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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: My Digital Cinema Thoughts (A little belated)
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-08-2002 12:31 AM
The booth has not been in use in several years. The picture was taken a couple of weeks ago on the first day I was there. It is my new proof-of-brain-damage project. quote:
Is that an original Perspecta integrator I see before me, in the left hand rack, near the top, with its power supply in the same rack, just below the bench?
Come, let me clutch at thee! Broo hoo ha ha ha!
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John Scott
Master Film Handler
Posts: 252
From: Oakdale, MN, USA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-19-2003 11:08 PM
I saw my first DLP presentation today (I was actually going to see the hours but it didn't start for an additional hour, and I admit I have been curious about the DLP quality) so I saw DAREDEVIL for a second time.
My thoughts pretty much reflect those of most of you who have posted previously:
What was good:
The fact that there were no NCN commercials played, even though the complex that I went to has a contract with NCN .
The quality of the image for the Finding Nemo trailer, which looked quite good.
The fact that there was no jumping, no bleed-over onto masking, no ghosting, and no splices.
What was bad:
During the break between the shows the DLP projector remained on (is this normal) causing half of the screen to be projected blue. Granted, it was nice not to have to watch half of the slides being projected with the separate slide projector, its not what I'd consider proper presentation
The pixelization and artifacts on the screen. Some of the trailers were quite bad, almost to conventional projection system standards. Many moments of the movie also had these problems, although not to as great of an extent. But this clearly isn't as good as 35mm, and I did feel like I was watching a projection TV.
The coloring was also off. While some of the primary colors (red for instance) seemed to jump off the screen, other more muted colors seemed washed out and muddy. The screen also seemed underlit with this system causing it difficult to see dark scenes.
The focus seemed really off on anything conventionally filmed, like I was watching an image of an image of an image. But on the digital effects things, there seemed to be perfect clarity, which at least for me just emphasized the problem even more.
My conclusion is that I don't have any desire to see anything else in DLP, save for something like a Pixar film. The presentation just isn't there.
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Geoff Jones
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 579
From: Broomfield, CO, USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 06-10-2007 06:20 PM
I saw Knocked Up in Digital Projection at the Petaluma Boulevard Cinemas (Auditorium 5, 9:40, 07/09/07). The screen was small but not tiny.
Their website proudly proclaims: "When the lights go down... we're commercial free!" Of course, this actually means that there are non-stop commercials from the moment you enter the theatre until the first trailer starts.
Before the movie, there was an incessant rumble from an auditorium next door (Pirates 3, I suspect). Fortunately, I only noticed this once during the movie.
There was a trailer for Digital Projection from Christie and another from Texas Instruments.
I noticed some jagged lines in some of the titles, especially during the trailers. And the end credits seemed to "blip" their way up the screen with a bit of blur.
Overall, the picture was ok. It was rock-solid steady, which was nice. The biggest negative I noticed was that frequently I could not see the difference between the pupils and irises in the actors' eyes. Instead of a black pupil surrounded by a blue or brown iris, there was just a large, dark blob. Unnerving.
Despite all the money sunk into fancy new digital projectors (which are out-of-date now that 4k is here), large portions of the picture were projected off of the screen onto the maskings, on all four sides. (This was most distracting on the right.) There was also a stain or seam running straight up the center of the bottom half of the screen that was noticable in bright scenes.
This was my first digital screening in a public theatre. (I saw The Phantom Menace projected digitally at the Stag in 1999).
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 06-11-2007 09:46 AM
When digital projection is set up properly it's not very easy to goof it up unless a member of the theater's staff is doing so deliberately. In the case of Carmike Cinemas, the booths are going to receive quite a bit more attention than they have in the past because of that service contract with Christie.
Goofed up settings are more likely to happen with a theater's sound system. That's one thing digital projection doesn't really address -although it's also my understanding Christie is supposed to be lending some support to Carmike in the audio area as well.
I have encountered theaters that were otherwise properly tuned but had employees who thought they knew better come back and fart with settings to make the room sound how they thought it should sound -always yielding worse results. ![[joe]](graemlins/joe.gif) has told me similar stories of meddling personnel "fixing" audio settings after they had already been fixed.
