If I could remember what the specific instance was, I would pass them on, but I don't recall.

Also, I didn't say that we lost shows, just had to use film instead.

'Nough Said. I know that you are one amongst others here that d-cinema will NEVER be good enough. That's fine. The manufacturers out there understand that and are working on improving things everyday and they even know that they will not be able to satisfy everyone.

But ask yourself this, What % of the general public go for the story? Unless you are a true film buff, the public is not going to understand the term "contrast ratio" or understand what message the DP is trying to convey by using a certain film stock.

What the public deserves is "Presentation done right" regardless if the medium is film or DLP. I stress this as much as I can in my booth and my staff knows it.

Your opinions of Digital Cinema are appreciated and the digital manufacturer lurkers are taking notes.

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As far as rolling stock is concerned for ads, these are not presented for DLP theatres as they are not encoded for storage on the playback system. It would also be too much of a hassle to run ads, then switch over for DLP.

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The Ziegfeld in Manhattan did just that. It WAS an awkward moment as there was about a 30 second gap between the last ad and the first preview (the curtains were left open). The lamp houses were well balanced, however. Both seemed to give a brighter image than the 16 footcandle standard.

BTW, Paul has an excellent point. I've seen PLENTY of botched film presentations where the theatre gave out refunds in masse. Maybe instead of saying "Film done right," we should now say "presentation done right" as digital projection is just another tool for showing a story.

And no, you are wrong. I have NEVER said that D-Cinema can never work; I have never been a reactionary, quite the contrary, I have always been right there when new technology came over the horizon. But the technology has to offer me something BETTER than what it is trying to replace. So far, the PRESENT state of digital projection offers an astronomically expensive, unworkable economic model for image quality that anyone looking unbiasedly at a DLP image on a theatre screen cannot possibly say is reproducing the rich, complex look of film.

Believe me, I am in the dog-end of the business....I have to beg borrow and, well, borrow, to get decent prints of classic films. The supply of quality, playable prints is finite and constantly dwindling. Art houses have closed all over the country because of it. In the very near future, much of our film heritage will not be available to be experienced by newer generations. Digital may be the only answer to preserve the ability for us to screen the classics....but I am sorry to say, it just won't be THIS digital, just like the unfortunate Kodak/ORC digital sound system was not the digital that would bring superior sound to theatre audiences.

If you told me there was a digital system that could make 2001 or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA look as good as it did in the original presentation, nothing could make me happier or make me want to get that system into my booth. I know THAT's where the future of the art houses has to go, unless there is some catastrophic change in the way the studios think about and deal with their classic print libraries. Turner had the right idea, but no one else seems to be doing what they did. I just don't think settling for less that what we have with the present film technology makes any sense at all.

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In the very near future, much of our film heritage will not be available to be experienced by newer generations.

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...which is causing a vicious circle effect: as the number of arthouses diminish, the number of rep prints in circulation and viewing copies being produced by archives are diminishing.

An archive which has a mountainous backlog of nitrate to preserve and a finite amount of money to do it with has to decide whether to use that money (for example) to make dupe negs for preservation of 10 features or dupe negs and viewing copies (i.e. release prints) of 5. As the screening opportunities for viewing prints diminish, archives are increasingly choosing the former option. There is a large and growing amount of material which is 'preserved' in the technical sense (i.e. a master status element exists on polyester or pre-autocatalytic acetate base), but which cannot be viewed.

If digital technology can eventually help to break that vicious circle, it would be wonderful. But it can only happen when the cost of making digital viewing copies is significantly lower than producing them on film and when those copies are at least of equivalent quality to a film print.

As Frank points out, we're not at that point yet. But the comparison with CDS is an interesting one. Back in the '20s Vitaphone too was a flawed system, but it showed that synchronised sound was an economically viable prospect, with the result that Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone appeared within a couple of years. Those technologies went on to dominate the market. Same with CDS - it showed that the public wanted digital sound, but that the industry would not accept dual print inventory releases, hence the launch of Dolby, DTS and SDDS shortly afterwards.

So maybe the current range of digital projection technologies are effectively prototypes for a far more versatile, robust and cheaper generation of systems which are just round the corner...

*** EDIT HERE *** 08/08/02
The signal format is SMPTE 292M. Also know as HD-SDI.
*** END EDIT ***

HD technology shouldn't change for quite a few years until d-cinema is farther advanced.

Paul.

Sorry

Standard SMPTE 292M-1998 is "for Television -- Bit-Serial Digital Interface for High-Definition TELEVISION Systems".

AFAIK, despite lobbying efforts of some current vendors that this TELEVISION standard is "good enough" for the data required for Digital Cinema, I sense that there is growing consensus (especially among distribution and exhibition) that it is NOT adequate for good Digital Cinema, and new standards specific to the higher quality requirements of Digital Cinema are needed from the SMPTE DC28 Digital Cinema Committee.

In other words, even the data standards have NOT been written yet, much less all the other required standards for a complete Digital Cinema system.

As to Leo's concern, although archival film materials may be transferred to HDTV for convenience or commerce, the 35mm or 65mm original films STILL have much more visual information than is being recorded by today's digital formats. In other words, KEEP YOUR FILM ORIGINALS to transfer to future digital formats that will offer higher quality than today's changing "state-of-the-art" digital formats.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion