Ryu Connor wrote:
You're right theres plenty of stuff which claims 10 bit capability but its a complicated thing putting together a 10-bit chain. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) at the moment you need sdi or DP to transport 10bit or a LUT box to transport over HDMI (I have to admit this is reaching the limit of my video standards knowledge) . Complicated enough that its going to be a long time before it reaches a consumer level. Consumers would be better served by tvs which held their calibration better or were self calibrating. For that matter they would be better served by decent calibration in the first place and scrapping dynamic contrast, frame interpolation modes, sales floor saturation etc etc etc. That is if your goal is accuracy.
Post houses have been using calibrated Plasmas (and more recently LCDs) as client monitors for a long time, ultimately I'm not sure how useful 10 bit is going to be in the living room when there's still life left in making 8bit equipment more accurate. A lot of that information is effectively invisible unless you're working with the footage in post. How useful is that when you're on the couch?
The GH4 is a good example of what I meant, its "4k" but only in the sense that it creates a 4096X2160 frame. If you point it at a res chart there's no way its going to resolve that much information even using its SDI out to an external recorder. Not that it doesn't look like a great bit of kit (although bulky...) but its entering a crowded market with new competitors every day. Luckily there's a pretty strong Panasonic mod/hack community so hopefully they'll embrace it fully but panasonic isn't looking to cannibalise its pro/prosumer video market with a $4k stills camera (The same situation Canon are in). The slumbering giant in the HDSLR game is really Nikon who don't have any horse in the video market so can expand their DSLR video capabilities without biting into their own higher end product range. For whatever reason they've chosen to largely ignore the HDSLR video trend and at this point may have missed the boat but who knows maybe they have something up their sleeve.
Sorry I didn't mean to make the Alexa sound inadequate, far from it. Its arguably the gold standard for digital cinema production at the moment. I've had one on my shoulder and its clearly designed by camera people for camera people, the ergonomics are great, which is more than can be said for some of the competition. In all honesty you can throw a rock and hit a great digital cinema camera at the moment, there's really great options everywhere. Its kind of a golden age for cinematographers in some ways. lots of great options.
I have the Leone box set on Bluray (huge fan), to be honest unless Criterion is doing it I wouldn't trust a remaster. I mean 2-perf is pretty grainy, Techniscope was always sort of a a compromise, my copy is already sharp. What exactly is left for them to "improve"? I fear DNR. Read about the "French Connection" remaster to see what a disaster these things can be.
If you ever get the chance, PT Anderson sometimes tours with his personal 70mm print of "The master". I haven't seen it myself but if you want the opportunity to see what some would argue is the pinnacle of picture quality take it. I missed it when it was here and I regret it.
