the capture of the capture of the...?

[Matt Pacini]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mattias:
[B]>
"since a video file *is* a series of stills, and the resolution can be as high as you want it to be. "

(Matt Pacini repsonds):
I agree with all Roger said.

I would like to add however, that this quote above by mattias is incorrect.
Video files are dictated by their format, for instance, D1 NTSC is 486x420 for output to video.
You cannot make a 2K horiz. res file then play it out to your VCR.
Yes, video is a series of frames, but there are standards that have dictated what a video file is, and it is very different in nature than say a series of RGB Tiff files.
My desire to capture in high res., is partly because I hope to render to 35mm neg, but also I want to get every bit of detail that is on the Super 8 frame, and I don't believe that D1 resolution does that.
(Perhaps this will open up a new topic)...


Matt Pacini


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[MadFor3D]

Roger,

They use such a high resolution for effects work because its meant to be shown in 35mm in a theater, right?

I mean, the effects that you've done with your Super 8 footage don't need to be such a high resolution because its just meant to be shown on video, no?

-M

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[MovieStuff]

That is absolutely correct. And, in fact, that is pretty much to whole point here. "High resolution" is not only a relative term as it relates to the task at hand, it is a term that changes its meaning as time goes by. My dad worked for an NBC affiliate for 50 years as a video engineer. He often said that guys shooting news film or video back in the late 70's on "state of the art" equipment would have KILLED for one of today's plain old VHS home camcorders.

In the context of this discussion, film scanned to "hi-rez" for effects work is done so for much the same reason that effects work of the last 20 years was often shot on Vistavision; the need for a higher fidelity image. This is a particularly good analogy since there were no Vistavision projectors typically available to preview the footage nor was the final results viewed by an audience from the Vistavision format. In both instances (Vistavision or scanned frames) the final hi-rez imagery is ultimately viewed on a lower resolution carrier designed for convenient playback and not maximum resolution per frame.

Roger

[mattias]

*sigh*

no shit sherlock(s). it's still a video file. there are absolutely no limits for video files. what would you call a 320x240 quicktime movie if not a video file? and you can't play a 486x480 (?) d1 quicktime file on your vcr either.

why don't you guys (yes roger, you're included) ever listen to what people say? you respond in a way suggesting that i didn't know there was a resolution limit of sd video, which is just absurd.

/matt

[This message has been edited by mattias (edited August 30, 2001).]

[MovieStuff]

Hi, Mattias!

Nah, you're simply incorrect. You clearly wrote:

"and roger, there's no reason a "video file" would be smaller than a series of stills, since a video file *is* a series of stills, and the resolution can be as high as you want
it to be."

I listened to what you wrote and you clearly implied that the resolution of a video file can be as high as you want, which is patently incorrect. If it goes higher than a standard on-demand video playback file, then it is no longer a "video" file. It's just that simple.

The context of this entire discussion is about the difference between standard "play at the press of a button" video files and files that are created by scanning high resolution frames to be printed later on an equally high carrier. Perhaps rather than accuse two independent people of not reading what you wrote correctly (highly unlikely), you should instead be more careful how you phrase things and should also pay more attention to the context of the discussion at hand.

Sherlock Evans

[mattias]

> If it goes higher than a standard on-demand video playback file, then it is no longer a "video" file.

yes it is. i've worked with digital editing long enough to know this (about seven years). many many times have i edited video files at various resolutions that have been much superior (for high end cd-rom's) and much inferior to d1 video (usually avid and dc30 offlines, but also some web and cd-rom stuff).

> The context of this entire discussion is about the difference between standard "play at the press of a button" video files and files that are created by scanning high resolution frames to be printed later on an equally high carrier.

not at all. the context is the difference between a "series of stills" and a "continous video file". saying there is a difference in quality just based on this distinction is simply wrong. you guys made it seem as if there was a difference. if you simply wanted to say that higher resolution is better than lower (pretty redundant thing to say), why didn't you just say so, in those words? why bring "stills" and "video" into the discussion?

and you can easily play back a 1024x768 *video file* at the press of a button. what do you mean exactly? it's not that a dv stream can be played on a tv wihthout decmpression and da conversion first either.

/matt

ps. i removed the plonk from the above post. i will continue to read your posts after all... ;-)

[MovieStuff]

Jimminy Crickets, Mattias!

