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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: R.I.P Film Projectors
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Harold Hallikainen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 906
From: Denver, CO, USA
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 12-28-2011 05:42 PM
I wasn't aware that the security of dcinema has been cracked. Has it? At what point? Can someone take a DCP and pull the audio and video out without the KDM? Or, if they have the KDM, can they pull it out without being on the trusted device list? Or has someone managed to imitate a trusted device? I think the studios are pushing for the migration from interop to SMPTE DCPs partially for improved security. The forensic marking by the media blocks should also help chase down piracy sources.
I don't know the numbers, but I'd expect there to be a substantial savings from not making film prints and shipping them. Of course, it does cost something to duplicate hard drives, but it SEEMS that making film prints would be a lot more expensive. Then, moving to satellite or other electronic delivery would eliminate this hard drive duplication cost. There's still the cost of the circuit time, but that might be comparable to freight on a bunch of hard drives.
So... it SEEMS that distributing movies digitally should be less expensive and more secure than film. On quality, I think 4k looks pretty good. Much better than the 2k I've seen. This was watching 2k and 4k versions of Sintel on a DLP projector.
Harold
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-28-2011 07:08 PM
The HDCP algorithm has been reverse engineered and the master key has been publicized. The studios tried to squelch the news but not before the key was in the wild. You can find it if you look hard enough.
Again, the key won't do you much good unless you have the hardware to do the heavy lifting. The algorithm was designed to be done in hardware such that software decoding, although possible, can't be done in real time. Even then, this presupposes that you know how to use the master key once you get it.
Bottom line: It's not easy but it can be done. HDCP won't stop anybody but an honest thief.
quote: Sam D. Chavez
The studios have the content and at the end of the day, the cinema owner needs the content to keep them off the streets.
Ding! It's the studios that are feeding everybody a line of bullshit just so they can stack the deck in their own favor. They are taking advantage of the theater owners' greed to do it.
They promised that eliminating film would cut cost. The promised that automating the booth would eliminate labor costs and lower payroll.
But, if all that's true, why has the average cost of a movie ticket gone UP? You would expect the increased cost of a movie ticket to, at most, keep pace with inflation.
The truth is that this is all nothing more than words after words; abstract concepts built upon abstract concepts; piles of bullshit stacked on top of piles of bullshit; specifically targeted to the consumer (who really doesn't give a rat's ass in the first place) and designed to take advantage of the theater owners' greed, all for the purpose of allowing the Hollywood studios to keep more of the money for themselves.
We've all been hoodwinked and the only difference is that we now pay more for the same crap we were getting before.
It's a $4.00 package of Kool-Aid that we once paid 20¢ for.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 12-28-2011 08:25 PM
quote: Justin Hamaker
long term maintenance costs
This'll keep the techs rolling in a secure, long term job for sure...
Have you noticed the drop in percentage of tix sales in the last two years along with the announcement of a 16yr low in sales with this news story below:
quote:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood has more tricks in its bag than ever with digital 3-D and other new film tools. Yet as the images on screen get bigger and better, movie crowds keep shrinking — down to a 16-year low as 2011's film lineup fell well short of studios' record expectations.
Through New Year's Eve on Saturday, projected domestic revenues for the year stand at $10.2 billion, down 3.5 percent from 2010's, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. Taking higher ticket prices into account, movie attendance is off even more, with an estimated 1.28 billion tickets sold, a 4.4 percent decline and the smallest movie audience since 1995, when admissions totaled 1.26 billion.
Just what has put the movie business in the dumps is anyone's guess — though safe bets include the tight economy, rising ticket prices, backlash against parades of sequels or remakes, and an almost-limitless inventory of portable and at-home gadgetry to occupy people's time.
The year got off to a dismal start with what could be called an "Avatar" hangover, when revenues lagged far behind 2010 receipts that had been inflated by the huge success of James Cameron's sci-fi sensation.
A solid summer lineup helped studios catch up to 2010, but ticket sales flattened again in the fall and have remained sluggish right into what was expected to be a terrific holiday season.
"There were a lot of high-profile movies that just ended up being a little less than were hoped for," said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, whose sequel "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" has been part of an under-achieving lineup of family films for the holidays. "The fall was pretty dismal. There just weren't any real breakaway, wide-appeal films."
Big franchises still are knocking it out of the park. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," the finale to J.K. Rowling's fantasy epic, was the year's biggest earner and the top-grossing film in the series at $381 million domestically and $1.3 billion worldwide.
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" pulled in $352 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide, while "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1" has climbed to $271 million domestically and $650 million worldwide.
Other franchises did well in 2011 but came up short of their predecessors on the domestic front, among them "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," ''The Hangover Part II," ''Kung Fu Panda 2," ''Cars 2" and "X-Men: First Class."
Strong overseas business has helped make up for shrinking domestic revenues and declining DVD sales. But 2011 was the second-straight year that domestic attendance declined sharply, and audiences generally have been shrinking since 2002, when admissions hit a modern high of 1.6 billion.
It could be a case of the same-old same-olds, with fans growing tired of over-familiar characters and stories. It could be overcrowded weekends such as Thanksgiving, when studios loaded up on family films that cannibalized one another's audiences. It could be the economy, with fans growing more selective on how often they spend their spare cash to catch a movie, particularly at a time when so many films play in 3-D with premium ticket prices.
And it could be the times we live in, when audiences have so many gadgets to play with that they don't need to go to the movies as much as they once did.
"It's not any one thing. It's a little bit of everything," said Jeff Goldstein, general sales manager at Warner Bros., whose Robert Downey Jr. sequel "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" has done solid business, yet is coming in well short of the first installment. "But consumers are being more specific with their choices on how to spend their money. The options are a little greater than they were a few years ago with gaming and social-networking opportunities."
