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Windows Media 9 in Digital Theaters
SpamJunkie writes "Feel like watching new releases in 7.1 surround sound with full digital video? It's coming, not with MPEG 4 but with Windows Media 9. Microsoft announced it is bringing Windows Media 9 to 177 screens in Landmark Theaters."
WM9 is a good mpeg-4 implementation. It has slightly better results than Divx 5 or X-vid from what I've seen (with the same file size). If they start doing High Definition transfers of movies and showing them digitally in the theaters, thats a great thing. I don't understand why you'd need a super-advanced codec to do it other than publicity, though. Mpeg-2 works for High Definition just as well, the file sizes are about 30% larger though.
WM9 is an implementation of MPEG-4, it's just a proprietary one. It uses the same I-frame and compressed p-frame concepts as mpeg-4. DIVX is another well-known implementation. Also X-Vid.
I guess you also never watched a DVD? That video is compressed with a lossy compression scheme, yet it still looks good. Why? Variable compression. Someone just didn't pop a tape into a tape player, hit play, then click the record button on a computer. There are actually people that go through and master these things over a period of weeks or months to make the video stream as small as possible while trying to make it as quality as possible. There are also all sorts of measurement and analysis tools applied to it along the way to remove scratches from the film transfer, and to make multiple streams of audio (for foreign languages, commentary tracks, and I've even seen some DVDs that not only support the AC3 digital surround, but will have a Dolby Prologic encoded stream.)
At least with the digital cinema system I was working with, that won't work. The projectors use a decoder card so the compressed media goes right to the projector which then decompresses it and displays. So to play games on it, the video data would have to first be encoded, then sent to the projector and then decoded. The reason for this is that the digital media they play is incrediably huge uncompressed (40 terabyes I think?) and even compressed it is still between 60-30 gigs for a 2 hour movie.
The standards for digital cinema are still being worked out. The major studios have a consortium named Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) which is developing standards, and recently announced a minimum of 2k lines of resolution as their goal. http://www.infocusmag.com/03April/digital.htm The National Association of Theatre Owners has a general list of User Requirements for digital cinema here: http://www.natoonline.org/digitalcinemauserreq.htm
Windows Media 9 tops out at 720k currently.
And for those who hate trial subscriptions, here's the full text:
Landmark going digital
All auditoriums nationwide to be outfitted with d-cinema
By CARL DIORIO
Arthouse giant Landmark Theaters will today announce plans to outfit its entire 177-screen circuit for digital cinema and a related effort to deal directly with filmmakers lacking distribution for their low-budget digital video features.
The d-cinema initiative involves a joint venture with Microsoft and L.A.-based Digital Cinema Solutions. Terms weren't available, but it's believed the unique three-way relationship will shave Landmark's costs to a fraction of the usual $100,000-plus per screen to install most d-cinema systems.
All auditoriums in Landmark's 53 theaters, located in 20 markets nationwide, will be outfitted with d-cinema playback systems based on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series. DCS will select digital projectors from a variety of manufacturers.
The Windows Media systems are substantially less expensive than other systems, because they essentially represent off-the-shelf technology, officials said. The playback systems will be married to relatively inexpensive digital projectors, because the smaller size of its screens requires less illumination to project an image of acceptable resolution.
Landmark chief Paul Richardson said he doesn't expect a lot of immediate interest from specialty distribs in converting their primary releases for digital distribution. But he believes they may be more inclined to acquire niche pics shot in digital video than previously.
"There's a whole bunch of product that doesn't get picked up at the film festivals because people don't believe it's worth the cost to invest the money to make a master print, which can cost $50,0000-$60,000," Richardson said. "But for $6,000-$8,000, you can encode the film for digital (to) play our circuit, and I think some distributors will be interested in doing that."
Landmark and its joint venture partners will also ante up the encoding costs for some number of pics, he said. "We're not going to bid on films against the guys in the business," the Landmark CEO said, noting he won't be personally prowling any film markets.
"The films we're going to package are maybe a year old and haven't gotten picked up yet," he explained. "Those people are in contact with us all the time."
In the past, Landmark's steered such filmmakers to various indie distribs but now will deal with them more directly in some instances. Richardson said he's not sure how many such pics the joint venture partners themselves will distribute, nor have they identified a likely first release to run through the digital circuit.
"We're starting out on an adventure here, and we really don't have a road map," he acknowledged. "We have a huge opportunity, but we're just not exactly sure where that opportunity is going to evidence itself."
Landmark aims to outfit all of its screens for digital projection by December. "We're starting on the smaller auditoriums first, because that's where these pictures will play," Richardson said.
Landmark and Microsoft previously collaborated on a small number of digital installations in connection with the BMW Films digital shorts series. For that series, which features BMW autos in several digitally produced action shorts, DCS installed d-cinema systems in a couple dozen theaters, including several Landmark sites.
Landmark also used Microsoft-outfitted auditoriums to exhib Artisan's recent music docu "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" in nine locations.
Agreed, but this appears to be for smaller independant film makers/distributers/theaters, not for the George Lucas' of the world. Plus, how many standards are there for this type of distribution system? How many products are offered and what type of price range are we talking about? Do other manufacturers offer packages? If so, then what's wrong with MS trying to get into this market segment?
Here.
You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!
sans the popcorn, though. My in-flight movie crashed with a white screen of death and a Windows error. The reboot took 30 minutes. (and then another 20 minutes to fast forward to where the movie had crashed)
Actually, WMV9 isn't a MPEG-4 codec. Earlier versions were based on draft MPEG-4 standards, but they forked quite a while ago.
Also, the difference is a lot bigger than 30%. It's more like 100% more for MPEG-2, with the gap increasing as data rates get lower.
My video compression blog
No? Well it doesn't work. Xvid, DivX 4 (not earliest versions I think) & 5 is MPEG4 compliant. DivX 3.11, WM is not. Fine you can make a proprietary *encoder* implementation that creates a valid MPEG4 stream. But when you need a proprietary decoder too, it's not MPEG4. It's your own Microsoft "standard".
The I- and P- frame concept are extremely old and in use in almost every video codec out there. They took some good ideas from MPEG4, but have been going in their own direction ever since.
Kjella
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