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Lack of Digital Screens for Attack of the Clones
spt writes: "CNN Entertainment has an article describing Lucas Arts' disappointment at the lack of digital screens available for Attack of the Clones. When the Phantom Menace was released, they were hoping that, by May 2002, there would be 2000 digital screens. That estimate dropped to 'several hundred', but the reality is that now there are only 20 digital screen in the U.S.
Who has been lucky enough to see a digitally produced film in one of these 20? Is there enough of a benefit to think that more screens will be converted to digital projection?"
is there a list of these theaters? I know there won't be one near me anytime soon.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
i dont understand what this digital screen is, but when it comes down to it unless its a full lcd there will always been a dac somewhere, i mean let face it in the theater, the biggest problem is the loss of quality whehn the light hits the air, full of dust, and popcorn. perhaps im wrong, any ideas?
... the days of ANALOG FILM ? (Although ironically, it really isn't analog)
What is the advantage to watching a movie on a digital screen when obviously at some point it was converted from analog? Was the whole movie shot with digital film? I think that would be overwhelmingly expensive. If this is the case, I would think that the analog presentations would be higher quality because they wouldn't have to go through the analog -> digital conversion (kinda like the superiority of LP's over CD's).
The future isn't what it used to be.
If the movie's quality is anywhere near Episode I, no kind of screen is going to save it. In that case I'm just going to rent the VHS tape when it comes out.
I know there are advantages for the film producer in doing all digital. Editing, and special effects are easier in an all digital medium.
Digital may also (theoretically) solve distribution problems, allowing them to download the films to the theaters, rather than shipping the physical films around.
But, what is the benefit to the theater or the viewer?
I believe that Lucas is doing Star Wars in 1080p24 (1080 lines, progressive scanned at 24 frames per second). A good 35mm film will offer much better resolution than that.
Wouldn't a better option for quality be 70mm, like Imax uses. Or, even cranking up the frame rate.. how about a 60fps film. The motion blur at 24fps is horrible.
Do I want Lucas to delay the release, or get it over with quickly so he can hurry up and put the series out of its' misery?
The advantage of digital for the studios is that it's cheaper. Films open far wider now than they ever used to, and play for shorter periods of time, and all those prints cost more money for the studio and eat into their profits. It doesn't matter that DLP projectors only have 1280x1024 resolution (at least the ones that theaters use), they save them money in the long run, so the studios love them.
Roger Ebert has written about this and has a great column about a new film technology that shoots at 48 fps instead of 24 fps, makes all motion look much more fluid, prevents annoying film artifacts you'll see, and is acually an improvement over current 35mm film, instead of a downgrade like digital is.
For people wondering, Lucas shot Episode II using special new Sony HD Cameras that shoot at 1080p, 24 fps, and use Panavision lenses. They are incredibly nice, the best DV cameras out there, but don't have the resolution that film does no matter how advanced they are. The DVD transfers should look totally incredible, though. However, does anyone care if the movie sucks as bad as Episode 1, and so far the trailers don't give me much hope.
IIRC, the overwhelming benefit of digital was to speed up the production/editing process, such that the innumerable FX shots could be more easily incorporated into the shooting footage. That is, the filmmakers would save a step by having digital image data as soon as it was shot, as opposed to having to scan the developed film in order to manipulate the images. Digital projection of the completed film, as far as I understood, was just gravy on top of that.
Assuming crap like AotC doesn't destroy the industry first...
I once heard that Apple was going to get in the game of providing this kind of display technology. Apparently thev've not only been working on good computer displays but they have some R&D in to other areas of this field as well. Perhaps it will take a big multimedia technology giant like Apple to get in the game.
John
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Well, I for one don't care about the quality of the movie. I'm a Star Wars fan, and like many Star Wars fans before me and the many that will come after me, I just want to see what hare-brained scheme Lucas has come up with to sell more merchandise. I own three full copies of the Star Wars Trilogy (the original trilogy box set, the Special Edition and the re-release of the special edition) as well as two out of the three movies from the THX Enhanced version. I also was among the many people that pre-ordered my copy of Episode I when it came out on VHS. It doesn't matter what quality or theatre it comes out in, I'll go to see the movie. Saint John, New Brunswick, where I live, is known across Canada by theatre executives as having the worst cinema in the country. Even if they were to put it on a screen in that theatre I would still go to see the movie several times. It's just the way a Star Wars fan thinks.
In order to be immortal you must be organize
Who the hell are you people? You have no idea what your talking about and are rambling on about bs. It's DIGITAL PROJECTION.....As in DIGITAL PROJECTORS Einstiens. The projectors cost quite a bit of money and although they are coming along, it's really labor and knowledge intensive to have a skilled operator load the movies via DVD's or Mammoth tapes. The only cool thing about Digital Cinema is that you don't get the degeneration between showings from moron teenage projectionists getting thier grimmey hands all over the prints.
One the whole Lucas thing....I have heard that for being in HD video it looks really good. However I don't think that it'll make a difference if it's printed to film or not. The Digital Cinema version is supposed to look like a first showing of a film print anyways.
It'll be crap...
It's got Jar Jar in it!
LUCAS: Digital is cool. I'm cool. I'm old, but I can still set a trend.
STAR WARS FANS: Speak to us your words of wisdom, oh wise one!
Lucas: Um, okay, I guess I don't do anything else. Hmmm...
Lucas: <Intense thinking>
Lucas: I have it! I will produce AOTC digitally and it will be shown on digital screens around the country... I am a visionary; I will be worshipped like a god!
Star Wars Fans: <Proceed to worship Lucas like a god>
Lucas: Muhahah! My plan is complete!
BYSTANDER: But don't digital screens cost money? Who's going to pay for it?
Lucas: If I produce it, they will pay.
Star Wars Fans: If he produces it, we will pay.
Bystander: No, I meant who will pay for the digital projection equipment and the like...
Lucas: <Shock flashes across his face>
Lucas: They shall not have AOTC without installing a digital projection system! I command it.
Bystander: Say, how many more days until the next installment of LOTR?
They are not that hard to work with or install; and in many cases, plug right into the existing setups. It's a linux based computer running movies from fibre based harddrives. The movies are loaded from a highly encrypted (sic!) dvd disk. The image is then sent via the same projector lens (with a modification) out to the same silver screen we are all used to.
The only drawback is the cost of the setup which is one of the reasons there are not more screens.
Anyway, this situation will be a money-making bonanza for Lucas. They can re-release the film to theaters after a few years, this time in "full digital glory" and with 3 more minutes of previously cut scenes. All of the usual geeks will show up and shell their money out once again (OTOH, if it sucks as much as episode 1, maybe not).
I am glad Lucas sounds more concerned about special effects and computer generated characters/movies once again instead of the good old fasioned qualities that make great movies...
Somebody tell George if you clone crap its still crap - even if you do show it on a digital screen.
...the reason why Phantom Menace sucked so much was because I didn't see it on a digital screen??
Silly me... I thought it was because of that Jar Jar thing! I should have known better.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
I think you'd be surprised at an audience's reaction to a higher frame rate. People have come to enjoy the soothing clunkiness of 24fps, even though the motion blur can sometimes be disorienting. Even watching TV, I notice a significant difference between 30fps shows and converted 24fps movies, that can't be attributed entirely to the superior image quality.
But hey, that's just me. The important thing to remember is that the theatre industry should be thinking about what distinguishes them from the TV-become-Home-Theatre. I recently installed a 1080 line rear-projection screen in my living room, and though the quality isn't quite perfect (it'd be better if they had HDTV DVDs), the screen size and shape make watching movies at home into a totally different experience. I can't imagine that theatres have anything to gain by moving closer to the experience that people can have in their homes.
Irvine, CA... the Edwards 22 at the Irvine Spectrum. I saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for the first time there. I can't think of a better movie to see digitally... it was absolutely gorgeous. I saw the movie again (at the same theater, different screen) non-digitally a week or so later. It just wasn't the same! The clean, stable, incredibly fluid (almost as if it were >30fps... is it?) motion of the digital version really gave it a nice touch. There were no random sound pops or hissing going on. I would love to see more of these theaters, and I know where to go when Episode II comes out...
Saw Monsters Inc. when it came out in digital format here in Toronto at the Paramount Famous Players theater.
It was nice and clear, but far too low res. It's jarring to see pixels when you are watching a movie. The big screen probably didn't help much.
I found it hard to decide if it was an improvement or not. On one hand, it was much clearer (crips edges, no blurring), and cleaner (lacking the scratching and noise that is inevitable on film), but on the other, seeing pixels like that was odd.
I think overall I liked it, but I'd like to see an improvement in the resolution of the tech.
The Edward's Theatre at the Irvine Rectum^H^H^H^H^H^HSpectrum (rumored to be the largest grossing theatre in the US, even though Edward's is currently attempting to claw their way out of Chapter 11) has at least one digital projector. Saw Atlantis and Final Fantasy there....so I do know they exist.
The good: Clear picture.
The bad: I saw one animated movie and one all-cgi movie. Without seeing them on a traditional projector, how would I know the difference? There was still the dust problem (air or lens), although it did look to be a lot cleaner overall.
A few points worth noting: I saw part of the phantom menace on one of those wide-screen hdtv's. Picture was so clear that it made the film's effects look even less realistic. Anyone who's gone out to see Beauty & The Beast at any of the IMAX theatres may have noticed that thanks to it being increased to "Dear god, look at the size of that nutcracker!" size made it much more apparent that the people coloring the cells didn't get quite as close to the outlines as you might expect. Thus, technology increases typically work best when everything is aiming at the same target.
Additionally, I'm not a believer that FPS needs to be increased much more than it is. Yes, you could make conventional projectors churn out film faster, although you'd need to increase the size of the platters, adjust the timing of the reels, etc. You'd probably not have a lot of reason just to convert an existing projector, you'd want to get a new one...and if you're getting a new projector, you might as well get a digital one if you get the benefits of the [easier, more durable] distribution medium, clearer picture, etc. Besides, there comes a physiological limit to the amount of information the eye can process at once. 30fps is plenty for me, and I can't really distinguish a difference between 30 and 60. Same reason why I think 96khz cd's are ridiculous. I can't hear outside of a certain range, who cares if it can faithfully record it?
I think digital projection will catch on, not because of features the audience would notice, but because of things that will make distribution easier. People seem to go to the movies no matter how badly they're made, how uncomfortable the seats, how high the ticket prices...so getting stuff done for the sake of the audience doesn't really seem like a big motivating factor for the industry.
-transiit
When Ep I came out, a few friends and I drove an hour to Burbank to see it in a digital theatre, and the difference was noticeable.
They were using an experimental projection system that LucasFilm had rented/licensed/something from Texas Instruments, using projected light onto lots of tiny shifting mirrors to vary the color on the screen.
The picture was crisp. It wasn't quite as crisp as Kenneth Brannaugh's Hamlet, which was filmed on 70mm film, but it was crisper than any of the other places I saw the film- which was at least three other theatres.
The movie seemed deeper: the things that were far awy seemed far away, and I can't put my finger on why. The huge "chasm for no reason other than to have a cool battle sequence" room seemed immense, and this was the smallest theatre I saw the movie in.
But most noticable was the color, which was simply amazing. Amidala's red dresses were RED, and they were a different red than each other. The swamps of Naboo were GREEN, and they were a totally different green than the fields. Everything was more distinct, everything was better distinguished, and everything simply looked nicer.
Now, you might be able to convince me that the better picture et all were due to the TI projector, but it was described as a "digital projector" and the film as a "digital file on disc"...
- The Amazina Llama
I saw Toy Story 2 in an AMC theater in Burbank with a digital display. The clarity is phenominal - it's not necessarily something you can put your finger on (although there are no hairs or specks of dust) but it just LOOKS BETTER.
-Berj
Episode II looks like it will have one redeming quality. Laughs, lots and lots of unintentional laughs. The impression I got from the trailers was that it was going to where no star *wars* movie had gone before. Lucas may as well call it Return of the Alien From L.A. Now if only there was a Kathy Ireland cameo, it might just be perfect.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I was lucky enough to live within driving distance (2 hours was worth it) of 2 of the 4 theaters that showed Episode 1 in digital. This was the first movie ever to be publicly shown on a digital projector. I wasn't sure what to expect, since it was fairly new technology, and I knew it was just a digital version of a movie shot on film. The projector I saw it on was made by Texas Instuments. I have to say, the image quality was SUPERB. The theater was also a much larger screen than normal, but clarity was still markedly better. Two things that instantly stood out to me after watching:
- MUCH better clarity for CG stuff (ideal in this movie) Lightsaber motion was so much more impressive, as well as all the moving CG objects
-Unlimited showings... film wears out and gets spotty. There were no spots or smudges anywhere, and it won't deteriorate like movie reels.
-A movie shot in digital and shown in digital could display a higher frame rate than normal film.
Now, I can only imagine how good a movie shot in digital would look on a digital projector. I know if it's within 2 hours driving distance, I'll definitely make a trip, and I suggest that anyone who has any interest at all do so as well.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
George Lucas presents Attack of the Clones, direct to video?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
AMC 1000 in San Francisco at 1000 Van Ness (on the corner of Van Ness and O'Farell). I saw Toy Story 2 there in the one digital projection theater in that multiplex, it was pretty sweet, considering this was several years ago when Toy Story 2 debuted. Anyway, it was very clear and crisp, and NO ARTIFACTS like film scratches or blots on the frames. It did not have any of the usual mpeg artifacts, and least not ones that jump out at you. I suggest those in the SF bay area check that theater when AoC comes out.
Imagine a Buewolf cluster of these.....
Really imagine having a buch of digital projectors put together to have an imax effect.
does anyone know if this is being done?
If you compare DLP (which they use for projection) to 35mm, the 35mm print will have greater fine detail, better shadow detail, and look far better overall. The only real advantage digital offers is that the print won't get worse over time, but how long are prints in the theater for now anyway? A month?
The advantage of digital for the studios is that it's cheaper. Films open far wider now than they ever used to, and play for shorter periods of time, and all those prints cost more money for the studio and eat into their profits. It doesn't matter that DLP projectors only have 1280x1024 resolution (at least the ones that theaters use), they save them money in the long run, so the studios love them.
