NicS
Sensei
Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 213
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Post by NicS on Apr 9, 2024 15:57:26 GMT -5
A cinematographers perspective on whether 8K is better than 4K, or indeed is it preferable? Buckle up. For me, this depends on a number of criteria. Primarily it's the type of content. So I'll handle these separately. Movie & TV drama. The prevailing capture frame rate for movies/TV is 23.98fps (24p, nominally/ 25p for Europe). While most capture is around the 4K mark, as 24fps the image blur in anything other than graphic content and wide shots that are completely still drop to an effective resolution around the 1.5K mark. In fact, as someone with 30 years of experience behind the camera, the job of the cinematographer is to do the opposite of what might be called "resolution maximization." Typically, we'll take a 4K digital camera, put on a "detuned" lens (the latest fad in filmmaking), add diffusion filters to the lens, then fill the set with atmosphere mist, shooting at "wide-open" on the lens which renders 85% of the frame out of focus and that area in focus bing subject to spherical aberration (amongst other artifacts), which helps make the image look "beautiful". In post, artificial film gain is added, further deteriorating resolution until the picture is considered graded and matches shot for shot. It's important to understand that this production criteria is limited to drama, where storytelling is linked to aesthetic, etherial concerns. It's also important to note the recent resurgence of the use of film as the originating medium. This is mostly an affectation of a certain class of filmmaker; those wishing the film industry was still in their exclusive control (Spielberg, Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan, Wes Anderson all still insist on shooting film) Movie & TV Documentary. This changes the criteria a bit. For those documentaries with reenactments & interviews, 24p capture is most prevalent, following the dominant aesthetic. The big pivot comes with nature documentaries. This is most starkly revealed in watching Planet Earth III in 4K Ultra from BluRay, in a 4:4:4, 12bit output at 60fps. This visceral, window-like realism is genuinely jaw dropping. It freaks my dog out completely. But its not the sort of detail you want when looking at Meryl Streeps face. Shooting Meryl this way would result in immediate dismissal as the cinematographer and the sudden end of your career. However, as anyone who has any of the Planet Earth discs will know, this is how you can tell if your projector/monitor is performing correctly. Any changes in setup are immediately apparent with such exacting content. Reality TV. While 4K capture is typical, it is still not preferable to deliver an image that is maximized for 4K resolution. This would compromise the aesthetic concerns too much. Effort is made to reduce resolution to fit inside the acceptable range of what is currently commercially acceptable image quality. However, graphics are distinctly better and more legible compared to 1080p delivery. I doubt 8K would improve anything in this genre. I used to shoot quite a bit for Victoria's Secret. I did the fashion shows, some advertising and the ill-fated Swim Special (oh boy). My relationship started with me being brought in to shoot "beauty B-Roll", for use in bumpers in the production of the TV broadcast fashion show. Back in 2005 the best option for "beauty" was to shoot on 32mm negative. The models would exit the stage, then pass though my little studio on the way to the changing room, often getting undressed at the same time. I would then shoot then doing into-the lens beauty porn. Over the years, I introduced various early digital cameras including the ARRI D-20 (the first really useable digital motion picture camera), Weisscam, Thompson Viper....but never RED: terrible on skin tone and generally unreliable. My entire role was to make these women look as gorgeous as possible (not hugely difficult) and to hover in this neo-reality of objectification for profit. I was never concerned with the camera resolution, I was only concerned with actual resolution, which I kept under the 1.5K target. Sport. I'm not much of a sport fan, admittedly. But what I've noticed in terms of resolution isn't so much in the moving image, as in the graphic content. In 4K, the graphics cane be made to be more legible in a smaller font. And I'm sure this will be true of 8K production. My only exposure to 8K sport is in the production of prototype lenses for capture for dome style use. This is becoming more of a "thing" but it isn't something that will translate to domestic use for years to come, and certainly not in the realm of panel display. What might be advantageous with 8K origination would be user designated "picture-in-picture" control. I've been involved in experimentation in this area. For me it has limited appeal, but that is for the market to decide. In this scenario, more pixels would be highly advantageous, and the feature could be limited to 8K deliverables at a "premium" cost, something that excites the bean counters at the steaming services. Gaming. I'm an avid player of Borderlands. I'm level 72, with a full cache of Legendary 800+ weapons acquired in Mayhem 11 mode. If that means nothing to you, it's OK. But it reflects a prodigious amount of time and a chunk of skill; that in the real world is utterly, utterly pointless. I can see how 8K display would be great for this. 8K at 120hz more so. Latency can go *bleep* itself in this realm. The chance of me playing Borderlands on my projector are slim. The screen is in the living room, which forces us into a night-time only viewing routine. Which I'm fine with. I don't need any daytime distraction. Plus, I think the days of screen based gaming is soon to be over, pivoting 100% to headset based display in the next 5 years. Conclusions. Would I buy an 8K projector? Sure. It's most likely coming and most likely we won't have a choice. But realistically, projectors are on their way out. Just as the traditional TV has it's days numbered. In Glendale, in an innocuous business park, Sony has a facility that helps filmmakers make the choice of using Sony technology in their productions. Well, choice is an odd term. If it's a Sony produced project, "choice" is limited to their product line. It's the same facility that Claudio Miranda visited when deciding to shoot Top Gun 2 on the Sony Venice 2 camera. In this facility is a viewing theatre in which is installed the Sony Crystal Vision LED system. This scalable, panel based, modular system is widely used in the corporate market but is currently very expensive. But, as with all things in tech, the price is plummeting. These systems are finding their way into large scale viewing (the Sphere in Las Vegas), and into the homes of the ultra rich. I know someone who spent $500,000 on a home theatre setup with this technology. His priorities are somewhat distorted by his bottomless wealth. We are within a decade of this tech being something we buy at Ikea, and line walls with, cheaper than the cost of wood panelling. This isn't hyperbole. This is being actively developed. When this technology comes on line, 8K, even 16k will be essential. In fact the camera developed for generating content of the Sphere in Vegas in 16K. Which is soon to be 24K, to help with artifact reduction. So that's the future. The not-too-distant future at that. I'll end this textual vomiting with one thought: resolution is a factor to be considered in the creation of content. Storytelling, the type we love in movies and TV, relies on images that tend to be subjective. We all have a different personal interpretation with a movie, less so with documentaries. What is more important, to me at least, is dynamic range and color rendition. To me, a decent 2K projector (like a Christie L2K1500), with a very wide color gamut, high dynamic range and 15,000 lumens, is visually superior to the 4K Sony I have. It's also 12 times the weight and 10 times the cost. My Sony might be better during the credits, but the Christie, when watching movies is far, far superior. I borrowed one to try out. There was NO