Quick Newbie Camera Question

Capture hardware, software and techniques

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OutcastJiob
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Quick Newbie Camera Question

Post by OutcastJiob »

Very simple question: If I have 720x480 footage, will it look pixelated in a theater? (I'm thinking that it certainly will, but I'm hoping I'm wrong). If it will, what is the minimum required resolution a for non-grainy image in a theater?
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jcdenton
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RE: Quick Newbie Camera Question

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If the movie is boring, it will look pixelated anyway. There have been a very few DV Movies in theaters. If it's a good movie then it's ok. It's much more important how good your camera is, and your pictures. If you use a semiprofessional 3CCD Camera, it may look pretty good. If you use a cheap 1/6CCD, it may look worse than VHS.
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RE: Quick Newbie Camera Question

Post by OutcastJiob »

I understand the importance of a good story, good filming, lighting, and so on. But those don't really effect whether or not a specific resolution is going to be pixelated in a theater. I see your point, but I need some help with determining how the pixels themselves are going to look:

If I shoot on a 1CCD camera that ends up at 720x480, will there be noticeable pixels on a theater screen?
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RE: Quick Newbie Camera Question

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Theoretically a good projector can handle it, depending on the quality of footage. If you have artifacts due to poor lighting etc, the they will be accentuated on the big screen, if it's smooth, should not ( repeat for emphasis SHOULD) be a problem. You aren't going to get better than 720x480 out of a DV camera. Best thing would be to get a DLP projector and do some testing, you won't be able to get the range you would get in a theatre, but use the longest distance you can find. Text may look a bit choppy, and any edges on chroma keying may become a bit more accentuated. This is definitely one area tho that you want to do good testing on BEFORE you start production. Better to know your limitations and figure out how to work around them before you have the project finished.
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OutcastJiob
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RE: Quick Newbie Camera Question

Post by OutcastJiob »

Thanks for the answer, Raptor, much appreciated. I'll get to work on some testing ASAP.
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BlakJakDavy
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Post by BlakJakDavy »

Would you recommend keeping the DV footage at 720 x 480 or blowing it up to 1440 x 960 in After Effects? Doubling it and softening still looks good, so we were wondering if that would give us an advantage when it comes to theatre screening.
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Post by Epsilon »

I would keep it in it's original format, trying to enhance it won't bring back pixels like in the movies. It will still look fuzzy. Plus it will take up four times to space on your hard drive! I've seen DV movies shown in theaters, and it's really not as bad of a problem as you might expect. Sure it'll never be as crisp as film, but it works.
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Post by BlakJakDavy »

Ok, thanks!
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Post by jcdenton »

As Raptor said, as soon as you are using Chroma Keying, the artifacts will become very obvious. So try not to use it at all. If you have to use it for some reason, try to ship around the 4:2:0 and 4:1:1 Dilemma by using special software.

There are some tool that are bluring the color information and leave the luminance information intact. They can be used to solve the chroma key problems to some degree.

I think Blairwitch Project was the first and surely the most successful miniDV Movie ever.
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