In light of this thread, I've been trying to understand the specs on the Sony HDC-F950, supposedly used for Ep III. The specs claim 1000 TV line horizontal resolution, 16:9 recording, 2.2mp. If it is 2.2mp and 16:9, that puts it around 1980x1110 pixels (rounded), which is close to the 1920x1080 HDTV standard, not surprising that a Sony product has a few more pixels. The control unit lists 1080i @ 50/60Hz as the main output, I would've expected progressive from the other specs. Confusing as hell.

It's a 3CCD camera, of course, so the pixels pretty much should equal the output resolution. But it seems that final resolution will always be converted by the control unit, not just raw from the cam. I suppose that leaves the camera to do its work and not be too heavy and another processor elsewhere.

Resolution is the biggest mystery of TV, film (meaning movies) and photography. And certainly the most misunderstood.

EDIT:
Aaahhhh! Stupid me. You'd think after more than a decade I could get a formula correct in Excel. I've made corrections to this post, if you read the first version of this; yes, I'm an idiot. Try the new version.

DVDJosh,

How was my statement that film was not a HD source an example of "staggering misinformation"? If you had actually read my post you'd have also read that I pointed out that film has a higher resolution that high definition video, and my point was that an older film wouldn't necessarily suffer from HD, because the resolution is already higher than HD to begin with. So if you're going to use my statement as an example, at least make sure you read the statement (which was a true statement even used by itself) in its proper context.

Exactly WRONG! As Josh said, the resolution of filmstock is much MUCH higher than the resolution of HD. If the film elements are restored, and the transfer is handled properly EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY MOVIE EVER FILMED can look better on HD. This is not a debatable point, but just more misinformation from the "HD-hating" camp that is oh-so-similar to the DVD hater camp back when LD was the high-end.

Is there really anyone who doubts that the technical specs of HD-DVD offer the ability for higher quality discs than DVD? Sure some of us question whether or not the studios will make the effort to properly create a superior disc, but I didn't see anyone saying that the specs themselves would make them the same as DVD.

I was responding to Brian Shannon's agreement with dsa shea who said:
This is A_B_S_O_L_U_T_E_L_Y wrong as the original "resolution" of the anaolg media it (anything) was fimed on is still much higher than what will be displayed by HD. This is in esence saying that DVD represents every last bit of detail that can be wrung fro the original analog source and that is WRONG. I am not saying this applies to TV shows or films shot on vdeo.

Then why has George Lucas abandoned film for a digital medium?

http://www.iofilm.co.uk/io/mit/001/hd_1.php

So far I have seen nothing that can convince me that taking a 20 year old film (whether or not film has a higher theoretical resolution) and mastering it as high-definition improves the quality of the image. I'll stand by my decision to view the media and technology when it is available.

1. Ease of use and cost would be my first answers to why Lucas is using HD digital technology over film. He has also been pushing these changes himself for years so he wants to lead by example. According to him digital technology jumps in improvement every three years or so and will out do film .... someday.

"Episode II was the first major motion picture to be shot entirely on digital cameras. Sony developed the first generation HDC-F900 camera. By not using film, the production team saved the time and money usually invested in film stock and photochemical processing, and was able to attain an image of incredible clarity already in the digital medium ready for postproduction use.

For effects-intensive movies like Star Wars, imagery shot on film would have to be scanned and converted into digital information for the artists at Industrial Light & Magic to incorporate their amazing effects. By starting in the digital medium, the use of HD cameras saved a time-consuming step, and kept the picture digital throughout the production pipeline, from the editorial department, through to effects, through to the final mastering, and -- in select theaters -- through to film-less digital projection." Starwars.com

2. It depends on what you mean by improving the image? Improved over the 35mm, or other film stock, print it is being mastered from? No way will the HD copy be as good as the master. You are correct if that is what you meant.The technology for that isn't there yet, at least not in the sense that it is affordable to consumers.

