70mm : "One Battle After Another"

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

I disagree. I've spoken to many at many screenings. Most have absolutely no idea what a DI is. Or that many are actually shot digitally, not on film. In fact, I would argue that many don't understand that the overwhelming majority of 70mm films during the film era were blow-ups from 35mm, not 65mm origination.

It's similar to audio purists who buy new vinyl because it's "analog", but something like 93% of new vinyl is produced from digital masters. So they're just fooling themselves, as far as I'm concerned.

You mean:

[Thomas Piccione]

DTS does NOT use a "bitstream", but timecode. That is easy to lock to a track with simple software coding. Remember DTS players can handle 4/35mm or 5/70mm with a simple reader swap and no other changes. They can easily design a 8/35mm reader for vista vision. (In fact, a standard 4/35mm reader would work just fine, since the timecode would be in the same place as 4/35mm.)

Yes, it's timecode. But it is digital and read in 1 bit at a time off the film, which is by definition, a bitstream. It's not bitstream audio on the film, which is not something I have claimed. Call it whatever you want, but stretching the bits to be longer so the timecode bit-rate remains the same regardless of linear film speed is how DTS works across different formats. The player has absolutely no idea what format of film you are running from the timecode itself, only from the serial number (and only sometimes).

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Yes, it's timecode. But it is digital and read in 1 bit at a time off the film, which is by definition, a bitstream. It's not bitstream audio on the film, which is not something I have claimed. Call it whatever you want, but stretching the bits to be longer so the timecode bit-rate remains the same regardless of linear film speed is how DTS works across different formats. The player has absolutely no idea what format of film you are running from the timecode itself, only from the serial number (and only sometimes).

Well having dealt with DTS and thier techs for many years, we'll have to agree to disagree. Yes, the ID for the track is tied to the serial number, but the clocking of the linear speed of the timecode is baked into that timecode itself, and the player does not care about the linear speed to a certain degree. It can easily read and track that code regardless of the speed, and it is the Software/firmware that will allow the audio from the CD-ROM or hard drive to play back. Remember also that DTS made "Special Venue" units that play IMAX and amusement park rides films which were often large format, 30fps films. It was essentially all the same hardware, but with different software and hardware for channel decoding. Using your logic, the analog audio would have to be "stretched" as the frames are wider... As long as the timecode is embedded at the proper linear speed to correspond to the FPS of the film the code format will be EXACTLY the same.

[Thomas Piccione]

Well having dealt with DTS and thier techs for many years, we'll have to agree to disagree. Yes, the ID for the track is tied to the serial number, but the clocking of the linear speed of the timecode is baked into that timecode itself, and the player does not care about the linear speed to a certain degree. It can easily read and track that code regardless of the speed, and it is the Software/firmware that will allow the audio from the CD-ROM or hard drive to play back. Remember also that DTS made "Special Venue" units that play IMAX and amusement park rides films which were often large format, 30fps films. It was essentially all the same hardware, but with different software and hardware for channel decoding. Using your logic, the analog audio would have to be "stretched" as the frames are wider... As long as the timecode is embedded at the proper linear speed to correspond to the FPS of the film the code format will be EXACTLY the same.

Tony, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to argue here, other than my terminology. DTS timecode always runs at 30FPS, regardless of what film it's printed on and what framerate that film it runs at. This is alluded to several times in their own documentation. The exact data within a frame may be slightly different on some titles, but number of bits per frame and the overall bitrate is identical. For this to occur across film formats of different sizes and framerates, the bits of the timecode will be physically larger and physically further apart so that they still read in at the correct speed. If you are running an 8/35mm print with DTS, the bits will be twice as tall and twice as far apart as a 4/35 print, so that when played back at twice the linear speed, timecode going into the player is identical. The claim that the timecode of larger formats goes into the player "faster" is something easily disproven with an oscilloscope. The player will absolutely not accept a timecode signal outside of the tolerance for a projector running at slightly the wrong speed.

And yes, the same thing absolutely does apply to analog audio. A 1k sine wave on a VistaVision print will have the sine wave peaks twice as far apart as a standard 4/35 print. If you play then back at the correct linear speed for each, it is still a 1k tone. No, you're not altering the audio or the timecode in either case, but if you record it at double the linear speed, whatever you're recording will be occupy double the linear space.

[Bobby Henderson]

if used as the primary format sure, but I seriously doubt anyone doing it anymore is chopping down to 4k in the intermediate, I would hope at least 8K pipelines (if not more)are in use now. But arguably even 8K falls sort of the format potential.

8K is rarely ever used at all in modern feature post production work. The 4K standard has only become more common in recent years. So many movies on the UHD Blu-ray format actually come from 2K resolution master sources and were blown up to 4K.

There is an extreme lack of knowledge among the general public regarding technical concepts like native resolution in digital imagery. I deal with this crap all the time in my daily work via the really shitty customer provided artwork I receive all too often. The movie industry has been taking advantage of this situation. These "70mm" shows made from 4K or even 2K sources is just another example.

I'm grown increasingly resentful of the absurd situation. Now we have a Christopher Nolan movie with IMAX tickets going on sale a year in advance and immediately selling out -with tickets already appearing online for resale. I missed out seeing "Oppenheimer" in 15/70, thanks in big part to the Barbenheimer fad. I still haven't bothered to watch that movie, even though it has been available to watch on TV for some time.

If the task of scoring a ticket for a movie shown on 70mm is going to be as bad as buying tickets to a rock concert I'll say "screw it" and no longer give a damn about the bleak future of film-based movie presentations.

Similar issue could be taken with original 35 to 70mm blow ups? What was the main benefit, were the master negatives just that much higher quality than a 35mm print could be, that there was value add in blowing up to a larger presentation format? Other than more light and 6track mag audio?

In the 35mm>70mm blow-up era from the late 1970's thru early 1990's the main benefit of blow-up prints was indeed the 6-channel magnetic audio (usually with Dolby A or SR noise reduction). But the 5/70mm prints also had other advantages. They would throw a brighter and more steady image onto larger screens.
It drove me nuts that Hollywood studios wouldn't start using 5/70mm blow-up prints in the 1990's. Cinema chains were in their stadium seated theater building binge. Their new "megaplex" sites often included one or more houses with huge screens, but only equipped with 35mm projection. The imagery looked washed out and terrible. 70mm would have looked so much better. And DTS had a 5/70mm approach that could have made the prints much more economical to produce at that time. But the movie studios and theater chains didn't bother. And that gave IMAX its big opportunity to invade the mainstream cinema market.

In the 1980's the typical mass-produced 35mm release print was not nearly as good as a 70mm print. The 5/70mm blow-up prints would often have richer color and better contrast. I don't understand why, but I suspect the mass produced 35mm release prints went through more stages of generational loss in production. We're talking dupes of dupes of dupes. 35mm print production improved during the 1990's. Still, a 4/35mm print shown on a 70' wide screen is not going to look as bright, colorful or deep in contrast as a 5/70mm print shown on the same screen.

[Bobby Henderson]

I forgot to mention another advantage of 5/70mm blow-up prints over 4/35mm: when projected on a huge screen a 35mm print would be more likely to show side-weave and other minor amounts of movement. A 5/70mm film print could show a more steady image on the same screen since there is far less magnification of the image.