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This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Author
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Topic: D-cinema...what is everyone thinking???
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 07-31-2006 03:03 PM
That screen is 40' wide, fixed width top-masking. Sitting eye-level dead-centered on the screen about 1.5 screenheights back (maybe 2 max), the illumination drops off noticeably in all directions. As I noted in my review of "Monster House", it also looked "splotchy", like it had water stains.
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This article is from today's Eugene Register-Guard newspaper.
Movie theaters begin to test the waters of 3-D
By Lewis Taylor
The Register-Guard
Published: Monday, July 31, 2006
More than 50 years after the film "Bwana Devil" promised a "lion in your lap," 3-D movies are back.
Just as the first wave of stereoscopic films were an attempt to make the movie theater experience new again, the latest set of 3-D comes at a time when theaters are still feeling the hangover of last year's box office slump and facing increasing competition from DVDs, video games and cable and satellite TV.
"I think 3-D is really a technology whose time has come," said Paul Dergarabedian, a Hollywood box office analyst and president of the industry group Exhibitor Relations. "The theatrical moviegoing experience has to distinguish itself more and more from the home theater experience. This is one way to do that."
In Springfield, theatergoers at Cinemark 17 have been getting a peek at the new technology. The theater recently installed a new 6,000-watt digital projection system in one of its screening rooms, allowing it to screen the new animated film "Monster House" in 3-D. Several people who have seen the film say it's well worth the extra $1.50 per ticket that the theater charges for the experience and the Buddy Holly-style glasses.
"It was 100 times better (than the old 3-D movies)," said Sara Bazzi of Eugene, who brought her kids Savannah, 9, and Eric, 11, to a matinee screening on a recent weekday. "It made me want to reach out and grab something."
"Monster House" isn't the only new 3-D film. A slate of movies that jump off the screen are coming to a theater near you, including the recently opened animated feature "The Ant Bully," which is being offered in 3-D at some IMAX theaters. Other upcoming films include the IMAX 3-D films "Open Season" and "Happy Feet," and the forthcoming films "Meet the Robinsons" and Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas," both of which implement the same Real D format used by "Monster House."
At least six films will be released in Real D in 2007. IMAX has been talking to producers of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" about creating several scenes in 3-D, and George Lucas has announced his intention to remaster his Star Wars films in 3-D.
Until a couple of weeks ago, it wouldn't have been possible to view new 3-D movies in Eugene or Springfield. Just days before the July 21 opening of "Monster House," Cinemark installed the new digital projection unit that allows it to screen films in Real D. The theater also replaced its white theater screen with a silver screen to optimize the viewing experience. Instead of arriving in giant reels, digital films arrive in what looks like an external hard drive unit about the size of a book. Cinemark can screen non-3-D films in the theater and, eventually, it may have the capability to receive movies beamed by satellite, spokeswoman Terrell Falk said.
While Vincent Price's "House of Wax" and other 3-D features from the past were notorious for leaving viewers with headaches and nausea, the newer technology is supposed to be easier on the eyes. The newer method of screening 3-D films doesn't require the use of two projectors, and the lenses of the polarized 3-D glasses are clear instead of red and blue.
"There's nothing gimmicky about it," Cinemark spokeswoman Terrell Falk said. "You feel like you are there. It's a very solid, wonderful looking 3-D."
The picture does look clearer through the new 3-D glasses. In "Monster House," the decrepid old house that's a central character in the film buckles and splinters and appears to project out into the audience. At least one 9-year-old viewer tried to reach out and grab the air in front of her.
Although 3-D films enjoyed a brief renaissance in the 1980s, the new wave of 3-D films didn't begin cresting until around 2003 when James Cameron released his Titanic documentary "Ghosts of the Abyss." Robert Rodriguez used the same 3-D technology for his film "Spy Kids 3D: Game Over." In 2004, Warner Bros. released its "Polar Express" in IMAX 3-D. The success of that experiment led to an encore screening of the film in the 2005 holiday season. Last year's "Chicken Little" utilized the same Real D technology used for "Monster House," and last month's "Superman Returns" featured 20 minutes in 3-D in IMAX theaters.
Whether the new 3-D technology continues to be successful will depend on whether audiences continue to be impressed, says Dergarabedian, the box office analyst. At one point, he says, the 3-D technology of the 1950s that looks underwhelming by today's standards was highly impressive to audiences.
"What will make 3-D a viable alternative and not just a gimmick or a fad is the quality of the technology and the quality of the image," Dergarabedian says. "If it's really, really good, then it's something that becomes viable and something that people will pay extra to see."
