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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Weird motion artifacts during DLP presentation
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 05-25-2006 01:54 PM
quote: Bill Enos
Re DLP white papers----An engineering smoke screen-no useful information contained.
You noticed that too, eh, Bill? They sure know how to spin it -- not that you would expect much more when the fox is testing the fencing around the chicken coop.
Although they seem to be congratulating themselves that the testing shows that they've reached their "goals," they are pretty vague about what those goals were. Will these modules be guaranteed not to have a single mirror hinge failure for 10 years or to use their own high-tech definition....getting "stuck." Obviously TI knows there is this possibility. So knowing that the hinges can fail, what happens when they do? I mean, does TI pro-rate the modules in the same way say the lamp manufacturers do? Because in my mind, a single stuck mirror....that pinpoint of wrong light or dark in an image is WAY more annoying that any fleck of dirt is with film. As far as I'm concerned, anything that is constant like that would be unacceptable -- a scratch line for example with film....same thing.
Given TI's testing, they must have some benchmark as to operation-time-to-failure, whatever it is -- they say 10 years -- that they will guarantee a perfect image without a single stuck mirror hinge. Will they replace an entire module? And what is the cost to pull the failed module and install and align a new one? That can't be an in-house maintenance procedure like replacing much of the hardware in a film projector system.
These are questions that I certainly would want to have answered before I would invest in this technology.
Then there is the practical, real-world impact. If and when hinges get stuck and it costs $$ to replace and align a new module, given what we know about the level of concern exhibitors have for image quality on their screens, how many stuck hinges do you think it will take after a module is out of warrantee, before Mr. Exhibitor will bite the bullet and spend his concessions money to replace and install? Does anyone imaging that the exhibitor who lets his lamps burn until his patrons can barely see the image is going to order a new module because he sees a single speck of errant light on the screen?
Unless TI can get the modules to simply turn off when a single hing fails and a message popup on the monitor that says, "OPERATION FAILURE -- MODULE MUST BE REPLACED TO CONTINUE" I am afraid we are going to be doomed to seeing many beautiful star-fields in blackouts.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 05-25-2006 06:16 PM
David, you do give these guys too much credit...there is no real long term warranty in place. I have a customer with three DCinema DLPs that are now out of warranty...the repair bills will be huge.
As for film projectors running with their intermittent working flawlessly...one has to misuse the machine for the intermittent to fail, even after 50-years. Misuse does include not maintianing the oil level and changing it. There is very little else on this planet that has given the service life of a film projector. Especially the ones after 1950.
A problem with semiconductors is the obsolesence of the semis themselves...what if a chip goes out of production? Multiply that by how many chips are on each board and the problem grows geometrically. In order to incorporate current semiconductor availability, one may have to redesign a circuit...how long after a projector goes out of production does a manufacturer keep re-engineering a product only have yet another component need to be redesigned?
Compare that to film projectors where not only the main manufacturer makes the parts but so do 3rd party companies like Wolk and LaVezzi. Look at how many models of film projectors each manufacturer has had to come up with...as for the operation of the machine (the film part), Century has had really 2 when you get down to it...Sure the turrets and the various gates get that model count up but the GR-7 on the "C" is the same GR-7 that is on the turreted machine today...Simplex has a similar story with the Super, E-7 and XL... in that once the XL came out...all of the future "models" were really just variations that use about 90% of the same parts, particularly on the gear side.
There has never been this overwhelming need to keep coming out with new models of projectors to stave off parts that were no longer available. By the 50s, most of the projector companies really have had their final form though their earlier products are STILL running today.
The closest we've had to current machines using obsolete parts is Century's bearings...many of those are special now and one must order in the 1000s to have a reasonable price (as a supplier...hence Strong, Wolk and LaVezzi tend to be the source for them). Simplex generally still has off-the-shelf bearing sizes.
With electronics, things get very propritary. You will NEVER get the service life out of a digital projector that you can with a film projector...not unless some new technology we haven't seen comes out.
The question becomes for the digital systems is can they get the cost down such that a disposable projector is financially fesible and just how long must a projector run before it is considered no longer viable.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 05-26-2006 09:01 AM
Then on the other hand, how many chains are actually moving forward with this conversion? A few big name chains, yes, but I saw somewhere that slightly less than half the screens in the country are owned by small chains and independents. Hearing that there is a buy of 170 systems here or 200 screens there doesn't exactly constitute an unstoppable semi hurdling down a mountainous downgrade. Additionally, because today a chain puts out a press release that it's committed to digital, that doesn't mean that after those 170 conversions have been in place for a year or two, they may not be saying in their board rooms or whereever the bean counters hang out, "Geez, was THAT a mistake or what?!" A couple of hundred conversions is no guarantee that any company will necessarily continue to install digital in every other 1000 or 2000 of their screens.
