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Author Topic: More d-cinema morons William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-19-2004 12:27 AM                        quote: In the first place, D-Cinema has never been about exceeding 35mm resolution, or even HDTV resolution The problem with most of the digital projection sales & boostering line is that they don't say that right out front. It might mean something to somebody, even if it means nothing to the d-zealot. "The picture is not as good as 35mm or HDTV." [/quote] (although it will someday).[/quote] They leave out the someday parameters, too. Do it now, maybe it will be better in the future. Cart before a proposed horse, would be more like it.  |  IP: Logged Mattias Ohlson Expert Film Handler Posts: 180 From: Falun, Sweden Registered: Mar 2003 posted 02-19-2004 07:46 AM                     No more than HD, my opnion is another at least in the not too distant future. I see films scanned at 6k. If they are downscaled to 2k with full color resolution at atleast 12 bits or so this compares very well with HD. HD in reality 1440-1700x1080i probably quite a bit less due to vertical filering. Transmission with a bitrate of 15-20 Mbits. A color resolution of a quarter of the full resolution and only 8 bits. D-cinema 2048x1080 100Mbits and superior compression full color resolution at 10-12 bits. Film vs D-cinemas is an entirely differnet debate. We should also be honest to say that very few consumers have display devices that can resolve hdtv.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-19-2004 08:41 AM                     I disagree with the 2048 X 1080 number quoted as standard for "D-Cinema". Texas Instruments' DLP process is the most widely used system currently, and it has no better than 1280 X 1024 native pixels that it can project to the screen. That is around half the quoted total. Other formats like D-ILA, at best, only offer playback in 1080HD. HDTV in the home has various standards of quality, with compressed over the air transmission dropping more detail to fit in a 6MHz slot of broadcast spectrum. But other playback formats like D-VHS currently offer bitrates in the 30Mb/sec range, not 15Mb-20Mb. The 15-20 total would apply to the watered down standard Time-Warner/Toshiba are promoting for HD-DVD. Another thing that must be considered is the fact home theater technology will not sit still in terms of progress. Just as HD-DVD is poised to replace DVD, something else will come along to replace it or at least improve upon it. We can expect to see the bitrates of home HDTV improve ever further. The matter of films being rendered (via digital intermediate) at 6K, 4K or whatever is another problem. Right now much of the film industry thinks the 2K 2048 X 1536 standard is good enough and there seems to be no signs of improving past this for CGI work in at least the next few years. IMHO, the industry should be doing work at 4K for 4/35mm work. The film industry and exhibition industry really has to pour over these numbers and work hard to keep commercial cinemas at a higher, exclusive standard than what is available in the home. It is not good enough for "D-Cinema" to have a couple bits more in color depth. The standard needs a lot more native pixels of detail to keep lots of people from saying "my home system is just as good as what's in the movie theater."  |  IP: Logged Bevan Wright Expert Film Handler Posts: 176 From: Fountain Valley, CA, USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 02-19-2004 09:24 AM                        Some valid points being made here, 2048x1080 (or 2k) is the 'new' D-cinema standard. Exhibitors have never had to deal with the 'upgrade' cycle for their projection booths. Not sure this will go over very well. What IS 'good enough'? The resolution for HDTV will stand at 1920x1080 for quite some time, look how long it has taken to start getting traction and build the infrastructure. TI just announced 1080P chips for the TV market that will show-up (albeit at $9k or so) later this year. Bit rates (or compression schemes) will most certainly continue to improve - WM9 is already doing a surprisingly good job at 8Mbps compared to MPEG2's 15-19.4Mbps. Post houses are use to the upgrade cycle, resolutions will continue to increase as computing power and storage increases along Moore's Law. The main draw(s) to commercial cinemas is the 'get out of the house' factor and the 'new content that you can't see anywhere else' factor. With the gap between the theatrical release and the DVD release closing quickly one of these two factors may be going away. The whole piracy/security/control debate is only going to escalate...at the pace it is going it could be years (if ever) before all parties come to a concensus.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-19-2004 10:27 AM                     The newest TI chips are 2048 X 1080, but it exists only in a few installations. Most use the 1280 X 1024 standard. What does it cost to upgrade to the new 2K chips, and are upgrades even feasible without having to buy an entirely new system? On the consumer end, DLP is popular with some manufacturers, but it is not the only game in town. There are other manufactuers bringing 1920 X 1080 native pixel plasma monitors to market (finally). Right now they're very expensive. But with the "Moore's Law" thing and all, I would expect further advancements and big price cuts soon. Commercial movie theaters are already dealing with a pretty unfair situation as it stands. A theater makes the most money off a movie with legs, mainly over the percentages staggering better and better with each extra week of play life. The studios are eating into this in both directions. They'll flood the market with as many as 8,000 prints in the US alone for a major release. With that many prints, the film plays itself out in just a couple weeks, well before any good percentages kick in for the theater. And then you have the ever shrinking release window to home video. We're seeing movies hit the video store shelves in as little as two months after theatrical release. I'm more likely to go see a big event movie at a theater if I know it will be six months to a year before it