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Are 35mm films capable of the Rec 2020 colour space?

31K views 34 replies 12 participants last post by  skibum5000 
#1 ·
If 4K disc comes out and have Rec 2020 colour space support how many movies will be able to take advantage of it? Is the colour space of 35mm on par with Rec 2020 ? Or will rec 2020 have to rely on only new films?
 
#3 ·

Great question,

 

Film is an endowed medium. Modern color film stock (~1985-present) latitude / capture is HDR (~11 stops), film also has a logarithmic response to  light, just like the human eye. Film also has a near infinite color palette. DCI specs are similar to that of 35mm film. Film sets a very high standard to equal.

 

Standard Rec 709 video is limited to ~7 stops or ~200:1 contrast.    
 
#4 ·
Thanks for the answers so far. I got this answer on another forum:


"Well, film color is not a color space, per se. There are boundaries to what can be captured on film and then reproduced by film print, and these boundaries, when mapped to the CIE 1931 XYZ color space chart, establish what might be better termed a film color gamut.


However, to directly answer your question in a nutshell….Yes….because the color coordinates for BT.2020 map out a WIDE color gamut (WCG).


And next if anyone is subsequently wondering….yes….Dolby Vision supports BT.2020 color and….can even be tweaked to support the XYZ color space if needed."
 
#5 ·

http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com/dcp/news/now-you-see-them-now-you-dont-colorimetry-and-electronic-cinema/44388

 

….Kuttner agreed that achieving a "film look" will be the toughest challenge for any electronic cinema system.

 

 "Film has a greater color depth than video and tracks color logarithmically like the human eye. Any electronic projection system will need to support 36-bit color with 12 bits per color plane. 150:1 contrast will probably be the minimum acceptable grayscale, although daylight film stocks can achieve 1,000:1 contrast."

 

- - - - - - - - - -

 

Why I commented 35mm film has potentially near infinite color palette.
 
#6 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by bralas  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24262922

http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com/dcp/news/now-you-see-them-now-you-dont-colorimetry-and-electronic-cinema/44388

….Kuttner agreed that achieving a "film look" will be the toughest challenge for any electronic cinema system.

 "Film has a greater color depth than video and tracks color logarithmically like the human eye. Any electronic projection system will need to support 36-bit color with 12 bits per color plane. 150:1 contrast will probably be the minimum acceptable grayscale, although daylight film stocks can achieve 1,000:1 contrast."

- - - - - - - - - -


Why I commented 35mm film has potentially near infinite color palette.
Please note that the article was written around year 2000, and is completely outdated and the information of film vs. digital is in no way applicable anymore.
 
#8 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by bralas  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24263081


Please, expand on exactly what you are saying.

I don't know what you didn't get? A lot of development has happened in digital cinema since year 2000 which was more like the start of digital cinema.


The article start out with;
"Electronic cinema is a hot topic for 1999,......"
Now it is 2014.

.
"Until recently, the biggest stumbling block to electronic cinema had been the projectors themselves.

It was not technically feasible to project large wide-screen images with brightness, contrast, and color saturation that even came close to 16mm film, let alone 35mm.

But that has all changed int he past six years with the introduction of imaging engines based on transmitted light (liquid-crystal displays), reflected light (Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing), and hybrid light-shutter(Hughes-JVC's Image Light Amplifier) technology."



This is old-school descriptions.


.
"None of these technologies are ready to replace film immediately, but manufacturers are making impressive demonstrations of film-like projection quality on a daily basis. Texas Instruments has been showcasing standard 4:3, 16:9, and anamorphic 2.35:1 electronic cinema to several studios using three 1280 x 1024-pixel digital micro-mirror devices (DMDs)."


Resolution of 1280 x 1024 was how far they had come at the time.


.
"Hughes-JVC Technology, manufacturer of the super-bright ILA-12K cinema-grade projector, recently announced a joint partnership with QUALCOMM in a new company called CineComm."


JVC is not in cinema projection business anymore.........


