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Digital Cinema Not Quite There Yet
An anonymous reader writes "A Reuters article explains how, in some ways, the digital future of movie theatres isn't quite here yet. Despite the push for new technology in the projection booth, theaters have been slow to adopt the new and expensive gear." From the article: " Many in the movie industry hope digital cinema will help revive theater attendance, which fell 9 percent in 2005 in the United States. The studios stand to save about $1 billion a year in print distribution costs because they will be shipping digital movies via computer hard drives, satellite and broadband cable, versus old celluloid canisters. But digital deployment is expensive at about $100,000 per screen, and while the studios agreed to foot most of the bill, current equipment does not meet all the technology standards set by the industry."
Many in the movie industry hope digital cinema will help revive theater attendance, which fell 9 percent in 2005 in the United States.
My guess is that releasing movies that don't suck would increase movie attendance.
Despite the expensive tickets and overpriced food, crying babies, restless children, chatty couples, cell phones going off, people lighting up the room checking their e-mail on their Blackberries, and every other clichéd movie theater problem on the tip of every stand-up comedian's tongue, I say to myself: "I could put up with all of this if only the film projector was digital."
Many in the movie industry hope digital cinema will help revive theater attendance, which fell 9 percent in 2005 in the United States.
I stopped going to movies because I was sick of paying the price of a DVD, just to be forced to watch commercials for deodorant and lectures about how I'm an evil baby-killing sealsucker for downloading movies (which is something I don't do).
Now I'm supposed to go back and start going to movies again just because they've tossed in some newfangled, flashy, questionable technology?
Sometimes I wonder whether the people who work for MPAA style companies are stupid, or whether they simply are from some alternate universe where logic actually works that way.
I'm not sure why the movie industry doesn't get that one of the reasons (besides movie/story quality) that attendance is going down is because tickets cost too much, and snacks cost way too much. Price everything reasonably, and you'll get more volume. I don't need 17.3 gallons of Coca-Cola for ONLY $25!!! I want a reasonable serving that you don't gouge me for. And the same goes for everything else you're selling. Why do you think so many people cruise right on by the snack bar and straight into the theater? And why so many more don't even bother showing up at all?
Maybe if movies became affordable for the middle class family again and weren't absolutely fucking horrible and didn't include 20 minutes of advertising at the start. Maybe, just maybe... people would start going again.
"current equipment does not meet all the technology standards set by the industry."
I wonder if this means "The equipment doesn't have the DRM and copy protection we require."
The one place where they could use DRM for a true user pays arrangement - i.e. Pay per screening etc - and no mention at all of this.
I'm sure there are probably other "technical issues" holding them up, but DRM would be the most obvious. I'm sure that I read a while back that copy protection has already been addressed in the form of encrypted hard disks for distribution in the UK.
Don't tailgate - the end is near!
I don't doubt there are technical issues. But even when those are resolved, there may be a long delay while the various actors decide how to split the savings. My guess is that the Consumers Union will not be invited to the negotiating table.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
It's sad that the film industry spends all this money on explosions and high tech, when what it really needs is to have a good story and stick to it.
m es.com/2006/03/12/movies/12itzk.html&OQ=_rQ3D1&OP= 3a55fddbQ2F@nK(@4l_gQ2FllCO@Oyye@yQ60@Q3EO@slQ7BQ3 FKg@Q3EOQ3FCZ6kQ3DCsQ5D
Take this article:
In Mr. Moore's account of his career, the villains are clearly defined: they are the mainstream comics industry -- particularly DC Comics, the American publisher of "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta" -- which he believes has hijacked the properties he created, and the American film business, which has distorted his writing beyond recognition. To him, the movie adaptation of "V for Vendetta," which opens on Friday, is not the biggest platform yet for his ideas: it is further proof that Hollywood should be avoided at all costs. "I've read the screenplay," Mr. Moore said. "It's rubbish."
http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nyti
Lets see, the last time I went to the flicks it cost us £20 (tickets and snacks), the seats were very uncomfortable, the picture quality wasn't all that great (poorly done 35mm is barely better than a projected DVD, let alone HDTV) and the sound was nothing to write home about. Also, the guy behind me had stinky feet that he insisted on putting on the back of my chair, some guy at the back of the theatre stood up proclaiming that someone had farted and that it stank like shit (duh!) and stormed down to the front to sit. Admittedly the fart was pretty nasty. Anyway, the fact is, the cinematic experience can be closely replicated at home without all the bad things by playing a DVD on even a budget DLP projector these days. Compared with the £100,000 front projection CRT systems with line doublers etc that were necessary only 10 years ago, a modern cheap DLP blows that away for the most part (black level is the only real problem but they are getting better and better). I can't wait for HD discs (blu-ray or HD-DVD, not bothered, both would be fine by me) so I can finally say that yes, my home projection system is better than all but the very best cinema. At that point the only way you will drag me into a cinema is if it is a *REALLY* good film, or IMAX. From what I understand the digital projection systems are only aiming to be as good as 35mm which means HDTV should be a very similar experience.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
It's the commercials that keep me away. It pisses me off to no end having to watch 20 minutes of commercials and previews for movies I have no interest in after I paid for a movie ticket. If I wanted to watch commercials, I could have stayed home and watched TV.
