Film Quality vs DVD Quality - why does DVD look so much better? (1 Viewer)

[Dan Brecher]

For various reasons (my stupidity of not taking into account the consiquences of such discussion being one of them ) I have deleted and edited few of the existing posts in this thread regarding obtaining 35mm equipment and prints for private use in ones home. In depth discussion of this nature does of course carry over into the legal rules of the HTF
Dan

 

[Mattias_ka]

OT: I know that Ingmar Bergman has his own 35mm and 16mm
projector and that he sends every year a list with around
150 movies that he want to see to the Swedish film institute and after a couple of month they deliver them to him. FOR FREE!! It must be nice to have this service!

 

[Lewis Besze]

Bjoern of course is right,and I don't think anyone claims that DVD is technically superior to film,however count me in with those who constantly gets annoyed by the poor presentation of todays movie houses,and seems to enjoy the DVD releases because of that much better.
And yes the LOTR did look like crap when I saw it in the theaters,as a matter a fact one of the worst I've seen in years.
Looking forward to the DVD both editions.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

I would expect a good print of LOTR to look as good as or better than the trailers I saw on HDNet. What I saw in the multiplex a month after the movie came out was terrible.

The best picture quality I'm likely to get on this movie will probably be the dvd on my HT.

In truth, the last time I saw a movie in a theater that looked as good as dvd on my setup was Titanic back in 97.

This of course is more indicative of the poor qc at the theaters in my area than anything else.

 

[Scott H]

The better reason is that film is 2000x2000 resolution.

What in the world does this refer to?
And I'm letting the S35 comment slide. :rolleyes

 

[Garry I]

At Fox studios, they were displaying a dvd(don't know the name of the dvd. I think it was Me,myself and Irene?) onto a Toshiba MT-7(not so good LCD projector. Don't know if it had an external scaler or what dvd player) on a 8m screen and people actually thought it was film!! so it doesn't suprise me when people think dvd is better than film. One of the reasons is because so many DVDs these days are digitally remastered and restored and dirt and speckles can be removed. Every time i go to the local or city cinema i always notice flickering/strobing effect. I don't notice this with DVD. I wonder what they would think when they see HD:b

 

[Jeff Kleist]

What in the world does this refer to?

My resolution figure refers to 2K resolution at which many special effects are done (tho some are rendered at 4K because of how the computer processes them)

Scott, I believe I was being fairly even-handed with my S35 comments here, given that the quality of presentation does vary wildly depending on projector maintenence and bulb brightness.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

And yes the LOTR did look like crap when I saw it in the theaters,as a matter a fact one of the worst I've seen in years.

I agree. I don't usually notice such issues, but FOTR looked close to out of focus for a good portion of the scenes.

 

[Scott H]

My resolution figure refers to 2K resolution at which many special effects are done (tho some are rendered at 4K because of how the computer processes them)

You originally said that was film's resolution (which of course far exceeds that), which threw me off.

Super35 full aperture 2K scans are actually 2048 x 1536 pixels, 4K scans are 4096 x 3072 pixels. Note that this is pixels, not lines of resolution as on a DVD.



To the original post, as others have stated it is mainly about the dimensions of the presentation, the scale of the projection. Take a 1.85:1 35mm frame. In a theater such as Mann's Chinese you're seeing a .864 x .467 inch frame of film, a copy at that, on a 70' wide screen. It's late, but if I'm doing my math right (ha) that is effectively blown up to near 1000 times it's original size.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

What happens to all those film prints once a films theatrical run is over with anyhow?

I've been told they recycle them for the silver content.

 

[MichaelG]

FOTR was out of focus for a better part of the presentation when I saw it as well. I was actually thinking while watching it that it will look better when I watch it on DVD at home.

I know that film, when done right, will look much better. The problem is that it doesn't seem that enough theaters know how to properly setup (including focus) everything for the best results.

 

[Dan M]

I've only had one bad experience at the theater where the picture was out of focus. I told the theater manager and they fixed the problem.

The theaters in my local area seem to do a pretty good job. I saw LOTR and I don't remember it looking too soft. It looked quite gorgeous in fact. I only hope the DVD can look as good.