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Topic: More d-cinema morons
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-10-2004 12:13 AM
Those DCSPro14n photos looked pretty good. But the CMOS device in that camera is big, making it a more costly item to produce. You can only fit so many on a wafer of silicon. I notice this CMOS device uses a microlens system. That can certainly help the light sensitivity issue.
CCDs, particularly those in high end cameras, can boast 100% fill rates since they don't have the extra support circuitry and voltage amplifiers for each light sensor/pixel. With the DCSPro14n CMOS sensor array being the same size as a 35mm frame, and it having a microlens over it, that certainly should help.
Videography is still a big challenge for CMOS. And since more and more digital still cameras are also incorporating video capture functions, that can be a big hurdle for CMOS taking over.
Has anyone ever tried putting together a 3CMOS solution (using 3 CMOS chips for separate Red, Green and Blue channel processing)? I could certainly see specialized CMOS chips being made without the extra color filter and interpolation circuitry typical with a single CMOS chip. That could greatly reduce CMOS chip size, increase light sensitivity/fill rate and cut down costs to a certain degree.
I have heard of CMOS chips having the upper end capability (in some technological demonstrations) of capturing up to 500 frames per second. Perhaps ultra fast frame rates and interpolation between high speed frames might be a possible way to reduce fixed pattern noise for CMOS use in videography.
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Bevan Wright
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 176
From: Fountain Valley, CA, USA
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 04-10-2004 04:53 PM
IBM sees movie industry changing the way it sells products
Digital technologies will lead to melding of media products
(LOS ANGELES) In a few years' time, when you walk out of a movie, you might be able to buy the DVD right then and there. Forget the six-month wait.
That's one of the projections by International Business Machines Corp technology researchers. They see the entertainment industry changing the way it sells products in order to cut advertising costs, combat piracy and take advantage of new digital technologies.
The latter strategy could make it possible for a studio to simply sell a customer the right to view a movie in the format of his or her choice - at home, in a cinema or on a portable device - rather than just selling a ticket to a show.
'Potentially you turn the whole thing on its head and you sell the individual the right to use it (a movie) for a day, a week, a year,' said Saul Berman, lead author of an IBM research paper on what the entertainment industry will look like in 2010.
For studios which now pay more than US$100 million, on average, to make and market a movie, then dig into their pockets again to advertise the DVD, the forecast offers potential big cost savings. But it also raises the possibility of cannibalisation if audiences choose the DVD but ignore the cinema.
Studios have been cutting the time between when they release films to cinemas and to other arenas such as pay-per-view television, DVD and broadcast TV, and Mr Berman said the difference between release times would fade.
Technology advocates have argued for years that entertainment is becoming a service rather than a product.
Many expected subscription services that stream music via the Internet would catch on, leading people to quit buying individual songs. In fact, Web music services have found some subscribers willing to pay for their services, but the sites have failed to catch on with mainstream listeners.
Mr Berman said more powerful digital devices with large hard disk drives that could regularly link to the Web would ease the transformation to streaming, subscription services.
So far, consumers have been quicker to adopt devices like Apple Computer Inc's iPod music player which holds thousands of songs and, when linked to Web music sites, allow users to buy music song by song. However, the iPods are not designed for subscription services.
'The main difference that doesn't exist now is portability. What is going to potentially change the equation . . . is when people realise how much they are spending for songs digitally,' Mr Berman said. - Reuters
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-10-2004 06:00 PM
If you have the movie on home video form at the same time it is released to theaters then you can count on movie theaters disappearing.
Reason? Very simple. F**king economics, man.
You get one guy to go to the show, and then maybe buy the DVD (or whatever it is) right then and there.
Then he takes that video copy and lends it out to his friends. That saves all those friends lots of admission tickets and even the trip to the theater. Who wants to pay $50 and up to take a family to the show when you can watch a friend's copy for nothing?
Very stupid idea from IBM. They're just jazzed by all things "digital" and all the phoney-baloney hype about "digital cinema." They are totally ignoring any cost models involved.
For movie theaters to be able to survive for the long term they must offer a product superior to that of the home and something that is not available in the home.
If you dumb down presentation quality to 1080 Television standard and then simply take away theatrical versus home video release windows you will be guaranteed to kill off the commercial theatrical presentation end of the business.
