Question: Full HD/HD V/S Movie Cinema

[spiderman]

I have a curious question, when we watch a movie in a movie theater what resolution is the movie being displayed at: 720P, 1080i or 1080P?

Although I always prefer watching box office hits on cinema screen, I always felt that a HD channel or watching via Blue Ray player is much more clearer then what I see on cinema screen.

Is this my imagination or is is that a Blue Ray player resolution is much sharper then what we see on cinema screen.

Apprecaite feedback as will help me increase my knowledge bank.

Spiderman

 

[venkatcr]

Interesting question.

You are talking about two different technologies.

What is you see in a theater is the same as was present in old cameras that used negative films. A movie camera uses a long negative film roll and shoots each scene as a series of still shots. These film rolls are then processed in a laboratory. In the cinema hall, a projector rolls the film and a light is shown through each snapshot. As the film rolls at a particular speed, the differences in each of the snapshot is projected as motion on the screen. The film rolls also have small magnetic strips on the edges that carry the audio.

Based on an old technology called interlacing, the resolution of a TV is measured by the number of scan lines it can display. A cinematic film on the other hand has no lines - it is a full image. The closest you can get to measuring is to compare a digital still image that is measured in terms of the number of pixels it carries or displays. A digital image is made up of millions of pixels of colour and shade information that is set in a matrix across the image. The more the number of pixels, the sharper and better the image is.

If you do a rough equivalent of scan lines on a cinematic roll, we are talking about roughly 2000P to 6000P. In other words, even your FullHD has a lower resolution as compared to a cinematic film roll.

Why do you then think a FullHD is clearer? This is an trick that your eyes play on you, When you watch on a smaller screen with colour and grey scale data packed more tightly together, the image will always look richer and more full. If the same image is taken on to a large 70MM screen and projected without any modifications, the pixel data will be spread further apart from each other, making it look as having lower resolution.

Cheers

 

[reignofchaos]

Good quality 35mm film is around the equivalent of 10mp of resolution. 70mm is even more. The reason why you see such poor quality in theaters is the fact that their projectors and screens have absolute zero maintenance. Plus what Venkat mentioned above regarding the size is also true.

 

[spiderman]

Interesting question.

You are talking about two different technologies.

What is you see in a theater is the same as was present in old cameras that used negative films. A movie camera uses a long negative film roll and shoots each scene as a series of still shots. These film rolls are then processed in a laboratory. In the cinema hall, a projector rolls the film and a light is shown through each snapshot. As the film rolls at a particular speed, the differences in each of the snapshot is projected as motion on the screen. The film rolls also have small magnetic strips on the edges that carry the audio.

Based on an old technology called interlacing, the resolution of a TV is measured by the number of scan lines it can display. A cinematic film on the other hand has no lines - it is a full image. The closest you can get to measuring is to compare a digital still image that is measured in terms of the number of pixels it carries or displays. A digital image is made up of millions of pixels of colour and shade information that is set in a matrix across the image. The more the number of pixels, the sharper and better the image is.

If you do a rough equivalent of scan lines on a cinematic roll, we are talking about roughly 2000P to 6000P. In other words, even your FullHD has a lower resolution as compared to a cinematic film roll.

Why do you then think a FullHD is clearer? This is an trick that your eyes play on you, When you watch on a smaller screen with colour and grey scale data packed more tightly together, the image will always look richer and more full. If the same image is taken on to a large 70MM screen and projected without any modifications, the pixel data will be spread further apart from each other, making it look as having lower resolution.

Cheers

Thanks Venkat your detailed explanation above explains it all.

Cheers - Spiderman

 

[hifimusic]

There's also digital projection:

Most Digital Cinema installations are 2K installations, with a resolution of 2048 pixels by 1080 pixels (HDTV's are 1920x1080 or 1280x720). Sony Electronics makes what they call CineAlta SXRD 4K Digital Cinema systems which are 4096 pixels by 2160 pixels. (The first Digital Cinema installations were 1.3K systems, but those are no longer approved for use)

What is Digital Cinema Projection? - Help Documents: The BigScreen Cinema Guide