(my first post) It seems that the savings to be made with Prints is exceptional as the posts points out. Taking this as a given, we still need to consider a few things. 1)The added expense to the theatre owners is significant in switching to digital (instead of MV48 for instance), and they will of course be skeptical of the benefits at first (if it aint broke, dont fix it). However if movie companies truly do stand to save millions of dollars on this, and they truely believe in the benefits to viewers, they should jump at the chance to subsidise theatre switchovers across the nation. And the first companies to do this would gain more viewship on movies on those screens since the new digital medium would have some exclusivity there, allowing them to make their money back faster. 2). If Print savings is directly tied to the number of screens, the more screens for a film, the more savings. As a general rule, films with more screens are larger budget, thus savings is fairly loosely related to a percentage of the cost. This means that for bigger companies which make larger budget films, the savings is less critcal to profitability than it is to smaller budget films which are frequently make by companies that have less power to affect a changeover in the industry. Digital would be most desirable by smaller budget film companies trying to get their films on more screens. When a big company picks up a smaller film, it has the distribution power/money already to get the film where it needs to be, and the theatres per screen cost/savings has nothing to do with the film budget.
Now, regading installation cost, the assumption is that these will come down over time as digital hardware/sofware becomes cheaper so theatres would have the option of going digital. Ebert is right that more digitized (i.e. the Phantom Menance/Toy Story) movies would be better suited to digital and special screens seem very likely to popup for these. But with more traditional films, analog has something we're used to and actually miss- noise! This is highly evident when an expert violinist listens to a computer play a piece and remarks that it has lost some of its "soul" (it is "too" perfect). The same goes for a film, especially when you are not already asked to have a measure of suspended disbelieve as in sci-fi/action films. I have never seen an airplane blow up live, but i sure know intuitively what two people having a conversation on street looks like. Dithering algorithms, which attempt to reproduce analog noise are part of the answer here, but they have had varying degrees of success. Digital movies would then be less "hypnotic" as Ebert puts it. Human complacency and attenuation to imperfection in the environment has been molded for eons and shoulnt be underestimated.
Regarding piracy, Ebert has a valid point. No matter how much encription there is, a mole in the form of a theatre worker can get pirate a copy of the film, analog or digital. The difference is 1) with analog a copy of the reel must somehow be stolen or borrowed (for a copy to be made) whereas with digital a perfect copy can be captured directly. 2). Once a pirate has a digital copy, his expenses, like the theatres, go way down for replication and transmittion of the film all around the world, and to video in a perfect form. And a low paid theatre worker is fairly easy to bribe.
Finally, theatres would be averse to going fully digital in one fell swoop because there really is no significant difference for them in cost (if subsidised by movie companies) or attracting viewership, if we assume that image quality is truely "unimportant to the viewer". Why risk change if there very well be nothing in it for them and there may be percieved risks. The social stigmas of change should keep digital only in at most one screen per theatre where techies would pay a premium to see a "better" film. Perception is everything, and if a new analog standard like MV48 gets into place, theatres will resist new change even more. Why tediously duplicate what you already have (analog). And anyone who thinks better is just better, even with some initial risks of restandardization needs to read up on Qwerty vs Dvorak. I'll just wait for perfect voice recognition.
Slashdot Mirror
(my first post)
It seems that the savings to be made with Prints is exceptional as the posts points out. Taking this as a given, we still need to consider a few things.
1)The added expense to the theatre owners is significant in switching to digital (instead of MV48 for instance), and they will of course be skeptical of the benefits at first (if it aint broke, dont fix it). However if movie companies truly do stand to save millions of dollars on this, and they truely believe in the benefits to viewers, they should jump at the chance to subsidise theatre switchovers across the nation. And the first companies to do this would gain more viewship on movies on those screens since the new digital medium would have some exclusivity there, allowing them to make their money back faster.
2). If Print savings is directly tied to the number of screens, the more screens for a film, the more savings. As a general rule, films with more screens are larger budget, thus savings is fairly loosely related to a percentage of the cost. This means that for bigger companies which make larger budget films, the savings is less critcal to profitability than it is to smaller budget films which are frequently make by companies that have less power to affect a changeover in the industry. Digital would be most desirable by smaller budget film companies trying to get their films on more screens. When a big company picks up a smaller film, it has the distribution power/money already to get the film where it needs to be, and the theatres per screen cost/savings has nothing to do with the film budget.
Now, regading installation cost, the assumption is that these will come down over time as digital hardware/sofware becomes cheaper so theatres would have the option of going digital. Ebert is right that more digitized (i.e. the Phantom Menance/Toy Story) movies would be better suited to digital and special screens seem very likely to popup for these. But with more traditional films, analog has something we're used to and actually miss- noise! This is highly evident when an expert violinist listens to a computer play a piece and remarks that it has lost some of its "soul" (it is "too" perfect). The same goes for a film, especially when you are not already asked to have a measure of suspended disbelieve as in sci-fi/action films. I have never seen an airplane blow up live, but i sure know intuitively what two people having a conversation on street looks like. Dithering algorithms, which attempt to reproduce analog noise are part of the answer here, but they have had varying degrees of success. Digital movies would then be less "hypnotic" as Ebert puts it. Human complacency and attenuation to imperfection in the environment has been molded for eons and shoulnt be underestimated.
Regarding piracy, Ebert has a valid point. No matter how much encription there is, a mole in the form of a theatre worker can get pirate a copy of the film, analog or digital. The difference is 1) with analog a copy of the reel must somehow be stolen or borrowed (for a copy to be made) whereas with digital a perfect copy can be captured directly. 2). Once a pirate has a digital copy, his expenses, like the theatres, go way down for replication and transmittion of the film all around the world, and to video in a perfect form. And a low paid theatre worker is fairly easy to bribe.
Finally, theatres would be averse to going fully digital in one fell swoop because there really is no significant difference for them in cost (if subsidised by movie companies) or attracting viewership, if we assume that image quality is truely "unimportant to the viewer". Why risk change if there very well be nothing in it for them and there may be percieved risks. The social stigmas of change should keep digital only in at most one screen per theatre where techies would pay a premium to see a "better" film. Perception is everything, and if a new analog standard like MV48 gets into place, theatres will resist new change even more. Why tediously duplicate what you already have (analog). And anyone who thinks better is just better, even with some initial risks of restandardization needs to read up on Qwerty vs Dvorak. I'll just wait for perfect voice recognition.