Go see "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" -- that's an example of digital footage transferring very well to film. Except for just a few instances, I found the picture quality completely acceptable. On SWEPII, I found the picture quality bordering on unacceptable at times.

Barry - I agree - I just think it's hilarious that Lucasfilm did the transfer if I read the credits right.

That just depends on their agenda, and if they care if the transfer looks good. AFAIK, Lucas is trying to push digital filming and projection, so it would be good for his platform if the film version looked crappy.

And if digital doesn't transfer well to film, how are all the digital effects in most recent movies done? It was my understanding that all the film stock is scanned at around 2000 vertical lines (and a proportional horizontal resolution). That would have to go back onto film somehow after everything is done.

All I know is that my stuff burned to a DVD and projected onto a 40' screen looks remarkably good for only having 480 vertical lines of resolution.

The difference being that they originated on film rather than HD. There is some resolution lost in this process, which is why cinematographers are pushing for 4K digital intermediate becoming the standard once the technology is fully in place.

Ok, I finally left the JVC HD forum to have a look around.

I thought Mexico looked suprisingly good, but there was something about the first shot of the movie, the one where Depp is sitting at the table, that looked unimpressive. This one and a few other shots later on just looked like they didn't belong, they had a very soft video quality to them and even seemed to have a minus green quality to them. As soon as it cut to Cheech's reverse, everything looked great, colors warm and rich, sharp as a tack, felt like film. I know every frame was shot with the f900, but I wonder if the AC lost the setup card for some shots, or who knows what.

Oh, and the jaggies I saw were on a static shot, diagonal lines from the stairs. Even if there was fast motion, it's progressive so no interlace artifacts possible.

Jay

The film had a cool look, but distance shots did look...vapory.

The film was badly in need of a script.

From what I heard those explosions were real but there was
a reason why they looked the way they do.... Could it be a
dynamic range problem? <yikes>