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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."
Actually while the resolution of HD (1920x1080) is very good compared to the current DCI standard of 2048x1080 there are a number of other issues to consider. As you already mentioned the black levels of home systems can leave something to be desired, also the color gamut is significantly redeuced. The "black chip"s used in the TI cinema projectors give a standardized, calibrated broad color space. More importantly is the temporal artifacts caused from converting a 24fps progressive scan movie (presumably shot on 35mm film) to a 30fps interlaced HD signal. This process introduces the artifacts we are all familar with from watching movies on TV. While admittedly the "film look" we associate with being in a movie theater is actually a result of a lower image quality experience, it does add to the experience. (the 60fps rate of the 1280x720 standard has a different feel, like that of the old Showscan film system).
Soon, of course, the new 4K projectors will be out (see post on cinema in Norway).
There is no current solution to farting though.