Actually, the original APL symbols are in Unicode! Starting with the "I-beam" character at hex value 0x2336. The section they are under is called "Miscellaneous Technical".
Sure, but just how even does it have to be? You can see the "speckle" effect (thanks to the previous poster for the term) on just about any surface, even fairly nice projection screen. Try it yourself with a laser pointer next time you're at a movie theater (just don't let anyone see who did it!) I'm wondering if the projection surface has to be microscopically perfect? The interference effect might magnify even the slightest variation in the projection surface.
Anyway, as the previous poster pointed out, if the laser's dot size is small enough, the "speckle" effect would probably be unnoticable.
Since it says they're using lasers, I have to wonder how they solved the interference pattern problem. Just try shining a laser pointer at a flat, white surface. Instead of a smooth dot, you get dot with some bizzare, grainy-looking pattern in it, due to the interference pattern caused by the reflected light's interaction with itself (the light is not reflected evenly, since any household surface will have small irregularities in it). Then try moving your head around while looking at the dot. See the pattern move, too?
I'm not sure how that effect could be eliminated from a device like this. It would be interesting to see it in action. The interference problem might be a little distracting.
It's also encouraging to hear that they are aiming for ultra-high resolutions like 8 million pixels. We might actually have a digital cinema system in the future that matches the resolution of 35mm film (about 10-12 million pixels). Sounds cool.
DLPs shown up in some home-theater equipment. Panasonic has come out with some new HDTV rear-projection sets that use DLP as the display element instead of traditional CRTs. Don't know how good/bad it looks yet, I haven't seen it in action.
Interesting side note: DLP has not made many inroads into the portable projector market. Last time I was on an airplaine, I picked up the in-flight magazine and flipped through it, noticing that almost every other page had an ad for some type of portable video projector (the kind used for laptop comptuer-based presentations). Nearly all of them had max resolution of 1600x1200 (as opposed to DLP's current max of 1280x1024), and almost all of them were LCD-based. Some of the ads even came right out and said, "No DLP projector can match our hi-res LCD system!" DLP simply has to increase its resolution if they want to compete.
The one thing I dislike is those idiotic textovers at the beginning and end.
Total agreement here regarding the first textover. It gave away too much and was incredibly annoying. Whoever came up with that idea should be forced to watch old episodes of Giligan's island for 96 hours straight as punishment. (Unless it was Shyamalan's idea, in which I suppose he can be forgiven... naw, he should still be punshised.)
The second one, however, wasn't too bad. It's pretty good to have things told to you rather than shown. If Shyamalan had tried to show Samuel L. Jackson in an insane asylum, it would have been too corny, like when Jim Carrey was shown in Arkum at the end of "Batman Forever".
The thing I liked most about this movie was Jackson's performance. He gave his character a lot of depth. When he's laying on the table listening to the doctor tell him he'll be in a wheelchair for X months and on crutches for Y months after that, you can't help but feel his pain. That goes double for when he's sitting in his wheelchair in utter despair in the comic book store.
And I agree with you totally, if you want to appreciate the cinematography, you have to see the movie in a theater. Home video, even if it's DVD, just doesn't cut it. "Unbreakable" had some great cinematography. It took me a while to figure it out, but I eventually realized it was shot in real Panavision, instead of today's usual Super-35 crap. That helped a lot.
Side note: there were some teenagers in the theater I was in who were talking, and I simply got up and walked right over to them (I could barely contain my anger) and asked them (politely, mind you) to "be quiet, please". Believe it or not, they were actually quiet for the rest of the movie! Ask, and ye shall receive...
Do you honestly think these projectors will remain $250,000 units forever?
Of course not, but even if they come down to the same price as film projectors, that's still going to be a lot more than theater owners will be willing to pay more than once. Hell, even if they come down to less than $10,000 apiece, that will still be too expensive for theater owners. Mark my words: the conversion to digital will be a one-shot deal. Theaters will buy one projector, and that will be it. They will never upgrade unless they tear down the theater and build a new one.
DVD players used to be $1000+. Now you can get a decent one for under $200. It's the same for every new product.
It's not the same for every new product. DVD players are not a good example. This is a display technology we are talking about. Have TVs or computer monitors seen a similar drop in price? Sure, they get a little cheaper over time, but not as much as a device like a DVD player or a hard disk. Displays are just plain expensive.
I think you're living in some other world! I have never seen an old movie that matches the quality of, say, Contact or any other movie in the past 5 years.
I did not mean in general, I was talking about a specific example. Allow me to further explain: In 1992, I had the chance to see a recently-struck 70mm print of West Side Story. When I said "a movie made 40 years ago", I specifically meant this one. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that. I certainly didn't mean to imply that any movie made 40 years ago looks better than movies being made today.
