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Topic: Showplace Cinemas, Evansville, IN. Going Digital

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-26-2007 10:55 AM

I was talking to a nephew who was home from college for Thanksgiving. He said he didn't notice any huge difference from the digital conversion in the theatres he had attended (in Utah). I said, "Good...that means they were doing a good job with film."

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-26-2007 12:07 PM

I don't know how you come to that percentage, Mark, but they just put in a 18plex here in Brooklyn and one of those high-end, creature comfort multiplexes with waiter service and gourmet food, etc., and I must say that in both of these operations, the film presentation is top notch, and both have only one and two digital screens respectively. They don't seem to find the need to go full tilt digital. Maybe that's because their film presentation is as good as their digital, giving them no advantage in terms of audience preference.

I don't know what theatres you go to that you can make that statement, but either the theatres where you live are just generally very badly run or you are simply exagerating because here in Brooklyn (not Manhattan where you'd expect top draw presentation) and out on Long Island, I challenge you to find any significant number of movie-goers who can tell the difference between digial and film presentations, certainly not enough to perfer one over the other. And I come by THAT statement by talking to my patrons and to managers, many of them are my personal friends. Perhaps you are making your conclusion based on the theatres that you service, which would be the theatres that are having problems. However you come to that percentage/conclusion, I don't think it's valid.

Saying that 80% of ALL theatres suffer from "incredibly poor" film presentation starts to sound a lot less like a measured, unbiased technical observation and more like more of the same digital hype that we've all heard ad nausium from the people who sell and will profit from digital -- you know, the stuff that sounds like it's coming from a used car salesman, and with about as much credibility.

If you want the world to embrace digital, it won't happen by pissing on film -- it just alienates people who have worked with film their entire careers and who normally would approach new technology with open minds. All that denegrating film just slams those minds shut.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 11-26-2007 12:57 PM

I must live in my FILM fantasy world. There is no scratch or jump or bad focus in any theatre where we work; 90% have Dolby Digital and the rest are SR. All are JBL on speakers and amplifiers are typically functioning at 0.010% distortion or better.

While we have a couple of "average" operators; most care about damage & presentation. Yes, I must live/work in that area where 100% of the good 20% Mark mentions.

Digital to our customer's customers is something that puzzles them since it looks the same, except darker. Louis

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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

posted 11-26-2007 08:54 PM

The other fantasy about all this is perfect digital presentations...about all that they can be guaranteed is that they are scratch free....however misformated has already been reported here. It appears that light levels do indeed vary quite a bit and exhibitors still try to avoid changing a lamp until it won't strike....yes digital presentations with dark/flickery lamps...exhibitors are still exhibitors. Most of the digital specs for lamp life also are based on 1.8 gain screens...who is putting those in? A 1.8 gain screen requires it to be curved for even illumination...digital or film. 3-D digital also does yet even more hand-waving with the overall light specs...kiss 14fL good bye.

Another thing that has been mis-represented is the lamp costs...sure Christie had their CDXL line...they cost SIGNIFICATNLY more than their CXL versions. A preception of flicker-free presentations is much less tolerant in digital due to the lack of shutter than with film. Realistic life expectancies are sill longer with film and thus the cost/hr to operate film remains less.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-27-2007 08:44 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
I said, "Good...that means they were doing a good job with film."

Actually there are just one or two locations still showing film in SLC. The Holliday 6 screener is too far from any of the Colleges for him to have visited and the Cinemark 24 screener which is way southwest of town in West Jordon is about the only location still running all film(ok they have one digital system there). So Mike I think what you meant to say was they it means the digital here is so good he mis-took it for film.

quote: Louis Bornwasser
I must live in my FILM fantasy world. There is no scratch or jump or bad focus in any theatre where we work; 90% have Dolby Digital and the rest are SR. All are JBL on speakers and amplifiers are typically functioning at 0.010% distortion or better.

So Louis.. I guess you must be striking IB prints for all your locations so they are perfectly steady, or your locations only play RP-40! Todays typical high speed contact print is barely passable in the steadiness department frequently not even meeting SMPTE standards for picture jump.

