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The Future of Digital Cinema
prostoalex writes "This article on ABCNews talks about two different technologies, aimed at bringing the cinemas up to the standards of this digital age. It points out some interesting information regarding the status quo such as "of the more than 35,000 movie screens operating in the United States today, only 60 are digitally equipped, largely because of the technology's $150,000 price tag"."
Well, it _can_ be, depends on the source material and the broadcaster.
You have the option of 24, 25, 29.97 or 30 progressive or 50 and 60 interlaced.
Most prime time tv shows are filmed on 24fps 35mm then telecine'd and converted to 30fps (60 fields per sec) for NTSC TV.
Errhm, exposure time is actually rather independant of frame rate. Even movie cameras have shutters: the shutter opens, stays open for exposure time, closes, and then stays closed until the next picture is up. Which means that you may theoretically have an exposure of 1/250 second, but still 24 fps. For obviously reasons, exposure may not be longer than 1/24 though.
I thought the digital version of Star Wars II looked terrible. The individual pixels were clearly visible. For example, the Star Wars logo had poorly anti-aliased "jaggies."
I suspect that the screen was too large and/or I was sitting too close. I'm sure the DVD will look spectacular, but I don't think digital has enough resolution to compete with film, yet.
...it may not even get CLOSE to 24fps, unless you've inveted some miraculous mechanism that can move film by one whole frame is no time at all. The "standard" shutter angle is 180degrees, and therefore your normal exposure would be 1/48th sec.
That was classic intercourse!
I agree, but 70mm is not the answer. Maxivision48 would be twice the size of the film print, and 2 canisters and 4-7 reels is a heavy print to ship, move, and platter/tower.
Yes, 70mm is amazing, but the film stock is sooo expensive and huge. A similar flaw with this maxivision concept. 35mm is excellent quality. Enjoy a well projected show.
P.S. Dirt and scratches ideally are not an issue. Throughout a films first-run screenings, they should be well treated. If you see too many scratches, don't go back to the same theatre.
As to the economics, that $150K(US) is an estimate (low in my opinion) per screen. So, for each of your 20 screen theatres you're talking 3mil.
Why do you pay $6(US) for 50 cents worth of popcorn? Because that $6 pays for real estate, salaries, food, benefits, etc. Basically, the concession income pays for virtually all of the construction and operating costs of a theatre. Theatres make virtually no money on ticket sales since the vast majority is paid to the distributor. The only reason they even show the film is to get you to come in and buy concessions. The $6 price also helps defray the losses (yes losses) from people who sneak their own food and beverages into the theatre. If everyone would buy one bucket of popcorn and one soda, theatres wouldn't have to charge $6 for popcorn.
I know, I managed a movie theatre for a number of years.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
A standard 35mm film projector has a two-bladed shutter. The shutter makes one revolution per frame (i.e. each frame flickers twice) to reduce visible flicker. Some screening rooms and smaller theatres where screen brightness is less of an issue have three-bladed shutters to reduce visible flicker even more. The film still runs at 24fps, however.
What Maxivision is proposing is a system where the film runs at 48fps. Thus, the exposure time (in the camera) is less and each individual frame is sharper, which, combined with the higher frame rate/reduced flicker, provides a much better illusion (yes, it's still an illusion) of motion on screen. Maxivision also uses 3-perf pulldown rather than 4-perf pulldown like conventional 35mm film, so the total footage is only 150% of that of regular 24fps 4-perf 35mm film given the same running time.
Of course, Maxivision won't happen. It's a nice idea, but film exhibitors aren't going to spend money on this. A return to 70mm would be more likely to happen, if only beause there are hundreds (thousands?) of theatres in the world which are already equipped to show it, contrasted with approximately zero theatres which are equipped to show Maxivision.