Anyway, about the West Side Story print: it was amazing! The images were sharp, clear, and detailed, and the color was incredibly lush. Do yourself a favor and check out the DVD of it. You'll be surprised at how good it looks. Ever since I saw that print, I have been waiting to see a movie made in recent times that has the same or better quality. With perhaps one or two exceptions, I'm still waiting. Films like Contact come pretty close, but still fall a bit short. "Mission Impossible 2" came a little closer, and in some ways beat it. But those are the standouts. On the whole, quality is still hovering in the mediocre area. The reason WSS looked so good is that it was shot entirely on 65mm negatives, whereas movies today are shot on 35mm negatives (and in the case of movies made in the Super-35 format, they don't even make full use of the 35mm negative). Improvements in film stock have made up most of the difference, but not all of it. It's too bad, because 65mm with today's stocks would look just incredible but the studios have gotten cheap to do that . They used to care at least a little bit about quality, now all they care about is the bottom line. (That's why they're so excited about digital -- they think it will be cheaper.) It used to be show business, but now it's just business.
When I said "enforcement of monopoly power", I was talking about patent/copyright/trademark law and trade agreements that favor the biggest companies while squeezing out the little guy.
Here in the states, what do I get? A bloated beaurocracy.
No, what you get in the USA is corporate welfare.
Sports arenas, zero-property-tax factories and offices, corporate tax breaks, enforcement of monopoly power, etc. All paid for by the individual taxpayer.
Oh, and let's not forget the "war on drugs". Aside from the military, it's got to be the single biggest drain on public budgets out there.
I agree with you, it would be nice to live in a place where you actually get something for your tax money, instead of other people getting something for it.
Whatever happened to Trumbal's "Showscan"
Trumbull's Showscan process is alive and well. (It's 70mm film running at 60 fps.) It is used for motion-simulator rides and such.
I know this thread's been beaten to death, but I just realized I never responded to this accusation:
You still listen to records, don't you?
No, I don't. CDs have enough bits to where they sound acceptable. Digital cinema, on the other hand, does not currently have enough bits to look good. That's my complaint in a nutshell: not enough bits.
That's like saying they shouldn't have started filming in technicolor when it first came out, because if they just wait a decade, the color will be so much better.
No, that's different, because going to color film did not require theaters to install new projectors. Since each new movie required a new piece of film anyway, they could use a new process for each movie, without requiring theater owners to perform any upgrades. (Besides, Technicolor's three-strip process looked great right from the start. It didn't require much improvement.)
Digital projection, on the other hand, requires a new and very expensive projector to be installed at the theater. A good film projector costs about $30,000, and a crappy one costs a little less. In contrast, digital projectors currently cost about $250,000! And theater owners are notoriously spendthrift. It's hard enough to get them to spend the money to change out the Xenon bulbs when they should, which is part of the reason why film projection looks so dark in a lot of theaters these days (and by the way, that will still be a probelm with digital projection, since such projectors still need Xenon lamps to provide light). Knowing that, do you really think that once a theater buys a digital projector, that they will ever, ever upgrade? No! Whatever gets installed today will be it for generations to come. The resolution will never increase. That's what has me worried.
The fact is: films are constantly being filmed in higher and higher qualities.
I only wish that were true. The real fact is, except for a brief period during the 1950s and 1960s, photography for movies has always gone towards cheaper and more convenient, not higher quality. 40 years ago, there were several releases a year that were made using 65mm negatives and 70mm prints. Then filmmakers and studios switched back to 35mm negatives, and a mixture of 70mm and 35mm prints. Then when theatrical digital sound came along in the early 1990s, 70mm prints died off, and everything is now 35mm-only. It looked like advancements in the grain structure of film stocks were going to make up the difference, but then filmmakers decided to start using the Super-35 process, yet again reducing the negative area and thus reducing quality. To see what I am talking about, compare the DVD of 1961's West Side Story to just about any movie from last year or this year. Even with DVD's limited 720x480 resolution, you can see a difference. Just imagine what it looked like in 70mm! A movie made nearly 40 years ago looks better than anything being made today.
Also, back in the days of big-screen epics, theaters took great pride in providing good presentation. A projectionist used to have to go through a full six months of training before being allowed to even enter the booth of an actual theater! Nowadays, some kid who did a good job selling popcorn gets shoved in the booth with no training and 20-odd screens to run all by him/herself. No wonder presentation quality sucks these days! And the sad thing is, the worst-case scenario of today is pretty much the only standard that proponents of digital ever talk about. They just point to the problems I mentioned and say, "Well, at least we'll be better than that." No mention of how they might try to equal the quality of yesteryear, back when moviegoers actually had it better than we have it today.
