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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Why won't NATO push for 4K D-cinema?
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-25-2006 04:07 PM
quote: Lyle Romer
My question is, why isn't NATO pushing for 4K equipment which is clearly superior to anything available at home (or likely to be available to the masses within 15 years)? I realize the exibitors want D-cinema to save on payroll but it's going to take 3 or 4 years to convert anyway. Why not push for 4K and delay the rollout by a year or 2.
There's a time to wait and sit on your hands, and there's a time to bite the bullet and make an investment. Just like with any technology, whether it be computers or audio/video equipment, there will always be something better coming out "real soon now" and it will most likely be cheaper as well as higher performance.
For those theaters that want 4K now, they can have it if they want to buy from Sony. Buying 4K would probably add to the amount of useful life of the projector, but only if the industry moves in that direction in the useful lifetime of the projector, and only if the cost of buying 4K now isn't more than the cost of buying 2K now and 4K (or 6K/8K/etc.) later.
As Fithian said in his keynote, there is more to image quality than just resolution. 2K is already better than film just because of the lack of jump and weave. Any minor differences in "resolution" are outweighed by the fact that the image isn't doing a caffeine dance all over the screen. Other factors, like color saturation, grayscale tracking, lack of 3:2 pull-down, etc. make digital cinema better than home theater.
If the resolution isn't substantially better than HD in the home, don't market the resolution! That's Marketing 101.
One of the other points I got from the transcript of Fithian's keynote was that he hoped theaters wouldn't play the resolution game. Don't concern the customer with resolution figures, make the customer impressed with the image quality and the resolution won't mean a thing in the grand scheme of things.
You reach a point with technology where a certain level of performance is good enough to move forward with. Most people don't need digital cameras that are more than 4MP, and even digital camera manufacturers are backing off the constant megapixel upgrades because the higher resolution sensors create more issues than they solve, at least at the consumer-level price points.
Sure, it's possible to say that you're not going to buy into digital cinema until a certain performance criteria is met. What that threshold is is completely up to the one footing the bill. But if you wait forever for the next big thing on the horizon, you never get the benefits of pulling the trigger and getting on with life.
The 2K movies at Showest on a 55' screen were beautiful and better than the 35mm presentations in the same theater.
See 2K and 4K for yourself and then decide whether the difference is worth waiting for and/or worth paying extra for. I think that 2K is ready to go, and now all that matters is price and product.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 05-01-2006 01:06 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Even if you can keep theaters tight-lipped on slight resolution difference between D-Cinema and HDTV, how exactly do you stop the legions of electronic store salespeople from capitalizing on that slight difference?
It's pretty obvious when formats like Blu-Ray start showing off movies in true 1080p format (and the HDTVs accept that full 1080p signal) the electronics stores and even the electronics companies are going to proclaim their stuff is equal to movie theater quality. They'll just throw out the "digital" word to obscure the fine print numbers.
That's why theaters shouldn't concentrate on marketing that side of the movie-going experience over and above the benefits that it will provide their customers over their current setup or that of competitors.
The movie-going experience for the customer consists of everything between choosing to see a movie at a particular theater (web site, phone recording, newspaper ad, box office marquee) to stepping in the building, buying their tickets and snacks, using the bathroom, seeing the movie, and leaving the theater.
In my humble opinion, theaters need to concentrate on every single aspect of that experience and do the best job they possibly can in each of them. Theaters sell the package, they don't sell the picture quality alone.
DVD's have had Dolby Digital and DTS sound for a long time, just as theaters have. Did digital sound in the home bring about the complete downfall of the movie theater industry? No, but it probably hurt the theaters that had crappy sound, because customers started to realize just how crappy it was and demanded better.
When you're accustomed to watching movies in a home theater, things like jump and weave are incredibly annoying. Poor sound and poor picture are inexcusable, and so is poor customer service. Theaters should be able to do a better job of these things than what I can get in my home, not worse.
