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Author Topic: Rant on D-Cinema Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-07-2009 08:59 AM                     quote: Mike Schulz As for the Sony "4K" deal, I don't think any studio since the release of "The Da Vince Code" has even released anything in 4K. I suppose with the amount of screens that both AMC and Regal have it may change things but we shall see. The actual quantity of 4K releases don't matter one single bit. The number and range of penetration into the market of 4K projectors IS what matters. All it'll take is Cinemark signing with Sony to spell the end of 2K DLP because there won't be enough locations to sell 2K equipment to. Now is the best time to wait and watch for what happens regarding Cinemark before any large expendatures go into 2K any place. Mark  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-07-2009 10:50 AM                        Of course the problem about cost is an issue that simply won't go away, especially in these economic times. And if exhibs thought it was questionable if digital would actually bring in more butts to seats and offset their sizable investment, it becomes even more questionable what upchucking $$$ for 4K will do. Sure, at least with digital they could do the "bad film -- good digital" nonsense hype. The general people seem to have an vague idea that digital is better -- fine, but JQPublic has never heard of 2K to begin with, so how do you hype a change to 4K? -- it will be meaningless in terms of a business edge over a competitor who is sticking with his 2K units. Digital hasn't been around long enough for exhibs to start claiming an even NEWER technology. It was bad enough that patrons walking into a new digital install could see or hear very little difference from the film counterpart. Trying to differentiate 4K from 2K will be futile. Unless the patrons sees something VERY spectacular (and I mean spectacular like an IMAX seven story screen), claiming you've got 4K as a reason for ticket buyers to choose your theatre over your competitors will be a real marketing challenge. I don't think even coming up with a fancy new monikor for 4K will do much to help. DigiMax4000? Digital 2 to the Power of 4 Yah....that will sell more tickets.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-07-2009 11:19 AM                     I dunno...4K for theatres should be a relatively easy idea to promote. It is many times superior to home quality HDTV. As for the sound, I agree that it is a non-starter as the home has PCM multichannel audio now. I will say, I was quite pleasently surprised at how clean and nice the opening of UP sounded as compared to typical film digital audio...the lack of encoding artifacts were notably absent. As to 4K cost...it costs TI 3 times as much to make 2K DLP as a 2K DILA...thus the 4K DILA is only a little more expensive than 2K DLP. Sony is exploiting that fact. Sony, should complete their masterful stroke by reviving their cinema audio division (Sony Cinema Products) and take the sound too. After all, Sony's digital audio technology always was superior to other cinema offerings (talking sound quality, not the SDDS tracking performance). Sony is not a newcomer in digital audio...in fact, they predate Dolby and DTS on that by quite a long time. The Sony system should just hand off the audio to the amplifiers rathter than depend on someone elses sound processor to potentially muck it up. Imagine if they could revamp the DFP-D3000 and change one of the digital inputs to a true AES input...there is already an installed base and it would be a platform they could grow that on as well. It is silly to just throw away the time/money they put into the DFP series...even if they just evolve it for DCinema. Steve Steve  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-07-2009 12:49 PM                     I agree 4K should be easy to market. More than 4 times the pixel count of 1080p HD. Pretty simple. Of course, the native 4K content has to be there -not 2K artificially blown up to 4K. And the 4K projection quality has to be very good. Sony would be goofing up big time if they tried to sneak SDDS back into the scheme of things. As good as SDDS was on paper it was still a data lossy compression system. Blu-ray in home theater has already rendered all data lossy audio formats as inferior. Further Blu-ray can do 8 channel audio (with 4 discrete surround channels) and deliver as much as 24-bit 96kHz resolution for each audio channel. 24-bit 192kHz is possible under certain circumstances -normally for 2 channel stereo. Sony could make a bigger push to get 8 channel audio back into theaters or even take things a step farther by placing 5 channels behind the screen and providing 4 discrete surround channels like Blu-ray can do in the home. Unfortunately the vast majority of commercial theaters are merely set up for 5.1 audio and little is being changed with existing theater sound setups with regard to digital cinema installations. The booth isn't running the lossy 5.1 film sound format, the same audio hardware is playing PCM 5.1 instead.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-07-2009 06:04 PM                     Bobby, You miss my point...I wasn't talking about reviving the SDDS format for DCinema...what I was saying is that there is an installed base of DFP-D3000s out there...turn one of the digital inputs into a true AES 8 channel input and use its B-chain as well as Non-Sync capabilities. This would allow the installed base (AMC after all is a big one and they have signed with Sony) to merely update the 3000, use their existing B-chain and just plug in the new projector to it. Concurrently, also bring out a DCinema only processor for new-builds. Steve  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-07-2009 09:18 PM                     I thought that AMC had already replaced many of the Sony's they had installed... Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-08-2009 12:13 PM                     They certainly have done some...not all. Steve  |  IP: Logged

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