Is 4K really the future? Patrick von Sychowski shines his light on the matter.

http://www.the4kdiaries.com/?p=64

• October 6th, 2010

Today I went to see Patrick von Sychowski, Global Head of Strategy at Reliance Media Works. Patrick is someone I have known the name of for years and I was really thrilled to finally meet him. It was another very interesting discussion, which I suspect may be a theme running through this quest.

Patrick has had a long and varied career in the industry. If you want to know his full history, you can check out his Linkedin profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/patrickvons.

Topic of our discussion was India -- a very interesting territory, because it’s still a growing market for cinema chains and it’s still a fairly under-screened country. But according to Patrick, it would be rather difficult to find a cinema in certain parts of India which is still running traditional film.

India is also a very interesting territory as it was the only one which had E-Cinema before it had D-Cinema, i.e. it had digital projectors before it had 2K. Like many other areas, 3D has taken off in India as well, although it’s still not having a big impact on Bollywood productions.

Patrick is a big fan of 4K technology. In fact, he believes 4K may be the future. This is largely because of Patrick’s knowledge and interest in the post-production side of the industry, where films are shot and scanned in 4K but currently being ‘downgraded’ to 2K, thereby throwing away a whole lot of information. Patrick and Reliance Media Works have been playing with 4K for a while and look forward to experimenting more with it.

I asked Patrick whether my initial thoughts that the 2K vs. 4K question is a bit like the 35mm vs. 70mm effect of the past, and he agreed that it was a good assessment. He did however believe that 4K might become the standard, because it contains more information in the picture.

My final question to Patrick was about the fact many small independent cinemas and film societies, who may only have one screen (or use it part-time), will be thinking about converting to digital and only have one chance to get this right. What advice did he have to them, given that what is already a difficult choice, is potentially being made even more complicated with the arrival of 4K. Patrick’s answer was that the real choice is not so much about whether to go for 2K or 4K, but about what you can do with the new technology. If you go with 2K, you will be absolutely fine for the life of the projector, but if you can get 4K, that’s even better, because of all the reasons mentioned before.

So, I am nearly halfway through my quest, and I have to admit that there have been times where I have been feeling a bit skeptical about the value of 4K and whether it was really worth all the fuss. Having spoken to Patrick, I am feeling quite excited about it, and I’m thinking that I am beginning to understand why it may be of benefit to cinemas and the industry as a whole.

The original interview was 17 minutes long, but I had to cut it down, which is a bit of a shame as it was all really interesting.

The next few days of my quest, you will see me travelling to the USA to talk to a number of industry experts about 4K. Stay tuned!

Peter