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Author Topic: The end of the reel -- Examining the digitalization of film Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-20-2008 08:05 AM                     quote: Lyle Romer I think everybody knew this would be the case and that the alternate content thing was just marketing BS from the people pushing digital cinema. Lyle, You must be living in a cave! In fact the opera broadcasts that are run in many cities do sell out buisness with some sell outs in cities you'd never think anyone would attend! They are also now in the process of expanding the broadcasts and adding new locations, content. D-Cinema is but a few years old... film didn't offer much when it was the same age and comparatively D-Cinema is offering far more after just a few short years than film ever did. The best part about D-Cinema is that its guaranteed to keep people like you living in the cave . Mark  |  IP: Logged David Zylstra Master Film Handler Posts: 432 From: Novi, MI, USA Registered: Mar 2007 posted 05-20-2008 08:31 AM                     The live operas had a good first year splash - I hear this year attendance is dropping; still well attended, but not as good as last year (according to a friend of mine who manages a location that did the Met last year and this year) Currently the operas from the Met are limited to a few sites in each market - what happens if we double the number of locations showing them in each market? Personally I think the current attendance will just get spread thinner. A few other companies are putting out recorded operas (we have 3 sources for them) that are doing OK business - attendance is growing but still barely equal to our slowest films. I think the alternate content we need is live sporting events, access to some TV content (i.e. final American Idol episode), gaming and live operas/ballets/stage plays; but again - what happens when every theatre in town is showing the same alternate content? With digital cinema there will be easier access for young, indie filmmakers to exhibit their content - i.e. i they usually go straight to DVD why not premier the latest movie on the big screen before the DVD release? (we've done some of these with great success)  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 05-20-2008 10:39 AM                     quote: Lyle, You must be living in a cave! In fact the opera broadcasts that are run in many cities do sell out buisness with some sell outs in cities you'd never think anyone would attend! I'm not living in a cave and your statement makes my point. An opera might sell out ONE show every once in a while. If you showed the opera 5 shows a day all week it wouldn't sustain the business and to David's point, if the opera showed at all theaters in an area, none of them would do very well with the business spread out. We did a TON of business on the Hannah Montana 3D thing at one of our locations but then U2 did nothing. Last week we had a Josh Groban concert that also did very little (but it did more than the film we cancelled for it would have done on a Thursday night). The D-Cinema pushers market alternative content like it is going to revolutionize the business when in reality it is just an evolution of the business. NOW, if 4k production/projection would take hold so that the theater could be sold as having much better image quality than the home then it might revolutionize the business. I've never seen 4k but based on how good 2k digital projection does look I dare say that 4k produced movies projected in 4k would look better than 99% of 35mm does (even places doing film done right).  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-20-2008 11:32 AM                     Lyle, Its interesting that you think what you do. For the last NAB Convention in Vegas Sony had produced a very costly 4K 3-D demo film to run on their new VW Bus sized 4K 3-D projector. Sony couldn't get it to run so it was run on the Christie 2K 3-D stacked system that was sitting right next to Sony's equipment. No one at NAB except the Christie folks and Sony knew it ran in 2K on Christie's gear and no one at NAB that waas expecting to see a 4K presentation complained! A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to run D-Cinema on an 82X60 foot screen from 4K 15/70 scans. Not only was the image from the single CP-2000S twice as bright than the existing (and aging Iwerks) 15/70 system the digital image was also prefered by the people whom were also very familiar with the 15/70 film that attended the demo. Needless to say the film system is going bye-bye! Personally I wouldn't waste my time seeing most of the live broadcast stuff. Some of the opera stuff perhaps but so far they haven't offered anything of my interest and t sounds like the same story for those in your area. But overall most of it does very well. Mark  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 05-27-2008 02:43 PM                        Opera, oh dear God save me from having to sit though opera every again!  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-09-2008 12:18 PM                        Did my semi-annual opposition research this weekend and saw Iron Man at the Rave Festival theatre here. Gotta say, totally underwhelmed by the digital projection (Christie/AccessIT). Yes, even illumination and steady picture with no dirt or scratches, but the picture was underlit, the depth of focus was shallow and the colors flat. No pop to it at all. Worse, there was perceptible color fringing, especially in high contrast situations. Jeff Bridges head looked like someone outlined it with a fine point red pen. The average moviegoer may not notice it specifically, but they would probably detect subliminally that something is wrong. I can't believe at the beginning of the summer season they are running with old bulbs, so maybe this is the way it looks all the time. I'll admit is was brighter than the last film I saw there in 35mm, but not too much. I don't have a light meter, but if they are getting 16fl, I must be getting 20fl on my screen. And their pre-show infotainment was shown on some crappy video projector with source material that looked like VHS. Love the scanlines guys. On the plus side, the sound was too low to hear. Just some observations from the Real World, Southern Division;>  |  IP: Logged David Zylstra Master Film Handler Posts: 432 From: Novi, MI, USA Registered: Mar 2007 posted 06-09-2008 04:15 PM                     There may be some out there that are not sticking to proper standards and set the light level too low in an attempt to economize (14FL is the standard for digital, I've heard some say they think 10FL is good enough, present company excluded of course). Sounds like at this particular venue any content (digital or 35mm) may be compromised. I'll watch Iron Man again at my place to see if I can detect the color fringing you saw around Jeff Bridges' head - I don't remember seeing any issues the first time. [ 06-09-2008, 08:46 PM: Message edited by: David Zylstra ]  |  IP: Logged

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