How long till 4K x 2K resolution video format is feasible?

A year or so ago Sony displayed it's 4k SXRD projector when doing so they had one of their movies in DCI compliant format 4k and they claimed it Faithfully represented all the film elements size (200gb-length of movie 149 Minutes) Uncompressed it was 10 Terabytes.Hope that helps.

To go from 1080p 4:2:0 8 bit to 4K 4:2:0 10 bit requires roughly 4 times more bandwidth for uncompressed data. After compression it's less. 200 GB Blu Ray with 100 Mbit/s peak for video should do the trick.

Do you guys believe that we will have 4K content for the home soon, I do not ?

I do not either.

Also, excuse my possible ignorance, but what type of cables would need to be used to pass this type of bandwidth? Clearly one HDMI cable is not capable of this.

2 hdmi.

I think I recall William Phelps telling me the new Merridian 4K required 4 DVI cables from proccesor to projector

Irrespective of how you drive it I think 4K content for the home (at least with choices) is off a while. Tough to say how long but I say no sooner than a couple of years. Even then I'm just struggling to see any sort of economic model.

Art

I don't either.

the reality is that if you look at the best quality BD right now, into the best quality Proj and use that as a baseline, we have a long way to go until we hit a point where we are getting the most out of what we have. And far too much invested in infrastructure for ANYBODY to even start to look at higher res.

Sure, within ten years we will see some niche specialty content at higher res, but this will be very limited.

Thank you. There is NO economic model except in hobbyist fantasy land. Because the market for it is and will continue to be so ridiculously small. Now if that small market demand could be filled by any enterprising individual, it would be one thing. If for instance I could got to the studios and borrow their masters and rip them to blu ray in my basement on a $10,000 machine, I could fill that niche. But that aint the way it's going to happen for so many reasons. In short, the cost to create the content, to get the studios to provide it and the machines to do it and so on would be astronomically higher than the profits that could be made by selling it.

we might see (in a few years) the likes of imax wanting to relases some content in a 4 k manner. but only if they can get it to play on a PC.

As far as the rest of the world goes... probably 20 years.

I would really think that we would need to move away from an optical disc format before it starts becoming physically and economically feasible. What would a completely uncompressed video file at the current 1080 resolution be in size, or maybe a better question is, what is the compression ratio for transfer to bluray. I'm sure one of you know, I haven't looked so its probably an easy answer. To go from 10tb to 200gb though seems like an awful lot of compression.

Am I correct though that video is fed to 4K projectors in theaters via a networked media hub? How is the video sent to the media controllers they use, I assumed it was a network, i.e. something like an FTP link via the internet. Are they really downloading 10tb files to these things, or is some form of compression already being used?

While I think we are a long long way away from network media or internet based media as the standard home source, I do think once that infrastructure is in place, it will help to open up things like higher resolution video. My personal opinion is that we are at least 20 years away from that happening simply because of internet infrastructure problems, and will see further developments in the optical disc world, and probably solidstate memory world first.

The only current business model for 4K is archiving. While some theater venues do have 4K projection, the general feeeling in Hollywood is that 2K is sufficient for distribution. Now it is true that 2K does not equal the quality of the negative or intermediate stock, it does equal or in many cases surpass the quality of the average print stock except for absolute black level.

And the main motivation for digital projection is not quality. It's the elimination of printing and physical distribution. That's where the savings are found. The higher delivered quality is a fortunate side benefit.

So as 4K presently has little interest in theatrical distribution, imagine how much interest the idea of 4K home video gets!

Not when 6k-1 on/off mod is available for DCI.Which is very soon (mid October), then print stock (with the exception of a very expensive Kodak formula) will be at a disadvantage.


If you guys saw these hacked 2k DCI projectors you would hardly want anything else. They truly are reminiscent of a personal 70mm rig. 1080p prosumer has a long way to go yet.

4k has value in simulation, I saw benefit to this on a simulation of a jUMBO JET APPROACHING AN AIRPORT from 7 miles away. You could see individual runway lights made out of 1 2 or 4 pixels. Very pretty.

Peter, 6k is already available on a number of quality projectors.

thats it peter, you tell glimmie whats what

Glimmie can't use modded projectors at work, I do.

