Appendix C.

Common Film and Video Formats

This appendix is provided as an additional source of information about some of the film and
video formats that the typical compositor might encounter in the course of his or her daily
work. It builds on the topics and discussions that were covered in Chapter 10, and you should
read that chapter before attempting to decipher some of the information given here. Please
note that, although sample resolutions are given for some of the analog formats discussed,
these should be considered examples rather than standards. There may be many ways to digi‐
tize a given analog format and thus there is no guarantee that a specific digitization method
will produce an image that is identical to what we have described.

Film

Although there have been a myriad of film formats developed over the years, some clear stan‐
dards have emerged that can help to narrow our focus. Within this section, we give the basic
dimensions for a range of formats, as well as a comparison of their relative sizes. For the 35
mm formats, this includes several of the more prevalent framings. In addition, we give some
examples of what the resolution and file size might be like for these framings and formats.

Figure C.1 diagrams the sizes for the major 35 mm film formats. These formats are shown to
scale, with the precise measurements given in Table C.1. If you take the time to examine the
measurements that are given in this table, you may find that certain scanning resolutions do
not have exactly the same aspect ratio as the negative that is used to capture that format. These
minor discrepancies are related to the way the scanner is constructed, and can mostly be
ignored.

Figure C.1. 35 mm film format framing.

Table C.1. Common Film Formats

Aspect
Format Width Height Area
ratio

16 mm 0.404″ 0.295″ 0.119″ 1.37

10.26 7.49 mm 76.86
mm mm

Super 16 0.493″ 0.292″ 0.144″ 1.69

12.52 7.42 mm 92.84
mm mm

Academy aperture 0.864″ 0.630″ 0.544″ 1.37

21.94 16.00 351.04
mm mm mm
 Aspect
Format Width Height Area
ratio

Full aperture 0.980″ 0.735″ 0.720″ 1.33

24.89 18.67 464.53
mm mm mm

1.85 framing 0.825″ 0.446″ 0.368″ 1.85

20.95 11.33 237.29
mm mm mm

Super 35[*] 0.945″ 0.394″ 0.372″ 2.35

24.00 10.01 240.12
mm mm mm

Cinemascope 0.864″ 0.732″ 0.632″ 2.35

21.94 18.59 407.87
mm mm mm

VistaVision (8-perf) 1.485″ 0.991″ 1.472″ 1.5

37.71 25.17 949.07
mm mm mm

65 mm (5-perf) 2.066″ 0.906″ 1.872″ 2.28

52.47 23.01 1207.13
mm mm mm

IMAX 2.772″ 2.072″ 5.744″ 1.33

70.39 52.62 3704.07
mm mm mm

[*] These figures describe Super 35 as composed for 2.35 projection, the
most common use of this format.

Keep in mind that the aspect ratio for any given format will not necessarily be preserved when
the image is projected. For instance, the Cinemascope negative (after taking into account the
anamorphic squeeze) has an aspect ratio of 2.36:1, but is always projected with a mask that
produces a 2.35:1 image.

Figure C.2 and Table C.2 compare the relative areas of the negatives used to capture the listed
formats. For instance, an IMAX negative is approximately 10.55 times larger than the size of
the negative used for standard Academy framing.

Figure C.2. Common film formats.

Table C.2. Relative Negative Sizes

 Full
Super Super
16mm 1.85 Academy Cinemascope aper‐ VistaVision 65mm
16 35
ture

16mm 1.00 0.83 0.32 0.32 0.22 0.19 0.17 0.08 0.06

Super 16 1.21 1.00 0.39 0.39 0.26 0.23 0.20 0.10 0.08

1.85 3.09 2.56 1.00 0.99 0.68 0.58 0.51 0.25 0.20

Super 35 3.12 2.59 1.01 1.00 0.68 0.59 0.52 0.25 0.20

Academy 4.57 3.78 1.48 1.46 1.00 0.86 0.76 0.37 0.29

Cinema 5.31 4.39 1.72 1.70 1.16 1.00 0.88 4.43 0.34
scope

Full 6.04 5.00 1.96 1.93 1.32 1.14 1.00 0.49 0.38
aperture

VistaVision 12.35 10.22 4.00 3.95 2.70 2.33 2.04 1.00 0.79

65mm 15.71 13.00 5.09 5.03 3.44 2.96 2.60 1.27 1.00

IMAX 48.19 39.90 15.61 15.43 10.55 9.08 7.97 3.90 3.07

Scanning Resolutions and File Sizes

As mentioned in Chapter 10, a film scanner can be built to work at any resolution, and since
the negative is an analog medium, there is no bias to sample it at any particular resolution.
Theoretically, any correlation between the resolution of the digital image and the original neg‐
ative is more or less arbitrary. In practice, however, certain common sizes have emerged, gen‐
erally reflecting what was initially defined by early Kodak Cineon film scanners. The examples
given in Table C.3 are all based on specifications from that system, but be sure to check the
specifics of the system that you are using for the most accurate information.

Table C.3. Typical Scanning Resolution and File Sizes

File size
Vertical
Horizontal (MB) (Ci‐
Format resolu‐
resolution neon
tion
format)

Full aperture FullHalf 40962048 31121556 5113

Academy FullHalf 36561828 26641332 3910

aperture

Cinemascope FullHalf 36561828 31121556 4511

VistaVision FullHalf 61443072 40962048 10125

The “full” mode reflects the image that was produced when the Kodak scanner ran at its maxi‐
mum resolution (scanning at about 167 pixels per millimeter, or 4233 pixels per inch). Most
people choose to work with resolutions that are less heavy—often exactly half of the full reso‐
lution of which the scanner is capable. Thus, a “half” resolution is also given. More modern
scanners are capable of greater accuracy now and there may be situations where this is called
for. There is, for instance, a visible advantage to scanning at 4 K and then downsampling to 2 K
versus scanning directly at 2 K.

