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a typical cinema release is a pretty big file - frame-by-frame encoded as jpg2000 in 4k. Often shipped on hard drives, or downloaded via dedicated f

a typical cinema release is a pretty big file - frame-by-frame encoded as jpg2000 in 4k. Often shipped on hard drives, or downloaded via dedicated fiber lines. This is not a show stopper. All you need is one unlocked copy to drop in the open, and then everyone can work on it, and get it packed up in a more reasonable format. This all works due to proprietary hardware - the modifications to the 4k cinema projectors that enable decryption almost at the lens/imaging chip can cost as much as the projector itself, doubling the price of the projector (last I heard from around 15k to 30k USD). So, yeah, that's great, but the only level of piracy that could deter is the pixel-perfect variety. A motivated individual with a comparable budget could probably optically extract a high quality duplicate with an expensive digital video camera (and perhaps even a beam splitter), and pull signal from the speaker transducers with professional audio recording equipment. There'd be no real need to tamper with proprietary hardware or intrude on the chasis of the projector. With reasonable equipment, it's likely that a person could reproduce a re-recording of a movie that is very-nearly indistinguishable from the factory source, perhaps except for negligible artifacts that might irritate only the holiest of true believers.

ekianjo 10y ago
> a typical cinema release is a pretty big file - frame-by-frame encoded as jpg2000 in 4k In a way it's shocking that huge cinema screens ONLY project 4k. When we had film instead of digital projectors, we actually had a much higher resolution on screen. It's a shame we replaced it with an inferior technology.
- edent 10y ago
  I'm not convinced. If you happen to see a fresh print, with no scratches, dirt, skipped sprockets, or speed issues then - yes - it is theoretically marginally better than a digital print. Similarly, a highly priced vinyl player might have slightly better sound quality than a cheap CD player. But for most people, digital Cinema and CDs represent a vastly superior experience.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    Wait. Film is not just better for resolution, it has much better dynamic range and color depth than digital (digital is coming close, but still not there yet). It's not because a technology is newer that it is necessarily better. CRT still holds some advantages over LCDs, Paper still holds advantages over e-ink, and so on. Of course Digital photography wins by a large amount for cost and convenience, but that's not the whole picture.
- ars 10y ago
  Film has a lot of noise. The resolution is not as high as you are imagining. I've seen both, digital is better.
  - 4ad 10y ago
    > Film has a lot of noise. Film has grain, which is a type of non-chroma signal-dependent noise that is not unpleasant like chromatic signal-independent sensor noise or shot noise you get digitally in photography (not in movies, they have good lighting there). In fact, grain is actually useful, as it's aesthetically pleasing in small amounts, can increase apparent sharpness. In fact it's so useful digital creations fake back in post-production a small amount of grain. > The resolution is not as high as you are imagining. The resolution of 4k projection is not as high as you are imagining either. It's just 4096x2160 lines (often less, depending on aspect ratio) or 8.8 megapixels. In the best circumstances you can get 25Mpix of useful data from a 35mm frame shot on low grain stocks like 5203. In the worst circumstances you get 10Mpix. This is 35mm, The Hateful Eight was shot on 65mm stock, which has a camera frame surface are of 3.44 times the camera surface of 35mm film. Either way, the resolution of 4k digital cinema is fine, I miss more the old contrast and gamut.
    - ars 10y ago
