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Author Topic: Real D & Dolby 3-D - What is the difference? Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-16-2008 06:13 PM                     quote: Steve Guttag Much more so than with Real-D, who is taking a sizable percentage of the upcharge. Steve, On the screen thing..... Have installed both Harkness 220 and Hurley Silver this week and the Harkness 220 from a visual standpoint beats silver hands down... there is no hot spot that moves with you like there is on a silver surface... on a 40' wide screen!! Irregardless of what the PSA says the 220 is a much nicer surface to watch 3-D on. You also left out the percentage Real-D ALSO gets on each ticket sold for a 3-D performance... another sizeable chunk of that $2.00 is gone if you use their system... the actual amount of that percentage is negotiated when you sign your contract with them. So those with Real-D are not pocketing very much of that 2 bucks. There is no percentage paid per ticket for Dolby 3-D so the theater pockets the whole thing minus the cost of the use of the glasses. The wash cycle might add another say 2 cents to the glasses use cost as the wash cycle only takes three min. This is but another reason to go with Dolby... Although Real-D may look good on paper at first in reality its the lesser of the deal both financially and visually. Oops, I forgot that the cost of the silver screen also needs to be factored in with Real-D. The system I look forword to installing in early Febuary is the Master Image spinning disk system... its supposed to be the least light loss 3-D system on the market although the contraption looks like something from an Outer Limits TV Show, so we'll see how well it works. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-16-2008 07:41 PM                     Mark, I with you on the Silver verus white screen...I don't like the look of silver, regardless of the shape, size or the dimensions that are put upon it. As to a non-moving hot-spot...a PSA will prove/disprove that...the PSA doesn't have a bias...it just reads the light that comes into it...it doesn't know what is supposed to be best. I have not worked with the Perlux220...as such I can not comment on its subjective appearance other than the swatch of it I have and it looks like a pearl. The Harkness specification on it does not look out of line with any such fall-off curve I've seen. Based on that, the results should be pretty predictable. I have worked with the Perlux140 and IT most definitely has a hot spot that travels with the viewer...quite a nasty one, if you ask me. It is very measurable as well as visible, particularly to me, it would seem. It was so nasty, I measured the screen gain to see if it was a higer gain...it measured 1.45...which is close enough to 1.4 in a production screen. I work a lot with the Stewart Ultramatte 130 (1.3 gain) and don't experience anywhere near that amount of hot spotting though it is a gain screen and it does not have the uniformity of a Snomatte 100...which is probably my favorite surface...just plain white. The Ultramatte 130 has about a 80-degree off-center viewing angle before the gain drops to 1/2 or about a 160-degree cone of acceptability. It probably has the most "pop" of any screen without having to pay too big a price on the hot-spot side...but you will pay a big price when purchasing it! As to the Hurley SilverGlo...it should be one of the more uniform Silver screens out there...it is one of the only surfaces that isn't painted once assembled...it can still "panel" but you shouldn't see any sort of painting artifacts. One thing you WILL see with time are the seams...since they are butt-seams...as they pull apart, on a silver screen, you'll see a distinct line form. I did mention Real-D taking a portion of the upcharge for 3D: quote: Steve Guttag Factor in an upcharge for 3D and you stand a much better opportunity to actually make money, at the theatre level, on 3D than with Real-D...whom is your partner...sharing in all revenue, with the studio. Perhaps I wasn't clear. Steve  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 12-16-2008 10:37 PM                     What's the ballpark cost of the Dolby 3D System? I was asked today, and I haven't even the foggiest idea of what it would cost. The theatre in question already has Dolby's ShowStore and ShowPlayer, as well as a 2k Barco DCinema projector. So, If I understand right, the only things I would need are -Dolby 3D rack mount unit of some kind -Spinning wheel -Glasses -Glasses Cleaner Outside of that there are no other charges to the theatre? Also, are exactly the same film libraries available to both systems? This theatre specializes in repertory and art house films. If it wanted to book older digital 3D titles like U23D, Monster House, or the National Geographic films, are they still available?