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Will Digital Cinema Wipe-Out Today's Movie Theaters?
Phantoman asks: "I work for the Campus Cinema at University of California Davis and we are looking into getting a Christie or Barco DLP system for Digital Cinema projection. Now if this is the wave of the future I ask you all to compare 35mm to Digital. The price tag on a digital setup is roughly $140,000. Without content. 35mm isn't all that cheap, but if my old Century 35mm projectors break I can get replacement parts for usually less than $100-300. If something goes wrong with the DMD (digital micromirror device) I have a feeling those digital projector parts are going to cost me big. Are the movie theater chains going to get stuck with big costs down the road because Hollywood producers want to save money and have tighter control over distribution? As if they didn't a monopoly already: it costs us between $500-1000 (or half of our profits, whichever is more) for each night we show a movie!" At those prices it doesn't sound like digital theaters will overtake 35mm theaters anytime soon, but what would happen if Hollywood suddenly got the "bright" idea to limit 35mm reel distribution within the next few years?
"Digital is all well and good for the production end, but is anyone going to be able to foot the cost for digital on the presentation end or are we going to end up a straight-to-video world? Also, If anyone wants to help donate to a nonprofit for our digital system, email me. We were the second school to have 35mm, I would like to be the first to have digital."
How about projecting infrared light onto the screen. Most cameras are sensitive to infrared light, so it could be used to add invisible to the naked eye messages and such to the picture. It would probably require a second 'security' projector.
Love him or hate him, he is a famous voice in the movie review business. Here he says "Digital images contain less information than 35mm film images, and the more you test their limits, the more you see that."
I have read (in another of his reviews that I can't find now) that movies that are "filmed" (vs. digitally recorded) look better on film, where as digitally recorded movies look better on digital projectors (duh). He also stated that film seems more suited for real life (vs. digital recording) where as digital projection is better for digitally created works (much of Clones, Monsters Inc., etc.).
Wish I could find that commentary...
As noted current technology is both too price and still too low in quality to outpace standard 35mm film. There is a lot of mindshare built around how to make film look good on celluloid. Tossing it all out just for the alluring gloss of digital projection is stupid.
However there is a legitimate and embraced usage of digital film making. The small time indy film makers have seen the costs of making films go *way down* by using digital cameras and a simple computer(think iMac) in post production.
So the question in my mind isn't whether or not Digital film making is worth while. It is. It is whether or not projecting it in a theater is worth it, which currently it isn't.
And lastly, why does anyone want to believe Lucas on this cinema technology? This is the guy that questions the wisdom of Scorsese on constructing sets that recreate 1850 New York(I believe the movie he was refering to was Gangs of New York). Lucas would rather see it all digitized except the actors. I'll take Scorsese's attention to detail than Lucas' SFX team anyday.
A few months ago I attended a SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) meeting held at Pixar. The meeting was held in their screening room. The screening room is equipped with both a traditional 35MM film projector anda DLP projector with a resolution of 1280x1024.
For the first part of the demonstration they showed a clip from Monsters Inc. split screen, with the left half the digital projector and the right half the film projector.
It became immediately apparent the advantages of the DLP projector over the film projector.
With the side-by-side showing, the jitter of the film became immediately visible. The detail of the DLP image was better. Also, the DLP is capable of much better contrast than film.
Now the film that was shown was of higher quality than that shown in the theaters, and the projector was also better than that in most theaters (and is also better maintained).
This isn't to say that there were no DLP artifacts. There were some, but they were not very noticable compared to the artifacts that usually appear in film. The film shown had no dirt or scratches, but in the typical theater this is not the case.
Unlike film, there's nothing to wear out in the media.
As far as the projector lasting a long time, the only real problem I hear of is that the light bulb must be periodically replaced (which cost around $100). The DLP should last a long time.
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And they both suck compared to 70mm. Which is really amazing. I saw Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet in a Sony theatre in NYC shortly after it came out. It was probably the most memorable moviegoing experience in my life. Just amazing. Breathtaking. I don't see that being replaced by digital soon.
On that note, I feel the same way about DVD. I don't really like VHS all that much, but at least the noise is pleasantly gaussian. On DVDs I can't help but be distracted by the ghastly treatment of dark tones. It's terrible. But that's just me. I have a DVD player and buy DVDs because there isn't anything better.
(And don't say that it's just the old movies. I have plenty of new DVDs that look like shit, too.)
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
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Uh, not really, unless you count your computer monitor pixels three times because it handles three different planes (red, green, and blue).
What using three DLP devices gets them is a brighter image, which allows them to project onto a huge screen. Consumer DLP projectors use a wheel with red, green, and blue filters on it. The DLP device will rapidly switch to the correct channel when the corresponding filter is in the light path. That is why there is a "whirring" sound when you are operating a DLP projector (well, there's also the fan sound).
Everyone likes the AOTC digital version better because Lucas made the film transfer from the DLP instead of from the original HDTV 1900 pixel wide source. If he had used the higher resolution source, the film version would have looked better. And he didn't want that, since he's trying to promote his interests in digital cinema.
My other first post is car post.