Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UK to Build Network of 150 Digital Cinemas

Posted by Zonk on from the now-we-can-watch-the-cube-in-high-def dept.

mikael writes "According to this article at the BBC, a network of 250 digital screens in 150 cinemas across the country is being planned. Each film is losslessly compressed from 1 Terabyte down to 100 Gigabytes and encrypted onto a portable hard disk drive with a key unique to each cinema, which is then delivered to the cinema. Each cinema projector will be capable of showing films at resolutions of 2048 x 1080 pixels. "The key benefit is the distribution and screening of documentaries, British and foreign language films, as making a digital copy is considerably cheaper than spending over £1500 pounds to make a copy of a single film". Other benefits include better picture quality and the ability to show more films each day." The UK Film Council has a brief overview of the project as well.

50 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Now how long by ICECommander · · Score: 4, Funny

    will a 100GB digital to DivX rip take?

    --
    All your Sybase are belong to us.
    1. Re:Now how long by HawkinsD · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Presumably each file is digitally watermarked, so that rips could be identified as having originated in one particular projection booth.

      So... what do you do, as a theater owner, knowing that your ass is personally on the line if pirate copies of your copy of the movie appear?

      If it were my theater, I'd have the only key to the server room, which would be the only place that the hard drive would do any good.

      Since the data has to flow from the server room to the projector when the movie is being shown, I'd enforce access logs on the server, so I could tell if the file had been read at times other than showtime.

      But that still doesn't stop the $8/hour projectionist from installing a device that intercepts the data, copies it, and then passes it along to the projector.

      Are there such things as video projectors that accept an encrypted stream of data?

      --
      Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
    2. Re:Now how long by LnxAddct · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If its found to be watermarked, the scheme becomes slightly more complex. If the watermark is undetectable, or not easily able to be found (which they aren't supposed to be, correct?) You need someone else at another unrelated theater to grab a digital copy as well. Assuming both are digital copies, then a frame by frame comparison should point out any watermarks. A little manual (or scripted) touching up will take care of it.
      Regards,
      Steve

    3. Re:Now how long by HawkinsD · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wow, that's a really good idea. But the person doing the copying would have to give a crap about whether it was traceable.

      The more I think about this, the less I would want to be a theater owner with one of these machines. To much opportunity to get sued into oblivion.

      --
      Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
    4. Re:Now how long by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Assuming both are digital copies, then a frame by frame comparison should point out any watermarks.

      Not necessarily!

      Assume the pixels of the movie come in a stream M. Now assume you have a pseudorandom sequence P1 that tells you which pixels to add your watermark data to. That gives you a pixel stream M' which is mostly zeros except for the watermark. You distribute M + M' = M1 to the first theatre.

      Now do the same with another copy of the movie, with a different pseudorandom sequence P2. This sequence is uncorrelated with P1. You get another set of pixels M'' which have watermark data. M' and M'' are "mostly disjoint". Now do M+M'' and get M2.

      There is no operation you could do with two movies that would remove the watermarks. You could only add a second watermark to the movie.. Example:

      Subtract the two movies: M1-M2 = M + M' - M - M'' = M'-M'' .. you get a stream of random bits which represents the two watermarks, but with one "inverted".

      Average the movies: (M1+M2)/2 = M + (M' + M'')/2 .. now you've added a second watermark to the movie. The MPAA will put the smack down on BOTH of you.

      However, there's something in that last one.. what if you did this with all 150 movies? (M1 + M2 + .. M150)/150 = M + a tiny bit of noise representing all the watermarks averaged together.

      Would this work? I don't know. They could easily thwart this too, by making sure the frames of the movies weren't identical. They could film at a higher frame rate, and then downsample to a slightly lower framerate, which would make sure each movie's frames were completely different. I don't know enough to contemplate the effectiveness of this. They could even downsample non-uniformly across frames with another pseudorandom sequence and it would be extremely difficult to reconstruct the original M, let alone remove the watermark. So if you tried the trick you would just get noise.

    5. Re:Now how long by whitis · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are there such things as video projectors that accept an encrypted stream of data?

      The article mentions custom projectors so I suspect that is exactly what they are going to do. A fairly standard projector may be packaged with the decryption and possibly decompression apparatus in a tamper resistant enclosure that not only is secured by high security locks but also has the private key stored in battery backed RAM with tamper switches that remove power to the RAM when the case is opened. The projector bulb would have to be located in a non secure compartment of the enclosure or even externally.

