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Brazil Takes Lead in All-Digital Cinema Projection
securitas writes "The CS Monitor's Andrew Downie reports that Brazil plans to open in May the world's largest digital movie theater network. About 100 theaters will use Sao Paulo-based Rain Networks' KinoCast digital theater DRM software. Rain based its system on Windows Media 9 software with MPEG-4 video compression. 'The MPEG-4 software can squeeze a feature film onto a file of just five gigabytes, 15 times smaller than the MPEG-2 technology presently used' at one-third the $150,000 cost. It takes 20 minutes to distribute a 90-minute film over a VPN and the system avoids the costs associated with transporting physical copies to areas largely inaccessible by road - it can cost up to $750,000 for 500 copies of a Matrix-type blockbuster to be distributed. Interestingly, in the affluent USA the fight between the 35,000 theater owners and Hollywood is about who will pay for cinemas to switch to digital projection. In December 2003 the Guardian published a story with more financial and technical details of the KinoCast digital cinema system."
Wireless my friend, wireless. A microwave link goes over the 10s of kilometres at the lowest end, and the bandwidth is great.
That's a fast VPN.. 5 Gigabytes in 20 minutes works out to about 4.3 Megabytes/second, or 34 Megabits/second.
60hz =! 60fps!
tv scans every second line so 60hz is only 30 fps
Reading the article comes in useful here as they are doing it via satellite.
5GB for a whole movie? Assuming the movies goes for 90 minutes thats 7.5Mbps.
That's only a little past the bit rate of the average DVD. Sure MPEG-4 is more efficient than MPEG-2 but when you take into account the high definition resolution (1280x960 or higher) there are sure to be visible artefacts.
Windows Media does not support standards compliant MPEG-4. What Microsoft calls MPEG-4 is their version of a early draft of the standard with their own transport mechanism.
Envivio used to offer a MPEG-4 plug in for WM, but no more (or at least not for free).
I wish people would not perpetuate this confusion.
Ahh....No. Those are Changeover cues. Two of them at the end of each 20-minute reel, the first separated by eight seconds from the second, and the second about 3/4 of a second from the last frame. Gives projectionists using older equipment the signal to startup the incoming projector with the light path blocked, then, at the second cue, instantaneously switch image and sound from one projector to the other for the next reel. It's the way it was done up util about the 80s or so. Now most cinemas have only one machine and a film transport system called a platter that handles the entire print. The problem is that one operator now handles an entire huge multiplex and is running from one booth to another, so he or she can't be around to catch any problems. Coupled to the fact most of these operators couldn't count their balls/boobs and get the same number twice, and you have the reason that 35mm projection is often so bad, especially in smaller cinemas.
There are still many two-projector installations in the United States and Canada. I ran just about every one of them in Toronto in the 80s and 90s, and I still miss doing so to this day. Forget digital projection and stick with 35 and 70mm film. Just put properly-trained projectionists behind the equipment and the experience the movie-goer will get will be increased by an order of magnitude.
Cheers, Peter, W2IRT
MPEG-2 is a lossy codec also, and I can't see any artifacts (e.g. blockiness, etc. - as opposed to limited resolution) with a well-mastered, high bitrate DVD (and that's on a 150" projected screen). It's only on the badly mastered/low bitrate DVDs that artifacts become apparent. I can generally see more in the way of artifacts in most 35mm films (poor Nth generation copies, burn-outs, scratches, etc.)
The resolution (and maximum bitrate) of DVD is pre-defined (and I was taking his reference to DiVX to mean 'at normal resolutions'). In cinema-type systems they are talking about a higher resolution picture: although Raincast don't give out resolution details, here's an example of a 3840x2480 system described as superior to 35mm.
Raincast's system appears to be high-resolution MPEG-4/WMA running at slightly higher than normal DVD (MPEG-2) bitrates (but with a more efficient codec). While it may not be good 35mm quality, it is likely more than usable, especially for hard to reach locales that otherwise might not have a cinema at all.