And, if they are gonna show a preview, at least show a preview for a movie that the audience of the movie being screened might be interested in.
Fæx!
Trondheim already has the world's first Sony 4K SXRD projector installed in a commercial cinema
http://www.ntnu.no/midgard/Nordic.html
Digital picture quality isn't as good as they like to think. The resolution to match 35mm film is something like 3000-4000 pixels. 70mm film is twice that (going higher isn't neccesary since the eye has a limited resolution). Upgrading will involve replacing the most expensive component.
Cinemas like equipment that's built to last. Some cinemas are using projectors that are 30+ years old and still working perfectly. New equipment such as multi channel digital sound processors are just bolted on. You can't bolt a digital projector onto one of these. The technology is fundamentally different.
People are not going to go to the movies just because they have digital projectors. They don't care! It doesn't make a difference how the popcorn was delivered, or whether the electricity comes from nuclear power or coal either. They want to see a movie. This is the problem. Hollywood is too obsessed with technology (not just cameras but digital sets as well). Give us a decent story. Use the technology to tell the story.
I wonder if the theaters are worried about lock-in from the studios. Once they pay for the projecting equipment and control the DRM, the studios call the shots on everything that is played in that theater.
Wow, no wonder you have to take out a mortgage on the popcorn. Back, er, in my day, it was 60/40 for the movie theater, or maybe 50/50 for a "sure hit." Of course, a spectacle or event movie didn't cost $200 million or more, and there wasn't a $50 million ad campaign to get you to see it. You looked in the paper, see, and read the reviews or talked to Cousin Artie, and he said it was good, so that was fine. It's way beyond inflation. In the '50s, I was seeing Saturday kids' matinees at the FOX in New Orleans -- which is now a tangled mess, I guess -- for 15 cents. During the week, it was 50 cents or so. Now, I think, if it were regular inflation here -- like a loaf of bread -- the price would now be about $4.00. Come to think of it, I think the movies would be better if they had to make them with that admission price in mind.
I've been reading your backposts. You talk about what's happening to society with the tone of someone who's studied history, but with the ignorance of someone whose idea of the past is based on fifties sitcoms.
Society has always been a terrible, roiling mess of people killing, fucking, beating, screaming, stealing and swearing. This is probably the most generally civil time in the history of the world, but not by much.
There was a great deal of American propaganda in the fifties and sixties in which television shows and movies depicted the way that authority figures wished society was, but it was completely inaccurate. Coat-hanger abortions, drug use, prostitution, unreported rapes, lynching of blacks, the blackmails of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, and a thousand other offenses went on all the time. The populace of the fifties knew this, but their children and their grandchildren fell for the saccharine story.
It didn't make these children better people. It made them ignorant of how people work.
Your assignment is to read A Tale of Two Cities, in which highwaymen rob passersby constantly, traitors are drawn and quartered after having their entrails burned in front of their eyes, children are executed for stealing sixpence, and in general two of the "greatest" societies in Europe wallow in muck and horror. You'll see how these societies were in this predicament precisely because of how tough they were on offenses to their moral code. You'll certainly see that culture has long been full of violence, sex and profanity, because people are full of these things.
After you've done that, you can continue to proselytize for your supposed utopian vision of a society founded around families. You can continue to ignore that the majority of the world is not composed of families at all, but of single people, divorcees, widowers, and the parents of adult children. You can ignore that reproduction is merely the start of a life that is supposed to be full of many experiences apart from merely reproducing again. This twisted vision can still be yours... but at least you won't think your ideal represents a glorious past we once had.
Life has always been a crock of shit. Lucky that we so often like the smell of our own.
Take a look at the Academy Awards this year, what do you find?
The most-feted films, besides being among the "most fetid," were also far, far down the list in terms of box-office--supposed to be what Hollywood is about, right?
