From: Philip Hood (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Mar 02 2006 - 10:28:45 PST
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, Cari Machet wrote:
> let me be more specific
> i was referencing picture quality ...
> i remember and was referencing in my mind
> when hd first came out
> and the little (panasonic) display they had at NAB
> the screens footage was compared to film -
hi cari,
to me - and I have spent a little time thinking
about this, but I claim nothing other than
being able to kinda feel my way blindly
though it and somewhat be able to express
what I feel, an analog medium is never
quite going to ever be the same as a digital
thing. however, at some point, our senses
become dulled out, and then we don't know
the difference anymore, but thats not to mean
that they don't don't exist.
at the same time, its important to remember
that the emulsion in film merely contains
very small silver halides, which are atomic
in nature, and its possible to get a
pretty good electronic representation of
what you're seeing on say a 35mm film frame.
most discussions I've seen of, say, film
recording, suggest that a 8k scan, which
equates to about 8192 x 5461 pixels, is
pretty much past the point where people can
distinguish whether or not the image is
at all pixelated, at about the rate of
size of projection of "conventially" taken
images on celluloid.
now, when you compare the resolution size of
8192 x 5461 pixels,
with say, DVD, which is merely:
720 x 480, or even the maxium of HD, which is
1920 x 1080, you see that that falls pretty
short of 8192 x 5461, about 4 & 1/4 along the
horizontal axis ...
but, if this is "all" we are talking about,
image quality, between video and film, then
I really feel that we're talking about something
that is not going to last too long. I think
humans will figure out how to digitally
create images of the same or a surpassing
"quality" as celluloid filming can ...
... but the process will _always_ be different.
Its just a different way of doing things.
I mean, sure, I can go shopping, for a bar
of bread, a stick of butter, and a bottle of
milk, but the _way_ this happens, I think
is very different ... and I think, for
film, its all in the process. Theres something
about a beautifully hand crocheted scarf
that I can make my girlfriend that no machine
will ever be able to recreate - even if
it "looks" exactly the same, theres always
going to be something different ...
... and are we really
talking about the "cheapening"
of film ... ... I feel that this is primarily
whats behind so many of these discussion,
which doesn't quite amount to too much
of substance, to me.
-ml
pth
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.