      They could encrypt the data before or after compression. Encrypt first then compress would allow the decompression to be handled by a very powerful computer or other apparatus outside the projector but is not likely to be practical since the encryption would interfere with the compression. It would also require the compression process to be rerun for each copy which would be expensive. Effective watermarks, which could be detected after a pirated movie had been DiVX compressed would also require each copy to be compressed separately.

      Since a theater can have more than one projector and the movie might not always be shown on the same screen, they would need to encrypt the movie for each private key at a theater.

      With film, the theater has to send the film back after it has finished showing which puts limits on how much the theater can lie about how many screenings it had. If they were paranoid, they could use keys that only worked at a particular time on a particular day so the theater would have to license each showing individually some time in advance. Or, they could use single use keys that the projector would reject after one showing. The projector could also take audit logs that it could save onto an SD card and distributors could require weekly copies of the logs.

      Since public key systems normally are just used to safely transport a symetric key, licensing the film could be done after the hard drive had been sent or at least after it had been encoded. Thus, they could make thousands of copies of the film, each with a separate symetric key, on as many hard drives long before they knew what theaters they would be shipping those hard drives to.

      While hard drives are cheaper than film, there is another cost saving to be had. The hard drives can be recycled after the film has finished playing in theaters or even immediately after the film has been copied to local servers.

      All of this protection (other than the watermark) is likely to be somewhat moot as a projectionist can simply insert a 1% reflector into the beam of the projector and direct the beam into a camera to make a sufficiently high quality copy for internet distribution or, with good enough equipment, for pirate DVDs.

    6. Re:Now how long by Fred_A · · Score: 2, Funny

      What are you, a communist ?

      What's next ? taking care of the elderly ? Building schools ? Paying taxes ?

      --

      May contain traces of nut.
      Made from the freshest electrons.
  2. That's great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Cinerama called, and would like to welcome them to the 21st century.

  3. Digital vs. Film by Orphaze · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Isn't 2048 x 1080 significantly less than regular movie film as far as resolution goes?

    1. Re:Digital vs. Film by EnderWigginsXenocide · · Score: 5, Informative

      Film canned at 3000DPI is assumed to have all useable details captured. If the film this is replacing is 35mm (1 x 1.5 inches)then a resolution of 3000x4500 is required for replacement. 2048x1080 falls a bit short.

      --
      Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. -- 0 1 My two bits
    2. Re:Digital vs. Film by JKR · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, it's rougly equal to US HDTV in terms of resolution - good, but significantly worse than film when projected several metres across. The vertical line spacing is going to be approximately 3mm...

      Jon.

    3. Re:Digital vs. Film by Velox_SwiftFox · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not exactly infinite resolution. There's a grain size, the whole grain changes color when exposed, so it is effectively an irregular pixel.

    4. Re:Digital vs. Film by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Um, one slight problem. If you shoot digital and project digigtal, the final projected image is what you shot in the camera with an extra compression step on top.

      If you shoot 35mm film, you get your negative, you cut the negative, you create a duplicate of the negative, then you create more duplicate negatives from that, then you finally create prints from those duplicate negatives. So by the time it gets to the cinema screen it's not unusual for a 35mm print to have gone through four or five _analogue_ copying stages from the original film negative.

      As a result, the resolution of a final 35mm print is almost certainly substantially less than 2048x1080, whereas digital holds that resolution from start to finish (absent crappy compression schemes).

    5. Re:Digital vs. Film by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 2, Insightful

      True. You have to combine lens irregularity, packed-ness of the sensors on the camera (like for CCD's) and other real-world quality reducing effects.

      Just most people just dont get the difference between analog data and digital data. Just saying analog data is like infinite bitrate is easier and get sthe point across (without the esoterics).

      --
    6. Re:Digital vs. Film by badasscat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you shoot 35mm film, you get your negative, you cut the negative, you create a duplicate of the negative, then you create more duplicate negatives from that, then you finally create prints from those duplicate negatives. So by the time it gets to the cinema screen it's not unusual for a 35mm print to have gone through four or five _analogue_ copying stages from the original film negative.

      Er, ignoring digital editing systems that cut at least one step out of that process, I'm not sure where you're getting "four or five" analogue copying stages even out of your own example.

