Projectors used in cinemas, what resolution do they have?

[MalickT]

I miss analog projectors in cinemas! Really.

When ever I go to cinema these days I can totally see the pixels! And im not sitting in the front, 6-10th row. Even when I visit IMAX cinema, I can see the pixels and it it so annoying! This makes me wonder...what are the actual resolution of these cinema projectors? It should be 4K minimum, right? I just makes me laugh when I visit IMAX and before the movie they show this "welcome to IMAX" demo where the image is "crystal clear"

Well, I own a Sony 4K projector (Liquid Crystal On Silicon technology) and my image is BETTER - I do not see the pixels even at close up and I have 2.5 meters wide screen.

When ever possible, I wait until the movie comes to 4K Blu-ray or into streaming...

[FranceBB]

Ok, so... Whatever you think you're seeing, you're not seeing the individual pixels.

I'm gonna deal with your assumptions in order:

1) The resolution used
2) Why you can't see the pixels
3) There must be something wrong

Part 1:
Let's start with the resolution. Movie Theatres only accept certain kind of resolutions and those are 1998×1080, which is 2K 1.85LB, 2048×858, which is 2K 2.39 LB (yes 2.39, not 2.35), 3996×2160 4K 1.85 LB, 4096×1716 4K 2.39 LB. There are no other resolutions that are officially supported and even if there were, no one will ever send a file with different specs. About the difference between 2K and 4K, I've been talking with a projectionist a while ago and he said that most people don't even notice the difference between 2K and 4K.

Part2:
The reason why you cannot see the pixels is simple but it's also curious. What people generally think are pixels is generally blocking, so blocks of 4x4 or 8x8 pixels whose edges are really different from the ones of the neighbouring pixels. This is generally caused by the fact that group of pixels is subject to different quantisation once they've gone through DCT. Now... This cannot happen in cinemas 'cause the file you're seeing is a Motion JPEG2000 which uses the Wavelet Transform. One of the interesting things about this is that the Wavelet Transform is applied to the whole image instead of on blocks and macroblocks, therefore you will never see blocking. On top of that, all frames are independent as they're Intra, so they're not subject to motion compensation. There's no subsampling either as the chroma is 4:4:4 and they're not in YUV, they're in XYZ which is a huge space and 12bit. As far as bitrate is concerned, they're 250 Mbit/s (at least the 4K flavours). Last but not least, the surface on which the image is projected to is not an uniform white surface, there are some tiny holes which will make the whole footage look smoother and softer.

Part 3:
If what you're saying is true and you can actually see pixelation on the projected image, something has gone terribly wrong. About the "BD Quality", although consumer BD are way inferior in terms of specifications, something watched on a close up TV or monitor will always look "sharper", although rest assured that the experience at the cinema is totally different. I think you should check this out: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=177174

[wonkey_monkey]

If a screen takes up 45 degrees of your field of view and the video is 2k, then each pixel is (roughly) 0.0225 degrees. 20:20 vision gives you 0.016 degrees of acuity, so in theory you should be able to make out pixels if you have good vision... but the focus would have to be perfect and you'd have to be looking at non-aliased graphics rather than realistic images.

[MalickT]

Actually, I DO have 20:20 vison. Maybe 19:20, but VERY GOOD vision. And I DO see the damn pixels in Cinemas. However I do NOT see pixels when I watch movies at my home cinema 4K Projector even at close up. Only when I set the resolution to 1920x1080 on my 4K projector, I can make out the pixels. Well, then they are not actually pixels but squares made up by 4 pixels (2x2).

I suspect that many Cinema projectors have 1920x1080 physical pixels because I used to have 1080p LCD projector and the image was pretty much the same as I see on Cinemas these days...

[FranceBB]

I suspect that many Cinema projectors have 1920x1080 physical pixels

Again, they can't be 1.77FF in FULL HD, so no 1920x1080, no chance, but it's very probable that some cinemas are still working in 2K 1.85LB 1998×1080 or 2.39 LB 2048×858. I mean, 4K projectors have been around for a while, but it's not just swapping a projector and giving it a go, it's a matter of changing the whole MAM and Ingest system they have and some cinemas just can't afford to do that. After all, 2K with MJPEG2000 has been a de facto standard for many years now, however I don't really think 4K will. If you think about it, nowadays cinemas that paid the big bucks and upgraded to 4K can only project 48p at best in MJPEG2000 4:4:4 XYZ 12bit. Although the overwhelming majority of movies are still produced as 23,976p, there are a few Dolby Vision ones popping every here and there that are actually produced at 60p, but Cinemas cannot really show them. I think the important step will be with 8K and what the market will see. I mean, honestly, think about it, those who upgraded to 4K will almost definitely have to upgrade again soon-ish and that can be a considerable cost too, so until the industry will stabilize around the specs, I don't think they will upgrade. I think some cinemas were just "afraid" to invest in the upgrade and stayed with 2K and right now they're just in a phase in which they're "waiting" to see what happens. That being said, I had to send a few DCP to cinemas in Northern Italy and none of them asked me to send the 2K version as they all accepted the 4K version.