Once commercial movie theaters are dead, then its all a straight-to-video business completely lacking the prestige of any commercial theatrical release. Once that's gone, then the video stores themselves wind up being put into jeopardy next.
Ultimately, I think the movie distributors have some kind of cockamamey ideas of using digital distribution to hog the whole movie economy for themselves. They don't want anyone in the exhibition end making any money. And they sure don't like those video stores either. Those idiots think that all of the money brought in by both of those markets will still be there if those two presentation avenues are eliminated. But they would be dead wrong about that. If the commercial theatrical business goes, you can count that $6 Billion per year in the U.S. alone disappearing as well. Same goes for the $10 Billion in the U.S. brought in annually from home video sales/rentals.
Without the theaters and video stores, the movie business would be nothing more than a pay-per-view TV selling market trying to compete with broadcasters. TV itself will then become the most pretigious medium (along with the fact it already brings in more revenue via advertising).
The folks hyping all this digital shit without thinking about platforming out certain venues and keeping them separate are going to wind up losing a lot more money than they will gain.
Commercial theaters are under a great threat by all this junk and honestly the only way I think they are going to survive in the long term is by splitting off and offering a lot more in the way of giant screen special venue product. After all, I love IMAX movies. But I don't really give a shit about buying any IMAX movies on DVD. What's the point of watching an IMAX show on your TV screen at home? Commercial theaters have the corner on that market, regardless of whatever lies some sales people want to to sell about "digital."
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-11-2004 12:56 PM
quote:
Are there too many screens, is there an overestablishment?
That depends from market to market. But on average, I would say the United States at least is over-screened. We need fewer theaters with higher levels of presentation quality, better levels of environment/decor and better paid, more professional people running things rather than the fast-food caliber type of situation we have right now.
But this problem has absolutely nothing to do with digital projection or separate release windows. Further, eliminating separate release windows (making the film available on DVD or another electronic medium at the same time) will not help.
quote:
Should I give income to the theater owner by paying for a quality service or cxpensive food and drinks?
That depends on whether you want them to be in business or not. If you like commercial movie theaters and want to see them survive, I would suggest picking a good one you like and visiting their snacks counter to help keep them in business.
quote:
Also I believe in a release to the aftermarket after a couple of weeks. Is this too soon and if so why?
I don't agree with this at all. Two weeks or even six months is way too soon for a movie to be released onto video. Why? Look at the cost issues involved. Look at the profit/loss statements of movie theaters and the income they need to have come in to be able to operate.
A theatrical release must absolutely be given a certain period where it plays exclusively in commercial movie theaters. That period has to be over several months at least. The film needs at least a couple months to play itself out at first run theaters, and then you have the 2nd run and bargain market. There has to be enough time for the film to make the rounds in international markets.
The way film contracts are drawn between the film companies and movie theaters favors the film studios for the first few weeks. If a movie has "legs" and is able to sustain a good level of business for more than three or four weeks, then the movie theater starts seeing a better percentage from ticket sales.
I would make the case that movie theater companies have a case to file class action lawsuits against film distributors. We are seeing unreasonably high print orders, to the tune of several thousand prints or more for the U.S. market alone on lots of big event films. That effectively shuts out any financial gain for movie theaters since the film plays itself out in just a couple weeks. The distributors rake in all the ticket sales for themselves, and putting theaters in further financial jeopardy.
To make a move where films go instantly from the screen to video in mere days versus months would be fatal to the commercial theater industry.
And you can count on the movie distributors losing their asses over this kind of move too. For one thing, people do go to the movie theaters as a means of getting out of the house to do something. It is kind of an event. If you take away the means for a movie theater to even stay in business at all that whole night time activity will disappear.
Without the commercial movie theaters, the movie industry loses a great sense of legitimacy. I have never given a damn about pay per view TV and don't really care about straight-to-video movies either. I'm not alone on this. Most people don't think a movie is a real movie unless it played in a real movie theater.
Without the movie theaters, the entire medium will become a far lesser TV-only format. Budgets will be much smaller. Shows will be much less impressive and have little to no way of distinguishing themselves from B-movies and other straight-to-video crap. In effect TV broadcasting would finish off the job it started back in the 1950's, killing the movie industry. After all, broadcasters (be the cable companies like HBO or primary networks) will be able to court all the talent with their money. The movie companies won't have any money to hire anyone.