Since the Cineon format is such a predictable, as well as common, method for storing film im‐
ages, we have also given an approximate file size for these scanned images if they are stored as
Cineon files. As mentioned in Appendix B, these estimates will only be accurate for 10-bit, 3-
channel Cineon files or for DPX files using the same storage method.

Digital Cinema Projection

The Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) is a consortium of vendors and studios that was formed to
establish standards for the digital projection of images in theaters. To quote from DCI’s Digital
Cinema System Specification V1.0 about the Digital Cinema Distribution Master (DCDM):

The DCDM shall provide an image structure container that consists of either a 2 K (2048 × 1080)
or 4 K (4096 × 2160) image file ... It is expected that the image structure shall use one of the two
containers such that either the horizontal or vertical resolution is filled. For example, a 4 K im‐
age file with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio would require an image structure of 4096 × 1714, therefore
filling the horizontal resolution of the 4 K container.

Thus for the two most common film release formats (aspect ratios) we would have the resolu‐
tions shown in Table C.4.

Table C.4. Digital Cinema Resolutions

Digital cinema Digital cinema

4K 2K

1.85 3996 × 2160 1998 × 1080

2.35 4096 × 1714 2048 × 858

Video

There is a broad spectrum of technologies that could be grouped into the category of “video”
and new formats are being introduced constantly. Rather than try to chase any of these specifi‐
cally, we’ll confine our discussion to some basic concepts and terms centered around stan‐
dards for broadcast (rather than acquisition) as at least these standards move somewhat less
rapidly.

Broadcast television has effectively transitioned to a pure digital transmission method.

Attempts were made during the development of a worldwide digital television standard (DTV)
to avoid the variety of region-specific formats that existed with analog television (NTSC, PAL,
SECAM) but unfortunately it appears that several different standards have again emerged.
Specifically, there is the ATSC system in the U.S., the DVB system in Europe and the ISDB system
in Japan. Other regions have tended to adopt one of these systems—as of the writing of this
book the majority seem to be leaning towards DVB. And, unlike the relative format stability
that we saw in the past with analog video, these standards are almost certain to evolve much
more quickly. Already there are other formats showing up—for instance, DVB has diverged
into one system for cable transmission and another for terrestrial or satellite broadcast.

And while it would indeed have been nice and elegant if there was a single table of allowable
resolutions available for digital television that could be reproduced in this book, unfortunately
this isn’t the case. Even the standards proposed by organizations like ATSC are not being uni‐
versally adopted by all broadcasters and different standards exist (for instance) between cable
and satellite broadcast, or between production and broadcast formats. Fortunately the basic
resolutions, aspect ratios, and frame rates of these various standards are reasonably conver‐
gent, which is really all most compositors will need to deal with.

Aspect Ratios

In general the aspect ratio for DTV is standardizing around 16:9. This widescreen format is
closer to what is found in theatrical presentation and requires less modification of feature-film
imagery when it is converted for television broadcast. To maintain compatibility with older
material, there are still several formats that feature the 4:3 aspect ratio of analog broadcast
television.

Generally DTV was designed with square pixels in mind—a high definition format at 1920 by
1080 pixels has exactly a 16:9 aspect ratio and a standard definition image of 640 by 480 has
exactly a 4:3 ratio. Some format specifications still require squeezed pixels (for instance, one of
the ATSC standards specifies 704 × 480 with a 10:11 pixel aspect ratio to produce an image that
has a 4:3 aspect ratio) but in practice these are rarely used.

Resolutions

Typical horizontal resolutions are 1920, 1280, 720, 704, and 640. Vertical resolutions range
from 1080 at the high end down to 480 at the low. At this point, the most common DTV resolu‐
tions are: 1920 × 1080, 1280 × 720, 1024 × 576, 768 × 576, 704 × 480, and 640 × 480, using a vari‐
ety of frame rates and interlacing modes.

Interlacing

Interlaced formats are still used with digital television. This is generally done to make the best
use of bandwidth, as interlaced footage can obviously be sent at twice the speed as
progressive.

Frame Rates

The set of possible frame rates remains largely the same as with analog television, although
the list has grown to include the 24 fps from the film world. Thus we have 25 and 30 fps for
progressive formats and 50 and 60 fps for interlaced.

By convention, DTV formats are usually referred to by their vertical resolution, interlacing
mode and (sometimes) frame rate. Thus, 1080i is actually a 1920 × 1080 interlaced image and if
you’re in the U.S. it’s probably running at 30 fps. 720p24 is progressively scanned 1280 × 720
image running at 24 fps.

Of course the technology will continue to evolve, so there will almost certainly be new, higher
resolution formats emerging regularly. As of the writing of this book, NHK Japan has already
proposed (and demonstrated) a standard for Ultra High Definition Video or UHDV which fea‐
tures a resolution of 7680 × 4320 pixels, displayed at a frame rate of 60 fps.

In the meantime, distribution of content will undoubtedly continue to shift away from broad‐
cast or cable towards the more general-purpose capabilities of the Internet. This in turn will al‐
low for a proliferation of new formats, determined only by the limitations of the software used
to encode and decode this data and the bandwidth available to transmit it.