Roger Ebert has written about this and has a great column about a new film technology that shoots at 48 fps instead of 24 fps, makes all motion look much more fluid, prevents annoying film artifacts you'll see, and is acually an improvement over current 35mm film, instead of a downgrade like digital is.
For people wondering, Lucas shot Episode II using special new Sony HD Cameras that shoot at 1080p, 24 fps, and use Panavision lenses. They are incredibly nice, the best DV cameras out there, but don't have the resolution that film does no matter how advanced they are. The DVD transfers should look totally incredible, though. However, does anyone care if the movie sucks as bad as Episode 1, and so far the trailers don't give me much hope
I saw Akira in a theater with a digital projector when it was re-released in the US. The difference was notable, mostly in that the image wasn't as blurry as it normally is with a normal projector. One of the problems with it was that I could see some of the artifacts from the digital encoding process. This was especially true in some of the fast motion explosion scenes.
The model you have described fits IBM better than Apple. Although, instead of serving just 3 cinemas, an IBM projector's light output could be multiplexed to an entire city's worth of cinema complexes.
Apple's projectors would be small and covered in a weird squishy (but high friction) plastic coating (choice of 5 colours/flavours). They wouldn't have the standard mounting point for 35mm film, but they would come equipped with a 10/100 MFPS EtherFilm card. It would most likely be named the iProj.
Since this is in the star wars heading it must be on topic:
Is there anyone even vaguely excited to see this movie? I'll see it out of duty and all, but I'm looking forward to SpiderMan more than I'm looking forward to Ep2, and I camped over night to see the first one.
When I read two years ago that Lucas was going all digital for Clones, I thought he should put down the crack pipe. I'm now more convinced than ever.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
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About your comment of not being able to notice an increase from 30fps to 60fps, are you serious? Do you play games or anything?
Not trying to get down on you or start one of those "what can the human eye see" deals, but surely you can't think 60fps wouldn't make things look MUCH smoother!
Hell, after being used to my monitor, I can see bright areas on movie screens flickering... ugh.
I saw the Final Fantasy movie in Dallas. It was pretty good. But who the hell worries about supreme visual quality in movies? It's the story that matters! All this shit is just another excue to write bad movies (cf Final Fantasy).
I've been living in London for the past year and just Monsters, Inc (which just came out here) on a DLP projector at Odeon's Leicester Square theatre.
The main difference is that the picture doesn't jump around. If you watch a normal film with something like a still title on the screen, you'll easily notice a little 'jitter'. With the DLP there was no jitter.
For those saying DLP sucks because it's only 1280x1024 or 1080p (which I'm not sure of...), you really should watch a film with DLP. I didn't notice any jaggies and this was on a *huge* screen. The picture definitely looks very crisp and bright. There weren't any side-effects of DLP that distracted me from the film and, I'd say, the lack of jitter is an improvement.
Keep in mind that the Odeon Leicester Sq is advertised as Europe's biggest cinema and it seems like nearly all the European openings (the star-studded events) are held there.... so they may have a higher-res DLP than most.
1280x1024 on a movie sized screen! I've seen it on several occasions, and let me tell you, the pixels are huge. It's ugly. If you've seen digital projection, you're not "lucky".
The resolution of digital projection must be improved if it is to be taken seriously. 1280x1024 doesn't cut it. There are rumors that TI might finally inch their way up to full HDTV resolution (1920x1080) by the time Ep. II premeires, but even that isn't good enough.
Movie special effects are always done at at least 2K resolution, sometimes 4K. There was an article linked from here not too long ago which quoted some people who were working on FX for LOTR that some of their shots were done at 4K resolution. What good is that if movies are going to be projected at a puny resolution of 1280x1024?
Fortunately, there are more technologies on the horizon besides DLP. JVC's D-ILA is already at 2K resolution, and may reach 4K before too long. Sony is working on laser projection which should also be able to reach 4K.
The bottom line is -- don't be in a hurry! They should take the time to do things right, and make sure theaters are not stuck with equipment that is obsolete overnight. It's a good thing that there are currently only 20 digital screens in the US. The technology needs more time to mature first!
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The article doesn't try to explain the benefits, if any, of digital projection. Are they claiming to achieve higher resolution than 35mm film? 70mm film has already been tried, and mostly abandoned. It provides too much resolution. I had the pleasure of seeing one of the '2001' films in a small screening room equipped with 70mm. You could see the brushstrokes on the cabinetwork of all the "futuristic plastic" spaceship interiors. 35mm is a better match for standard sets, costumes and makeup.
When the CD came out, it offered much better audio quality than the average analog media. But since then, there's more focus on compression and squeezing maximum efficiency out of digital media (since consumers don't seem to notice quality.) Hence, DVDs which don't even look as good as 1/4" videotape from the 80's, small-dish satellite TV which has horrible motion artifacts and digital cell phones. I'm not sure how many people are still gullible enough to think that "digital" is automatically better than "analog". It's entirely a question of resource allocation. Given adequate bandwidth or storage, and therefore the luxury of high-bitrate, high-dynamic range linear encoding, digital can generally outperform analog. But more typically today digital media are used to fine tune the level of crap which consumers will accept. Of course the popularity of MP3's is sending a clear message to the music industry that CD's are much too high quality for our taste.
Anyway, the main driver I can see for digital movie theaters is the ability to fire the projectionists, get rid of some moving parts, and exert much tighter central control over playback. I don't think they have much interest in offering higher performance. Ultimately you would pay $12 to watch an enlarged version of the HDTV in your house playing material that's not yet cleared for home viewing.
i thought this technology was pretty standardized....then again, i live in the rich suburb of dallas, home of TI, maker of the DLP. we've had a DLP projector at the major megaplex, aka cinemark @ legacy. nifty place, 7 bucks for the standard adult ticket, 5.50 for student/senior.
so far i've seen star wars:TPM, monsters inc., final fantasy, 13 ghosts (scary as fuck, man), and probably a bunch of others. if you're looking for a movie that's digital, it's playing in theater 12.
more handy info can be found (including locations) @ fandango.com
i, for one, will be one of the first geeks to see star wars:AOTC in it's full digital beauty first showing on opening day.
moox. for a new generation.
Sorry about the AC, but I'm an employee...
:(
Boeing Digital Cinema, part of Boeing Space and Communications (formerly Hughes Aerospace) is already distributing movies (masterpieces such as "Spy Kids") digitally. They estimate it would cost 4 Billion dollars to retrofit the USA's 30,000 movie screens. Neat tech, doesn't change the fact that I'm getting laid off, tho.
If you want to see it in (near) perfect digital quality just buy it on DVD and play it on your computer. Nuf said.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
Great you can hear it fine, your cat (or dog) however has been putting up with the 44khz for years and any day now they're going to get even.
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bsds are of course just BSD
Obviously he's too lazy to shoot onto real film (if he wanted quality he'd use 70mm). So rather than Lucas conforming to the current standards he gets the cinemas to conform to his.
How does Bill gates change a light bulb?
Yes? I though so.
I've got a digital screen.. it's a modified overhead projector using an LCD projection panel. Parts from Ebay. Good stuff. Does 1024x768 and it cost $300 total and no expensive bulbs to replace every 2000 hours. Of course it only works well in a darkened room, but hey.. that's what movie watching's all about. (..or getting sick playing Descent3) (-:
Being a film maker of no repute, I shall attempt to address this. I can't answer EVERYTHING, but I can address some of the biggies.
First off the cameras Lucas is using shoot with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels at 24 frames progressive. The format they use is Sony's own HDCAM. This is a compressed digital format. It is not however DV, which refers to a particular codec used most often for standard definition production at 25Mbps. Panasonic has a format called DVCPRO HD which uses the same codec at a 100Mbps profile. HDCAM is about 145Mbps.
Confusingly, many people for some reason think DV also means "Digital Video." This is probably because it does. Mostly video people say digital video and save DV for the codec. I tend to say DV25 or whatever when I am talking codecs, or say MiniDV when talking format...damnable words.
SO, back to HD...There is a huge lossy compression that happens before we can even examine the image. If the image is captured directly to a D-5HD recorder (not to be confused with D-5 which is an SD video format.) from the camera without going to tape, you get a much better product. Lucas has done this for at least some scenes.
What about the notion that 35mm offers more resolution ? It depends. Are you talking about acquisition or projection ? You'll be surprised that while 35mm has a resoltuion advantage, it is not the primary thing that you'll notice when looking at the projected images. Mostly I feel that color generated by these cameras as recorde on tape isn't smooth enough.
For projection HD video projectors using DLP at 1920x1080 are available, and they produce a STUNNING image. I saw one Jan 2001 at NIST's Digital Cinema conference. I couldn't bear watching 35mm projection with my friends later on after the conference. Why ?
Well, first off there is not gate weave or jitter. Images are very solid and clear when they are supposed to be. Better than even the best theatres with union projectionists. (not a lot of those left..Mann's in LA, Uptown in DC, I dunno any more.) What I am talking about is the way film moves. Being a mechanical system there are limits to its operational precision. You get inaccuracies in vertical and horizontal positioning, as well as movement towards or away from the lens, and the lamp. Then there are the subtle deformations of the film itself. This is all well controlled actually, especially when you consider that a 35mm picture is being made into a 70 foot or more picture on projection.
Well, none of that exists for the digital projector.
The color gamut available surpasses that of 35mm film. Most of what I saw was film acquired, which was stunning enough. The digitally generated stuff, Toy Story 2, well...it NEVER looked that good before. Colors literally leap off the screen. It is a cinematographers dream. ( I know cause I dream about having my images projected on that thing...drool drool)
Make no mistake, digital projection is THE future of theatrical exhibition. Even Vittorio Storaro has come out in favor of it. (Storaro is a very highly regarded cinematographer, perhaps the best ever. Check out an interview with him about digital cinema.)
Now, on acquisition 35mm is certainly superior. Not because of format limits...Uncompressed HD is very nice and can compete with 35mm, but rather because of the limitations of current camera design, mostly the CCD's. Still they provide a very good image.
Frankly I am amazed that the film look as good as it does after seeing the previews. A quick look at the previews shows that while the image has flaws, it is quite frankly very very good.
Now when evaluating the technology you have to consider HOW the image reaches the final consumer. For a movie like Star Wars, or FoTR the 35mm camera image is scanned into the systems at ILM or wherever using a laser film scanner, then digital effects, manipulation and elements are all added. Then it is ouput to film, pre composited, via a laser film "printer."
What this means is that the limiting image resolution is set at digitization. This hardly affects most films, but for a Star Wars film, where virtually every scene, if not every frame, contains digital composites, the entire film is produced digitally even if you shoot with film!
For more discussion, argument and general confusion check out the archives of discussions on alt.movies.cinematography, search for "HD film" and you should be overwhelmed.
I hope that has been entertaining if not useful.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
Many people don't find digital better for movies. Keep in mind that movies are trying to provide the illusion of motion. Their success depends on taking advantage of certain properties of the human visual system. At least some people feel that the analog projectors are better at this.
Filmakers' have traditionally lamented that the film that they finish cutting is NEVER the film that the audience gets to see. The reason? Multiple layers of copies that need to be struck before you get to the release prints.
The quality of one wet-gate interpositve to internegative is quite good, but you do that a couple of times at high speed, and there is significant quality loss (no lenses used when copying folks.) By the time you get to the release print, which is struck from the final internegative, you're lucky to get 2k of the original 4-8k worth of information. Think of it as photocopying a photocopy - several times.
Add that grainy, blurry, off-color print, to the crap that it will go through during the first couple of days of release (burn, splice, scratch, dust), and by the time that you and I go to watch it, it's nowhere near what the editor handed off to the director. Of course, if you go to a crappy theatre, with a crappy projector, with a dirty projector window and a crappy screen... jeez, you might as well wait for the DVD.
As a rule I prefer 70mm prints to 35mm, just cause there's less degradation, I prefer better theatres to crappy multiplexes, because they usually get the better prints.
Now, you ask, what's so hot about digital? I mean, even with a bad print you get better resolution than the current tech, right? Not quite. Even though the max resolution of the current projectors can't match the theoretical resolution of 35mm film, the digital stuff is either cine-scanned or telecined from an early inter-positive, and cleaned up (dust removal, etc.) As a result, even if the final resolution is less, you get pretty much what you'd see what the director sees, and that's what Lucas and a whole lot of other filmmakers are so hot about.
And yes, the projections they use are LCD or DLP, so the projections are digital.
However, I must warn you. It's weird going to a theatre looking at a bright picture that seems like it's playing straight off a HD DVD. No scratches or blotches. No jitter. Very little grain (for daylight shots). It's like sitting in your living room watching a super-big TV. Eerie.
if i could go to a movie theater and see a movie in _reasonable_ quality, i'd be a really happy camper. forget about digital. its a pipe dream for crack smokers.
ive attempted to see 2 movies in the last month.
blackhawk down: the screen was almost as big as my 53"... the aspect ratio somehow was all screwed up. everybody was really tall, and thin. did wonders for my self esteem. but if all i wanted to see was the vertical middle 60% of the film, put up with what my girlfriend called shooting stars (nice green streaks, continously streaking across the screen) and the sticky floor, the talking, the spring shooting up my ass, i might have had a good time. we walked out 2 mins into the film. refund city.
fellowship of the rings: bad picture quality (blurry, some streaks), ok sound, better theatre (it was clean). it was also 12am, so very few people were there. if i hadnt really wanted to see it i would have dusted off.
if they wanted to get me into the theatre to buy their $10 popcorn and $7.50 soda, they need to let me in free -or- provide a quality product. then i might buy their stale popcorn and watered down soda from someone who has no interest in making my day pleasent or even tolerable.
for now ill wait for vhs and/or dvd. at least the ups guy says hi and thanks. pop up some butter lovers, smoke a cig and hit play. then when i hear "baby i gotta pee" i can hit pause and check cnn.
i learned my lesson. going to the movies is dead.
dead dead.
and not a moment too soon.
I have seen quite a few digitally projected films with both major projection systems over the years at the local AMC including Toy Story 2, Tarzan, Star Wars I, Monsters Inc, and others.