Not only were the highest-grossing films frozen out of the top awards, but the "buzz" was all about films like "Brokeback Mountain" and "Crash" that almost no one saw. Hollywood's elitism and arrogance are on display constantly, yet THEY don't seem to be able to figure out how they got there, or how to find their way out again.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Seconded. If you hadn't posted anonymously, I'd have friended you for this alone.
My main problem with the Cinema is that I don't have control. Missing half the film if I need to use the toilet is a bit of a pain. Also, if I miss what someone said, I can't rewind a bit and listen again. Most of my viewing in done on a Archos AV500 portable PMP while I am commuting to work (about 1 hour). I mostly watch TV shows, e.g. Babylon 5, Alias etc. The only problem is getting the content. There don't seem to be any good (and legal) places I can get the content I want. Does anyone know where I can pay a reasonable fee to download popular TV shows?
While important, the quality of the projection should not be the focus when trying to draw people to a theatre. The commodification/McDonaldization of movie theatres is the problem. Most theatres in the US are mega-plexes, with the front lobby and each theatre looking exactly the same no matter what city you go to in the US. The theatre needs more character and intrigue.
For example, if you go to Westwood in Los Angeles, the theatres look like opera houses, and are ornate and spacious. There is palpable excitement in the crowd on opening night for a new film. I saw a movie at a pizza restaurant/theatre in DC a while back. The tables were set on tiers. Sitting in a comfy chair eating pizza while watching a movie in a theatre is an awesome experience. Lastly, I saw Saving Private Ryan in Amsterdam. The theatre was also very ornate. Some people dressed up for the occasion. A choir dressed in WW2 uniforms sang before the movie and during intermission. During intermission, you could go to the lobby or a number of lounges to have a cocktail or some champagne.
If some maverick theatre owner was willing to turn movie-watching into an EXPERIENCE again, then I might think about attending, but right now I have no interest in being pumped in and out of a suburban money making machine.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
How about "not even fucking close to being there"? How about "deficient in almost every way possible"? Or maybe "how stupid I am to even think it is close"?
... and then they built the supercollider.
There are a number of reasons that D-Cinema has not taken off.
1. The format has just been ratified and in some ways is still incomplete. It is a SMPTE spec (DC-28).
2. The equipment needed to playback DC-28 doesn't exist in cheap enough quantities yet. This is essentially the chips to decode (encode would be nice as well but it can be done in software). The decoding of J2K is quite cpu intensive and the algorithms don't optimize well in todays CPUs so the decoder chips are a requirement.
3. Its an expense for everyone involved. The projectors are around $75K today, the encoding systems represent multi-million dollar changes to the workflow of the studios (depending on commitment).
4. The only person that is going to make money is the distributor. The distributors all have financing secured, the ones we have talked to for the past 5 years have 3-4 hundred million secured so that they can essentially subsidize a large portion of the rollout but at 10,000 primary screens this only goes so far when you consider projector costs.
5. The theater owners are unconvinced that switching to DCinema is going to gain them anything, in fact the only advantage it gives them is the ability to dynamically change the number of screens that they are using for a given movie at any point in time. The ability to instantly add another showing without ordering another print is a bonus but its not a big enough one.
6. The traditional equipment providers have been fighting this tooth and nail. Somewhat out of ignorance and protectionism but mostly because their technology involves gears and reels not bits and bites. They simply don't understand the technology or to be more fair they didn't in the beginning.
7. There was a lot of division in the format wars, the MPEG 2 guys wanted their version, there were some stand alone wavelet formats, there were some oddball variants of jpeg. All of which had some success which has ultimately delayed the rollout *somewhat* just do to the FUD it has caused.
8. the content owners are worried about digital copies of their films flying around the great cloud of the internet of course and about them being stored on hard disks but most of those issues have been somewhat addressed and we are now just waiting for them to sort of catch up with the reality of technology today.
9. There are a bunch of little things like the single longest lead time item for a D-Cinema system is the lens for the projector. The wait time can be as long as two years.
10. The accepted cost for the DCinema system is around $7K per unit (not counting the projector) which is rediculous as it does not leave much room for cost for storage, the decoder board, the network, backup systems, etc, etc, etc.. just an enterprise class server alone is going to suck up $4K of that cost, its a bit rediculous.
In response to some of the other topics mentioned.
DRM/Security: The DRM is simply normal encryption systems, since the playback system is entirely hardware the playback board has the keys. It will be quite hard to hack. This is not a case of DVD CSS encryption, the system will be much harder to get into. Also the move now is to put real-time watermarking into the film at playback.
