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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Digital Cinema Forum   » Digital film revolution poised to start rolling (Page 2)

 
This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3   
Author Topic: Digital film revolution poised to start rolling
Bruce Hansen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 847
From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA
Registered: Dec 1999

- posted 05-19-2005 06:31 PM      Profile for Bruce Hansen   Email Bruce Hansen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Same hype, different day.

If you have ever gone to a corporate meeting, you know people are seated at tables, and there is a stage. This is not going to happen at a theater. Most big companies have satellite networks, or at least computer networks, and don't need to bus people to a theater.

If a theater does not show a movie one night, in order to show alternative content, they will be turning away people who came to see that movie, and those people may never come back.

I still question the "cost savings" of digital. The studios may not want to so over satellite, if their scrambling system is broken, they are screwed. High speed land lines may well cost more than making 35MM prints. Shipping hard drives to every screen in the country, not to mention dumping the data onto them in the first place? That's just silly.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

- posted 05-19-2005 06:45 PM      Profile for Mike Blakesley   Author's Homepage   Email Mike Blakesley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I think the dream of every DC wonk is to 'beam' the content into the theatre's system a few minutes before the first scheduled showtime from a satellite.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

- posted 05-19-2005 06:58 PM      Profile for David Stambaugh   Author's Homepage   Email David Stambaugh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Bruce Hansen
Shipping hard drives to every screen in the country, not to mention dumping the data onto them in the first place? That's just silly.

No more "silly" than, say, shipping 7 reels of heavy film to each of the 3600+ screens showing "Star Wars". [evil]

Shipping the feature on a pluggable (and re-usable) hard drive with a cost of maybe $100 doesn't seem silly when compared to printing 25,000+ reels of film (Episode 3: 7 reels x 3600 screens = 25,200 reels of film), at a cost of $2000+ per complete print.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

- posted 05-20-2005 12:10 AM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
But therein lies the problem...

quote:
Shipping the feature on a pluggable (and re-usable) hard drive with a cost of maybe $100 doesn't seem silly when compared to printing 25,000+ reels of film (Episode 3: 7 reels x 3600 screens = 25,200 reels of film), at a cost of $2000+ per complete print.
Just look at the current state of shipping reels we are all dealing with. Now imagine just for a moment what will happen a year down the road when these hard drives containing the new movies start failing. BLAM! Show after show is lost, and pre-screenings become more and more important to look for data glitches.

It would indeed be smarter to send them out on DVD-ROMs and let each theater maintain their own hard drives and be responsible for loading them up. Then the DVDs can simply be tossed in the trash when the engagement is over.

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Dominic Espinosa
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1172
From: California, U.S.A.
Registered: Jan 2004

- posted 05-20-2005 03:47 AM      Profile for Dominic Espinosa   Email Dominic Espinosa   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Brad Miller
It would indeed be smarter to send them out on DVD-ROMs and let each theater maintain their own hard drives and be responsible for loading them up. Then the DVDs can simply be tossed in the trash when the engagement is over.
Or your dvd-wallet because it's only a matter of time before the copy protection is broken.

Who will they blame when HD copies are circulating on the internet and in back streets across the globe?

Moreover, you can't trust a hard disk no matter how old it is.
I've had drives dead within a week and dead within 10 years before.

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Ian Bailey
Master Film Handler

Posts: 317
From: Nambucca Heads, Australia
Registered: Jun 2003

- posted 05-20-2005 07:51 AM      Profile for Ian Bailey   Email Ian Bailey   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Well I hope all you negative people refuse to take on D-Cinema,3D and Alternative content when it does happen and when it does revive the industry.Maybe you guys can start stockpiling 35mm prints so you will have something to do when the rest of us are moving ahead with the new technology.
It is so easy to be negative.If all you negative guys actually took the time to somehow participate in this transition in a positive way it would probably happen quicker with less teething problems.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

- posted 05-20-2005 10:06 AM      Profile for Mike Blakesley   Author's Homepage   Email Mike Blakesley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Here's one solution to hacking of "DVD-ROMs": make theatrical digital "prints" on a different size (bigger) disk than a regular DVD. That would have two advantages: The theatrical disk would look different (i. e. cooler) than the standard consumer disk in the media coverage, and Joe Hacker couldn't just pop it into his computer DVD drive and copy the files.