COMPARISON. But my wife would never, let me bolt a 100lb lump like that to the ceiling. To me color rendition and dynamic range are far, far more significant in terms of overall image quality than resolution. One final thing. Marvel uses tools I developed as a cinematographer in their pre-viz. I have an ongoing relationship with their visual effect supervisors who live 100% in the world of what screen resolution means. In the past few years, Marvel takes 4K original material, down resing to 2K for most work, only going back to 4K when needed, then in the final pass they upres back to 4K using an AI driven system, This saves millions of dollars in storage and render time. Nobody, and I mean not a single person prefers the 4K production path when they tested this at Marvel, It looks better and is cheaper to upres from 2K. Thought you might find that interesting. If you didn't, sorry for all the words. It is very interesting. So if I understand the gist of it ... no matter how advanced technology gets to increase the fidelity, resolution, clarity and precision of image capture (and audio too), the trend will always be to degrade fidelity, resolution, clarity and precision either during capture or in post for aesthetic or "paleo nostalgic" reasons ... and to do so using the highest quality/precision tools. Then the consumer market will be full of very expensive equipment to reproduce this content at resolutions higher than it is humanly possible to comprehend. Pretty much? I talk about this very issue frequently Marc, when lecturing on the craft and art of cinematography. Resolution is a creative factor in all art. The lowering of resolution to the point of abstraction is one of the many characteristics of art. Objectively, a photograph of a sunflower is a very beautiful thing. If you zoom in on the picture, at some point you lose any notion of what the whole is, and you start to concentrate on some other detail. Then, you start to see pixels, and shortly after you are left with just one block and nothing of the meaning you began with. The brain is constantly starved of meaning and it looks for it in everything. This is the limit of meaning ion this respect. However, if you take a painting of a sunflower by van Goch, as you move closer, meaning diverges very quickly. This is typical of all impressionistic or abstracted art. The thing with Painting, is that no matter how close you get, you are never, ever reduced to one block, and the interest is maintained and evolved to the sub microscopic level. So, in some ways, the painting of a sunflower by Van Goch is of higher resolution than a photograph. In the same way, when Tom Waits sings though a loud hailer, I doubt he's thinking about how DSP can help improve the clarity of the sound. Resolution (or the lack thereof) and distortion are both parts of the artistic process. Striving for high resolution sometimes misses the point of art. That moment when we no longer understand or believe what we are looking at, or hearing, that is where the art lives. That's where emotion is. When I'm talking about image fidelity with budding cinematographers, we talk about the law of diminishing returns. There is a point where more resolution is unnecessary and needlessly expensive to achieve. I compare this to my love of vinyl. It is an unreasonable position to own a turntable the cost of a reasonably priced car. Yet that's what I have, instead of a car. I drive my wife's when I have to. My interest in vinyl is to be able to experience recordings I love, as close to the artists intentions as possible, in its original format. It's a fetish, let's face it. And fairly irrational, considering the digital options. Though you'll never find me buying vinyl versions of albums meant to be played on CD. Or steamed. That seems pointless and inauthentic to me. Again, a fetish. I love your term "paleo nostalgic". Please forgive me for stealing it without attribution the next time I lecture.
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Post by marcl on Apr 9, 2024 16:12:06 GMT -5
It is very interesting. So if I understand the gist of it ... no matter how advanced technology gets to increase the fidelity, resolution, clarity and precision of image capture (and audio too), the trend will always be to degrade fidelity, resolution, clarity and precision either during capture or in post for aesthetic or "paleo nostalgic" reasons ... and to do so using the highest quality/precision tools. Then the consumer market will be full of very expensive equipment to reproduce this content at resolutions higher than it is humanly possible to comprehend. Pretty much? I talk about this very issue frequently Marc, when lecturing on the craft and art of cinematography. Resolution is a creative factor in all art. The lowering of resolution to the point of abstraction is one of the many characteristics of art. Objectively, a photograph of a sunflower is a very beautiful thing. If you zoom in on the picture, at some point you lose any notion of what the whole is, and you start to concentrate on some other detail. Then, you start to see pixels, and shortly after you are left with just one block and nothing of the meaning you began with. The brain is constantly starved of meaning and it looks for it in everything. This is the limit of meaning ion this respect. However, if you take a painting of a sunflower by van Goch, as you move closer, meaning diverges very quickly. This is typical of all impressionistic or abstracted art. The thing with Painting, is that no matter how close you get, you are never, ever reduced to one block, and the interest is maintained and evolved to the sub microscopic level. So, in some ways, the painting of a sunflower by Van Goch is of higher resolution than a photograph. In the same way, when Tom Waits sings though a loud hailer, I doubt he's thinking about how DSP can help improve the clarity of the sound. Resolution (or the lack thereof) and distortion are both parts of the artistic process. Striving for high resolution sometimes misses the point of art. That moment when we no longer understand or believe what we are looking at, or hearing, that is where the art lives. That's where emotion is. When I'm talking about image fidelity with budding cinematographers, we talk about the law of diminishing returns. There is a point where more resolution is unnecessary and needlessly expensive to achieve. I compare this to my love of vinyl. It is an unreasonable portion to own a turntable the cast of a reasonably priced car. Yet that's what I have, instead of a car. I drive my wife's when I have to. M<y interest in vinyl is to be able to experience recordings I love, as close to the artists intentions as possible, in it's original format. It's a fetish, let's face it. And fairly rational, considering the digital options. Though you'll never fid me buying vinyl versions of albums meant to be played on CD. Or steamed. That seems pointless and inauthentic to me. Again, a fetish. I love your term "paleo nostalgic". Please forgive me for stealing it without attribution the next time I lecture. I wish I had coined the phrase, but alas ... I heard it recently, it sounded familiar, and I did a search and found I had first heard it on an episode of Leo LaPorte's This Week in Tech 2013 www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPL11IoYm0So you understand I was kidding a bit ... but not totally. As a photographer I certainly make creative decisions for shallow depth of field or extreme focus-stacked depth of field ... or I'll adjust color or tonality for artistic effect. But you won't catch me trying to make my 50Mp digital files look like film. And the current "Making Fidelity Low Again" resurgence of vinyl? I swear when I went to Capital Audio Fest a year ago and looked down at the retail floor full of boxes of vinyl and HARDLY a CD, let alone ANY high res sources... it felt like a (bad) episode of Black Mirror! I still think if someone had invented color film first, and THEN somebody came up with B&W ... then the perceptions would have been reversed. If the movie industry didn't care what film cost 100 years ago and had insisted on 60fps, Then we would not see people shooting at 24fps today.
