This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] Re: More folks are panning the 4K push

Which bit of my post said I wanted compression?

I work fully uncompressed at present and will do so for 4k.

The h265 bit is just for sending images home. Current tests I've seen indicate a 2.5x improvement in compression ratios at similar or better image quality than h264. I think we all need to stop thinking of broadcast video as the ultimate goal. If over the air is all we care about then 720p and 1080p are barely any different - if anything for a broadcast stream the 720 takes less of a beating on the way to the viewer.

Network tv us coming to an end, Netflix and other distribution will be early 4k adopters pushing a higher image quality agenda to drop feed h265 deliverables.

At the other end of the scale I fully expect DCP to become supported in domestic projectors and home playback systems within the next 2 years. The addition of easy dcp creation to grading systems make delivering dcp streams as simple as encoding a h265 and the jpeg2000 photo stream is massively stable. 10 bit colour to the home is enough for now.

But again I want more for me for whole im working. Who wouldn't prefer to be grading hdri images rather than 8 but video?

As for frame rate no I personally hated the hobbits high frame rate. But I'm smart enough to know this us just conditioning of my age and experience. Every young person I spoke to loved it. Motion blur and jitter are like film grain before it artifacts of the chemical age. You don't get asked to add film grain to Alexa footage any more do you? (Unless its a quirky ye olde film look that's desired)

There was and is nothing magical about 24fps other than familiarity and psychological association with live tv vs quality films. I'm sure Haskell wexlers and others would be happy to be able to pan faster without strobing in an action movie. If as elsewhere we argue about limits of perception Douglas Trumbull showed in the 70s with shows can than 60fps was about brain eye saturation level - surely that should be the goal.

The old tag line of reality at 24fps is as false a claim as all you need is 640k of ram.

We are on the list veterans for the most part - we can't be the guys dictating what the limits of future perception is - my own eyesight isn't what it was 30 years ago should I now claim well its rubbish I can't see any difference?

Lastly I have a Mac with retina display at purchase time I was 50;50 did it really look a few hundred bucks better.. Well now I hate the old displays so lets consider the effect of familiarity in the viewing experience.

24 was the lowest common denominator to create intermittent motion, even in the cinema it was always projected as 48 to stop flicker. The fact that we all got used to it isn't a valid scientific arguement to limit framed rate going forward.

Similarly 1920 x 1080 was argued for by Charles poynton as a convenient number of pixels at about the same image size as sonys 2x ntsc tests for the compromised aspect of 16x9 converted to square pixels.

Logic would have said 2000 x 1000 or some other round figure but there is no magic to the value it wasnt scientifically derived it was just twice as good as what we had. At this point some mention of farouda labs and line doublers would be worthwhile. People forget the push back against hd where it was seen as a massive waste if bandwidth as a line doubled pal signal was virtually indistinguishable from a real hd one. This whole who needs 4k smells of the same nonsense to me.

The advantages in post of greater resolution are proven. My last 3 features were 4k. Now consider how much more discerning people are about video quality since the advent of hdmi and component to the average home if ten years ago. Who is to say similar quality leaps aren't in our collective futures in colour depth, frame rate, hdri and contrast ratios and yes resolution.
How about 4k tvs which let you zoom in to examine details in a show increased interactivity in ways we don't imagine as yet.

I think the debate has run its course but I think the reality is tvs won't cost anymore to make as 4k units so its going to happen. It won't be the flood of sales seen when the move to digital and hd happened but your next tv will be 4k like it or not. Course the majority of the avid-l will happily keep watching their 4:3 AD trinitrons for their superior blacks like train spotting vinyl addicts hooked on their third harmonics.