Quality: The typical film you see in a theater is around 4th to 6th generation prints. This means you could be down as low as 1000 lines of resolution. DCinema kicks ass in quality. Even when you butterfly the content side by side with a 6K telecine from a pristing master print of the film the dcinema quality stands up quite well (90% of the test audience cannot tell the difference). I would also say that the main reason that some people can tell the difference is that the dcinema version is much more stable (not gate weave) so it is not moving all over on the screen. Even the golden eyes in hollywood agree that it is a better image. Keep in mind that all of the dcinema systems out there today are based on older technology and cannot compare with a DCI spec system.
in my living room, with my stereo and projector.
I've got digital distribution thanks to DSL and bittorrent.
Why am I supposed to be going to the theater again?
What is this "going to the movies" thing? Is that where you go to someone's house and watch a movie?
The quality of analog will always be better then digital. But there will be a point when the common man cant tell the difference..
But aside from that personal preference, perhaps the movies being put out suck and noone wants to go see them? Its a thought...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The best way to see a movie is in the theatre. I don't know what theatre you frequent, but even the cheap second run theatre up the street from me offers quality projection, digital sound and sloped, comfortable seating. The newer theatres offer even larger screens and what essentially are food courts with a variety of food. Yes, the food is slightly more expensive (a Burger King Whopper is $3.69, but a bag of large popcorn is ridiculously priced at $4.00. Taco Bell is still the best deal with tacos at $1.29 each and I am talking about food inside the theatre.) and the advertisements at the start of the movie are incredibly annoying.
For me, a movie is a social experience where my friends and I eat somewhere close by before hand, enjoy the movie and then hit a pub for drinks afterward and discuss the movie. It doesn't always happen that way, sometimes we just hit the movie. The problem I have with watching a movie from home is the potentential distractions are greater, especially if friends are over. People mention cell phones ringing during the movies, but I find the problem far worse at home with friends over as they think that if the phone rings we can just pause the movie. And someone is always getting up to go to the bathroom or whatever. If I am in a theatre none of this happens; I am there to watch a movie. The neighbor can't come over, the phone is turned off and if someone leaves for the bathroom the movie continues to play. I just find the immersive experience at the theatre that much more profound then at home. You could watch Mozart's opera, "The Magic Flute" at home on DVD or you could go to the theatre and watch it live (and you score points with your girlfriend to boot). The inconvenience of dealing with the public are worth the experience sometime.
In regards to movie attendance, we just came off of two years of staggering growth due to some of most attended movies ever. I don't think the mandarins at MPAA realize that you aren't going to see attendance like 2003 or 2004 with a string of hits like Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2 and The Passion of the Christ in the same year every year. Incredibly, the Passion of the Christ, which was only third in box office receipts, took in $370 million domestically while Star Wars III, the top movie for 2005, took in slightly more at $380. What can you do when you have more popular movies in one year and not the next? It's just absolute greed and arrogance to think that just because you make a movie it should automatically make you rich.
Anyway, there are still good movies to watch and good theatres to see them in and as long as that's the case Hollywood will have nothing to worry about.
I saw this in another thread, but the fall of 9 percent can be explained by the "passion of the christ," which came out in 2004. It brought out movie goers who don't normally go to the movies, sometimes more than once. It was explained by Roger Ebert that basically the 2004 figures were inflated by this figure, and they simply droped off to a normal trend in 2005.
So Cinema isn't dead, the movie companies aren't hurting, it's just that all this is a myopic response to an abberation in the figures the year before.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Are you implying that Ozzie and Harriet had carnal knowledge of each other? I am devastated.
In general, a very well constructed post, but I would pick a nit on this:
" traitors are drawn and quartered after having their entrails burned in front of their eyes"
The "drawn" part of "drawn and quartered" refers to the removal of the victim's entrails. If the entrails were burned before removal, the victim would be unlikely to survive till the quartering.
So the correct chronology would be:
1> remove entrails (drawing them out rather than just hacking them out - to minimze trauma)
2> burn said entrails (now out of abdomen, but still attached to the victim) before
3> rip victim apart (quartering)generally by tying each limb to a horse pointed towards one of the cardinal points of the compass, then setting the horses to gallop.
I agree with the many commentors who say "releasing movies that 'don't suck'" is more important than projection technology for reviving the movie industry.
But another good idea would be distributing the good movies out there, both indie and studio. When Oscar night comes each year, typically only one of the nominees, the blockbusterish one (e.g., Brokeback, Passion of the Christ, etc.), ever makes it out in to the chain mall theatres in the 'burbs or sticks. For the rest, you have to go to the big cineplex 50 miles away in the state capitol or to a remaining independent "art" theatre chain there. Or wait until the movie comes out on DVD next year to see it at home. Yet Regal Cinema, our monopoly chain that runs all the mall theatres in the Northeast, fills its theatres with those B-picture teen movie crap that Hollywood keeps churning out that play to mostly empty rooms.
