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Topic: 70 vs. DC starring Larry Myres

Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 03-20-2006 03:22 PM

Since Kodak says that the picture area of 35mm film has a resolution of 4K, why not store the digital data there ala Dolby Digital and send it out to theaters that way? Then you'd get:

4096 x 4096 x 24 fps = 402,653,184, or approx 402 Mb/s.

That should more than suffice.

Imagine what the storage capacity would be if they used 5 perf 70mm... or even better, 15 perf 70mm. Holy cow, I can't even imagine it.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 03-20-2006 03:32 PM

The SMPTE DC28 Committee is setting the standards for the Digital Cinema Distribution Master (DCDM) at this very moment (they are meeting in Los Angeles this week). It's not just a matter of the number of pixels per frame, but also of how many bits are needed to capture the full color and tone scale of the image, and how those bits will be encoded and compressed to a bit rate that is practical, yet still delivers excellent image quality.

Kodak engineers (I'm not one of them) are very active participants on the SMPTE DC28 Committee.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-20-2006 03:40 PM

quote: Mark J. Marshall
why not store the digital data there ala Dolby Digital and send it out to theaters that way?

Shipping costs, maybe?

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Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 03-20-2006 03:47 PM

quote: Michael Coate
I'm not even certain Warner Bros. was using DeLuxe for their 70s back then.

Warner Bros. used Technicolor for their 70MM prints during that time. During that time I handled 70MM prints of "Divine Madness", "Sharky's Machine", "Superman II" and "Wolfen" and they were all done by Technicolor.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-20-2006 04:07 PM

Warner Bros. was having Technicolor handle many of their 70mm prints right into the early 1990s. I remember watching a 70mm print of Berdardo Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky at the Paris theater in Manhattan. I stayed through the credits and a big Technicolor logo thingie was on the tail end of it.

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Larry Myers
Master Film Handler

Posts: 371
From: Herndon, VA, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 03-20-2006 05:00 PM

I remember a meeting at Kodak sometime in the early 90's about Photo CD. Remember that? The big point of the meeting was that a Kodachrome 25 slide needed 32 MB to completely capture all information possible. This translated into a 25 by 40 inch print.

That 4K or 16MB would be about right for a 1/2 still frame or movie frame. Although, that value would be typical of a modern original negative or show print resolution. A high speed print would be less then half that or about 8MB. So 2K is really not good enough for 35mm movie frame, 3K is about right and would match anything printed today. I would say 4K would be better then a typical high speed print and about the same as a 35mm show print.

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 03-20-2006 05:14 PM

Manny, I think I was being sarcastic. But maybe not. I never really know for sure.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-20-2006 05:55 PM

quote: Lyle Romer
Regarding compression, I found the following in the DCI spec. This is pretty much all greek to me. Can anybody that understands it tell if this prevents the bean counters from deciding to run at lower bit rates?

No. Those standards do not prevent bean counters from running "distribution" 2K and 4K video streams at lower rates. Those standards specified maximum bitrates in explict numbers. They did no such thing for stating minimum bitrates. The closest they came to that was specifying a maximum number of wavelet transforms allowed and a maximum number of tiles. The fewer the number of tiles the image is divided into and the fewer number of coding transforms allowed the better.

Still the language gives a little wiggle room. From the "high road" that wiggle room would equate to improving codecs needing less bits to resolve video detail. In the more obvious and nearer term low road, bean counters can push bit depths down as low as possible while trying (or not trying) to comply with those standards.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 03-21-2006 10:41 AM

quote: John Pytlak
The SMPTE DC28 Committee is setting the standards for the Digital Cinema Distribution Master (DCDM) at this very moment (they are meeting in Los Angeles this week). It's not just a matter of the number of pixels per frame, but also of how many bits are needed to capture the full color and tone scale of the image, and how those bits will be encoded and compressed to a bit rate that is practical, yet still delivers excellent image quality.

Based on your knowlege of the committee, are you confident that the specification will guarantee a certain level of quality and be "bean counter" proof?

quote: Larry Myers
I would say 4K would be better then a typical high speed print and about the same as a 35mm show print.

Based on my viewing of "Narnia" in 2k DLP, I would share the opinion with Larry that 4k D-Cinema would probably look better than high speed printed 35mm film. I can't remember who it was but somebody had commented about the Sony 4k demo last year and said the image quality looked as good as dailies he had run.

If TI could somehow be convinced to make a 4k DLP chip with the same pixel size as the 2k chip, it should be able to light a pretty large screen (twice the reflecting area).

