Film format equivalent resolutions
Created Thursday 11 April 2019
Explanation:
This chart came from a discussion with some friends in 2016 about how various film formats compare to various video formats. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, to be taken as gospel, especially since things such as film speed (sensitivity) and quality of photographic stock can have effects on the image resolution separately from the frame size. There may well be cases where a particular film might warrant a higher or lower resolution scan than indicated.
Definitions
Gauge - Actual width of the film
Format - Name given to the film format
Pulldown - Direction in which the film moves through the projector
Wid/Hgt - Actual dimensions of an individual frame of the film
FAR - Frame Aspect Ratio - This is the aspect ratio of the project frame not necessarily of the frame on the film. This may differ becasue some formats use aspherical (anamorphic) lenses to compress/decompress the image horizontally.
Xres/Yres - Calculated effective estimated horizontal and vertical resolutions
MPx - Calculated effective estimated resolution in megapixels
Lines - Calculated effective estimated resolution in video lines
k - Calculated effective estimated resolution in k, i.e. horizontal resolution divided by 1024.
Recommendation - suggested resolutions for scanning a film of this type
Gauge Format Pulldown Wid. Hgt. FAR Xres Yres MPx Lines k Recommendation 8mm Straight 8 Vertical 4.88mm 3.68mm 1.33 522 394 0.2 394 0.5 360p 8 Super 8 Vertical 6.22 4.22 1.47 666 452 0.3 452 0.6 480p 8 Panoramic 8 Horizontal 7.50 5.00 1.50 803 535 0.4 535 0.8 540p or 576p 16 16mm Vertical 10.26 7.49 1.37 1098 801 0.9 801 1.1 720p 35 Widescreen Vertical 21.95 9.47 2.32 2354 1013 2.4 1013 2.3 1080p or 2k 35 Techniscope Vertical 22.00 9.47 2.32 2354 1013 2.4 1013 2.3 1080p or 2k 35 Super 35 Vertical 24.00 10.00 2.40 2568 1070 2.7 1070 2.5 1080p or 2k 35 Academy Vertical 22.00 16.00 1.38 2354 1712 4.0 1712 2.3 1080p, 2k or 4k 35 Cinemascope Vertical 21.95 18.60 1.18 2349 1990 4.7 1990 2.3 4k 35 Vistavision Horizontal 37.72 24.92 1.51 4036 2666 10.8 2666 3.9 4k 70 Todd-AO Vertical 48.56 22.10 2.20 5196 2365 12.3 2365 5.1 4k 65 Iverksphere Vertical 51.59 37.69 1.37 5520 4033 22.3 4033 5.4 4k 70 IMAX Horizontal 70.41 52.63 1.34 7534 5631 42.4 5631 7.4 8k