[wswartzendruber]

How does XYZ work? What's the gamut coverage? What transfer function does Y use?

I didn't even know this was a thing.

[nevcairiel]

CIE XYZ is ... all the colors. It was defined to contain more colors then we could ever possibly see, everything else is defined to be a subset of this.

Those typical gamut diagrams that show you the size of the gamut? The chart itself is defined on XYZ (or xyY, which are derived forms from another)

As far as I remember, DCP typically uses XYZ with 2.6 gamma encoding, and reference white at 48cd/m2.
As XYZ is bigger then the visual spectrum of humans, typically the lowest required display gamut is Display P3.

Typically you would only ever see it as an intermediate when doing color processing, as much of our color math is defined on XYZ or xyY, but DCP packages also use it as a basis for their distribution format.

[Balling]

You are not supposed to see pixels on a TV even UP CLOSE. Without some magnification glass at least. That is what is called crystalisation effect and any normal TV like LG C9 does not have it. It is 100% impossible to see pixels on galaxy s22 ultra for example too.

Modern DCI content uses 108 nits with PQ transfer. Dolby Cinema and stuff.

>produced at 60p, but Cinemas cannot really show them.

That is absolutely false. Half of all cinema content is at least 60 fps nowadays with projectors capable of 2K 120 fps without HDR. All Marvel is. Also Gemini was 120 fps, no one got 120 4k dolby vision though, even though the master was available.

[huhn]

LG OLED are very bad at hiding pixel and it is very trivial in comparison at least to see them no what ever glasses needed.
that's literally the screen door effect that make you see the pixel by seeing between them which is very easy on OLED and will be even easier on mini led.

[FranceBB]

That is absolutely false. Half of all cinema content is at least 60 fps nowadays with projectors capable of 2K 120 fps without HDR. All Marvel is. Also Gemini was 120 fps, no one got 120 4k dolby vision though, even though the master was available.

This is absolutely false.
Read the DCP specifications, please, nothing over 48fps is available and the only one who tried 48p was The Hobbit back in the days.
Secondly, Marvel contents are all 24000/1001 in the DCP Release for cinemas, in the FULL HD release for BD and in the UHD HDR PQ 1000 nits release for UHD BD.


From the DCP Specs:

Frame rate:
24p,
25p (support not guaranteed),
30p (support not guaranteed),
48p.

Resolution:
2K Flat 1998 × 1080
2K Scope 2048 × 858
4K Flat 3996 × 2160
4K Scope 4096 × 1716

Colorspace:
XYZ

Bit Depth:
12bit

Codec:
MJPEG2000

Profile:
Intra 4:4:4

Maximum Bitrate:
250 Mbit/s

Audio Codec:
PCM

Bit Depth:
24bit little endian

Channel Configuration:
2.0 Stereo
5.1 (Surround 6ch)
7.1 (Surround 8ch)
5.1.4 (Atmos 10ch)
16ch (Atmos 16ch)

Sampling Rate:
48000Hz
96000Hz

Container:
.mxf

Asset Map and Asset Composition Playlist:
List of all files included in the DCP and list of the assets that make up the playback in XML format.

TL;DR video and audio (and eventually subtitles) are stored as two separate mxf files, one with the MJPEG2000 video and one with the PCM audio and there's an XML that basically tells the playback port where each file is.


As far as I remember, DCP typically uses XYZ with 2.6 gamma encoding, and reference white at 48cd/m2.
As XYZ is bigger then the visual spectrum of humans, typically the lowest required display gamut is Display P3.

Yep and I'd love to see it supported in avisynth too.
Right now Indexers convert it implicitly, which is not good and the filters who make use of it like HDR Tools from Jean Philippe have to use a "fake" RGBPS to do their stuff before going back to YUV. Also outputting XYZ from within Avisynth is a nightmare.
I did ask for Avisynth support few years ago and my hope is still there. :')

[wswartzendruber]

As far as I remember, DCP typically uses XYZ with 2.6 gamma encoding, and reference white at 48cd/m2.
Wait a sec, I've got Alita: Battle Angel in 4K. I estimated its reference white to be unusually low at 47 nits. It's the only movie I have that's this dim.

[FranceBB]

Wait a sec, I've got Alita: Battle Angel in 4K. I estimated its reference white to be unusually low at 47 nits. It's the only movie I have that's this dim.

Perhaps it was graded in DCI P3 XYZ Gamma 2.6; that would match the 48 nits reference white, although when they release the UHD BD, everything is generally re-graded from Log. Dunno what they've done there but yeah that is definitely a possibility as perhaps they used some sort of DCP as their mezzanine, a bit like Sony does for IMF nowadays.

[huhn]

they use mjpg2000 4:4:4 not 4.2:2?