While many of your locations are SRD what about all those CP-45's you sold that don't have "Real SR"?

And the Ashly power amps that I also like are very clean but what about those JBL's that typically approach 12% to 15% harmonic distortion on the lower octaves? Those clean Ashleys don't really matter much do they... but the JBL commission check at the end of the year is certainly nice! Sorry, but there are better speakers to be selling with far lower distortion and better build quality that don't cost your customer very much more for the extra return in performance.

A fantasy world we do live in especially when we've fooled ourselves and our customers into thinking some of the things we do. In my world neither film nor digital is perfect and both still have too many ways to set yourself up for disaster. Digital has an excuse... its still a baby... with film there is no excuse after 100 years!

Mark

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-27-2007 10:44 AM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
So Mike I think what you meant to say was they it means the digital here is so good he mis-took it for film.

No, actually what I meant to say was "Las Vegas" instead of "Utah." (Got two of my nephews mixed up) He's been there for about 3 years so he's seen film and digital presentations in the same theatres.

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 11-27-2007 02:14 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
there are just one or two locations still showing film in SLC. The Holliday 6 screener is too far from any of the Colleges for him to have visited and the Cinemark 24 screener which is way southwest of town in West Jordon is about the only location still running all film(ok they have one digital system there).

did the tower theater close or go digital? i think i remember them renting videos in the lobby as well when i stopped in 10 years ago.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-27-2007 04:47 PM

The Tower is still there and it is still as usual very much a dump. Strictly art fair and they do on occasion run digital but machines have been brought in for that. If a movie plays there that I want to see I prefer to wait for it on video.

Mark

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Thomas Pitt
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Registered: May 2007

posted 11-28-2007 01:25 AM

In the UK, the uptake of digital cinema seems to have been much slower than in the US. Most multiplexes have only one or two screens that are equipped for digital projection; the rest are film-only. Many cinemas don't have any digital projection equipment at all!

I've always found that digitally projected movies are a bit too good... there's no bob or weave, no film scratches (unless they were present on the original camera negative), and often a sharper picture. Plus, they never start out of frame or need refocusing! However, depending on how close to the screen you are, you can often see the individual pixels on a digitally projected movie. I have only ever seen 2.5 digital movies in my life (the .5 being Beowulf where the sound screwed up; see my other post) - and have been really impressed by the picture quality.

Having said that though, film presentations can look really good as well. Sometimes, the bob and weave you see on the screen is not the fault of the projector; the movie is actually printed like that! One time I was watching a movie and the BBFC card came up... it was so steady and 'clean' that I had to look back and make sure it hadn't switched over to digital! [Big Grin]

At least the majority of movies I go to, they do manual starts and the projectionist checks framing and focus (adjusting if necessary) during the first few seconds.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-28-2007 08:17 AM

And just to squash Mr. Guttags idea that D-Cinema may go nowhere before it gets somewhere the "Cinema Buyers Group" is now 8200 members strong and has received proposals back from 4 vendors which include... Acess-IT, Technicolor, Kodak, and one other whose name escapes me at the moment. They are indeed still aiming for a 10K per booth cost to the exhibitor, the remainder to be paid for in virtual print fees. Yep! Those don't seem to be going away like he claimed either. To top that off Acess-IT has received approval for financing for another 10,000 screens of digital cinema. I would imagine that also means that T.I. will also be seeing better sales in the DLP Chip department that he claims is doing so woefully poor. Oddly enough Sony doesn't appear in this game plan anyplace at this point in time.

Somehow D-Cinema all seems to be falling right into place...

Mark

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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

posted 11-28-2007 09:27 AM

Mark...you may spout what you want...but CBG thus far is installing nothing and TI will NEVER make its numbers from DCinema and A/V venues, combined. Take your 18000 screens...that amounts to 54,000 chips...TI needs annual sales in excess of 1,000,000...even if the entire industry switched tomorrow...it would never make for 1,000,000 in annual sales (and that is the threshold, not the goal).