I don't get why exhibitors don't put the Oscar or Sundance nominated films in their theatres and then complain that movie attendance is dropping. And yeah, overpriced tickets and concessions, too.
I have not seen it here in the USA. I worked on a digital preshhow system for a large theater chain in Switzerland, and they had it there.
Fight Spammers!
wrigleys doesn't care about selling another 4 packs of gum
but you can be damn sure a company selling av equipment at 100k a pop is happy as anything to get 4 sales.. esp if they can tack on all kinds of shipping & installation charges that equate to a european vacation for their installation team...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Was a DVD, not really the "broadband revolution" they are talking about, but it's still digital nonetheless
I do agree completely about the low res film prints. I was going to post it myself before I saw your post. Not just dust and scratches, but the grain becomes quite noticeable in these prints and also many are just plain blurry, probably also due to the duplication process.
But, I saw Star Wars Ep 2 with the 1280x1024 system and it was dismal. I have no idea who they tested it with, but they must have been blind. Yes, there was no jitter/jump. That was nice. But the contrast wasn't great and the pixelation was not just noticeable but obvious. Any time there was a high contrast edge (like a title), it was obviously very very blocky. It also showed up in many bright areas (of which the movie doesn't have a lot). However, the rugs on the floors looked fantastic. There was no grain noise, so the gold/red rug patterns were beautiful.
In short, it was barely tolerable, and I cannot imagine what it was like to see a bright film like Minority Report on it.
I do realize that system is in the past now, but still, they are going to have to aim to do better than film, not almost as well or about as well. By your same argument, my TV here can render better than many theatres, and I don't have people answering cell phones in the middle nor overpriced snacks. The theaters/film companies will have to aim to do better if they want to keep the young, effects-oriented audience that they make most of their money from.
I'm disappointed to hear your comments about IMAX. They have good prints, they have the best projection system (rolling loop) already, and of course they have a massive amount of film in each frame. It'll be tough to even come close to IMAX's film spatial resolution, let alone the contrast available. I have to imagine that'll show up on the screen. But then again, I guess people go see 35mm blowups on IMAX screens, so you don't have to "max out" the format to get people in the seats.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Well, this isn't a particularly good time to take a data point on movie quality. January, February, and March are classically the time when studios release their dogs. They figure that the kids are in school, and people would rather spend wintry evenings at home than braving the weather to go to the theater.
They release a bunch of good movies around Thanksgiving and New Year's, when people take breaks. That's also when most of the potential Oscar nominees are released, just before the end of the year (to be fresh in the Academy's mind).
And they're waiting for the summer for people to be on vacation again, so they release the stuff that they thought was not good enough to attract attention during the summer and winter rushes of great movies, and the real losers that they're hoping will be able to recoup their losses as long as there's nothing else good to see.
Not that I agree with this "logic"; the studios love to pander to a "conventional wisdom" and never question it. When Spider-Man was released a few weeks _before_ the traditional Memorial Day weekend rush, they were stunned to discover that people who had five months of cruddy movies would throw gobs of money at a good one.
But logic good or ill, movies are cruddy now because that's when the cruddy movies come out. Last year's whole movie season was pretty bad, and the studios deserved to see attendance fall 9%. But if the studios have learned a lesson, you won't see the results until the late spring. They're still flushing their crap. Sorry.
I think one of the reasons we are seeing a decline in theatre attendance is the lack of maintanence being seen to the theatre itself. You walk in the theatre, and come across sticky floors, a rough spot on the seat from dried up melted candy, holes on the screen and crackly speakers. With all of the above going on inside of the theatre, people would much rather sit on their nice leather couch, watching a nice DVD on their LCD/Plasma TV. Theatres: Just put more money into your own friggin building.
I had the misfortune of seeing a digital film and no nooooooooooooooooo
That was some god-awful quality. It hurt to watch. It was grainy and washed out and had poor focus and basically every problem that comes from making digital movies without spending all the time necessary to bring them to the natural quality of film.
Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
no hidden comments and I only mod UP
Okay, I have a question...
...or perhaps, because they have a very detailed encryption scheme where you have to call in and get an expiring key that will only work for 7 days - they the films wont play anymore and you need to call up and buy a new key...
