HD-DVD question (1 Viewer)

[Alex-C]

If and when this comes out, I have the following question:

Do movies have to be shot with a HD camera in order to be high def, which I assume is 1080i ?

If that is true, then how can existing movies, take for example - oh I don't know, take Forrest Gump, can it be "converted" to a high def picture ?

Maybe the master print can be produced in such a way to get the 1080i but still, I am confused.

Another similar question, will a high def (blu-ray, D-VHS etc.) version of a catalog movie look the same as a high def show like Leno ? I mean I know Leno shoots on special cameras in order to obtain the high def picture, but of course, that is video and not film.

 

[JoeDeM]

Film, is Super Hi-Def compaired to HD. HDTV has a resolution of 2mega pixels, 35mm film is in the range of 6 to 10 mega pixels for fine grain film, hi speed film has larger grain so it has less resolution 2 to 6mega. Optics used when filming also plays a part in final resolution.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

And don't expect film in Hi-Def to look like video. Video is very clean by its nature, while film is textured and stylized by its very nature

 

[Jack Briggs]

The simple answer is "no." It is up to high-def video to do justice to the original source which, more often than not, will have vastly greater resolution than any home-video format.

(That is, 35mm film is already much, much higher in definition than either 720p or 1080i.)

 

[Damin J Toell]

If that is true, then how can existing movies, take for example - oh I don't know, take Forrest Gump, can it be "converted" to a high def picture ?

Maybe the master print can be produced in such a way to get the 1080i but still, I am confused.

It's the same principle as the telecine process of producing a 480p master of a 35mm film for DVD right now. And, as has already been noted, 1080i doesn't come close to replicating the maximum resolution of 35mm film.

DJ

 

[Keith Helms]

Movies are converted to DVD by first digitizing them onto tape. The tape used by the studios is a format called D5 that has a resolution of 1920x1080. For a DVD, that resolution has to be converted down to 720x480. For High Definition, the 1920x1080 resolution can be used as is.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Movies are converted to DVD by first digitizing them onto tape. The tape used by the studios is a format called D5 that has a resolution of 1920x1080. For a DVD, that resolution has to be converted down to 720x480. For High Definition, the 1920x1080 resolution can be used as is.

But must still be recompressed and (depending on wheither the final HD-DVD format is 1080P or I) interlaced.

Theoretically, a lot of the current DVD high-def masters could be recycled for HD-DVD and D-VHS without a drop in quality. Alot of smaller issues leads me to believe that this wouldn't be true for a lot of DVDs, however.

 

[RobertR]

I'm fervently hoping that when HD goes "mainstream", we won't get a flood of complaints from people saying that films on hidef video look "inferior" because of the presence of grain.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Hey, they do that already with standard DVD-Video, Robert!

 

[RobertR]

LOL good point, Jack. It might get to the point, though, where some people will demand that others follow Lucas and shoot everything on HD video rather than film. Prior to HD, no one ever said video looks better than film.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

If I may interject, Lucas jumped the gun by shooting 'SW EPII' on digital tape. It may have looked spectacular in theaters equipped to show it in it's true digital form, but for the rest of us, it looked like crap. Too much grain. The format clearly isn't really ready, he should have waited until 'EP III' IMO.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

That wasn't grain, that was video noise AND grain
The 10 Megapixel cameras MAY come close to film, we'll see.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

It's the same principle as the telecine process of producing a 480p master of a 35mm film for DVD right now. And, as has already been noted, 1080i doesn't come close to replicating the maximum resolution of 35mm film.

Although someone over at AVS got a 35 mm film print and DVHS tape of Terminator 2 and did a comparison on the same screen...projected 35mm to 1080I!!!

Turns out that they concluded that from a reasonable viewing distance (I think a 30 degree angle) that the HD version visually looked as good...and better in some ways (one generation closer to the original).

Once we get 1080P displays and HD devices capable of properly deinterlacing 1080I to 1080P (with 3-2 pulldown) and get the studios to master 1080 images on HD-DVD without prior-filtering for interlaced displays (let the playback hardware take care of that)...things will look even better.

Even though, technically, film has more resolution, I think that true 1929 x 1080 P will look much better than what we see at theaters with 35mm film.

-dave

 

[Lew Crippen]

If I may interject, Lucas jumped the gun by shooting 'SW EPII' on digital tape. It may have looked spectacular in theaters equipped to show it in it's true digital form, but for the rest of us, it looked like crap. Too much grain.

I watched this a few times in a theatre with digital projection. Looked pretty good, but even then, you could see some defects (particularly at the sides), but I think that you would have had to be in super-critical mode to have noticed this.

I don’t really think that Lucas jumped the gun. After all, there would be no reason for theaters to purchase digital projection equipment without a product and there is no reason to produce the product unless there is a proper delivery system.

This ‘chicken and egg’ cycle has to be broken and begun somewhere. Without really knowing, I presumed that the theatre where I saw Star Wars had their digital projection equipment heavily subsided by TI. Plano, TX, the location of the theatre has a lot of Texas Instruments offices and sites, as do many of the other North Dallas suburbs. The theatre had a lot of material explaining the glories of this system and giving TI lots of credit.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Do you recall the reasonable viewing distance, David? I find it not credible that 1080i projected on a screen at 50–75 feet would come close to being perceived as having the definition of 35mm film.
Still I have not read the test results or the methodology, so a good chance that I don’t understand. I look casually at AVS and did not run across the thread. Probably did not enter the right search criteria. Can you provide the link?

for me, I see the interlacing artifacts of 1080I even on small 100" screens (even RP TVs with sports) so I don't consider "interlaced"...at any resolution...a truely videophile format.
I think that their screen size was about 10-15 feet wide and they were probably sitting about 1 to 1/2 screen widths away. What will *really* look good is when we get true 1080P displays that apply 3-2 pulldown to film-based 1080I material. Once we can get the studios to master 1080 discs without applying pre-filtering for interlacing the level of perceived detail will be astonishing. I think that you would have to get very close to the screen in this case before the 35 mm film print would start to look better bcs the color accuracy and stability of the HD 1080P image will provide a clear advantage.
BTW, this is talking about comercial 35 mm film prints...not the theoretical resolution of a 35 mm photo or slide. Obviously a well-done 35 mm slide/print captures much more res than 1920 x 1080. But the practical reality of most 35 mm film-prints that are replicated and sent to commercial theaters is that 1080P just might have the edge.
I'm a little ticked cuz i tried to search on AVS the other day and couldn't find the thread. Maybe it's too old...but it wasn't that long ago (I mean, D-VHS is a new format after all). But I searched and searched and couldn't dig it up. If I find the link I'll post it here!
-dave