Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: I'm curious to know why many on Film-Tech seem to be so negative on digital cinema

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Digital Cinema Forum » I'm curious to know why many on Film-Tech seem to be so negative on digital cinema (Page 7)

This topic comprises 18 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 16 17 18

Author

Topic: I'm curious to know why many on Film-Tech seem to be so negative on digital cinema

Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-30-2008 04:31 PM

Kinoton has in my experience not been expensive to maintain and as for the issue of release prints well if a shaky print is on a shaky projector would just be worse

| IP: Logged

Cameron Glendinning
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 845
From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia
Registered: Dec 2005

posted 07-30-2008 04:38 PM

quote: Scott Norwood
Edit: why does uncompressed digital sound require new speakers? I can point to lots of theatres that run uncompressed digital (non-sync CD player) through A7s and A4s.

Non compressed audio will provide the sound mixers and filmmakers with the ability to produce better more dynamic mixes with a more realistic sound.

Altec voice of the theater speakers are better designed and sound better (if well maintained)than the standard bass refex box designs now commonly found in cinemas (in my opinion).

| IP: Logged

Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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

posted 07-30-2008 09:28 PM

Oh please...uncompressed audio needing more power? Come now. It is all about dynamic range of the format, not the compression algorythms. 105dBc is 105dBc...whatever the source was...analog, compressed digital or uncompressed digital. Oh, any my A4 and A5 installations have yet to have a single problem with any digital audio thrown their way. Size the system according to the room volume and you aren't going to have a problem. Now if they decide the -20dBFS should correspond to 95dBc rather than 85dBc...then yes...there will be power issues around.

Whereas most theatres don't play their movies at reference as it is, this really won't be a problem.

Demetris, Kinoton's platter is only available in 230VAC so I guess Christie is entitled! Then again, the Kinoton platter will run on 208VAC (typical in the States when powered by a panel that offers 3-Phase power, as well).

Oddly enough, their make up tables are offered in various voltages...just not the platter itself.

One thing Kinoton does do for their projectors is provide an Autoformer to turn your Country's voltage to the needed 230VAC.

"E" stands for Excellent. In truth, the electricity saved based on 2008 electric prices in the States results in the return-on-investment at about 3-years, presuming a typically full schedule all year.

And if a Kinoton E projector is "expensive" then DCinema projectors are out of this world expensive! They are also cheaper to maintain. What do they need? Belts every few years (they don't blow through them as fast as others). One would think that DCinema machines would be cheap to service but some of those filter prices are out of this world!

I think the frequency of film projectors stuttering on the screen or freezing up are also less than their Digital counterparts. Generally speaking...when a film projector does have one of those situations...the operator had a hand in causing it. So I guess you either have people occasionally screwing up or machines randomly screwing up.

Steve

| IP: Logged

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-30-2008 11:57 PM

Ah, I forgot about the KDM messiness. So the keys are based on both the server and the projector, such that swapping either one requires a new key? Will distributors provide two keys for one screen which has two servers and/or projectors?

As for software RAID, I've set up dozens of Sun machines with software mirroring (Disksuite) in datacenter environments without difficulty. It's more reliable than RAID-5 and offers better read performance, with very little overhead. For many applications, this is preferable. Check out zfs, too.

| IP: Logged

Todd McCracken
Master Film Handler

Posts: 263
From: Northridge, CA, USA
Registered: Mar 2008

posted 07-31-2008 12:16 AM

KDM's are associated with the player only. The only exception is the Sony 4k units as the player is built into the projector.
KDM use has nothing to do with the projector as far as the kdm being valid.

| IP: Logged

Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 07-31-2008 12:40 AM

Currently we get KDM's for every screen in the complex. These no longer come on 'thumb drives' but are dropped directly into the LMS/players. We haven't had a KDM issue in months and have never had a lost show due to a KDM issue.

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-31-2008 08:25 AM

quote: Steve Guttag
Oh please...uncompressed audio needing more power? Come now. It is all about dynamic range of the format, not the compression algorythms. 105dBc is 105dBc...whatever the source was...analog, compressed digital or uncompressed digital. Oh, any my A4 and A5 installations have yet to have a single problem with any digital audio thrown their way. Size the system according to the room volume and you aren't going to have a problem. Now if they decide the -20dBFS should correspond to 95dBc rather than 85dBc...then yes...there will be power issues around.

Yep! If you check out many specs of different gear... not just D-Cinema 24 bit uncompressed playback you'll arrive at around 109db to 111 as I did for D to A playback. Hence most of our later installs have much higer headroom.

No argument on your Altecs at all nor was I inferring they couldn't. so I'm not sure what you're flying off the hook about here. I was referring to typical old Altecs....A5 and A7 and EV and JBL for that matter and so on that have been sitting behind screens for decades. Hence what I said about it depends on the drivers and condition and so on. Out here where it is bone dry even the better made accordion type paper surrounds dry out and fall apart.