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-16-2008 10:39 PM                     Yes, the coating on the Hurley is as consistant as I believe is humanly possible today. Far, far better than anything MDI has cranked out. The problem is that MDI is the only source for giant screens. Harkness has pretty much bowed out of the game. quote: Mike Olpin So, If I understand right, the only things I would need are -Dolby 3D rack mount unit of some kind -Spinning wheel -Glasses -Glasses Cleaner Outside of that there are no other charges to the theatre? Correct... there are no other charges... you own the gear, you won't be paying any on going royalties! Too bad you already have the server because the price on buying a Dolby Server with 3-D system recently dropped consoderably if bought as an entire setup. The pricing on the Server/Showstore combo also recently fell something like 4 grand just a few weeks ago. Your list above is correct and the DFC-100 controler and filter wheel come as a complete package with the appropriate mounting hardware for your model projector... assuming they have one for your projector. Check with your dealer regarding the projector you have. If you are going to run on something like a 40 foot wide screen which is about the max. width that Dolby reccomends then expect to be running a 6kw lamp for your 3-d shows. Change back to a smaller lamp for 2-D stuff or if you're combining 2-D/3-D on the same day place a ND filter in for 2-D to waste the light and project at the correct fl. Depending on the crime rate in your area you may want to consider detectors at the doorways/theater entry area to catch would be glasses thieves... keep in mind though that it would take alot of stolen glasses to offset the cost of the detectors. The strip that sets off the detectors is built into every pair of glasses. Also, do some SMART shopping around for the washer... Check out a few restaurant supply places and so on. It can be done for way under the $4500 price of the reccomended washing machine. Also, don't be swayed by the term washing machine it uses a very minimal amount of water and only takes 3 min per batch to do. There are three different wash chemicals you need and they come in 5 gal. pails and cost something like $300.00 for the set of pails, but last a very long time. The stainless holders for the Dolby glasses I believe will have to come from just one source and Dolby or your dealer will let you know where to order them... also get the short side benches for the washer machine. Its seems formadible at first but when its all installed things really do go quite smoothly. Mark  |  IP: Logged Julio Roberto Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 938 From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain Registered: Oct 2008 posted 12-16-2008 11:33 PM                    I also dislike the look of most silver screens. Besides the inherent colormetry of the surface (which could be color corrected for if the distributor of the film wanted), the high gain of the reflective surface makes the colors shift quite a bit across the screen and the hot spot quite noticiable. Usually more so in large screens as your eyes scan the whole area left-right top-bottom. With certain non-reflective but retro-reflective high-gain screens (like non-crushed pearls or beaded), some of these issues are not so evident. As your eyes, placed at whatever angle you are measuring the brightness, scan a large screen ... the difference in light reaching your eyes at different effective angles from the same position is not nearly as large as with purely reflective (i.e. silver) screens, as the light is not being "equally reflective as the angle of incidence apparently changes" but the light is being "equally reflected TOWARDS THE LIGHT SOURCE" (i.e. projection booth) as your eyes scan the screen surface at a "variating angle" (i.e. while in the same physical position with respect to the screen and the light source in the booth but changing the direction to which your eyes are moving to scan the whole screen). Is like if the high gain retroreflective screens were made of many tiny mirrors, just like a silver one, but with the difference that all the mirrors "move" independently to always point to the light source, while in the purely reflective (silver) screen the mirrors remained static flat, like one single giant mirror, with the light always reflected to the opposite angle of incidence with respect to the center, not with respect to each "tiny mirror" spreaded across the screen surface. So no wonder some high gain screens "look much better" than others even though the gain curve specs "doesn't lie" and they both have "mirrors" of the same "gain" and you can't cheat physics. Also explains why they seem to reject ambient light or be more inmune to self-reflection (when curved) than others. This is because the light is not equally relected to a cone pointed to the same angle of incidence with respect to the center, but to a cone pointed to the same angle of incidence with respect to every single part of the screen, similar to the way traffic signs reflects right back to the source (the