Could this be it? Folded Space Enhanced Resolution - Page 3

Originally Posted by stanger89 

I think there's a bit of confusion going on, as there are two different perspectives being given here and in each "base" has a different meaning.
What John is saying when he say "base" is that their "source" is a true, 2560x1080 (or better) source, and that they then feed that "base" 2560x1080 video into their system. So as far as their system goes, they are starting with a real 2560x1080 picture.
The confusion is from our end we're trying to figure out what's the "base" source that the player starts with. In this case, I believe HogPilot is right, to retain backward compatibility, the base video on the disc has to be letterboxed 1920x1080 (1920x810 active area). They then "hide" essentially the difference between the 1920x810, letterboxed "base" version, and the "full" 2560x1080 version via some clever encoding in the letterbox bars. In fact this is exactly what John/Folded Space say So my guess then is that what happens is there's the base 1920x810, backward compatible version, then in addition to that there's the "difference" information for the 2560x1080, and possibly some P&S mettadata stored in the black bars. So when you play an MFE disc on an MFE player, it decodes the base version, plus the difference information, to create a "real" 2560x1080 image, which is then either displayed as is, scaled to 1920x1080 anamorphic, or P&S'd, with the later two happening on the fly. It seems to me that it would be storage-prohibitive to try and store three different difference images in the black bars and would be much more efficient to just store the 2560x1080 difference in the bars and create the Anamorphic and P&S versions on the fly.

Originally Posted by John Schuermann 

Let me just say this much:
Since we start with either a 3K or 4K source, we know exactly which material we are pulling out in order to encode the video with MFE and create the letterbox version. As I stated previously, the letterbox version is the core image that is still visible after the MFE process extracts the extra resolution and folds it into the letterbox bars. The decode pass - MFD - then contructs a true anamorphic 1920 x 1080 image (which is what most readers are concerned with in this forum) using the letterbox image and hidden info in the letterbox bars. There is no scaling involved in this process whatsoever - it is a process of reconstructing from existing information. The process is proprietary and I really can't say any more than that.
As to the question, when will we see this - I cannot even begin to make a prediction as there are so many variables at play. Studio demos are being setup and I can confirm genuine interest. Discussions are also occurring with hardware manufacturers.

Originally Posted by Josh Z 

John, let me ask this as a theoretical. Take the case of a movie that was produced with a variable width aspect ratio, such as Brainstorm, The Horse Whisperer, Galaxy Quest, Brother Bear or Enchanted. In theaters, these movies played with the 1.85:1 scenes pillarboxed in the middle of a scope screen. The image then expanded horizontally during the 2.35:1 scenes. When transferred to video, the studio has to make the decision of whether to maintain the variable width format (which means that the 1.85:1 scenes will be pillarboxed with black bars on all four sides on the majority of displays) or altering the movie to a variable height format (which means that the scope scenes are now smaller than the 1.85:1 scenes).
Would Folded Space be able to accomodate real-time aspect ratio branching throughout the movie, so that a viewer could choose which format to watch in based on what type of screen they have?

Originally Posted by CAVX 

The only can of worms left is the 2.40:1 Vs 2.35:1 delimer. Will a 2.40:1 film gets it ends trimmed for the 2.37:1 AR of 2560 x 1080? I personally don't have a problem with this, but I am sure there are OAR fan boys that will.

Originally Posted by John Schuermann 

If you actually look at Blu-ray transport streams, you can see that supposed "2.40:1" or "2.35:1" films are actually transferred at all kinds of odd ratios - 1920 x 810, 1920 x 817, 1920 x 812, etc. Oftentimes a DP or director will slightly change framing when transferring their film to video. Based on my experience in the filmmaking world, aspect ratios are not the kind of hard and fast, super-precise calculations many people think they are, so a little bit of "slop" in framing is standard.

Originally Posted by Gary Lightfoot 

You can do that now - you need an anamorphic lens though, and the means to vertically stretch the image to fill the displays panel height. You gain the use of 250,000 previously unused pixels and lose the black bars.

Even with Folded Space, you'll still need an anamorphic lens or a true 2.37 display panel to take advantage of it,.

Gary

Originally Posted by Kelvin1965S 

I thought one of the side 'perks' of this system was that it would be possible to view 2.35:1 content in 16:9 at full screen, though can't remember the how and why

Originally Posted by carp 

So, just to be perfectly clear. If I have a 2:35:1 screen then the only way to not have the bars be above and below the screen is to have an A lens?

Originally Posted by carp 

So, just to be perfectly clear. If I have a 2:35:1 screen then the only way to not have the bars be above and below the screen is to have an A lens?