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Post by PaulBe on Apr 9, 2024 18:29:55 GMT -5
It is very interesting. So if I understand the gist of it ... no matter how advanced technology gets to increase the fidelity, resolution, clarity and precision of image capture (and audio too), the trend will always be to degrade fidelity, resolution, clarity and precision either during capture or in post for aesthetic or "paleo nostalgic" reasons ... and to do so using the highest quality/precision tools. Then the consumer market will be full of very expensive equipment to reproduce this content at resolutions higher than it is humanly possible to comprehend. Pretty much? I talk about this very issue frequently Marc, when lecturing on the craft and art of cinematography. Resolution is a creative factor in all art. The lowering of resolution to the point of abstraction is one of the many characteristics of art. Objectively, a photograph of a sunflower is a very beautiful thing. If you zoom in on the picture, at some point you lose any notion of what the whole is, and you start to concentrate on some other detail. Then, you start to see pixels, and shortly after you are left with just one block and nothing of the meaning you began with. The brain is constantly starved of meaning and it looks for it in everything. This is the limit of meaning ion this respect. However, if you take a painting of a sunflower by van Goch, as you move closer, meaning diverges very quickly. This is typical of all impressionistic or abstracted art. The thing with Painting, is that no matter how close you get, you are never, ever reduced to one block, and the interest is maintained and evolved to the sub microscopic level. So, in some ways, the painting of a sunflower by Van Goch is of higher resolution than a photograph. In the same way, when Tom Waits sings though a loud hailer, I doubt he's thinking about how DSP can help improve the clarity of the sound. Resolution (or the lack thereof) and distortion are both parts of the artistic process. Striving for high resolution sometimes misses the point of art. That moment when we no longer understand or believe what we are looking at, or hearing, that is where the art lives. That's where emotion is. When I'm talking about image fidelity with budding cinematographers, we talk about the law of diminishing returns. There is a point where more resolution is unnecessary and needlessly expensive to achieve. I compare this to my love of vinyl. It is an unreasonable position to own a turntable the cost of a reasonably priced car. Yet that's what I have, instead of a car. I drive my wife's when I have to. My interest in vinyl is to be able to experience recordings I love, as close to the artists intentions as possible, in its original format. It's a fetish, let's face it. And fairly irrational, considering the digital options. Though you'll never find me buying vinyl versions of albums meant to be played on CD. Or steamed. That seems pointless and inauthentic to me. Again, a fetish. I love your term "paleo nostalgic". Please forgive me for stealing it without attribution the next time I lecture. Artistic subtly is not delivered by the broad strokes any more than painting my living room sunflower yellow makes my living room a van Gogh sunflower abstraction. The impression and abstraction is derived in the detail. In the same way, my sense of a piece of sublime music is derived in the details which depend on high resolution. Both our eyes and ears are disturbed by distortions that interfere with meaning. I can’t see softness or abstraction without detail. Color, contrast, and brightness, are not enough even for a van Gogh - Perhaps, especially for a van Gogh. I can’t hear timing and interpretation without accurate reproduction. I may not experience starvation of meaning with loss of detail, but the flavor is gone. Video reproduction detail demands pixels. How many is enough?
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NicS
Sensei
Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 213
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Post by NicS on Apr 9, 2024 19:07:07 GMT -5
I talk about this very issue frequently Marc, when lecturing on the craft and art of cinematography. Resolution is a creative factor in all art. The lowering of resolution to the point of abstraction is one of the many characteristics of art. Objectively, a photograph of a sunflower is a very beautiful thing. If you zoom in on the picture, at some point you lose any notion of what the whole is, and you start to concentrate on some other detail. Then, you start to see pixels, and shortly after you are left with just one block and nothing of the meaning you began with. The brain is constantly starved of meaning and it looks for it in everything. This is the limit of meaning ion this respect. However, if you take a painting of a sunflower by van Goch, as you move closer, meaning diverges very quickly. This is typical of all impressionistic or abstracted art. The thing with Painting, is that no matter how close you get, you are never, ever reduced to one block, and the interest is maintained and evolved to the sub microscopic level. So, in some ways, the painting of a sunflower by Van Goch is of higher resolution than a photograph. In the same way, when Tom Waits sings though a loud hailer, I doubt he's thinking about how DSP can help improve the clarity of the sound. Resolution (or the lack thereof) and distortion are both parts of the artistic process. Striving for high resolution sometimes misses the point of art. That moment when we no longer understand or believe what we are looking at, or hearing, that is where the art lives. That's where emotion is. When I'm talking about image fidelity with budding cinematographers, we talk about the law of diminishing returns. There is a point where more resolution is unnecessary and needlessly expensive to achieve. I compare this to my love of vinyl. It is an unreasonable position to own a turntable the cost of a reasonably priced car. Yet that's what I have, instead of a car. I drive my wife's when I have to. My interest in vinyl is to be able to experience recordings I love, as close to the artists intentions as possible, in its original format. It's a fetish, let's face it. And fairly irrational, considering the digital options. Though you'll never find me buying vinyl versions of albums meant to be played on CD. Or steamed. That seems pointless and inauthentic to me. Again, a fetish. I love your term "paleo nostalgic". Please forgive me for stealing it without attribution the next time I lecture. Artistic subtly is not delivered by the broad strokes any more than painting my living room sunflower yellow makes my living room a van Gogh sunflower abstraction. The impression and abstraction is derived in the detail. In the same way, my sense of a piece of sublime music is derived in the details which depend on high resolution. Both our eyes and ears are disturbed by distortions that interfere with meaning. I can’t see softness or abstraction without detail. Color, contrast, and brightness, are not enough even for a van Gogh - Perhaps, especially for a van Gogh. I can’t hear timing and interpretation without accurate reproduction. I may not experience starvation of meaning with loss of detail, but the flavor is gone. Video reproduction detail demands pixels. How many is enough? My sense of the world informs the work I do. My photographic work relies on very high resolution because my prints are often huge. So I opt for 100 megapixels and up. I get you there. My cinematography work tends to go the other way, where my target resolution is 1.2-1.5K, depending on the subject matter. As for music, I'm an originalist mostly. Unless there are thoughtful re-mixes in higher end formats that don;t transgress boundaries. DSOTM in Atmos is great for example. "Both our eyes and ears are disturbed by distortions that interfere with meaning." I'd disagree with this. Distortion IS meaning in the most part. As for video reproduction demanding pixels, sure but there are limits. 4K on conventional display seems to be that limit. 4K is enough, for the moment anyway.
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Post by PaulBe on Apr 9, 2024 19:58:41 GMT -5
Artistic subtly is not delivered by the broad strokes any more than painting my living room sunflower yellow makes my living room a van Gogh sunflower abstraction. The impression and abstraction is derived in the detail. In the same way, my sense of a piece of sublime music is derived in the details which depend on high resolution. Both our eyes and ears are disturbed by distortions that interfere with meaning. I can’t see softness or abstraction without detail. Color, contrast, and brightness, are not enough even for a van Gogh - Perhaps, especially for a van Gogh. I can’t hear timing and interpretation without accurate reproduction. I may not experience starvation of meaning with loss of detail, but the flavor is gone. Video reproduction detail demands pixels. How many is enough? My sense of the world informs the work I do. My photographic work relies on very high resolution because my prints are often huge. So I opt for 100 megapixels and up. I get you there. My cinematography work tends to go the other way, where my target resolution is 1.2-1.5K, depending on the subject matter. As for music, I'm an originalist mostly. Unless there are thoughtful re-mixes in higher end formats that don;t transgress boundaries. DSOTM in Atmos is great for example. "Both our eyes and ears are disturbed by distortions that interfere with meaning." I'd disagree with this. Distortion IS meaning in the most part. As for video reproduction demanding pixels, sure but there are limits. 4K on conventional display seems to be that limit. 4K is enough, for the moment anyway. Thanks Nic. I get you with 'Distortion IS meaning'. It IS meaning in production. It's the seasoning. To reproduce it well, I need neutral reproduction, which is a lack of distortion. I tend to focus on the audio more than the video because audio is my background, but, both are important. Reproduction distortion interferes with production distortion meaning. As my reproduction becomes more neutral, I hear more of what the artist intends, including production distortions that ARE meaning. The DSOTM in Atmos is a great recording. Everyone who has an Atmos system should hear a copy.