car) the light from the headlamps, but doesn't spread it over an angle like a mirror (or a flat metallic surface like a silver screen) would do. The traffic signs also work pretty well during the day because they do not reflect the light of the sun directly to the driver's face when in the "correct angle" like it would happen to a reflective piece of metal. The traffic sign reflects the light from the sun back to the sun no matter what angle it is at. Otherwise it would blind the drivers on a sunny day if it was just plain reflective and you looked at it from the "right" angle. So curved retroreflective screens shoot self-reflected light back to the point it originated (the screen), not to the eyes of the audience, so it doesn't wash out the image and reduce the contrast (that much). In theory, that is, since in practice they are retroreflective+difused, of course, otherwise only the guy in the projection booth will be able to receive the light back at him and watch the film I'm not aware of any metallic (polarizing preserving) retro-reflective screen or if such a thing can even be manufactured. All the ones I've seen (many) have been purely reflective, lenticular at best, and thus the light changes greatly with the angle your eyes are looking at different parts of it from the same position, usually more evident the larger the screen is, of course. I have only seen non-depolarizing surfaces that I really like for 3D for retro projection. For front projection, there are better and worse screens but they all have the "silver curse" Plenty of non-silver high gain retroreflective+diffusing screen surfaces available, of course. And reflective ones as well. While I often try to avoid surfaces of over 1.3 gain, I can see how a very high gain (2.2+) could be manufactured as retroreflective and still show reduced artifacts compared to a highly reflective but not nearly as much gain (say 1.4) one, thus, depending on the geometry of the whole thing, making a 1.4 look on the average worse (more hotspotted, very compromised angles, very uneven) than a 2.2 in a different configuration (different size, different booth position/angle/lens' focal length, different curvature, etc). But the rule of thumb would indicate that something with a lot of gain is going to bring serious issues on the table that need to be properly dealt with. I have no practical experience with Harkness 2.2 other than having a sample somewhere, but the correct potential application for it hasn't shown up yet in my case. As per Mark's good review, I'll make sure I test it for Dolby 3D shall the need ever occurr. Back in the 80's 3D craze we used many Tecknicote ones I think they were, but mainly for a price consideration. Also some german ones, but I forgot the manufacturer now. And plenty of Harkness too, of course. Only installed one Stewart (the price on those things are ... well, you know), but have seen a few. Always curious about the Hurleys since I saw the sample, but have never seen one installed nor the chance to install one has come up. It's good to know that has some seams issues. [ 12-17-2008, 03:58 AM: Message edited by: Julio Roberto ]  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-17-2008 08:56 AM                     Mike, What you need from your dealer is a Cat. No. 960Z-BAR-1 if it is a DP90, DP100, or DP3000. Normally the DP1200-DP2000 kits are obtained through Barco, as I recall...you can definitely order the projectors from Barco with the kits pre-installed. If you have a DP100, depending on vintage, you may also need a new cooling plate with 90-degree pipes (To clear the new apparatus). All of the Dolby 3D kits are the same (Cat 960Z) with the same price...the suffix determines what mounting system/cables are included for the specific projector. If Dolby has a different kit for the DP1200-DP2000 (and I'm sure they do)...it will end in BAR-2 or BAR-3 or something like that...that is how they handled the Christie kits (there are three Christie kits now, depending on projector and vintage). The LIST price is $26K for any of the kits...street prices are often substantially lower. As Mark said, Dolby current has a sale going on through the end of February 2009 when 3D is bought with the server that will knock thousands off. The Glasses are Cat 834Z and currently list for $27.50. Don't expect much if any discount on those. For the special rack to hold the glasses in the cleaner...this is who Dolby is referring people to: MARLIN STEEL WIRE PRODUCTS CALL# 410 644-7456 FAX# 410 644-7457 Sales@Marlinwire.com www.Marlinwire.com The part number is: DOL780 PT#00780002 Steve  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 12-17-2008 09:31 AM                     Thanks - It's a DP100. Does the Dolby unit mount inside the projector or in front of it? We already have a swing away anamorphic lens attachment. Would it interfere with it? 26K is about twice what I had hoped it would be - but I'll pass along the figure. Anyone know about the availability of films for this system? We cannot open day and date current 3D films, so the availability of repertory 3D is the deal breaker.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-17-2008 09:50 AM                     Mike, Don't quote your heirearchy list prices... Call a few different dealers and get a realistic quote to give them.. No one sells this stuff at list price!!! Mark  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-17-2008 11:00 AM                        What is the startup cost for Real-D? Is it in the ballpark of Dolby or is it cheaper? Assuming that the image and 3D quality are comparable (I have not seen Dolby, but have been impressed with Real-D), I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would put in Real-D with its annual license fee. Dolby seems like a real win, especially for a venue that would run a mix of 2D and 3D material, since it avoids the silver screen issue. Are expensive re-usable glasses really that much of a pain to deal with? Will Real-D sell a system outright, or is it a license-only deal? Does the 2-projector 3D DLP system work just like a 2-projector 3D 35mm film system (i.e. linear polarizers and disposable cardboard glasses)? Or does it use Imax-style reusable glasses (which, presumably, have the same inventory and cleaning issues as the Dolby system)?  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 12-17-2008 11:49 AM                     The Real-D startup cost varies on the particular deal but there are deals out there where the only cost to install Real-D is the silver screen intallation (if you already have a 2K D-Cinema system intalled). Then, Real-D gets a percentage of the upcharge in return for supplying the glasses. We had Dolby 3D in one location and replaced it with Real-D because the issues with recovering/cleaning the glasses (not to mention lost and broken ones) were too much of a pain for the staff. In a megaplex you have more staff that can handle the tasks but in a smaller complex, we had to put on additional staff just for glasses control and cleaning even on days that weren't that busy.  |  IP: Logged Julio Roberto Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 938 From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain Registered: Oct 2008 posted 12-17-2008 12:52 PM                    Dual projection systems would indeed be similar to dual film systems. Many of the steps are similar to using a Real 3D system. You simply: -Buy a couple of polarizing filters, your choice of linear or circular (anywhere between $50 and whatever you want to pay, perhaps a few hundred). Circular would be slightly more expensive. Find a way to keep them aligned and in place in front of the lenses. Depending on some factors, you may need to replace them after a couple of years of use if you want to preserve the quality and polarization properties (the light from the projector burns/degrades them -- they absorb constanly around 65% of the light output). Some formulations allow for operation free of degradation of many (>10) years even with high wattage lamps, but it easier and cheaper just to go with the regular ones and replace them every couple of years. -Install a silver screen. These are also usually recommended to be changed after 10 years or so of use. Dust accumulating in the front helps depolarize the light and create extra ghosting. Unfortunately, most silver screens are delicate and can not really be cleaned (only very gently dry mopped). Some manufacturer's silver screen materials can be more effectively cleaned. -Buy polarized glasses. Your choice of paper or reuseable. There is a small but "significant" difference in price from linear polarized to circular polarized. You would of course need to get the kind that matches your projection lenses. Paper ones should be under aprox. $0.60 each. How much under would depend on the quantity you purchase, etc, but they can go for very very low $$$. Minimun would pbbly be something like $0.10 for huge quantities of linear plain ones. Re-useable plastic ones should be under $4, also quite a lot less at large quantities. These, of course, you would have to collect and clean to be able to reuse them. Hard to go below about $1.25 for the cheapest linear. You could also speak to Dolby and have them sell you a set of static filters for your projectors. They have openly stated they were in the process of supporting dual projection systems. With the filters in front of the projectors, no silver screen would be needed and you could start buying Dolby 3D glasses at around $27 like everybody else. Glasses for their system can only be bought from them. It's a propietary system and therefore there won't ever be competing manufacturers etc to lower the price. Whatever price Dolby sets would be the one you get (minus perhaps some slight dealer discount offer). At that price, you would want to make sure you invest in collecting them and cleaning them for re-use If you go the Dolby route (for dual projection too), I think a Dolby server is necessary, although Doremi