.
"Fixed-resolution displays such as DMDs and LCDs have now reached over 1000 vertical pixels and are flirting with 1200,............."


Do I need to say more..............


.
"...............but it also forms the basis of our present-day analog NTSC color television system and the CCIR-601 digital color specification."


CCIR-601 was later renamed Rec.601. We are now on Rec.709 for TV and approaching Rec.2020.

Cinema has been using the wider colorspace of DCI-P3 for many years.


They also talk about Film scanners like The Spirit which is outdated. A lot of development in CCD/CMOS sensors has happened in fifteen years providing higher resolution and better colors from film scans.


Even film has now become a digital media because it is immediately scanned and functions as just another camera sensor like a mix of film and the scanner sensor characteristics.

A film print for distribution has never contained the full color quality of the original positive/negative.


No film has been distributed for many years which has had its distribution copy made optical from the film negative.

Fox just announced that they will stop distributing film copies all together. I you don't have a digital projector in your cinema you won't get the movie.


So you see, information from year 2000 is not applicable anymore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bralas  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24263081


A medium that sets the industry benchmark IS paramount in my book.

Why?

Leave it to the benchmark setter of ITU and others, they are paid for the job.


As for thread starters question; Film doesn't have particularly wide color space compared to the modern digital cameras.


Even if Rec.2020 capable displays comes on the market in some years, doesn't mean that all films (or any at all) will contain the full colorspace.


Rec.2020 and the new comparable standard for cinema called ACES are made so wide that they almost contain visible light, but that is done to not have restrictions, not to force everybody to finish movies or TV programs in that colorspace.


Rec.2020 is slightly wider than ProPhoto colorspace.

Rec.7+9 is comparable to sRGB.


This promotion CIE chart from Sony gives an idea of various color spaces. It is not accurate, Sony has cheated a little to make their cameras F65 and F35 colorspace look a little better in comparison.




This one might be more accurate.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bralas  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24263081


On sale now at Barnes & Nobel:)

Might be fun as an history book, but useles fo anybody that want to have knowledge of what is going on today.
 
#9 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by coolscan  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24267549


Do I need to say more....

 
Histronics, coupled w/large images mean what exactly?

 

The OP was inquiring about the dynamics of 35mm film. I gave succinct empirical data regarding the prowess of the format itself.

 

"Any electronic projection system will need to support 36-bit color with 12 bits per color plane"

 

A statement like this suggest film is quit endowed indeed. In fact the color saturation characteristic is unmatched. Now worries though, most don't

comprehend the quantum difference between log space and what is effectively a "linear" dynamic space. Please don't tell me how Rec 709 gamma is

non linear...please! The medium can only represent 100:1 or at best 200:1 with 8-bit per color.

 

"...CIELAB and CIELUV color spaces target print and video respectively.  L* models contrast approximately 100:1 with peak luminance somewhere around 200 cd/m^2.  The L* value of 8, corresponds to a contrast ratio of 100:1 (linear segment breakpoint)."
 
 
#13 · (Edited)

The OP was inquiring about the dynamics of 35mm film.
No, what the OP enquired about was a broader question, about the colour space. Rec 2020 defines a colour space. I think the OP was asking whether modern 35mm film can capture [the negative] the whole of the defined Rec 2020 colour space. And the OP may in addition have been interested in whether a print from a negative would be capable of covering the whole of the Rec 2020 colour space.

If the colour space is limited (e.g. a particular print process is unable to show a particular shade of red at all) it is little consolation that this limitation in the gamut covered by the colour space of the print is maintained over a very wide dynamic range, traceable back to the dynamic range of the negative.

The colour of film prints in the mid to late decades of the 20th century varied considerably as techniques improved. I think it is part of the charm of movies from those past decades that they retain various distinctive looks.
 