Bottom line: don't sell the picture resolution alone. Don't sell digital sound alone. Certainly, don't sell the $15 combo snacks package alone. Theaters need to sell the fact that when a customer comes to their theater, they get a great movie experience from beginning to end.
People still like to have things done for them, and they're willing to pay for the pleasure. But theaters have to earn it, they can't treat their customers like senseless cattle and expect the box office receipts to keep rolling in.
If 4K delivers a better picture than 2K, and that difference can be quantified in the additional business that a theater will make over the usable lifetime of that investment, great. They can buy from Sony and be happy. In my limited exposure to both 2K and 4K in the same theater, albeit with different material, and who knows what differences in preperatory work, I would head in the direction of buying 2K and spending the difference in cost on other things that would improve the movie-going experience.
That's all assuming that going to Digital Cinema in the first place is justified. If a particular theater is doing film right and there are no issues with picture quality, and there's no business reason for it, then don't invest in Digital Cinema. Last I checked, no one was holding a gun to anyone's head.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 05-01-2006 04:26 PM
To follow up my post, I thought of another way to approach the inevitable situation of having to compete with the perception that Digital Cinema = HDTV.
Aside from the fact that the average TV salesperson at a big box retailer shouldn't be trusted to tell someone the time much less provide information about complex subject like HDTV and home theater, it's probably inevitable that people will believe the clueless ramblings, which may even have a shred of fact and truth buried in it. It's possible...
Anyway, a theater investing in digital cinema should be prepared with information about what they believe makes the movie-going experience better than HDTV. Starting with picture quality and resolution is probably an obvious place to start, since the resolution and the names behind the digital sound formats are the common factors.
I haven't gone looking for the specifics yet, but the ones I can think of off the top of my head are:
- Video bitrates of Digital Cinema vs. HDTV
According to dcinematoday.com, D-Cinema (>=2K) is going to be > 30 Mb/s (whether that's audio & video or just audio, I don't know) - Easily measurable items such as contrast and brightness
State what the contrast and brightness targets are as specified by SMPTE - Digital Cinema runs at the same frame rate as film, so there's no judder caused by 3:2 pulldown
- the fact that (hopefully) the digital cinema setup has been calibrated by professionals for peak performance.
Very few people have their home theater equipment calibrated by professionals, while some will take the time to adjust some settings using a DVD like Video Essentials, and maybe a few more will at least use the THX Optimode patterns to make a few adjustments. Talk about the steps your theater goes through to assure that the performances are the best possible.
These are the types of things that could be placed on a theater's web site, and perhaps printed for staff to reference when needed.
Rather than just bash on theaters in general (like my previous message leaned toward), I'm hoping that the above starts a thought process of how to overcome the comments that may accompany a transition to Digital Cinema.
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 05-01-2006 11:57 PM
quote: Scott Jentsch
If a particular theater is doing film right and there are no issues with picture quality, and there's no business reason for it, then don't invest in Digital Cinema. Last I checked, no one was holding a gun to anyone's head.
Well, yes... that would be nice. However, a bunch of us independents are being told that we're likely to be left out of the grand, one-time studio financing handout, if we don't jump on the train... and do it RIGHT NOW!
With all of the questions surrounding Digital Cinema, the 14 answers to each of them (including all the uneducated speculation and inflated claims) and the motivations behind the sales hype, it's a very confusing world right now, and not a difficult one to be cynical about.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 05-02-2006 03:39 PM
According to this document:
http://www.dcimovies.com/DCI_Digital_Cinema_System_Spec_v1.pdf
On Page 25:
The maximum bitrate of a 2K distribution will be 250Mbps at 24fps and 250Mbps for 2K at 48fps.
Going to 4K at 24fps will still be only 250Mbps maximum.
Table 9 on page 52 shows the capacity that would be required by storage mechanisms, and it lists bit rates between 80-250Mbps. Section 7.5.3.6 dictates that the storage system be capable of providing a continuous stream of 307Mbps for compressed image, uncompressed audio, and subtitle data.