The absence of scratches are immediately apparent from the second the films begins. They are so jarringly clean that it takes a couple seconds to get used to it. Tarzan in particular was amazing, like looking into an animated window.
In fact, the most distracting thing about the digital experience has been the annoying FILM GRAIN in Star Wars. Well, of course, there was the crappiness of the movie itself, which was worse, but anyway...
Yes, you can make out the regularly-shaped square pixels in digital projection, but only if you look for it, and only when there is a high-contrast between bright and dark areas, such as when titles are superimposed over a black background. These pixels at least are regularly spaced and steady, as opposed to the jittery "dance" of film grain, which is omnipresent in film. Once I went from a clean screening of Toy Story 2 to another viewing of it on film, the grain really bothered me.
Aside from that, I found the colors to be brighter and more vivid than film with deep blacks and bright whites and shades of orange and blue that I just hadn't seen projected before. And there is no distracting 24 fps flicker-- it's hard to explain, but it's something like the difference between watching a flickering CRT vs. the steady image of an LCD.
The only real advantage digital offers is that the print won't get worse over time, but how long are prints in the theater for now anyway? A month?
Well first off, in major cities that may be true. However, from what I understand, the 2nd run cities and smaller towns get the prints after they've run through the projector dozens of times.
Face it, film breaks, film is scratched. Film must be spliced together when it breaks. Film goes out of sync...
Resolution-wise it's difficult to measure film grain count vs. pixel count because video offers anti-aliasing and other tricks to improve the image.
The advantage of digital for the studios is that it's cheaper. Films open far wider now than they ever used to, and play for shorter periods of time, and all those prints cost more money for the studio and eat into their profits. It doesn't matter that DLP projectors only have 1280x1024 resolution (at least the ones that theaters use), they save them money in the long run, so the studios love them.
It's not just the prints-- movies shot on high-end (Lucas-level) video are (in theory) much cheaper than film. Every bad shot in film is wasted negative. Tape stock is relatively cheap in comparison.
You save money on raw film stock. You save money on processing. You save money on creating workprint and answer prints when color-balancing (timing) the film. Then, yeah, you save money on the final prints, you save money on postage having to to distribute heavy cases of film to all your exhibitors. You don't have to worry about film jamming in the gate of your camera or breaking in the lab...
Editing-wise, digital video is far simpler. No keycode to link to timecode (if you've ever had to deal with 3-2 pulldown or audio sync issues when editing film on video or a non-linear editor, you'll know what I'm talking about) No 24/30 fps conversions. Color correction and effects can be easily added in the original medium without losing quality. No need to worry about costly optical effects or negative duping if you wanna use a shot more than once.
And of course, the quality of the original image is the same quality of what you see on the screen, no matter how many times the image is composited, manipulated, copied, re-edited, etc. With film, you are guaranteed to be seeing at least a third generation copy of the negative. (it goes from the negative to an internegative to a print... and that's without any optical effects added, which may require more losses in generations)
For an independent filmmaker, the costs of shooting on film can be prohibitive. As video gets cheaper and better, there's no denying its appeal to lower budget projects.
Roger Ebert has written about this and has a great column about a new film technology that shoots at 48 fps instead of 24 fps, makes all motion look much more fluid, prevents annoying film artifacts you'll see, and is acually an improvement over current 35mm film, instead of a downgrade like digital is.
Ebert's been pushing that 48 fps film for years now. 48 fps means the film is running through the camera/projector twice as fast. If the image size is the same, that means you're burning film twice as fast, which means your film costs are twice as high.
I've heard that it's cool, but because of the expense (and the fact that it's still a physical, mechanical technology) I just don't see that ever being anything more than a novelty.
For people wondering, Lucas shot Episode II using special new Sony HD Cameras that shoot at 1080p, 24 fps, and use Panavision lenses. They are incredibly nice, the best DV cameras out there, but don't have the resolution that film does no matter how advanced they are.
Like I said, it's sort of comparing apples and oranges. From my totally subjective point of view, the digitally projected Toy Story 2 was VASTLY superior in terms of color, clarity, and overall image quality to the film version.
I think stuff like CGI films that went straight from the computer to digital projection have been the best of what I've seen so far. Because, yeah, I'll admit it-- film does have a certain quality that as yet digital projection hasn't really captured. Kind of a surreal, magical, hard-to-describe look. And you can do a lot of cool shit chemically with film.
But DV has its own qualities that are waiting to be explored. And I really think thatit's not gonna be too much long before they get the video to look and act like film. Most of the video we see looks crappy because it's shot like it's on video. But I think that cinematographers have a whole new world to explore because believe it or not, you can actually light a DV project WELL if you want to.
For those of you interested in checking out a "film" shot on 24P DV, USA Films released a movie not too long ago called Session 9 with David Caruso (yeah, yeah. I know). I haven't seen it on DVD yet (saw a 35mm transfer), but it's among the very first films out using super-high end video acquisition. If you can't wait until Star Wars and wanna see some 24p stuff, check it out. You may change your mind about what's around the corner.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I feel that there are some things best left to the traditional method. At least until the new technology's advantage exceeds that of the traditional medium.
As a hobby, I shoot stop motion clay animation. (My wife makes the figures, I shoot them.) We started out using Hi-8 video. That sucked, so we tried DV. A bit better, and non-linear editing was wonderful. Then for the fun of it, we tried Single-8. (That's 8mm FILM, not video. Yes, those old cameras. They still make film for these beasts!) Guess what? There's not a chance in hell we'll return to DV! Colors, shadows, depth, it can't be rivaled.
Recently we've been contemplating a new method, although the cost is a bit ridiculous, and the need is non-existent. We want to try 35mm. However, we don't have a 35mm camera, not to mention we can't even afford to do things in 16mm. The idea, however, was to use an EOS 1D (Canon's professional digital camera) to shoot all the frames, perform non-linear editing, special effects, and have it printed to 35mm film. My guess is that it will kick butt compared to any HDTV or DV format, while costing much less than shooting and editing with 16mm. Of course, this could only be accomplished because we are using stop-motion, but it's still a cool idea.
So... could someone tell me exactly WHY a digital "film" would be better, as far as the viewer is concerned?
1280x1024 doesn't sound at all like the aspect ratio of wide screen theatre movies.
Are the pixels not square, or are this not the right numbers?
two clicks away...
First off most NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) members will admit if pressed that they are not in the movie business at all, it is incidental.
They are in the concessions business. They sell sugared water with carbonation, and exploded corn kernels with butter flavored oil.
Nonetheless there are very strong economic reasons to use digital projection. For one it allows a theatre owner to be far more flexible in what they show and how many screens they show a film on. They can dynamically allocate theaters to meet demand in a digital world.
The DLP projectors are designed to be more reliable than film projectors, and to have fewer operator adjustments. They look better for longer without intervention. There are no prints to manage logistics for and to deal with shipping. etc etc.
OH, yeah, they LOOK BETTER to boot. Once you see one, that may be the end of your film projection days.
NATO members are very eager to get these advantages.
However as you can imagine the candy and soda business can't afford to bear wasted overhead. They can't invest in a DLP system on a fiber network to a, exabyte server room and have it be supplanted quickly.
What NATO members are waiting for is two things:
The technology to settle down
Standards to emerge and stabilize
Once these things are in place, there will be a RACE to get DLP projectors out to your local multiplex.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
As soon as digital theaters get big, home digital theaters using the same technology will get big, and pirated perfect digital movie-theater resolution copies of these flicks will be pressed and distributed like Thin Mints.
--Blair
... wanna buy that too?
The economic benefits of digital projection go almost totally to the studios -- no prints to distribute. But the theater chains are expected to bear the cost of new equipment. Given that they are hurting right now, due to a glut of screens, this is not likely.
Anyway, film is still better than digital -- in resolution, and more importantly, in color and contrast ranges. Its response to light is not just greater, it's totally different (logarithmic rather than linear; there is no clipping). Digital may catch up eventually, but not soon. Unfortunately, if the industry can shaft us with inferior imaging technology, they will.
Digital Film has a much higher resolution than Digital Video. Digital Film tends to be projected at 1280 x 1024 - digital video has a much lower resolution.
Actually, I saw my first digitally projected film on Wednesday night - Monsters Inc at the Liecester Square Odeon, and I was very impressed by the quality - it was much crisper than I've ever seen with film projection. Whether this is to do with being able to project more sharply or some inherent blurriness in the film copy I'm not sure.
At the beginning when they showed the BBFC classification notice I could just about see the pixels - but then it was white non-antialiased pixels on a black background. When the film proper started I was very impressed by the crispness and clarity and I didn't notice any pixellation artifacts.
As far as piracy goes, I know that for music, whatever is playable on a computer is rippable (at worst by using the digital out on the sound card). Now I assume that the link between the Linux machine's graphics card and the projector is digital; it would hardly make sense to do D/A and A/D conversion. But if that's so, couldn't we run this raw video signal into an "in" on a different computer, say a laptop, and save it on the hard drive? Then we'd be free to re-compress it as we saw fit. All the sudden, a pimply movie usher could become haxor supreme.
It's part of the analog richness of film.
I will always love the random scattering of those silver molecules, dancing over the image flickering in the darkness.
It's like the warmth that comes from a vinyl record, as opposed to the cold clarity of a CD.
1. Digital media is not as likely do lose quality with each play. Dust marks and scratches on a movie roll is a pain in the arse for both projectionists and cinema goers.
2. Digital film is, and this is important, cheaper. A digital projection good enough for a small to medium sized cinema screen is much more affordable than a set of projetors. The media, be it DVD for the smaller salons or a better and uncompressed formats för the larger ones.
This means that they are cheaper to copy, easier to distribute and therefore can get spread to backwater cinemas that would normally have to wait for months to get hold of a copy of the latest box office hits
This also means that it will cost much less to distribute smaller, independent films. That might be the vitamin injection that the movie industry needs.
Also, sending events live to big screens all over the world might opens up for some real interresting opportunity. Pay 10 bux to see Super Bowl on a Big F***n Screen, instead of on your vimpy little tv at home.
...um...like...a sig...
I saw the digital film thing shown at the National Film Theatre here in London. It's actually really really impressive. Previously I'd thought this technology had a long way to go but it's actually ready right now.
I couldn't pick the difference between the projector and film. The only discernible difference was the lack of scratches on the film. Quite amazing.
For those interested, it was a Barco D-Film projector.
LucasFilm not LucasArts...
I don't like cities. In fact, I hate the hustle and bustle of San Francsico, but 4 times already I have gone out of my way to see a digital screening at the AMC 1000 on Van Ness.
After seeing a private digital screening of Episode I at Skywalker Ranch's Stag Theatre, I was sufficiently impressed enough to go to the City to see Pixar's "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters, Inc." twice each.
Let me just say this: WOW!
Having only seen one live action film in digital, I can only say that DLP is exceedingly good at reproducing a film and capturing the look and feel of actual film.
And, when it comes to the purely digital domain, it is even better. Pixar's films couldn't have looked better. Keep in mind that all prints go through extensive color timing to make sure the proper balance is achieved. With DLP, we are seeing (assuming calibration is performed properly) exactly what the original designers, animators, art directors, texturers, shaders, and renderers saw and intended when they first created the work.
It is so nice to be able to see a film weeks after release and not be distracted by a marred print that has been playing 5 times a day for however many weeks. Even better still, there aren't any jumps from places where the celluloid broke and had to be spliced back together!
Of course, there is a downside to this technology, too.
Remember when some politically-correct advocate groups complained about a scene in Disney's "Aladdin"? Disney couldn't do anything about it while it was still in the theatre because prints are extremely expensive, but with DLP, playback can be from WVHS tapes, satellite (via WVHS or other downloaded formats), or directly from a hard disk. So, the cost to redistribute an editted, censored version of a film is negligible in comparison.
Do I think they'll use it that way? Undoubtedly.
Is the format going to replace film? Absolutely. It looks amazing! It really IS more like film than film! I really just wish more films were being made available in the format. After "Monsters, Inc." closed in the digital screening, the AMC 1000 was not showing another film in DLP. How disappointing!
Jory
Several months before Attack of the Clones comes out, we're probably going to see massive shortages of duct tape and LCD panels.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
There's all sorts of problems with film, from the way Monday's print bath is different to the others, through scratches, and sparkle, and the fact that the colours change with age, and the truly monster costs of actually printing all the copies of a blockbuster film. Bit film is still a tough act to follow.
On the digital size of things, TI spent something like 2 billion dollars and 20 years in research in the DLP elements in many projection systems before they even began to roll our the early digital OHP projectors. However, the DLP is an odd gadget: it is the most ambitious piece of MEMS technology, but it is made (for historical reasons) from alumina rather than silicon. Now, there are lots of people who claim that a more 'traditional' MEMS solution using silicon and silicon dioxide might give better results for lest cost. Other people claim you can get use a TV-like display with phosphors that work like lasers. So what do you do , if you own a chain of cinemas? Well, what they have done is to put a digital projector or two in a few high-profile places (we have a few in London), and sit and wait to see how the technology goes. Those digital projectors cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, so they could get seriously burned if it turns out they backed the wrong technology, or the customers don't like it. I doubt if the cinema chains ever had any plans to put in the numbers of digital projectors suggested by the article.
The next problem is the data format. Film doesn't have pixels, so you can run a film with 2K pixels per line or 4K pixels per line on the same projector. You can stick on anamorphic lenses to get widescreen. If you haven't got an IMAX projector, you can probably get a print on 35mm. There are a bag of mature technogies. With digital, you have lots of similar decision to make, but none of the tecnologies are mature. You will probably have 2K pixels per line in the near future, with the promise of 3K or 4K sometime in the future. Digital projector A may have a better colour gamut than B, but projector B may be brighte and have less flicker, which makes the colours look better. If you are producing 'Monsters, Inc', then you can get your computer to make a version that fits the best projector resolution available, but this doesn't quite work with conventional films.
Lastly, there is the politics of fixing a data standard. Once, the data standard used to be decided by the company that had the best working solution. Nowdays, most data standards such as MPEG, JPEG, DICOM, TIFF, and ICC are an uneasy alliance of lots of companies, each wanting to get their patented process as part of the standard, and shake down the rest of the world for the licencing rights.
