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Topic: D-cinema...what is everyone thinking???

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-30-2006 12:05 PM

quote: Louis Bornwasser
Without multiple projectors there is no way to move a print down to a smaller house without making a 35mm print. Louis

I think that is one reason why we're now seeing circuit-wide conversion efforts with chains like Carmike and Rave. Every Carmike install has had at least half its screens equipped for digital already. Some locations now have it on every screen.

The distributors won't save much, if anything at all, by installing just one or two digital systems in a theater complex. You wind up having to make the same amount of 35mm prints anyway.

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Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 07-30-2006 01:03 PM

While there is certainly no rush and there are debates aplenty as to whether film is better (I am in that camp)sometimes a move to a new technology develops a life of its own. (Look at the conversion to hideous, unpaintable white Vinyl windows). This IMHO is what is happening.

The train has left the station, the baby has wet the bed, the milk has been spilt, the cherry has been popped, ad nauseum or infinitum.

It's all down hill from here. OK, enough cliches by half.

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 07-30-2006 01:33 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Stacking two DLP Chips would not be practical... These are lagre chips thata re mounted in a metal casing for heat sinking... once you see a light engine you'd see why.

Maybe. It depends on how bad they want 4k and at what cost. You change the design, of course. Hey, they got 3 chips in there, and our projected light that previously allowed room only for a film frame the size of a postage stamp was rearranged. Any one of us would've said that'd be impractical, too, but they did it and did it well.

It's all about design and desire. How bad do they want it? Nothing is impossible.

If you can dream it, you can do it. -Walt Disney

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. -Helen Keller

It's people! Soylent Green is people! -Charlton Heston

quote: Lyle Romer
Actually, it'd be 4x the 2k chips.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 07-30-2006 02:32 PM

There is a very strong reason for the 2k limit on DLP technology...it has to do with the DLP division at TI running in the red...since day 1.

The 2k limit has everything to do with the consumer market...that is where the big pot of gold remains. The only way TI can recoup its investment is to "win" the consumer market. The problem remains, DLP is the most expensive of the current technologies currently after that consumer market. The only reason for the stupid color wheel single chip DLP is that they can't do the technology cheap enough.

LCD is definately cheaper and there are now 1080p LCD projectors out there for about a third of DLP...however it is LCD technology and the colors will never be as good as the DLP technology (particularly on a day-by-day basis).

LCoS definately has the potential to steal the consumer market away from DLP...it can do what DLP can do but at 1/3 the cost...and it gets better each and every year.

If LCoS or another alternative technlogy grabs the home market from DLP...you will see DLP slam its doors shut just like GE did with the Teleria or the Hughes/JVC system.

It is a very risky technology to be investing in from the theatre standpoint. There just isn't enough money in movie theatres to offset the R&D to bring better technologies out.

Sony has their 4K system and they HAVE been going in...just not into movie theatres...the National Geographic Society has one in their theatre in Washington DC.

For putting up high resolution "art", the Sony 4K system can be quite impressive but that doesn't do us Cinema people much good.

I agree with Brad in that there really is no rush to putting in what really amounts to 2nd generation "Beta" technology. I also question the support structure of the current players. Most of them just don't seem to get that "the show must go on" theory the cinema industry has had its entire life.

Some of the players in this biz also want to charge the exibitor per year to provide for advance replacements and future enhancements to their servers (QuVIS, wants upwards of $2500/year just for their server).

Christie seems to have a "winner take all" attitude. Only a Christie tech may work on a Christie DLP or you void the warranty and unlike Dolby and Barco...they don't offer training to outsiders. In fact, they were quoted to have said at ShoWest that "anyone over 40-years old won't be able to understand this stuff anyway."

At least Dolby has the Cinema concept down and knows the importance of technician training and support of their products...as evidence by this course which continues their fine tradition. I applaud Dolby for always striving to have their products perform as well as they can by passing along the knowledge to those in the field that need to work with their products.

So Mark...the dual-link HDSDI cable...was it Belden or Gepco? [Wink]

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 07-30-2006 03:02 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
In fact, they were quoted to have said at ShoWest that "anyone over 40-years old won't be able to understand this stuff anyway."

Well, that's an incredibly stupid thing to say, if true, and if not in jest.

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 07-30-2006 04:11 PM

The battle of the service teams...Christie in one corner....Strong in another...all with retirement plans for the employees who reach 41 [Big Grin]

It is excellent that some manufacturers offer training opportunity but you also must balance the bias from any "sales pitch" element in the training. [Cool]

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-30-2006 05:37 PM

quote: Brad Miller
Mark, if the present system that is in place (35mm film) was of poor quality or was unreliable, then I could understand your excitement to go D-Cinema. However the problem is that it isn't a problem.

Brad,
I never said that film as a medium was a problem... Its the places exhibiting the films that are the problem. Replacing film with digital at thise locations.... I'd guess 60% of the theaters in existance.... will make them have a great presentation literally overnight. Da, Its not about film, projectors, or projector oil.... its all about the uality of presentatioj and digital will shine there way past film.

quote: Steve Guttag
Sony has their 4K system and they HAVE been going in...just not into movie theatres...the National Geographic Society has one in their theatre in Washington DC.

Actually they are in theaters... AMC has one in operation near San Francisco.... being fed via a Dolby Server System. It will give a seemingly brighter image but its still only going to be playing 2K material with the projector scaling it up.

quote: Steve Guttag
So Mark...the dual-link HDSDI cable...was it Belden or Gepco?

Actually it was a brand that I'd never heard of before... some European stuff.

