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km987654
Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 2874
Location: Australia
TV/Projector: Barco BG809s
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| Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:14 am Post subject: ReMaster an Old Movie |
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How is it possible to remaster an old movie in Full HD 1080p when it was shot in something like 480i? Is it any different to what a scaler does?
You see a lot of old movies turning up on BD so are you getting the same quality as a new movies shot in HD?? From what I can see there is nothing on the movie itself that says its lesser quality so if its the same how is it being done and could anyone do it?
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Clarence
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 3827
Location: Smith Mtn Lake, VA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:25 am Post subject: Re: ReMaster an Old Movie |
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| km987654 wrote: | How is it possible to remaster an old movie in Full HD 1080p when it was shot in something like 480i? Is it any different to what a scaler does?
You see a lot of old movies turning up on BD so are you getting the same quality as a new movies shot in HD?? |
Most movies were shot on film.
The film can be digitally scanned at any resolution.
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akajester
Joined: 09 Jul 2008
Posts: 934
Location: Wisconsin
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| Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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My boss was big into film and he said the film quality is sometimes WAY better than 1080p. I believe he referenced 70mm? It just so happens that the display technology in the home was very limiting. And like Clarence mentioned, they can digitally scan the film frame at any level of quality they want in the end.
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 4899
Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 8:07 pm Post subject: Re: ReMaster an Old Movie |
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| Clarence wrote: | | km987654 wrote: | How is it possible to remaster an old movie in Full HD 1080p when it was shot in something like 480i? Is it any different to what a scaler does?
You see a lot of old movies turning up on BD so are you getting the same quality as a new movies shot in HD?? |
Most movies were shot on film.
The film can be digitally scanned at any resolution. |
A great number of TV shows were also shot on film allowing them to be mastered to HD also. 
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Dave
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 4899
Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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| akajester wrote: | | My boss was big into film and he said the film quality is sometimes WAY better than 1080p. I believe he referenced 70mm? |
Most movies are shot on 35mm and don't even use the full frame. If shot in the way of the latest King Kong, it uses about half the frame.
35mm film has a theoritical effective resolution of far greater than 1080p, however, in real life, it is usually worse than 1080p--much worse. I just tried to find an article that I read and could not find it (sorry). In it, they did a survey of commercial theaters presenting 35mm film. The average effective resolution for most presentations was (IIRC) something around 600p (don't remember exact number, but much worse than 1080p).
This was due to a variety of factors including generational losses of the film itself, number of times it was shown (film quality descreases EVERY single time it is shown), and quality of projector and set up.
Bottom line is this: showing a movie on a 9 foot screen in your home with a $2000 1080p new projector will vastly exceed the picture quality of almost every film-based commercial theater.
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Dave
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah
TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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Good post, Dave... But, just to clarify so nobody else is confused by your last post, though... There's a world of difference between the often substandard theatrical print that gets shown in your local cinema and one of the archival master prints that's scanned for transfer to BD. In other words, yes - in your local film-based theatrical projection, you're probably seeing something equivalent to - or even below 1080p... In contrast, the real resolution in a master print is much close to that theoretical limit and greater than 1080p... In some cases, 2-4x the total resolution.
SC
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 4899
Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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SC is definately correct and underscores the real world situation. In the real world, they make the digital master from an awesome film master--so the digital master looks great.
One thing that should be mentioned is that the film you see in a theater, was actually made from the digital master. So the process is typically:
film -> digital master (currently usually 2K) -> film prints.
So, it really doesn't matter what the effective resolution of the original film is. It gets converted to 2048x1080 resolution, then the film prints get made from that. So, the film you see in a theater CANNOT be any higher resolution that 2048x1080 and it ends up worse as SC points out they make crap theatrical prints that then get scratched and dirty going through the PJ.
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garyfritz
Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12088
Location: Fort Collins, CO
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| Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Person99 wrote: | | Most movies are shot on 35mm and don't even use the full frame. If shot in the way of the latest King Kong, it uses about half the frame. |
?? 'Splain please? Are you talking about aspect ratios, since 35mm is 1.37:1 I think? But they use anamorphic lenses to stretch the image vertically to fill the whole frame, don't they?
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 4899
Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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| garyfritz wrote: | | Person99 wrote: | | Most movies are shot on 35mm and don't even use the full frame. If shot in the way of the latest King Kong, it uses about half the frame. |
?? 'Splain please? Are you talking about aspect ratios, since 35mm is 1.37:1 I think? But they use anamorphic lenses to stretch the image vertically to fill the whole frame, don't they? |
Yes, the aspect ratio of 35mm film is 1.37:1. The industry is finally done playing with aspect ratios and has pretty much settled on two: 1.85:1 and 2.39:1.
When shooting a 1.85:1 movie a portion of the top and bottom of the frame are disregarded for the print.
There are currently two main ways that 2.39:1 movies are shot: cinemascope (anamorphic) and super 35.
When shot cinemascope, the camera is fitted with a 2:1 horizontal compression lens so everything is tall and skinny on the negative. Note, that the part of the image used is still not the full height of the frame as that would be 2.74:1. When shown back in the theater, a 2:1 horizontal expansion lens is fitted to restore the geometry. This is the most common technique for 2.39:1 (usually called 2.40:1) films currently.
Another mechanism is super 35. In Super 35 the negative area is expanded out perf-to-perf (so it goes from 21.95 mm wide to 24.89 mm wide). The scene is shot just like a 1.85:1 movie with no anamorphic lens or anything, then center cropped to 2.39:1 which throws out alot of the frame (almost half). This is less popular than cinemascope, but was used on Peter Jackson's King Kong. This is why when King Kong was shown on the HD movie stations (e.g. Cinemax), it was shown at 16:9. It was not side cropped to 16:9, they just made the 16:9 version from the original, therefore, when you watched in on HD broadcast, you did not loose any of the sides, you just gained some top and bottom (this is not possible to do with cinemascope).
Here is a good picture of how these are rendered on a film frame:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Super35_and_Techniscope.png
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