posted 03-08-2004 01:35 AM                       

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All of the Bollywood prints I have handled from Atlab HAVE been crap... Maybe this is just Atlab in India

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posted 03-08-2004 08:55 AM                       

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John, your argument about percentage of the world that have red light readers and the need to cater to them is beyond stupid

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The reason people have switched to visible red light sources has to do with threats from the cyan lobby and nothing to do with the exhibitor's quest for quality.

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With an applicated soundtrack you have 100% capatibility

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the water and waste savings are merely something we are told about; it's all hypothetical to us and countered by the thought that there is a half century's worth of experience behind the current system

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Maybe if it was a sideways move in sound quality there would be less argument over the other negatives. But this is negative negative negative with the only positive being the elimination of something that can't have been too terrible if it's worked on millions of reels of film around the world since the early 50's

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Many positives:

*Significant reduction in use of fresh water by all labs
*Elimination of caustic developer containing hydroquinone
*Significant simplification of processing sequence
*Reduction of waste and print make-overs
*Removal of soundtrack silver from scrap color prints being landfilled
*Improved picture quality (no silver blotches in picture area)
*Elimination of application-caused sound problems
*Ability to optimize cross-mod distortion for one type of reader

Right now, the MIX of readers is a stalemate situation. It is very unlikely that anyone with red LED analog readers will go back to the "good old days" of only tungsten analog readers, or even install infrared LED arrays (which had never caught on anyway). Since a MIX of readers will continue to require "high magenta" (magenta+silver) tracks for the best compromise for XM distortion, a return to "traditional" (cyan+magenta+silver) tracks is unlikely.


Or, the movie industry can move ahead with 100% conversion to red LED readers and cyan dye analog soundtracks, and the MANY advantages they DO offer, for EVERYONE.

posted 03-08-2004 12:26 PM                    

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There is no Atlab in India. There's Adlabs but no Atlab.

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Well, I now officially feel like an idiot.

My apoligies to the good folks at Atlab for confusing them with the barbarians at Adlab.

Gordon -- You must have been lucky, then. EVERY print we've gotten (and we run Bollywood almost weekly at times) has had some sort of glaring printing defect. Sometimes the prints don't even arrive on cores... just a roll of film in a can. Maybe they're purposely screwing up the prints to push Digital over there. If there's any single country to benefit from the savings of mass-distribution via Digital, it's them. Especially the way they crank out [bad] movies there.

=TMP=

posted 03-08-2004 10:02 PM                       

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At the 138th SMPTE Technical Conference and World Media Expo held in Los Angeles in October 1996, a paper entitled "Red LED Reproduction of Cyan Stereo Variable Area Dye Tracks," by Paul R. Goldberg (Zoran Corp.), Ioan Allen (Dolby Laboratories), Frank J. Ricotta (Technicolor), and Richard C. Sehlin (Eastman Kodak Co.), was presented. The paper discussed the means by which the motion picture industry could finally eliminate its dependence on analog sound track redevelopment, an additional processing step that reintroduces silver into analog sound tracks printed on color stock. A sound track reading mechanism, based on the use of a red light-emitting diode (LED) illumination source, was described. The mechanism allows the reading of a cyan dye track with fidelity essentially equal to that presently obtained from a standard "silver track" reproduced by a conventional sound track reader.

The paper also presented the results of in-depth studies conclusively demonstrating that red LED readers reproduce silver tracks and cyan dye tracks with equal amplitude. This is in contrast to conventional tungsten illumination source readers, which reproduce cyan dye sound tracks with an amplitude loss of ~11 dB. This characteristic of the red LED reader permits the installation of these reading mechanisms in theaters before any change to cyan dye analog soundtrack technology is implemented, and thus allows for an orderly changeover from silver to silverless sound tracks.

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At the present time red LED analog reader technology is being actively sold throughout the world by almost all projector equipment manufacturers. Since red readers were introduced in May, 1996, over 8,000 red LED readers have been installed, as shown in Figure 1. It is estimated that by December 1998 there will be over 15,000 red LED readers operating on a daily basis in theaters worldwide. These shipments include readers built into newly produced projectors, as well as upgrade kits for projectors already in the field.

Currently all new Cinemeccanica, Christie, and Kinoton projectors are being shipped with red readers. By July 1997 all new Strong projectors were also based on red LED technology. From a projector upgrade standpoint, Kelmar is presently shipping red LED reader kits for Ballantyne, Bauer, Century, Cinemeccanica, Denko, RCA, Simplex, and Tokewa projectors. Red LED reader kits from Component Engineering for Century and Simplex projectors have been available since the summer of 1997. The response to the use of red LED readers has been overwhelming. The reasons for this are:

Long LED life, up to 10,000 hours.
Increased stereo separation.
Wider frequency response at high power levels.
Significant reduction of illumination nonuniformity distortion.
Possibility of the industry moving to cyan dye tracks.
Red LED illumination sources have a compelling appearance.

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If we are stuck with this silly change can we do something to make the sound quality as good as with applicated film?

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You are showing your "silly" bias too . There are many more aspects of print quality than signal-to-noise alone. I've already mentioned the advantage of having a single XM optimization point (i.e., less distortion) if all readers are red LED. Poor application quality can affect sound quality (skips, bubbles, weaving, incorrect width, density variation, etc. CAN be heard). Taking ALL factors into consideration, cyan dye tracks ARE as good as with applicated film. And you well know that silver in the picture area certainly CAN be seen by all. Plus all the other advantages mentioned previously regarding reduced waste and environmental benefits.

posted 03-09-2004 03:48 AM                       

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After months of wandering around the ruins, we'll find what was once a theatre. The bio-box/booth will still be standing, and, inside, a 35mm projector.

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