I'm starting to think about finishing at 2K/1080p

[Tom Lowe]

The more I think about the sensor on the Red, and my experiences shooting on DLSRs, the more I am coming to believe that it might be better, all around, to shoot 4K REDCODE, but finish at 2K. The reasons?

First, when I shoot on DLSRs at full resolution, if you view the image at that full resolution, there are always imperfections, grain, and serious noise of some kind. But when I downsample the images to around 2500x1500, the pictures look absolutely beautiful.

Second, I have read that a downsampled digital 2K negative should look every bit as good, if not better, than a 2K scan from 35mm, because the 35mm has gone through several optical generations and is fairly soft by the time it hits movie theatres. Is this true?

And finally, of course, there is the fact that finishing at 2K/1080p is going to be a lot easier on your editing and storage systems, and these are the formats you are probably going to submit to Cannes, Sundance, etc, anyway.

The main issue for me is that when I view 4K DLSR images at full res, there are too many imperfections. I think I would have to shoot 5K or 6K and downsample before a 4K image would really be perfect.

[donatello b]

" 35mm has gone through several optical generations and is fairly soft by the time it hits movie theatres. Is this true?"

i believe there were test done at theaters in several locations ... if i remember correctly the highest res was around 875 lines on theater screen most fell below that - that could be because of the neg to IP to DN to theater print then add in bad lens on projector to projector out of wack etc ... if you can get a print off the orginal NEG then you should be in the 2000+ line area on a excellent projector with excellent lens ... or if they strike a 4k/2k scan off the neg and print directly from digital data to theater prints ( release prints) ..

most printing is done with contact prints ( film touches film at very hi speeds) and not optical ...but still it's basically analog to analog and there is approx 10-20% loss each time it is duped off ...

[Mike the beginner]

The more I think about the sensor on the Red, and my experiences shooting on DLSRs, the more I am coming to believe that it might be better, all around, to shoot 4K REDCODE, but finish at 2K. The reasons?

First, when I shoot on DLSRs at full resolution, if you view the image at that full resolution, there are always imperfections, grain, and serious noise of some kind. But when I downsample the images to around 2500x1500, the pictures look absolutely beautiful.

Second, I have read that a downsampled digital 2K negative should look every bit as good, if not better, than a 2K scan from 35mm, because the 35mm has gone through several optical generations and is fairly soft by the time it hits movie theatres. Is this true?

And finally, of course, there is the fact that finishing at 2K/1080p is going to be a lot easier on your editing and storage systems, and these are the formats you are probably going to submit to Cannes, Sundance, etc, anyway.

The main issue for me is that when I view 4K DLSR images at full res, there are too many imperfections. I think I would have to shoot 5K or 6K and downsample before a 4K image would really be perfect.


I think Graeme mentioned some time ago that the results from a 4k image downsampled to 2k would be better than any windowed 2k image. If i remember it had something to do with the single cemos bayer sensor. In windowed mode you would lose about 30% from a windowed mode. Aslo Proteus (where's he gone?) reconed that a 4k image with SLR lenses would give better results than a cine lens in windowed mode!


Mike the beginner
Me's a beginner so best check those comments:blush:

[MikeCurtis]

Tom - yep, all your suppositions are true. I used to do digital retouch for a living 15 or so years ago, and the guys that said their 35mm stuff would look great at magazine cover size...I just shook my head since I worked with 2 1/4" and 4x5" stuff all the time. Oversampling for a smaller delivery format ROCKS, and smooths out the details. If you have doubts, simply download the sample images off of red.com and do some Photoshop testing.

-mike

[Don Woods]

I also have been thinking of this. Using 4k as the negitive and then going down to 2K or what ever I think will produce the best image possible and give you all the flexabliity of a 4k frame

[Gunleik Groven]

@ the moment - this is (I guess) what most of us here are thinking of.

I am planning to work mostly as I do today
DVCPRO HD @ 1080

For the projects where that's needed - I'll "online uncompresed", but for now my guess is that I'll be pretty happy with this workflow.

Possibly I'll follow the same route in Redcode, but as I haven't worked with that yet, that's sorta hard to tell. Maybe even AVC Intra would be a good codec to work in.

Doesn't really matter to me.

I don't care if Red is really 4k, 3k or 2k (as have been discussed at length all over the place.

What I do care for is that i get a 35mm sensor that at least records 2k at full rez 4:4:4 i-frame.

It's cheaper to set up than HDX-900 or XDCAM and gives me the same FOV and DOF carrectiristics as 35mm.

