my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Digital Cinema Forum   » A new Digital cinema outsider (Page 2)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Author Topic: A new Digital cinema outsider Marc Hansen Film Handler Posts: 93 From: Seattle, WA, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 12-06-2006 10:01 AM                     quote: Frank Angel The insidiousness of it, IMHO, is that once someone buys a $120,000 2K projector, that's what's going to stay in that booth until the building falls down around it. Not really Frank. When its five or ten years old the manufacturers will stop making parts for it and when it breaks you will have to upgrade. That is assuming you can get product to show on it that long. Marc  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-06-2006 10:10 AM                    Scott, I said the FILM is capable of it (ask John P. if you don't believe me). But there are many theaters with excellent contrast on their screen.  |  IP: Logged Mattias Ohlson Expert Film Handler Posts: 180 From: Falun, Sweden Registered: Mar 2003 posted 12-06-2006 10:44 AM                     I would like to see this thread discuss MPC vs other digital alternatives. Film vs digital has been discussed at lenght before. With safety regulations making a pitch black cinema a no no I doubt more than 10k:1 is necessary.  |  IP: Logged Brian Guckian Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 594 From: Dublin, Ireland Registered: Apr 2003 posted 12-06-2006 11:05 AM                     I agree. One of the interesting things about the MPC innovation is the fact that the light intensity of each pixel can be very accurately controlled (albeit the light is polarised). Compare that to DMD technology which relies on the the rapid tilting of micro-mirrors to produce greyscale images. That could be an interesting difference. But in keeping with the theme of this thread, one thing that doesn't seem to have been discussed are the aesthetic implications of having one image reproduced by different display technologies. How would a film displayed in DLP look compared to one on an MPC machine? Or D-ILA, GLV or LCoS for that matter? It's something I'd like to ask a DoP about!  |  IP: Logged Mattias Ohlson Expert Film Handler Posts: 180 From: Falun, Sweden Registered: Mar 2003 posted 12-06-2006 11:49 AM                     Brian G. The experience from the home theater community is that if two displays using differnt technologies adhere to the standards such as grayscale tracking (D65) and color primaries they look very similar.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 12-06-2006 01:56 PM                        Cost of Vitaphone in 1926: $25k down payment/25k per year for maintenance. Double that on "Large" systems. In todays dollars: mult times 10. Louis (Note tickets were 5 and 10 cents.) (Note many, many waited upinto the mid 1930's to install sound. Those who did, paid far less.)  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-08-2006 12:46 AM                        And let's not forget, the addition of sound, like 3D and CinemaScope and Stereo Mag and Dolby Stereo, and all three digital sound formats, ALL these improvements were backward compatible. The very first takies didn't require the theatre to throw out the projector. AND more importantly, they didn't require compromising the existing picture resolution or contrast ratio....well, maybe scope had some image qualitiy problems but in the end they were solved without the need to buy new projector heads.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-08-2006 09:57 AM                     Frank said "they didn't require compromising the existing picture resolution or contrast ratio." Actually there was a lot of concern about the reduced sharpness and brightness when the print area was reduce to allow for the optical soundtrack  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-08-2006 10:10 AM                     quote: Louis Bornwasser Cost of Vitaphone in 1926: $25k down payment/25k per year for maintenance. Double that on "Large" systems. In todays dollars: mult times 10. Louis Louis, Actually the cost for digital taking inflation into account into 2006 is the same as Vitaphone was. Mark  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-08-2006 10:16 AM                     But there were many other companies marketing off brand working solutions Now when will the Ballantyne model 6 Dcinema with a PD50 server be available  |  IP: Logged Dave Bird Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 777 From: Perth, Ontario, Canada Registered: Jun 2000 posted 12-08-2006 01:32 PM                        I picture a large self-contained lens barrel that slides into the front of your XL, Brenkert or what have you. The light from your Mighty 90 or Magnarc would fire through the empty gate into a prismatic lens splitting it into 3 beams for each colour of the LCD. It then goes through another to bring the image back together before hitting the lens with the focal length of your choice. Of course, by replacing this unit with your old B&L lens, you can still run film. Problem solved, and completely backwards compatible. I'm sure Jaxlight is working on it.....  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-09-2006 05:12 AM                        quote: Gordon McLeod Actually there was a lot of concern about the reduced sharpness and brightness when the print area was reduce to allow for the optical soundtrack There couldn't be a better example of how the industry in its infancy really did have presentation quality as one of their highest priorities. Contrast that with only a few decades later. Can you imagine --those early pioneers worried about loosing just the miniscule amount taken up by the new soundtrack? Yet by the time we decided that wider was better and went to 1.85, the impact THAT much more draconian move would impact image quality raised no ruckus at all (OK, Disney resisted and stuck with 1.75 for awhile, but other than that.....) No one was concerned enough to move to the 1.85 "IscoVision" idea -- using a mild anamporphic that would allow the use of the entire frame geography for 1.85; such a simple, inexpensive change, but did anyone by this time consider it? Not many.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 12-09-2006 06:04 AM                     Frank, masking down the frame to produce a wide aspect ratio, up to about 2:1, was being proposed as a cheaper alternative to wide film systems like Fox Grandeur, at just about the same time that cinemas were converting to sound. It wasn't generally adopted at that time, but the idea was there. I agree, it's a stupid system.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 12-10-2006 10:52 AM                        Frank is correct. The response to my SMPTE presentation and demonstration showing the use of a 1.5X anamorphic that used the full scope image area to produce a 1.85:1 or 16:9 aspect ratio was positive, but at best "lukewarm", due to the cost of equipping all theatres with new lenses. Not only was the image sharper and finer grained, but it was 1.5X BRIGHTER than the current 1.85:1 cropped format. Changing formats would only involve a lens change, not an aperture change. SMPTE Members can download my presentation here: http://www.smpte.org/members_only/library/download.cfm?file=pytlak.pdf Glenn Berggren and IscoOptic had it right in 1984 with ISCOVISION. Physics and optics work -- larger image areas offer better image quality, so why not use all the area available within the 35mm frame?  |  IP: Logged Brian Guckian Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 594 From: Dublin, Ireland Registered: Apr 2003 posted 12-10-2006 12:16 PM                     John (welcome back by the way!), what about 2x compression instead? That would allow use of existing 'Scope lenses and plates. I'm just thinking of many multiplexes where they have just two lens barells in their turrets. Introducing a second anamorphic (1.5x) in addition to the existing infrastructure could be problematic for them. This idea would be the same as when running hardlocked 1.85 trailers printed in at the head of 'Scope features. It would work for screens with Common Height, but admittedly with Common Width you would end up with a 1.85 image within the smaller 2.39 area. But this is in fact correct! I'm sure this has been discussed before here - just an aside.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.