      "You get your negative" - this is the original film. "You cut your negative" - this is still the original film. "You create a duplicate of the negative" - ok, this is copy 1. "You create more duplicate negatives" - this is copy 2. You're not making copies of copies, you're making a bunch of copies from one original. "You finally create prints from those duplicate negatives" - this is copy 3. So, only three copies are made through the most laborious process possible - and digital editing systems cut one copy out of that.

      Not to mention that film has been around for more than 100 years and so much R&D and technological advancement has gone into it over that time that the quality loss is really minimal through every stage. Sure, if you kept making copies of copies of copies of copies, eventually you'd see a real resolution difference from the original; but you won't in any commercial film.

      As a result, the resolution of a final 35mm print is almost certainly substantially less than 2048x1080, whereas digital holds that resolution from start to finish (absent crappy compression schemes).

      Different film stocks have different grain properties, and it's the size and distribution of the grains (the crystals) that hold the detail in analog film. Some film stocks have more than 3,000 crystals per inch, some have less. But all would be significantly and noticeably higher in resolution and detail than 2048x1080 digital resolution even after the production process was complete and all copies made.

      I have seen several commercial films shot, edited and projected digitally - including Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and the last Star Wars. They looked good - cleaner than film prints, surely - but there was noticeable and obvious (to me) pixelization and aliasing throughout the films. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed and/or cared, especially in the absence of the analog "noise" caused by film grain, but it was clear to me that either the projection system or the films themselves did not have the actual resolution of their film counterparts. I don't know what the resolution of the projection systems used in the US is, but I doubt it's much (if at all) lower than 2048x1080.

    7. Re:Digital vs. Film by x2A · · Score: 2, Funny
      I have seen several commercial films shot, edited and projected digitally - including Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
      Final Fantasy was shot digitally?!!
      --
      The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
    8. Re:Digital vs. Film by mcc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Roughly equal to US HDTV"?

      Well that's it then, isn't it?

      It honestly seems lately like the film industry is trying to do absolutely everything in their power to dissuade me from going to movies. They show me loud and annoying commercials from the moment I walk in the theatre until 10 minutes after the movie is supposed to start, then show MPAA trailers that literally outright insult me mixed in with the previews. I have to go see the movie when they demand it, since anything that hasn't made a bajillion dollars by the end of the first weekend gets pulled from theaters permanently these days. And they've started overlaying on some-- but we don't know which!-- projections a bizarre flickering that is apparently enough to obliterate any attempt to film the movie, but we're for some reason supposed to believe won't consciously or subconsciously effect our enjoyment of the movie.

      Now apparently they're going to start showing us nothing more than HDTV on a really big screen. And they're expecting us to pay a premium price for this.

      Ever since The Commercials Unending started I've found it increasingly difficult to make myself go to the movies even when there's something out I want to see. Pretty soon I don't think I'm going to be able to make myself go at all.

      --
      Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
    9. Re:Digital vs. Film by NormalVisual · · Score: 2, Informative

      The resolutions of the different DLP systems in use in the US can vary, as TI offers different micromirror chips in different resolutions for large-venue and cinema applications. Having had the good fortune to see "Attack of the Clones" and a number of other films at the local DLP theater (at 1280x1080 IIRC), I agree with your assessment - if you look closely, you can see the pixels and aliasing, although I don't find it particularly objectionable. Overall, I find it a better experience than real film.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
    10. Re:Digital vs. Film by SunFan · · Score: 2, Interesting


      Outside of big releases with people dressed up like Jar Jar for the opening night and $1 family day at the movies, movie theatres are largely obselete. Last time we went to a movie, we ended up spending $25 for two people for, what, two hours? Amusement parks are cheaper per hour than that, and even they are way too expensive! ($50+/person/day to hug Mickey is just plain idiotic, IMO)

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
    11. Re:Digital vs. Film by cybercyph · · Score: 2, Informative

      I completely agree with your post. Living in Hollywood, I have the luxery of having options-- I personally only watch films at The Arclight, where you pay slightly more than elsewhere, but don't have to put up with ads. The glass on their projectors is 100 times better than the theaters i grew up with, and it shows.

      The film industry will see this sort of backlash, when HD goes mainstream, and it will innovate. The theaters wil turn away from what they have become, or many will fail. When TV first came out, the filmmakers responded by giving you what you couldn't get at home: color, widescreen, stereo, then surround sound. Now we can get all of that at home.