Why is retrofitting these theatres going to cost the $100,000/screen as they allege? I have a friend who I helped acquire a theatre and we were able to use a $2500 projector (and later 2 $3,000 unites with "lens shift" where they can be used in tandem), and threw the image onto a full size screen (30x50 ft?) with a super bright, and clear image... WE ran a DVD from a Sony DVD player that was up-converting everything to 1080 lines of resolution, and it looked as good, if not better than 35mm...
We found that the DLP projectors gave much truer color, whereas the LCD units put everyone in a candy colored world.
So anyway, we now show independent filmmaker's films, and DVD trailers - and an occasional a public domain film - and NO ONE had every questioned the quality.
I just don't understand why everyone wants a $100k "digital Projection" projector just because it's the unit they've used at events like the Oscars. Is this because to brand name? Ignorance?
From what I've heard, the bigger issue isn't getting the image on the screen, but the lack of willingness of the exhibitors to LET you play a DVD - they just wont allow it - even if you already get regular movie prints from the company (Disney, MGM, etc.), and are paying them market rate, and have the DVD at the same time the vinyl 35mm is available.
Oh c'mon! Yes many of us our geeks and notice the occasional crack or 'crop circle' on our latest action sequence despite coming at us at 30-odd frames per second. Lets be realistic for a moment. IMAX movies aren't usually hits, and that's the extreme of digital quality to the point of looking 3D. Why do they possibly think that pixelating and upping the resolution of my movie may make me come to more of them?
It's a lame excuse to blame more on pirates and go for a CHEAPER distribution method on the long run (once the equipment is in place) versus distributing reels late the night before a movie opens at the last minute. It means they can pump more crap at you and if it fails in a week, then there's little cost in having it shown.
To a degree, Dolby, DTS and similar technologies will emmerse the watchers in the movie. But would you notice an additional two channels? Would you notice if that audio was done at 4KHz wider range? another 100Kbps? Probably not. In the same way, you won't notice the difference (at least in a positive direction) for digital projection versus analog film projection, which has already been enhanced so much already.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Well...probably not the only reason but no doubt this is why the digital projector issue is on the fast track.
Digital watermarks.... to get those rid of some of those CAM torrents.
2004 was the year of many very entertaining movies. I remember seeing 10 movies in about a month time period (and I'm usually not a very big movie watcher) That was the summer that Spiderman 2, Dodgeball, Napoleon Dynamite, Bourne Supremacy, The Village, King Arthur, Anchorman, and many other movies came out. This last summer didnt even come close as far as quality. Id say that 2004 was an awesome year for movies and 2005 was just average...
I may be wrong but you're downright ugly!
3.1.4.2. Frame Rates The DCDM image structure is required to support a frame rate of 24.000 Hz. The DCDM image structure can also support a frame rate of 48.000 Hz for 2K image content only. The frame rate of any individual DCDM master is required to remain constant. Metadata is carried in the image data file format to indicate the frame rate.
The defined image sizes are 2048 x 1080 (called "2K images") or 4096 x 2160 (called "4K images"), with 12-bit RGB color. The "2K" format is basically 1080p HDTV at the screen, but with better (or at least less) compression for transport. Audio is uncompressed.
In the unlikely event that any theatre owners are watching this, I would like to state the obvious -- digital cinema will destroy theatres. They would have to be fscking stupid to use it.
Theatres have always thrived on providing better viewing experience than home television. Thats why when television became popular, theatres adopted the wide screen format.
The problem with Digital is that it is not really better than a good TV set. And technologicaly TV sets have actually better potential for improvement than digital movie screens.
If movie theatres were smart, they would insist on improvements o film technology. All the current problems with film, such as flicker, and film imperfections could be fixed with better technology. Advanced robotics can be used to completely aliminate all flicker, and larger film size can make the picture so good, digital tvs will not be able to match it for another hundred years.
Also, i bet most of the technical issues concerning high quality film projection have already been researched and resolved in the context of computer chip manufacturing.
The studios like digital film distribution because (i) it saves them money because they do not have to produce film and (ii) even if people stop going to the movies, the studios figure people would just buy more DVDs. But the theatres should realize that their interests are not really aligned with those of the movie studios.
you're probably one of those guys who listens to analog audio and refers to signal breakup as "warmth"
And this is a business where showing movies doesn't really make any money for exhibitors. Exhibitors are really in the popcorn business. To an exhibitor, movies are a marketing tool for popcorn.
So what's exhibitor thinking on all this?
But it's those damn movie pirates on teh bittorrent that do it!
They'll up the prices because they'll say it's to compensate for their upgrades even though they're still making even more money with the new projectors.
