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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.
Well, digital stuff doesn't degrade - watch a movie opening night, and compare the quality with a movie in the dollar theater. You'll notice it degrades over time, just like an LP would. Digital stuff might not fit your bizarre audiophile definition of quality when it first comes out, but until you lose 50% of the signal strength, it will always be at that quality.
digital film?
What do you mean digital film? All you need are bits. The bits from a high-res high-motion camera are simply transferred via a high speed interface to hard drive, digital tape, or other bit storage medium. In fact, this can be done much more cheaply than using celluloid film. In a lower-budget movie, the most expensive part of the production is the film to shoot it on.
You're right about celluloid being higher quality...it definately has higher resolution, but lower contrast than lucasfilm's digital projectors. The problem is that celluloid degrades over multiple viewings, and produces a slightly jerky picture on all but the most finely tuned projectors.
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.
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.
what is the benefit to the theater or the viewer?
The main benefit to the viewer is that you will see the same movie on opening night, and four weeks later. Currently, film prints can get scratched; they can break and get (possibly poorly) patched; and you can often see a visual glitch when one reel of film finishes and another reel starts up. The problems with film can get worse, much worse, if you have an idiot or a klutz as a projectionist, or if the movie house is really cheap and doesn't take proper care of the film and/or the projection equipment.
The number one fear I have about digital is that a projector might get one or more stuck pixels, and then there will be wrong pixels in the same places for the whole movie. So we are getting rid of all the little annoying errors that accrete over time with film, but possibly gaining annoying errors that last all movie (not changing until the projector is repaired!).
Another thing: this is the wild-and-wooly early days of digital projection. We will no doubt go through several rounds of standards changes and upgrades. (I haven't seen 1920x1200 on a big screen--maybe it's really gorgous--but it is hard for me to imagine that this level of quality will still be in use 20 years from now.) So the theater owners may invest in expensive projectors, and then find that they have to buy newer and even more expensive projectors to keep up.
One benefit to theater owners, however: they won't have to pay as much for the actual distribution media the film comes on. If they have multiple theaters that want to show the film, currently they need multiple prints. With digital, I don't know for sure how they will do it, but I imagine they will ship out the movie on magnetic tape, and load up one or more RAID arrays at the theater to drive the projectors. (Anyone who knows for sure, please speak up.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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
I never thought film quality was much of an issue in a theater, or projector condition for that matter, until I saw Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring on opening night. 1 hour into the movie, the film slipped its track, went out of focus, made some bad noises, then stuck to the hot lens and melted in front of all our eyes (yellow-orange-blach spots, then nothing but white screen). They spliced the movie back together and in 15 minutes we were watching it again.
Weeks later a friend of mine went to same theater, and noticed the 30 second gap in the movie from the splice. That was their only copy, forever ruined since opening night. Ugh. I'll stick with DVD on my own setup if that's what $8 a ticket gets me.
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
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Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase
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.
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'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) (-:
Or, even cranking up the frame rate.. how about a 60fps film. The motion blur at 24fps is horrible.
People have come to enjoy the soothing clunkiness of 24fps,
Well, what if the motion blur disappears when using a digital projector - then 24 fps will look pretty bleak and 60 fps will definitely be needed. Comparing to the state of televisions the 100 Hz TV's (europe) requires special circuitry to interpolate a decent picture. And while as long as the interpolation technique introduces artifacts I prefer the builtin smoothing of a 50 Hz set. To go back to movies, if the digital projectors are too good they will only magnify the limitations of the original film. So both are right, but once the step is taken to digital there's no going back - framerate must go up eventually.
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
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
In a way, you're pretty lucky. I don't think many of us get to see that sort of thing. It's probably a rare event!
-Paul Komarek
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.
Do you have any measurements to back that up? That is something that I've tried to get real, hard data on, but I cannot. The data is available for resolution & contrast ratios, but not color gamut.
By the way, you talk about jitter and weave, but have you ever seen a Kinoton "E" series projector? Instead of a mechanical intermittent, they use electronic stepper motors to do the film pulldown. They produce very steady images with jitter & weave well below that of standard projectors. Many people have only seen cheap, belt-driven projectors from Cristie, and incorrectly assume that that is the best film has to offer. It can actually be much better.
Free Hans!
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.
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
I noticed some really nasty jerking motion during some of the pans in LOTR.
:(
Right on. Each time there was a pan, I was able to say "CG", "not CG", "CG", just by looking at the motion smoothness. Very distracting
If I were in charge of the rendering of these shots, I would make tests with a strobe light and actual film, map the shutter response curve, and reproduce it exactly (probably by creating and blending multiple sub-frames, no pity for the render farm). It's disturbing to see that those in charge (supposedly professionals) are doing a much poorer job.
Let's hope that the 24fps -> 30fps pulldown of the LotR DVD will actually help smooth things out [grin].
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.
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.
(snip)
Think of it as photocopying a photocopy - several times.
Is this why a lot of the "deleted scenes" we see in DVD's are of such poor picture quality? I mean, has anyone seen the d.s.'s from Austin Powers, for instance? Some of them look like they were shot by my shitty webcam?!
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.
NOOOO - never OFFER to pay more!!!
I don't pay mare for my next car or computer - but it will be better. My last car had handle wind windows, my current car has electric windows and Air Conditioning, my next car will likely have a navigation system.
They all cost the same new.
Cinemas relying on old technology have no right to charge the same as those with new - and those with new have no right to charge me a premium to watch the film just because they bought a new projector.
Even if it IS that much better.
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.
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...
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?"
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