has reached an agreement with Dolby to support the format as well in their servers. Not sure if Dolby is 100% ready to support dual projection systems at this point, but certainly have expressed the desire to support it and probably will as soon as the first customer asks for it and they can get around any possible firmware update to the servers that may be needed. With dual projection systems you don't need to pay any royalties to anyone, of course, and you own your own equipment. You'll just enter the business of 3D glasses resale. Buy them for $0.25, sell them for $1. Keep the profit. Main handicap is cost. Most servers already support dual projection 3D, but you of course need two projectors and associated twice the lamp and electricity cost. On the plus side, it's usually easy to obtain the maximun 5.5fl level recommended for digital 3D at this moment, so your customers shouldn't complain of the movie being too dark.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-17-2008 01:12 PM                     Mike...most defintely talk to your dealer. I only will use List price in an open forum...those that have a relationship with a dealer can figure out what the difference (percentage wise) between list and "street." That is why I cautioned on the glasses...they will NOT follow the usual discount. As to where the Dolby 3D mechanism mounts...it is INSIDE the projector, between the light source and the integrating rod. It is a spinning disc mounted on an articulated arm such that it is only in the light path when 3D is called for on a channel/macro. One of the reasons for all of the different kits is to have suitable mounts (and cable paths) for the various projectors. As to the 3D quality...nothing I've seen has come close to Dolby's system. The colors look right, there is no ghosting and it works regardless of seating position. Real-D is a vast improvement over traditional linear systems but it does not, in my opinion, compare favorably to Dolby 3D. Steve  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-17-2008 01:21 PM                     There is no doubt that any system one can own is a win win situation over a re-newing lease situation, especially at the low cost of owning the Dolby 3-D system, especially where the lease terms for Real-D can and will likely change. You also forgot to mention how much your revenues were above the morm for a 3-D showing. Typically it should be 3 to 7 times the norm for the same 2-D movie and as your theater owners opted to have some sort of 3-D installed it is obviously pretty profitable. Our Dolby 3-D customers just don't have that sort of trouble with the glasses although it also may be more linked to how high the crime rate is in a given area. And if they did the profits are up so high from the 3-D films that the cost of a few dozen replacement glasses every 90 days wouldn't matter at all. Julio, You could use static filters for Dolby but even the smallish ones we use to do calibration are VERY expensive. I believe that Dolby is still in the use the filter wheel mode even in stacked situations, they are a "for profit" company after all. Mark  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-17-2008 01:31 PM                        Interesting. So, would the Dolby filters and glasses work for film 3D, too? Assuming that the cost would be less than that of a silver screen, that might open some interesting possibilities for doing over/under, side-by-side, or 2-strip 3D.  |  IP: Logged Julio Roberto Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 938 From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain Registered: Oct 2008 posted 12-17-2008 01:37 PM                    I never doubted that Dolby would price any static filters they may offer for sale in the future to customers doing dual-projection at exactly the same price of their filter wheel kit minus precisely their cost of the mounting hardware Also, I don't know if their filters can stand the continuous luminous flux, so perhaps they have to actually make a rotational filter, but a "special" non-alternating one for dual projectors (I hope they are not so pig-headed to force a 144hz temporal disparity when there is no need whatsoever on dual systems and I know they can easily make filter discs of each eyes' band). About making the Dolby (Infitec) 3D system work with film ... of course it could be made to work. But the film, say a theoretical over/under, would have to be "color corrected" (processed) to work better with the system (i.e. a print would have to be striked only for say "over/under Dolby"). A set of filters and a "mirror box" (or some sort of combining optics) would be needed in front of the projection. And you'll have the same problems with alignment and uneven illumination you had with over/under 3D of the 80's The only thing you would be doing is trading the cost/pain/problems of a Silver screen for the cost/pain/problems of very expensive glasses.  |  IP: Logged

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