Roeder wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 4:01 am

Geiginni wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:55 pm On a related note: movies on 35mm (and often 70mm) print stock generally look like shit compared to DCI-compliant, 4k, 12 or 14-bit color channels digital cinema running at 60 fps.

Just before the pandemic, I got to see a fresh 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at a local classic movie house.

As great a movie as it is, I noticed:
- gate flicker is really noticeable at 24 fps, especially with a large shutter on a 70mm print. There is A LOT of blanking time involved in moving and projecting a frame of 70mm
- Color saturation suffers when "un-compressing" an anamorphic frame. Even non-anamorph prints have worse color gamut and saturation than digital.
- After viewing digital content for 15+ years, the grain in a print becomes really obvious, as it does it's little brownian noise dance around the screen
- Along with grain, the non-uniformity of the print chemistry and variations in the processing chemistry really stand out
- Dynamic range is poor compared to digital. The blacks aren't very black, the whites are hazy and muddled. Shadow details get lost and washout is common.

Additionally, that classic movie house had poor acoustics and the audio was imbalanced and had poor surround distribution.

This, with all the nagging details included, actually sounds like a really nice evening.

zorg wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:45 am

Roeder wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 4:01 am

Geiginni wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:55 pm On a related note: movies on 35mm (and often 70mm) print stock generally look like shit compared to DCI-compliant, 4k, 12 or 14-bit color channels digital cinema running at 60 fps.

Just before the pandemic, I got to see a fresh 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at a local classic movie house.

As great a movie as it is, I noticed:
- gate flicker is really noticeable at 24 fps, especially with a large shutter on a 70mm print. There is A LOT of blanking time involved in moving and projecting a frame of 70mm
- Color saturation suffers when "un-compressing" an anamorphic frame. Even non-anamorph prints have worse color gamut and saturation than digital.
- After viewing digital content for 15+ years, the grain in a print becomes really obvious, as it does it's little brownian noise dance around the screen
- Along with grain, the non-uniformity of the print chemistry and variations in the processing chemistry really stand out
- Dynamic range is poor compared to digital. The blacks aren't very black, the whites are hazy and muddled. Shadow details get lost and washout is common.

Additionally, that classic movie house had poor acoustics and the audio was imbalanced and had poor surround distribution.

This, with all the nagging details included, actually sounds like a really nice evening.

I am an advocate for digital post and projection. I've seen horrible prints and been to plenty of disastrous screenings even when there were plentiful projectionists.

None of those complaints would bother me...but that movie is from 1968, there is going to be considerable anomalies baked into original negative that occurred during the original filming or post-production. Especially considering they were doing all of their color correction, compositing, etc all chemically. They could never tweak dynamic range to an artificial degree like they can today or digitally scrub out any minute offending details. So I wonder how a modern Chris Nolan thing would stack up visually if you A/B'd it.

2001 is certainly a visionary film, but there are plenty of things that look antiquated including the monkey suits, space fashions, and the whole star gate sequence. But for a movie that envisions an alternate future at a time when it was conceivable as a possible future it is really impressive.

Most importantly nobody can seem to make a decent movie anymore, and while that may come down the overall degradation of society, the temptation to focus on digital FX-ridden bullet-time juvenilia seems an extenuating factor. So another thing that isn't better with digital, rather significantly worse.

tommy wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 10:25 am Also, it seems to me that if something was shot and printed at 24fps - it is going to look as good as it can reshown at 24fps. There's a reason 24p still exists in tvs/bluray players, etc.

zorg wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:08 pm I will still contend however film has an unshakable mojo for image capture, by virtue that it is a chemical process that very closely approximates how the retina of the human eye reacts to light. Yes, digital now is good enough that you can digitally simulate the "look", but it's a simulacrum regardless.

zorg wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:45 am I am an advocate for digital post and projection. I've seen horrible prints and been to plenty of disastrous screenings even when there were plentiful projectionists.

None of those complaints would bother me...but that movie is from 1968, there is going to be considerable anomalies baked into original negative that occurred during the original filming or post-production. Especially considering they were doing all of their color correction, compositing, etc all chemically. They could never tweak dynamic range to an artificial degree like they can today or digitally scrub out any minute offending details. So I wonder how a modern Chris Nolan thing would stack up visually if you A/B'd it.

2001 is certainly a visionary film, but there are plenty of things that look antiquated including the monkey suits, space fashions, and the whole star gate sequence. But for a movie that envisions an alternate future at a time when it was conceivable as a possible future it is really impressive.

Most importantly nobody can seem to make a decent movie anymore, and while that may come down the overall degradation of society, the temptation to focus on digital FX-ridden bullet-time juvenilia seems an extenuating factor. So another thing that isn't better with digital, rather significantly worse.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:47 pmGod I hate that word. Seeing it makes me feel so tired. Disingenuous, false, inauthentic, misleading, ostentatious. These all work. That word just immediately makes me think of white people righteously policing the instagram posts of other white people. It gives me a headache.

But I suppose that's my problem, not yours.

numberthirty wrote: Tue Oct 11, 2022 11:24 pm You want to understand why I love Dolly Parton? To me, I have a tough time understanding that there are human beings who exist who do not get why other human beings would love this...

Anthony Flack wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:07 pm

numberthirty wrote: Tue Oct 11, 2022 11:24 pm You want to understand why I love Dolly Parton? To me, I have a tough time understanding that there are human beings who exist who do not get why other human beings would love this...

I like those old shows.

"Now Dolly, here's an acoustic guitar, do you think you could provide a few minutes of broadcast-quality entertainment for us with it?"
"Why yes, effortlessly"

Geiginni wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 3:27 pm

zorg wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:08 pm I will still contend however film has an unshakable mojo for image capture, by virtue that it is a chemical process that very closely approximates how the retina of the human eye reacts to light. Yes, digital now is good enough that you can digitally simulate the "look", but it's a simulacrum regardless.

That's interesting. I'd like to know more about that process, as it would seem that retinal absorption of a photon triggers a isomerization of a protein that triggers a calcium/potassium channel pump and further enzymatic action that forms the beginning of the nerve 'impulse'.

As I've come to understand it: the action of a photon upon a silver-halide 'sensitivity speck' causes an electron in the speck group to jump to a higher conduction band, which will allow for the reduction of that speck and associated crystal to metallic silver when processed in an appropriate reagent. The similar process in a CMOS or CCD 'cell' is the electron jumps to a higher conduction band, which results in a charge avalanche that triggers a gate, or when the charge potential is sampled can be converted to a binary word value.