Mike

On 30 Aug, 2013, at 8:21 AM, "prberg2" <prberg2@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Mike,
>
> You certainly have alot of enthusiasm for 'more'. I guess my enthusiasm is more about 'better' and not just 'more'.
>
> I very much agree with Terry's point. If it's something that can't be seen by the home viewer (unless they sit less than 5 feet away from their TV set), I don't see why spending so much energy on UHD/2160p/4K when we could put that energy into something that would actually improve the quality and which the home viewer would see. Alot of non tech people I talk to can very much see all the nasty compression that gets put on our pretty pictures. Don't you think we should fix that before we try to cram more pixels down the pipe? Is H.265 really going to allow us to transmit UHD/2160p with images that are less compressed and with more bit depths than our current systems? What about compression that gets added further down the pipeline from us? Doesn't seem like you are taking that into account. It seems like you are after quality for the viewer, but can you honestly say a 2160p image compressed down for TV will look better than a 1080p image compressed down? I guess I'm not willing to sacrifice bit depth or compression levels just for more resolution. When I see something on TV that I finished, the quality is much less than what I saw in the online bay. You do know in the real world there are limitations to how the image gets to the end user? If it was uncompressed all the way into the home, I would feel quite different.
>
> This is a bit of a separate point, but I take it you liked Hobbit at 48fps? Probably wished he shot at 60 or 120fps? I saw it and thought it took away from the storytelling and mystery of the world. High frame rate (or resolution) should be used when it's called for. I do think that an IMAX nature special would be a good candidate for high fps and resolution (assuming compression or bit depth don't have to be sacrificed). But for most projects (especially a movie about middle earth or a period file) I think that razor sharp video look can be too much like reality. I don't go to the movie theater to see reality.
>
> I appreciate your opinions, but I think we just have very different goals and ideas of quality images. You want to be able to see and smell the food shots... but if the image was UHD and also compressed to an inch of it's life wouldn't that take away from the quality of the image? To me.. 'more' is not always better. Quality matters much more to me than quantity.
>
> Thanks for the debate.
>
> -Peter
>
> --- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, "Mikeparsons.tv" <mikeparsons.tv@...> wrote:
> >
> > You do know that as a flame guy I run a 16 bit half float pipeline as standard and that most of my complex work is full float in nuke?
> >
> > I don't want resolution at the expense if color depth. I've said all along in this thread that I want it all. Higher res. Float. Higher fps. Stereo.
> >
> > I'm not advocating everyone needs everything but there is a segmenting the market where 4k is hugely advantageous and that's commercisl finishing.
> ....
> > And I say good. More is good. Much more is better. Even more than that us better still. I want tv with do much resolution I can smell the food shots. I want color of such depth it's like being there.
> ...
> > So it's happening. Yes some people on some tvs might not see the benefit. But there will be people who can and one of those people will be me while I'm doing my work.
> >
> > Hopefully a lot of you guys will come along too, the future after all is still pretty exciting.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> >
> > On 29 Aug, 2013, at 1:10 AM, "prberg2" <prberg2@...> wrote:
> >
> > > I have not yet done any h265 tests on a full size display under normal viewing conditions. So I can't comment on that. Although I'm confident that newer codecs will have the potential to improve image quality.
> > >
> > > So you didn't comment on my desire to improve the final quality for viewers. Do you not think it's just as important to improve the other aspects of the image (compression, bit depth, color space, etc)? I'm just thinking that with our existing delivery pipelines (and the ones in the near future) if we used the new codecs on our 1920x1080 content it would make them look even better.
> > >
> > > That is where I think we should focus our attention. Are you saying that you would choose an image with higher resolution but lower quality otherwise (higher compression, lower bit depth, etc) over a HD image with higher quality (lower compression, higher bit depth, etc)? You choose more over better? Personally I'm a big fan of quality over quantity.
> > >
> > > I've seen this on Blu-ray discs. They can cram more on the disc and you get 'more'. But they have to reduce the quality and increase compression to do it. I'm much more in favor of improving quality and not just cramming in more pixels (which again I have not seen proof that you will actually be able to resolve on your home television).
> > >
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > --- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, "Mikeparsons.tv" <mikeparsons.tv@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Have you seen h265 tests?
> > > >
> > > > Megapixel domestic cameras are not what we are talking about it - we're talking about delivering more if the resolution many of my clients already come in with.
> > > >
> > > > Mike
> > > >
> > > > On 28 Aug, 2013, at 8:13 AM, "prberg2" <prberg2@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > This is the most depressing thread? I have been enjoying it and it's very interesting to get everyone's perspective.
> > > > >