Talking about theater quality, I don't really have it as good where I live as I would like, but I still prefer what I get to see at the Century 25 (a 45 minute drive for me) over most places. They have Kinoton projectors, so the images are pretty much rock steady, and they keep their screens well-lit. Only rarely do I see scratches or dirt (which proponents of digital would have you believe magically appear on every frame of film ever made, no matter how careful you are with it). The sound is good, too, thanks to their auditoriums all being THX-certified.
However, if you want to see a real movie theater, the one that made me fall in love with 70mm film when I was a kid, then go to this site and click on the "pictures" link in the bottom frame. Then click on the link labeled "GCC Northpark West 1&2" (sorry, the site does not allow direct linking). That is what a truly great movie theater is like. It breaks my heart to know that it is gone now.
And just to let you know, I am not a sentimental old fart who is misguidedly clinging to the past. I am only 27 years old. I work in the computer industry. I am not a Luddite or a technophobe. It's just that I've seen with my own eyes what film is capable of delivering, and TI's digital system just doesn't measure up. I want them to get it right before they permanently stick us with an inferior solution.
Hopefully someone from the EFF will read this late comment.
I have a simple problem involving DVDs. I am planning to put together a web page that talks about the excellent cinematography that was done for some of the big 70mm epics of the 50s and 60s. I wanted to be able to grab a screenshot from the "West Side Story" DVD, and along with a screenshot of a more recent movie (haven't decided which one) shot using the crummy Super-35 format, and then compare the two.
Unfortunately, I cannot grab any such screenshots using licensed DVD players, since they all prevent taking screenshots. The only way to do this would be to use DeCSS to extract the MPEG-2 video off the discs and then grab single-frame shots using video editing software. However, this is currently illegal under the anti-circumvention provision.
I think this easily qualifies as "fair use", since it is for the purposes of criticism. It would be a very brief quote, since all I want is to grab a single frame, that is, 1/24th of a second, from a 2-hour movie.
The anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA is thus preventing me from exercising my fair use rights for the purposes of criticism. Are we really going to allow big companies to prevent criticism in the digital age?
Oh, I know all about that. The trend was started by companies like AMC, who went out of their way not to hire people who were trained as projectionists, just so they could pay them less, and to hell with presentation quality. (Guess they learned that in business school, eh?)
Ironically, those same companies are now the ones who are getting excited about digital projection. Their executives go around making statements about how bad film is and how it gets scratched and dirty over time. They conveniently leave out the fact that it is their untrained employees who are scratching and dirtying up the film. Fscking jackasses.
I realize you were just arguing from a standpoint of convenience, but I wanted to point out that your customers won't care about that (whether your job is easier). They will however notice when the images you show suddenly start looking pixelated.
most of the DVD transfers are crap (and, unfortunately, the compression artifacts are watermelon-sized on my HDTV-quality projection screen)
Boy, am I glad to hear I am not the only person who notices compression artifacts in DVDs. Almost every disc I see has unacceptable levels of compression artifacts, edge enchancement, video blooming, and other problems.
And the DVD web sites out there don't help matters, either. Most of the so-called DVD "review" websites are just fanboy websites run by idiots who don't seem to know anything about what makes a good or bad video image. They just rubber-stamp every disc as "perfect, as usual" unless there is some absolutely glaring things wrong with it that even they can't ignore, and then they grudingly admit that perhaps this disc isn't quite up to snuff. Ugh.
And you claim that 1. you can tell the difference between 35mm and 70mm
Hell, yes! Anybody who can't tell the difference between 35mm and 70mm must be blind.
2. analog sound is better that Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS?
I'm actually not too sure which I prefer. The digital formats certainly have lower noise floors, but I liked the vibrancy of the old analog mag 70mm sound. If it were uncompressed digital sound there would be no question, I would prefer the digital sound. But unfortunately, there is no theatrical uncompressed digital sound format (unless you count the IMAX sound format).
And why are they cropping to 1920x800, can't they use non-square pixels?
Okay, since you said you manage a theater, I have to ask. Maybe you don't care about quality, only convenience, but do you think if you suddenly reduce the quality of your presentations while keeping the price the same, that you will keep all of your customers?
Also, what makes you think you won't have to hire projectionists with digital equipment? Sure, you don't have to thread the film and assemble prints, but you have to do maintenence, change the Xenon lamps (digital projectors still need light you know), check the focus and sound levels, etc. Or are you not planning to do mantenence and just let the Xenon lamps explode when they get old?
As for that print of "Friday the 13th" looking bad, that's due to improper handling and storage. Yes, conversion to digital could solve that problem, but so could and improvement in film handling techniques in the industry. I ask you, which one would be cheaper?
could you, or anyone else, define anamorphic for me?
