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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"."
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.
DRM can give the movie companies almost total control over how and when movies are shown in all theaters. Which is something theater owners would prefer to control themselves - as you can respond better to your local audience.
So, if "MIB-II" is tanking in Notown, USA, start showing "Minority Report" on an extra screen to bring more people in instead.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
"A conventional movie works by flashing a series of 24 pictures on the screen every second, creating the illusion of motion. All Maxivision48 does is squeeze in 48 frames per second and doubles the speed of the projector.
The effect is twofold: The faster speed provides a stronger illusion and the shorter film exposure creates a sharper picture.
It's a simple change that filmmakers and industry analysts say makes a dramatic difference. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that watching a movie in Maxivision48 is like looking through a window at the world."
As far as I know, that's bullshit. Increasing the number of exposures to 48 per second instead of 24, would only reduce the trademark flickering of conventional film projectors.
The reason for this is that a technique called motion blur has been used for as long as I remember, to negate the low frame rate of normal movie projectors. Notice if you pause a movie during a high-motion scene, the image is blurred. This is done in order to create the illusion of motion even in a still frame.
A high-motion scene projected with a normal 24fps film projector definitely looks much more fluid than playing a high-paced game of quake with 24fps for this reason.
Basically, film makers have created the illusion of fluid motion within the constraints of only having 24 frames per second by using motion blur, and video games have created the illusion of fluid motion within the constraints of not having motion blur by increasing the frame rate to levels way beyond 24fps.
In view of this, I can see why "not a single theater or movie studio has invested in Goodhill's Maxivision48 technology". Technology? Overclocking conventional movie projectors to show 48fps instead of 24fps is not exactly "technology". I know if I owned a movie theater, I wouldn't pay for "technology" like this.
Don't forget about the decay of the prints. One showing and the quality goes down. And then add all the mecanical problems of running at twice the speed. 24fps is enough to screw the projector over several times if you don't put a lot of time into calibrating it and making sure it doesn't move around.
These problems are solved by digital projectors. I just wish that they could improve in resolution and frame rates. 24fps (double exposed so 48 updates / second) is not enough when panning for example.
I am just hoping that they could install a digital projector somewhere in Sweden, I will take a little trip then for sure;)
ptomblin: You say that you work on these systems. What are the chances that I as a consumer would be able to legally get hold of the movies in this kind of format? I would love to have a great projector at home for my home cinema, but playing DVDs on large screens are not nearly as fun as it could be.
And do you have any spiffy links? I am sure I am not the only one who are interested in these kinds of things (and in my case not to break it and get a parrot on my shoulder).
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.
For a consumer, the big digital payoff might be down the road when a movie has been through a projector so many times that the quality becomes objectionable on an analog print. But since the majority of a movie's gross is in the first few weeks of the run and the studios get the lion's share of the take during those weeks, the economics may work against digital. The studios reap the long term benefit of digital and the theater owner has to pay for it. If I owned a theater, I think I'd hold back as well.
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.
Things really went downhill at the movie theaters when they sprung that "talkie" crap on us. What was wrong with reading captions, and having an organist to provide sound? Who needs to hear what the actors are saying?
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.
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
I made the effort to see Episode 2 at a digital theater and was very happy with it. I know a lot of people have complained about jagged edges, but I really didn't see any. To me the difference between watching film and watching digital was the difference between watching VHS and watching DVD. The screen didn't jitter up and down. There were no scratches and no dust. The colors were vivid and very clear... I thought it was great and worth the extra drive to get to the theater. Even the "Don't Talk, Throw Away Your Trash" opening sequence was much better.
--
RumorsDaily
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
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.
Maxivision 48 is just going to compound the problem. The staff in cinemas can't even cope with the current film standard. I see a lot of film previews - the prints are bad even then, with splices and dirt. Even when the print is clean it's often out of focus.
The current cost of digital is high, and the resolution os lower than HDTV, but all this will change. The cost will drop dramatically, and the resolution will first improve to full HD, and then beyond as HD also improves.
The cost of making a movie on HD is dramatically less than film. If they're doing SFX with CGI, then HD makes this cheaper. Even when CGI is added to a film movie, the resolution used is no greater than HD.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
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
Except, last weekend I went and saw a midnight screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It was great, except most of the colors were fairly washed out, and every time it got to a reel change (you know, when the little dots appear in the upper right corner), there was invariably a huge increase in the number of scratches on the print, a degradation in sound quality, and there were also a number of frames missing from each end of both reels (the movie would appear to skip a second or two or time).
Now, if we'd had an original digital print of the movie, it would have looked exactly the same as it had when it came out, twenty years ago (which is to say, a lot better than it did last week). That's half the idea.
As it stands, digital projection (DLP specifically) is a mixed bag. I've come to notice that people like me (geeks) who know what pixels are, know what jaggies are, know what anti-aliasing is, and so on, think the quality of digital is lower than people who aren't familiar with those concepts and don't look for them. On Saturday I went to see (for the fourth time) Attack of the Clones, and I saw it at a digital projection with my parents and two of my cousins (specifically, this was at the Pacific Theaters at The Grove, in Los Angeles). We were sitting on the entry aisle (it's stadium seating), maybe ten rows up.
I'd also seen it digitally at Grauman's Chinese (sitting maybe 17-20 rows back) and at the Loews Century City (15-17 rows back). It looked fantastic at both those theaters. I thought that it looked worse at the Grove (on a smaller screen than either other theater), but I realized it was because I was close enough to see the vertical pixel columns distinctly in a lot of shots (especially high-contrast shots with small details). My dad, however, thought it looked better than at the Chinese (the frickin' Chinese!) and he was sitting in the same row I was. We both wear glasses and have corrected 20/20 vision (in fact, my bare vision is much worse than his).
Anyway, I'm rambling, but my point is that there ARE reasons to go digital. Theoretically in a few years, resolution of digital will increase to the point where you need to be standing right in front of the screen to identify the pixels, in which case it will be visually indistinguishable from film for 99% of the viewing audience -- we'll be in the same situation we are now with "audiophiles" who claim that they can hear minuscule variations in sound quality based on what kind of wires their speakers use. Yeah, maybe they can, but almost nobody else can, or cares.
Plus, long-term (if Hollywood ever could think that way), the studios save huge amounts of money on film prints and distribution. If the studios were to pool together and equip every theater in the country with a digital projector over 5 years, they would have made back their money on film printing costs in another 5 years.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased