Digital Cinerama? Could we see this?

This might make the Christopher Nolan/Wally Pfisters of the world happy (assuming they ever gave up film).

I guess you'd have to build a special lens for the 1.77 sized sensor of digital cameras. It certainly would be an experience.

Whilst it is a good dream, I don't see cinema changing anytime soon. So the moon base might be a reality first.

Digital is replacing film but not really bringing anything new (apart from sound and scratch free images). I can't see anyone breaking ground yet given the D-Cinema specs are workable with existing cinemas.

The Sony F65 is not a 8K camera even if Sony's regular hyperbole try to claim so.

The F65 has a 20MP CMOS sensor with two green pixels for every red and blue. By regular resolution counting for CMOS, that would make out the camera sensor to be 15-17MP.
The sensor is also turned 45 degrees, which nobody yet have seen the reason for or the eventual image quality of.

The camera can only output 4K from that sensor, and knowing that 8K is in the 30MP+ range. The F65 is not a 8K camera even if Sony want "cook" the specs. somewhat.

As we have learnt with digital motion cameras, they need to shoot at higher resolution than the release resolution and downsample, so here both RED and Sony does the right thing.
For 8K movies to look good, that would mean a camera in the ballpark of 9K resolution.

Sony F65 can do 1-60 fps in 4Kx2K and 120fps in 4Kx1K
The F65 is a big camera which need a big attached SRMASTER field recorder for recording the best quality from the camera.

Why they need such a big camera when a "upstart" like RED can build a small camera like the Epic and record 5K internally is something I don't understand.
RED Epic-X;
1-120 fps 5K, 4.5K
1-150 fps 4K
1-200 fps 3K
1-300 fps 2K

Call me not impressed with Sony's camera development, but I hope it is a camera that gives top notch images.

Comparative test where done last year at the Moody Gardens Digital Cinema Symposium on a IMAX screen with Barco 4K projector and IMAX film projector, both with 70mm film and scans and 4K Digital Camera material(RED).
The general conclusion is that good 4K material digital projected matches the quality of the 16:9 portion of a IMAX film seen side-by-side.

This year they did more comparative test. This time with Barco 4K DLP Laser projector and 48&60fps. But nobody has written a proper report yet.

48fps movies shot in 5K, released in 4K (both 2D&3D) will have release later this year from Peter Jackson and Ridley Scott. (maybe more titles?)

Only 4K DLP projectors can currently easily be upgraded to show 48&60fps.


I hope not.
But be sure that when somebody start to make 8K projectors there will be 8K or higher resolution cameras.
I hope those comes long before a "moon base".

I have seen extensive discussions about the F65 8K claim both from DP's, camera manufacturers and people who have tested the camera. And no one can find out really where the 8K numbers comes from.
Maybe one day Sony can explain how they reach those numbers. But for now with conventional resolution counting, the numbers doesn't add up.
If your interested you can see how Graeme Nattress explains the 8K numbers; http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...l=1#post894692

Yeah, everything is relative and RED has managed to put an impressive lot of power in a small package. Good that technology moves forward.
Strange how RED manages to build such a small camera while the more experienced like Sony and Arri need so much size to process their images.
See comparison between the Alexa and the Epic-X and you see what I mean.
Alexa was released at the same time as the first RED Epic's.
(some specs. might have changed as this is nearly a year old)
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Besides the fact that Peter Jackson is a RED fan, the size of the Epic is a good reason.
But it is more to it; At the time of production start it was the only camera with high enough resolution and framerate to "future proof" the movie so it was not stuck in "1080 is good enough" which it would have been with f.ex. the Alexa. The Alexa can only do 30fps in 2K so it can't be used for 48fps. 3D.
My guess that's the same reason Ridley Scott shot "Prometheus", Baz Luhrmann shoots "Gatsby" and John Schwartzman DP's "Spiderman 4" among many other on the Epic.

It is disappointing that the producers of the first digitally shot Bond movie shoots on Alexa just because the DP is an "Arri fanboy" and that they didn't let the resolution advantage and "future proof" the material weight higher.


The problem with the F35 is that it is CCD, low resolution and hardly resolve more than 1.4K measured on a chart.
The RED one with the "new" sensor (two years old now) has about the same latitude as the Alexa (13-14 stops), ref. the Zacuto shoot-out.
The Epic has about 13.5 stops latitude and 18 stops latitude with HDRx.


I have seen them several times, both the 2010 and the 2011, and all the forum discussions afterwards.
Some criticism is naturally avoidable, but for the 2011 shoot-out went mainly on the fact that some camera resolution measures was higher than the camera sensor resolution which made people mistrust other data in the shoot-out. And that the guy who was the leader of the project was somewhat of a known Arri "fanboy". So when he "had to" re-shoot the Alexa test based on some flimsy excuses, many people started to distrust the whole test scenario.