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Post by aswiss on Apr 10, 2024 6:13:37 GMT -5
A cinematographers perspective on whether 8K is better than 4K, or indeed is it preferable? Buckle up. For me, this depends on a number of criteria. Primarily it's the type of content. So I'll handle these separately. Gaming. I'm an avid player of Borderlands. I'm level 72, with a full cache of Legendary 800+ weapons acquired in Mayhem 11 mode. If that means nothing to you, it's OK. But it reflects a prodigious amount of time and a chunk of skill; that in the real world is utterly, utterly pointless. I can see how 8K display would be great for this. 8K at 120hz more so. Latency can go *bleep* itself in this realm. The chance of me playing Borderlands on my projector are slim. The screen is in the living room, which forces us into a night-time only viewing routine. Which I'm fine with. I don't need any daytime distraction. Plus, I think the days of screen based gaming is soon to be over, pivoting 100% to headset based display in the next 5 years. Conclusions. Would I buy an 8K projector? Sure. It's most likely coming and most likely we won't have a choice. But realistically, projectors are on their way out. Just as the traditional TV has it's days numbered. It is what it is. Manufacturer need to bring new products to the market, or they will soon disappear.
I'm not a gamer, so most these new Features within HDMI 2.1 are pretty much covered by the current platform. 2160/60p is all what I need.
But, my RMC-1 runs out of warranty by end of this month, so time for something new, with at least again 1 yr of warranty.
If the new Box does the same better (no mor clicks) I would be very happy.
My LG OLED 77G2 has HDMI 2.1 - so nothing to worry. When its time to exchange it, I'll get the current model again.
Looking forward to see soon a Demo of the new unit, and really hope, it will arrive by end of June - because if my RMC-1 stops working, I have to replace it with either an intermediate solution or go with whats available.
But that's life.
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Post by sebna on Apr 10, 2024 11:09:21 GMT -5
A cinematographers perspective on whether 8K is better than 4K, or indeed is it preferable? Buckle up. For me, this depends on a number of criteria. Primarily it's the type of content. So I'll handle these separately. Gaming. I'm an avid player of Borderlands. I'm level 72, with a full cache of Legendary 800+ weapons acquired in Mayhem 11 mode. If that means nothing to you, it's OK. But it reflects a prodigious amount of time and a chunk of skill; that in the real world is utterly, utterly pointless. I can see how 8K display would be great for this. 8K at 120hz more so. Latency can go *bleep* itself in this realm. The chance of me playing Borderlands on my projector are slim. The screen is in the living room, which forces us into a night-time only viewing routine. Which I'm fine with. I don't need any daytime distraction. Plus, I think the days of screen based gaming is soon to be over, pivoting 100% to headset based display in the next 5 years. Conclusions. Would I buy an 8K projector? Sure. It's most likely coming and most likely we won't have a choice. But realistically, projectors are on their way out. Just as the traditional TV has it's days numbered. It is what it is. Manufacturer need to bring new products to the market, or they will soon disappear.
I'm not a gamer, so most these new Features within HDMI 2.1 are pretty much covered by the current platform. 2160/60p is all what I need.
But, my RMC-1 runs out of warranty by end of this month, so time for something new, with at least again 1 yr of warranty.
If the new Box does the same better (no mor clicks) I would be very happy.
My LG OLED 77G2 has HDMI 2.1 - so nothing to worry. When its time to exchange it, I'll get the current model again.
Looking forward to see soon a Demo of the new unit, and really hope, it will arrive by end of June - because if my RMC-1 stops working, I have to replace it with either an intermediate solution or go with whats available.
But that's life.
Why would it stop working? I mean there is always a chance but it is a slim one. I would not worry about it being out of warranty. I use 20 years old electronic devices every day.
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KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 10,004
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Post by KeithL on Apr 10, 2024 16:07:45 GMT -5
On the production side of things 8k cameras also have another distinct advantage... You can shoot in 8k, then crop your footage later, without your cropped footage "falling below 4k"... A cinematographers perspective on whether 8K is better than 4K, or indeed is it preferable? Buckle up. For me, this depends on a number of criteria. Primarily it's the type of content. So I'll handle these separately. Movie & TV drama. The prevailing capture frame rate for movies/TV is 23.98fps (24p, nominally/ 25p for Europe). While most capture is around the 4K mark, as 24fps the image blur in anything other than graphic content and wide shots that are completely still drop to an effective resolution around the 1.5K mark. In fact, as someone with 30 years of experience behind the camera, the job of the cinematographer is to do the opposite of what might be called "resolution maximization." Typically, we'll take a 4K digital camera, put on a "detuned" lens (the latest fad in filmmaking), add diffusion filters to the lens, then fill the set with atmosphere mist, shooting at "wide-open" on the lens which renders 85% of the frame out of focus and that area in focus bing subject to spherical aberration (amongst other artifacts), which helps make the image look "beautiful". In post, artificial film gain is added, further deteriorating resolution until the picture is considered graded and matches shot for shot. It's important to understand that this production criteria is limited to drama, where storytelling is linked to aesthetic, etherial concerns. It's also important to note the recent resurgence of the use of film as the originating medium. This is mostly an affectation of a certain class of filmmaker; those wishing the film industry was still in their exclusive control (Spielberg, Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan, Wes Anderson all still insist on shooting film) Movie & TV Documentary. This changes the criteria a bit. For those documentaries with reenactments & interviews, 24p capture is most prevalent, following the dominant aesthetic. The big pivot comes with nature documentaries. This is most starkly revealed in watching Planet Earth III in 4K Ultra from BluRay, in a 4:4:4, 12bit output at 60fps. This visceral, window-like realism is genuinely jaw dropping. It freaks my dog out completely. But