Springfield is currently one of 19 Cinemark screens in the country outfitted with the digital projection technology. The company plans to convert 150 theaters to digital by 2007.
Regal Entertainment Group, the operator of the Cinema World 8 in Eugene, has 38 screens nationwide that are capable of showing films in Real D, the Los Angeles Times reported. The company did not return phone calls to The Register-Guard about its plans for the future in Eugene-Springfield, but there is speculation that it will add at least a few digital projectors to its Regal Cinemas Valley River 15-theater complex, which is currently under construction on the southwest side of the Valley River Center.
Until then, theater No. 8 at the Cinemark 17 complex will remain the only digital projection system in town, theater manager Chuck McLaughlin said. But he sees more digital projectors on the horizon. And more 3-D.
"I think 15 to 20 years from now, there won't be film anymore," McLaughlin says. "I think this is the beginning of the end for film."
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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"
Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 07-31-2006 09:33 PM
Yes, the chip's resolution is 2048x1080=1.89. The flat signal usually is 1998x1080, scope 2048x858. If an anamorphic lens with a factor of 1.25 is used for scope, then at least most of the chip area can be used for playback. The projector will squeeze the image to an 1.89 aspect ratio which will fill the chip and can then be unaqueezed by the lens. This may cost a little bit of light, but I think it is a better solution for screens with side masking. Oddly, the evil top or top and bottom masking actually works better for DC as you have a larger image area for flat than for scope. You can move the image around on the chip easily, so if you have top only masking, you can easily place the scope image in the lower portion of the chip area.
Of course, using the anamorphic factor does not create any resolution or image content that wasn't there before, but it might still be a slightly better image - I haven't had an opportunity yet to test both solution side by side.
The problem here is that if you have side masking and no anamorphic lens, you have to either zoom between flat and scope - if both image sizes are within the zoom range - or you have to letterbox the flat image within the scope. So you end up with a flat image that is actually only 1588x858 (!).
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Josh Jones
Redhat
Posts: 1207
From: Plano, TX
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 08-01-2006 02:52 AM
Its amazing how many parallels I see in this whole rush to convert or die business. Bobby on page two mentioned HD radio, something I have admittedly been following more closely than the DC movement. So tell me if any of this sounds familiar:
1. The incoming system under laboratory conditions is compared to its analog counterpart under worst possible conditions and everyone from the cheering section screams "Gee, its so much better!"
2. The inner workings of the system, specifically the encoding, are held behind a vail of secrecy, by a heavily backed private entity, in the case of HD radio, Ibiquity.
3. The new system require the reworking or complete replacement of the existing infrastructure, which in both cases has remain backward compatible since its inception.
4. The new systems aside from external noise/dirt advantages, yields all of us a lower quality product than the one its replacing is capable of.
Now, I'm not a total prude. Here in the real world, we have dirt and scratches, as well as impulse noise and multipath distortion. But these problems can be overcome. Look a the new tools we have to fix the existing problems. Online film cleaning for film, DSP technology and newer receiving schemes for radio. In the end, I guess the limits of our technology is the limits with in ourselves, our physical limitations. I really dont need a sound reproducing or transmission systems that can deliver all the way to 20,000 cycles per second, as I can only hear to 18,500. But where do we draw the line as "good enough"? When your preaching to the choir the sky's the limit, but for the average joe who thinks the picture quality on his Ipod is fine, and the noise ridden picture on his analog TV is sufficient, then we have met our match, cut our losses and go home.
'Cause if ya cant sell it, what good is it.
JJ
I'm gonna go run a reel in my basement, and enjoy the dirt ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-01-2006 04:12 AM
Josh, very well said. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with educating and uplifting the general population's ability to appreciate higher standards. The whole reason why all of us here strive to make presentation the best we can and why we get crazed at attempts to compromise quality and why there is a mile long thread expounding on how 70mm might become viable, and lament that 35mm is not used to near its potential, is because we have experienced what film can do and how it inspired us -- it's all about being able to pass that down to the next generations in AT LEAST as good as we have now.
Where I become an insane man is when I hear this kind of bullshit from jerks who don't know what the hell they are talking about, for example:
quote: David Stambaugh
While Vincent Price's "House of Wax" and other 3-D features from the past were notorious for leaving viewers with headaches and nausea, the newer technology is supposed to be easier on the eyes.
Says who? This idiot needs to come to the 3D World Expo 2 in September and see what HOUSE OF WAX really looks like and how that system, when run well, was spectacular. I never, EVER got headaches from any 3D presentation when I was a kid -- and I would go back over and over, all day long. Statements like the above are just so much mental diarrea.