Sorry, I just feel it irresponsable to worship something based on the Euro in this day and age... you can worship it all you want to though. The several hundred they may sell isn't going to help the world's electricity shortages at all, especially when xenon switchers are already as high in efficiency as they are... or are you still using old iron core stuff with your new E series installs?

quote: Steve Guttag
I think the frequency of film projectors stuttering on the screen or freezing up are also less than their Digital counterparts. Generally speaking...when a film projector does have one of those situations...the operator had a hand in causing it. So I guess you either have people occasionally screwing up or machines randomly screwing up.

We have people constantly screwing up out here as do most of the other "mainstream" areas in the country. The main problem is help... they don't stay around more than a few months at best for the most part.

Freezes out here especially in the Dolby equipped booths are basically an odd happening these days. If theaters you're servicing are experiencing lots of freeze/studdering problems why not offer to help them straighten it out and improve their persentation? Thats certainly what I'd be doing as its for the better of the good. As far as I'm concerned you're barking up the wrong tree in regards to what is now a pretty old issue and I think F-T Member Mike Renlund would agree. I definately know that he's less likely to see any digital related problem than he is film related problem, he maintains close to 50 D-Cinema Systems for Megaplex here in the SLC area... all Dolby based and is also Dolby D-Cinema Beta test site.

Mark

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-31-2008 09:42 AM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Yep! If you check out many specs of different gear... not just D-Cinema 24 bit uncompressed playback you'll arrive at around 109db to 111 as I did for D to A playback. Hence most of our later installs have much higer headroom.

Lossy Dolby Digital and SDDS could encode 20-bit and even 24-bit material. Some rather wild db claims were tossed about in the early 1990s.

On average, audio remains to be a really bad problem with lots of commercial movie theaters. Sound systems aren't adjusted and maintained like they should be. And digital cinema is doing very little to address that, regardless of the uncompressed LPCM 5.1 audio. Matters are made even worse by Hollywood's never changing, stupid habit of mixing movie trailers louder than the main feature. When a theater's sound system suffers blown speaker drivers I really have to wonder if the stupidly loud movie trailers are the culprit instead of the main feature.

| IP: Logged

Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
Master Film Handler

Posts: 405
From: Canton, MI, USA
Registered: Oct 2007

posted 07-31-2008 10:04 AM

Bobby, not to get off topic, but I have noticed lately that features are mixed just about as absurdly loud as trailers. It started with Iron Man, when I had to turn my CP650 in my biggest house down from 4.8 to 4.6 for the feature, and, with the exception of Wall-E, which was right back at 4.8, things have only gotten worse the past few months, leading me to the 4.3 fader setting I'm at now with Dark Knight.

| IP: Logged

Christian Appelt
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 505
From: Frankfurt, Germany
Registered: Dec 2001

posted 07-31-2008 11:16 AM

Mark Gulbrandsen wrote

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Duh! Europe still turns out pretty good release prints unlike the junk the US and Canadian labs turn out. So I would expect them to embrace such an improvement. Indeed they could see a difference.

Unfortunately, NO.

I have not seen an excellent 35mm release print of an American movie in years. Once or twice a year a decent print appears, and most releases are really bad.

I can speak for German releases only, but since mass prints come from the same few labs for many countries on the continent, I assume they are as bad as those I saw.

Printer weave, improper dupe printing to make mass production for worldwide day-and-date opening possible, bad DIs and extreme color fluctuations between the reels are trademarks of labs like Technicolor Rome or Rank in GB. Great films like LOTR or the Harry Potter series are released in grainy, out-of-focus, sub-16mm quality. The time issue is even more critical than with US releases because they need time to dub and mix the soundtracks for different language versions.

I am truly depressed about the low quality of cinema presentation in the last two decades, and I don't think I could stand it if I couldn't see good quality prints (vintage prints and sometimes studio prints) in cinematheque-type situations and special screenings like the annual Todd-AO festival at Karlsruhe.

Inferior print quality is death to film-based presentation because audiences do not longer expect better image quality from theatres than they can have at home. Sound - maybe, but no visual advantage.

Beginning in the 1980s (parallel to duping and release printing getting worse every year), the style of international cinematography has changed too. It served the purpose of TV, home video and DVD releases, (long lenses, flat depth of field, soft focus) but offered little or no special experience any more in the theatre (excepting of course visual effects).

To sum it up: Movies from all parts of the world tend to look more similiar, are less produced than post-produced and do not look better (except bigger) than their home releases.

Friends who regularly go to film festivals tell me that they always try to see pictures in EK prints before they get butchered in release printing...