#10 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by kristoffer77  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24225081


If 4K disc comes out and have Rec 2020 colour space support how many movies will be able to take advantage of it? Is the colour space of 35mm on par with Rec 2020 ?
35mm film has a fairly good sized color space as seen in this Sony comparison chart and would benefit from the Rec. 2020 color space.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kristoffer77  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24225081


Or will rec 2020 have to rely on only new films?
Almost all digital movies used the DCI P3 color space which is smaller than 35mm film. Hollywood is slowly moving towards the ACES color space, which covers the entire range of visible light, but at the moment it is rare for a movie to use it. Ironically this means that for a period of 10+ years the color space of movies decreased because of the switch from 35mm film to digital projection.
 
#11 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Paul  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24280399



... Ironically this means that for a period of 10+ years the color space of movies decreased because of the switch from 35mm film to digital projection.
+1
 

 

"...Please note that the article was written around year 2000"

 

"...completely outdated and the information of film vs. digital is in no way applicable anymore"

-2
 
 
#12 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by bralas  /t/1512456/are-35mm-films-capable-of-the-rec-2020-colour-space#post_24280767


+1:)  


"...Please note that the article was written around year 2000"


"...completely outdated and the information of film vs. digital is in no way applicable anymore"

-2:rolleyes:  

As a newcomer to this forum you seems to be intent on regularly taking statements out of context and try to provoke an argument where there are nothing to argue about. Your posts seems to display a inability to understand the content of the posts you try to argue about without showing any sign that you have any valuable input.


If you don't understand by yourselves that an article from 2000 that discuss the equipment (scanners and projectors) they had back then, which where unable to extract the full colorspace (and other qualities) of 35mm film, and was unable to digitally project the full and equal quality of 35mm film, then I don't know how someone could explain that to you.


Nobody here are interested in the limitations of equipment made more than fifteen years ago. Even the 35mm film-stock has improved vastly since then.


There are also reasons for why archival movies which has been scanned and distributed digital many years ago are now being rescanned on newer and better equipment, and that is not for the increased resolution alone.
 
#14 ·
Quote: Originally Posted by bralas


If you don't understand by yourselves that an article from 2000 that discuss the equipment (scanners and projectors) they had back then, which where unable to extract the full colorspace (and other qualities) of 35mm film, and was unable to digitally project the full and equal quality of 35mm film, then I don't know how someone could explain that to you.
Actually negative has been scanned at 4k to 10 bit log since about 1994. Its exactly the same spec used today. A Cineon Lightning scanner from the mid 90s creates scans that are exacty the same quality as a more recent Northlight.

Nobody here are interested in the limitations of equipment made more than fifteen years ago. Even the 35mm film-stock has improved vastly since then.
Like i said film scanning has changed little in 20 years , its gotten faster per frame but the standard is the same. 35mm film stock has improved a bit in terms of grain structure over the last few years but the actual dynamic range has pretty much stayed the same for negative . Makes no difference to the scanner , they were transparent to all intents and purposes back in the mid 90s to the same extent they are today.

There are also reasons for why archival movies which has been scanned and distributed digital many years ago are now being rescanned on newer and better equipment, and that is not for the increased resolution alone.
Nope its primarily for the resolution increase , colour and dynamic range are the same as the best scanners from the 90s . They were even 4k but the processing overhead was pretty much impossible to handle for 4k. However Snow White was restored by Cinesite in the 90s at 4k.
 
#17 ·
http://www.cineon.com/conv_10to8bit.php

google cineon lightning recorder for piles of webchat and references dating back to the late 90s.

generally its still regarded as the best scanner out there , Cinesite in london were still using it alongside Northlights when I left in 2007 and the scans were identical.( having been there for 10 years)
 
#25 · (Edited)
Er?? speaking as a VFX supervisor .

The term "camera negative" refers to the exposed negative out of the camera. It most definitely does have "meaning" for VFX or otherwise.

Optical effects ( even simple transitions) were created ultimately on an optical printer which uses multiple elements shot on negative including the camera negative and rephotographs them through a series of multiple passes using mattes ( either hand drawn or created through lab processing key passes).

The end shots are rephotographed back to negative creating an "interpositive which is itself rephotographed back to negative creating an "internegative". They do not work with print other than reference for lab grading and final sign off.