hits DVD. But with as little as two months of difference the wait doesn't seem as bad. Movie studios are also making a killing off DVD. In a lot of cases they're bringing in more money from DVD sales than theatrical box office. "Gladiator" grossed over 100 million in US box office numbers, but grossed over $250 million with the DVD release in America. MGM just posted a great earnings report in spite of generally weak box office over last year. But they released a lot of catalog titles and beefed up their earnings. With that picture, it is kind of clear the studios are not treating commercial theatrical release as the top priority. If there is any direction commercial movie theaters need to take, it is probably one of diversification. I don't think blowing $200,000 on D-Cinema systems is the right idea. Their quality is not distinguishingly better than HDTV in the home. If the "get out of the house" factor is the core marketing advantage for a commercial theater, then exhibitors have to explore more in that area. That may mean more in the way of restaurants and other shops on the theater site and/or a shift toward special venue types of shows not possible to recreate in a home environment.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 02-19-2004 11:09 AM                    First thing for the Mark Ogden opinions. The next time you go to the movie theater and you sit there wondering as you watch the digital video and saying to your self. "Self, why did I just pay twice as much for a ticket and twice as much for a soda than I did years ago" Just remember your opinions you made and how much you wanted D-cinema because we are going to pass those rediculous costs to do it right down to you.  |  IP: Logged Geoffrey Gilbert Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Austin, TX, USA Registered: May 2003 posted 02-19-2004 11:53 AM                     Long time no post, but I was thinking: Do you folks ever think about washed out colors from a release print being shown over and over and over? The wife and I saw LOTR about 4 wks after the premiere, and that print was being shown at least 3 times a day in that stadium theatre. The movie was also shown ten minutes later in the contiguous smaller theatre, but I have no proof the same print was running through the wall into the next projector. As a film buff who notices hairs and scratches, I was looking at the blacks and reds, and was wondering how far off from opening day first run the colors were. On a big time film like that, how many times was that release print exchanged? If the answer is never, does a print degradation argument ever enter into DLP projection comparison? [I'll hang up and listen] geoff in austin  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 02-19-2004 12:06 PM                    we are really not saying that D-cinema is not a good idea. What we are saying is that if you are going to offer this and in the process take peoples jobs away from them, cause ticket prices to go up, cause concession prices to go up and take any potential control over what you can and can not play and when you can play it away. It better be the best that ever can be offered. As far as your question, I have watched return of the king and have played it since it opened. I have not noticed any above average use degradations over this time period. The colors look just as rich to me as they did when it opened.  |  IP: Logged Geoffrey Gilbert Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Austin, TX, USA Registered: May 2003 posted 02-19-2004 12:21 PM                     Thanks, I thought it looked rich and beautiful too. I've just heard that degradation argument from other D/DLP-heads, and knowing the bias, I thought I ask the source about release print fading. I heard this one guy say that after the first run, the print is never the same again.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 02-19-2004 12:39 PM                    you have to understand that the big problem is not the medium it's self when it comes to film. If you respect the film do everything in your power that can be done to keep the film looking as new as possable then that is film done right. Disrespect it and that is film don wrong. There are many cheaper ways to keep film looking great Like using Film-Guard and keeping everything clean and running smoothly. I once thought to myself what would I rather see as far as a flaw in film compared to D-Cinema. A quick flash of a spec of dust or a contiuous dead pixel because of a failed micro mirror. I vote for the spec of dust, at least there are cheaper ways to get rid of the flaw.  |  IP: Logged David Rigby Expert Film Handler Posts: 134 From: Chorlton, Manchester, UK Registered: May 2002 posted 02-19-2004 12:42 PM                     On Leo's point re. the Film Council & arthouse exhibition it seems to me equally likely that the problem here is the appalling faddishness (did I just make up a word?) of our public institutions. Time and time again I see the FC expounding about exciting digital shorts (and offering cash to producers of the same). I'm sure funds are partly a driver for this becuase they can fund many more digital productions than they can film for the same money - we do like to do things on the cheap here after all, but never mind the quality. Sure, academics can bang on about the democratising effect of cheap digital production - but now that we've had a few years to really appreciate what that means with the internet I think we can all see a downside to that argument too. This unseemly rush to digital everything on the part of our publicly funded arts bodies is all in the name of being seen to be new, exciting and 'cutting edge'. In that sense the film establishment here appears to be a fashion victim rather than a victim of a clever technological argument - which is much worse since it's only the vanity of the people running these things that's costing us our tax money. David  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-19-2004 01:13 PM                     Video production is fine if you have a thread-bare budget and your main avenue of presentation is going to be via TV, DVD, Internet, cable, etc. There is a greater potential of talent