CinemaTech already ran this blurb the other day, and Scott Kirsner has been talking about the pros and cons of Digital Cinema over there for a long time now.
If this is the sort of story that strikes your fancy, you need to add CinemaTech to your daily reading list.
Here's the National Association of Theatre Owners Digital Cinema System Requirements. Found via CinemaTech, of course...
Matt Jeppsen
FresHDV.com
I remember reading an article (I thought it was in Wired) a few years ago discussing an invention that was created to modify current projectors in such a way that it significantly improved picture quality, for a fraction of the cost of going digital. Some type of retrofit to the mechanism that moves the film in front of the lamp or something. The article claimed that the improvement was incredible, and yet the studios refused to even consider it, instead being bent on going digital. There was a bit of conspiracy theory tone to it, similar to stories we have always heard about automakers not wanting to switch to alternative fuel engines. I can't for the life of me find anything regarding this.
Well. no wonder! I read the NATO spec and found it is entirely technical mumbo-jumbo. There is /nothing/ about the digital cinema as it relates to the /viewer/.
These people don't seem to have any interest in the customer's satisfaction -- why should I go then?
- AC
>But it was a quiet time of a combination of prosperity and peace between the WW/II and the Vietnam era.
I guess it really was the forgotten war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_war
2. Commercials
3. Cost
Those in order of priority are why I very seldom go to the movies anymore. The writing is really horrible in a lot of films, and too damn many of them are aimed straight at teenagers and little kids. (I've got nothing against teenagers and little kids but...)
It's actually a very close call for me which makes me less likely to go to movies anymore, 'quality' or 'commercials'. The quality issue makes me apathetic about going - "I could go to a movie... but I'd probably enjoy my time more if I did X." The commercials though! Pure spawn of satan, whoever came up with that idea!
The first time I saw a commercial before a movie I was: ... oh, say 30 frickin' minutes of commercials!
a. REALLY offended that I'd paid as much as I had to get in and then been forced to sit through that.
b. Dismayed because I knew that this was not only going to spread to every movie theatre around, but that it would also no doubt grow from just one commercial to
And then of course they stopped even being special commercials produced for the theatre. Now we're watching damned TV commercials.
Hmmm... Offend audience... ticket sales drop... who'da thought?
It's sad because I'm not one of those guys who "hates" the whole theatre experience. Get the right movie and the right audience and it can be fun. Unfortunately it's just generally not worth it anymore.
Quoth he
"It's all academic anyway..."
Best post I've read in ages.
And now I'm going to go read it as well...
I Worked for a local theator chain (Star Cinema) on an off for a year or so to pick up some extra cash (and catch free movies and swag). Anyways, the Star company guys are really bleeding edge, two IMax theators, high end gear, nothing but stadium seating even in the smallest theators. Anyways, they were set to go digital back in 2002 with one problem. The Projectionist Union. Basicly, if they converted even 1 theator to digital, the projectionists would strike.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Two times I've seen a digital film. First time, there was a 20 min wait between the end of the trailers and the start of the film (The Big Red One: The Reconstruction). 2nd time was just last weekend, The Proposition. Brief 1 or 2 minute pause, then 5 mins into the film the projector stops. Cue 20 mins of madness till the film and cinema are back and running (this was in a major multiplex). Yes, the final picture was crisp and beautiful, but until they sort out the bother it won't grab on. It's still going through the weaning stages all technology has.
Sometimes I wonder whether the people who work for MPAA style companies are stupid, or whether they simply are from some alternate universe where logic actually works that way.
The people in Hollywood are not stupid, but they are under a lot of pressure to deliver a product that is profitable. However, in the words of screenwriter William Goldman, "Nobody knows anything". Meaning making movies is an extremely risky business. The best way to assure a profit is to make a big $100,000,000+ movie with big stars and a known subject/title. The audience likes what they have seen before, only slightly different. Cliches work, and sequels work. A $100,000,000 remake of The return of the son of 70's TV show staring Tom Cruise and the latest blonde slut-de-jour has a better chance of making $200,000,000 in box office and DVD receipts than ten $10,000,000 fantastic indie films. It's the business as it is today, and how it has mostly been since the 1920's. The movie business is in need of a new way to distribute films to theaters, but $100,000 per screen for digital projection is way out of range and unlikely to happen. The high cost of the popcorn is due to the fact that the studio and distributor takes about 90% of the box office from the theater for the first two weeks, and 70-50% in the weeks after for the first six-to-eight weeks. High prices for food and drink is the only way that the theater chains can stay in business.
Trust Hollywood. The people there are smart. But it's not a normal business. It can make anyone look stupid. But in the end, they do deliver the goods.
