Slashdot Mirror
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"."
Considering I saw "Imax Showscan" (which was Imax with double the frame rate) at Expo 86 in Vancouver 16 years ago,this is hardly startling new technology or a startling new idea.
Besides, the shift to digital isn't about quality it's about distribution costs. A movie print costs between $1500 and $2500 PER SCREEN, just for the film, plus you've got to courier it to the theatre, and the projectionist has to make up platter by splicing the 5 or 6 spools that make up a feature along with trailers, ads, etc. The theatres would much rather get a couple of DVDs containing all their content for the week.
And yes, we're working on better compression and encryption technology to make sure that the movies still look good, and nobody can steal the DVD and sell a million copies on the black market. On the system I'm working on, the projectors themselves may have a small single-board Linux computer inside to do the decryption, so the movies won't be playable anywhere but on the projectors they're meant for.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
So what's wrong with movies the way they are now? The resolution is fine and the motion is fine. The only people complaining about it are the Hollywood types who have something to sell. Besides the real money in Hollywood is in renting videos. The new formats that are being proposed will have zero impact on the television even if you are using hdtv.
I can understand why the studios aren't going for this Maxivision48 system. After all, if the studios were really interested in improving film quality, surely they'd have standardised on 70mm by now? The difference in clarity between, say, the 70mm print of 2001 and a 35mm print is very noticable.
No, it seems to me that the principal (possibly the only?) advantage of digital is the ease of distribution, and that's why the large studios are pushing for it. Maxivision48 means you've got twice as much film stock to distribute, so I don't see it succeeding.
Let's do the math, shall we?
Or approximately $3 million. Hardly chump change if you're spending it left and right. Even the article points out, "[A]t current prices, a digital projector would cost more than some of the smaller nearby theaters."
-Richard
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Watch the scrolling text at the beginning of any Star Wars Movie. Watch that same movie on digital, like DVD or Episode II in a digital theater. In analog, the text moves around visibly. In digital, the text is rock-solid. The entire film is doing this!
48 fps should be an improvement, but the debates against digital are anti-technology, and frankly anti-copying. You have to ask why this technology, as old as it is, wasn't adopted awhile ago? My guess is cost. Note the lack of technical detail in the article. My guess is that non-standard projectors will not be adopted regardless of cost.
Well, you're kinda right, but not quite. :( Humans have come to recognise 24fps as 'film' and 50/60fps as 'TV'. That's why HD has a 24fps setting when it can happily do 60.
Projectors actually show each frame twice in order to stop the flickering (if you just light the frame for longer, it weakens the print.
Whereas this 48fps movie format actually has 48 frames, each with motion blur (it's not a 'technique', it's just what happens when you expose a frame for 1/48th of a second). maxivision48 has much higher resolution by using more surface area of the print and the images are sharper because there is less motion blur captured.
Of course the downside of all this is that it looks more like TV.
Why do the movie guys want digital? Is it for quality? That is likely a secondary reason. More likely they want to bring down their costs and bring in customers. How much to stamp 100,000 12inch discs?
Probably less than a couple of reels of film. The whole world could be covered by one pressing. (languages and all). Digital sub titles etc.
We the customer are just a means to an end. Make them richer.
Ok, the real advantage is not quality, it's flexibility. As digital distribution dramatically cuts distribution costs, theatres could play more, and more varied movies. When getting a new movie into the theatre consists of a fed-ex delivery of 10 DVDs it's a hell of a lot easier to get a new movie on the screen. Lower cost of distribution also levels the playing field, making it easier for independents to compete.
Another huge advantage is the ability to play live content. Weeknights are typically pretty slow nights at the theatre, so why not show some baseball, football or, basketball games depending on the season.
-josh
no, they aren't. If you're shooting film for American TV you shoot it at 29.97 fps - and than you don't need to add 3:2 pulldown when you telecine it. Same with PAL TV, film shot for PAL TV is shot at 25fps. Why would you shoot TV material to cinema standards? It makes no sense at all. Just go and have a look at a camera manufacturers website and look at their cams - try Arri or Panavision for a start - and you'll see that 24, 25 and 29.97 are all "crystal" speeds, among all the others. BTW, NTSC is 59.94 fields per second, not 60.
That was classic intercourse!
Agreed 100% to this. A brand new print on well set up projection equipment gives far better quality that digital projectors. Simply, there are more bits there, both spatially and in depth. IIRC, Star Wars was shot at 1920 wide, but film is still giving more data when digitised over 3K wide. Likewise, film has the depth to allow really good gamma correction before processing - probably the equivalent to 14 or 15 bits, while cameras are at most 10 bits and often 8.
