This year, HDR or High Dynamic Range has been somewhat the talk of the town related to image format and image quality in cinemas. Given all the attention and buzz of recent months, it’s easy to forget how these kinds of new-technology discussions go through an evolution themselves. Most of us probably still remember the attention for (higher) frame rates that came with the 2016 release of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and even going back to 2011 when James Cameron demonstrated 3D HFR footage. But who still remembers the curve that 3D technology (the days of “full-resolution triple flash”) went through? In this article, we will zoom in on the evolution and state-of-play of another image quality metric: resolution. In what could be called a historic battle between 2K and 4K, resolution has gone through a lifecycle of its own in cinema.
Source: The 4K Revolution: Where did we come from, and where are we going? | Film Journal International