adywan said:
danny_boy said:
I actually have the Sony vw1000es 4K home cinema projector.
The Star War's blu's(both prequel and original) look absolutely phenomenal on it.
But.....
Due to the increased resolution offered by the projector....(all be it upscaled) the limitations of the analogue techniques used in making the OUT are far more pronounced.
In particular , scenes and shots which where optically composited exhibit noticibly softer looking images than 1st generation material.
4K(and to a lesser extent 2K) is ruthless in exposing these discrepencies.
By their nature large portions of the original films featured such material.
A 4K master and a 4K Digital Cinema Package(DCP) may be too "harsh" on the OUT .
One of the reasons why Lucas opted for a 2K master.
Can't disagree with you more on this. They look terrible projected at 4k. TPM is actually worse than any of the OT, but AOTC & ROTS do look good. The problem you are seeing has nothing to do with the techniques used at the time of filming, but the way the transfer was mastered. The worse shots are the ones that weren't recomposited. Instead they just DVNR'd these shots to death. You can even see that they did this to some elements that they did recomposite. Plus, the scanning done in the 90's for these elements produced a lot softer results than a scan done today and, with the special edition, we're pretty much stuck with that. That's you problem right there as to why they look so soft. Add Lowry's so called clean up into the process and this is what you get.
Now, the person who invited me to the 4k viewing , also had something that came as a little surprise. He had a 4k scan of a 70mm reel from ESB (which is why he invited me really it turns out). It was unfaded, which came as a bit of a surprise. Now we compared this to the blu-ray and the 4k scan looked so much better, even if it was dirtier. Now this shouldn't have been the case, right? we did some side by side comparisons with some screenshots and there are effects shots that are smeared to hell on the blu-rays and have some very bad artefacts caused by this. I just wish that he had more than one reel so i could have done some more comparisons (and that he would have given me a copy of the scan). He also had a full scan of a tecnicolor ANH, which we only had time to watch bits. That looked amazing but it was noticeable which shots George deliberately downgraded.
So, redo all the compositing using todays tech and don't scrub the hell out of the elements and you will see a hell of a lot of difference.
Why did George only scan the OT in 2k? Because of the 2 PT films being shot in 1080p? Does he really want his older films looking better than he new ones with the tech that he was pushing so hard for? Probably not
But the job i can't see how anyone can say they look amazing, because they don't, especially when projected @4k.
Those films could look hell of a lot better than they do now if only someone who gives more of a crap about the quality than just getting the job done and maximize the profit
What was the projection method of this 4K scan of a 70mm reel?
Was it from a hard drive plugged into a commercial 4K cinema projector?
Or a High def disc which featured the 4K master of a 70mm reel down rezzed to 1080p?.....and then projected(and upscaled again through the Sony 4K 1000es?)
ON Edit:
The reason I ask is because playback at native 4K is not possible at the moment in the comfort of one's own home(Only upscaled 1080p through a 4K projector or TV is possible)
Both RED and Sony are working on releasing 1st generation 4K playback devices this fall.
Also you said your friend had a 4K scan of a 70mm print.
This makes no sense.
Conventional 4K scanners can only handle 35mm film.....that is what they are designed for.
The larger size(film gauge) of 70mm would neccesitate having to use a different type of scanner.
But scanners used for 70mm apart form being very expensive............ scan to 8K and that is really only for 70mm negative.......not a 3rd/4th generation cinema release print which would be well below 8K in terms of resolution and not even 4K......especially as the ESB 70mm reel you are refering to was only a blow up from a 35mm negative in the 1st place(and hence would suffer from optical degradation )
Here is one of the few scanners that can scan both 35mm and 70mm film stock.
The Millennium ‘data-cine’ is the only film scanner capable of real time SD and HD film transfers as well as 2K at 15fps and 4K at 5fps from all the major film gauges including 8mm/S8mm/MAX8mm, 16mm/S16mm, 35mm/S35mm and 65/70mm.
http://www.cintel.co.uk/home.php?action=news_display&id=124
Even if that 4k scan was possible......you would still have the issue of playback which would only be possible at 1080p( all be it upscaled at best).
So i doubt the validity of you or your friend's claims.
And the Star wars blu rays ...when upscaled from 1080p to 4K do look amazing.
Some screen shots from a professional review web site of the Sony 4K:
http://www.projectorreviews.com/outstanding-product/outstanding-projector-2012.php