Why should I not be happy?

Delivery?

1080p or SD or 720p over the net. I don't really care.

Gunleik

[Bruce Allen]

Me too. But then I started a thread called "4K Finishing Folly"...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[planet e]

i sort of agree with gunleik--mostly because of the longer record times, which can be very important to me.

on the other hand, i'm certainly looking forward to trying graeme's suggestion of shooting everything in 4K and down-rezzing. it certainly simplifies matters and keeps things efficient organizationally.

can't wait to begin the Grand Experiment!

[Tom Lowe]

Me too. But then I started a thread called "4K Finishing Folly"...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

my change of heart has little to do with fears that my computer cannot handle 4K compressed wavelet footage (Cineform is already doing it), it has more to do with the aesthetics of the image.

Everyone knows that large full-res digital pictures or scans always look better downsampled (especially if done from RAW).

Example:

Scanned....

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/8931/scanneddi5.jpg

Scanned + downsampled..

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/4716/scanneddownsampledev8.jpg

I could be wrong, but based on DLSR experience, I don't think a 4K image will stand up to being shown in full 4K resolution on a 4K LCD monitor, for example, without showing signs of noise, grain, etc. But a downsampled 4K image at 2K would be totally pristine and beautiful, without flaw.

[Gunleik Groven]

Just as a BTW, I plan to shoot 4k all the way...

Gunleik

[tj williams]

Well write all this down on a note card since RED TEam will be screening 4K at NAB.

I personally hope they also screen 2K and 1080 and 720 and 480 525 RED Cine output. with appropriate corner markings. So we can see for ourselves what the various outputs of the Camera + RED Cine will actually do in digital projection.

I do a lot of Spot work and am looking forward to seeing what a 4K image looks like when downsampled to TV. I'm guessing awsome!!

[Joel Kaye]

Seems to me you could work at 4K and downsample to 2k at any point in the process - you surely don't have to do it first. I don't think you'd want to downsample to 2k and then pull your greenscreen keys or solve your matchmove or retouch facial blemishes UNLESS it's because working at 4k is intolerably slow (which it could be).


I could be wrong, but based on DLSR experience, I don't think a 4K image will stand up to being shown in full 4K resolution on a 4K LCD monitor, for example, without showing signs of noise, grain, etc. But a downsampled 4K image at 2K would be totally pristine and beautiful, without flaw.

Your smaller picture just gives the illusion of being sharper. If you blow it back up to the original size (ie project 4K) then it should arguably look worse than the 4K original.

I would agree that working at 2k might be easiest but I'd certainly shoot at 4K.

[Tom Lowe]

If the overcranking issue can be worked out by next year, I'll be shooting at 4K and editing at 4K, but the finished (exported) product I am going to worry about would probably be 2K. I would probably still have a 4K "master" on archive, though, just in case.

If overcranking cannot be solved, I will either shoot 1080 RGB (full-sensor downsample from 4K), or use a different camera.

[Joel Kaye]

If the overcranking issue can be worked out by next year, I'll be shooting at 4K and editing at 4K, but the finished (exported) product I am going to worry about would probably be 2K. I would probably still have a 4K "master" on archive, though, just in case.

If overcranking cannot be solved, I will either shoot 1080 RGB (full-sensor downsample from 4K), or use a different camera.

Yeah -that's the way to go. I might be inclined to overcrank at a lower resolution and use uprezzing software as a test. There are some very good uprezzing algorithms out there. If you feed them enough data they reconstruct missing details and edges fairly well. Be a good test anyway.

Also, depending on what you're overcranking a software retimer would be fine. Something very stylized (reservoir dog walk) doesn't need the frame precision as a shot that is using overcranking to show the slow mo details of an event.

[Brook Willard]

I could be wrong, but based on DLSR experience, I don't think a 4K image will stand up to being shown in full 4K resolution on a 4K LCD monitor, for example, without showing signs of noise, grain, etc. But a downsampled 4K image at 2K would be totally pristine and beautiful, without flaw.

You must've missed the RED 4K screenings... :)

[Tom Lowe]

You must've missed the RED 4K screenings... :)

heh. well i did miss it, but I have seen full-sensor 4K DLSR image at full-res, and they often have noise, grain, and image problems when viewed at full res. maybe when these images are projected and/or moving, you won't notice it as much.

[Joel Kaye]

heh. well i did miss it, but I have seen full-sensor 4K DLSR image at full-res, and they often have noise, grain, and image problems when viewed at full res. maybe when these images are projected and/or moving, you won't notice it as much.