[FranceBB]

they use mjpg2000 4:4:4 not 4.2:2?

Yes, 4:4:4, 100% sure :)
When I get back to work on Monday I'll show you a Mediainfo ;)

EDIT: Oh I actually have one here at home too:


General
Complete name : /run/media/FranceBB/Masterfiles/NAS/DCP.mxf
Format : MXF
Format version : 1.3
Format profile : OP-1a
Format settings : Closed / Complete
File size : 135 GiB
Duration : 1 h 15 min
Overall bit rate : 257 Mb/s
Package name : VIDEO_3308ed8b-5f8c-487b-93f8-f8da43aa1d8e
Encoded date : 0-00-00 00:00:00.000



Video
ID : 2
Format : JPEG 2000
Format profile : D-Cinema 4k
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame
Codec ID : 0D010301020C0100-0401020203010100
Duration : 1 h 15 min
Bit rate : 248 Mb/s
Width : 3 996 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.85:1
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Color space : XYZ
Chroma subsampling : 4:4:4
Bit depth : 12 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 1.149
Stream size : 130 GiB (96%)



Audio #1
ID : 3
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame (AES)
Codec ID : 0D01030102060300
Duration : 1 h 15 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 6 912 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS (1920 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 3.62 GiB (3%)
Locked : Yes

[SeeMoreDigital]

Yes, 4:4:4, 100% sure :)

...I actually have one here at home too:
Out of interest... Does anybody have any short samples?

[kolak]

Cinemas (are at least in theory, but should be in practice as well) are waaaay better than anything else when it comes to video quality.

DCP packages are extremely high quality compared to any other format which people "can see". Those are masters done straight from main source assets in tools which operate in 32bit float. It's really good finish. All goes directly to 12bit 4:4:4 Jpeg2000 in XYZ (sometimes 16bit TIFFs are used as an intermediate format). Gamut is typically P3 (can be Rec.709 limited but converted to P3) and gamma 2.6. White point luminance: 48nits.

Grading for cinema is different than most other cases as you have to use projector. Simulation even on reference displays is not the best practice.
If you go to decent cinema you get very good representation of reference look. Unless you are hobbyist you will never get this at home (but even then best you can get is still 4:2:0 10bit compressed master).

Sometimes there are shortcuts made and DCP masters are done from eg. ProRes444/XQ masters, but this is not a best approach and treated as "bad practice".

There are screening rooms with cinema projectors and those places are less strict. You can rent them and typically they belong to eg. big VFX houses etc. You can bring different formats and they have channels setup for different mastering parameters, eg. simple Rec.709 2.4 gamma, etc. not just a reference requirement.
Real cinema certified projectors (Sony, Barco, Christie, NEC, etc.) are very expensive: from maybe 70K$ to way more. Latest laser 4K ones cost small fortune (cover almost whole Rec.2020- eg. 98%) and it's normal that they weight 200kg :)

DCI has finished study around HDR and they come up with 0.005-300nits range as a compromise for HDR in cinema
https://www.dcimovies.com/drafts/DCI-Draft-HDR-Addendum-v096_2021-0701.pdf

Sample:
https://mango.blender.org/download/

[SeeMoreDigital]

.....DCI has finished study around HDR and they come up with 0.005-300nits range as a compromise for HDR in cinema
https://www.dcimovies.com/drafts/DCI-Draft-HDR-Addendum-v096_2021-0701.pdf

Sample:
https://mango.blender.org/download/Thanks ;)

[MalickT]

Again, they can't be 1.77FF in FULL HD, so no 1920x1080, no chance, but it's very probable that some cinemas are still working in 2K 1.85LB 1998×1080 or 2.39 LB 2048×858. I mean, 4K projectors have been around for a while, but it's not just swapping a projector and giving it a go, it's a matter of changing the whole MAM and Ingest system they have and some cinemas just can't afford to do that. After all, 2K with MJPEG2000 has been a de facto standard for many years now, however I don't really think 4K will. If you think about it, nowadays cinemas that paid the big bucks and upgraded to 4K can only project 48p at best in MJPEG2000 4:4:4 XYZ 12bit. Although the overwhelming majority of movies are still produced as 23,976p, there are a few Dolby Vision ones popping every here and there that are actually produced at 60p, but Cinemas cannot really show them. I think the important step will be with 8K and what the market will see. I mean, honestly, think about it, those who upgraded to 4K will almost definitely have to upgrade again soon-ish and that can be a considerable cost too, so until the industry will stabilize around the specs, I don't think they will upgrade. I think some cinemas were just "afraid" to invest in the upgrade and stayed with 2K and right now they're just in a phase in which they're "waiting" to see what happens. That being said, I had to send a few DCP to cinemas in Northern Italy and none of them asked me to send the 2K version as they all accepted the 2K version.

That makes sense that they use 2K projectors, that is why is see pixelation in cinemas....