Eventually, digital to film will surely be like CD's to vinyl. But it's going to take a technical breakthrough or at least a decade of slow toil to shake out a few clear leaders from the contending technolgies, and get a digital standard that pleases most parties. Remember, the CD took a long time to actually get from the lab into our homes.
I saw Akira twice while it was in theatres (great movie BTW), the first time with digital projection, the second a week later (when I thought it would still be digital) on film. The DLP screen was much sharper with more consistent and saturated color. The opening motorcycle chase (with the incredibly detailed backgrounds) was simply amazing on the DLP but looked muddy and washed out in comparison on film. The colors were way more saturated and the DLP (I swear to God) had more dynamic range than any film I've seen in a theatre. Nothing I've seen on film has come close. I could say the same thing about Monster's Inc on DLP vs. film.
I'm sure that film can theoretically match the clarity and sharpness that I've seen but it never has. The print you watch in the movie theatre is at least a 3rd gen print and too often a 4th or 5th (or god forbid higher) generation print. And it's been run through the projector 4 times a day gathering dust and scratches. The film batches are different, the chemistry is slightly different and the printing process can't be repeated exactly everytime. And even if it could control all of that, you're making 3rd, 4th and 5th+ generation prints! Yes, a 70mm print can do better than 1080p24, but can a 5th generation print do the same? Can it match the original's color? Can it match the original's 1080 lines of resolution? From what I've seen, the answer is a big, huge NO!
I'd pay an extra 2-3 bucks per showing if I could get all digital, that's how much better I think it is.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Couldnt have said it better myself. The DLP system is no match for film yet. Especialy for the rare and coveted IBDye system. If you read through the other posts on this you will see my long explination of why not to waste your time on it and why theatres arent wasting their money yet.
Fascinated, I went to the giant flagship theater to watch, "Mission to Mars", which was being presented on the new digital system.
Anyway, I stood there with my friend in the expansive, pulsating lobby, and we were dirty and damp from the smog and rain outdoors, and we'd just eaten some bad fast food. The city was winning. I turned to him. . .
"You know, I just realized. I don't care enough about digital technology to go through with this. I really don't want to watch this movie. Everything I've seen regarding it looks absolutely awful."
"Yeah. I thought I could do it, but now I just don't feel so good. This place makes me feel like I'm in the middle of the "Terminator" future waste land. Why are there so many lasers and ultra violet lamps? Why is the floor black?"
"Well, this is the new, cool thing! You're supposed to feel naked without a BMFG-2000. --You know what they say; "The theater is the new social gathering place." --And how better to enrich the social fabric than to make people worry about being fragged?"
"BMFG?"
"Don't worry about it. Let's get the hell out of here."
And that was my experience with the new digital projection system! All in all, I'd have to say that it has some front-end and content problems to overcome before it becomes popular with cynical bastards who pine for the good old days when theaters had red carpets, soft lighting, and ornate wooden banister railings rich and dark from years of use.
-Fantastic Lad
You can't hear *pure tones* above 20kHz, but many people can hear other effects up to 24 kHz or higher. The same goes for the brickwall antialiasing and reconstruction filters that tries to go from 0 to -80db in less than 3kHz: it creates ringing that does not affect pure tones but distorts the transients of percussion instruments. Sure, 96kHz is an overkill, but it lets you built a reconstruction filter with barely two cycles of the sin(x)/x function - no ringing.
50-60kHz would probably be enough, but just doubling from the standard processing rate of 48kHz was the simplest option. With the non-lossy compression of the DVD-audio standard it barely takes more storage capacity than 48kHz.
96kHz audio is not ridiculous. Sony's SACD is totally ridiculous. There is no way to perform any kind of processing on the Direct Digital Stream without destroying its alleged superior properties. I wonder how many of those SACDs were actually mixed on a digital console at 48 or 96 kHz...
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I have a "digital projector" with a modest 1024x768 resolution projected on a 112x84" (2.8x2.1M) wall, and since I used old LCD panel from ebay, it has rather limited contrast and color. Still the whole thing (Proxima Ovation 944+ panel and 3M 9700 overhead projector) was less than $1000.
Modern projectors have little excuse for being expensive -- separate red, green and blue panels are easier in production, and less prone to "fallen out pixels".
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
for an small small time advertising company (long time ago - call Digital FX) who used an Amiga 3000 with a personal animation recorder (and later a vt flyer) I can tell you right now that I can sit down and show you an animation played at 30 fps and an animation played at 60 (in this case fields per second) and actually switch back and forth between them in real time. Yes there is a noticeable difference and I never had anyone walk away from this demo I'd show people who didn't agree.
Back in the early 90's when mac people were touting the avid media publisher - a system that worked on Mac Quadra systems originally was balked at by most professionals in Telvision since it originally could only do 30 fps - I have an old demo tape somewhere around here from avid - there's this helicopter scene while they pan across some hills overlooking an ocean - you can see it clip along - at 60 fps it would have been perfectly smooth. This of course is not a limitation on current avid systems.
I think one different that should be made is that films (I have no idea about digital movie theatres) are a different projection medium then television - and I think you probably should have at least mentioned that in your discussion on framerate. I don't think lower frame-rate is nearly as noticeable in a theatre as it is on a computer screen or television set personally.
Can't say I'm terribly concerned, given the quality of the first film. As for this next one - forget the theater, I'm going to rent it. And not for the story (har har!), but simply because I have a thing for Natalie Portman.
Ummmmmm, dessert....
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
These businesses need encouragement and reasons for switching. The easiest encouragement that they can give, is allow the digital films a 1 week (or even a 1 day) head start on the release. If digital theaters are allowed a head start of viewing, then theaters will start switching. If you are one of the big chains and you were allowed a 1 week head start of showing digitals, then 1 or 2 movies will pay for all the projectors.
Also, Hollywood is already going to digital filming as it lowers costs and allows for them to re-film immeadiatly on sites if a bad shot was done.
... as far as I am aware. They own the patent to the DLP protocol and produce the only processor (or decoder for computer freaks). Christie are one company to 'license' this chip (i.e. purchase them at royalty rates and put them in their 'DLP' projectors).
I had the luck to test digital screening in a private screenroom of Columbia Pictures (Sony) in march 1999 and I must say I was impressed. There were no artefact and the picture was pretty sharp. They demoed an old movie they had restored as a proof of concept and that's was very great. however (maybe changed now but as I don't follow this..) they said to me It was difficult to have a great quality on very big screen. The one I saw had a diagonal of 10 meters.
Hmmm are the people who moderate this also being sarcastic ... or do /. moderators not know funny?
Instead of opinions and having a bunch of "experts" tell us which one looks better, we need a randomized study to see which method people really prefer!
Otherwise we're just like the guys around the water fountain debating which football team will win
..........FULL STOP.
I've seen the Pixar movies, Phantom Menace, and Final Fantasy on the DLP screen in Plano, TX. Just for shits and giggles, I saw them again on the regular screens. There is a significant difference with regard to how much brighter and sharper the picture appears (especially with the computer generated movies) that makes the effort of going to DLP screens well worth it. I hadn't realized how many visual artifacts regular film introduced into the movie (most of the time the eye is distracted anyway) until I saw a picture as clean as DLP produced.
When you understand your disbelief in other gods, then you will understand my disbelief in yours.
You need 36GB an hour for D-Cinema level quality. You'd need 4 double sided dual layer DVD's (DVD-18) just to play a single movie. How you planning to pass them around ? Oh yeah, that is the wavelet compressed version.
Maybe you want to invest in the D5HD VTR's being used by the TI demo team ? That gets you uncompressed quality, for about $130 a tape, that runs about 20 minutes.
This is the wave of the future, in that you are right, but the future is a bit further off than you might think. The storage will arrive sooner or later, but Hollywood is already pressing for a higher res version of HD for Dcinema...something with 4000x2000 resolution or thereabouts.
Hollywood is happy to deliver the best images possible to your home, but they want to make sure you have a reason to go to the theatre too.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
Here in Belgium, we have one movie theater with a digital screen, Kinepolis Brussels.
I saw Toy Story 2 at that theater, and it was amazing! The movie was crisp clear, without the slightest deterioration or dust spots. I really think this is the way to go. But as already mentioned, the main reason for adapting to this technology will be to facilitate the distribution. So I expect digital screens to be the main way of showing movies in theaters in a few years.
I saw Final Fantasy on a digitial projector. Incredible. Amazing. Fantastic clarity and color. I think its the only one in the UK and I'd be bummed if AOTC debuted at a different theatre.
instead of waiting 6 months to a year when hollywood works out that people go to the cinema outside the USA.
They have always claimed that the cost of film prints prevented them from worldwide releases of movies (except for a few like LOTR, but that was an NZ movie anyway :-) and this should get around that.
There is still the cost of marketing the movie , but this can be pipelined (assuming the publisher creates more than one movie a year), so that's only a problem if the movie sucks at the box office.
If you like the canondv site, check out this Panasonic High Def Video Camera. This think will set you back about 60k for the 'base model'. The HD mixer they sell for it is another 80-100k depending on NTSC/PAL, etc. [Panasonic HD Cinema]
Is there some problem with picture quality, in TV or movies?
Other than over-the-air static, I've never sat there thinking, "darn, I wish this picture was sharper and more lifelike". I have thought, "this would be much better if it made sense, or had a plot".
I just don't get it. My life isn't going to be any more interesting just because the little people in the box or the big people on the screen are more, um, lifelike, although still 2D. I can totally suspend disbelief and enjoy movies and TV now.
Ebert's been pushing that 48 fps film for years now. 48 fps means the film is running through the camera/projector twice as fast. If the image size is the same, that means you're burning film twice as fast, which means your film costs are twice as high.
Not quite true. More film is used, but not twice as much.
Regular 35mm film wastes a lot of film anyway, simply because of having to crop the academy ratio to 2.35:1. MaxiVision48, which is the "new" medium we're talking about, theoriseses that nobody uses academy format anymore and "squeezes" the 2.35:1 frames as closely as possible. As a result, MaxiVision uses less space per frame and more frames per second, but vanilla 35mm uses more film per frame - which almost evens out.
MaxiVision24 definately uses less film and has many advantages depsite being only 24fps.
I've not explained that very well, I'm sure, so I'll point to this page for a better explanation.
I live in orange county and we have two of the 20 digital screens. I had the joy of watching Monsters, INC. in digital and the difference is amazing. One, no cigarette burns. Two no flicker whatsoever. Three, extremely clear pictures. One problem however, is that you can pretty much clearly see some pixelation on the edges (at least in an animated film like Monsters, Inc).
Gnuyen
If my monitor counts as a "digital screen", then I've always watched DivX:-) movies on one.
But I still don't have Attack of the Clones. Maybe if George Lucas provided the link for download, he wouldn't be bitching about the lack of digital screens.
For a list, check out:
http://www.dlp.com/dlp/cinema/where.asp
If I recall correctly, film being projected (theatre) moves at 48fps. It shows every frame twice before moving to the next one. Though, I'm not too sure if that's the same way it gets shot. (Exposing each frame twice.)
A typical modern film projector (such as the Christies in your local multiplex) displays each frame three times before advancing to the next frame. Put it this way, there are two frequencies at play, the 24Hz film advance and the 72Hz lamp shutter. Each frame is projected three times, then advanced to the next frame (durring a shutter pass, so you don't actually see the frame zip off the screen... that'd be bizzare).
Straight 48 Hz shutter would be hard on the eyes and straight 24 Hz would be maddening. With current film shot at 24 Hz, the 24/72 mix is perfect. When cinema goes 48 Hz film (a nice easy upgrade), I imagine the projectors will run the shutter at 96 Hz... exposing each frame twice before advancing.
BTW, it's the mix of the 24 Hz frame advance and the 72 Hz shutter that makes the neat "ticka-ticka-ticka" projector sound you hear up in the projection booth. That and the (usually squeeky) film platters.
Actually, modern polyester film stocks are strong enough to tow a car. They do not break under normal projector strain. Instead, they can actually lift the platters off the floor in the case of a brain-wrap!
Or is it too much to ask for? I don't even think there are any plans for HDTV over here either
There is one notable exception: scratches.
I've been to midnight-showing, opening night of some movies and see scratches on the film.
The one DLP film I saw (Emperor's New Groove @ AMC Buena Vista in LBV, FL) was flawless.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I saw Final Fantasy on a digital screen in Canada. I could see aliasing during the credits. Seems the resolution isn't enough for the really large screens in today's theatres. Somehow that doesn't affect film transfers (when a digital movie/effect is transferred to film).
m
Seriously, Star Wars sucks. It's always had a large suck factor (I mean, have you ever actually listened to the dialog? It's insipid!) and it seems te be getting worse. All I want is to see my favorite bounty hunter of all time kick a little ass! It's just too bad they didn't dig up Jeremy Bulloch to play the part for this film; Boba rules.
The only thing the new Star Wars series has going for it is that Ewan McGregor is involved. Poor kid. How much would you care to bet that he feels the same way about his part that Alec Guinness did? And if he doesn't, well maybe he should. At least being the new Obi-Wan should be netting him a nice little profit if not bolstering his career a little more...
I'm pretty sure I saw Toy Story 2 in digital at the Warner Brothers cinema in the H20 centre near Finchley Road tube in London. Aside from that the Odeon in Leceister square has digital projection and theres probably a few more. Outside of london i suspect it gets pretty sparse as the capital usally hogs this sort of stuff to itself.
Having worked in the theatre business I can tell you that money is the main problem. Right now there are many companies having finacial problems and some are filing for bankrupcy.
Why are they going broke when they charge so much for tickets you ask?
Because almost ALL of the box money goes to the movie studio. You can thank George Lucas for that one. For Episode 1 he wanted 80% of the box for himself and on top of that he wanted some of the consession sales, which is unheard of.
Consession sales are where the theatres make their money for operations, payroll, and so on...
So with the snack bar being the only real source of income for the theatre, they're not exactly swimming in the money once you figure in the cost of keeping all of the current equipment working.
Projectors aren't cheap either. You'll be lucky to find a USED one in okay shape for $20,000.
So, George, it looks like you have shot yourself in the foot on this one. You are the only person to request 80% of the box revenue. Want to know where the digital projectors are? LOOK IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNTS MORON!
