For me the biggest benefit of 4K in the first place is HDR. 8K I swear you'd need like something IMAXish probably before the DPI increase was worth it.
Barry Sonnenfeld calls HDR a disaster and 8k stupid
- Thread starter Wag
- Start date
That was my point. You don't need to 'disable colour' to show a black and white film on a blu-ray any more than you need to disable HDR. The format can encode black and white just fine in the same palette, even if it allows for colour.
And I will push back against that pressure. Gladly. I've gone to bat for films that don't really push things to high nits in HDR. Just as I have for games that choose to do a specific thing as an artistic choice (like RE2 choosing to avoid perfect blacks in certain scenes, I'm going to play it with the intended colour range vs trying to push my own preferences).
That art wasn't lost. People still make beautiful new B/W movies with great cinematography when the project calls for it. If B/W was still the standard, you'd not have countless movies that use color beautifully. And no one is doing colour for colours sake any more, and probably hasn't for fifty years. It's a transitional problem and not a good reason to push back against the expanded palette.
i don't agree. by and large it was lost. honestly new b/w films are VERY VERY rare. and it's very notable when they do happen. it usually needs someone with Cuaron's weight. which is a shame because i actually think black and white plus HDR can be a really amazing combo. there is absolutely a stigma against black and white that continues to this day, i'm surprised you would say that. the market pressure is still very much there. i know people who have said 'i won't see a new movie that's black and white because it feels old and outdated'.
This is literally untrue.
Have you watched the Steve Yedlin resolution demos?
Everyone needs to watch them start to finish. At least the second one.
I believe 35mm is around 6k. Most digital production seems to hover around 2k or 4k. Most effects heavy work is still done in 2k.
I am not an expert but that is what I recall from my own research.
Honestly, I am not sure how much sense 8k will make outside of gaming.
The cinematographer should always be consulted if they are still around and able to oversee the process. If not, every effort should be made to protect the intent of the film maker, and the expanded colour space should only be used where it makes sense. Obviously, if the film is on 35MM, it shouldn't be arbitrarily limited to the SDR colour space either (as 35MM inherantly has a wider colourspace than that, even as it falls far short of the peak brightness of HDR).
I guess I'd just say that I don't consider a rare animal a lost animal. If there are still people capable of doing it, and still examples being released... it isn't lost. Would you really rather every film be in black and white than the current situation where they are rare if that was the binary choice being offered? Personally, I think it'd be crazy to pick the former option and that's how I view the option being presented.
What HDR can offer outweighs the issues, and I believe the issues will be transient, for the most part. Far fewer films are being forced into 3D now, but there are still films being released in 3D when the filmmaker wants their film to be 3D. That works for me.
Last edited:
HDR is the future and should be the future because its like arguing you have too large a canvas to work with when the canvas could easily be 'scaled down' or scaled up after its created. You don't have to use the full HDR range to still be HDR. The real problem is people needlessly making higher contrasts in the final composite when it should be handled with the original cinematographer to help keep the 'intent' of the image intact. Funnily enough one of my favorite HDR movies in MIB III so its weird to hear him make comments like this, I basically refuse to watch that movie in anything but HDR because of how huge an upgrade it is on visuals of the movie.
I agree. There's still no "official" way to have your set calibrated for HDR, and the mastering is so all over the place that different content will look incorrect anyway. If you value an accurate picture it's still best to stick to SDR content on a set that has been professionally calibrated.
no, i never said that lol. you're completely misreading my posts. i never said we would be better off without color. i never said everything should be SDR either. i'm saying that there are very valid concerns that shouldn't just be handwaved away. and that we shouldn't automatically assume that more visual information = better, more contrast and colors = better, etc.
for what it's worth i don't think this is a fair comparison. i see 3D as a pretty transient gimmick that will keep coming and going. i think HDR really is the equivalent of the black and white to color jump and it will come with that market pressure as well. what's the point of making a film in SDR, i can hear the studio execs saying already. people have these new TVs and technology, we need you to take advantage of it.
this sounds great but you know perfectly well it's not how things work.