> > > > > So you talk about picture quality. Let's talk about picture quality shall we? It seems like you are focusing on quantity over quality. I would guess that you were upgrading your DSLR camera every time they increased the megapixels (more resolution is better right?). The problem with that, is that more pixels does not always mean higher quality. It can mean the opposite actually. With the increased megapixels, there is often increased noise in images. Also many cameras had more megapixels, but inferior lenses. I can tell you that my 6MP DSLR took MUCH better photos than my friends 14MP point and shoot camera. He had more pixels (and his camera was newer), but my images were sharper and had much better quality (confirmed by my very friend with that camera, and many of my family and friends who loved the photos from that 6MP DSLR). Now sensors have finally caught up and images have improved as a result. But it took about 10 years for the higher resolution noisier sensors to improve and get there.
> > > > >
> > > > > I think many of us here are fighting for quality, and the push to UHD/2160p/4K/8K could actually set us back in terms of beautiful image quality (and I'm speaking mostly to home entertainment and not so much about theatrical presentation). It's going to take more time for the consumer bandwidth pipelines (where most of the content is actually viewed) to increase on a major level. Until the pipeline receives a major upgrade (Think HDMI 3.0, Fiber internet to the home, etc.) the push to UHD/2160p/4K/8K will actually reduce quality. I'm sure compression will improve with time, but I will bet that it will not improve enough to compensate for the extra pixels (which you probably can't see anyways at normal TV viewing distances). Thus we will see more blocky compressed video (which I think looks absolutely terrible).
> > > > >
> > > > > I would much rather see an increase in actual video quality. To achieve that, we need much better compression all the way to the consumer's viewing device (TV in many cases). We need to abandon 8bit video and move to higher bit depths. That will reduce banding, and other video noise. A wider color space would also help improve picture quality.
> > > > >
> > > > > I was able to do a side by side test at my local electronics store. I saw the Sony 65" UHD set, setup near a same size HD set. It was showing the latest Spider Man movie. In all honesty, the UHD set did not look ANY better at all. There was alot of compression noise, and some strange smearing going on. Also the black levels were not as good as the Plasma set I was comparing it to. So to me, the UHD set had lower quality.
> > > > >
> > > > > Now when we get to the point where the compression ratio, bit depth, contrast ratio, black level, etc. are better on the UHD sets (or 8K or whatever it is by then) I would consider buying one for my living room.
> > > > >
> > > > > For now (and likely the next 5-8 years) I will stick with my plan on buying a great OLED 1080p set (once the prices drop to more reasonable levels). I will continue to push for higher bit depths, lower compression, and wider color spaces. I just don't think that UHD/2160p/4K/8K means higher quality for home entertainment.
> > > > >
> > > > > I hope my comments don't depress you. It's just good debate, which is what makes the L2 such a great group!
> > > > >
> > > > > -Peter Berg
> > > > >
> > > > > --- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, mike parsons <mikeparsons.tv@> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I think this thread has been one of the most depressing I have ever read on
> > > > > > the Avid-L
> > > > > >
> > > > > > For a group of forward thinking industry leading creatives and engineers I
> > > > > > do not for one second understand the Luddite sentiments expressed.
> > > > > ...
> > > > > > People care about picture quality. They really do. As pros we might care
> > > > > > more but its not just marketing hype that drives people to buy more mega
> > > > > > pixels than they need. Its a desire to document their lives and their
> > > > > > experiences with as much fidelity as possible. Its a desire to get as close
> > > > > > to the experience of being there at a sporting event on their 55 inch
> > > > > > plasma. Its a desire for an immersive entertainment experience. And for
> > > > > > that folks you can never have too many pixels or too big a TV. You can
> > > > > > never have too big a tv or too much money.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Its made me sad to hear smart people here saying 'I'll never need to edit
> > > > > > 4K'. Well you don't actually need to edit HD. AVR70 is perfectly good for
> > > > > > editing decisions it is after all 'broadcast quality'. Im particularly sad
> > > > > > to hear 'tv manufacturers just want to move product' because whilst at some
> > > > > > fundamental business level thats true I'm pretty sure thats not what drives
> > > > > > the engineers when developing new technology. From spinning disks to Philo
> > > > > > and his brother in law blowing glass to shadow mask and trinitron, plasma,
> > > > > > OLED, LCDs and onwards display technology has been a constant unbroken line
> > > > > > of technological leaps the like of which has not been seen in many other
> > > > > > industries. 4K is just the next step down that path.
> > > > > ...
> > > > > > At the end of the day I'm with Barry Stevens, I'm glad my career lasted
> > > > > > from composite analogue vtrs to float images off compact flash cards. I've
> > > > > > enjoyed the ride and I'm looking forward as eagerly to the next leap as the
> > > > > > ones we've all taken so far. Come on guys, get on board.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Mike
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Terence Curren <tcurren@> wrote:
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