Will be more interesting this year where each company are invited to select their own crew. Hopefully we will see both the F65 and the Epic-X against Alexa, even tough those two cameras can't display their 4K RAW downsampled advantage in this test against the Alexa.


Higher resolution is always better in my book, both in cameras and display tech.
What I reacted to was the 8K claim of the F65.
8K in broadcast terms is 7680 x 4320 and 8192x4320 in movie terms, and that is a resolution the F65 can never output even if you "shake it hard".
It just "bugs me a little" when Sony's 8K claim is repeated by people.

JVC has build some 8K CMOS prototype cameras for NHK for their 8K broadcast tests, and Sharp has built them some 85" 8K TV's, so 8K is on its way. JVC also has some kind of 8K projector, but I don't think you can buy it yet.
RED also has a 9K camera on their "road map" but that can take some time.(no point in making them if there are no 8K projectors).

I am all for a "Ultra Panavision" kind of experience, but it seems like (despite my scepticism) than one can have that with higher than 4K resolution digital camera material projected with 4K DLP projectors.

If you havn't read it already, I just added the text from a report from last year to a thread where the link to the original report is dead;http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post21602311

You will also find a link to a thread with a report from Cineramax's in the same thread.

Link to the only report I have found from this years shoot out is here; http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2#post21520872

This might make the Christopher Nolan/Wally Pfisters of the world happy (assuming they ever gave up film).

I guess you'd have to build a special lens for the 1.77 sized sensor of digital cameras. It certainly would be an experience.[img]http://www.******************/zhaojh.jpg[/img][img]http://www.******************/zhaoht.jpg[/img][img]http://www.******************/zhaogd.jpg[/img]

While we still at it, no single chip camera can produce the chip resolution in the final output.


And that should be the nr 1 reason when you pick your cam. Yes specifications and testcharts are fun to play with. But in the end its subjective quality of the image that counts.

Is Prometheus being shot at 48 fps for projection at that rate? I had not heard that claimed before. I thought that The Hobbit and Avatar 2 were the only movies in production (or development, in Avatar's case) with higher-than-24-fps frame rates.


Regardless of the pixel count, RED cameras have a certain "look" that some DPs (and viewers) don't care for.

I shall not swear that Prometheus is shot in 48fps. It is certainly not announced or confirmed. But in an short interview with Ridley Scott I saw last year he talked enthusiastic about shooting Prometheus in 3D and how good high framerate 3D was.
If he shot it in 48fps. it is not sure he will release it in 48fps. as there is not many places that can show 48fps. yet, at least not in 4K or 3D.

Barco 4K DLP can show 48fps., but new Series-2 projectors might need a new inputboard, and the speed is also lacking on the server side. Both parts are announced like the Qube Xi server, but I wouldn't think enough screens would be upgraded before the summer in any meaningful numbers.
We can just hope The Hobbit will be a more "high profile" release so cinema owners speed up the upgrade. The Cinemark chain is supposedly 100% digital now with Barco DLP on 3,400 screens. Should be a possibility there in December.

I am aware of those claims. The problem is the lack of technical understanding by those DP's and the post houses of how to work with RAW.
The RED cameras can look exactly how you want them to look, that's the beauty of RAW.
Many DP's test cameras against each other in a workflow where everything is converted to Apple Pro-res. That means the settings are baked in.
Good when shooting the Alexa because it outputs beautiful pro-res straight from the camera, not so good when people don't know how to treat RED RAW files.
On RED RAW, the grading and color correction has to be done on the RAW files with the metadata intact.
Most people just debayer the RAW files, convert to another format, grade on the converted files and then get stuck on less flexible material.

I have seen all kind of RED videos over the years, see new ones posted every week, and nobody can say they have any similarity or a specific "look".
All depends on the DP and how it is treated in post. It is easier to spot Alexa material than RED material.

Its not that easy, it does give us fantastic post options that otherwise would have been needed to been tweaked in the camera.

But its not like the combination of bayer filter and cmos sensor cant effect an image to a point were adjusting the RAW data will not help.

Both a filter and a sensor destroys information (light) that passes trough the lens of the camera. Some combination are of course worse then others. But its not 100% perfect on any camera.

Red One had several problems with its colors, I dont think I seen any clip from that camera were I couldnt see an issue. That is not the same to say that I didnt see footage that I liked, just that there were technical issues on the image. So It wasnt just bad RAW tweaking because then we would have seen better footage.