"Anamorphic" usually means any type of horizontal squeezing.
When used in reference to film production, in refers to technique which is used to create a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio image on 35mm film. Basically, there is a lens on the camera which squeezes images horizontally at a ratio of about 2:1, and another lens on the projector which reverses the process. (Without this squeeze/unsqueeze, the image on 35mm film is 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the same as television.) The technique was first used in Cinemascope, and later Panavision. It is still used today. "X-Men" was shot in anamorphic Panavision.
For a 1.85:1 aspect ratio movie, the movie is shot with ordinary, spherical lenses, and then matted on the film to produce a 1.85:1 image. This technique uses a much smaller area of film, and is thus lower quality. The "Grinch" movie is a recent film which was shot in this format.
A relatively new technique which has become popular in recent years is "Super-35". A movie is shot without the anamorphic lens element (spherical lenses are used). The part of the film negative normally reserved for the soundtrack is used to slightly increase the area of the camera negative, so that instead of a 1.33:1 image, a 1.37:1 image is recorded. Then, to produce a widescreen image for use in theaters, the bottom part of the image is cut off, leaving behind a 2:39:1 image. Then when the movie is shown on TV or VHS, almost the entire 1.37:1 image is shown. The top edge of the frame area is the same in both cases. "Charlie's Angels" and "The 6th Day" are two recent movies that were shot in this format. As you can imagine, it produces a very grainy image when shown in theaters, due to the tiny area of the film negative used for the 2:39:1 image. I don't like this format. Sure, it looks better on home video, since there is no need for pan & scan, but it looks like crap in theaters. I wish fewer directors used this.
In reference to DVDs, "anamorphic" usually refers to 16x9 enhancement.
There is a lot more info to be had about this stuff. Try poking around on the web a bit. This is just a summary.
That's exactly my point. It's fundamentally the same technology, the same idea. It's just been tweaked a little. In the same vein, a modern film projector is a very different beast from an original Edison model, too, but as peopel have pointed out, it's the same principle.
Before digital sound came along, there was only one way to get more than just two-channel stereo onto a film print. That was to do a 70mm blow-up. 70mm prints, in addition to having higher image quality than 35mm, had 6-track analog sound Many theaters had 70mm projectors (and still have them) which would be used to show these prints.
If you want documentation, go to the library and look up an issue from the 1980s of a major city's newspaper, and turn to the movies section. You'll see ads for movies being shown in 70mm.
Also go to the IMDb and look at the "technical specs" section for some big-budget action movie made in the late 1970s or 1980s. You'll see that even though the movie was filmed in 35mm, it will have 70mm blow-up listed as one of the print formats.
Now, as to your remark about the resolution of film being cut by "at least half" because of shutter-gate error, that's just bull. Modern cameras have extremely precise movements that are rock-steady, even at high frame rates. Projectors exist that are capable of delivering the same rock-steadiness, but some theater chains (*cough* AMC *cough*) are too cheap to install such projectors, so you are getting a little of that. It doesn't magically cut the resolution in half, though.
And yes, thankfully there is at least one company that is working on higher resolution video projectors. JVC's D-ILA technology is competing with TI's DLP, and it's currently winning in terms of resolution. It's not LCD, but you're right, the resolution is now up to about 2000x1500. Hopefully they will continue to increase it.
Yes, Lucas & co. could use non-square pixels, but they aren't. The camera was designed to shoot at 16:9 aspect ratio with square pixels, so they would have to use an anamorphic lens to squeeze the image. I guess they decided it wasn't worth it. (Many cinematographers prefer the look of spherical lenses over anamorphic ones, anyway.)
I am not patronizing you, I am asking if you know anything about the technical capabilities of the systems we're talking about it. You didn't answer, so I suppose that means no.
I have actually seen TI's system as well, so I am not "just talking theory". And after having seen it, I still stand by my statements.
I'll bet the movie you used to make your comparison was "Toy Story 2", wasn't it? Well, that's not a fair comparison, because the film prints of TS2 looked awful. They used a CRT-based recorder to get the digital information out to film, and not a laser recorder like they should have. If you think the film prints of Toy Story 2 looked bad, blame the transfer mechanism, not the film.
If you can hear the noise from the projector in your theater, then it's not properly insulated. Well-designed theaters do not have that problem.
It sounds like you have never seen properly done film projection. That's too bad, because it's quite an experience. Film, when pushed to its limits, beats the current digital systems when they are pushed to their limits. Maybe someday there will be a digital system that matches film bit-for-bit, pixel-for-pixel, but not at the moment. People should not be in a hurry to replace film just because it's "old". It should only be replaced when a system that has the same or better technical capabilities comes along.