      This is one reason I don't see digital projection taking root. Sure, they can hype it and market it as something good-- but any side-by-side comparrison of film-originated material will obviously reveal film projection to be far superior. I hope people realize that. As for the people saying 2k is good enough for 35mm-- If you live in LA or New York, swing by kodak and ask when they screen their example films. If you can't do that, go watch a film like House of Flying Daggers. What you'll see is a 2k DI-- a film that was scanned at usually 4k, and then laser-scanned out to film at 2k. The laser scanning process is just about as generation-loss-free as can be. Having seen the differences, I can instantly tell you whether a film i'm seeing in a theater was a DI or a traditional film edit, it's night and day. Film editing, film releasing, and film acquiring are nowhere near dead, and won't be for a long, long time.

    12. Re:Digital vs. Film by Zeinfeld · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Film canned at 3000DPI is assumed to have all useable details captured. If the film this is replacing is 35mm (1 x 1.5 inches)then a resolution of 3000x4500 is required for replacement. 2048x1080 falls a bit short.

      Although 35mm photography and cinema use the same film stock the orientation is different. Still photography has the long side of the image parallel to the direction of the film advance. Cinema (except for IMAX) has the image oriented perpendicular. So the image area is about 0.75 x 1" or 2250 x 3000 pixels or about 6 Megapixels.

      The 2 Megapixel projectors are certainly not optimal and much higher resolutions are used for editing but reducing from 6 to 2 Megapixel is not a major issue. People do not complain much about the use of anamorphic lenses for widescreen.

      If you go close up to the screen in most commercial cinema the picture will be so out of focus you will not notice the difference in any case. The massive amount of heat put out by a Xeon arc means that the lenses heat up during the show and their optical characteristics change. Very few commercial cinemas have projectionists who check the focus at the start of a show, let alone after the projector has heated up.

      The bigger constraint on the projectors is going to be the amount of light that they can throw.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
  4. Impressive by SafteyMan · · Score: 3, Insightful
    From the Article:

    The new network will double the world's total of digital screens.

    Wow, thats pretty impressive. i'm actually quite jealous. I wonder how long it will take for the states to get anything close to that.

  5. 10:1 lossless video compression? I don't think so. by mcg1969 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Subject says it all. There's something fishy about a feature film at 1080p24 compressed "losslessly" down to 100GB. That's 573GB (yes, bytes) per hour uncomrpessed, assuming 24 bits per pixel. Even D5 compression isn't lossless, and that's 5:1.

  6. I doubt they mean truly lossless by Kip+Winger · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Converting even raw RGB video down to 1/10 the size, while leaving it lossless, is currently not possible using any compression known to man.

    To get anywhere near that much, you have to at least convert it to the sum of cosines using Fast Fourier Transformation, which, since it distorts the data by converting it to not the exact amounts but the nearest amounts, is inherently lossy.

    Any programmers in the UK want to start a lawsuit for false adverts?

    --
    - - - - - Fear not the reaper, but my shiny white teeth.
  7. You know... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Perhaps the Media Companies really DO get it, but dont want to lets us know they do..

    Still, I wonder exactly what scheme they use to play these.. And, if I work out the numbers...

    100 GB for 2 hours. Thats 7200 seconds.

    We dont know if thats GB or GiB, so lets assume its GB. 100GB/7200sec or 1 GB per 72 seconds. Thats about 13.9MB per second for all sound channels and video.

    If they really do spend THAT much on making vinal film, why not instead hook up to a fiber optic network and transmit ALL films to a server at the theater?

    --
    1. Re:You know... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Boeing developed a system a few years back that included all of the required projection equipment and received the film via (encrypted) satellite transmission. The idea was to buy cheap unused satellite bandwidth (non-realtime delivery, so it doesn't matter if higher-priority traffic interrupts your transfer for a bit) and use that to deliver the films. I believe at the time they were talking about using about 40GB films. These were compressed with MPEG-2, and there was visible artefacting even on a plasma display (although less than there would be with a DVD) - although the film they picked to demo it was Ice Age, which is full of sharp colour changes and so hardly the best to demonstrate DCT-based video compression...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  8. Re:The real question by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Funny

    A couple of hours after the projectionist has finished recompressing it as MPEG-4 (maybe H.264), and published the .torrent, I would imagine...

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  9. Camcorder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does this mean I won't need my camcorder anymore?