The year's animated slate failed to produce a $200 million hit, the first time that's happened since 2005. Likewise, comic-book superheroes slipped in 2011, the genre unable to deliver a $200 million hit for only the second time in the last 10 years.
Even Adam Sandler, one of Hollywood's most-bankable stars, had a mixed year, managing a $100 million hit with "Just Go With It" but barely crossing $70 million with "Jack and Jill."
Studio executives typically blame slow business on "the product" — weak movies that leave fans indifferent. But during the first few months of the year, when business lagged as much as 20 percent behind 2010's, studios were confident they had great product coming, with many executives predicting that 2011 would finish with record revenues, topping the all-time domestic high of $10.6 billion in 2009.
The movies themselves turned out fairly good, and surprise smashes such as "Bridesmaids," ''The Help," ''Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "The Smurfs" boosted business.
But the year was littered with duds ("Happy Feet Two," ''Tower Heist," ''Cowboys & Aliens"). And with only days left in 2011, Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" is leading a batch of holiday releases that so far has done only so-so business, despite generally good reviews and high marks from the fans that are showing up.
Hollywood is left right where it was 12 months ago, finishing the year quietly and looking ahead to a promising lineup to turn its fortunes around next year.
Even more so than 2011's schedule once looked, the 2012 film list looks colossal. Among the highlights: the superhero tales "The Dark Knight Rises," ''The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Avengers"; the latest in the animated franchises "Ice Age" and "Madagascar," along with "Brave," the new adventure from animation master Pixar; Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones' "Men in Black 3"; Daniel Craig's new James Bond thriller "Skyfall"; Johnny Depp's vampire story "Dark Shadows"; Ridley Scott's "Prometheus," a cousin to his sci-fi classic "Alien"; and Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," the first in a two-part prequel to his "Lord of the Rings" films.
That's just a small sampling of 2012's big-screen titles, which also include 3-D reissues of "Titanic," ''Finding Nemo," ''Beauty and the Beast" and "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace."
Looking ahead, there's good reason for optimism in Hollywood. Looking back, though, the past year spells caution.
"I'm not prepared to be Chicken Little yet, but if the films coming in 2012 can't reverse this trend, then I think we need to reevaluate our expectations," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "We are living in a different world today than we did in the mid-'90s in terms of the technology available to deliver media. That may finally be having an impact."
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-28-2011 10:18 PM
The end of the story, and the explanation for the whole thing, can be found right here:
quote:
The year got off to a dismal start with what could be called an "Avatar" hangover, when revenues lagged far behind 2010 receipts that had been inflated by the huge success of James Cameron's sci-fi sensation.
Factor in "Alice in Wonderland" -- which was a 340-million dollar hit in MARCH, a month that almost never has that size hits....there's your difference between '10 and '11 right there.
The media just loves to spew doom and gloom scenarios. It's a load of crap. The cause of an up, or down year is ALWAYS the product. Sure, the movies from this past summer LOOKED great on paper but how many of them actually WERE great? How many times do these studio idiots think they can go to the well with these sequels and remakes? If they make GOOD MOVIES there's no problem but how good was "Pirates 4?" "Hangover 2?" "Happy Feet 2?" and so on. The word on a crap movie spreads faster than ever these days --- but so does the word on a great movie. That's why "True Grit" was a hit for weeks after it came out.
The trouble is, if they tell the actual facts, it makes for a boring story. Or another thing, the media is apparently populated by people under 30 who have no reference to the past -- since the exact same phenomenon happened the year after "Titanic," the year after "Lion King," the year after "Passion of the Christ," and so on and so on and so on.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-28-2011 10:40 PM
quote: AP News Story
Even more so than 2011's schedule once looked, the 2012 film list looks colossal. Among the highlights: the superhero tales "The Dark Knight Rises," ''The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Avengers"; the latest in the animated franchises "Ice Age" and "Madagascar," along with "Brave," the new adventure from animation master Pixar; Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones' "Men in Black 3"; Daniel Craig's new James Bond thriller "Skyfall"; Johnny Depp's vampire story "Dark Shadows"; Ridley Scott's "Prometheus," a cousin to his sci-fi classic "Alien"; and Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," the first in a two-part prequel to his "Lord of the Rings" films.
That's just a small sampling of 2012's big-screen titles, which also include 3-D reissues of "Titanic," ''Finding Nemo," ''Beauty and the Beast" and "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace."
Hmm. Out of that list of would-be blockbusters, Only two of them are new movies (Brave and Dark Shadows). Any major studio can plunge $200 million into producing a sequel or remake and have it spit-shined to a fine iridescent glossy sheen. Nevertheless, the audience is always going to have that "been there, done that" feel, even if the movie was really pretty good.
I'd like to see The Dark Knight Rises in the theater, but would prefer to see it in 15/70 IMAX. That's going to involve planning some kind of trip to Austin, TX or somewhere else that might still have 15/70 gear installed. I will NOT bother with any IMAX Digital crap. It ain't worth the hefty premium. In all likelihood I'll probably just watch it locally at the Carmike 8. Lawton to Austin is 350 miles. Some friends of mine live in Austin, but still that trip represents some serious gas money.
Roger Ebert has a new op-ed piece listing 6 reasons why he thinks attendance is falling. The Avatar hangover factor is one. But other pains in the ass one encounters too often in theaters are definitely driving away many long time customers. Combine that with all the in-home digital conveniences of watching Blu-ray or streaming movies via more than a dozen online services and it makes the decision to watch movies at home so much more easy.
If the movie really has my interest peaked, I'll make a genuine effort to see it in the theater. Unfortunately far too many movies give me the "I'll wait for the Blu-ray rental" or "I'll wait for it on cable" vibe.
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