[kolak]

2K is going be majority probably as those boxes cost a lot, so no one is keen to replace.

In HDR spec 4K 60p will be supported and 2K at 120p.
It's not like 4K at 60p is not supported now. Probably new decoding blocks support it, it's just not mandated by spec itself.
Same with 25p. Some movies are shot at 25p in Europe and now this can be natively shown at cinemas (just probably not in all).
It's quite funny that some will say 24p is cinematic fps, but 25p is not :)

[huhn]

Yes, 4:4:4, 100% sure :)
When I get back to work on Monday I'll show you a Mediainfo ;)

EDIT: Oh I actually have one here at home too:

thanks i was just always under the impression it was 4:2:2.
so there where either the DCI P3 encodes or my information is just plain wrong.

thanks anyway.
if i had the power to ban something it would be subsampling that's all.

[kolak]

Any study on how efficient is subsampling for modern codecs?
How much we need to raise bitrate to compensate for 4:2:0 vs 4:4:4?
And what about replacing YUV with something new/better, like Dolby ICtCp or YCoCg?
Could such a move negate need of 4:2:0 at all?

[nevcairiel]

I think such a comparison would quickly get bogged down on technical arguments. What upsampling do you assume for the sub-sampled content? Do you just use bilinear because thats what most cheap playback devices use? Or do you assume a proper algorithm, which reduces the visual impact of subsampling? No matter what you do, you'll get people on either side of that argument depending on what outcome they want.

[kolak]

If it can be shifted in any way then why not to abandon subsampling then as way easier solution :)

[huhn]

it's simple when is downscaling a good compression algorithm? you can spare bitrate by not subsampling.
but if you bitrate starve there could be situation where subsampling is clearly better.

subsampling has other benefits that have nothing todo with image quality. like sending an image to a screen 4:2:0 needs half the bandwidth that's not a joke.

just like YCoCg (not sure if it was made for image quality or easy to be calculated maybe both?) you can use ICtCp in stead of YCbCr. your playback software just needs to know about it and how to turn it into RGB that's all.

YCoCg works with madVR for like ever. i don't have a test file anymore but i would not be shocked if the majority of renderer these days can do it.

wrong topic anyway.

[kolak]

Not the point.
YCoCg meant co "compress" better than YUV (read it somewhere).
My question is: instead of using 4:2:0 can we get new tech, which will achieve about same final file size without subsampling?

If we do so then of course someone will say- why not gain more by using subsampling in new tech :)

[wonkey_monkey]

Is colour subsampling, like interlacing, one of those holdovers from analogue video that should start being phased out? Is it of much use when video is compressed anyway? If there isn't much detail in part of the colour channel, compression will see that you save bits on it anyway (while using more bits when necessary, on detailed graphics and stuff).

Rather than subsample to save bits you could just optionally blur the colour channels before compressing. Imagine never having to worry about chroma placement ever again...

[huhn]

Not the point.
YCoCg meant co "compress" better than YUV (read it somewhere).
My question is: instead of using 4:2:0 can we get new tech, which will achieve about same final file size without subsampling?

If we do so then of course someone will say- why not gain more by using subsampling in new tech :)

ycocg only needs simple int math.
you can already save bandwidth with 4:4:4 encoding you just have to make sure the luma channel still get's the same bitrate which is hard to do accurately but modern codec can do that. the trick is simple as long as downscaling isn't a better compression algorithm them let's say drop bit rate it will by simply logic already win.
testing all this is time consuming you need a perfect 4:4:4 source so a computer game and you have to tweak the encoder at least a little

what so ever if you want to talk about that think about a thread.

[kolak]

Yep, if anything it requires new thread.

[kolak]

Is colour subsampling, like interlacing, one of those holdovers from analogue video that should start being phased out? Is it of much use when video is compressed anyway? If there isn't much detail in part of the colour channel, compression will see that you save bits on it anyway (while using more bits when necessary, on detailed graphics and stuff).

Rather than subsample to save bits you could just optionally blur the colour channels before compressing. Imagine never having to worry about chroma placement ever again...

Exactly what I was thinking about.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Sample:
https://mango.blender.org/download/Wow...

I wasn't expecting that VirtualDub2 would be able to read the JPEG2000.mfx contained file!

[FranceBB]

Wow...

I wasn't expecting that VirtualDub2 would be able to read the JPEG2000.mfx contained file!