And then there are these kinds of statement (which I heard in all the way back in 1998), only the time-frame that was quoted back then was that film would be extinct in ALL theatres in FIVE years!!! -- at least they are widening the year film that they would like to see film dead, as in....
quote: David Stambaugh
"I think 15 to 20 years from now, there won't be film anymore," McLaughlin says. "I think this is the beginning of the end for film."
These people need to have gallons of botox injected directly into their brain-pans on one end and into their arses at the other, only because it's difficult to tell which of the two is where. A mouth full of crazy glue to shut them up wouldn't be a bad idea as either.
And BTW, it was Richard Cook, now a big mucky-muck at Disney, back then around the time TOY STORY first came out who said he would be perfectly comfortable with "releasing all Disney films in digital because it's good enough right now" said he; and he was talking about 1.3K!!....you know, the system that is already obsolete. THIS kind of mentality is what we are up against, my friends. And it SHOULD scare us....rightfully so because we may very well be dooming future generations to visual mediocity....quality that is much lower than what we have been privileged to experience ourselves. And THAT prospect is like a knife in my heart to know that my descendants may never get to see LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, MY FAIR LADY, 2001, et al, the way I saw them. There is something evil about today's power brokers who don't care that this many come to pass, and it means nothing to deprive future generations of the best that our truly indiginous art-form can give.
It would be like, and I have used this analogy before but forgive me, I am on a roll -- it would be like the curator of the Met slipping a color Xerox copy of Monet's Water Lilies into a frame, hanging it in the great Impressionist Gallery and telling everyone that it is "good enough."
They angels would weep (and then hopefully rain fire and brimstone down on them all).
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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster
Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-01-2006 08:03 AM
Josh,
As long as radio goes away when you pass under a bridge it will never be any good nor would I consoder it perfected. Digital radio is just like digital TV... more useless channels sent out on just one frequency!
quote: Josh Jones
2. The inner workings of the system, specifically the encoding, are held behind a vail of secrecy, by a heavily backed private entity, in the case of HD radio, Ibiquity.
If you think that HD radio is bad at retaining its secrets you should see how tamper proof the Dolby Show PLayer is. If you even open it up it no longer works and has to be reset by Dolby at Dolby Lsbs ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) . And this sort of security is whats in the D-Cinema Spec, similar for some of the projectors... fitto for all equipment eventually if it is going to meet D-Cinema Spec. Also the Key Codes are infinite number/letter strings that can never been cracked.
quote: Josh Jones
4. The new systems aside from external noise/dirt advantages, yields all of us a lower quality product than the one its replacing is capable of.
Thats definately an uneducated assumption. All 17 of us agreed that the D-Cinema trailers we saw looked more 70mmish than flat aspect ratio film ever has. If you've ever seen how good dailies can look thats exactly what it looked like. Go take a class before making any more assumptions.
quote: Josh Jones
3. The new system require the reworking or complete replacement of the existing infrastructure, which in both cases has remain backward compatible since its inception.
Again, Simply not true in the least. The Dolby Show Player connects to the Dolby NA-10 Auditorium controler which in turn connects directly to your existing automation. That not only directly interfaces with existing automation it also includes the film side of things in its controler. Also Dolby's method of drag and drop of automation icons onto the show time line simply blows any existing film automation away from an operating standpoint.
All of you who are speculating about the good or bad side of this system need to become alot more educated about it before drawing conclusions ![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif) .
Mark
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 08-01-2006 09:29 AM
Just to be clear, I didn't say the things Frank quoted. I was quoting from a newspaper article.
Also, just to provide some context, the Chuck McLaughlin quoted in that article is the GM for Cinemark 17 in Springfield. Chuck is not a popcorn kiddie - He's an older guy who has been in the exhibition business for like 50 years. So he's seen a lot of changes along the way. Obviously that doesn't make him technical. The point is when he says "film will be gone in 15-20 years" he means "it will be gone from theaters as I currently know them". If anything, I'd say it will happen much sooner than his estimate. Film will not be gone gone, but it will be gone from the multiplexes. So on that score, Mr. McLaughlin is correct.
In my earlier comments about "Monster House" in Real D, I mentioned the uneven screen illumination, and the "blotchy" look of the screen. In other words, Cinemark apparently didn't go the whole nine yards in this upgrade to D-Cinema. The flat silver screen should probably be curved, and the screen material is probably either improperly installed, or it's defective and should be replaced. THAT is worth some criticism. Will that be the pattern for D-Cinema conversions? Do it 80% but not the full 100%? Sounds like a continuation of the same "just get an image on the screen and sound coming from the speakers" syndrome.
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