There needs to be a push for 4k D-Cinema (Kodak was pushing it at the beginning but stopped for some reason). While 4k D-Cinema will not look quite as good as 65mm originated material shown in 70mm, it will look better than typical 35mm originated, high speed printed 35mm presented material. When the latter is "done right" it looks pretty darn good so 4k D-cinema (if compression isn't over done) should look phenomenal.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 03-21-2006 11:06 AM

Standards recognize "good practice", not "ideal practice". In other words, they should allow and encourage the best quality possible, yet still be practical to implement. In the real world, economic considerations (i.e., the "bean counters") are part of the process, but in my experience, do not dictate the process.

IMHO, the advocacy of Kodak and cinematographers (the ASC) had a significant role in including 4K Digital Cinema in the DCI and DC28 specifications.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 03-21-2006 02:32 PM

Other than Sony (who doesn't exactly have a great track record with cinema equipment), nobody seems to be driving the availiblity of 4k projectors. It is good that all DCI compliant equipment has to handle 4k files but there doesn't seem to be any incentive to distibute 4k files if nobody has 4k projectors.

Since DLP seems to have become the defacto standard, it seems like the only way to ever have a 4k projector is to convince TI to develop a 4k DLP chip. Unfortunately, the more 2k installs that happen, the less incentive for TI to do that becuase the potential total sales of a 4k chip are continuously decreasing.

It seems that the only way to get 4k would be to align four 2k projectors and have a server that can output the right part of the picture to each one. Obviously this would be ridiculously expensive (but would provide one heck of a bright image).

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 03-22-2006 03:54 AM

Economics are what will keep TI out of the 4K and above projector range. Believe it or not, what is financially fueling the DLP market is NOT DCinema or even the AV projectors...it is the HOME market. That has always been TI's goal...that is where the real money is and the real quantity.

With under 50,000 screens in the US (I've heard numbers closer to 38,000 but lets pick a round number). Even if TI received 100% of the DCinema market...how long would it take TI to recover the $100-million for another revision of the DLP chip set? The 100-mil has been their average investment on upping the DLP image quality. Can it be done? Sure. I doubt that is where their focus is at the moment...it is on trying to get that multi-BILLION home market and that market is currently trying to settle into 2K resolution...where they are now.

DLP is not a certainty as a dominate entity for the home market...LCDs get better every year, LCOS is inherently cheaper than DLP and provides three-chip solutions for less money than single chip DLP. Whereas this is an emerging technology that is constantly changing, nothing is definate. However...if TI "looses" the home market, It wouldn't surprise me if they close or sell off the DLP division

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 03-22-2006 08:28 AM

quote: Steve Guttag
how long would it take TI to recover the $100-million for another revision of the DLP chip set?

Assuming they sell 50,000 4k projector sets, 3 chips each (150,000) 4k chips they could charge $700 per chip extra to recoup the investment of doing 4k.

The sony sxrd system seems to have 2 problems:

1) Projecors are made by sony (they don't seem to sell sxrd devices to to 3rd parties like Barco or Christie).

2) I can't find it anymore but the largest of the two projectors (using two 2kw xenon bulbs) can only light a 40-45 foot screen). This is fine for probably 90% of theatres but they need to design a projector that can take bigger lamps and do an 80 foot screen.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-22-2006 08:45 AM

Large computer monitors and large TV sets that double as computer monitors will be the main forces driving the development of different 4K imagers and devices of even higher resolution. Broadcast HDTV will not be the force demanding improvement. 2K levels are good enough for that. 30" monitors from Apple and Dell already support native resolutions far above any HDTV standard.

The spinning micromirror methods used in TI DLP chips make it far more difficult to pack more native pixels into an imager chip. I am very skeptical we'll even see a 4K DLP chip. I think other technologies will supercede DLP and put it out of business in the long term.

On the production front, Hollywood studios could be using 4K methods on digital intermediate and CGI production. Looking at the situation from a proportionate view, computer hardware power and storage capacity is even better now for 4K use than it was for 2K use in 2000. 4K is feasible to produce. Instead, Hollywood is definitely going the "good enough" route using current computing power to do 2K work even faster and cheaper than ever before.

I also think 2K is hanging on because many people involved with movie production have their vision fogged with the whole "digital" buzzword, thinking that all the digital stuff is perfect and that no further improvement is needed. They're not looking past that bullshit, meaningless "digital" word and actually examining the numbers and quality issues which clearly show not all digital stuff is the same.

The really peculiar thing about this is many video production people have long known about things like bitrates and bit depths of various video formats.

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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 03-22-2006 10:58 AM

quote: Steve Guttag
Economics are what will keep TI out of the 4K and above projector range. Believe it or not, what is financially fueling the DLP market is NOT DCinema or even the AV projectors...it is the HOME market. That has always been TI's goal...that is where the real money is and the real quantity.

When the DLP projectors started being installed a while ago I also thought that this was a clear attempt to remove cinema exhibition of its uniqueness (film cannot be reproduced at home, digital/video can) so home cinema products could be sold as the same experience you get at the pictures. I just cannot understand how exhibitors have not been able to spot something as obvious as this.

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