This is bullshit to be honest. 4K is more than enough for 35mm. Film has an inherent soft look to it, even mastered at 4K.
It's all pointless. Whether the cinematographer is alive or not, they're decades removed from the original release date. How could they even possibly accurately remember what their intent was? And when it comes to HDR, the original intent doesn't matter a lick anyway since obviously HDR displays didn't exist back. It was absolutely not the intent to see these things with "HDR."
Yes, let's be totally dismissive of the person who also brought us Raising Arizona, When Harry Met Sally, Big, Men in Black, The Addams Family, Pushing Daisies, The Tick...
I really hope 4K is the standard for home televisions for a long time because I'm sick of buying TVs.
The Wizard of Oz wasn't intended to be seen in video limited to the SDR color space. There's no reason to limit it to 2K and SDR color space, both of which are a reduction of how it was intended to be seen.
An example of HDR done right is the opening of Infinity War, IMO.
I didn't think you were arguing that. I'm just saying I think that's the choice we're faced with. It'd be great to prevent the undue pressure to use the expanded space somehow, and I'll certainly argue against that pressure, but I think it's just something that has to be overcome.
Well, that's pretty much what happened with 3D, but consumers weren't really into 3D at home, which took the pressure off quickly. People weren't really buying 3D sets FOR 3D, and for various reasons after watching 3D content a few times, most didn't bother with it.
That's what I think *should* happen. I know it's going to be the exception when it happens.
But I don't look at how things are currently and see anything approaching a disaster. Not even close.
Yup
It's been pretty revelatory as far as games.
As far as 4k/UHD tho?
Yeah, shit is all over the place to the point, most film's I've watched seemed like they weren't setup to lean into it really.
At this point, my top 3, GAME CHANGING go to film's are:
1. Pacific Rim
2. The Matrix Trilogy
3. And, maybe Bumblebee?.... More cause it uses a standard 16:9 aspect ratio and its detail REALLY pops (i "only" have a 55 inch set)
But yeah, I question my continued investment in the current UHD medium where unless you presumably have a huuuge tv (like 70in?), It's been difficult to discern the gains with 21:9 content.
The intent is tied to the available technology at the time. When they were color timing The Wizard of Oz, they weren't thinking, "Oh I sure hope someone tinkers with my work in 80 years and does whatever the fuck they feel like doing."
it's not literally untrue. it's literally true but i'm assuming this video makes the argument that it doesn't really matter because the effective resolution is already high enough to where you basically can't tell a difference. completely different argument. i'll watch the full thing in a bit and let you know a more complete thought on it
it's not bullshit. it's true, but potentially not really relevant for consumer needs if the effective resolution of 4k is already high enough to where you can't really tell a difference. it's not "more than enough." it may be more than good enough for our needs, but that doesn't mean it's capturing the full resolve. whether film has an "inherent soft look" is completely irrelevant to the resolution required to capture all the visual information there
what i'm trying to say is i see the concern around HDR as being valid whereas super high resolutions may be overkill and not necessary but they aren't actually hurting anything and may have some utility for archival stuff and there's some stuff you could do with a 16k transfer you couldn't do with a 4k transfer like making really high-quality blow ups of a specific section of a frame
Which, again, I'm against.
I'm just pointing out that there's no reason to limit the movie to SDR range. You want to keep it to whatever the technicolor process allowed for? Go for it. SDR video? Makes no sense.
Based on what I've seen personally, it's enough. And the industry think it's enough. 35mm films are only mastered at 4K at the most.
Makes perfect sense. They colored timed the movie and crafted the overall picture according to what they could actually see at the time.
I can't for the life of me turn HDR off while using the Netflix built-in app on my LG 4K TV. Sabrina looks absolutely terrible in 4K, almost unwatchable and I can't watch it without HDR on. Is there a way around this?