      Maybe you don't find grain to be unpleasant, but I certainly do. I tolerate it when the source had it and there is no choice, but I certainly don't like it. And no, it's not aesthetically pleasing in any amount. Directors that add it back artificially should be criticized. It looks like there is a swarm of gnats flying across the screen, and unless there are a ton of bugs in the scene it doesn't belong. > This is 35mm, The Hateful Eight was shot on 65mm stock, which has a camera frame surface are of 3.44 times the camera surface of 35mm film. It won't stay that way by the time you watch it, it will have been copied multiple times, and it's on 35mm again. The effective resolution as seen in the actual theater does not beat 4k, and you have additional noise which lowers the resolution even more. The main thing though is that noise is worse than lack of resolution. Depending on how far you are from the screen more resolution is meaningless - but noise (like film grain) is always a problem. > I miss more the old contrast and gamut. I suspect you are missing what never was. Digital is better on both.
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  Even if the film theoretically has a higher "pixel" density the projector smudged it out by not fully fixing the frame. Difital is sharp because the pixel raster does not move. Even the best cinema projectors wobble the individual pictures around.
- 4ad 10y ago
  Not just the resolution, but the contrast and gamut too (although the gamut in cinema projection is still much better than the more usual BT.709).
- danwills 10y ago
  I work in the film industry, a 35mm full-aperture negative scan holds only about 2048x1556 pixels-worth, and even at that resolution the film-grain blobs are several pixels across (especially in the blue channel).
  - 4ad 10y ago
    > I work in the film industry, a 35mm full-aperture negative scan holds only about 2048x1556 pixels-worth There are enough good 4k releases of classic movies to see this is not the case. You can compare the 4k and HD release (which is just under the resolution you provided). I regularly scan Vision 3 film (movie stock) and Velvia 50 and Velvia 100 (E6). I scan it professionally at 10 Mpix, but when I have a good picture, I pay big bucks to have it drum scanned at 100 Mpix. Yes, it's not 100 Mpix, there's about 15-25 Mpix worth of detail there, but it's much, much more detail than the 10 Mpix scan.
    - danwills 10y ago
      Apologies it does sound[1] like an absolutely perfectly shot 35mm frame can theoretically hold up to 20 million pixels-worth, but I've never seen this in practice in the vfx industry, it's almost always less than the ~3 million pixels that 2048x1556 provides. http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html
    - pwthornton 10y ago
      Some of those classic movies were shot on 65mm and 70mm. Others may have simply been upscanned, which will yield a sharper looking image nonetheless.
  - Keyframe 10y ago
    True and not true. I own few telecine and film scanning machines. Most of older film material, esp. 16mm isn't worth scanning over full 2k. 1556 in y on 16mm esp. important because lots of people want to reframe into 16:9 and 1556 gives more than 1080. Anyways, most of old stock (print, negative, ip) have grain such that over cca. 2.5k won't yield anything better. However, kodak and fuji stock from mid to late eighties definitwly is worth capturing at higher detail. Highest-detailed stock from nineties we've measured to have spatial rwsolution of around 8.5k and that's about as high as you will get (rare) out of 35mm. tl;dr; depends on the stock edit: Here's previous mini discussion regarding telecines, if anyone's interested https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11377678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11377678
- DKnoll 10y ago
  Some first and second generation DCinema projectors are even 2K, these can still be found in operation. No, you probably won't notice... ;)
- shalmanese 10y ago
  Which has been irrelevant ever since the late 90s since 99.9% of films since then has been digitally scanned from film (usually in 2K, sometimes in 4K), edited, and then reprinted on film from the digital intermediate.