There, I feel better now.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I don't go to the movies that often, namely because I won't want to plunk down $7-$9 dollars to see one during the evening. Now, say a theater makes the investment to go digital. Price of movie goes up also. Now the prices are higher for movies you (the slashdot crowd) don't want to see in the first place, even though some movies (SW:AOTC) that you want to see can now be shown as they were meant to be. So will you keep going to the movies you don't want to see that much now that they are a few dollars more? I know I'm not going to go see a movie I didn't care for in the first place just because it is digital, and now not only is it digital, but it's $10 bucks a pop. (And don't give me this sh*t about a movie theater not raising prices--they'll raise them anytime they can claim a newer innovation, whether it's a digital theater, stadium seating, or a soda machine that works 13% faster...)
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
Given that they are hurting right now, due to a glut of screens, this is not likely.
Of course, a digital screen could help them edge out the competition.
br. One sign that they're really desperate for customers is how a lot of theaters in my area replaced their economy class seating with some truly luxurious captain's chairs.
CNN Entertainment has an article describing Lucas Arts' disappointment at the lack of digital screens available for Attack of the Clones.
Could someone please read the story before posting it. Lucas Arts makes video games. Lucasfilm makes Star Wars movies.
Thank you for your support. And be sure to wear it.
For the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."
Considering where I plan on spending my weeking, a thought occurs to me.
They say there are about 20 theaters with digital projection equipment in the US. Theaters are having problems getting enough money to buy the gear. Perhaps the digital movement it targeting the wrong forum?
What if IMAX/Omnimax theaters were to go digital? Granted, I'd want at least a 4x improvement in spatial resolution before throwing it up on a big screen like that, but consider the cost of Imax films WRT normal theatrical releases. Perhaps that would be the place to start?
Now, what I'd really like to see is a standard by which a film could be set up for ether Imax or Omnimax - that way you'd avoid the distortion of the Imax to Omnimax lens Omnimax theaters have to use.
Also, I too would like to see an increase from 24 fps to about 60.
Yes, you'd need BIG HONKING harddrives to store all that information (looks down at his computer, with 210G of local storage). Check.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I'd install oled screens, and just pipe the movies to each screen from a server. The picture would be much better. Who knows, this might cut distribution costs enough to enable me to switch to a subscription business model, maybe $20/person/month, all the movies you (and overpriced junk food ;)) you can eat. No PFYs on the payroll standing around selling and tearing up costly paper tickets, no lines for the customers. I wouldn't have to hire any projectionists, either, another cost savings.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
I've also seen at least one live-action movie in the same theater, and didn't notice any resolution or artifact problems. However, after watching a large-screen TV hooked to a satellite system for the past couple of years, I'm used to those.
But, my favorite part about digital projection is that the projected image is absolutely stable. On the large screen in a theater, I've noticed the slight differences in film image registration cause the projected image to jump around. This may be a function of print wear, but I've seen a few movies that were so bad that the image motion almost made me queasy.
I eventually get used to it. But, it is really distracting at the beginning of the movie.
I'd wish Lucas would forget about the screens and focus more on the script.
Ooooh, trade embargo! How exciting!
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Don't have time to read every post right now, so while I'm thinking about it..
Locate a DLP theatre near you. And for the very early poster, there are 23 theatres in the US. Its not a typo.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Money is still a reality for theater owners, and many of them cannot convert over to a digital system for that reason.
I live in Omaha, Nebraska where less than a year ago they tore down one of the last three Cinerama theaters. The Indian Hills Theater was owned by Carmike cinema, who filed chapter 11 last year, they had expanded too quickly and got into trouble. Several interested parties steped forward to take over the theater, but there were problems with asbestos, local traffic, and the bottom line: the new owners would have to pony up $10,000 in rent every month. The local art house movie owner couldn't make that happen.
The Indian Hills had the same problem alot of other independant or small chain theaters have - there are 24 screen Uberplexes that are kicking there asses. People didn't care that the Indian Hills had the world's largest wrapparound Cinerama screen. A Cinerama film projected from three projectors looks a bajillion times more beautiful that George's shitty digital standard.
The theater business makes it's money at the concession stand. For all of the money Studios make from a film, the screen showing it does not get to keep much of the profit. Upgrades do not put more money in the pockets of the theater owner, who is in many cases doing his/her best just to keep the doors open.
I happen to work for a projection equipment manufacturer, up until 2000. We had the chance to see the first installation of a digital screen(playing the first Star Wars) in NY. And actually started on a networking project(for the theatre's to be able to swap movies, and data).
The biggest problem with them, and why they didn't take off wasn't mainly the quality of the movie, but the huge ammount of space needed for a single movie. Also the expense that was required by a major moviehouse to aquire one of these.
If I remember correctly, every movie was roughly 8-16gigs, thus requiring for some of these larger movie houses 128-256 gigs of information. But your not done yet. You need a way to back it up, a way to transfer it quickly, and a way to make sure the computer doesn't BSOD during the movie. (Yes, they were played on Windows NT machines).
The company I worked for Neumade Products actually had a bid in to try and get rights to create a projector for this medium, but eventually didn't see the large investment as being worth it.
The way the technology works, is by shooting light through a microchip that has thousands(if not millions) of mirrors, and reflectors. As the movies image changed, the mirrors, and reflectors rotated, or shifted to get the right ammount of light, and color onto the screen.
The technology wasn't then, and still isn't ready for the real world. It wasn't perfect, and could'nt be installed on different size screens(specifically the bigger ones). Thus making it unusable for a majority of the theatre chains out there.
Just what I remember, nothing more, nothing less,
Brian...
Texas Instruments Digital Light Processing
Color fringing was substantial (note that company engineers were there to calibrate the projection system, so it was set up properly) on horizontal motion and you could actually see the pixel rows when sitting in seats near the screen. Contrast was a problem.
I'm not sure why people are on this bandwagon. I have a degree in cinema production and can say without hesitation that digital projection is a long way off in quality when compared to film.
Also, before anyone starts with the "scratches, dust, blah, blah, blah" I have this to say: with the exception of the film element, digital projection suffers from 90% of the problems film does. Dust in the mechanics and lenses (don't forget there is also a giant Xenon bulb housing back there), stained, gouged, and otherwise abused screens, broken seats, etc. Digital projection is going to make little difference in the quality of the viewing experience because the venue owner must take resposibility for providing a well maintained facility. If this hasn't happened already, it's not going to happen with digital projection. I can already tell you that instead of the occasional flash of dust or scratch, you'll have the constant presence of dead array elements showing up on the screen like black Legos. Think the theatre owner will rush out to buy a new DLP array? Not likely. He already doesn't have employees clean the screen once a month.
In fact, modern projection equipment is so good that we should rarely see significant film wear. Anything we do see is generally caused by poorly trained projection staff and cheap owners. Any lontime projectionist becomes as familiar with the equipment as a mechanic with a favorite car. You can tell by the sound of the projector whether something is ailing or not. At the first sign of trouble, the projector should be immediately checked. Unfortunately, most theatre chains wait until the unit is in the obvious throws of breakdown before calling repair. These are the same people who will own the digital projectors. Does anyone think it will be any different? I don't.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
They're a company making one of the more awesome theatre systems in existence. Also, arguably, the most expensive. The reason why IMax theatres are doing well is because most of them are museums of one sort or another or they are ran by private interests running them, not chains. (Cinemark is one notable exception, setting up at least several IMax theatres.)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
And unless you are 5 years old, this film isn't being made for you. The only great Star Wars film was Empire Strikes Back, not produced by Lucas, and which he found to be too dark.
(posted this once, but forgot to log in first - I need my karma fix!)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
actually it does break. It might be strong enough to tow a car but it still melts. The bulb is so powerful when the film is in a wrap it'll actually melt the film causing it to break. usually if this happens your'll have a lot of stretched out film that can't be used and about a 30 second to minute gap in your film. This is of course if you have a sorry projectionist.
How will Digital Screens increase my ability to digest poor dialogue, unimaginative characterization and that #$%@! Jar Jar?
Answer: They won't. George Lucas needs to focus in on what's still important in film and get off this stupid techno-toy kick he's on.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Discounts. If the theater doesn't show AOTC as it is meant to be shown, (digital screen), are they going to charge less for the less-than-advertised exporience?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Heh. David Fincher's "Star Wars". The first rule of Jedi Club... is do not talk about Jedi Club. The second rule of Jedi Club... is do not talk about Jedi Club!
Spike Lee's "Star Wars". Mace Windu: Muthafucka!
Kevin Smith's "Star Wars". Silent Bob: [meaningful look] Jay: Snootch to the bootch! [to Amidala] Can I see your tits? [smokes a comedically large blunt] Noitch!"
Toshio Maeda's "Star Wars". Amidala: Aieee!! Tentacle Beast: [unspeakable weirdness] Amidala: Oooh... Tentacle Beast: [decapitates Amidala] Ahh...
Pierre Boule's "Star Wars". Obi-Wan: It's a madhouse! A MADHOUSE!! Anakin: Doctor, I'd like to kiss you goodbye. Monkey Amidala: All right, but you're so damned ugly.
Ahh, I'm all out of +1 Insightful.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I don't know how many people have seen a digital movie in a digital theater, , but I was lucky enough to see Monsters, Inc. in digital in one of the two digital theaters in Canada. Monsters, Inc. is obviously a very simple film to put to digital because it never WAS on celluloid. And let me tell you, watching a movie without the screen shaking from film jitters, everything in crystal clarity, without the scratches or dust-spots that even plague the newest of celluloid films.... I was in awe, sitting in my seat drooling. I hope that Lucas doesn't give up on this technology, and that more movies begin to use this process. It really is an incredible difference...
Oh, and if you're wondering, it's theater 13 at the Paramount in Toronto, Ontario.
There is one at my college. I got to learn about school history (propaganda) in style!
Meesa no liking analog screens!
http://www.club977.com/ - The 80's Channel!
Your source for commercial free 80's music!
I dont know about everybody else, but I find analog is far higher quality than digital.
When I made the jump from analog to digital TV I was digusted. Entropy on my TV?! Im not browsing some cheap website with loadtimes to think about! Is that divx compression?!
Same for the cinemas, I suspect we will see the infamous blocky edges of many a characters if this ever takes off.
I might have more sympathy for George Lucas if you could get the first three chapters on DVD. You know, Digital Video Disc.
Who says it's illegal for a film company to own their own theater chain? United Artists has done so for more than 20 years.
Yet the movie studios are pushing digital theatres--a move that will cost theatres dearly and provide really no benefit to the movie-going public. I am much more concerned about a big screen, decent sound, and stadium seating than I am about whether or not my movie is digital video.
Movie studios want digital movie theatres because it will drastically reduce the cost of distribution. The irony is that it could lead to more screenings of non-studio works. IMHO, that is the true benefit of digital movie theatres. But it is not one that is going to give one theatre a competitive advantage over another.
Movie viewing would be a far better experience if they did something about the quality of the audience. I'm sick of having to listen to slack jawed popcorn munchers all the time (if you are so hungry eat dinner before the movie) and the kids the parents refuse to shutup. I haven't heard a cellphone or pager go off for ages which makes me think those "Please turn them off" messages before the film are actually working.
Small Times just ran an article last week on this same thing. There's no distribution cost to the studios, while the theaters are the ones who pay for the cost of the upgrade. Another problem? Theaters switched to digital sound systems in the early 90s, and that didn't pay off for them either. If you're interested in more information on the technology behind DLP check out the Small Times article.
what is this 'star wars' movie? Why do people continue to talk about it like freakin ww2 vets? let it go people, there's a lot better stuff out there now(the year is 2002 and Lucas has not gotten better with age) to get excited about.
Yah, and some hacker would get into the server and say "THIS SCREEN IS OWNED BY THE 3L1T3!" and slap a nudie pix on the screen.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Actually, modern polyester film stocks are strong enough to tow a car. They do not break under normal projector strain. Instead, they can actually lift the platters off the floor in the case of a brain-wrap!
They can still melt also the film isn't usually supplied in one length. Instead it's something like about 5 bits which need to be spliced together. The spliced bits are those which get handled most and so are more likely to get damaged.
First of all, I think there may be a generational difference in terms of what looks better. To me, compression artifacts and regular pixels are much more objectionable than film grain. Because film grain is never in the same place twice, it allows you to have more apparent resolution than you can actually have in one individual frame. Also, I didn't grow up watching digital video (or even TV for that matter), so it just looks unnatural to me.
In response to a couple of particular points, though: I actually think that digital projection is the future, eventually. It's not quite there yet, but it will be. The big problem is economic. The TI projectors are ungodly expensive, and will be obsolete in less than 2 years. For less than half the price you can buy a top-of-the-line 35mm projector that will last at least 20. Since there is no increased revenue for the theater owner by going digital, it is a sure recipe for bankruptcy now.
Second: While digital projection is pretty good, digital acquisition has a long, long, long way to go before it catches up to film. Even the manufacturers will tell you that. CCD's are simply not capable of producing the dynamic range that film does. Video formats are not currently capable of reproducing the range that film does. In projection this is not a big issue, because there is enough range to look good. But in production this is a huge issue. There are many scenes that simply cannot be captured pleasantly on video (daylight exteriors are the hardest) because there is simply too much of a brightness difference between the subject (that you want correctly exposed) and the brightest elements in the frame (like the sky). This is a problem that will take a long time to overcome. For this reason I think that the most viable chain in the medium-term future will be to shoot on film, transfer to digital (files -- not HD-video -- HD is too limited both in terms of resolution and color gamut), and do digital post. Film prints will still have to be made for many years until virtually all cinemas are digital. Even then prints will have to be made for various overseas markets. By the way, my company sells HD cameras and DLP projectors (in addition to film cameras), so I'm not completely biased here. I think that HD cameras are very cool, and definitely have a place (particularly in documentary production). But I also love going to the movies and I don't want that experience to be degraded.