its not the sort of detail you want when looking at Meryl Streeps face. Shooting Meryl this way would result in immediate dismissal as the cinematographer and the sudden end of your career. However, as anyone who has any of the Planet Earth discs will know, this is how you can tell if your projector/monitor is performing correctly. Any changes in setup are immediately apparent with such exacting content. Reality TV. While 4K capture is typical, it is still not preferable to deliver an image that is maximized for 4K resolution. This would compromise the aesthetic concerns too much. Effort is made to reduce resolution to fit inside the acceptable range of what is currently commercially acceptable image quality. However, graphics are distinctly better and more legible compared to 1080p delivery. I doubt 8K would improve anything in this genre. I used to shoot quite a bit for Victoria's Secret. I did the fashion shows, some advertising and the ill-fated Swim Special (oh boy). My relationship started with me being brought in to shoot "beauty B-Roll", for use in bumpers in the production of the TV broadcast fashion show. Back in 2005 the best option for "beauty" was to shoot on 32mm negative. The models would exit the stage, then pass though my little studio on the way to the changing room, often getting undressed at the same time. I would then shoot then doing into-the lens beauty porn. Over the years, I introduced various early digital cameras including the ARRI D-20 (the first really useable digital motion picture camera), Weisscam, Thompson Viper....but never RED: terrible on skin tone and generally unreliable. My entire role was to make these women look as gorgeous as possible (not hugely difficult) and to hover in this neo-reality of objectification for profit. I was never concerned with the camera resolution, I was only concerned with actual resolution, which I kept under the 1.5K target. Sport. I'm not much of a sport fan, admittedly. But what I've noticed in terms of resolution isn't so much in the moving image, as in the graphic content. In 4K, the graphics cane be made to be more legible in a smaller font. And I'm sure this will be true of 8K production. My only exposure to 8K sport is in the production of prototype lenses for capture for dome style use. This is becoming more of a "thing" but it isn't something that will translate to domestic use for years to come, and certainly not in the realm of panel display. What might be advantageous with 8K origination would be user designated "picture-in-picture" control. I've been involved in experimentation in this area. For me it has limited appeal, but that is for the market to decide. In this scenario, more pixels would be highly advantageous, and the feature could be limited to 8K deliverables at a "premium" cost, something that excites the bean counters at the steaming services. Gaming. I'm an avid player of Borderlands. I'm level 72, with a full cache of Legendary 800+ weapons acquired in Mayhem 11 mode. If that means nothing to you, it's OK. But it reflects a prodigious amount of time and a chunk of skill; that in the real world is utterly, utterly pointless. I can see how 8K display would be great for this. 8K at 120hz more so. Latency can go *bleep* itself in this realm. The chance of me playing Borderlands on my projector are slim. The screen is in the living room, which forces us into a night-time only viewing routine. Which I'm fine with. I don't need any daytime distraction. Plus, I think the days of screen based gaming is soon to be over, pivoting 100% to headset based display in the next 5 years. Conclusions. Would I buy an 8K projector? Sure. It's most likely coming and most likely we won't have a choice. But realistically, projectors are on their way out. Just as the traditional TV has it's days numbered. In Glendale, in an innocuous business park, Sony has a facility that helps filmmakers make the choice of using Sony technology in their productions. Well, choice is an odd term. If it's a Sony produced project, "choice" is limited to their product line. It's the same facility that Claudio Miranda visited when deciding to shoot Top Gun 2 on the Sony Venice 2 camera. In this facility is a viewing theatre in which is installed the Sony Crystal Vision LED system. This scalable, panel based, modular system is widely used in the corporate market but is currently very expensive. But, as with all things in tech, the price is plummeting. These systems are finding their way into large scale viewing (the Sphere in Las Vegas), and into the homes of the ultra rich. I know someone who spent $500,000 on a home theatre setup with this technology. His priorities are somewhat distorted by his bottomless wealth. We are within a decade of this tech being something we buy at Ikea, and line walls with, cheaper than the cost of wood panelling. This isn't hyperbole. This is being actively developed. When this technology comes on line, 8K, even 16k will be essential. In fact the camera developed for generating content of the Sphere in Vegas in 16K. Which is soon to be 24K, to help with artifact reduction. So that's the future. The not-too-distant future at that. I'll end this textual vomiting with one thought: resolution is a factor to be considered in the creation of content. Storytelling, the type we love in movies and TV, relies on images that tend to be subjective. We all have a different personal interpretation with a movie, less so with documentaries. What is more important, to me at least, is dynamic range and color rendition. To me, a decent 2K projector (like a Christie L2K1500), with a very wide color gamut, high dynamic range and 15,000 lumens, is visually superior to the 4K Sony I have. It's also 12 times the weight and 10 times the cost. My Sony might be better during the credits, but the Christie, when watching movies is far, far superior. I borrowed one to try out. There was NO COMPARISON. But my wife would never, let me bolt a 100lb lump like that to the ceiling. To me color rendition and dynamic range are far, far more significant in terms of overall image quality than resolution. One final thing. Marvel uses tools I developed as a cinematographer in their pre-viz. I have an ongoing relationship with their visual effect supervisors who live 100% in the world of what screen resolution means. In the past few years, Marvel takes 4K original material, down resing to 2K for most work, only going back to 4K when needed, then in the final pass they upres back to 4K using an AI driven system, This saves millions of dollars in storage and render time. Nobody, and I mean not a single person prefers the 4K production path when they tested this at Marvel, It looks better and is cheaper to upres from 2K. Thought you might find that interesting. If you didn't, sorry for all the words.
