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JMS · 11-10-2005, 08:48 PM

This is from the March/April '04 issue of The Perfect Vision magazine:

Though films are not made up of pixels, when a motion picture is digitally scanned on a state-of-the-art telecine machine, the telecinist can extract as many as 4096 pixels of information across the horizontal axis. Widescreen anamorphic DVD gives you 720 pixels in the horizontal axis; HD has a potential 1920 pixels. In other words, video records and preserves around 53–83% less information than film does.

These differences in resolution are further reasons why DVDs (and to a lesser extent HD tapes) cannot achieve film-like sharpness, color detail, and dimensionality, especially in medium-to-long shots. We’ve all had the "pasty-faced blob" experience on DVDs. The director cuts from a big close-up of an actor, looking so sharp you can see the pores in his face, to a long shot of the same actor, and suddenly you can’t even make out his face, much less the pores. Obviously, nearly all of the available pixels on the DVD were being used to reproduce the actor’s face in the close-up, and in the long shot maybe one-twentieth as many. When you have a mere 720 pixels to start with (compared to film’s 4000), one-twentieth the resolution represents a considerable falling-off. There just aren’t enough pixels "there" to hold fine detail.

Though HD tapes and broadcasts are considerably better than DVDs in this regard, they still do not match the detail, range of tone and color, and dimensionality of motion pictures. HD tapes can look wonderful, all right. But they look like wonderful video. There is nothing wrong with this; it’s just a fact we have to face, if we’re gonna be honest about the differences between film and video. (by Jonathan Valin)

This is why The Wizard of Oz will be fabulous on a blue ray format.

11-10-2005, 08:48 PM	#21
JMS I'm gettin' all pixelated Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Columbus,OH Posts: 576	This is from the March/April '04 issue of The Perfect Vision magazine: Though films are not made up of pixels, when a motion picture is digitally scanned on a state-of-the-art telecine machine, the telecinist can extract as many as 4096 pixels of information across the horizontal axis. Widescreen anamorphic DVD gives you 720 pixels in the horizontal axis; HD has a potential 1920 pixels. In other words, video records and preserves around 53–83% less information than film does. These differences in resolution are further reasons why DVDs (and to a lesser extent HD tapes) cannot achieve film-like sharpness, color detail, and dimensionality, especially in medium-to-long shots. We’ve all had the "pasty-faced blob" experience on DVDs. The director cuts from a big close-up of an actor, looking so sharp you can see the pores in his face, to a long shot of the same actor, and suddenly you can’t even make out his face, much less the pores. Obviously, nearly all of the available pixels on the DVD were being used to reproduce the actor’s face in the close-up, and in the long shot maybe one-twentieth as many. When you have a mere 720 pixels to start with (compared to film’s 4000), one-twentieth the resolution represents a considerable falling-off. There just aren’t enough pixels "there" to hold fine detail. Though HD tapes and broadcasts are considerably better than DVDs in this regard, they still do not match the detail, range of tone and color, and dimensionality of motion pictures. HD tapes can look wonderful, all right. But they look like wonderful video. There is nothing wrong with this; it’s just a fact we have to face, if we’re gonna be honest about the differences between film and video. (by Jonathan Valin) This is why The Wizard of Oz will be fabulous on a blue ray format.