3: Maxivision is actually very cool. It gets you a huge inprovement in quality for a very modest cost. It actually only uses 50% more film, not double because each frame takes up 3 perfs instead of 4. There is only minimal modification of equipment needed (many cameras can already shoot 3-perf, and you don't need a new projector -- just modify your existing one). I suppose it's unlikely this will actually get widely adopted, but it's too bad because it would be nice to actually see a dramatic improvement in quality. (There's a lot to it besides just the frame-rate change -- there are modifications to improve screen brightness, registration and focus consistency as well).
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
During a showing of "Young Frankenstein".
Best Slashdot Co
That reminds me of something interesting I observed a few years ago. While playing my first copy of Tomb Raider, I was surprised to see those familiar "octogon tunnels" normally associated with a movie camera used in bright sunlight. I'm sure there's a technical name for them; be glad to hear it from someone if they know. Anyway, those strange intrusive refractions, rather than being considered flaws, are often used by movie makers to emphasize just how overwhelming the glare of the sun is. Particularly in desert scenes. Then the Tomb Raider people put them in their game to emphasize the "camera" feel of the whole experience.
Same with digital music that has pops and clicks added to it, to make it sound like a vinyl record. It reminds you of another medium and gives the artist the benefit of all the associations you have with that other medium.
Evil is the money of root.
The two biggest chains built a large number of new, state-of-the-art multi-plexes up here, as I believe they did all over North America, a few years ago. These auditoria have stadium seating and advanced sound. But the management lack whatever clue is necessary to see that the goldarn film is properly focussed!
About six years ago the local projectionist union had a labour dispute with Cineplex. The dispute went on for months. Finally, the union capitulated. They had to settle for something like a 50% cut in pay, and a 50% cut in hours.
Management believed that new projection technology made the projectors "idiot-proof". Most films would be set up by a non-union, clueless "manager".
I decided I would complain every time there was something wrong with the quality of the film presentation. And for several years I did so. But I have largely given up.
What I find is that the manager is almost always just a kid, who was serving popcorn six months ago, who really doesn't understand or give a darn about the quality of the film presentation.
So maybe 35mm film would provide a better picture -- if it were in focus? But the days of finding a trained projectionist are fading fast. Hopefully my experience that the digital projection was in perfect focus was not an anomaly, and we can look forward to an improvement in film presentation?
We have one smaller chain up here, Alliance-Atlantic, that still uses experienced projectionists, where you can rely on the film being in focus.
If you've been following any of Ebert's columns, he rails against digital as showing noticably lower visual quality than film projection. Seems digital is beneficial to the studios and about no one else.
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
But not because I liked the film, which I found childish and un-involving. No, he had the clout to insist that theatre owners couldn't get a print if they didn't have a good sound system. And a number of big fine old theatres around here did spend the money to get digital sound.
Now that I am middle-aged I am hard of hearing. Theatres with crappy sound are a real problem for me.
I would be happy to see him use his clout to help bring in digital projection.
Remember the Showscan format from the 80's? 60fps on 35mm film.
The first Showscan film I saw started with curtains separating to reveal an empty stage, where a guy came out and introduced the movie. Almost none of us realized it was the movie. No perceptible motion blur, and no jerkiness like you see on 24fps digital video from the lack of motion blur. It was like you were watching it live, right in front of you.
I wonder if 60fps DLP would be that realistic looking, or if there'd be other psychological effects from the reduced color space...
Why is that getting mod'ed up so high?
Artifice_Eternity:
Have you ever seen a film digitally projected? No? If you had, you would have noticed that contrast, brightness, and sharpness were far more brighter/vivid than a conventional projection? "But film is 'higher' resolution!" you say.
One reason is that they can pump a far brighter lamp in a digital display - no worries about melting the film.
Why do those dark scenes look so good? The linear response to light when captured...so this business about silver halide vs. CCD response rates has to do with how the source was captured, not how it is projected!
Even if digital were 'inferior', technically, then tell me, Why am I seeing digital look better on the screen with my own eyes? (I've seen SW:TPM through the TI digital projection in Paramus and numerous films through DLP at the AMC Times Square).
Now my question is, why hasn't anyone mentioned the huge difference in video quality between a converted film->digital projection and a "enhanced conversion" or straight to digital viewing (eg. Monsters Inc)??
Have we forgotten that we are paying to see movies, not the projectors? There are so few movies of any decent quality that I could care less about the projector. Most movies would be crap no matter how high-tech the projector, just high-tech crap. They should do more R&D into writing and better film executives, that's where the real need is.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I know a guy who works at the local Cinemark, I can have him stick an 802.11b access point hooked to the storage system. Imagine having a perfect digital copy of a movie on Gnutella the same day it's released?
I saw Toy Story 2 in digital at the Edwards theaters at the Irvine Spectrum. The main advantage I saw was that, despite the fact I saw it about two weeks into its run, it was still clean and bright and sharp, with no dust, scratches, and other crap that winds up onscreen after a film print has been played over and over again. Compairing that to the print of LOTR I saw the other day, I would have to say it's a pretty good benefit. LOTR had visual pops, lots of dust, and the soundtrack came out of sync with the movie several times.
Here's a link to the Ebert essay (A bit lengthy but a GREAT read!).
Maxivision48 (PDF specs) was created by a small company located in San Luis Obispo. When I was going to school up there a friend and I posed as school reporters and got into the company to see a screening. We met the pres and everything. Let me tell you...amazing quality. Blew away anything I had ever seen (Including some digital stuff from SF). Granted, it was in their theater under their conditions but if real-world scenarios could even come CLOSE it would be a vast improvement over anything else out there. The picture clarity during high-motion scenes was perfect. No blurs. It really was like watching a scene take place outside of a very clean window. Hope this makes it out soon!
Actually, in Akira's situation, the film version was based on an unrestored interpositive, the digital version was restored and color repaired.
Something that needs to be said is that some theater chains really have sucky equipment, don't check their tuning and so on, they might be running old equipment and so on.
I do want to see a digital theatrical projection sometime, but I'm sure it's not going to be as crisp as a made-for-IMAX presentation such as the restored Beauty and the Beast.
the 2nd run cities and smaller towns get the prints after they've run through the projector dozens of times.
exactly the people who can't afford digital equipment anyways.
If everyone start going digital, the industry will not make "special" prints just for those small towns and secondary markets. Thats mean at some point, those theaters will have NO new'ish releases. It may take a while for the digital equipment to drop enough for those theater owners, which mean they will probably go out of business.
You keep talking about film costs. which are some of the cheaper costs of a major motoin picture.
Yes ite expensive, but what percentage of Phantom menace cost where they?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I've seen probably seven or eight films in digital. Toy Story 2, Dinosaur, Perfect Storm, Monster's Inc. being a few. I've seen a couple in both digital and on 35mm. Here is what I found.
I prefer the digital, especially for animated films. The color saturation is much better, the picture is rock solid as compared to film (you don't really notice the shaking on a normal film until you see the digital equivalent, though when you see bleeding during credits, this is one example) and a pristine copy from the first day to the last are the biggest things I preferred.
Animation is really best able to take advantage of the format (especially cgi). It allows these films to avoid filmstock throughout their entire lifecycle. Plus, it tends to have very little noise in it which makes it a better candidate for compression and less artifact prone (though I don't remember any egregious problems with any of the live action films I've seen).
There are still problems. There are noticeable digital artifacts. Movement can look bad. But it is still early on in the life of these techniques.
I believe that the projecters use are 3 chip DLP's with a resolution of 1280x1024. It really is amazing how good a picture they can produce.
I was able to see Toy Story 2 on a digital screen in Irvine, CA. It was nice, but nothing earth-shattering. The pixels were a bit noticeable, but as compared to regular film grain they weren't a big deal. Still, picture quality isn't the real reason for digital movie theaters. Painless, nearly free distribution and no loss of quality as time goes on are the real reasons. I seriously doubt Attack of the Clones will blow me away in digital format any more than it would on film in a good theater.
more and better info here. Salient quote:
SOLED - Stacked Organic Light Emitting Device
This display is composed of three stacked layers of TOLEDs (red, green, and blue). This means that there is an almost 100% fill factor for each pixel no matter the color, leading to higher resolution displays and better color tunability. The resolution on these displays has the potential of being three times that of normal displays because of the stacked as opposed to the side-by-side layout of old. Pixels can also be made as large as wanted. Because of the stacked display, it would no longer be possible to see the individual color pixels, just the one full-color pixel. This will be most useful in small displays and very large high definition displays (like a movie screen, perhaps?).
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
it is better for the overall (pubicus viewerus)
viewer, not the single viewer. More can watch in digital and you won't need theatres. No one ever wanted to leave their house to go see a film. Stinky people, crappy seats, resurected popcorn.
Now Lucas can directly release his films to me. and we can skip the middle men. Oh, yes projectors cost a bunch, but thats a temporal thing.
Happy Moviegoing!
And that's the problem.
My brother was projectionist at a local theater. This isn't just any theater, but a 1920's era Vaudville house that's been totally restored and brought up to spec with the latest movie technology.
He invited me to sit in the booth with him one day shortly after the restored theater had gone "online." It was a good, old fashioned movie show. Double feature with a short and a cartoon. The cartoon was the Bugs Bunny about the penguin from Hoboken.
My jaw dropped when it came on. For 20 years I'd only seen Warner Bros. cartoons on TV. I'd forgotten what they really looked like in their native enviroment.
Was it scratched, gritty, with specs of dirt? You bet your ass it was, but. . .
The colors. My God, this was NOTHING like what you can see on TV! The richness, the subtle shadings, the pure ART of the thing floored me.
Only seeing them on TV for 20 years made me forget what they were supposed to look like.
I'll live with the scratches and dirt specs until digital can make Bugs look the way Bugs is supposed to look.
When I go to the theater I don't want to see a big TV. I want to see FILM, light shining directly through a tinted medium.
At the moment, nothing else even comes close.
KFG
Do you have to pay a fine if you return the film unrewound?
Mmmm.. Donuts
History has shown that disruptive technologies (GUI, small disk drives, flash cards, etc.) have followed this path:
Digital film is a classical example of a disruptive technology at stage 2. It won't take off until it is adopted in niche markets.
I suggest for the niche market something I thought of a few years ago for HDTV: small "art" film houses, the ones that now aren't above using projection of standard video at a pinch, who make most of their money from selling beer and espresso, and have small but dedicated clientele. Set up a distribution system where a small theatre can lease such a system and download films. Offer a variety of older films in digital form (possibly scanned from prints but ideally from interpositives). This would provide a nice, steady stream of revenue for older films that were not blockbusters but which will always have a steady market amongst the people who go for this sort of thing.
It is probably too small a market for the studios to notice, so some small entity is going to have to negotiate with studios to provide this service.
As this happens, companies will be able to work to improve the technology, eventually getting it to the point where most of the (currently legitimate) objections will not apply.
Second: While digital projection is pretty good, digital acquisition has a long, long, long way to go before it catches up to film. Even the manufacturers will tell you that. CCD's are simply not capable of producing the dynamic range that film does. Video formats are not currently capable of reproducing the range that film does. In projection this is not a big issue, because there is enough range to look good. But in production this is a huge issue. There are many scenes that simply cannot be captured pleasantly on video (daylight exteriors are the hardest) because there is simply too much of a brightness difference between the subject (that you want correctly exposed) and the brightest elements in the frame (like the sky). This is a problem that will take a long time to overcome. For this reason I think that the most viable chain in the medium-term future will be to shoot on film, transfer to digital (files -- not HD-video -- HD is too limited both in terms of resolution and color gamut), and do digital post.
Yeah, I know I kinda diverged from projection to acquisition a bit. I guess what I'm saying is that projection is more or less there-- it looks great-- but in production as well, money will be saved (although Kodak will argue not that much) by acquiring on video. And I think they're a lot closer than you say-- yeah, video's lattitude isn't 11 stops yet, the aesthetic is slightly different, but I kinda like the lack of grain and the better colors. It's not film, but it's.. something else.
Video technology is always improving and becoming less expensive and the film-look processes are getting much better too.
Will film ever completely disappear? I don't think so. Some filmmakers will continue to use it, no doubt. But clearly video is moving in to replace it in a lot of areas. And they're (Bamboozled, Session 9, Series 7, Star Wars II, How High (so I hear), Time Code, etc.) coming to a theater near you.
Then there are movies like "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" that was shot on film, then transferred 100% to digital to be edited and processed, and then transferred back to film...
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Bah humbug! (Bear with me while I pull numbers out of thin air and further pretend you are a theater operator)
More specifically, the new digital projector will cost upwards of 100 grand. Your theater seats 300 people, and you generally sell 1000 tickets per day. (five showings at 200 people per - you are doing good!) And you aren't going to be able to sell off the old projector - not everything is available digitally, and when it is all digital who the heck will buy your old film projector for anything near what it actually costs?
Now, pretend that you will actually get 5% more people coming for the "improved digital" experience. Well, that is an additional 50 people per day. But your box office basically goes to the distributor/studio (400.00 extra per day,but not to the theater). So you get 5 bucks per person on the concession stand - or an extra 250 bucks per day. Gee that would almost pay for the upgrade in a year -if you can count on that five bucks per extra person at the concession stand. On the other hand, the studio gets an extra 400 bucks per day from the box office (over a hundred grand per year), but it actually saves them a few thousand in the costs of actual films that they do not have to make and distrbute.
Oh, but wait - you don't have just one screen, you a new stadium seating multiplex with 2 dozen screens. And you are still paying off the debt you took on constructing that to get ahead of the competition, plus you are hurting because of the long term leases on the mall multiplexes you cannibalized when you put up the new stadium seating facility.
And having learned some hard lessons from the stadium seating construcion glut, you know that if you do upgrade to digital and start seeing slightly better numbers, well, then your competitors (who lost that extra 50 tickets per day per screen) are going to be forced into upgrading aswell - if they can afford to. If they can't afford to, they will take other steps to remain competitive - maybe cutting their ticket prices. You can pretty much be guaranteed that you won't see those extra customers long enough to recover your investment in a new projector.
But wait, we aren't even talking about a single multiplex! You are actually part of a national chain, and theses decisions are made at a regional level (the manager at McDonalds does not decide what gos on his menu either). So rather than a decision involving a dozen screens, and a couple of million bucks, we are talking hundreds of screens and real money. All so we won't disappoint George Lucas - the prima donna snob whose ideas of "fair play" kept us from running Episode 1 on most of our screens for the first few days to milk maximum revenue, and then cut back to handle just the die hard fans who put down "Jedi" as their religion on census forms.