People are constantly coming back at me saying "Well, special effects shots are done at 2K resolution, so that must be good enough."
Well first off, I can often see the individual pixels in SFX shots. I know you probably don't believe me, but it's true. Some SFX shots are so bad they stick out like a sore thumb, but even in the better ones, you can usually spot the pixels by looking for something with a straight edge and watching the jaggies go by.
Secondly, maybe your company doesn't do it, but some SFX houses do things at 4K resolution. Even "Wonder Boys", not exactly a big-budget, effects-laden film, had shots done at 4K resolution. Just read this article in Kodak's "Cinema Notes", it mentions how the effects shots were done at 4K resolution. If even a no-action, mostly-talking movie is doing effects at 4K today, don't you think big-budget action movies will be doing 4K effects in the future?
And lastly, if your co-workers don't have good enough eyes to spot 1280x1024 video, even when sitting close to the screen, they really don't have any business being in the movie industry in my opinion. Sorry, I know that sounds a little insulting, but that's how I feel about it. I can easily tell the difference, and I'm not even in the movie industry! Someone calling themselves a professional really ought to have at least as discriminating eye as me.
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Actually, the original APL symbols are in Unicode! Starting with the "I-beam" character at hex value 0x2336. The section they are under is called "Miscellaneous Technical".
Anyway, as the previous poster pointed out, if the laser's dot size is small enough, the "speckle" effect would probably be unnoticable.
I'm not sure how that effect could be eliminated from a device like this. It would be interesting to see it in action. The interference problem might be a little distracting.
It's also encouraging to hear that they are aiming for ultra-high resolutions like 8 million pixels. We might actually have a digital cinema system in the future that matches the resolution of 35mm film (about 10-12 million pixels). Sounds cool.
Interesting side note: DLP has not made many inroads into the portable projector market. Last time I was on an airplaine, I picked up the in-flight magazine and flipped through it, noticing that almost every other page had an ad for some type of portable video projector (the kind used for laptop comptuer-based presentations). Nearly all of them had max resolution of 1600x1200 (as opposed to DLP's current max of 1280x1024), and almost all of them were LCD-based. Some of the ads even came right out and said, "No DLP projector can match our hi-res LCD system!" DLP simply has to increase its resolution if they want to compete.
Total agreement here regarding the first textover. It gave away too much and was incredibly annoying. Whoever came up with that idea should be forced to watch old episodes of Giligan's island for 96 hours straight as punishment. (Unless it was Shyamalan's idea, in which I suppose he can be forgiven ... naw, he should still be punshised.)
The second one, however, wasn't too bad. It's pretty good to have things told to you rather than shown. If Shyamalan had tried to show Samuel L. Jackson in an insane asylum, it would have been too corny, like when Jim Carrey was shown in Arkum at the end of "Batman Forever".
The thing I liked most about this movie was Jackson's performance. He gave his character a lot of depth. When he's laying on the table listening to the doctor tell him he'll be in a wheelchair for X months and on crutches for Y months after that, you can't help but feel his pain. That goes double for when he's sitting in his wheelchair in utter despair in the comic book store.
And I agree with you totally, if you want to appreciate the cinematography, you have to see the movie in a theater. Home video, even if it's DVD, just doesn't cut it. "Unbreakable" had some great cinematography. It took me a while to figure it out, but I eventually realized it was shot in real Panavision, instead of today's usual Super-35 crap. That helped a lot.
Side note: there were some teenagers in the theater I was in who were talking, and I simply got up and walked right over to them (I could barely contain my anger) and asked them (politely, mind you) to "be quiet, please". Believe it or not, they were actually quiet for the rest of the movie! Ask, and ye shall receive...
Of course not, but even if they come down to the same price as film projectors, that's still going to be a lot more than theater owners will be willing to pay more than once. Hell, even if they come down to less than $10,000 apiece, that will still be too expensive for theater owners. Mark my words: the conversion to digital will be a one-shot deal. Theaters will buy one projector, and that will be it. They will never upgrade unless they tear down the theater and build a new one.
DVD players used to be $1000+. Now you can get a decent one for under $200. It's the same for every new product.
It's not the same for every new product. DVD players are not a good example. This is a display technology we are talking about. Have TVs or computer monitors seen a similar drop in price? Sure, they get a little cheaper over time, but not as much as a device like a DVD player or a hard disk. Displays are just plain expensive.
I think you're living in some other world! I have never seen an old movie that matches the quality of, say, Contact or any other movie in the past 5 years.
I did not mean in general, I was talking about a specific example. Allow me to further explain: In 1992, I had the chance to see a recently-struck 70mm print of West Side Story. When I said "a movie made 40 years ago", I specifically meant this one. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that. I certainly didn't mean to imply that any movie made 40 years ago looks better than movies being made today.