Well, ever since Virtualdub filtermod came out, VirtualDub has been using ffmpeg underneath, so it's not surprising that it's able to read it and I'll tell you what, I also suppose that FFMpeg is converting it into something non xyz underneath (like yuv or rgb), like Avisynth indexers do, but I haven't tested it.
If you see false colors like this:

https://i.imgur.com/oQTbV9u.png

then it's probably XYZ, otherwise if you see anything "decent" it has been converted to YUV or RGB underneath. ;)

https://i.imgur.com/Wqvm6ZT.png

[SeeMoreDigital]

For anyone interested, frame '6000' looks like this:

https://i.ibb.co/fNHsdXy/6000.jpg

[FranceBB]

Yeah, it's definitely converting back to YUV, just like ffms2 and LWLibav do when working in avisynth.
One day, perhaps, we're gonna be able to work in XYZ and tag it correctly within Avisynth

[Emulgator]

BTW, if blocks were visible it may well be possible that the OP might have seen a Blu-ray.
I was asked by a film company to make Blu-rays for screening at small cinemas here in Berlin and 100km around.
Although I could already deliver DCPs at this time this was considered the safest solution across different gear and projectionists until 2 years ago
(small cinemas had a blu-ray player hooked up via HDMI as a backup).

Indeed one movie (The Visitor) premiered from one of my Blu-rays in Berlin-Mitte, the team and me in the audience, (me pixel-peeping)
I had GrainFactory 3 added, it came out naturally, artifact-free, director and producer were very happy about that.
It might have been the most affordable presentation copy we had seen to this date...

[kolak]

It's not that uncommon to use BD as source at cinema (although any of the big chains will do it).

[FranceBB]

small cinemas had a blu-ray player hooked up via HDMI.

:scared:

It's not that uncommon to use BD as source at cinema

O_O

S-So... Cinemas... actually... do... that...

My faith in humanity has reached a new low today... :(

https://c.tenor.com/WPFJCP3eEaoAAAAM/im-dead-and-im-sorry.gif

[huhn]

you want to loose your faith in video encoding?

i have a german disk that is so messed up i didn't keep the backup so i need to rip it again.

i talk about an VC-1 encode worse than a mpeg2 TV capture and
audio resampled with what i can only images is nearest neighbor.

there is a chance you work/worked with the personal responsible for this.

a cinema using a BD player as a source sounds very reasonable to me as long as they also calibrate the device for the different source type

[kolak]

:scared:



O_O

S-So... Cinemas... actually... do... that...

My faith in humanity has reached a new low today... :(

https://c.tenor.com/WPFJCP3eEaoAAAAM/im-dead-and-im-sorry.gif

Not chain cinemas. Rights management is big thing. Each cinema has certificate and issuer sends key to let cinema play given content (it can be controlled as you wish). Every professional DCP is encrypted, so even if you get hands on it you won't get far.

Independent ones with private screenings etc. may use BDs as source.

[Emulgator]

Yes, in my case independent cinemas only AND in coordination with director/production
plus international festivals in coordination with director/production were happy to project from BD-Rs.

(My first festival BD-R in 2011 was an emergency call: DCP house failed,
so I got the overnight job to author from a 25p project and in MPEG-2 (!)
"Zrak i Vrak", later renamed "Y", and properly authored as DCP.
we say eek now, but it was a B/W film shot with 3..4 different cams (Consumer, Semi, Pro), and with differing framerates (!)
I would have liked to get my hands on the sources before the director started editing, but it was too late.

Given the poor black from most affordable digital projectors the 8 bit won't damage the show too much
so it is well possible to deliver mid-quality even on medium screens.

As kolak said, majors always used their encrypted DCP chain and now DCP (most unencrypted) seems to be safe to use for the indies too.

DCP-Encoding
Resolution Width Height Framerate
DAR
4K DCP Standard
4K Full Container 4096x2160x30 (AR 1,896) 4096 2160 30,00000 fps
4K Full Container 4096x2160x25 (AR 1,896) 4096 2160 25,00000 fps
4K Full Container 4096x2160x24 (AR 1,896) 4096 2160 24,00000 fps
4K Scope 4096x1716x30 (AR 2,387) 4096 1716 30,00000 fps
4K Scope 4096x1716x25 (AR 2,387) 4096 1716 25,00000 fps
4K Scope 4096x1716x24 (AR 2,387) 4096 1716 24,00000 fps
4K Flat 3996x2160x30 (AR 1,85) 3996 2160 30,00000 fps
4K Flat 3996x2160x25 (AR 1,85) 3996 2160 25,00000 fps
4K Flat 3996x2160x24 (AR 1,85) 3996 2160 24,00000 fps
4K HDTV 3840x2160x30 (AR 1,778) 3840 2160 30,00000 fps
4K HDTV 3840x2160x25 (AR 1,778) 3840 2160 25,00000 fps
4K HDTV 3840x2160x24 (AR 1,778) 3840 2160 24,00000 fps
2K DCP Standard
2K Full Container 2048x1080x30 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 30,00000 fps
2K Full Container 2048x1080x25 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 25,00000 fps
2K Full Container 2048x1080x24 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 24,00000 fps
2K Scope 2048x858x30 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 30,00000 fps
2K Scope 2048x858x25 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 25,00000 fps
2K Scope 2048x858x24 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 24,00000 fps
2K Flat 1998x1080x30 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 30,00000 fps
2K Flat 1998x1080x25 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 25,00000 fps
2K Flat 1998x1080x24 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 24,00000 fps
2K HDTV 1920x1080x30 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 30,00000 fps
2K HDTV 1920x1080x25 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 25,00000 fps
2K HDTV 1920x1080x24 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 24,00000 fps
2K DCP Double Framerate
2K HS Full Container 2048x1080x60 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 60,00000 fps
2K HS Full Container 2048x1080x50 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 50,00000 fps
2K HS Full Container 2048x1080x48 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 48,00000 fps
2K HS Scope 2048x858x60 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 60,00000 fps
2K HS Scope 2048x858x50 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 50,00000 fps
2K HS Scope 2048x858x48 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 48,00000 fps
2K HS Flat 1998x1080x60 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 60,00000 fps
2K HS Flat 1998x1080x50 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 50,00000 fps
2K HS Flat 1998x1080x48 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 48,00000 fps
2K HS HDTV 1920x1080x60 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 60,00000 fps
2K HS HDTV 1920x1080x50 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 50,00000 fps
2K HS HDTV 1920x1080x48 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 48,00000 fps
2K DCP Stereoscopic (3D)
2K 3D Full Container 2048x1080x48 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 48,00000 fps
2K 3D Full Container 2048x1080x24 (AR 1,896) 2048 1080 24,00000 fps
2K 3D Scope 2048x858x48 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 48,00000 fps
2K 3D Scope 2048x858x24 (AR 2,387) 2048 858 24,00000 fps
2K 3D Flat 1998x1080x48 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 48,00000 fps
2K 3D Flat 1998x1080x24 (AR 1,85) 1998 1080 24,00000 fps
2K 3D HDTV 1920x1080x48 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 48,00000 fps
2K 3D HDTV 1920x1080x24 (AR 1,778) 1920 1080 24,00000 fps