If anything different needs to happen, that needs to be movie distributors doing A LOT to help keep movie theaters in business. They will "kill the golden goose" if they do anything to chisel more business away from the theaters. They're already in a desperate enough situation right now.
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Michael Barry
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 584
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 04-11-2004 11:01 PM
I agree with everything Bobby has said.
What we are seeing a lot of in this industry are 'professional' opinions from people who really know nothing about movies or the movie industry. They believe that just because they work for IBM or understand what the internet is that all of a sudden that makes them an expert about the film industry. With articles like the above, this much is obvious to anyone who frequents these forums.
One of the inherent attributes about the movies and the film industry is that everyone became a self-appointed expert overnight.
Look at the pattern: first, replace skilled and trained projectionists with well...whoever. Then, aim to get rid of film and replace it with not-even HD video. Now, let's get rid of release windows and just have the DVD come out at the same time. I think I speak for us all when I say, 'Huh?'.
Would anyone here really be pleased with a world in which music, movies and other 'content' is simply downloaded now that movie theatres, music stores and video stores no longer exist?
I feel sad for people that think this way. A 70MM screening of 'Lawrence of Arabia', '2001', 'Playtime', 'The Sound of Music', etc. clearly means nothing to them. Or at least they don't know what it is to begin with. So then why is anything they have to say seen as important or even taken seriously, and who gave them this job? Someone else - no doubt - equally clueless about the film industry and what it actually means. And so it goes!
Paging Mike Todd...
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-12-2004 10:36 AM
quote:
What strikes me as odd is that the industry seems to have a central committe as the ideal working order.
There is no central committee. The movie studios control the film production and distribution of the prints. The movie theater industry is a separate business controlling the showing of the prints. Decades ago, it was possible for a movie studio to own the theaters. After anti-trust legislation (the "Paramount Consent Decrees") that has largely changed.
Today, a film studio will at best hold a minority stake in a movie theater company. Further, the profit motives of movie studios very often conflict with the needs of movie theaters. For instance, a company like Sony Pictures will release 8,000 prints of "Spiderman" to theaters so the show can rake in $400 million in just three weeks. The move helps their stock prices. But it hurts the business of the theaters because the life of the movie does not sustain itself over a period of time where the theaters can derive any profit from it. That leaves the theaters having to survive off what they take in from the snacks counter. It comes as no surprise the movie studios want to take a cut of the snacks counter sales as well.
I charge the push for "digital projection" by movie studios is a cost cutting ploy. They don't want to pay for 35mm movie prints. And they want the movie theaters to foot the bill for the overpriced video projection hardware. All of this is motivated by the studios' need to show a bit of a better quarterly earnings report to please their stock shareholders. That's all.
Companies like IBM, Texas Instruments and others chime in on the merits of digital projection. Why? profit motive. They want to make money! They don't really care about movie theaters either. The commercial theaters are only a mere testing ground for what they want to sell in the much larger home theater and computing markets.
If movie studios were approaching the "digital projection" subject from a motive of improving show quality, they would pay for the hardware instead of sticking the movie theaters with the bill.
quote:
Only x prints are allowed for this movie. This movie can only be shown in these theaters for x weeks and so on. We, the audience accepted this in the past, but today we do not.
Can you accept the movie industry going out of business? That's basically what you are demanding through your impatience.
If the movie theater has no time to make any income it will die financially. I have a couple friends who actively buy Chinese pirated DVDs, typically culled from studio screener DVDs. They seem to feel no guilt about this. They just have this stupid faith-based notion that the movie theaters will always be around and survive without their business.
Piracy does a significant amount of damage, but that is nothing compared to the damage that will be done if instant-release to home video gets institutionalized by movie studios. You will see the movie theaters disappear rapidly.
With no movie theaters there will be no movie industry either. The public will not support an all-home-video based movie industry. TV and cable networks are struggling for more elusive viewers. Internet-based movie watching has never taken off. When people are at home they're doing lots of other things besides being couch potatoes watching movies.
If the movie studios are stupid enough to do away with theatrical and home video release windows, I'll be sure to buy some stock in companies that make computers and video games. They'll make out like bandits over that lunacy.
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