We all talk here very seriously and at length about the nuances of image quality, but we all know that the primary concern of corporate exhibition has never been exclusively image quality -- methinks they can live with a lot more motion artifacts and sawtooth titles than we can. In the end, digital will have to prove itself as giving them a decided, competitive, economic advantage over their competitors who don't convert or even over their non-digital booths, or those relatively few installs that they lauded in today's press releases may very well come to a screeching hault. Two or three years from now it could very easily turn out that "We are committed to the wonders of digital," could turn into, "I wish I had never said 'Bring it on.'" It won't be the first time someone was sold an expensive bill of goods only to find out later that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Time will write the last chapter of this story.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 05-26-2006 10:01 AM
Agreed with the comment about how the theatre owners are (mostly) not biting.
The largest proposed installation so far is the Carmike deal, which absolutely will not result in the "up to" 2300 installations that were proposed. Look at the Carmike web site. They have more theatres this year than last, but attendance and revenues are down. They have fewer than $30 million in cash. The were late with their SEC reporting. This is not a healthy company. They can't afford a $300 million installation.
The scattered installations in select AMC/Regal/etc. houses are meaningless. If I owned 6000 screens, I'd put in a few DLP units, too. For a chain of that size, the cost of a few installations is just noise compared to their regular operating costs. They're essentially beta test sites for whenever the technology actually becomes sufficient cost-effective to be worth installing on a larger scale.
Also, consider the reports from the people who have seen the 4k Sony systems that they don't look substantially better than the 2k DLP systems. Add to that the fact that there is _still_ no standard distribution medium or file format (the DCI report was a general outline of requirements, not a standard).
If the industry were financially healthy, a large installation could happen fairly quickly, but it isn't and it won't. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that there will need to be a major reduction in the number of screens in the US in the next few years, and installing new equipment in theatres that may be closing in the forseeable future is probably not a smart move for anyone.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 05-26-2006 12:35 PM
quote: Tim Reed
NATO wants it, so that's all the impedus that is needed. Fall in line. It is happening and it's not going to go away.
Don't you remember when polyester prints became the norm? That was a NATO dictate as well.
NATO wanted Long Play Reels too. Economics drives the industry, not politics. How long did it take for the switch to red readers or analog stereo sound? And they took a lot less in terms of investment by exhibition.
Polyester was not a NATO dictate -- they signed on to it, but big deal; it certainly didn't take any great risk to exhibitors -- it had very little to do with booth operations and more importantly, it cost the exhibitor $00.00, except for a can of anti-cling spray. That's a far cry from a cost of $100,00 + a screen for a return of ??. I just don't see how anything with that kind of lopsided a economic model can be a done deal because a few exhibitors have invested in what Scott rightly calls beta tests. Should the economics improve, perhaps then, when exhibitors can actually count on a monitary gain from such an install, then it may begin to snowball. But it is afar cry from that at this point in time. Right now, can anyone actually demonstrate where an investment in digital equipment can give an exhibitor a financial advanage over a competitor who doesn't invest? I've not heard any digivangelists talk money at all.
They only advantage I hear is that there is no dirt on the image (which everyone knows is the reason why people are shunning cinemas in droves). The marketing value to digital is zilch; so far the rental advantage is zilch -- i.e., film companies giving an adjusted deal for a "virtual" print as opposed to a "reel" print. So someone has to explain what makes anyone think that every theatre in the country is going to buy digital, at least at this stage of the game?
I never said it was going to go away, but anyone who understands economics will tell you that digital conversion is on very percarious economic footings. Unless all of the exhibition industry has gone bonkers, I will be very surprised if this is not a very, very long-term, slow conversion that will go through a number of upgrades and a number of decades. This, based on? Based on the fact that financially healthy, savvy companies don't "get in line" to risk investing in unproven, non-backward compatible technology for the economic gain for their suppliers with no demonstrable profit edge over their competitors.
When exhibition sees potential $$$ gain that a new technology can provide, THAT'S when they can't get on the bandwaggon fast enough -- like xenon and automation. It could save them projectionist's salaries -- they could run first two, then three then four and still counting number of screens with only one operator. It sure didn't take them long see the savings in that and to get that equipment into the booth. Digital offers no such economic advantage; if you think it does, I wish you would tell me what it is.
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