Video
JPEG2000 4:4:4 XYZ @12bpp
125 - 250 Mbits/s
until 2006 MPEG-2 was allowed too

Audio
max.16CH
LPCM 24bit @ 48.000 kHz
LPCM 24bit @ 96.000 kHz

5,25" HDD Bay: CRU DX115
SATA2,5"
SATA3,5"
SAS2,5"
SAS3,5"

Filesystems depending on Server
mandatory: Linux ext2
a good percentage: NTFS
some HFS, HFS+

[Balling]

thanks i was just always under the impression it was 4:2:2.
so there where either the DCI P3 encodes or my information is just plain wrong.

thanks anyway.
if i had the power to ban something it would be subsampling that's all.

Actually some masters like Netflix open content are 12 bit RGB. Not even 444. https://opencontent.netflix.com/

[FranceBB]

Actually some masters like Netflix open content are 12 bit RGB.

That's because they're IMF with a CPL.

[kolak]

Actually some masters like Netflix open content are 12 bit RGB. Not even 444. https://opencontent.netflix.com/

This is standard for Netflix. Their delivery spec if quite specific and mandates very high quality.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9DJydDVOVKKLVdCdlF2cFVDVEE/view?resourcekey=0-GRqfy963JM9jcd-MQcaoBw

[FranceBB]

This is standard for Netflix. Their delivery spec if quite specific and mandates very high quality.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9DJydDVOVKKLVdCdlF2cFVDVEE/view?resourcekey=0-GRqfy963JM9jcd-MQcaoBw

Yep. The important bit:

https://i.imgur.com/82F0TqN.png

[Blue_MiSfit]

Archival masters from some studios are even higher level, e.g. 16 bit lossless RGB for HDR. This is basically lossless compression of 16 bit TIFF files, all wrapped in IMF of course.

[Balling]

This is absolutely false.
Read the DCP specifications, please, nothing over 48fps is available and the only one who tried 48p was The Hobbit back in the days.
Secondly, Marvel contents are all 24000/1001 in the DCP Release for cinemas, in the FULL HD release for BD and in the UHD HDR PQ 1000 nits release for UHD BD.


Devil in the details. E.g., you mention Atmos 16 channels, but there is no such thing. Atmos for cinemas is using 128 tracks and panning metadata for those 128 objects that are dynamic objects. Same for Dolby Vision for cinemas, it is not 48 nits, but 108 nits and 108 is considered HDR. All covered by Dolby specs, you just have to read, it is on wikipedia on dolby vision.

As for your strange comments about Marvel... All Marvel is 60 fps. Not 60/1.001. Cinemas use only integer framerates. To debunk your comment about 48 fps (BTW, no one ever saw 48 fps Hibbit on Blu-ray, no leaked samples, no nothing, while Gemini is one of two movies that are 60/1.001 on Blu-ray) you can just open wikipedia page on Gemini. It has all the info about, because 120 fps was a revolution back then.