No idea. I'm not sure HDR can be disabled on my Samsung TV's built in apps. As a work around, you presumably have another box that plays netflix and you can no doubt disable HDR on that input (if it supports it), but that'd be less than ideal. I've got no problem with people having the option to disable it, espescially as not all TVs handle it well.
i'm confused by this statement and what you mean by "35mm films are mastered for 4k." not sure if you're quite understanding how film works or if i'm just getting thrown by the wording here
sure, and i'm not a luddite. of course the technology should progress. but that doesn't mean what Deakins, Sonnenfeld and the like have been saying isn't true. or that it's not something that's worth thinking about and putting out there and instead of just attacking them as outdated old men, we should focus on trying to ensure that people aren't forced into expanding dynamic range when they don't want to or feel like it's appropriate for what they're doing. because taking these considerations into mind won't reverse the technology or make people stop using HDR. it will just make people have a more thoughtful approach to it
it's just different. there are so many technical and physical and even like, biological hurdles to home 3D adoption that don't apply to HDR
Also, respect to Barry for that jab regarding Marvel. After Endgame's finale as well as most of Far from Home, I'm burnt out on how they handle seemingly every spectacle setpiece
Yeah, I have a terrible workaround, which is using Chrome on my PC to watch Netflix HDR content that I don't to watch in HDR for some reason, like Sabrina, that looks awful. But chrome looks bad.
And I have a better workaround that's still a pain in the ass, which is using my PS4. But then I have to keep disabling and enabling HDR for Netflix and gaming.
I have no problem at all with HDR. In fact it often looks amazing. It's just a few select titles that don't look good at all.
I've no issues with what Deakin's said, and I'm grateful that he's been able to oversee the HDR releases of some of the films he's shot. He's one of the very best at what he does. It strikes me as a reasonable version of the point I think Sonnenfeld was resorting to eye rolling hyperbole to make, and Deakin's makes the point without imo unfairly disparaging the technology itself.
And for the record, I think Sonnenfeld is drastically underrated, especially visually. Far too many unfairly call his work Burtonesque or Wes Andersonesque, when he's been working with this style for decades.
If you think Roger Deakins can't accurately tell you what his intent was for any given shot from any given film he's ever lensed, well, let's just say I can't help you and you are being thick.
The thing is there's no film or digital motion camera in existence that can actually acquire effectively 8k content nor is there any reason for movie studios to go through the incredible expense of an 8k workflow (Lion King 2019 was 2K, because of course it is!)
Most people who argue about resolution don't even understand halation as one example of something that affects all cameras and acquisition media, analog or digital.
Everybody seriously needs to go watch the Yedlin demos so they can at least post an informed opinion on resolution as it pertains to film and television.
SDR is actually altering what they were seeing since film has a larger colourspace than SDR. HDR is going to get you closer to how the film was actually intended to look.
HDR *can* get you closer. It still needs to be handled properly, which is a valid point that shouldn't get lost here. I just don't see the sense in blaming HDR for that mishandling when it happens.
Roger Deakins may have an incredible memory that allows him to accurate remember exactly how he felt at a certain point in time and not let him be influenced by how his personal opinions, style and biases have changed over a lengthy period of time.
There's an interesting feature in The Godfather blu-ray, about the remastering process of the movie. They basically didn't know what the "correct" or intended color timing was, and had to guess to a certain point.
I see a movie like the Matrix, which has had like at least four entirely different color timings throughout its existence. Which one is the correct one? The latest master was supervised by the original cinematographer, it doesn't look anything like any previous rendition of the film.
Even a movie as recent as Interstellar, the UHD has totally different color timing compared to the Blu-ray. They somehow didn't get that yellow-ass filter right the first go around? Someone in the process just changed their minds about how that movie should look.