Anyway, about the West Side Story print: it was amazing! The images were sharp, clear, and detailed, and the color was incredibly lush. Do yourself a favor and check out the DVD of it. You'll be surprised at how good it looks. Ever since I saw that print, I have been waiting to see a movie made in recent times that has the same or better quality. With perhaps one or two exceptions, I'm still waiting. Films like Contact come pretty close, but still fall a bit short. "Mission Impossible 2" came a little closer, and in some ways beat it. But those are the standouts. On the whole, quality is still hovering in the mediocre area. The reason WSS looked so good is that it was shot entirely on 65mm negatives, whereas movies today are shot on 35mm negatives (and in the case of movies made in the Super-35 format, they don't even make full use of the 35mm negative). Improvements in film stock have made up most of the difference, but not all of it. It's too bad, because 65mm with today's stocks would look just incredible but the studios have gotten cheap to do that . They used to care at least a little bit about quality, now all they care about is the bottom line. (That's why they're so excited about digital -- they think it will be cheaper.) It used to be show business, but now it's just business.
When I said "enforcement of monopoly power", I was talking about patent/copyright/trademark law and trade agreements that favor the biggest companies while squeezing out the little guy.
No, what you get in the USA is corporate welfare.
Sports arenas, zero-property-tax factories and offices, corporate tax breaks, enforcement of monopoly power, etc. All paid for by the individual taxpayer.
Oh, and let's not forget the "war on drugs". Aside from the military, it's got to be the single biggest drain on public budgets out there.
I agree with you, it would be nice to live in a place where you actually get something for your tax money, instead of other people getting something for it.
Whatever happened to Trumbal's "Showscan" Trumbull's Showscan process is alive and well. (It's 70mm film running at 60 fps.) It is used for motion-simulator rides and such.
You still listen to records, don't you?
No, I don't. CDs have enough bits to where they sound acceptable. Digital cinema, on the other hand, does not currently have enough bits to look good. That's my complaint in a nutshell: not enough bits.
No, that's different, because going to color film did not require theaters to install new projectors. Since each new movie required a new piece of film anyway, they could use a new process for each movie, without requiring theater owners to perform any upgrades. (Besides, Technicolor's three-strip process looked great right from the start. It didn't require much improvement.)
Digital projection, on the other hand, requires a new and very expensive projector to be installed at the theater. A good film projector costs about $30,000, and a crappy one costs a little less. In contrast, digital projectors currently cost about $250,000! And theater owners are notoriously spendthrift. It's hard enough to get them to spend the money to change out the Xenon bulbs when they should, which is part of the reason why film projection looks so dark in a lot of theaters these days (and by the way, that will still be a probelm with digital projection, since such projectors still need Xenon lamps to provide light). Knowing that, do you really think that once a theater buys a digital projector, that they will ever, ever upgrade? No! Whatever gets installed today will be it for generations to come. The resolution will never increase. That's what has me worried.
The fact is: films are constantly being filmed in higher and higher qualities.
I only wish that were true. The real fact is, except for a brief period during the 1950s and 1960s, photography for movies has always gone towards cheaper and more convenient, not higher quality. 40 years ago, there were several releases a year that were made using 65mm negatives and 70mm prints. Then filmmakers and studios switched back to 35mm negatives, and a mixture of 70mm and 35mm prints. Then when theatrical digital sound came along in the early 1990s, 70mm prints died off, and everything is now 35mm-only. It looked like advancements in the grain structure of film stocks were going to make up the difference, but then filmmakers decided to start using the Super-35 process, yet again reducing the negative area and thus reducing quality. To see what I am talking about, compare the DVD of 1961's West Side Story to just about any movie from last year or this year. Even with DVD's limited 720x480 resolution, you can see a difference. Just imagine what it looked like in 70mm! A movie made nearly 40 years ago looks better than anything being made today.
Also, back in the days of big-screen epics, theaters took great pride in providing good presentation. A projectionist used to have to go through a full six months of training before being allowed to even enter the booth of an actual theater! Nowadays, some kid who did a good job selling popcorn gets shoved in the booth with no training and 20-odd screens to run all by him/herself. No wonder presentation quality sucks these days! And the sad thing is, the worst-case scenario of today is pretty much the only standard that proponents of digital ever talk about. They just point to the problems I mentioned and say, "Well, at least we'll be better than that." No mention of how they might try to equal the quality of yesteryear, back when moviegoers actually had it better than we have it today.
Talking about theater quality, I don't really have it as good where I live as I would like, but I still prefer what I get to see at the Century 25 (a 45 minute drive for me) over most places. They have Kinoton projectors, so the images are pretty much rock steady, and they keep their screens well-lit. Only rarely do I see scratches or dirt (which proponents of digital would have you believe magically appear on every frame of film ever made, no matter how careful you are with it). The sound is good, too, thanks to their auditoriums all being THX-certified.
