Not that I know a great deal about the subject, but I was under the impression that raw 4k for example already technically surpassed the resolution possible with 35mm film?
Not really. It seems that way because in general, films are scanned at 2k, simply because the norm at the moment is to project at 2k, so there's no need to scan at any higher a resolution.
Kodak claim that they have 6k+ of information available in their negatives - but good luck finding a scanner to scan in that information!
Even at 4k resolution, digital sort of amalgamates all the colour information into that 4k (which is why RED is sometimes criticised for it's less-than-perfect colour reproduction - almost like the tradeoff for getting such high resolution). So that, your 4k (in basic terms) is kinda split up over your red, green and blue channel (ie 1,33k red, 1.33k blue, 1.33k green). Kodak touts the main difference at 4k being that with film, you have 4k raw of the red channel, 4k raw of the blue channel, and 4k raw of the green channel. As well, digital raw has to be compressed in
some way. A lot/most features on RED are shot at between 3:1 and 5:1 compression, which is not heavy compression, but it is compression nonetheless. Film, by it's nature is uncompressed.
Hmm, I'm not sure it was quickly, it took about 15 years from the invention of digital audio for it to surpass analogue. There was the added incentive that CDs could only be copied at a significant loss of quality, so it's take up as a distribution format raced ahead of the ability to actually create digital content. It wasn't really until the 90's that consumer computing power made digital audio available to the masses and from that point it took about a decade to make analogue recording virtually extinct.
You certainly have greater knowledge on the matter than myself, though I tend to classify video tape as a 'digital' medium, even though you might say it's technically analogue. I also tend to classify cassette and 2" tape (in terms of audio) as more in the 'digital' realm than say vinyl, even though it is kinda 'analogue'.
I suppose I look at it in terms of 'anthing that isn't film' - and video tape was essentially the predecessor to 100% digital, and certainly without them we wouldn't be at the same place in terms of the technology as we are today. Cameras shooting video tape were around in the 80s, and only now are we starting to see results even close to that of traditional film. In fact, before the advent of RED (only 5 years ago) the best digital film-making technology we had was Varicam. So in that respect, given say Betacam came along in the early 80's, it's taken nearly 30 years and we're still not quite at the point of equalling film (though we are close).
The other thing to consider is Kodak is constantly trying to improve their film stocks and if they ever get out of financial trouble, I'm sure you'll see new film stocks released, faster film stocks, stocks with higher latitude etc.
AFAIK, there is/as no way to do such a thing with analogue/vinyl records and so there was only a certain point that digital had to reach tbefore it surpassed vinyl.
If you exchange the words "lighting" for "microphones" and "lighting ratios" for "microphone positioning" then you have explained how music used to be recorded. That's before it could all be re-tuned and "fixed in the mix" and when recording engineers were real experts on getting the best performance out of their mic collections and the acoustics of their studios. Change "fix it in the mix" to "fix it in post" and you see where this is going?!
If the history of the music industry is anything to go by, then the future is even worse than you describe! In the music biz people are hiring themselves (or others) at a fraction way, way lower than a 1/5 of what a professional would charge. Furthermore, not only will "passable" image quality become the norm but eventually the definition of "passable" will be lowered (by public consensus and budget demands) to a point much lower than it is today. A sobering thought indeed!!
I think the major difference between audio and film is that with film, unlike audio, you go to a theatre to watch it. It needs to be big and grand and great for the theatre. With audio, it needs to be good enough to stand up on radio, and in $20 headphones on someone's iPod.
On the high end of film, you have professionals who can and will do what they want, work with who they want, and essentially shoot on whatever the hell they want. Hopefully this continues, and we see the continuation of high budget masterpiece movies. If movie theatres die out, then perhaps we'll see the industry head the same way as the audio industry, but I sincerely hope not. I personally like the industry as it is, just if Kodak were selling a little more film. I like having all the great options open to me, whilst still having masters create great pieces of art. Don't change industry!