In ANY context you choose, it's really simple: If you can immediately play the file at the press of a button, it's a video file. If the resolution is too high to do that, then it is NOT a video file. What is so hard to understand about that? Unless, of course, you consider any frame that can be viewed on a CRT to be a video file. If so, then I think the definition of "video" is being stretched a bit to fit you needs, here.

More to the point, unless you were trying to say that video files COULD be any resolution you want (which, in fact, you did), then why make the distinction if you know there is a resolution limit to "playback" video files? Seems contradictory to me.

Video files are video files. Hi-rez scans for printing to motion picture film are not. I don't know how to make the distinction any more clear and nothing else was ever discussed, so any sudden "confusion" on the issue seems out of place, in my opinion.

However, if I misunderstood what you meant, I apologize. It was not my intention to paint you in a bad light. I'm in no mood to argue about this.

Roger

[mattias]

roger:
> you were trying to say that video files COULD be any resolution you want

yes, that's what i was trying to say. seems i've gotten through that far. good.

matt p:
> Video, in the professional sense Roger and I are referring to

professional? pleeeze... i'm not the "confused average joe." i'm (again) not talking about video, i'm talking about video files as opposed to a series of still images. as for calling post houses: you should try to call them and ask for a 2k video file. or a 1080p video file (or a series of stills if you think that will give you better quality). it will work. promise.

matt p:
> Try recording some of these resolutions that you are claiming you are free to use, out to videotape, and see what happens!

roger:
> If you can immediately play the file at the press of a button, it's a video file.

once again: you can't output any digital data to video tape or a tv monitor without converting it. and you can convert any resolution to any video format in this process. upresing mpeg-1 to "video" or downresing 2k to "video" is very common and not really harder than just converting d1 or dv to "video."

and just to remind you: i seem to remember someone a while ago claiming to the bitter end that telecine and film chain meant the same thing, and that a rank transfer was not a telecine in "pro terms." it seems some people here often claim to now stuff when they are in fact just guessing. i always speak from experience, or i clearly state that "i'm not sure" or "i heard this somewhere." maybe you should try it?

/matt

(this is what people usually call me, but if you like mattias better in order to tell us apart, please drop the h) :-)

[MovieStuff]

Matt, Matthias or Mattias; however you define yourself:

I don't claim to know stuff that I am guessing at for the simple reason that I never guess without stating so up front. I've been working in film and video for almost half a century and have forgotten more techincal information than you will ever know. The debate we had (on another forum) regarding semantics about telecine and Rank was based on the very real fact that, here in Houston, telecine still means "film chain" transfer and not "Rank" since there are still quite a few film chains operating in the Texas area. Therefore, no professional in their right mind would casually order a "telecine" transfer without specifying whether they needed a Rank or a film chain transfer. More to the point, you knew this from our previous conversation and have misrepresented it on this forum, which is poor form for someone as intelligent as yourself.

These are the facts: Frames that are scanned at a resolution too high to be played back without resolution loss or without conversion to an independent carrier medium are not "video files"; not in any sense, professional or otherwise. You are simply incorrect if you think they are, but call them what ever makes you happy. Using your expanded definition, my Adobe Photoshop files are video files since they can be played back on a CRT at the press of a button. So are my MicroSoft Word files and my AppleWorks files.

If you can't make a logical case for your position on the current subject and need to stretch the definition of video to justify your claim, then knock yourself out...by yourself. I'm not going discuss any subject with someone that feels it necessary to misrepresent me or insult my experience in place of a logical argument.

As you say, "plonk".

Roger



[This message has been edited by MovieStuff (edited August 31, 2001).]

[Matt Pacini]

I think maybe Matthias is confused, because the whole computer display card industry has confused the average Joe, by calling their RGB display cards "video cards", which is in fact, a loose use of terms.

Video, in the professional sense Roger and I are referring to, is a specific electronic format that is output to TV's, broadcast over the air, and recorded onto videotape.
There are set standards for this, these are not things you can just set however you please, like when you make a quicktime or AVI or RealVideo file or whatever to play on your computer desktop. Try recording some of these resolutions that you are claiming you are free to use, out to videotape, and see what happens!

Matthias, if you want to clear this up once and for all, do this:

Call a post production house that does telecine, and tell them you want your film transferred to video, and by the way, you want it transferred at say 2048 x 1276.
After he stops laughing, he will explain all this to you.

Matt Pacini


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