No, theater operators actually have a strong financial DIS-incentive to "go digital". Their demands that the studios subbsidize it make a heck of a lot of sense - the studios will see all the major cost savings on the digital distribution over physical media, but there won't be any overall change in the actual numbers of tickets sold or buckets of popcorn purchased - hence no advantage for the theater.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
But couldn't analog-like filters be applied to digital recordings? Sort of like when you watch Martha Stewart on TV -- they use a blurry lense to give the show a warm, fuzzy feeling. With the right tools, a director could modify the digital print to be soft, harsh, or distorted as the story dictates.
On the other hand, as an amateur artist I see the value of working with limited tools. I can paint more pleasingly with a sable paintbrush and watercolors than a mouse and Gimp. The old analog tools meld well with our analog minds and bodies.
AlpineR
I saw Lord of the Rings recently on a digital screen at Toronto's Paramount theatre. Washed out colour, banding, and lag. Yea, no one really noticed... except myself and perhaps any other artist in the theatre.
;p
Personally, I find digital means low quality. I realize Slashdotters think I'm insane, but then, seeing is believing. LOOK at the screen. Is it really better than analog film? Even if it's just as good, what's the point of spending billions to revert to digital? Other than the evil corporate reasons.
I've seen two films in digital. I will tell you with no uncertainty that it is vastly superior to film. Compare not the digital of a DVD or an online film. The digital movies I watched had amazing clarity, depth of color, and high contrast. It is obvious that the format is so dynamic to anyone who's actually bothered to view it before voicing an opinion about it, that it can not be distinguished from a blemishless film to the human eye rather than say the fact that it has absolutely no pops, lint, dirt, or other such impurities.. This is pure, and completely liberated from the faults of analog while retaining no obvious artifacting or bandwidth limits. If you want to bark about it, I suggest you go see it first. I saw it at Disney's Elcapitan Theatre in Hollywood. One word: Amazing!
When I pop in a CD I want to hear the acoustic guitar like the player was sitting in my living room. Music is an auditory art, and for the most part the artist wants you to hear what he hears when he plays it. Music is the art of reality.
Movies are entirely different. Even the physical medium of images are born of a physical phenomenon entirely different than that which produces sounds and the intent of film production is also very different.
The fact of the matter is that in making a film a great deal of trouble is gone to to make sure the audience * does not * see what the director sees. He dosn't want you to see the microphones, the guy on the soundboard or the miles of cable strewn about. All things that seem perfectly natural when watching a live musical performance.
He also dosn't want you to see that that Victorian drawing room is constructed of paper and paste, that the giant tanker tossing about in a hurricane is a 6 ft model in a swimming pool, and he dosn't want you for a minute to realize there are NO spaceships buzzing about like Fokker Triplanes anywhere in this universe.
The phrase "Movie Magic" exists for a reason, because movies and magic are in fact part of the same art.
Movies are about *illusion!*
With all the advances in CG to create illusion on film, the fact of the matter is that, * at the moment*, film still does a better job of presenting this illusion *to the audience* than any digital medium does.
Watching the latest digital effects on DVD and a high resolution monitor tells me that the time will come when that will change.
But it isn't here yet.
KFG
My understanding, from talking with film/camera people in my store is that Lucas et al will be adopting a streaming technology, so that the distribution costs are basically a one-time fee (laying down bandwidth), and due to the movie being streamed, it'd be "impossible" (as in, at least very difficult) to copy in digital format.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
The machine I worked on had 4 80gig scsi drives connected via fibre channel which is what the movies are eventually played from.
Here's a link to the parent company that built the machine:
http://www.technicolordigital.com/index.html
Where is the incentive for movie theatres to switch to the new format if they are not having any problems with their current system?? Will they get movies before non-digital theatres or some other perk for switching? If not they won't bother. Consumers aren't demanding digital anyway. So what if George Lucas is dissapointed? Most moviegoers were dissapointed with his last Star Wars film.
Any of the theatres near where I live would have to shut down rather than go to digital. They are old and hardly make any money as it is. The towns they are in are small and they would have no way to justify the cost. As it is I am surprised they are hanging on and wonder if the owners are losing money just to continue to provide one of the only entertainment venues in town. And getting new movies first or similar wouldn't be an incentive to these types of theatres as they already get movies a couple of weeks behind because that's all they can do.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Have you noticed that a home projector setup can be brighter with better colors than the average megaplex? Thats how I feel about setups I have watched, maybe 35mm at its best is better than DLP, but the average is pretty shitty compared to what you can do at home for a few thousand.
This whole discussion reminds me of a quote everyone forgets:
"Technology, no matter how dazzling, hold an audience for longer than five minutes without a captivating story."
Steve Jobs
Pixar's 1996 Report
People can wonder about how come some movie technology doesn't seem to make it, why do some movie studios with special effects have been sold. They have all forgotten this essential truth.
Until people see that the movie's ability to captivate is more important than the technology used in the movie (or to display to movie, for that matter) we will have more discussions like this. But as I write, there's over 400 posts to this discussion alone. I expect this point to be lost in the uproar.
One idea I really like is that they can now run movies at higher frame rates. When I was in Brazil, they used a TV projector with a video tape to run local commercials. Since it was NTSC, it was done at 60 fields a second. That looked really cool on the screen! Ever since then I've been aching to see movies at a higher frame rate.
"Derp de derp."
Somebody above said it is digital, hmm, may be. ::checks site:: Yup, it is!
:)
Ok, listen up, I don't like microsoft having a monopoly any more then the next antiMShavingAmonopoly slashdot'er, but damnit, the Cinerama is ONE damn good benefit of it.
If you have not seen Lord Of The Rings, Starwars Episode 1, Gladiator, and Harry Potter on this screen, then your life SUCKS. Period. It does.
Yes folks, even Star Wars Episode 1 was good on this screen, and with the sound system in it you could hear EACH AND EVERY ARROW flying by in the opening scene of Gladiator.
Made folks damn near want to duck and hide for cover.
The theater is that good. The seats are nice (though they bend back a bit too much, and some people find them too high up off the ground, their legs end up going numb or at least getting bit into by the chairs edge. ^_^ ), the sound system will have your bones shaking (the THX intros alone are well worth it, there are THX approved theaters and then there are theaters that THX movies are MADE for. ) and even the shittiest movie is well worth seeing here.
Bill Gates can rot in hell, but there is a special place in Heaven for people like Paul Allen who bring this much joy to Geeks.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
the gamma of digital projectors (usually gamma 2.2) is still not (although someday it might be) as good as FILM GAMMA (gamma 1.0). stuff captured on film has a smoothness of gamma that is still smoother than anything caputured by a CCD.
the same is also true of 35mm cameras vs digital cameras. even a $20 disposable 35mm camera has a MINIMUM resolution (approximately 2500 x 1200 pixels) that is better than most $400 digital cameras, and even if you match the resolution, you still have a lousy 2.2 gamma for digital images coming off a CCD (as opposed to 1.0 gamma for film). if you happen to *like* poor CCD gamma quality - that's your choice, but why do people always automatically swallow the HYPE that equates digital = better, when its not!?
although the benefits of going digital (convenience of downloading the film instead of shipping physical flim) is great, it doesn't necessarily follow that the picture that you're going to see is actually any BETTER!
The real advantage to the all-digital format is that the pirated copies don't have to be changed much before they are zipped around the internet 2 hours after opening night... LOL.
You would think with the MPAA having all of these DVD and piracy issues, that they would do their best to stop making films in a format that would be the easiest to rip off.
I assume that someone, somewhere at a local multiplex will be bringing a veeeery large PC hard drive to work every day. They are going to need to have a SWAT team in the projection booth if they go all digital.
Jar-Jar, the race scene and an 8-year-old destoying the bad-guys ship at the end was almost more than I could take.
Digital Effects != a good movie. Star Wars (A New Hope) was great because is was sci-fi and had a great story. The fighter scene may have been good for it's time, but don't tell me it's what made the movie great.
They first three (Ewoks aside) were clever original and had fantastic plots. The good guys DIDN'T always win, there was great adversity faced in what was seen as a losing struggle. I could go on...
sigh... Maybe I'm just grumpy.
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
I was in a meeting with an industry exec (I think from UA?) and he pointed out that most of the chains have just gone through a round of updating their theaters. Remember when your local theater had 1-5 screens instead of 10-14? In the process of converting to megaplexes they bought new projectors and are therefore not eager to turn around and spend money on new equipment again especially when, as you correctly point out, it has not been finalized or standardized. They need a few years to amortize their current equipment before they will consider buying something new.
Also, saw Phantom Menace in Burbank on a digital screen and while my animation friends and I could see the pixels (most noticable on the titles & credits), an informal survey on the way out revealed that most of the "non-industry" audience had no idea that they had just seen a digital projection. I liked the lack of scratches/dirt and think this will be great stuff in a couple of years.
Went to Walt Disney World at the end of last year, and managed to get substantial face time with a really nice animator. She recommended we pop over to Disney's digital theater and watch Monster's Inc.
Coming from someone who made movies for a living, she seemed pretty qualified to notice the difference.
Frankly, I'd have to agree. In the opening Pixar demo, I could easily see details that just weren't visible on standard film stock. The bird's had scratches on their beaks from pecking; the wire they sat on was branded; everything looked very crisp and bright.
Convinced I was just being more observant this time around, I made a point to see the movie again in a non-digital theater. My observations on the digital showing were correct. The animator was right.
The funny part was when, as I was buying my ticket, I asked the person at the ticket booth what they thought of the digital show. The answer was "it looks the same to me."
That got me wondering -- if you don't know what to look for, are you going to be able to appreciate it?
Unfortunately, I'm not a big stereo buff, and when my musician friend took me to a local store to pick a home theater system, I couldn't tell the difference between the really high end stuff and mid-range. Perhaps this is due to my hearing not being as acute as his? Now my vision is much better.
Could it be that the average eyesight is not that great, or could it be that the average viewer isn't looking for extra details but does notice the absence of extensive film damage and splicing?
In December, I went to see Ocean's Eleven at the Santa Monica AMC theatre, which was playing one screen with TI DLP digital projection, and another with film.
A live action film such as Ocean's Eleven is a much better test than animated films such as Monsters, Inc. Animation tends to have bright, highly saturated colors and low contrast, which plays to the strengths of digital projection, and hides the weaknesses. Ocean's Eleven, on the other hand, had skin tones and lots of dark tones.
I first watched the entire film with the DLP projection. My impression was favorable. The picture was very stable, scratch-free, was acceptably bright, and seemed to have good contrast and detail in the darker areas. I thought: "This digital projection is pretty darned good." Then, I immediately went to the film screen....
On the film screen, the movie was about 1/4 into the story. My immediate impression was that the image was about twice as bright. The digital suddenly seemed a little murky in comparison. Secondly, the film contrast was considerably higher, with the black level being about equal in intensity to the DLP, but the bright areas at least twice as intense.
Resolution was another interesting tale. The film had obviously higher resolution (pattern on houndstooth jacket much clearer, for instance), but the DLP appeared to be sharper. At first, this seems to be a contradiction. However, if the lower resolution digital images were run through a sharpening filter (such as unsharp mask), it would appear sharper.
The film print I saw was in good condition, with few scratches or sparkles. This is not always the case.
Finally, the film projector had a small amount of gate shake. The DLP was completely free of this artifact.
My conclusion: digital projection has to make substantial improvements in brightness, contrast, and resolution to match the quality of film projection. The current DLP projectors are interesting prototypes, but not ready for prime-time. I do not think they are worth the >$100,000 investment at this time. Digital projection will become the norm in future (as a matter of economics); I just hope it doesn't happen until digital projection at least equal to film projection in quality. I read that the ASC has recommended that the resolution of digital filmmaking should be at least 4K horizontal pixels (current DLP is 1K; maximum HDTV is less than 2K).
Either way, many out there are too impressed by commercials, jingles and buzz words/phrases. However, on the other end, how can you blame them if their trust is there due to the developing communities insistance that only new is better. Instead of taking the approach to any adoption of new technology as a 'is this actually better for me' it becomes mired in a buzz filled gladiator pit of chaos and confusion, ultimately ended by maybe one winner, but usually no survivors. Then on the reverse side, you have those that are so untrusting of anything new that they flame anything that is new, regardless of whether it is better or not. So, you end up with two extremes that any logical person can see are really just two flavors of the very same melty ice cream cone.
As for film, I do remember the arguments for recording digitally. Namely, that in theory you could cut out the middleman (and time) of converting to digital to edit, then back to film. Also, was the mention of compression and such for transportation purposes... however I still personally believe that with algorithms and technology around today, you could have digital filming and projecting that is far superior to Film. It is not a problem with technology as much as it is a problem with incompetence and disagreement in the technology adopters and standards bodies (ok, that one I threw in there from another discussion :)
I work for LucasArts, and we do video games. The article should say that LucasFilm is....
--P
What's a sig? Pete Brubaker
I mean, does it? "Attack of The Clownz" is going to be a gold-electroplated turd. We all know that. Does it matter if it was buffed twice or thrice when we know that just under its shiney surface is feculent shit?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I don't get it. What is a digital screen ? Are you seriously trying to tell me you have LCD screens big enough for a movie theater ?
I saw a movie (Ocean's 11) on a digital screen in LA. You can't tell the difference at all. Digital sound is a big deal, but many theaters have that already
I live in Los Angeles and have access to a great Digital Theatre in Burbank, CA. Since Toy Story 2 I have seen every movie I can at the Digital Theatre! FINAL FANTASY, SHREK, PHANTOM MENACE, MONSTER'S INC, AKIRA, MISSION TO MARS (though I wish I hadn;t seen that period) and it has always been very worthwhile. Now in the text onscreen some pixelization can be seen, but the rest of the image looks amazing! The image looks at least twice as bright as a standard film projector and the colors are exrtremely vibrant. I still remember being almost blinded by the opening credits of Toy Story 2. And i got a kick out of the whole history of Digital Cinema that they showed with it. Even non-digitally projected films, such as AKIRA, look amazing. The colors were so much brighter than I recalled frm seeing it in the theatre on it's initial American release, and this film seemed to lack and pixelization (something to do with transfering ti to digital from film? I couldn't tell you).