  10. How far does 1 Terabyte go? by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    2048 x 1080 = 2211840 pixels per frame

    3 bytes per pixel (24 bit color) = 6635520 bytes per frame

    24 frames per second (to match the framerate of regular film) = 159252480 bytes per second = 151.875 megabytes per second

    1 terabyte = 1024 * 1024 megabytes = 1048576 megabytes

    Therefore 1 terabyte is 6904.204 seconds of video

    6094.204 / 60 = 115.070 minutes of video

    That's just over 1 hour, 55 minutes of video.

    Sounds pretty reasonable for most movies; I guess they'd need 2 hard drives for movies longer than that, which I guess wouldn't add all that much to the cost of distribution since a 100 Gb hard drive is what, 50 bucks?

    I'd be more interested in learning what kind of hard drives they have that can read 151.875 Megabytes per second continuously. I'd imagine that if you don't use a filesystem and just stream raw video off of the drive it would help because the drive wouldn't do any seeking. Still, 151.875 Megabytes sustainable must require some kind of high end SCSI drive so I guess my original supposition of $50/hard drive must be off.

    I'd say that this is an idea whose time has definitely come.

    1. Re:How far does 1 Terabyte go? by InfiniteWisdom · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you want to read fast, you don't get one crazy-fast disk, you get several normal disks and read them in parallel.

  11. Re:10:1 lossless video compression? I don't think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It says "visually lossless". That is marketingspeak for "awful quality but no man in the street will notice".
    Compare to digital tv.

  12. Resolution by Omnicrola · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Granted, that's a pretty high resolution by most people's standards, but take into account that it's being projected onto a 30 ft or larger screen, and it seems (to me) that it's not a high enough resolution.
    Someone once mentioned to me that the frames that Pixar renders out for it's films are something on the order of 4000 x Something resolution, which sounds a bit more comperable to film.

    1. Re:Resolution by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      The size of the screen is not important. What is important is the angle between the left edge of the screen, your head, and the right hand edge of the screen. While a cinema screen is bigger than your television (I assume), you (probably) sit a long way further back from the screen in the cinema than you do in your living room, making the effective size similar.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  13. Whoops, forgot about the compression by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 2, Informative

    I forgot to factor in the compression when considering how much data has to be read from the drive per second. If the compression is 10:1 like they claim then I guess it'd only be about 15 MB per second off of the drive, which is perfectly doable. I guess then the problem becomes decompressing 15 MB per second but since it's a lossless algorithm it's probably pretty easy to undo given enough memory and a decent processor.

  14. Thats great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just as the movie gets really exciting, a Blue Screen of Death will show up.

  15. Drive crash? by hrieke · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When the film breaks, it can be fixed- for the most part. But when a drive crashes, you'd think that it would be at least 8 hours before a new copy of the move could be express-shipped to the theater.

    --
    III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIIIV IIVIIIIIIVIII...
    1. Re:Drive crash? by slim · · Score: 2, Insightful

      When the film breaks, it can be fixed- for the most part. But when a drive crashes, you'd think that it would be at least 8 hours before a new copy of the move could be express-shipped to the theater.

      Drives crash far less often than film breaks, but even then, TFA indicates that theatres would copy the data to their own system before showing it. It seems reasonable to either have RAID 5 on these systems, or just have a hot backup.

  16. Resolution not high enough ? by zymano · · Score: 2, Interesting

    35mm digital pixel equivalent

  17. In sweden.. by lordsilence · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's been lots of fuss about this digital cinema system. Appearently the projectors last 3-5 years before the technique is "outdated". Sure it cost much less to get a digital cinema projector. But the analog last for 15 years or more.

  18. The resolution is pretty low... by NeedleSurfer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Consider the screen size, for a rather small 15x45 screen the pixels will be 1/4inch x 1/6inch tall. It might seem little but its not, you see the pixels if you start looking at the picture quality, plus you need one very powerfull projector (6000 lumens and up) to get decent contrast. Using systems like Watchout, Blend Pro or whatever else you choose you can have resolution 4 time higher as source, make each projector project 1/16 of the source at native resolution of 1280x1024 (to date no projector have a native resolution of 2048x1080), 16 relatively cheap projector of 1500 lumens later you end up with a projected resolution of 5120x4096 in which you may fit as many lower resolutions as you wish, each pixel is damn small and you have a very well spread 9000 lumens projection. Cheaper and better...