Mark

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 07-30-2006 06:53 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I never said that film as a medium was a problem... Its the places exhibiting the films that are the problem. Replacing film with digital at thise locations.... I'd guess 60% of the theaters in existance.... will make them have a great presentation literally overnight. Da, Its not about film, projectors, or projector oil.... its all about the uality of presentatioj and digital will shine there way past film.

Hmmm if that's the case it would be cheaper to put more professional people back in the booth and by cases of film guard and film cleaners and update some of the lower quality lamp consoles.

It's all about eliminating the distribution costs for the film companies. That's what they want and that's why they are pushing it towards the exhibitor. The big issue for the exhibitor other than the initial cost is what's going to happen in ten years when all the equipment starts failing. Then they see even more costs of upgrading computer servers and loss of revenue due to systems failing. You can't sit back and think that it will not happen because it's Murphy's law, what can happen will happen, and the funny thing is, the film companies will be sitting back laughing there asses off. Because everyone took the hook and bait and tangled their selves up in a mess of trouble. Whatever happens will happen I just don't happen to totally agree with it at this time. I just think the consumers are going to end up paying for it hard with rising ticket costs due to the extra expense and lack of any real savings.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-30-2006 07:21 PM

quote: Darryl Spicer
Hmmm if that's the case it would be cheaper to put more professional people back in the booth and by cases of film guard and film cleaners and update some of the lower quality lamp consoles.

Humm, 40,000 a year(and thats a low amount of pay!) per projectionist times say 25000 screens.. there are more screens than that though....equals $1040000000 per year times the 15 year predicted life span of Digital equipment equals... $15600000000 total. The labor appears to be the more expensive route because this does not figure in health insurance, retirement contributions, or vacation time. These should double that last figure easily!

Oh well.....

quote: Darryl Spicer
It's all about eliminating the distribution costs for the film companies.

There will still be big buck distribution costs for the distributers no matter what. Aside from making and distruibuting Hard Drives, DVD's, or Blue ray Disks there are a fleet of office people needed just to keep track of and issue the code keys so the film will actually play.

Eliminate costs... I don't think so...

Oh well.....

Personally I am not a fan of any one projection system... I am a fan of both film and digital. Each will find its place in the exhibition world.

quote: Steve Guttag
just like GE did with the Teleria

G.E., one of the worst companies in existance sold it's Talaria division off years ago to the employees running that division. They are known today as Vaccum Optics and they still support that dinosaur of a system..... Brand new light valves are still made for them... cost is about the same as a DLP light engine... low to high 30's depending on model. Talaria was originally designed for use in Uncle Sam's war room displays by Lockheed Martin but was also licensed to GE for the commercial marlet. They just never looked very good no matter what!

Mark

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-30-2006 07:30 PM

Whether there is a $40,000+ employee in the booth full time or not, those video-based systems are going to need more periodic maintenance than their more simple analog (film) counterparts.

When something on a film projector or console has a problem you may be able to do something simple to fix it. Perhaps a small part here or an adjustment there. You're not going to have that sort of situation with digital projection. When something breaks chances are you'll just have to replace it rather than fix it.

Worse yet, those problems with a digital system may require a visit from an authorized tech to get the problem solved. My understanding is theater managers with some mechnanical skills aren't going to be able to touch any of this stuff. What's going to stop screens from going black when a problem arises?

I sure hope they're stocking theaters with plenty of hot-swap capable hard discs.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-30-2006 07:39 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
My understanding is theater managers with some mechnanical skills aren't going to be able to touch any of this stuff. What's going to stop screens from going black when a problem arises?

I believe that Christie is promising 4 hour or less turn around on a down projection system... I doubt that Weak International could do that. With the Dolby server you can loose one drive and it doesn't matter... it will also continue running the currently selected content with a second one dead but the raid array has to be re-configured when both those bad drives are replaced. Takes about an hour for them to re-configure.

Mark

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 07-30-2006 07:45 PM

Anyone know how long it takes them to dupe a movie onto a set of hard drives? And how many sets can they do at one time?

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-30-2006 07:46 PM

quote: David Stambaugh
Anyone know how long it takes them to dupe a movie onto a set of hard drives? And how many sets can they do at one time?

Thousands at a time.... It is assumed that the labs will eventually get into doing this process.

Mark

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 07-30-2006 07:48 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
15 year predicted life span of Digital equipment

That's not a good thing knowing that your predicted life span of the equipment is at such a short span for that expensive of an investment. Especially when we have projection equipment that has been running out there for many more years than that.

quote:
Humm, 40,000 a year(and that's a low amount of pay!) per projectionist times say 25000 screens..

What are you figuring one man on each machine. Maybe it should be more like this.

lets say one per location times 3000 locations. That is still a lot of money and I agree it would be costly but my whole point is we need more professional attitude in the booth not just I am getting out of working downstairs. Teach them how to run it properly and use the film guard and the film cleaner.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I believe that Christie is promising 4 hour or less turn around on a down projection system

Is that part of the Christie/Accessit agreement? I wonder who they will start sub contracting with when more and more units go online. My feeling is that the big boys like Cinemark, Regal and AMC going through Nationalcinemedia will want to try and keep as much control in house as they can with their own techs. I guess we will all see as time goes by.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 07-30-2006 08:27 PM

I remember awhile back nobody anywhere wanted to put D-Cinema in their theaters because no one could figure out who would pay for it. It was the studios who saved all of the printing and shipping money. The theaters only saved the minimum hourly wage of the god damned pesky projectionist (don't you just hate those guys? Managers are far better people). Now theaters are buying them by the bucketloads. Are the studios chipping in? If not, why do theaters feel the need for them all of the sudden? Are they perhaps retarded?

Oh, and 20 hours to download a movie is NOTHING! It takes longer than that to ship a print so what's the big deal? Do theaters have to buy and pay for new monthly high-speed connection as well?

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