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"."

Comments

70mm

[VaguelyBarming]

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.

Digital not that big an improvement

[jmichaelg]

When CD audio came out, there was no question the sound was cleaner. We were so used to hearing snaps and underlying noise on vinyl that the CD sound was simply gold compared to lead. So expecting a similar quality payoff from Digital Video, three of us made an effort to see Attack of the Clones in a digital theater. We were disappointed. In retrospect, it isn't that surprising. A new vinyl record sounds wonderful. It's not until it's been played a lot and collected dust and scratches that the CD/Vinyl gap favors CDs.

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.

digital needs more resolution

[_|()|\|]

So expecting a similar quality payoff from Digital Video, three of us made an effort to see Attack of the Clones in a digital theater. We were disappointed.

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.

Digital != good quality.

[MongooseCN]

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.

Comments on DP and economics....

[nedron]

Frankly, anyone who has actually seen a digital projection of a film sourced production can't help but see that it is nowhere near the quality one gets from straight film production. It does make sense to perhaps project video projects (like the recent Star Wars video sci-fi) in a digital projection center, but it makes no sense to digitally project something that originated on film.

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.