I believe that this bitrate includes audio & video, but someone please clarify if I'm wrong.
In comparison, the (broadcast) ATSC chosen scheme, 8VSB, limits the transmission bitrate to 19.38Mb/s. If channels do multi-casting, they have to divide up that bitrate. DirecTV provides what many people refer to as "HD-Lite" which is 1280x1080i instead of full 1920x1080i, and 1280x720p. This site even took some measurements to see what different shows and different channels were getting as far as bitrates, which measurements as low as 7.8Mbps (on Showtime no less) and as high as 18.1Mbps. I'm sure that cable does similar tricks to reduce the "burden" of providing HDTV to their customers.
I couldn't find a reference to the color depth of HDTV, BluRay, or HD-DVD, but since my understanding is that HDMI is limited to 12 bits per pixel, that would be a third of the 36 bits per pixel that the DCI spec calls for. Whether or not that difference can be discerned by the naked eye might be debatable, but there is a difference in the two specs. (Although Table 9 shows 12-bit, but I can't figure out the reason for the conflict, unless the reference to 12-bit was per-color)
One measurement that doesn't work in Digital Cinema's favor is contrast ratio. DCI specs 2000:1 minimum, and Christie's CP2000-X says that it's capable of ">2000:1 full field on/off" whereas many home theater projectors are capable of greater contrast ratios than that and actual measurements have borne out 4000-6500:1 ratios on some front projectors. Sony's KDS-R60XBR1 rear-projection unit was measured to have a contrast ratio of 13,330:1 max, with 3,100:1 in its most restricted iris mode. Whether or not the measured contrast ratio in most people's homes would approach that is debatable, but the same might be said for theaters as well (sconces, exit signs, open auditorium doors).
This is the just the video side of things, but another area of comparison is in the audio. The DCI spec allows for 16 uncompressed channels of 24 bit audio at 96kHz sampling rates. That's much better than any home theater system is capable of, even if you disregard the currently-unused channels.
So, I think there's quite a bit to tout a 2K digital cinema installation over HDTV and home theater. Plus, that's just the technology, which isn't the only thing theaters have to offer their customers.
Looking over the DCI spec makes me wonder how 2K at 48fps would stack up to 4K at 24fps on a reasonably-sized screen. Does anyone know what frame-rate the 2K releases are being done at?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 05-02-2006 06:14 PM
Just any movie, digital or not, is going to be shown at 24fps. That's how they're natively photographed.
As to bitrate limits of HD video formats, it's a moving target. Right now HDMI 1.1 is a bit of a liability. Several features of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD surpass the capability of that digital input/output spec. HDMI 1.1 doesn't allow 1080p signal transmission without some hackery (which Sony says they'll do for Playstation3). The new Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, DTS-HD and DTS-HD Master formats have all the capabilities of any D-Cinema sound format. However, HDMI 1.1 limits the bandwidth and number of channels on some of those formats. For instance, early HD-DVD players will not send out Dolby True HD signals over HDMI with anymore than 2 channels. Ugh!
Basically, anyone who hasn't already jumped on the HDTV bandwagon would be doing himself a huge favor by waiting until HDMI 1.3 is fully adopted across product lines.
Back to the D-Cinema bitrates.
I can understand why the 250Mb/s allowable bitrate max and physical overhead max of 307Mb/s is put into effect. You don't want to outstrip the physical capability of RAID systems on how many bits they can push through a data pipe. Over the next few years that number can certainly be raised quite a bit.
The part I find very disturbing is there seems to be little in the way of minimum bitrate standards. Frankly, that's the far more important number for me. It isn't what the system is capable of showing. What kind of quality is it actually showing in commercial practice?
If the movies are highly compressed and run at bitrates down in the same neighborhood as consumer formats, then the electronic store people can say whatever they want about their HDTV sets being equal.
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