CM. Your definition of quality is somewhat lenient. Wether or not you need DCI content to exploit it's superiority it's besides the point, a DCI projector to me eyes portrays an image way better than what the best home 3 chippers can. D-Cinema equipment is far ahead of what E-cinema equipment can offer.

If that was not the case I would not say it, with BlueRay DCI moded units are the best there is currently.

Now your getting personal. I know some women who would seriously take offense at that.


Ease up there Kemosabe. I think that's over stating the case. DCI machines do have some advantages, but so do domestic 3 chippers.

If what you say is true then I am Ethel Merman.

If that's the case, then pucker up baby, 'cos I bring a ruckus to the ladies..

_That's_ why I thought you looked so familiar!

You missed the most important point. It's not about quality. It's about costs. The three major Digital Cinema players Technicolor, Deluxe, and Kodak, all developed programs a few years ago to finance the transition and yet there are still few signing up. The three companies above have a lot to lose if prints go away so they are very proactive on alternate revenue streams from digital to replace the print revenues.

I listened to a paper a couple of years ago from the head of NATO. He hit it right on the head. What is discouraging many independant theaters and even the big chains is technology obsolesence. A well maintained 1950s film projector can produce the exact same image quality of a modern Christie or Ballentine projector. Not true with digital projectors. Now most theaters have upgraded to platter technology and newer projectors many years ago. But why? Not to have the latest and greatest projector. With platter automation they could get rid of the union projection staff. Now one qualifiued technician handles many theaters on a checkup basis. The senior consesion stand employees are trained to load film and troubleshoot basic issues.

Somebody has to come up with a workable finance model and some guarentee of future product compatability before we will see wide spread adoption of digital cinema.

Higher resolution isn't the only thing DCI is getting. They also are getting 4:4:4 color, whereas all the consumer distribution formats get 4:2:0. Even if they were generous enough to give us the higher resolution, they never would release the material to consumers in 4:4:4. Too bad, because it's chroma subsampling errors that causes a good deal of the ringing and other distortions in the image - not the reduced resolution.

The financial model for wide adoption of digital cinema was launched about 3 years ago and has been a huge success. It's based on virtual print fees paid by the studios that subsidizes much of the equipment cost. The leading companies handling the collection of the fees and the distribution of equipment to cinemas are AccessIT in the US and XDC in Europe. AccessIT has completed about 5000 installations in the US and a large number have been installed in the rest of the world. AccessIT has signed a second phase agreement with the studios earlier this year that schedules an additional 10,000 installations during the next three years. Current projection is one half of cinemas worldwide digital by 2013.

5000 screens is a small slice of the pie. The above reads like a press release to raise stock.

I totally agree. At the May LA-SID meeting Real D was the presenter talking about their equipment for doing stereoscopic projection. It was interesting to hear their pitch and on just how tremendous the animosity is between distribution and the theaters.

Digital is great, but in favor of film you have higher resolution and a really well known medium. The director of photography knows the techniques he/she wants/likes for telling the story. On the technical side, film rocks for dynamic range, has a very much more pleasent affect when you enter the limits of exposure in both the toe and shoulder and their are colors you get on film that video technology can't give you (e.g. yellows). Film however is expensive, heavy, and requires a ton of steps to work with. Plus it has all sorts of interesting means by which it self degrades. [dough]

In favor of digital you have lower cost, though a Thompson viper cam isn't exactly cheap. The thing is, with the budgets of major films these days, egos at several different stages can occasionally be something of a factor.

Will we see more movies shot with digital? Certainly, as a younger generation comes in who have cut their teeth on the lower cost digital cameras you'll see more of it. But I feel pretty confident saying that film is going to be around for many years to come.

Now an interesting wild card is 3d/stereoscopic. Right now, Disney, Dreamworks Animation, and several other studios have made several announcements about their plans for use of stereo. I'm personally skeptical, but then my opinion is that only certain types of movies can make effective use of the 3d and that it is hard to do well. Show of hands if you saw Journey to the Center of the Earth and you thought that the 3d was integral to the movie. If 3d is more than a novelty, and it does increase ticket sales, then we will see theaters switching over to digital projection much more quickly.

Digital means change and change is always 'interesting'