However, if you want to see a real movie theater, the one that made me fall in love with 70mm film when I was a kid, then go to this site and click on the "pictures" link in the bottom frame. Then click on the link labeled "GCC Northpark West 1&2" (sorry, the site does not allow direct linking). That is what a truly great movie theater is like. It breaks my heart to know that it is gone now.
And just to let you know, I am not a sentimental old fart who is misguidedly clinging to the past. I am only 27 years old. I work in the computer industry. I am not a Luddite or a technophobe. It's just that I've seen with my own eyes what film is capable of delivering, and TI's digital system just doesn't measure up. I want them to get it right before they permanently stick us with an inferior solution.
I have a simple problem involving DVDs. I am planning to put together a web page that talks about the excellent cinematography that was done for some of the big 70mm epics of the 50s and 60s. I wanted to be able to grab a screenshot from the "West Side Story" DVD, and along with a screenshot of a more recent movie (haven't decided which one) shot using the crummy Super-35 format, and then compare the two.
Unfortunately, I cannot grab any such screenshots using licensed DVD players, since they all prevent taking screenshots. The only way to do this would be to use DeCSS to extract the MPEG-2 video off the discs and then grab single-frame shots using video editing software. However, this is currently illegal under the anti-circumvention provision.
I think this easily qualifies as "fair use", since it is for the purposes of criticism. It would be a very brief quote, since all I want is to grab a single frame, that is, 1/24th of a second, from a 2-hour movie.
The anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA is thus preventing me from exercising my fair use rights for the purposes of criticism. Are we really going to allow big companies to prevent criticism in the digital age?
Ironically, those same companies are now the ones who are getting excited about digital projection. Their executives go around making statements about how bad film is and how it gets scratched and dirty over time. They conveniently leave out the fact that it is their untrained employees who are scratching and dirtying up the film. Fscking jackasses.
I realize you were just arguing from a standpoint of convenience, but I wanted to point out that your customers won't care about that (whether your job is easier). They will however notice when the images you show suddenly start looking pixelated.
Boy, am I glad to hear I am not the only person who notices compression artifacts in DVDs. Almost every disc I see has unacceptable levels of compression artifacts, edge enchancement, video blooming, and other problems.
And the DVD web sites out there don't help matters, either. Most of the so-called DVD "review" websites are just fanboy websites run by idiots who don't seem to know anything about what makes a good or bad video image. They just rubber-stamp every disc as "perfect, as usual" unless there is some absolutely glaring things wrong with it that even they can't ignore, and then they grudingly admit that perhaps this disc isn't quite up to snuff. Ugh.
By the way, 70mm was first called "Todd-AO", not "Cinerama".
Let me see a 35mm print of "Showgirls" and I guarantee I'll spot at least one of your SFX shots, probably a lot more.
Hell, yes! Anybody who can't tell the difference between 35mm and 70mm must be blind.
2. analog sound is better that Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS?
I'm actually not too sure which I prefer. The digital formats certainly have lower noise floors, but I liked the vibrancy of the old analog mag 70mm sound. If it were uncompressed digital sound there would be no question, I would prefer the digital sound. But unfortunately, there is no theatrical uncompressed digital sound format (unless you count the IMAX sound format).
And why are they cropping to 1920x800, can't they use non-square pixels?
See the last paragraph of one of my other comments for more info about that.
Also, what makes you think you won't have to hire projectionists with digital equipment? Sure, you don't have to thread the film and assemble prints, but you have to do maintenence, change the Xenon lamps (digital projectors still need light you know), check the focus and sound levels, etc. Or are you not planning to do mantenence and just let the Xenon lamps explode when they get old?
As for that print of "Friday the 13th" looking bad, that's due to improper handling and storage. Yes, conversion to digital could solve that problem, but so could and improvement in film handling techniques in the industry. I ask you, which one would be cheaper?
I agree with you. Digital will catch up ... someday. What I am complaining about is that some people are acting like "someday" is now.
"Anamorphic" usually means any type of horizontal squeezing.
When used in reference to film production, in refers to technique which is used to create a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio image on 35mm film. Basically, there is a lens on the camera which squeezes images horizontally at a ratio of about 2:1, and another lens on the projector which reverses the process. (Without this squeeze/unsqueeze, the image on 35mm film is 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the same as television.) The technique was first used in Cinemascope, and later Panavision. It is still used today. "X-Men" was shot in anamorphic Panavision.
