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Star Wars Digital Projection Theaters
Zoreta writes "Wired Magazine lists the 19 digital projection theaters in the country where Attack of the Clones can be viewed as Lucas intended."
Say what you will, I can't wait for AotC- digital projector or not. I just
wish *blatant non subtle hinting* some kind soul could get me into an early
showing in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area ;) And at least I have spiderman to
tide me over. Sam Rami vs. George Lucas. Gonna be a fun summer.
Last I heard, the "digital theaters" were working on micromirror arrays, which are great little devices (I spent about a year in college trying to build a microscope with some), except when their pixels get stuck, which although not as frequent as, say, the blue screen of death, is frequent enough to warrant a problem for a theater running the camera for 80+ hours per week. Then again, my last experience with them was 3.5 years ago, so TI and others may have improved the performance significantly since then.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
I saw Mission to Mars projected digitally at AMC 30 in Olathe, KS. The picture was so good that I could see the makeup that Gary Sinise was wearing. But it was very distracting to see hime wearing some kind of rouge on his cheeks and some sort of shiny lip gloss. Movie makers need to be mindful of this sort of thing. Also Mission to Mars was one of the shittiest movies ever. That never helps.
Yes, it is absolutely that much better. You bring up good observations, but TI and the other company that does digital projection knew they needed to match film and that viewers wouldn't tolerate pixelation. When I get poor picture quality on my Dish, it's because of the compression and decompression of the digital signal. Sure Dish Network can cram 500 channels on their satellites, but picture quality suffers. Same with digital cable.
With digital "film" projection, there isn't the same level of compression/decompression. They have as much bandwidth as they need since it's feeding off of a hard drive rather than over cables or through the air.
I'm Peggy.
Digital cable is bad because cable companies seem to be trying to use it as a way to squeeze more channels into their datastream. "Ooh! This fancy MPEG can compress Discovery Science down to 9600 bps! Then we can add the All-Curling Network. Whaddya think, boss?"
At least Comcast in Montgomery County, Maryland has been going down this dark path; their digital channels exhibit far worse quality than the analog ones (which are already pretty horrid).
As for bad signals causing severe glitching, I don't think that will apply in digital projection. Since the source of the signal (Hard disk? How do studios distribute digital movies? anyone?) is in the same room with the display device, there isn't likely to be glitching.
Justin
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
Here's a list of DLP-enabled Theatres from Texas Instruments, includes at least 6 theatres not listed in the Wired article, plus links to the theatres' websites.
DLP = Digital Light Processing and is supposedly better than Plasma/LCD. 4 Million+ mirrors in this sucker less than a micron apart each.
I'm a 2000 man.
Right here. It is world-wide. I am not sure how often the list is updated. I believe Wired's list is more updated for this movie.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
As an aside, I believe any theater showing the Star Wars movies as a first run (e.g. - first 8 weeks of release) has to be THX certified.
Which, of course, pads Lucas's pocket a bit more (THX certification costs $$$), but also "ensures" that you get the movie experience that the film maker expected.
If, for instance, there's an issue with a THX certified movie in a THX certified theater, you can call 1-800-PHONE-THX to lodge a complaint. THX claims that they investigate every such complaint.
Call me picky...
;o)
The "tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh" sound you hear is likely not a gate opening and closing. The light flicker is done using (effectively) a fan blade. The sound is the rollers moving the film across the apperture. The film has to stop over the appature (so you don't get a blurry frame). This stop-and-go is what makes most of the projector noise.
If I misunderstood what you were referring to as a "gate", I appologize.
As to the flicker, that is most often attributable to a nearly worn out Xenon bulb. The older they get, the less even their light output is.
Personally, I can't wait for the end of film. I'm no longer a projectionist though.
Yes, they cost ungodly sums of money, but don't be fooled. Lucas isn't pushing DLP because of the great resolution. He is pushing it because a major release (3,000+ screens) means $33 - $35 MILLION in duplication costs.
Digital distribution cuts that to a fraction. Add to that the ability to check dailies in Hollywood via an optical link -- so the execs don't have to get dirty on site, and you have a winner.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Offtopic but actually, the post you linked to is not from the real "CmdrTaco", it's from "CmdrTaco (editor)" so technically speaking, taco wants to and always wanted to see it. The other guy who must like taco a lot doesn't want to see it. However, you state that your post is "For the lazy:" and i'm lazy so i'll just pretend you really got him...
ps. for future reference, look at the User #
"i can never say no to anyone but you"
Digital projection of digitized analog movie sometimes has problems. I saw a movie about white water rafting that disturbed me. The white water spray was fractal, and kept flickering on the screen. Another problem movie was the DVD version of 2001: A Space Odyssey (seen at MIT, of all places). Some of the model details flickered, especially the craters on the moon.
I suspect an "all the way through" digital processing shot with digital camera, post-processing digital and projection digital would have fewer of these problems. Second, proper spatial filtering to reduce jaggies helps. Third, a director who understands the limitations of digital would film scenes that reduce these problems.
I look forward to seeing Lucas's results.
The DLP website has some information. It is a big task and big expense for theaters to upgrade to it. You need special projectors, although (AFAIK) you use the same screen. The movie is actually stored digitally, which I assume means a big hard drive. The big advantage that I have seen to DLP is that the image brightness higher than film, the color clarity is similarly excellent.
Also the film quality doesn't degrade over time. Ever seen a movie after it's been in the theater for a while? You have probably noticed some aging of the film, such as scratches, fading, and so forth. There is no similar phenmomena with digital, so the 400th showing is just as clean as the 1st.