However, the other point you make, that film degrades over time is very relevant. A film print nowadays costs about $6000, and will be showing noticable wear after 2 weeks (as said to me by a film person). And film needs to be physically transported etc.
The problem is that the costs of digital projection fall upon the theatre owner, who sees very little benifit, whereas the benifits go to the producer. In order to make digital really take off, the producers are going to have to find some way of kicking back a percentage of their gain to the theatre owners. One way that has been suggested is for the producers, or a producer-oriented organisation, to buy the projectors and put them into the cinemas, then charge on a pay-per-view. If the digifilms don't come out, the theatre owner doesn't lose, if they do, he has the revenue to pay the rent. Which requires help from the money men - who are a bit suspicious of new-tech propositions at the moment.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Why do people think digital is so good? I do photography and still use film. Why? Because film has a much higher quality than a top of the line digital camera. Good low grain 35mm film (which is actually 24x36mm) can hold an image equivalent to a 130meg uncompressed digital image file.
Now look at an 8x10 camera, that's a very large sheet of film that is commonly used. To scan in that image and get all of the information in the image, it's going to be about 14G of data.
Now when you view these images, no top of the line home digital equipment can even approach the viewing quality of a good slide projector with film.
So what's so good about digital? Well, you can repeatedly reuse and copy it without the image degrading. It's also cheaper to make copies of. Analog video and film still has the highest quality and will continue so for a long time. Digital is just a cheap consumer product. Comparing digital to film is like comparing McDonalds fast food to a gourmet restaurant.
Let me just add, I'm not bashing digital. I would like to get a digital camera for snapshots and lots of other quick stuff. But when I want quality, I still choose film.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
The amusement park doesn't make $2.96 on each hot dog. There are other costs that you're not accounting for such as:
Employee salary.
Energy required to cook, sell, clean up, refrigerate, etc..
Wasted food stock (food not sold that needs to be disposed of).
Repairs on the facility.
Insurance.
Cost of the land and building required.
Lest we not forget that most likely the park is using some other feature (entry fee, etc..) as a loss leader, in which case the food concession would assume part of that loss as it's cost of business.
I'm sure I've forgotten some other costs to take into account but I think the point is proven. The factors I mention all sound trivial until you start adding them up. Even though, the margins specifically on hotdogs are probably still huge. But they are not making 99% profit.
But, digital has the advantage of incredible convenience. I can shoot a picture, crop it, and post it online in 30 minutes. When making portraits, I can capture a dozen pictures and keep the best ones. And I can see the final image immediately and decide whether to try other poses. This introduces more spontaneity and experimentation into photography.
Also, digital lends itself better to certain creations, like animated snapshows (example, example, tutorial).
So, digital cameras are inferior if you'll use them exactly like a film camera. But if you take advantage of the instant feedback and negligible cost-per-shot, digital can promote great creativity.
AlpineR
I understand the economics of the theater biz, but please don't claim that you're jacking up prices on concessions because of the people who don't buy them there.
If they reached around into the case and grabbed some food, then it's stealing.
If they brought it in, it's not stealing. It's probably not a lost sale. Odds are, if they didn't bring in their own food, they wouldn't have bought it anyway.
Don't fall into the same logic trap that the RIAA, MPAA, and software industry is when it comes to piracy. Yes, there's a difference here since it's a physical good, but the reality is that there is no deprivation of goods here and to call it stealing is assine.
The reason the food and drink is so expensive is: 1) It is the only realistic revenue stream theaters have, 2) you have a captive audience.
Man, you really must hate people like me who ... gasp ... don't like eating or drinking stuff while watching a movie. Which means that when I come to a theater, I don't "sneak" in any food or drink, and I don't purchase any food or drink. I must be costing you a fortune - you must be glad I rarely go to see movies, then.
(Plus I don't see what the purpose is of chugging 32 oz of soda just so you can skip out during the climax to make use of the rest facilities. Seems like it would disrupt the flow of the movie.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I have seen Minority Report on one of these digital theaters in Westwood, CA. All I can say about it is negative:
- color resultion: really really suck. It appears they use 4-4-3 bits for RGB or something equally inferior. Openeing scene had very visible banding instead of smooth gradients. While this could be dithered, it was not, probably because of compression requirements. It truly sucked, or have I already said that.
- pixel resolution: is OK, but the black space between pixels is visible. That makes the pixels visible, and that sucks. They need a better LCD panel.
Changes they have to make before I consider digital is:
a) higher color fidelity
b) possibly higher resolution (1.5x - 2x horiz. and vert. too)
c) dead space elimination between pixels
d) less agressive compression (ie. bigger storage)
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.