I must be in an alternative universe, I just can’t believe what I see and hear.
11 years ago I shot a movie digitally, it was shot in HD in true RGB and uncompressed. Each of the 3 sensors had 1920 * 4320 photo-sites that created 3 * 1920 * 1080 images. It was 10 bit log and 4:4:4 generating 447.45 GB per hour.
Now Netflix are specifying that they will only accept “4K” cameras but they’re not 4K, they’re 2K * 2K in green and 2K * 1K in R&B they’re barely 3K and that gives you with Redcode 5:1 a grand total of 189.10GB per hour. It’s not a problem of Redcode, it’s just it was easy for me to get those figures, all the cameras they accept produce similar data rates.
Now I accept that technology moves on and compression get better but 4 times the resolution and less than half the data! no chance.
The issue is that people making decisions don’t understand what they’re deciding and are swayed by marketing.
The lunatics are truly running the asylum.
Am I one of the few who still remember circles of confusion as a way of measuring resolution? I think the current system of attempting to quantify High Definition has more in common with astrology – there is an effective and established way of measuring and specifying resolution. It does require a certain amount of understanding, but so does any measurement system. Like all such systems, knowing what you’re measuring is always a good start.
Colin Macnab, freelance sound, Edinburgh