Additionally, you can read his ideas for real ways to revitalize the movie-going experience here.
Don't put advice in your sig.
Digital cinema is already catching up in India, the largest movie producing country in the world. Sudarshan will be the first digital projection theater in the South Indian city of Hyderabad, a technology hub which figured in the itinerary of Bush's recent India visit, and also the nerve center of the Telugu movie industry, Tollywood, which is one of the largest movie industries of India.
They were so bad in 2005, that I hardly copied any movies in 2005, and bought
the lowest amount of DVDR blanks too. Its been tvshow boom time, probably 5x more
hrs spent on tvshows than movies this time.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
How about mini cinemas, instead of GIANT screens, have mini rooms, with one couch for 3-4 people max, and
one biggish 6foot screen in digital LCD. You pick your movie instead of seeing whats on schedule.
You get privacy and can have 'fun' or just enjoy the movie with options to rewind the good bits or pause
to go to the toilet. For a 90min movie, you can get the room for 110min max. With buzzer control options
for instant delivery of food/snacks and BEER, you must provide alcahol too.
In a big complex, you could build easily 300 of these rooms. Make some rooms larger for 5-10 people group bookings
but make most just one 4 seater couch. With optional bean bag at the front for kids.
Price it the same price and it'll be a hit. Include the little curtins that open the screen too.
Im sure it'll be popular with the teenagers too, or the 55 yearold going out with the 23 yo bimbo.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I was quoted directly by an IMAX rep that it costs $40k AUD, per print, because of that they could not get
all the movies they'de like into aust. If it was $1k on a harddrive they yeah, they could show anything 24/7.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I lost interest in going to the cinema when they started showing advertisements instead of movie trailers.
I wonder if the people who run cinemas will ever figure out that people can stay home and watch TV if they want to see commercials before their movie.
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Pretty Bad Privacy (PBP) Public Key
6
Adoption of digital projectors in our area (Los Angeles) had an exact opposite effect me and my peers. The awful new motion blur and raised ticket prices drove us away from movie theaters. The last movie we watched was Star Wars Ep.III, and opening titles were smudged by the new projectors to an almost unreadable state. Later, I got the movie on DVD, and it looked a whole lot better. Then I tried to get it on my cable provider's on demand service, and 1080i signal looks even better. From now on I will just be buying movies on demand - they cost 3 times less then the DVD this way anyway. That is, if they actually make any decent movies this year...
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Some highlights:
The system shall be designed to push data to outside business entities per the needs of the exhibitor, and shall not allow outside business entities to pull data from the exhibitor's equipment or from the premises without the express written permission of the exhibitor on a case-by-case basis. All such communications shall be recorded and shall be auditable by the Exhibitor.
That's a nice contractual definition of a "no spyware" requirement. IT managers, put that in your purchase orders.
Good performance requirement. If you have to do hardware replacement, this puts an upper limit on how fast the vendor has to authorize the new hardware.
If we have to have DRM, it needs contractual safeguards like that.
Unfortunately, the suits will never get that idea that theaters should run their own screens and make choices based on what THEIR customers want!!!
I know next to nothing about the industry, but if theaters make a majority of the money on overpriced pop-corn and soda, then cheaper tickets may be their best bet. Hell, maybe they could even show today's hot TV shows like Lost for $2 a head?
Yeah, this is probably just the coffee talking. ;) But if the theater chains are having as much problems as they say, they need to do something radical to get butts back in their sticky seats.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
Digital projectors are to save distribution costs.
They are Digital rights management vehicles. (studios can watermark every showing and find the theaters that put movies on the web)
They also work to lock out indie movies.
But mostly 1080i SUCKS! It is way lower resolution than 35mm film.
1080 is ok for my monitor, but not for a 50ft screen.
Give me Cinemascope or even better yet, IMAX!
I can't belive you didn't mention the best part about the Collins Rd. Theatre, the Midnight Movies! (nearly) Every friday and saturday night, he shows a movie the customers have requested, which generally means they're a good movie. Ones he's shown lately are Army of Darkness, The Big Lebowski, Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The lack of commercials, real butter at the concession, and good prices are just icing on the cake.
And actually, there are commercials, but the difference between these, and ones at Carmike, are that the ones at Carmike start showing AT the ticket time, whereas the ones at Collins show UNTIL the ticket time.
aaaand...whee!
What next? Someone having to resign because he used an innocent word that sounded like 'nigger' and thus received rabid criticism? Oh wait, that already happened...
What, are you you too niggardly in your sharing of knowledge to use the actual word?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.