The internegative is then conformed back into the conformed master negative ; which is usually the camera negative "neg cut" together to "conform" to the desired cut of the film. The optical effect works slots in the same as any other bit of negative and then goes through a lab grade, it doesn't come in from another pipe.
 
#28 ·
since catalog films are out now and i dont see an equivalent topic thread.

if film negative source like unforgiven, leon, 5th element have more color range than rec2020

then why do the current reviews on these say the hdr is 'meh'

vs it is amazing!?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#29 ·
It's all about the transfer.

Catalog films are especially vulnerable to bad transfers because the movie will not sell many copies and they're sold at heavily discounted prices. So they may simply not do all the proper steps of scanning the original films and using that, instead using the digital archives and doing some minor color grading to expand the color space back when it was crushed.

It's why you have companies like Criterion who manually remaster a film from the original stock (or try to - they do complain sometimes there isn't enough time to do proper transfers too). They obvious cost a lot more money too, so they are selective in doing films that not only deserve a proper transfer, but has enough fans to actually buy it.
 
#30 ·
some of these titles just received a fresh 4k transfer. do folks like WB not take into account HDR/DV when scanning into older films that my have pretty nice color palette?
 
#31 ·
Like i said, it depends on how much the studios were willing to spend on the movie. Some were cheap, others decided to ante up for a good transfer.

If you're lucky, they will scan the original film and re-color grade the film for HDR. But this is expensive as it's slow (each frame has to be retouched by hand - the scan itself can introduce dirt artifacts and the film may not be completely clean). Of course this gives the best results.

Otherwise they may not even go back to the original film but to a digital intermediate or other digital capture done years earlier for say, the blu-Ray release. This is much cheaper and faster (the scans and film correction was already done), but you suffer from the limits of the original transfer, which happened before stuff like HDR was widespread.

And yes, it happened when Blu-Ray first came out too - a lot of early Blu-rays simply sucked - they were often worse than the DVD! The one that came with the ps3 and the Fifth Element were completely unwatchable. They were so bad, a few years later Sony re-issued them with much improved quality. Here it appears to build up a Blu-Ray library, Sony did fast transfers that were lousy, then redid them years later to correct some of the more egregious transfers (and double dip).

So the catalog releases may be done cheaply and quickly because WB wants to build up a UHD library quickly, or they're being cheap because they know it's only an incremental amount of sales so they aren't willing to spend the money to do a proper transfer.

The thing is, to produce a catalog title, there are probably dozens of ways to make a transfer, all with their own time, quality and cost trade offs. You'd hope studios would always pick the best transfer possible, but no.
 
#32 ·
it would be awesome if they did... because the older black & whites will finally be closer to their original 35mm shown in film circuits! it's like a veil being torn off and we are finally able to see what the 35mm originals are actually capable of in terms of grayscales and lights and even colors as well.

70mm are prime examples of possible great transfers not just 4k/8k but the colors are amazing
 
#35 ·
Along the topic of film color gamut and UHD and its REC2020, it is curious to see that the UHD for Attack Of The Clones appears to clip intense blue-green part of the spectrum colors pretty much as much as the REC709 color gamut limited BD did as compared to a 35mm print even though REC2020 should have allowed them to show properly. It also seems to possibly be the same case for the other two prequels as it seems the intro words are also muted but nothing more for them has been checked so perhaps just the intro words, but does not seem to be the case for the OT discs. I wonder if they ended up doing the alterations for home video (they changed a few effects, changed a scene, etc.) in REC709 workflow for some reason (yeah that is all home supported back then, heck it was REC601 when they started) but you'd think they want to work in a wider gamut to be future proof (and for potential cinema re-releases as well) and then ended up stuck with REC709 clipped colors? That would explain why the UHD seems to have weak colors in blue-green range compared to 35mm prints. One could imagine that maybe just printing out to film enhanced those colors beyond intended, but then why do the intro words look muted on prequel UHD but not nearly so much for the OT discs?
 
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