coming to the forefront if they can shoot pieces on video and have some kind of completed visual project. The only other alternative for lots of aspiring filmmakers is just to write a script and go through development hell. At least with a finished video they'll have something to show off their story telling abilities. When it comes to major productions, they need to be shot on film. 4/35 looks far better and has far higher resolution than any video format period. Plus, with the analog original negative you have something physical that can be adapted to better and better video storage formats in the future. You can't do that with something shot on digital video. Also, shooting a major production on video just doesn't look very good. At best, you'll get quality akin to the latest Robert Rodriguez offerings, which seem comprimised compared to 4/35mm. More often you get something that looks quite a bit worse, which is the typical thing for indie movies shot on DV. The thing I really hate is someone shooting a movie on MiniDV or DVCAM and then taking it through a film-step in post. Horrible! If you're going to shoot something on video, at least keep the video look intact instead of degrading the image further trying to hide the video look. Embrace the look of video instead of trying to con us into believing it was shot on film. If the movie makers don't want the "soap opera look" or "6 o'clock news" look typical of video, they just need to take more care in lighting their scenes in more creative, dramatic ways and doing as good a job as possible with the videography.  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-19-2004 01:16 PM                     What’s fascinating about this argument is how it flies in the face of what is transpiring right now in cinemas across America. Here’s what I want you to do, Bobby: come to New York in time for a major film release that will include D-Cinema screenings. Go down to the Empire 25, or the Ziegfeld, or any theatre that is showing the picture in DLP. Wait for the dramatic climax of the film, then run down front and yell out: “You people are morons! Don’t you know that this isn’t any better than home theatre resolution?!?!”. Do this for me and report back what the crowd had to say. In the end it doesn’t matter a whit what I, or you Bobby, or you Darryl, or anyone else here thinks about the resolution of D-Cinema. There are only two opinions that matter, and they belong to Mr. & Mrs. Average Moviegoer. Right now, they are at the theatre enjoying a DLP show, seeing a movie that is bright, colorful, clear, sharp, and involving. What they are NOT doing is sitting there counting rows and columns of pixels or estimating the color depth, because, at the end of the day, they couldn’t care less. Carl is exactly right: that doesn’t mean WE shouldn’t care less, of course there is room for improvement in DLP, and those involved should keep tweaking for the greater good. But saying that the current resolution standard will mean the death of the industry is like going into a sold-out D-Cinema screening and insisting that there is really no-one there at all. I was a projectionist for many years, from about 1969 until I found a better paying job delivering pizzas about 1985 (then very part time up until about six years ago, mostly helping friends who had theatres). I still love cinema. I, like all of you, still hang on to the romantic notion that it is not a legitimate film going experience unless it involves 35mm film, a Simplex E7, sticky floors and the occasional lab splice. But I’m no longer involved career-wise, and I only pass by this forum occasionally. And since I don’t worry about keeping up my film-handler street-cred in front of y’all, I can safely utter The Truth That Dare Not Speak It’s Name, the ultimate Film-Tech Blasphemy of Blasphemies: DLP looks great. There, I said it and I’m happy. I repeat what I said above: I have never left a D-Cinema show anything less that delighted with the technical presentation. And really, I can’t help getting the feeling that neither have any of you, except that no-one has the sack to admit it in this forum (being that it is for film-handlers, and all). If that’s what makes me a ‘moron’ (according to Leo) or a ‘fanboy’ (according to Bobby), then hey, guilty as charged. DLP or film, people will always go to the movies. It is the great American entertainment medium, a communal experience that cannot be beat. The exhibition industry will survive all of us, in one form or another, in spite of all this twisted-shorts agita over D-Cinema. Bet the house!  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-19-2004 01:53 PM                     quote"There are only two opinions that matter, and they belong to Mr. & Mrs. Average Moviegoer" Actually they only partially count and not the largest one that counts, the one that counts is the one that finances the operation as it is a business and if it can't make a profit it will not happen  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 02-19-2004 02:00 PM                    quote: You people are morons! Don’t you know that this isn’t any better than home theatre resolution?!?!”. Do this for me and report back what the crowd had to say. Better yet why don't you do it or have you already done it. I have made the statement before in other threads about people not caring about resolution and all that jazz. Well if that is the case then why bother screwing around with the idea in the first place. Why bother changing anything or spending the money to even research the idea if the movie going public doesn't care. They will care about one thing. Paying twice as much for a movie than they are now and higher concession costs because we are trying to pay for this thing that nobody cares about. Call it what it is, a niche in the fact that only the people that give a rats ass about any of the technical aspects of the technology will notice ar care about what they look at. The majority are those who just want to get into the story. So I say again why bother to give the majority anything in a new technology if they are not going to care about what it is or does or looks like.  |  IP: Logged

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