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NicS
Sensei
Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 213
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Post by NicS on Apr 10, 2024 16:14:05 GMT -5
On the production side of things 8k cameras also have another distinct advantage... You can shoot in 8k, then crop your footage later, without your cropped footage "falling below 4k"... A cinematographers perspective on whether 8K is better than 4K, or indeed is it preferable? Buckle up. For me, this depends on a number of criteria. Primarily it's the type of content. So I'll handle these separately. Movie & TV drama. The prevailing capture frame rate for movies/TV is 23.98fps (24p, nominally/ 25p for Europe). While most capture is around the 4K mark, as 24fps the image blur in anything other than graphic content and wide shots that are completely still drop to an effective resolution around the 1.5K mark. In fact, as someone with 30 years of experience behind the camera, the job of the cinematographer is to do the opposite of what might be called "resolution maximization." Typically, we'll take a 4K digital camera, put on a "detuned" lens (the latest fad in filmmaking), add diffusion filters to the lens, then fill the set with atmosphere mist, shooting at "wide-open" on the lens which renders 85% of the frame out of focus and that area in focus bing subject to spherical aberration (amongst other artifacts), which helps make the image look "beautiful". In post, artificial film gain is added, further deteriorating resolution until the picture is considered graded and matches shot for shot. It's important to understand that this production criteria is limited to drama, where storytelling is linked to aesthetic, etherial concerns. It's also important to note the recent resurgence of the use of film as the originating medium. This is mostly an affectation of a certain class of filmmaker; those wishing the film industry was still in their exclusive control (Spielberg, Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan, Wes Anderson all still insist on shooting film) Movie & TV Documentary. This changes the criteria a bit. For those documentaries with reenactments & interviews, 24p capture is most prevalent, following the dominant aesthetic. The big pivot comes with nature documentaries. This is most starkly revealed in watching Planet Earth III in 4K Ultra from BluRay, in a 4:4:4, 12bit output at 60fps. This visceral, window-like realism is genuinely jaw dropping. It freaks my dog out completely. But its not the sort of detail you want when looking at Meryl Streeps face. Shooting Meryl this way would result in immediate dismissal as the cinematographer and the sudden end of your career. However, as anyone who has any of the Planet Earth discs will know, this is how you can tell if your projector/monitor is performing correctly. Any changes in setup are immediately apparent with such exacting content. Reality TV. While 4K capture is typical, it is still not preferable to deliver an image that is maximized for 4K resolution. This would compromise the aesthetic concerns too much. Effort is made to reduce resolution to fit inside the acceptable range of what is currently commercially acceptable image quality. However, graphics are distinctly better and more legible compared to 1080p delivery. I doubt 8K would improve anything in this genre. I used to shoot quite a bit for Victoria's Secret. I did the fashion shows, some advertising and the ill-fated Swim Special (oh boy). My relationship started with me being brought in to shoot "beauty B-Roll", for use in bumpers in the production of the TV broadcast fashion show. Back in 2005 the best option for "beauty" was to shoot on 32mm negative. The models would exit the stage, then pass though my little studio on the way to the changing room, often getting undressed at the same time. I would then shoot then doing into-the lens beauty porn. Over the years, I introduced various early digital cameras including the ARRI D-20 (the first really useable digital motion picture camera), Weisscam, Thompson Viper....but never RED: terrible on skin tone and generally unreliable. My entire role was to make these women look as gorgeous as possible (not hugely difficult) and to hover in this neo-reality of objectification for profit. I was never concerned with the camera resolution, I was only concerned with actual resolution, which I kept under the 1.5K target. Sport. I'm not much of a sport fan, admittedly. But what I've noticed in terms of resolution isn't so much in the moving image, as in the graphic content. In 4K, the graphics cane be made to be more legible in a smaller font. And I'm sure this will be true of 8K production. My only exposure to 8K sport is in the production of prototype lenses for capture for dome style use. This is becoming more of a "thing" but it isn't something that will translate to domestic use for years to come, and certainly not in the realm of panel display. What might be advantageous with 8K origination would be user designated "picture-in-picture" control. I've been involved in experimentation in this area. For me it has limited appeal, but that is for the market to decide. In this scenario, more pixels would be highly advantageous, and the feature could be limited to 8K deliverables at a "premium" cost, something that excites the bean counters at the steaming services. Gaming. I'm an avid player of Borderlands. I'm level 72, with a full cache of Legendary 800+ weapons acquired in Mayhem 11 mode. If that means nothing to you, it's OK. But it reflects a prodigious amount of time and a chunk of skill; that in the real world is utterly, utterly pointless. I can see how 8K display would be great for this. 8K at 120hz more so. Latency can go *bleep* itself in this realm. The chance of me playing Borderlands on my projector are slim. The screen is in the living room, which forces us into a night-time only viewing routine. Which I'm fine with. I don't need any daytime distraction. Plus, I think the days of screen based gaming is soon to be over, pivoting 100% to headset based display in the next 5 years. Conclusions. Would I buy an 8K projector? Sure. It's most likely coming and most likely we won't have a choice. But realistically, projectors are on their way out. Just as the traditional TV has it's days numbered. In Glendale, in an innocuous business park, Sony has a facility that helps filmmakers make the choice of using Sony technology in their productions. Well, choice is an odd term. If it's a Sony produced project, "choice" is limited to their product line. It's the same facility that Claudio Miranda visited when deciding to shoot Top Gun 2 on the Sony Venice 2 camera. In this facility is a viewing theatre in which is installed the Sony Crystal Vision LED system. This scalable, panel based, modular system is widely used in the corporate market but is currently very expensive. But, as with all things in tech, the price is plummeting. These systems are finding their way into large scale viewing (the Sphere in Las Vegas), and into the homes of the ultra rich. I know someone who spent $500,000 on a home theatre setup with this technology. His priorities are somewhat distorted by his bottomless wealth. We are within a decade of this tech being something we buy at Ikea, and line walls with, cheaper than the cost of wood panelling. This isn't hyperbole. This is being actively developed. When this technology comes on line, 8K, even 16k will be essential. In fact the camera developed for generating content of the Sphere in Vegas in 16K. Which is soon to be 24K, to help with artifact reduction. So that's the future. The not-too-distant future at that. I'll end this textual vomiting with one thought: resolution is a factor to be considered in the creation of content. Storytelling, the type we love in movies and TV, relies on images that tend to be subjective. We all have a different personal interpretation with a movie, less so with documentaries. What is more important, to me at least, is dynamic range and color rendition. To me, a decent 2K projector (like a Christie L2K1500), with a very wide color gamut, high dynamic range and 15,000 lumens, is visually superior to the 4K Sony I have. It's also 12 times the weight and 10 times the cost. My Sony might be better during the credits, but the Christie, when watching movies is far, far superior. I borrowed one to try out. There was NO COMPARISON. But my wife would never, let me bolt a 100lb lump like that to the ceiling. To me color rendition and dynamic range are far, far more significant in terms of overall image quality than resolution. One final thing. Marvel uses tools I developed as a cinematographer in their pre-viz. I have an ongoing relationship with their visual effect supervisors who live 100% in the world of what screen resolution means. In the past few years, Marvel takes 4K original material, down resing to 2K for most work, only going back to 4K when needed, then in the final pass they upres back to 4K using an AI driven system, This saves millions of dollars in storage and render time. Nobody, and I mean not a single person prefers the 4K production path when they tested this at Marvel, It looks better and is cheaper to upres from 2K. Thought you might find that interesting. If you didn't, sorry for all the words. Who crops in? That’s the kind of thing cinematographers hate. Editorial reframing is very much frowned upon. It’s not something that Greg Frazier (the DP on Dune) would put up with. Shot composition isn’t something so disposable as that. At least we hope. I don’t know a single production shooting 8k. I’ll be at NAB in Vegas this weekend. I’ll report back on what I learn there. Think of it this way: Bladerunner 2049 was shot by Roger Deakins at 2.8K. Did that impact the quality of the movie? Would it have made anything better to increase the storage and transcode budget by a factor of 16 to make it “better”? That’s certainly not what is happening at the pointy end of my business.