ekianjo 10y ago

> a typical cinema release is a pretty big file - frame-by-frame encoded as jpg2000 in 4k In a way it's shocking that huge cinema screens ONLY project 4k. When we had film instead of digital projectors, we actually had a much higher resolution on screen. It's a shame we replaced it with an inferior technology.

edent 10y ago
I'm not convinced. If you happen to see a fresh print, with no scratches, dirt, skipped sprockets, or speed issues then - yes - it is theoretically marginally better than a digital print. Similarly, a highly priced vinyl player might have slightly better sound quality than a cheap CD player. But for most people, digital Cinema and CDs represent a vastly superior experience.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  Wait. Film is not just better for resolution, it has much better dynamic range and color depth than digital (digital is coming close, but still not there yet). It's not because a technology is newer that it is necessarily better. CRT still holds some advantages over LCDs, Paper still holds advantages over e-ink, and so on. Of course Digital photography wins by a large amount for cost and convenience, but that's not the whole picture.
ars 10y ago
Film has a lot of noise. The resolution is not as high as you are imagining. I've seen both, digital is better.
- 4ad 10y ago
  > Film has a lot of noise. Film has grain, which is a type of non-chroma signal-dependent noise that is not unpleasant like chromatic signal-independent sensor noise or shot noise you get digitally in photography (not in movies, they have good lighting there). In fact, grain is actually useful, as it's aesthetically pleasing in small amounts, can increase apparent sharpness. In fact it's so useful digital creations fake back in post-production a small amount of grain. > The resolution is not as high as you are imagining. The resolution of 4k projection is not as high as you are imagining either. It's just 4096x2160 lines (often less, depending on aspect ratio) or 8.8 megapixels. In the best circumstances you can get 25Mpix of useful data from a 35mm frame shot on low grain stocks like 5203. In the worst circumstances you get 10Mpix. This is 35mm, The Hateful Eight was shot on 65mm stock, which has a camera frame surface are of 3.44 times the camera surface of 35mm film. Either way, the resolution of 4k digital cinema is fine, I miss more the old contrast and gamut.
  - ars 10y ago
    Maybe you don't find grain to be unpleasant, but I certainly do. I tolerate it when the source had it and there is no choice, but I certainly don't like it. And no, it's not aesthetically pleasing in any amount. Directors that add it back artificially should be criticized. It looks like there is a swarm of gnats flying across the screen, and unless there are a ton of bugs in the scene it doesn't belong. > This is 35mm, The Hateful Eight was shot on 65mm stock, which has a camera frame surface are of 3.44 times the camera surface of 35mm film. It won't stay that way by the time you watch it, it will have been copied multiple times, and it's on 35mm again. The effective resolution as seen in the actual theater does not beat 4k, and you have additional noise which lowers the resolution even more. The main thing though is that noise is worse than lack of resolution. Depending on how far you are from the screen more resolution is meaningless - but noise (like film grain) is always a problem. > I miss more the old contrast and gamut. I suspect you are missing what never was. Digital is better on both.
the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
Even if the film theoretically has a higher "pixel" density the projector smudged it out by not fully fixing the frame. Difital is sharp because the pixel raster does not move. Even the best cinema projectors wobble the individual pictures around.
4ad 10y ago
Not just the resolution, but the contrast and gamut too (although the gamut in cinema projection is still much better than the more usual BT.709).
danwills 10y ago
I work in the film industry, a 35mm full-aperture negative scan holds only about 2048x1556 pixels-worth, and even at that resolution the film-grain blobs are several pixels across (especially in the blue channel).
- 4ad 10y ago
  > I work in the film industry, a 35mm full-aperture negative scan holds only about 2048x1556 pixels-worth There are enough good 4k releases of classic movies to see this is not the case. You can compare the 4k and HD release (which is just under the resolution you provided). I regularly scan Vision 3 film (movie stock) and Velvia 50 and Velvia 100 (E6). I scan it professionally at 10 Mpix, but when I have a good picture, I pay big bucks to have it drum scanned at 100 Mpix. Yes, it's not 100 Mpix, there's about 15-25 Mpix worth of detail there, but it's much, much more detail than the 10 Mpix scan.
  - danwills 10y ago
    Apologies it does sound[1] like an absolutely perfectly shot 35mm frame can theoretically hold up to 20 million pixels-worth, but I've never seen this in practice in the vfx industry, it's almost always less than the ~3 million pixels that 2048x1556 provides. http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html
  - pwthornton 10y ago
    Some of those classic movies were shot on 65mm and 70mm. Others may have simply been upscanned, which will yield a sharper looking image nonetheless.
- Keyframe 10y ago
  True and not true. I own few telecine and film scanning machines. Most of older film material, esp. 16mm isn't worth scanning over full 2k. 1556 in y on 16mm esp. important because lots of people want to reframe into 16:9 and 1556 gives more than 1080. Anyways, most of old stock (print, negative, ip) have grain such that over cca. 2.5k won't yield anything better. However, kodak and fuji stock from mid to late eighties definitwly is worth capturing at higher detail. Highest-detailed stock from nineties we've measured to have spatial rwsolution of around 8.5k and that's about as high as you will get (rare) out of 35mm. tl;dr; depends on the stock edit: Here's previous mini discussion regarding telecines, if anyone's interested https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11377678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11377678
DKnoll 10y ago
Some first and second generation DCinema projectors are even 2K, these can still be found in operation. No, you probably won't notice... ;)
shalmanese 10y ago
Which has been irrelevant ever since the late 90s since 99.9% of films since then has been digitally scanned from film (usually in 2K, sometimes in 4K), edited, and then reprinted on film from the digital intermediate.