You want to see some grain go watch 300. In fact, most movies I see at the local theater have a lot grain and artifacts. Once they start digitally projecting that'll all change though.

[Don Woods]

I think you will be suprised to find that the 4K holds up at 4k But I am right along with you.. 2K or anything down sampled from the 4K will look amazing.

[Don Woods]

Yes 300 had allot of grain but It did not bother me. That is going to be the beauty of this is that you will be able to control how much grain you will have by what stock you print out too for release. You will have no added grain to deal with.

[donatello b]

"well i did miss it, but I have seen full-sensor 4K DLSR image at full-res, and they often have ..."

... until one see's the RED image - just take the word of those that did see it at IBC and LA screening that it will look excellent on 4k projector & on any decent monitor ... i sat in front row just so i could see noise .. i looked very hard to see it and i didn't see it ... the only odd thing i saw was socks hitting the bottom of the screen !
WARNING !! be prepared to have your socks knocked off .... infact do not wear any socks to NAB - you will lose them - they could injure others flying thru the air ...

[Joel Kaye]

Yes 300 had allot of grain but It did not bother me.

Right - me neither. I noticed it, but I didn't care. If RED is as clean as they say it should be great for VFX because CG is clean and you should be able to drop a nice grain layer over it all to make it look right.

[Don Woods]

Right - me neither. I noticed it, but I didn't care. If RED is as clean as they say it should be great for VFX because CG is clean and you should be able to drop a nice grain layer over it all to make it look right.

yes very true and this will be the beauty of the camera. The resolution of film and you are able to control how many inperfections you want in the footage.

[Robert Jackson]

Why should I not be happy?


Well, personally, the interpolated resolution of DVCProHD bothers me a lot. I did quite a few tests last spring to see if I could work that way and be happy with it. I just don't like what it does to the video you feed it. Very robust codec, but scrunching 720p down to 960x720 and then scaling it back up for display is a bad idea. Same thing with 1080p being scaled down to 1440x1080. Some people can't tell the difference. It really grates on me, though. It's especially apparent if you have to add any kind of graphics. Rendered text is especially mangled by it.

There are other excellent options for working at those resolutions. I had very good experiences with Cineform's codecs. They keep saying that they'll be Mac-compatible soon. I'm having a good time working with Apple Intermediate Codec right now. Neither of those are "professional standard" codecs, but they're both far better options, IMO, than DCVProHD.

[Tom Lowe]

"well i did miss it, but I have seen full-sensor 4K DLSR image at full-res, and they often have ..."

... until one see's the RED image - just take the word of those that did see it at IBC and LA screening that it will look excellent on 4k projector & on any decent monitor ... i sat in front row just so i could see noise .. i looked very hard to see it and i didn't see it ... the only odd thing i saw was socks hitting the bottom of the screen !
WARNING !! be prepared to have your socks knocked off .... infact do not wear any socks to NAB - you will lose them - they could injure others flying thru the air ...

well on a DLSR, if the scene is very well lit, then yes, the image will be damn clean. the problems come once the light levels go down. I like to shoot mainly during magic hours, and under those lighting conditions, there is a lot of noise in DLSR full-res images. that's why I suspect it won't hold up at 4K. but then again, once it's projected, and once the images are moving, the problems might not be noticeable. i'm keeping an open mind.

[Bruce Allen]

Tom, I think there's a flaw in your original photo example. You compare a resampled image to the original and say the resampled one looks cleaner. But the resampled one is smaller! If you really wanted to compare, you'd have to blow the resampled one back up to the same size as the original.

Why not use a more intelligent kind of noise reduction than just resampling your images to 2K and then blowing them back up again? I mean, that's just like doing a low-precision blur. You have a lot of other options - even if you are doing something as simple as a gaussian blur and mixing it with 20% of the original 4K for a little extra crispness.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah but Bruce, my point is very basic. A downsampled image taken from a full-res photo simply looks better when viewed at the downsampled size. Everyone knows this. It's common sense. Obviously I'm not claiming it will hold up when upsampled back to 4k!

My point is that once you downsample a 4K DLSR image to around 2K, all the imperfections in the image disappear and it become very pristine and beautiful. Anyone who works with large DLSR photos, especially ones taken under low-light conditions, knows this to be true.

Actually this whole thread by me is rather pointless, because I will probably shoot and edit at 4K anyway, due to the fact that I cannot gain any advantage (overcranking, etc) by working at 2K.