And I quote:

Gemini Man was released on October 1, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on October 11, 2019, in standard 3D, Dolby Cinema (2K Dolby Vision 120 fps), 4DX, IMAX 3D, and ScreenX Formats, as well as in 120 fps HFR (high frame rate) "3D+" on select screens (including 16 Dolby Cinema[5] and 47 IMAX 3D with Laser screens worldwide and only one TCL cinema that presented film[6] in 3D 4K 120 fps but without HDR).[7] No one presented the native 4K Dolby Vision 120 fps. The film on UHD Blu-ray used 59.94 fps presentation in Dolby Vision. The film received generally negative reviews from critics for its script and plot, although the performances were praised. The de-aging of Smith and the high frame-rate of 120 fps also drew a mixed response, with some critics praising them as technical achievements, while others felt they were unconvincing.


Why do you think Davinci provides 120 fps mode. Why do you think displays are supporting 120 fps more and more in 4k? Why do you think Panasonic and some others do 120 fps videos? Why is lg c9 providing avc and hevc 120 fps decoding?

[FranceBB]

As for your strange comments about Marvel... All Marvel is 60 fps.

No chance.
I'm a bit of a Marvel fan myself and I watch almost every Marvel movie and I can guarantee you that they're all 23,976p. I've seen them at the cinema and they looked 24p, I have the UHD BD of some of them and they were all 23,976p (I can show you the Mediainfo) and I even encoded some of them at work when we received the masterfile and they were 23,976p 10bit ProRes which I had to speed-up + pitch adjust to 25p and then duplicate to 50p as in PAL regions UHD TX must be 50p, so... again, I'm not saying that there aren't any Marvel titles out there at 60p, but I've never personally seen them. Besides, given how much it would costs to produce VFX at 60p, it actually makes sense for them to go out at 23,976p.



Not 60/1.001. Cinemas use only integer framerates. To debunk your comment about 48 fps (BTW, no one ever saw 48 fps Hibbit on Blu-ray, no leaked samples, no nothing, while Gemini is one of two movies that are 60/1.001 on Blu-ray) you can just open wikipedia page on Gemini. It has all the info about, because 120 fps was a revolution back then.


The Hobbit was never released on BD at high frame rate 'cause the FULL HD BD standard back then didn't support 48fps. It was however released in theatres 'cause 48fps was the highest you could go with DCP (made of audio.mxf in PCM, video.mxf in MJPEG2000 XYZ 12bit 4:4:4 and an xml that linked the two) back then.

About Gemini Man, I do have the UHD BD in Dolby Vision Dual Layer and it is at high frame rate, but that's a different story 'cause UHD BD allow that. On the other hand, if you watch the FULL HD SDR BD you'll get 23,976p. Again, this is because there's no way to have 60p in former FULL HD BD standard.

On this particular note I DON'T KNOW what changed in Cinemas regarding Dolby-stuff 'cause I don't deal with Dolby proprietary stuff, but I can guarantee you that when a theatre asks me for a DCP, they are still using the same old specs / constraints that were in place long time ago, so it's still MJPEG2000, it's still limited to Flat (1998×1080) 1.85 LB or Scope (2048x858) 2.40 LB for FULL HD and (3996×2160) 1.85 LB or (4096×1716), 2.40 LB for UHD, you're still limited to 24p or 48p (although an increasing majority of them is now willing to accept 25p too without me having to slow-down + pitch adjust by 4% to 24p European productions) and it's still XYZ 12bit with reference white at 48nits and you can't go any further than 250 Mbit/s for the video. As to the audio, you can't go any further than 16 individual channels as per DCP standard and the audio needs to be PCM 24bit 48'000Hz muxed in .mxf just like the video and then you have an assetmap which is an .xml that tells the player of the projector what to play and when.




Why do you think Davinci provides 120 fps mode. Why do you think displays are supporting 120 fps more and more in 4k? Why do you think Panasonic and some others do 120 fps videos? Why is lg c9 providing avc and hevc 120 fps decoding?

This doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of the contents that those TVs will see in their lives are still gonna be much much lower and not higher than 60p, especially in broadcast where all the FULL HD stuff is 29,970i (bobbed to 59,940p) or 25i (bobbed to 50p) and the UHD stuff is 60p or 50p.

[wswartzendruber]

No chance.
I'm a bit of a Marvel fan myself and I watch almost every Marvel movie and I can guarantee you that they're all 23,976p.
On a hunch I checked my North American collection of all 4K movies I've dumped.

Every last disc I have is 23.976. That's the first three phases of Marvel except for:
1. The Spider-Man movies
2. Ant Man & the Wasp
3. Doctor Strange
4. Black Panther
5. Captain Marvel

That's also all DCEU movies through Shazam! including #TheSnyderCut.

[wonkey_monkey]

Half of all cinema content is at least 60 fps nowadays

As for your strange comments about Marvel... All Marvel is 60 fps. Not 60/1.001.

Others already have pointed this out but I feel like this bears repeating: this is not in any way true.

Again, this is because there's no way to have 60p in former FULL HD BD standard.