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Post by PaulBe on Apr 10, 2024 16:32:19 GMT -5
On the production side of things 8k cameras also have another distinct advantage... You can shoot in 8k, then crop your footage later, without your cropped footage "falling below 4k"... Who crops in? That’s the kind of thing cinematographers hate. Editorial reframing is very much frowned upon. It’s not something that Greg Frazier (the DP on Dune) would put up with. Shot composition isn’t something so disposable as that. At least we hope. I don’t know a single production shooting 8k. I’ll be at NAB in Vegas this weekend. I’ll report back on what I learn there. Think of it this way: Bladerunner 2049 was shot by Roger Deakins at 2.8K. Did that impact the quality of the movie? Would it have made anything better to increase the storage and transcode budget by a factor of 16 to make it “better”? That’s certainly not what is happening at the pointy end of my business. Well, since you are at the pointy end of the business, perhaps you can poke/convince PTB to not do things that require the consumer to spend copious amounts of money on superfluous pixels and means to fill them. Who are the pointy end clowns who are pushing 8K, when hollyweird doesn’t even do true 4K in big cost-little-object productions? BTW - The 4K Bluray Bladerunner 2049 is a fine looking and sounding film. Back to G4P - You state below your pic , "Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?" I thought your frustrations were fixed and you were 'luvin' the fix. What happened?
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KeithL
Administrator
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Post by KeithL on Apr 10, 2024 16:51:18 GMT -5
I don't know who is actually doing production in 8k at the moment... But this is quoted as "one of the reasons to buy an 8k camera" at the level where they are sold... To be quite honest we find this obsession with more and more frequent "upgrades" to be a nuisance too... However the simple reality is this: * Many consumers will always buy the latest and greatest of whatever we're talking about... * This works out well for manufacturers, who prefer to sell new products every year, long before the ones they've sold last year have worn out... * So, of course, manufacturers continue to do their best to convince consumers that "they just have to have that new product"... * And consumers keep buying them. As it sits now good quality 4k TVs have become so affordable that everyone who wants one probably already has one. So, since TV manufacturers and stores would prefer to have something to sell next year, we need something "newer and better". And that something has got to be 8k... because there isn't much of anything else interesting on the horizon. (You're probably not going to buy a new TV in order to get that cool new technology that lets them show you more commercials than before... ) And, on the other side of the balance, if nobody bought a new TV next year, then TV manufacturers would go out of business, or at least cut production drastically... Then, when you actually needed a new TV in a few years, you would find your options limited, and prices MUCH higher... So it's really good that some people will still buy those 8k TVs this year. (And you can thank them for keeping TV manufacturers in business, and keeping the volume up, and the prices down.) Who crops in? That’s the kind of thing cinematographers hate. Editorial reframing is very much frowned upon. It’s not something that Greg Frazier (the DP on Dune) would put up with. Shot composition isn’t something so disposable as that. At least we hope. I don’t know a single production shooting 8k. I’ll be at NAB in Vegas this weekend. I’ll report back on what I learn there. Think of it this way: Bladerunner 2049 was shot by Roger Deakins at 2.8K. Did that impact the quality of the movie? Would it have made anything better to increase the storage and transcode budget by a factor of 16 to make it “better”? That’s certainly not what is happening at the pointy end of my business. Well, since you are at the pointy end of the business, perhaps you can poke/convince PTB to not do things that require the consumer to spend copious amounts of money on superfluous pixels and means to fill them. Who are pointy end clowns who are pushing 8K, when hollyweird doesn’t even do true 4K in big cost-little-object productions?
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Post by PaulBe on Apr 10, 2024 17:00:04 GMT -5
I don't know who is actually doing production in 8k at the moment... But this is quoted as "one of the reasons to buy an 8k camera" at the level where they are sold... To be quite honest we find this obsession with more and more frequent "upgrades" to be a nuisance too... However the simple reality is this: * Many consumers will always buy the latest and greatest of whatever we're talking about... * This works out well for manufacturers, who prefer to sell new products every year, long before the ones they've sold last year have worn out... * So, of course, manufacturers continue to do their best to convince consumers that "they just have to have that new product"... * And consumers keep buying them. As it sits now good quality 4k TVs have become so affordable that everyone who wants one probably already has one. So, since TV manufacturers and stores would prefer to have something to sell next year, we need something "newer and better". And that something has got to be 8k... because there isn't much of anything else interesting on the horizon. (You're probably not going to buy a new TV in order to get that cool new technology that lets them show you more commercials than before... ) And, on the other side of the balance, if nobody bought a new TV next year, then TV manufacturers would go out of business, or at least cut production drastically... Then, when you actually needed a new TV in a few years, you would find your options limited, and prices MUCH higher... So it's really good that some people will still buy those 8k TVs this year. (And you can thank them for keeping TV manufacturers in business, and keeping the volume up, and the prices down.) Well, since you are at the pointy end of the business, perhaps you can poke/convince PTB to not do things that require the consumer to spend copious amounts of money on superfluous pixels and means to fill them. Who are pointy end clowns who are pushing 8K, when hollyweird doesn’t even do true 4K in big cost-little-object productions? There are 8 billion people on Earth and nothing lasts forever. I don't have any concern about 'options being limited' or TV manufacturing going out of business... Perhaps manufacturers could stop at 8K and wait for hollyweird to catch up.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Apr 10, 2024 17:03:03 GMT -5
You may be shocked to know that MOST of the content that fills all of those streaming channels is NOT held to the same production values as Dune... And most of it doesn't have nearly the budget that Dune had either... And, if you're on a tight budget, paying by the day, having some extra around the edge to crop later is more economical than doing lots of extra takes... You may HOPE... but the extra content to fill ALL THOSE CHANNELS has to come from somewhere... I'm guessing you're going to see a lot of 8k cameras and backhaul gear featured at NAB this year... And all the big hard discs, fast switches, and 8k editing software to go with it. (And the fact that most of that content will end up going out on the air at 4k won't really slow that down much.) (And nobody will be saying things like: "That camera you bought last year is just great so you might as well go home and save your money".) You also need to remember that, while that 16x increase in storage and bandwidth may not make a significant improvement... It also probably doesn't cost significantly more than the old amount cost only a few years ago either... (Back in the IBM PC-AT days, a 60 mB hard drive cost me $250; today I can get a hard drive that is 100,000 times larger for the same $250; and that's not even correcting for inflation.) 8k cameras started out extremely expensive... but they're coming down... Just like 4k cameras started out super expensive and became affordable... And so it goes... On the production side of things 8k cameras also have another distinct advantage... You can shoot in 8k, then crop your footage later, without your cropped footage "falling below 4k"... Who crops in? That’s the kind of thing cinematographers hate. Editorial reframing is very much frowned upon. It’s not something that Greg Frazier (the DP on Dune) would put up with. Shot composition isn’t something so disposable as that. At least we hope. I don’t know a single production shooting 8k. I’ll be at NAB in Vegas this weekend. I’ll report back on what I learn there. Think of it this way: Bladerunner 2049 was shot by Roger Deakins at 2.8K. Did that impact the quality of the movie? Would it have made anything better to increase the storage and transcode budget by a factor of 16 to make it “better”? That’s certainly not what is happening at the pointy end of my business.