How come nobody else thinks of these seemingly simple concepts besides us film-techers?

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

- posted 05-20-2005 10:19 AM      Profile for Lyle Romer   Email Lyle Romer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Minor thread drift, but why not develop compression schemes (both audio and video) for DC which are specifically designed so that when they are captured and recompressed in consumer formats, they no longer play (or look/sound really bad).

I'm sure there must be a way to accomplish this. Maybe not to the point of making the bootleg unwatchable, but at least maybe it can be made to be annoying enough that people won't want to watch.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

- posted 05-20-2005 11:15 AM      Profile for David Stambaugh   Author's Homepage   Email David Stambaugh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I know all about the failure rate of hard drives. Current drives are pretty robust though, and if packed properly in hardshell cases lined with lots of foam rubber, they could probably take a pretty good beating and still survive. Theater gets a bad drive, hey, they order a new one, just like they order a replacement reel now if one is bad.

Maybe ship using 3 drives in a RAID-5 configuration. Then loss of any 1 drive doesn't stop the show.

Just thinking out loud. The idea that using hard drives, or DVDs, or some other physical media is any sillier than shipping reels of film just hit me as, well, silly. [evil]

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

- posted 05-20-2005 12:54 PM      Profile for Tim Reed   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The "alternative content" thing has been tried even earlier, with resounding failure. Anyone hear of "RCA Theatre Television"? This was before all of America had TVs in their homes, too. So, not only could audiences see live prize fights or Uncle Milty on the big screen, but the novelty aspect was present and it still failed.

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

- posted 05-20-2005 01:57 PM      Profile for Richard Fowler   Email Richard Fowler   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
RCA theater television also cost $250,000.00 in 1952 dollars. It produced a stunning [Razz] 600 lumen output with a 2 footlambert image on a 15 x 20 foot screen. It was a light weight [Roll Eyes] 2400 pound (1090KG) system....any of today's under $1000.00 4 pound video projectors would blow this away with color at no additional cost. [Cool] I know a retired service tech who first job was to maintain these on rentals in the early 1950's...several hours tweeking for every hour of use. Very few where produced........

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

- posted 05-20-2005 06:40 PM      Profile for Darryl Spicer     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I have a feeling it may come down to networking it into theatres. Most likely using the highest level encryption that may be updated every so often so as to prevent anyone from getting a good hold onto the ability to break the encryption. I doubt it will involve satellite transmission since there are some risks and I am not sure about cost. Probably will involve advanced fiber optic transmission of some sort. There is some new technology that I can't remember what it was called but from what I understand they claim that it will be able to transmit gigabytes of information in a mater of minutes. If that is so that would make transmitting information to a server of some sort at a theatre rather easy to do and maintain. That is pretty much my theory on it.

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

- posted 05-21-2005 09:24 PM      Profile for Tim Reed   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Richard Fowler
RCA theater television also cost $250,000.00 in 1952 dollars.
That didn't keep people out of the theatres that installed it.

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

- posted 05-22-2005 10:11 AM      Profile for Richard Fowler   Email Richard Fowler   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The RCA system required a hookup to a coaxial line for programming, no system for program storage or repeat playback. My old tech friend said most of the rentals where pay for view live events.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

- posted 05-22-2005 08:44 PM      Profile for John Hawkinson   Email John Hawkinson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
If shipping on hard drives is actually productionized, I expect that theatres will copy the entire feature off of the shipping drives onto their production equipment before running the feature. That eliminates the problems of premature failure because of shipping trauma. Shipping on multiple DVDs has got to be a pain in the neck to load.

(And, of course, there are no issues with extra "copies." This stuff is all encrypted...)

I do agree that in the far-future high-speed networking will lead the way, but I doubt we'll be there in 5-10 years.

--jhawk

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