I've read this before and it's bullshit. What exactly do you think they were using to gauge how the movie should look? Where do you think they viewed and judged their final result? Not any display with HDR capabilities, I can tell you that.
When old 35mm movies are digitally remastered for a new release, they're done in 4K. I'm talking even before when UHD was a thing.
Last edited:
fair enough, i think we're mostly on the same page. i think HDR is a good technology and there's definitely a bit of hyperbole with Sonnenfeld but you also have to read between the lines a bit. i think you can make the argument that HDR is a disaster in the way it's being implemented. not the technology itself. i wouldn't go that far but there are definitely frustrating things about it
that's completely, completely untrue
i haven't watched the two hours of videos you posted yet, but i'm curious. do you also think 70mm was basically pointless vs 35?
Some of you may find some of Netflix's help center pages on HDR / Dolby Vision mastering informative or interesting:
Dolby Vision / HDR
Dolby Vision Metadata Overview
HDR & Dolby Vision FAQs
Color Grading & Calibration Guidelines
IMF Specs: One Sheet
There's more article pages on the subject, but that's a good general listing.
As far as common errors go, not only do you have the whole program mistimes that were mentioned about Series of Unfortunate Events, you see a lot of mistimes in dissolves, loss of definition in highlights and lowlights, and incorrect canvas tone mapping, which can lead to shifting black levels in the mattes for letterboxed content, or even part of the active image being hidden from incorrectly set image aspect ratio in the metadata.
Metadata assisted tone mapping is absolutely wonderful (even though most productions don't utilize more than two layers for 100 nit and 1000 nit tone maps) for mastering content, but there's so many moving parts that I gotta imagine in makes a colorist's job a nightmare compared to what it used to be.
Dolby Vision / HDR
Dolby Vision Metadata Overview
HDR & Dolby Vision FAQs
Color Grading & Calibration Guidelines
IMF Specs: One Sheet
There's more article pages on the subject, but that's a good general listing.
As far as common errors go, not only do you have the whole program mistimes that were mentioned about Series of Unfortunate Events, you see a lot of mistimes in dissolves, loss of definition in highlights and lowlights, and incorrect canvas tone mapping, which can lead to shifting black levels in the mattes for letterboxed content, or even part of the active image being hidden from incorrectly set image aspect ratio in the metadata.
Metadata assisted tone mapping is absolutely wonderful (even though most productions don't utilize more than two layers for 100 nit and 1000 nit tone maps) for mastering content, but there's so many moving parts that I gotta imagine in makes a colorist's job a nightmare compared to what it used to be.
This is always a problem, yeah. Maybe the original version didn't look how they wanted it. With The Matrix, can we honestly say? I'm not sure we can. I prefer the less green looking versions though.
How do you think The Wizard of Oz was color graded? Most films prior to The Phantom Menace weren't digitally graded, and so would have been viewed and judged through a reference quality projector. Colour grading was more of a dark art the further back you go, as it was literally a chemical process and couldn't be judged until after it was done and run through a projector.
It's true. That's what I'm saying. I'm deeply annoyed by the comments about how HDR is what was intended. No it wasn't.
As an acquisition format or a presentation format? 5 perf or 15 perf? As opposed of shooting 35 spherically or anamorphically and at what aspect ratio?
Not saying it doesn't have its use, but that's about more than resolution to be honest. FWIW I'm in my 50s and have watched a lot of 70mm starting in the 1970s including times that I've driven hours to see stuff like Dunkirk photochemical process 70MM IMAX (well, minus a few effects shots that were printed out and spliced back in).
yeah it's such a mindbogglingly ridiculous statement to me. films that were created around the technological limitation were not intended to be HDR. how do you know what they were intended to be in the first place?
stop pettifogging. you know exactly what i mean.
HDR is now half a decade old and still does not have a fixed standard
When it's well done it's great, but the majority of the time... yikes
When it's well done it's great, but the majority of the time... yikes