No. I'm not asking you to solve a math problem. Rather, I'm talking about photosite resolution on camera sensors. And how much more valuable are an additional 4K, when you already have 4K, 5K, or more K on todays digital cinema cameras?

I stumbled on this question (and the answer) while browsing the Facebook feed of colorist Scott Stacy CSI. He's the newest contributor to Mixing Light and after linking to his name in a Facebook post - I perused his Public feed.

I ran across an article he linked to featuring DP Steve Yeldin ASC. It was based on a series of camera tests showing that additional photosites don't increase the audience's sense of image quality (or Presence, a notion I'm starting to adopt from BBC white papers). Instead, Steve posits that the image pipeline has far more impact on the quality of our final images.

I'm writing about this here, in this week's introduction because I think it's an extremely important topic. And if you missed the article and Steve's two videos when released last year, then you need to take the time and absorb them.

This week, I'm linking to the ASC article discussing his videos. And I'm linking to Part 1. I encourage you to read and watch. Then marinate on Part 1 for a week - before watching Part 2, when I link to it next week.

See you next Sunday.

Happy Grading!

- Patrick Inhofer
Colorist | Publisher | Mentor

[video] In this first video, DP Steve Yedlen ASC posits his hypothesis that pixel counts are not where we need to focus our attention for maximum perceived image quality. Where should we focus our efforts? Watch to find out. You won't be disappointed. And then think on this for a week. Next week I'll share the link for Part 2 where theory gets put to the test.

What are the people seeing each weekend, broken by specific demographics (from 18 - 50+)? An interesting article on what this new website is trying to achieve. My only problem? According to Movio your Gen X'er Newsletter Publisher has been age'd out of his own generation. I guess when you pass 50, the only demo you're part of is: old.

I'm glad I didn't skip NFS this week... as they had a good write-up of Baselight Editions V5 and how one editor put it through its paces on a recent series they delivered. Good factoids in here show that Editions and Avid are evolving well together.

The meta-description for this blog post says it best, "Has colorist Denver Riddle really revolutionised colour grading with this new plugin - Cinema Grade? I take a look at what all the fuss is about, offer 10% discount on cinema grade, provide a free keyboard shortcut cheat sheet, and chat to Denver Riddle about creating a brand new app from scratch."

[video] A nifty (and pithy) demo of how to, essentially, set up Colorista as a replacement to the Lumetri panel.

For you mavericks out there.

This item was written by Pomfort to promote their offloading software. But if you're new to the craft of DIT and need to understand the importance of generating logs of your backups, this is a great place to start learning.

[video] While creating a 'Western' look, Contributor Scott Stacy CSI teaches how to use a color space transform with a film print emulation LUT in DaVinci Resolve. Free, in front of the paywall.

[videos] Colorist Dan Moran shares his thoughts (and embeds the videos) on the UKMVA Nominations 2018 for Best Grading. This year, Dan was also part of the judging panel.

Tao Newsletter sponsor Lumaforge has a nice write-up describing one production's experience with the mobile Jellyfish SAN. It's a terrific solution you should understand if you need teams of creatives working simultaneously with shared media.

This review took place at Samsung's facility. But it's a good write-up of what seems to be an albatross... an 8K tv in a sea of HD and UHD content. I'm including this for the discussion of it's AI functionality (where it 'phones home' to update reference images to help with upscaling). Plus, it's a look at the brightness levels of next-gen LCDs and how they're back to competing with OLED for overall image quality & 'presence'.

Good review. My favorite bit comes in the Calibration section, "There are a wealth of picture modes to choose from . . . [that] are basically various degrees of wrong that differ based on how aggressive the picture enhancement systems are." Word. The built-in bias light is a terrific idea but by default seems executed in the form of gaming LEDs on GPUs rather than providing a whitepoint-tuned neutral field to anchor the image and relax the eyes.

In a recent Newsletter I mentioned how the IMAX brand strategy for the past decade has eluded me. With this announcement I'm seeing their latest approach: Compete with Dolby Vision via HDR 10+. I wonder if we'll ever see their toolset integrated into DaVinci Resolve Studio? Is this a start of a new Betamax - Betacam war? Click through to understand what 'IMAX Enhanced' actually means.

[video] Do you think the most interesting part of watching the engines ignite of a Saturn V launch are the flames? This video's narration make plain that that is only one part of the show. As my favorite alien says: Fascinating. Oh, and this particular launch? Apollo 11.

Yup. Get free compute time on a real quantum computer. Of course, just like on any giant mainframe your access is measured in... one minute. What?? Click through. It's fun, if you've got the heart of a geek.