For a 1.85:1 aspect ratio movie, the movie is shot with ordinary, spherical lenses, and then matted on the film to produce a 1.85:1 image. This technique uses a much smaller area of film, and is thus lower quality. The "Grinch" movie is a recent film which was shot in this format.
A relatively new technique which has become popular in recent years is "Super-35". A movie is shot without the anamorphic lens element (spherical lenses are used). The part of the film negative normally reserved for the soundtrack is used to slightly increase the area of the camera negative, so that instead of a 1.33:1 image, a 1.37:1 image is recorded. Then, to produce a widescreen image for use in theaters, the bottom part of the image is cut off, leaving behind a 2:39:1 image. Then when the movie is shown on TV or VHS, almost the entire 1.37:1 image is shown. The top edge of the frame area is the same in both cases. "Charlie's Angels" and "The 6th Day" are two recent movies that were shot in this format. As you can imagine, it produces a very grainy image when shown in theaters, due to the tiny area of the film negative used for the 2:39:1 image. I don't like this format. Sure, it looks better on home video, since there is no need for pan & scan, but it looks like crap in theaters. I wish fewer directors used this.
In reference to DVDs, "anamorphic" usually refers to 16x9 enhancement.
There is a lot more info to be had about this stuff. Try poking around on the web a bit. This is just a summary.
That's exactly my point. It's fundamentally the same technology, the same idea. It's just been tweaked a little. In the same vein, a modern film projector is a very different beast from an original Edison model, too, but as peopel have pointed out, it's the same principle.
If you want documentation, go to the library and look up an issue from the 1980s of a major city's newspaper, and turn to the movies section. You'll see ads for movies being shown in 70mm.
Also go to the IMDb and look at the "technical specs" section for some big-budget action movie made in the late 1970s or 1980s. You'll see that even though the movie was filmed in 35mm, it will have 70mm blow-up listed as one of the print formats.
Now, as to your remark about the resolution of film being cut by "at least half" because of shutter-gate error, that's just bull. Modern cameras have extremely precise movements that are rock-steady, even at high frame rates. Projectors exist that are capable of delivering the same rock-steadiness, but some theater chains (*cough* AMC *cough*) are too cheap to install such projectors, so you are getting a little of that. It doesn't magically cut the resolution in half, though.
And yes, thankfully there is at least one company that is working on higher resolution video projectors. JVC's D-ILA technology is competing with TI's DLP, and it's currently winning in terms of resolution. It's not LCD, but you're right, the resolution is now up to about 2000x1500. Hopefully they will continue to increase it.
Yes, Lucas & co. could use non-square pixels, but they aren't. The camera was designed to shoot at 16:9 aspect ratio with square pixels, so they would have to use an anamorphic lens to squeeze the image. I guess they decided it wasn't worth it. (Many cinematographers prefer the look of spherical lenses over anamorphic ones, anyway.)
I have actually seen TI's system as well, so I am not "just talking theory". And after having seen it, I still stand by my statements.
I'll bet the movie you used to make your comparison was "Toy Story 2", wasn't it? Well, that's not a fair comparison, because the film prints of TS2 looked awful. They used a CRT-based recorder to get the digital information out to film, and not a laser recorder like they should have. If you think the film prints of Toy Story 2 looked bad, blame the transfer mechanism, not the film.
If you can hear the noise from the projector in your theater, then it's not properly insulated. Well-designed theaters do not have that problem.
It sounds like you have never seen properly done film projection. That's too bad, because it's quite an experience. Film, when pushed to its limits, beats the current digital systems when they are pushed to their limits. Maybe someday there will be a digital system that matches film bit-for-bit, pixel-for-pixel, but not at the moment. People should not be in a hurry to replace film just because it's "old". It should only be replaced when a system that has the same or better technical capabilities comes along.
Well first off, I can often see the individual pixels in SFX shots. I know you probably don't believe me, but it's true. Some SFX shots are so bad they stick out like a sore thumb, but even in the better ones, you can usually spot the pixels by looking for something with a straight edge and watching the jaggies go by.
Secondly, maybe your company doesn't do it, but some SFX houses do things at 4K resolution. Even "Wonder Boys", not exactly a big-budget, effects-laden film, had shots done at 4K resolution. Just read this article in Kodak's "Cinema Notes", it mentions how the effects shots were done at 4K resolution. If even a no-action, mostly-talking movie is doing effects at 4K today, don't you think big-budget action movies will be doing 4K effects in the future?
And lastly, if your co-workers don't have good enough eyes to spot 1280x1024 video, even when sitting close to the screen, they really don't have any business being in the movie industry in my opinion. Sorry, I know that sounds a little insulting, but that's how I feel about it. I can easily tell the difference, and I'm not even in the movie industry! Someone calling themselves a professional really ought to have at least as discriminating eye as me.