1080P Blu-Ray vs. 4K UHD Blu-Ray: "The Prestige" - Modern 35mm Filmmaking

I love this movie! It was one of those flicks I walked into with no expectations and came out realizing that I just had to grab the video for the home movie collection...

At its heart, The Prestige (2006) is a drama with sci-fi/fantasy elements based on the 1995 novel by Christopher Priest which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and won the World Fantasy Award in 1996. I know that the fantastical elements may be a turn-off for some, but given the historical mystique of a character like Nikola Tesla, I was willing to suspend belief to enjoy the themes of ambition, sacrifice, and redemption.

Technically, like the movie we looked at last time (Blade Runner: Final Cut), this movie was filmed in 35mm anamorphic primarily using Panavision's Panaflex camera with Kodak film. It was created more than 20 years after Blade Runner. While visual effects were rendered in 2K, the Digital Intermediate was done in 4K. Just like others in the recently-released Christopher Nolan 4K Collection, this film was advertised as "remastered by the director in a stunning new format". 

So... The question is, does a more "modern" 35mm movie benefit resolution-wise from a 4K release?

1080P Blu-Ray vs. 4K UHD Blu-Ray: "Blade Runner (Final Cut)" - Classic 35mm Filmmaking

Ahhhh, Blade Runner!

Here's an example of a "classic" from 1982. While arguably, the film was more style than substance, it certainly has left an enduring mark in the world of science fiction. Remember that Ridley Scott started his career in TV advertising which must have informed his visual aesthetic to create some iconic imagery such as this vision of Los Angeles in 2019 (alas, technological advancement and climate change must have been much more severe in this alternate universe).

As you know, beyond the detective film noir and some action sequences, it does touch on important science fiction themes of sentience, rights, the soul, genetics and transcendence. Of course, as a music lover, I very much enjoyed the soundtrack from Vangelis (for the completist, the 3-CD 25th Anniversary Edition contains everything)!

Blade Runner was filmed in 35mm with some special effects filmed in 65mm. Aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Over the years, it has undergone a number of revisions; the main ones being the original Theatrical Release, 1992's Director's Cut, and the 2007 Final Cut. When they did the 2007 Final Cut, the frames were digitally cleaned up, continuity errors fixed, new CGI effects added, 65mm footage were scanned to 8K, and everything finished as a 4K Digital Intermediate which is what ultimately ended up here on the UHD Blu-Ray with added HDR color grading.

As a comparison, I thought it would be interesting to grab a number of scenes to see the difference between a standard Blu-Ray release from 2011 (VC1 codec, ~17Mb/s) and the UHD version released in 2017 (HEVC 10-bit HDR10, ~50Mbps)... Is it worthwhile upgrading to a higher resolution version even with an old (35 years old!) movie originating in 35mm?

1080P Blu-Ray vs. 4K UHD Blu-Ray: "Pacific Rim" - Digital "2K" Filmmaking (and a look at Blue Planet II)

Having looked at Dunkirk (70mm IMAX - 65/15-perf and 65/5-perf) and Interstellar (hybrid of 35mm and 65-15-perf) previously, over the next few weeks, when possible I'm going to try for a survey of comparisons using different types of movies and show the kind of resolution difference one might see going to 4K.

Today, let's consider a very common type of movie production - digitally filmed movies mastered to a 2K Digital Intermediate (DI). In Real or Fake 4K, these would of course be classified as "Fake 4K" movies that would need to be upsampled going from 2K/1080P to the 4K/2160P on your shiny new UHD Blu-Ray disc and 4K screen.

Pacific Rim would be a good example of this type of production in a big budget movie (said to be ~US$190M back in 2013). It was captured on Red Epic cameras capable of up to 5K (5120x2560) raw frame quality, then downsampled to a 2K Digital Intermediate mixed with 2K rendered visual effects.

While admittedly not a great movie, for guys and gals who like steam punk themes, monsters, and of course really big robot mechs, Guillermo del Toro serves up quite a feast of a real-live action anime. Nothing wrong with turning your brain off and enjoying some mech-on-monster brawl once awhile :-).

MUSINGS/MEASUREMENTS: On "blurring" and why MQA probably worsens transient smearing.

Yes, I know. The last time I specifically addressed MQA was supposed to be "FINAL final" :-). But I got curious again. This is especially after the exploration of various filters recently suggesting to me that there actually is a case to be made that "blurring" can be seen with minimum phase filters. The question is, what do we "know" or "believe" MQA is able to do, and can we demonstrate that MQA even "de-blurs"?

Let's talk and think about this for a bit...