The blu-ray spec allows 1920x1080 60i, and I'm pretty sure the video codecs all allow for individual frames/macroblocks to be encoded as progressive. You probably wouldn't spot the difference in chroma anyway unless you were zooming in and checking individual pixels.

They were probably hoping to drive more people to the UHD version.

I wonder how bad the 24p version looked... (edit: it was shot at 120fps so no trouble converting to 24fps)

[Balling]

On a hunch I checked my North American collection of all 4K movies I've dumped.

Every last disc I have is 23.976. That's the first three phases of Marvel except for:
1. The Spider-Man movies
2. Ant Man & the Wasp
3. Doctor Strange
4. Black Panther
5. Captain Marvel

That's also all DCEU movies through Shazam! including #TheSnyderCut.

Why are talking about Blu-rays and hevc/avc streams? Cinema do not use those and they are not even supposed to support /1.001 noninteger framerates. Anyway, check Loki, Falcon, She Halk, they are all 24.000 fps (Dolby Vision streams).


You are not in USA, i think you are in Italy, a lot of Europe did not get support for 120 fps and somewhere even 60 fps. Still in any big city you would have at least 60.000 fps Marvel. Again, all masters for Marvel are 60 fps... There is still one movie in 120 fps, AFAIK, at least that was like that last year.

You did not master for Dolby Cinema then. Well, everything will happen for you, I am sure of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Vision

Dolby Cinema uses Dolby Vision too; it uses 108 nits, compared to SDR cinemas' use of 48 nits and 2.6 gamma.

https://professionalsupport.dolby.com/s/article/Dolby-Vision-cinema-targets-trims-FAQs?language=en_US#Tools_support

The Dolby Vision cinema targets/trims give creatives the option to derive a mapped cinema version at 108 nit HDR (Dolby Cinema) or 48 nit SDR (DCI), from their fully graded ‘home’ HDR master – similar to how people leverage the power of the Dolby Vision mapping for the SDR Rec 709 100 nit home master. Compared to using a color managed or LUT static mapping process, this is a great way to quickly derive cinema versions with creative controls for red carpet events, press screenings or for screenings at other special events or venues, especially when the HDR Master grade has been completed and the cinema version requires a quick turnaround.



What kind of cinema targets are supported?

The following targets (CINEMA) are supported:

48-nit, P3, DCI-white Gamma 2.6
48-nit, P3, D65, Gamma 2.6
48-nit, P3, D60, Gamma 2.6
108-nit, P3, D65, ST. 2084

As you can see Dolby Cinema supports D60 of ACES, DCI white (close to D63) and even D65 for SDR. But HDR is only P3 108 nits, ST.2084. I will admit I do not know how is PQ encoded for this master, though most codepoints for PQ are reserved for SDR...


I will admit that I do not know how 128 channels are packaged in cinemas. I would not imagine they use flac, though, haha.

[FranceBB]

The blu-ray spec allows 1920x1080 60i

True, they could have easily divided it in fields and outputted a 29,970i which would have been bobbed to 59,940p by the TVs, so it would have been just as smooth.
I don't know why they haven't done that...


You are not in USA, i think you are in Italy

Dude, two different people replied xD
The last reply was from William, not me, and he lives in the U.S, while I'm stuck in Italy xD
You're replying to 2 different people xD


(Full disclosure: I did live in the U.S for as little as 6 months in 2013 in my CR days, before my work Visa expired and was replaced by a 2 years student visa which was useless as I couldn't afford to pay for University and I moved to the UK, then to Germany while I was working for Viewster and then Sky Italy in Italy, which, unfortunately, is my home country. A country full of corruption and where the North is completely divided from the south as the southern part is still in the hands of Mafia... :( If things go well and stars align, one day, when I finish my master degree + PhD I'll move back to the UK).


The following targets (CINEMA) are supported:

48-nit, P3, DCI-white Gamma 2.6
48-nit, P3, D65, Gamma 2.6
48-nit, P3, D60, Gamma 2.6
108-nit, P3, D65, ST. 2084

As you can see Dolby Cinema supports D60 of ACES, DCI white (close to D63) and even D65 for SDR. But HDR is only P3 108 nits, ST.2084. I will admit I do not know how is PQ encoded for this master, though most codepoints for PQ are reserved for SDR.

Question: do you have any official specs on how those are made? I mean the PQ ones and most importantly is there any software that can output a playable Dolby Vision DCP without paying an eye and a leg to Dolby in licenses? I'd like to know how "proprietary" is Dolby proprietary stuff, 'cause the fact that those things exist actually means that they MIGHT ask me (well, the company I work for, not me directly of course) to encode those for our original productions and I'd like to be able to produce them if that's feasible.

As things stand, it's possible to create a 48-nit, P3, DCI-white Gamma 2.6 with totally open source softwares, the likes of Avisynth, FFMpeg and OpenDCP, so it would be nice if this was possible too for the "new" standard, otherwise I think I'll temporary shy away from Dolby proprietary stuff once again...