & BotB", easily besting their SD DVD counterparts. Wining many fans in the HD format.
Which transfers do you see as "the very best discs available in either format"?
Thanks.

Ed,
I have no idea if the HD-DVD of Grand Prix originated from a 4k scan master from looking at it, could as well have originated from a 2k master.
From what I have seen (5 movies so far) there is no large format movie out at the moment that reproduces as much detail as is possible with HDM.
Besting the SD counterpart is not really an achievement when the film has the potential to have the highest resolution there is on HDM. Both BotB and Grand Prix fall short in that regard, as do Mutiny on the Bounty and Spartacus. I would definitely expect stellar resolution / no high frequency roll-off from the first two, the second pair are not on the same level of quality with regard to the original camera negative but still should have enough detail to look much better.
If I was to rate the movies I have watched so far that are large format based I would rank them as follows:
1. The Searchers (the best, there has been discussion on the colors but they do not look outright wrong to me)
2. Grand Prix (pretty detailed with highest frequencies subdued, could be both bitrate and DNR related)
3. Mutiny on the Bounty (soft + DNR but for me still pleasing to look at)
4. Battle of the Bulge (EE and DNR form an unholy alliance - definitely too much for me)
5. Spartacus (a catastrophe, shame on Universal ! Still an improvement over the Criterion DVD in transparency and detail, colors look like they stole them from Ben Hur -> definitely wrong)
Despite some shortcomings I would definitely recommend to buy 1 to 3, but I am a bit undecided on BotB. I would advise against buying Spartacus - if you want to watch it rent it.
Regarding best available in either format: From what I have seen so far both Casino Royale and MI III do have some very detailed scenes and a high level of detail throughout the movie, with edges at times looking so well defined that I immediately looked for some EE - but they both are just very good, not overenhanced. Also they both do look to me as if little or no DNR has been used on them, certainly little enough for me to enjoy them. If properly done Grand Prix and BotB definitely could be up there in the parameters mentioned but a direct comparison will show you they aren't.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

But as for HD at home with compressed video, I still say there isn't enough resolution to be able to tell the difference between 35mm and 65mm with quality elements.
Doug

Define quality elements. Take the original negative of LOA (theoretically), scan it at 6K and downsample to 1080p going close to the theoretical limit of 1080p. Then do the same with the best 35mm positive you can find from LOA made with the stock from the 60s, then the same with the best stock today. The first version will look the best in 1080p, the third second best and the second worst. There will be clear differences between the first and the second, and small ones between the first and the third. That is my prediction. It's built on the fact that 1080p made from oversampled 70mm can have a flat MTF upto 1080p, while the 35mm element can not. That is visible.
(Apart from different MTF 70mm sources provide less noise/grain than corresponding 35mm which is also visible on HD where super clean material can be shown as super clean.)

 

[RolandL]

I just watched my first two blu-ray dvd's - 2001: a space odyssey and Battle of The Bulge on my PS3 and Sanyo Z4 720p projector using component cables. While they look good, they don't seem much better than the SD versions I have. I can't flip back and forth easily as I don't have a receiver with multiple inputs. Maybe then I will be able to see the difference but, I don't think it will be that great. A 1080p projector I guess would show more of a difference.

 

[RolandL]

definitely wrong)

The Searchers was filmed in VistaVision but the release prints were all 35mm. The rest of the films listed were in 70mm, Mutiny on The Bounty and Battle of The Bulge 70mm anamorphic.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Define quality elements. Take the original negative of LOA (theoretically), scan it at 6K and downsample to 1080p going close to the theoretical limit of 1080p. Then do the same with the best 35mm positive you can find from LOA made with the stock from the 60s, then the same with the best stock today. The first version will look the best in 1080p, the third second best and the second worst. There will be clear differences between the first and the second, and small ones between the first and the third. That is my prediction. It's built on the fact that 1080p made from oversampled 70mm can have a flat MTF upto 1080p, while the 35mm element can not. That is visible.
(Apart from different MTF 70mm sources provide less noise/grain than corresponding 35mm which is also visible on HD where super clean material can be shown as super clean.)

I'm not sure that the original negative of LOA is in any condition to be scanned at any resolution, so you would most likely have to use the new elements that were created in the restoration, which would be printed on films stock circa 1989. I'm sure Robert Harris can correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Interestingly I saw LOA in a theater in 70mm on a 65 foot screen in 1989. It was glorious. Not a week later I saw The Last Crusade on the same screen in a 70mm blow up. I was amazed at how far 35mm film has come. While it didn't have quite the level of detail or sharpness of LOA, it was much closer than I would have expected.
Doug

 

[OliverK]

The Searchers was filmed in VistaVision but the release prints were all 35mm. The rest of the films listed were in 70mm, Mutiny on The Bounty and Battle of The Bulge 70mm anamorphic.

Actually we got quite a mix there with two movies shot in each Ultra Panavision 70 and Super Panavision 70, one in Super Technirama 70 (similar to Vistavision, but intended for release on 70mm) and one in Vistavision.
That's why I simply called them large format movies - much shorter
Regarding your equipment preventing you to see the difference to a DVD: 720p projectors are good enough to show a difference if there is one provided an appropriate downconversion to 720p is done somewhere in the signal chain. Not too many transfers have that much detail beyond 1280 x 720, Battle of the Bulge definitely hasn't. Regarding the Z4: It always looked pretty nice when fed 1080i and that might actually be preferred to 720p from the PS3 if the PS3 still has that bug when putting out 720p (I think that was just upsampled 480p for some time).
Oliver