I believe that technically digital cinema could look better than most of today's release prints. But I don't believe that people who try to save pennies (or c€nts) by squeezing the last hours from a dark, flickering xenon bulb will care the least bit about maintaining digital equipment. I expect to see any defects permanently on a certain screen unless it means cancelling the show. We will see what happens when the present brand-new installations get older than two or three years.

| IP: Logged

Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 07-31-2008 07:24 PM

There are a lot of comments here about the deficiencies of digital cinema as compared to film presentation. Inferior color, contrast, resolution, etc. But most of these comments seem to pertain to optimal conditions using high quality prints projected by the best projection set-ups. I can appreciate that. However many of these optimal conditions do not exist in the average cinema.

But it also seems that digital cinema would offer the average movie goer in the average cinema a more consistent presentation. Whether it's because prints would no longer get dusty and scratch or the theatre would no longer be showing poorly produced release prints.

Setting aside preference based on the best case scenarios, do you think digital cinema is ready for the average cinema or do you still think film is the better choice in the average cinema.

| IP: Logged

Geoff Jones
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 579
From: Broomfield, CO, USA
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 07-31-2008 09:27 PM

quote: Justin Hamaker
do you think digital cinema is ready for the average cinema or do you still think film is the better choice in the average cinema

What is the goal? Is the goal to improve an "average" presentation?

Ok, how much would it cost to buy and maintain a digital projector?

Now figure out how much it would cost to improve an "average" 35mm presentation.

What would be required? A little extra training for booth employees? A pay raise to retain them? An investment in better 35mm hardware? A bottle of Film-Guard? A new bulb to replace the dim one that should have been replaced months ago?

In my admittedly uninformed opinion, a theatre with an average presentation could easily be improved with very little cost.

One of biggest complaints I hear about is talking. How much would it cost to send an employee into the theatre at the start of the show to welcome the audience and remind them that they will be thrown out if they disrupt the movie? How much would it cost to send in an employee every 15 minutes to enforce that?

I don't hear a lot of complaints about scratches or dust. Most films aren't in theatres long enough for that to even be a problem.

If the goal isn't to improve the presentation from "average," but is rather to save money by cutting staff, then I dunno. Maybe digital is the way to go. In that case, I'll stay home and watch movies on MY digital projector. I'll be sad, but I'll also be damn sure that the bulb is plenty bright, there are no marks on the screen, the volume is adjusted correctly and no one is talking on their phone.

(None of this is meant as a direct comment on your operation, btw, just my perceptions of general presentation problems.)

Geoff

| IP: Logged

Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-31-2008 09:45 PM

A theatre is in business to make money
and most theatres I know many with well above par sound and pix have said they will just close leaving large territories without cinema entertainment as it is not viable to convert without giving up the control and business model that is currently profitable for them
Also on the contrast ratio issue and houselights no theatre I know will change there house light level for d cinema if they wouldn't for there film presentation

| IP: Logged

Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 07-31-2008 10:51 PM

The bottom line is that the digital revolution is being pushed by the distributors so they can (eventually, after the virtual print fee subsidies expire) save millions of dollars on each release in print cost.

If a print cost $1000 on average (I'm guessing here as to the distributor's actual cost), a "limited release" 2000 print run will cost $2,000,000. For the 4000 theater, 10,000 print releases, it's costing $10,000,000 per release or so (more if they do a simultaneous international release).

Suffice it to say that print cost is a bit more than "chump change" and that is what is driving the whole thing.

Although I am in agreement with Mark that 2k Digital Cinema raises the average presentation quality, I wish that the industry would have figured out a way to use this transition to save money for distributors AND raise the bar for best presentation quality. As it is, there are locations (albeit not that many) which will see a reduction in presentation quality.

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-01-2008 08:31 AM

quote: Geoff Jones
Now figure out how much it would cost to improve an "average" 35mm presentation.

Geoff,
You're at least a mile off. Perhaps you've never had employees to do payroll or Union benefits for.

Figure 45K per person payroll and then half that again to benefits per employee. Typically two projectionists per shift and one relief at times. You quickly see that the 90K cost of the Digital system is more than offset by the two projectionists... Union or not if you're paying a decent wage... in just one year. If you pay lousy unlivable wages then it's offset in say just two years. All of the places we've installed digital at have kept their present operators(or booth mongers) that they had and made no employee cutbacks. The biggest advantage of Digital aside form stabilizing the presentation on the good side is that there is nothing they can twiddle with without causing themselves lots of grief [Smile]

.

Lyle,

You are 95%% correct. It somewhat does have to do with some labor savings at the exhibitor level as well. Print cost is also whats driving the large format Imax deal. With the average 3-D DMR print in the 60K range I doubt that many of the Imax theaters make any profit at all on those expensive prints they are buying. Print cost is partly what drove the Zion Canyon people to do the same thing... and since they were not Imax they had little to choose from to run. They now have almost as much if not more content available to run including the exact same Hollywod stuff everyone else is running on their Imax screens. And they don't pay Imax a dime.

Mark

Mark.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 18 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 16 17 18

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.