James Cameron ("Avatar", "Titanic", etc.) used to argue that high frame rate was more important than higher resolution.
If you're not in the first few rows of the theater, he once pointed out, you can't tell if it's 4K anyway. Everyone in the theater benefits from high frame rate. This may be less of an issue now that more people are watching on high-resolution screens at short range.<p>Cameron likes long pans over beautifully detailed backgrounds. Those will produce annoying strobing at 24FPS if the pan rate is faster than about 7 seconds for a frame width. Staying down to that rate makes a scene drag.<p>Now, Cameron wants to go to 4K resolution and 120FPS.[1] Cameron can probably handle that well; he's produced most of the 3D films that don't suck. He's going to give us a really nice visual tour of the Avatar world. For other films, that may not help. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" was recorded in 3D, 4K resolution and 120FPS. Reviews were terrible, because it's 1) far too much resolution for close-ups, and 2) too much realism for war scenes. Close-ups are a problem - do you really want to see people's faces at a level of detail useful only to a dermatologist? It also means prop and costume quality has to improve.<p>The other issue with all this resolution is that it's incompatible with the trend towards shorter shot lengths. There are action films with an average shot length below 1 second. For music videos, that's considered slow; many of those are around 600ms per shot.[2] They're just trying to leave an impression, not show details.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2016/10/31/13479322/james-cameron-avatar-3d-4k-hdr" rel="nofollow">https://www.polygon.com/2016/10/31/13479322/james-cameron-av...</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.cinemetrics.lv/database.php?sort=asl" rel="nofollow">http://www.cinemetrics.lv/database.php?sort=asl</a>
This likely gives them confidence that if they were to remaster for a different color-space or higher resolution, that they could. For a 4K original shot in 8K, Netflix could send it back through the production process for a more reasonable cost and be able to launch the title quickly.<p>I'm surprised they don't ask for VFX sources to be archived though. ST:TNG and Babylon 5 both suffered badly from loss of the original VFX.
That's beautifully clear - I wish I worked with specifications so lucid. I've got almost no real knowledge of the field it's governing, but I believe I would know how to successfully shoot some footage that Netflix would accept off the back of reading it.<p>One thing intrigues me though - albeit likely a function of my lack of knowledge on the matter - do these requirements implicitly rule out shooting on film for Netflix?<p>(I mean, I'm sure that ${hollywood-bigshot} could negotiate, but for Joe Public..?)
To paraphrase Bill Gates (who never actually said the original, but anyway) 4K should be enough for everybody.<p>Having seen 1080p stretch and play nicely on a 30 feet cinema screen, and not being much worse looking from regular Hollywood titles even for front seat viewing, I don't see the allure of 8K even for "future-proofing".<p>Sure, monitors and tvs might improve their resolution in the future. But I don't se human eyes improving much (regarding angular resolution vs distance) or houses getting any bigger to fit a 30ft tv.<p>4K is good for reframing (cropping) and higher detail, but after some point enough is enough.
...And that my friends, is how you layout specs. Simple enough for anyone to read and understand, yet concrete enough to minimize interpretation variances. Love that change log.
Ah, that Canon EOS C700 is a symphony of light capturing technology, though.<p>Here's a sample "A Day in Kyoto" shot at 4K 120fps raw:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MeEKCYvApM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MeEKCYvApM</a>
I always find the idea of future proofing interesting here. Like the way Seinfeld reruns are in HD even though the technology didn't really exist at the time--because they shot a TV show in actual film and then could re-scan it later to keep up with modern tech.<p>Crazy expensive but obviously given the value of those reruns the cost made sense.
Wow, this is pretty scanty. For comparison, the BBC's technical requirements:<p><a href="http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/specs/bbc/TechnicalDeliveryStandardsBBC.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/specs/...</a>
I'd like another post going into more depth on audio (sound design, mixing, mastering...). I've seen a few things on Netflix where the bad audio engineering totally ruined the experience.
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I'm surprised they don't allow UHD resolution (3840×2160). There are probably a few people in the world who can reliably tell the difference with true 4K.<p>An average person can't even tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.
This is really tragic to watch. I like Netflix in many respects but this is just incompetent. Not one Academy Award Winning film for best picture would qualify for these specs. Not one. I expect very few if any nominees either.<p>The Arri Alexa is eliminated by these specs, for crying out loud. The single most popular camera amongst high end feature cinematographers.<p>This is driven by some misguided belief that input resolution == output resolution AND that resolution is <i>the</i> measure of quality.<p>I really hope they get their head out of their asses on this at some point.<p>It's good to have quality standards, and thank god they aren't Turner Classic Movies (the fuck was that all about??). But these specs are as arbitrary as saying all of your food must be cooked in copper cookware.<p>We tell stories, not pixels.
I'm so, so glad I don't have to care about deliverables requirements anymore. Every studio has totally different set of requirements that are as complex as this and it's a real bear to make sure you're fully in compliance with them.
I wonder if Netflix is experiencing quality problems? Sometimes the lower-budget content that's a few years old looks pixelated or over-compressed. In these cases, it's somewhat obvious that whoever produced it just didn't know better.
Now if they would stream UHD content at 240 Mbps, they would almost double the quality of UHD Blu-ray (144 Mbps). Or any increase of the 15.6 Mbps they are using now.
I guess this is old news, but apparently if you get hired by Netflix to shoot anything and you want to use an Alexa.. good luck. You should get in line and wait for an Alexa65 when it's available.