Now if you mean improvement in the quality of the transfer, in the HD realm vs SD realm, then you will see a huge difference! People spend too much time looking at resolution. You probably will only be able to pick out fine details in the HD version that are blurred in the DVD version. I have thrown a 120 inch image on my wall and compared HD vs SD in great detail. The big difference is color coding. DVD and SD sources suck in this regard. Had Lucas been given SD digital cameras for Episode 2 he would have probably passed. The image difference wouldd have been much more noticable in that regard.

To get back on topic, there will be bad transfers. This way they can resell titles 2 or 3 or more times! some studios will probably be cheap and upconvert standard material instead of mastering it over.

The biggest problem I see coming though is bad compression and artifacts, once again. That is why I see the Blue Ray tech being better than Hd-dvd. The studios will have much more space to work with. Consider that if Hd-dvd is released from Toshiba we will have shelf loads of first run titles that are all single layered with not much more space than standard dvd. Compression will be there once again regardless of the advanced Codecs.

I think you are confusing two things:
1. The digital cameras used to film movies such as Star Wars have even higher resolution than HD TV standard specs. In that regard, they too are being downconverthed and most importantly COMPRESSED to fit on a finite medium such as a HD or BR disc.
2. I don't think you really understand the process of converting a film to a digital source (transfer).

We are not talking about seeing a giant difference on a 20" set. The larger the screen you have, then more noticable the difference between SD and HD.

So you really think that 20-year old films can look no better than NTSC video?

35mm film, from any decade, contains more visual information than can be held within the confines of NTSC video. This isn't theoretical.

I really don't understand where the "old films can't look any better than NTSC video" mindset comes from, other than a strong desire to remain willfully ignorant in order to fight off the development of technology. I suppose if one values their own investment more than superior technology that can more faithfully present films, it feels better to pretend that DVDs are the best we can get. Many laserdisc adherents trashed DVD in the same way ten years ago. The world, and simple truths, however, moved on.

DJ

I wonder how much better THE GODFATHER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD KIND will look on HD DVD, since on dvd they don't look all that great.

They can look just as bad if we are talking about the studio using the same transfers.

I can give a good example of how well things can go. I was watching HDNET Movies via DirecTV which is HD with some compression. I started watching Battle of the Bulge and I was totally amazed at how incredible it looked. It was without a doubt way better than the DVD. I actually needed to go to bed but couldn't stop staring at it. If this is an example of what can be done with old classic films count me in.

djtoell, thank you. You completely distilled my thoughts on this subject. I think this argument is just one of the falsehoods presented as fact by those, that for some unexplainiable reason, just can't handle the idea that DVD is not the greatest format that there will ever be. You are 100% correct that many LD hardcores also opposed DVD with similar baseless arguments.

The same reason he created Jar Jar, added fart and poop jokes to the Star Wars movies, had Greedo shoot first, and put a musical number in Return of the Jedi.

George Lucas has lost his friggin' mind.

It's nice when DJ shows up. Nice and understandable facts. CORRECT facts.

Another issue that people never seem to "get" is your display device. If you are watching film in a theater, TV on a 27" SDTV, and HDTV on an HDTV, you are seeing all these storage formats in their native display. And they look good, because the input and output technology matches.

Perhaps reversing the situation would help, which Lucas was kind enough to do for us. Take your HD-shot movie (Ep II) and put it on film, how does it look? Like shit, at least in places. I went to see this and was astounded at the massive grain in the candlelit scene where Padme tells Anakin NO. Low light is always the bane of both film and digital photography, so this is perhaps a worst-case scenario to see quality. Then I saw it in Imax and it was much worse. See it on a DVD and it is pristine. Why? Because transferring to 35mm made it look poor because of the lower resolution of the originial digital masters. Transferring to 70x70mm (or even regular 70mm, not sure which it was) Imax film was FAR worse. I would call that scene unwatchable in Imax, it totally took me out of the film for a bit. But once you DOWN-rez to 480i for DVD, it looks nice and crisp. I would assume it looks just fine in original HD rez with correct digital projection, but I didn't have a digital-capable theater in Mpls to check it out. Not sure if I do yet, either.