Here in Lawton the reaction to Carmike's digital projection has turned out to be pretty positive. I was told the Carmike 8 beat its competition (Dickinson's Central Mall 12 plex) by a significant margin, more than 1500 tickets, for the opening weekend of the newest Pirates movie. Both locations had the movie running on the same number of screens, 4 each. The mall theater had often boasted better attendance numbers in the past by virtue of its convenient location in the mall. But its presentation quality standards are low. My theory is a growing number of viewers are searching out theaters with better presentation quality standards at least when it comes to big event movies.
My main complaint with digital projection is the resolution standard is too low. There are times where I feel the picture quality is just a tad bit soft. I seem to notice the difference even more during the end credits of a movie, but then I'm used to looking at lettering and graphics all the time. 2K might be fine for some small theaters. But it's still just too close in sharpness level to 1080p HDTV.
I don't miss jitter, side weave and other negative problems that come with less than optimal film projection. Otherwise, the most obvious thing missing with digital is that hint of organic film grain you see swirling around on the screen when the projection focus is really dialed in sharp. Any grain you see with digital projection is all artificial -just dither from some post process filter. The rough film grain look in parts of 300 didn't translate over to 2K very well. Maybe that was a goof in the digital intermediate process. Whatever happened, it didn't look natural. Perhaps 4K could solve that -provided if Sony can get 4K to work really well and get other studios to adopt it.
Finally, another complaint I have with digital projection is not really a complaint about the projection itself. It's a complaint about the potential for the technology to allow poorly produced video content onto the screen.
I'll give you an example. Carmike has what I think is a pretty cheesy looking promotional spot for digital projection currently airing in its theaters. It's meant to show off the virtues of digital projection, but some of the video-originated material is so badly produced I think it does the opposite. The spot had the sort of feel I'm used to encountering with small market TV commercials. Even the logo on the spot was badly reproduced. The whole thing made me think of other terrible theater snipes, like United Artists' famed cartoony dinosaur trailer.
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Bret Abel
Film Handler
Posts: 5
From: Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Registered: Oct 2005
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posted 06-11-2007 01:59 PM
I was able to find Ebert's position from an article in Variety back from 1999. I would personally love to see some scientific evidence that backs up his alpha state/beta state claims... besides, if it's true, couldn't digital projectors somehow be designed to provide artificial "film-like flicker?"
quote:
Possibly the most important yet least quantifiable point that concerns film lovers is primarily emotional. Roger Ebert, the film critic I know who seems to have given all this the most thought, was telling anyone in Cannes who would listen that, although there is only sketchy science to back him up, film and electronic images reach different parts of the brain and therefore affect human beings in different ways. Very roughly speaking, film creates an alpha state of reverie due to its imperceptible flickering, therefore creating a more emotional and intense reaction Television, by contrast, creates a beta state that is constant and more hypnotic, which is why people can sit in front of the TV screen for hours at a stretch.
The hidden danger to the industry, therefore, is that, while digital projection will soon look just as rich and sharp and beautiful as 35mm film, its emotional and imaginative impact over the long term will not be the same. I am very aware that, whenever there has been a perceived threat to the theatrical motion picture business, the doomsayers have been proven wrong and that audiences have always demonstrated their need to share a communal entertainment experience with strangers. The difference this time is that, without even knowing what's happening, audiences might gradually absorb that the digital images they're watching in theaters are no different than what they see at home, that they're actually just watching TV with more people. And that could be the end of movies as we know them.
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![[fu]](graemlins/fu.gif)
who are in my opinion trying to kill the cinema experience, but there were many complaints about the low image quality of that film. So if Digital is not good enough, just degrade the film experience until nobody knows the difference any more!
![[dlp]](graemlins/dlp.gif)
presentation. (Not ragging on you Geoff) Cropping and "digital" masking are incredibly simple to set up on DLP, and rarely change afterwards.
![[thumbsdown]](graemlins/thumbsdown.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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