I dont really care about 4K, 48fps or 3D, but can someone deliver a digital camera that gives me the PQ of POTC2 or Star Trek (2009), we would have a winner.

coolscan,

I'm curious how you come by all your information on this subject. What is your background, if I may ask?

Cheers,

Rich H

^^ Just interested in technology like most people here, with particular interest in emerging technologies.
Following discussion on film forums and techno bloggs for knowledge of all that is happening on the acquisition side and mostly here on AVS for the display side.

Got it, thanks.

I don't care about where you learned all this stuff from...Keep discussing what you and Cam Man were talking about! I'm LEARNING! Lol!

Which films have been shot with sony cameras vs the red?

Here are some, of course most productions uses several different cameras.

Red One: Knowing (2009)

Red Epic: Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (2011), Underworld: Awakening (2012), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Genesis: Deja Vu (2006), Superman Returns (2006)

F23: Avatar (2009) Public Enemies (2009)

F35: Tron Legacy (2010)

Was the F35 used to film the non cgi scenes? ALso does anyone know what Danny Boyle's Sunshine was filmed with? I thought that film looked spectacular as I use it for my demos. Would've been great if it was made for IMAX too...

Edit: looks like it was filmed with Arri

That a movie looks great has alot to do with how its was filmed then what it was filmed on. Sure, a bad camera can of course effect the image in a not so good way. But to make material demo quality you need a good light setup.

No matter what you shoot with, without good lights the image will look dull and flat.

And one other factor is that resolution is more needed on arial shoots then it is on closeups. 2K is plenty on someone face.

Yes, something like that.

The idea of Digital Cinerama is very intriguing. You can now shoot with relatively lightweight 3D rigs and two Red Epics, so why wouldn't build some crazy "Digi-rama" rig for 3 Epics? I've seen some experimental shots guys did with Red Ones couple years back (wasn't for cinerama, but for a 4k video stitching tests). It looked seamless as far as I could see, with correct lenses obviously. In the next year once 4K Sony F55 (+recorder) and 6K Red Dragon (though, full-frame sensor could be even better suited than that) are out you'd have some hi-res choice for not-terribly-heavy D-Cinerama rig. I wonder if three Epic cameras with (infamous) 100% fan speed will be as loud as the good ol' three film heads back in analog Cinerama days, wouldn't it? I guess there's only one way to find out, heh
Edited by Vadim Bobkovsky - 11/21/12 at 4:28pm

Why would you buy a RED camera, or rent a Panavision one, when for a quarter the price you can own this?

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/

Purchase price is less than the daily rental of a Panavision. Cheap enough to buy one then throw it in the trash can at the end of the shoot.

Faced with the problem of color grading, they bought Da Vinci, the company, lock stock and barrel, and put Da Vinci software on-board.

Classy.

(And it's 2.5k scope out of the box!)

From Philip Bloom's review of the BMD Camera (which to my knowledge still hasn't shipped).

There's a reason why Alexa and RED are the cameras of choice out there.

$3k per unit buys a lot of forgiveness.

More quotes from Phillip Bloom:

Edited by Aussie Bob II - 11/29/12 at 1:33pm

Yes but the big boy cinematographers aren't actually going to use it by and large, except maybe for some insert work. That's the point. Blackmagic isn't trying to be a competitor to the EPIC or Alexa. Not at a $3,000 price point. They're trying to hop into the Canon 5D, C300/500 market which is not where feature films are made (the handful of features made on 5D like "I Melt With You" are mostly experimental works when the technology was new. Red Tails had some 5D work in it as did Black Swan but again, it didn't carry the lion's share of the work). Most commercial jobs I've been involved with its either a choice of RED or Alexa, (perhaps some of the bigger Sony cameras or film in some cases) or the company already owns a 5DmKII or something like this that they use when they don't want to spend any money. But people at the feature level are much more demanding and have a lot more at stake than the videographer level who BMD is aiming at.

It's actually really interesting all these low-mid range cameras that keep coming out, because they are all competing for the same market share. Wedding movies, low budget commercials and music videos, some reality TV work (at best), insert work, universities, colleges and churches, and small production companies, etc. In the feature realm though, it became quickly apparent once the Alexa came out that it was going to be the standard bearer (partially because of the reputation of Arri) and RED has managed to create a product that people like David Fincher, Rob Marshall and Ridley Scott have become comfortable with. Both are standards on network TV shows. The other elephant in the room is that as a result the workflows for RED and Alexa are pretty well established for post-production, DI and VFX houses, which becomes a cost-saver down the road (you don't have to spend money doing tests and making sure the DI house can properly handle the footage and if the footage will hold up for DCP, etc).

Here's Roger Deakins