People that are throwing their money at DCinema are paying a preminum for no more ticket sales...it makes no sense from a business stand point. And at the end of the day...you STILL have an inferior system.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-28-2007 11:23 AM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
"Cinema Buyers Group" is now 8200 members strong and has received proposals back from 4 vendors which include... Acess-IT, Technicolor, Kodak, and one other whose name escapes me at the moment.

I believe the missing name is Digeserv. CBG actually received proposals from 10 vendors but narrowed it down to the short-list of four.

quote: Steve Guttag
And at the end of the day...you STILL have an inferior system.

I think that a huge majority of the audience would not think digital is inferior. I think most people would say that it looks as good as film, or better if they even notice a difference. I've only seen 3 or 4 digital movies, and while I can't say I love the way it looks (I guess maybe I like a little bit of unsteadiness?) I have to admit that it looks good. Different. But good. I also have to believe that by the time it works its way to our neck of the woods, even more improvements will have been made.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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

posted 11-28-2007 12:35 PM

Mike...by not as good, I'm speaking of the physical numbers of resolution, color rendition and contrast. There is a very 2-D look to digital images...it isn't that the images are not sharp, they really can be but the resolution is about half of what the 1.85 film image is...as such there is just less information there (speaking of 2K).

Would most customers think it is worse?...probably not...but why would you spend significantly more money in the near and far term to get a customer base that doesn't see a significant improvement that would result in increased ticket sales? It isn't like 70mm when you had a slam-dunk improvement in the show combined with an exclusivity that allowed those exhibitors so equipped to get more than their fair share of the pie.

Steve

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-28-2007 01:04 PM

Steve - All true, but if the studios eventually stop making film (as we know they want to...don't they?) and if the audiences think digital looks fine, then it becomes more of a financial decision for the theatre owner. There's also the fact of how fast technology is progressing...in 20 years, we'll probably look back on "2k" and laugh as we watch movies in 256k or whatever.

The big thing I have always wondered about (and nobody has ever addressed) is what about upgrades in 10 years when all this new equipment has been vastly outdated? Even if the studios extend the VPFs for a while, they won't extend forever. At some point, the cost of systems has to drop dramatically.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-28-2007 03:53 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
Mark...you may spout what you want...but CBG thus far is installing nothing

I hardly think any vendor is going to turn down installing 8200 screens worth of gear! Wait till Showorst, they should be gearing up by then to actually start doing the installs...

quote: Steve Guttag
Mike...by not as good, I'm speaking of the physical numbers of resolution, color rendition and contrast.

Steve..... this is usless... we all understand that but the public doesn't. This is something that a very tiny percentage of today's movie goers even know about or stop to think about. Indeed the studios have even put all that gobbildigook on the back burner a long time ago... not that I like it either.

quote: Steve Guttag
There is a very 2-D look to digital images...it isn't that the images are not sharp, they really can be but the resolution is about half of what the 1.85 film image is...as such there is just less information there (speaking of 2K).

Well, I definately don't see the 2-D aspect weighning into Digital projection unless its done very poorly.... film done poorly is actually far worse with its scratches, dust, and splices. I find good digital projection to more closely resemble the look of dailies... or to have a look much closer to the negative itself.... indeed today most films in production screen their stuff digitally if they bother to screen it at all. I actually find good digital to be more 3-D ish myself and have grown to prefer a good digital screening to the every day film screening. The sound is also superior.

I feel that digital has a more a perceived sharpness(even thought its not really there) by the general public and viewing audience because essentially a dirty window has been removed from in front of the image(scratches, dirt, and splices).It would be very interesting to conduct a psychological study into what pople perceive when watching digital vs. film.

quote: Mike Blakesley
Even if the studios extend the VPFs for a while, they won't extend forever. At some point, the cost of systems has to drop dramatically.

Well also ask yourself what will your desktop computer look like in 15 years??? It will more than likely be residing in your cell phone along with your GPS. So in 15 years whats a digital projector and server going to look like? Once you know that answer then you can tell what the cost will be. Myself... in 15 years I think as far as image projection goes that the Xenon Lamp will be obsoleted by lasers of some sort. The server, what ever that will look like or if we even need one... will be built into the projector and it will occupy 1/6th the space that the typical D-Cinema system occupies today.

Mark

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