It is well worth seeing films at a Digital Theatre, especially if they are created digitally as you will never see such vibrant colors, or such a bright image, but it is my opinion that the initial set up expense will keep this from being a viable film alternative, even if in the long run it is much cheaper (not having to make film prints of each film, and someday being able to send the film digitally to the theatre over broadband).
Man, ppl. on Slashdot are so damn cynical. I was being serious. I like film better than digital, partly for the grain (also for the superior image capturing -- see my earlier post under this topic).
I don't even own a turntable, and I'm not dogmatic about vinyl being better than CDs, but I do find vinyl interesting. And I freely admit that the distortion, in both media, is part of the charm.
of course there's disadvantages too, but the advantages are enough so that arguably, with a couple more years, digital projection really could eclipse traditional film projection in theatres.
for those of you lucky enough to live in the los angeles area, there's a theatre up in hollywood across the street from the 'Mann's Chinese theatre that's called the El Capitan. it's owned by Disney, and therefore pretty much shows disney movies, (pricy too, like 13-24$ a ticket) but going and watching a newly produced disney feature film in digital projection you really can see the advantages. the above post is right, it's not in an incredibly high resolution. here's what i advise... get a front-row BALCONY seat, and watch the movie from there, then when the credits are scrolling, run downstairs to the front of the theatre and watch the credits scroll up close: from up close, you can SEE the pixels on the screen, they're about the size of a fingertip each, however, from anywhere more then about 10 rows back (balcony is prime, like i said) you can't see the pixels at all... every edge looks razor sharp, and when it's a CARTOON, especially, there's something else you don't see: the FILM GRAIN.....
that's right, film is in MUCH higher resolution than any current digital projection standard can offer, but it's got NOISE... grain, dust, dirt, decomposition... all these things plague even NEW films. you will be suprised how much of a difference it can make, especially, like i said, on cartoons, when areas of the image that are supposed to be solid colors actually ARE. it'll almost ruin your ability to appreciate non-digital projection.
there are other advantages too: production cost and editing costs are trivial for digital editing compared to good quality film editing. the projector equipment is more expensive, but not nearly as much so as IMAX film and projection equipment, which is one of the big reasons why IMAX hasn't taken over the theaters either yet (that and it's hard to find a place to put a 5-story screen)
also, (again, for those of you lucky enough to live in the Los Angeles area) it's somehow not very well known that the second of those 20 existing digital projection screens is in one of the theatres in the AMC in Burbank, near the Media Center Mall. Every once in a while they show a new release in digital there... it's worth it to go check it out (remember to sit more than 10 rows back or so, if you can) just to be able to compare it to a film you can see projected on film as well.
I agree with you that the technology and standards need to settle down. Another big factor, though, is cost. Sure, digital projectors will help theater owners in the long term but in the short term, studios are asking theater owners to bear the substantial costs of converting to something that will mainly benefit the studios (making prints, distribution, etc.). Digital projection will happen (all this arguing about analog vs. digital is irrelevant, just like CDs vs. vinyl back in the 80's) but the studios are going to have to kick in some of their $$ to jump start the conversions.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
They look horrible. I saw Planet of the Apes in both Film and Digital formats. I walked out of the digital version. Granted, I had seen the movie before, but the pixelation was horrendous. Unwatchable. I could see every pixel on the screen as plain as day. Maybe if you were sitting at the back row it would look ok, but the sound suffers in the rear of the theater. The fact remains; just like Cds, the resolution just isn't high enought to compete with quality analog reproduction. I think a lot of people need to wake up and realize that digital does not equal quality. It's just cheaper and easier.
The effects from The Matrix looked like crap when I saw the movie played on a computer monitor via DVD because the picture was so clear that every effect looked like something I could draw myself. On my TV and at the theatre ( not digital ) it looked great though
I was lucky enough to see Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on a digital screen at the Irvine Spectrum in OC California. From the moment the first green "Preview" image popped up on the screen I was in awe at the difference. I didn't think it would be that noticeable, but seriously...no regular movie projection can compare. The clarity of the image was incredible.
The El Capitan on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, CA is a digital theatre (owned by Disney). I saw Toy Story 2 there, and yes, there is a BIG difference, highlighted especially by an animated movie where there are expanses of a single colour. It's the difference between looking at a TIFF and a JPEG. While some may prefer the artistic quality of noise generated by film grain and errant dust, I prefer the clearer picture, and would pay more to see it.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
The BEST thing about DV is that you can go to Fry's to get parts off the shelf if it breaks! I mean, jeez, how cheap are disk drives these days? A dollar per gig? There is no "Projectors R Us" as far as I know (at least not near me)....
"Just because you're a genius doesn't make you a smart guy!" -- Narrator, Powerpuff Girls
How long did it take for THX to become a widely adopted standard?
AFAIK, THX is not tied to a particular technology, but it was developed by Lucas (his company, anyway), and I imagine it took some time for it to become widespread in theaters.
Can a useful parallel be drawn here? Was there some point in THX's history when it's lack of adoption was lamented by Lucas?
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
This all sounds a lot like the CD vs Vinyl debate.
---- The one good thing about music: When it hits you, you feel no pain.
A few points worth noting: I saw part of the phantom menace on one of those wide-screen hdtv's. Picture was so clear that it made the film's effects look even less realistic.
I'll agree with that - watched "The Fifth Element" on a friend's progressive-scan DVD with a Trinitron tubed TV. The special effects were laughable at best. Strange the way that works!
I'm a 2000 man.
My bad film experience was when a bonehead projectionist messed up the order of MI:2 on opening day. Apparently there were 4 film reels.. obviously played in sequence. Only problem is the sequence we got was 1-3-2-4... Ever seen a packed theater give a collective WTF??? "Didn't that guy just get shot a minute ago?"
the digital film they are watching crashes?
...Lightsabers waving around with ferocious speed and sound. Darth Ugly winds up to behead Obi-Nice-Guy-Jedi ...
FZzzt! BLUE SCREEN
Audience: Aieeeiiiee My retinas!
Voice from projection booth: #@$^%@ Who's the $#@$ that downloaded the pr0n. Every $!$%ing time it crashes!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
I think the really great thing about digital projectors is the potential to have cheaply available old movies.
It is rare to have see classic films in theaters.
If classic movies can cheaply be distributed dgitally then we might see theaters showing some of the great films rather than the schlock that is put out lately.
I've seen films at the DLPs in South Barrington, Illinois and at the one in Framingham (near Boston) and can report that the experience was inferior to a properly projected/matted "normal" film in both cases.
I plan to actively avoid all DLPs in the foreseeable future; the problems I saw in both viewings had to be with the technology and not just with whoever was running the equipment.
Everyone here is right. The current resolution and color space of digital is insufficient - but it can be improved with new/better technology. Those digital projectors are expensive - but those prints are even more expensive.
What really matters is that distribution of digital films could be an IMMENSE improvement over the existing network. There would be no limits on where, or when, or how many screens a film could be shown. Everyone could show a hot film on opening night. Theaters could adjust the number of screens they're showing their films on at will. Staggered worldwide release of films due to limited prints would be a thing of the past (the sole reason for the evil DVD region coding). Older films could be re-shown at will, without worrying about coordination. Instead of renting a copy of a film at a set price, theaters could pay based on seats sold/available, eliminating discrimination between large and small venues - indeed, leading to a trend towards theaters with more, but smaller screens for increased flexibility, and greater intimacy when desired - including private, on-demand screenings. Who needs a home theater when you can have the real thing?
In short, going to the movies could be a lot more fun for the fans, and more efficient for the theaters and studios.
Hell yeah, we should go digital. And the studios should be paying for it. They stand to benefit in a big way.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Well, there is one advantage of the digital projectors, the framerate. This can be important in fast moving scenes, i.e. the "explosion" of Sauron in the LotR would have been improved, the creators were forced to add much blur to produce a effect of fast moving. This could have been much sharper with higher framerate.
Lucky me, I live about 15 minutes away from a digital screen (AMC 30 in Barrington Illinois)
I saw "Monsters Inc" here in suburban Cleveland at a Cinemark theatre using the "Digital Light Projection" (DLP) system. There's only 20 in the country? Wow, I feel special now.
Anyway, the movie looked great to me. However, during the previews when the green screen talking about the ratings was up, I could plainly see jagged edges on things like the letter "A". Very obvious....
I think I only noticed it once during the actual movie. Jagged edges on Mike's eye...
But for the most part I think it's great because of the ability for theaters to receive movies via satelite and not having to worry about the movie getting damaged. I've seen way to many movies that had vertical scratch marks....
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
Imagine that digital projection is everywhere, and it is great quality. Movies "zip" across the internet from the distributor to the movie theater near instantly on dedicated high-speed data lines. Here is where the problem lies...
Currently, a film is made, then multiple copies of it are created. There aren't enough copies made for every theater in the world, because the cost of making the copies is pretty large. So, a limited number are made, and the movies are sent out in a "staggered" fashion around the world - first in America (for American films, usually), then to Europe and Japan, etc. What happens is a movie will open in one country, but not in every country - a few months later Europe gets it, then Japan (or however the order is) - until eventually some backwater country may get it, after it has passed through a ton of mailings and numerous playings (pity the small man on the totem pole) - scratchy and ugly - but that is the way it is.
With digital, it doesn't have to be that way - "instant" transport via dedicated lines, no film to copy, etc - there isn't any need now to suspend sending it everywhere - right?
Well, look at DVDs - same thing, nearly - but it has this funky thing called "region coding" - it is an artificial scarcity placed upon the medium, to continue with the staggering of releases, so that the DVD isn't seen in Europe while it is waiting for the actual movie. If movies went digital, wouldn't this DVD region-coding staggering issue be seen as the real scam it is?
Or maybe they (MPAA? SOMEONE!) are making extra money by staggering the movies in some fashion (ie, the staggering has to be done - so let's make money off of the situation!) - but with digital distribution, away goes that revenue stream...?
As always - follow the money, and there will be your answer (it surely can't be the cost of the projectors - I am certain that the money saved by using digital projectors over normal projectors would easily cover any extra infrastructure cost - ie, network, servers, etc - at the theater - those non-digital projectors are EXPENSIVE)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I saw Final Fantasy digitally projected @ AMC Van Ness in SF last summer. The experience reminded me of watching an old CRT screen with significant separation between the red, green, and blue images. The effect was most noticeable during action sequences and was very distracting. I cannot be certain that the separation resulted from the digital projection process, but I am wary of attending digital projections in the future.
I saw Episode One on opening day in Ol' George's hometown, Modesto California. There was a new theater in town, with digital screens almost exclusively in mind for Star Wars at the time. It was a very decent showing. I don't recall being blown away from a hugely significant difference, but the overall quality didn't disappoint. I'd probably need a near side-by-side comparison to tell any difference. Can't wait for LOTR digital, though...
I'm pretty sure the Showcase Cinemas
in Randolph, MA ( outside of boston)
has one...they were showing Ocean's 11
with it...
Well, if there are only 20 - this site lists 19
of them. These are only US - there seem to be more worldwide.
http://www.dlp.com/dlp/cinema/where.asp?rid=1
(If that doesn't work - goto www.dlp.com)
Myrashka
I'm not an optomertrist, but isen't there a diminishing return to increasing frame rates? I remember something about the retna's image retention interfering with higher frame rates. (For those of you who've delt with Xwindows - Remember interlaced resolutions? You sure coulden't SEE the individual lines, even if they gave you a headache.)
You first paragraph was right on.
Your second paragraph was demonstrably incorrect.
It is true that a 35mm negative will have more raw, measurable resolution than HD 1080i. But you don't see a 35mm original in the theater. The original is analog-duped several generations before you get a print, and it's the n-th generation print you see on the screen. EACH generation causes a loss of resolution. Just ONE such dup is sufficient to reduce 35mm film to lower resolution than HD 1080i. These resolution tests are not subjective; they are measurable, and HD beats 2nd generation 35mm motion picture film. Larry Thorpe has these results on hand at the big Sony center is San Jose; I'm sure he'd be just as happy to show them to you as he was to show them to me.
As far as light response goes, the Sony HDW-900 has MORE dynamic range than premium 35mm film: 14 f-stops vs. film's 11 1/2. Believe it or not, the 2 1/2 extra f-stops are at the low end.
Yes, a cheapo consumer miniDV camera will exhibit a linear light response, but a $100,000 HDW-900 certainly will not. Even a $15,000 DSR-500 like I have doesn't have a linear light response. Yes, both cameras are subject to clipping, but that's a non-issue; film is also subject to clipping, although the two do look quite different. Anyway, it doesn't matter, a good DP won't clip your footage.
Computer geeks get hung up on resolution easily, because it's so easily measurable (at least in digital it is.) But resolution really isn't the issue; quality lenses and a really big CCD matter more. You can put good 720x480 up on a huge movie screen, and 96% of the audience won't know or care. I've seen it with my own eyes.
I do not wish to pay 8 bucks for a movie and then watch pepsi advertisments.
I'll download my movies while this still happens.
I say fuck 'em until then.
Pr8? tough shit.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
Movie film is made and developed with a pretty crappy process. It's nowhere near as good as Kodak or Fuji 35mm slide film. So while 35mm may have a theoretical max data of ~30Mpixels a frame, the movie film definately hurts this, at probably by about 1/2. Add to that the degrading effects of multiple copies and wear tear on the film in the theatre and the actual resolution starts to get pretty close to HD.
I don't know, my projector is rather limited, and I would prefer film over aanything that iy can produce... Maybe film projectors' power is limited by air-cooling of the film, and colors are limited by the need to have all pigments on all frames, and under threat of fading, while LCDs are easier to cool and can use any reasonable way to get red, blue and green as close to the optimal as one would want...
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Until you see a 'large' moving panning shot, like the few in LoTR:FoTR, and you go "ARGH! FILM SUCKS!!".
Yes this is because Lord of the rings was printed on IBDye then transfered to digital for a few select places. IBD destroys digital
In a dark room, pilots could identify an
airplane image flashed for 1/500 of a second.