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KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 10,004
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Post by KeithL on Apr 10, 2024 17:04:25 GMT -5
But they're already previewing 16k in Japan... You don't want to fall off that bleeding edge... do you? There are 8 billion people on Earth and nothing lasts forever. I don't have any concern about 'options being limited' or TV manufacturing going out of business... Perhaps manufacturers could stop at 8K and wait for hollyweird to catch up.
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Post by PaulBe on Apr 10, 2024 17:14:54 GMT -5
But they're already previewing 16k in Japan... You don't want to fall off that bleeding edge... do you? There are 8 billion people on Earth and nothing lasts forever. I don't have any concern about 'options being limited' or TV manufacturing going out of business... Perhaps manufacturers could stop at 8K and wait for hollyweird to catch up. High performance toys are fun. When I was younger, I had a motorcycle that did 0-60 in about 3.5 seconds, and 0-100 in about 10 seconds. Prudence kept me off the 'bleeding edge'. I look forward to seeing how that 16K content will be produced and delivered...
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NicS
Sensei
Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 213
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Post by NicS on Apr 10, 2024 17:27:49 GMT -5
I don't know who is actually doing production in 8k at the moment... But this is quoted as "one of the reasons to buy an 8k camera" at the level where they are sold... To be quite honest we find this obsession with more and more frequent "upgrades" to be a nuisance too... However the simple reality is this: * Many consumers will always buy the latest and greatest of whatever we're talking about... * This works out well for manufacturers, who prefer to sell new products every year, long before the ones they've sold last year have worn out... * So, of course, manufacturers continue to do their best to convince consumers that "they just have to have that new product"... * And consumers keep buying them. As it sits now good quality 4k TVs have become so affordable that everyone who wants one probably already has one. So, since TV manufacturers and stores would prefer to have something to sell next year, we need something "newer and better". And that something has got to be 8k... because there isn't much of anything else interesting on the horizon. (You're probably not going to buy a new TV in order to get that cool new technology that lets them show you more commercials than before... ) And, on the other side of the balance, if nobody bought a new TV next year, then TV manufacturers would go out of business, or at least cut production drastically... Then, when you actually needed a new TV in a few years, you would find your options limited, and prices MUCH higher... So it's really good that some people will still buy those 8k TVs this year. (And you can thank them for keeping TV manufacturers in business, and keeping the volume up, and the prices down.) Well, since you are at the pointy end of the business, perhaps you can poke/convince PTB to not do things that require the consumer to spend copious amounts of money on superfluous pixels and means to fill them. Who are pointy end clowns who are pushing 8K, when hollyweird doesn’t even do true 4K in big cost-little-object productions? You are right of course. The driving factor here is marketing. The display manufacturers are in a war with each other selling new technology which is essentially a pixel race. As for motion picture manufacturers, that a different thing. The lower, “owner operator” end of the industry populated by RED, BlackMagic and Canon, are also engaged in the pixel war. BlackMagic makes a 12k camera. No idea who uses it. I haven’t, nor do I hear anyone with an ASC or BSC suffix using one. There are only two camera manufacturers that stick out in the cinematography world: ARRI & Sony. Panavision have no camera of their own and are struggling to pay their own debt. ARRI Alexa cameras are the most popular, though with the Venice series, Sony is almost on par. The Venice 2 has a maximum resolution in a 3:2 aspect ratio of 8.6K. Though from my conversations, with cropping to 2:1 or 2.39:1, the resolution ends up being as much as 8K and as low as 4K. The Alexa has a much larger pixel pitch, which means better color definition and doesn’t get much higher than 5K. Where 8K night be apparent is on-screen graphics. High resolution cameras aren’t that much of a draw for upper end cinematographers. But it is for the pro-sumer / owner operator sector. The real draw for cinematographers is glass - lenses. In that arena anamorphic has had a huge resurgence, because that optical system utterly destroys ACTUAL resolution. You’d be hard pressed to pull 1.5K with anamorphic glass. Where apparent sharpness comes into play is when the image is high contrast. But that is essentially an optical illusion of you like.
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NicS
Sensei
Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 213
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Post by NicS on Apr 10, 2024 17:39:16 GMT -5
But they're already previewing 16k in Japan... You don't want to fall off that bleeding edge... do you? There are 8 billion people on Earth and nothing lasts forever. I don't have any concern about 'options being limited' or TV manufacturing going out of business... Perhaps manufacturers could stop at 8K and wait for hollyweird to catch up. Keith, I’m well familiar with the NHK development lab. I’ve worked with them. I remember shooting the first ever 1080p camera system (mostly analogue I add) for a Jaguar commercial nearly a decade before it became available. Those cameras were actually stored on the twin towers in New York, along with an astonishing CRT 1080p prototype monitor that was the heaviest TV I’ve ever encountered. 32” - maybe 200lbs. Enormous thing. I’m already consulting on camera & optical systems with a 24K deliverable, though specifically for theatrical / event based production. And, as I said earlier, I’m very familiar with the Sony panel screen technology, though saying much more that this broaches the various NDA agreement I have. For your edification, a friend of mine Ilya Friedman hosts the Cinematography Podcast. Below is the first part of two discussions with Greg Frasier. Worth a listen: m.youtube.com/watch?v=K2UQjPZK_ZE
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Post by AudioHTIT on Apr 11, 2024 20:01:22 GMT -5
… As it sits now good quality 4k TVs have become so affordable that everyone who wants one probably already has one. …… but I’ll still buy another, BIGGER one, and don’t want 8K.
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Post by docevil on Apr 12, 2024 13:18:18 GMT -5
The list of Gen 4(+series) features obviously includes HDMI 2.1 but I am wondering if it can be shared which version, 2.1, 2.1a or 2.1b? In particular, I am interested in the Dynamic HDR(added in 2.1b) and Source Based Tone-Mapping(added in 2.1a) features. Will the Gen 4(+series) have the ability to support the newer versions in the future if it is not the most recent version at launch? If 2.1, since all the features of HDMI 2.1 aren't required to be supported to be called 2.1, which of the features of 2.1 are supported? i.e. Enhanced Audio Return Channel(eARC), Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), Quick Media Switching(QMS), Quick Frame Transport(QFT), Auto Low Latency Mode(ALLM)
I believe all of the 2.1 range of features must be supported to say it is 2.1b compliant.
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KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 10,004
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Post by KeithL on Apr 12, 2024 14:22:08 GMT -5
I think the next step is sort of obvious... Regular screens big enough, and affordable enough, and light enough, to replace projectors. (I know some people like the way a projector looks... but I've always much preferred direct-view screens.) To me the only question is going to be whether we're going to see really big stiff one piece screens... Or actual active screens that roll up... either when you get them... or like a pushbutton roll-up projector screen... We're also starting to see - at least commercially - screens made up out of one foot square tiles that interlock... You just hook together as many as you want to get whatever size display you want... … As it sits now good quality 4k TVs have become so affordable that everyone who wants one probably already has one. …… but I’ll still by another, BIGGER one, and don’t want 8K.
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