  19. Re:Another reason to stay home ... by smoker2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    What they don't say is that the screens will be tiny and all 150 "cinemas" are in the same building, so the resolution will be quite good actually.

    ;-)

  20. Watch Philip Anshutzs by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anshutz is rather intersting. He is major stockholder in Qwest (until he finally gets thrown in jail for all the qwest stuff that pulled). As part of that, he was trying to figure out how to fill the pipelines that he has all over the country. and the Answer: send digital movies. So now, he is busy buying movie houses under the name of regal and getting ready to turn them digital. All of them will be filled via qwest lines (or some local if qwest is not in area).

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  21. Re:Anyone else misread the title by x2A · · Score: 2

    yeah but these are *digital* cameras! This means you can do all sorts of high tech stuff like enhance a person who's taking up a single pixel to such a degree you could spot melanoma.. duh

    -2A

    --
    The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
  22. Digital Cinemas in India and China by alphakappa · · Score: 2, Informative

    China has around ~100 (plans ~1500 by 2009) and India already has over 130 cinemas with digital projection and distribution.

    --
    "When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
  23. Actually by purduephotog · · Score: 5, Informative

    1) Original Negative
    2) Positive Negative (copy on negative masked stock)
    3) Dupe Negative (negative again) (digital editing here)
    4) Copy Negative (positive)
    5) Print Negative (shipped to theatres)

    And no, you still have lots of resolution left at that point. I know people that have made the films you speak of, and matching curves between series was one of their most prized accomplishments.

    (yes I worked for Kodak)

  24. Re: encrypted stream by anticypher · · Score: 5, Informative

    Are there such things as video projectors that accept an encrypted stream of data?

    Yes, which is what these systems will be using. Fraunhofer-gessellschaft (of MP3 encoder fame) is the technology behind these projectors. The stream is encrypted the entire length of the data path until it hits the electronics driving the LCD screen. Each server has a key built in, supposedly impossible to recover without destroying the system. Each film to be distributed is encrypted with both a master key, and the private half of the projector's key. There are several stages of decryption, allowing a mostly uncompressed and decrypted stream to be presented to the final stage electronics. The decryption at the projector stage is lightweight, as it is less likely to be subjected to a significant cryptographic attack because it relies on having fully authenticated equipment elsewhere in the chain.

    The servers regularly contact an authentication centre, so that audits can be made as to the number of showings. The servers also come with tamper-resistant housings which then disable the system until it can once again contact the auth centre. There is a bunch of other security stuff, the projectors are never sold, but only licensed to the theatre for a fixed time and have to be returned or inspected at regular intervals.

    From the article, it sounds like they only have the "medium" quality screens going in, at 2k by 1k pixels. This means they'll only be installed in smaller theatres, because such low resolution looks really bad on larger screens. Also, the compression isn't lossless, like the /. summary said, but near-lossless, probably a Fraunhofer MP4 encoding set to a medium to high quality setting.

    F-G will be showing off these projectors this year at CeBit, according to marketing bumpf I got from them recently. This BBC story is probably based on a press release from the building tsunami of announcements leading up to CeBit.

    the AC

    --
    Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
  25. Film has far greater contrast... by Dzimas · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Some really good film has a brightness ratio (that is, darkest black to brightest white) of approximately 1024:1. When projected, the effective brightness ratio falls to about 128:1, and on TV the ratio is a much smaller 32:1.

    I suspect that digital projection will not provide anywhere near the rich brighness gradient we have come to expect from film.

  26. Re: encrypted stream by kerry-buckley · · Score: 2, Informative
    The stream is encrypted the entire length of the data path until it hits the electronics driving the LCD screen. Each server has a key built in, supposedly impossible to recover without destroying the system. Each film to be distributed is encrypted with both a master key, and the private half of the projector's key.
    The public half, surely?
  27. better quality? i doubt it. by DaveJay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    2048x1080 resolution is BETTER QUALITY than analog film? Not likely. They are likely referring to the absence of scratches and whatnot that build up over time, but I have a hard time believing that 2048x1080 projected on a large screen will not look pixelated.

  28. Re:2k vs 4k by Chatz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This just seems crazy, why invest in 2K when 4K cameras, projectors and storage capable of supporting those rates are coming? Of course I'm assuming that 4K will be good enough for the next 10 years, but since that is better than what we have now...

    --
    There is folly and foolishness on the one side, and daring and calculation on the other. - Admiral Pellew, Hornblower