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This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Topic: Article on Light issues with Digital
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 06-09-2011 11:06 PM
...and now this - someone now is picking on AMC:
Linky-linky
quote:
June 8, 2011
Mr. Gerardo “Gerry” I. Lopez, CEO and President AMC Entertainment, Inc.,
106 West 14th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64105
Hello Gerry,
Would it upset you to discover someone sabotaging your theaters by representing them in a manner that isn’t in your best interest? I'm guessing yes.
If a major movie studio invests tens of millions of dollars and many months or years creating a product which ends up dark and/or out of focus on one of your screens, should the studio be upset? You bet.
The food chain starts at "action" and ends at the multiplex. If what the director wanted and got -- and shipped to the theater -- doesn't show up on the screen, it is either the fault of the exhibitor or a bumbling lab technician.
According to your company perspectives, “AMC Theatres has changed the way people watch movies by transforming the experience into an adventure.“ I was at one of your complexes the other morning and, sure as it‘s summer at the movies, the adventure continues.
My week kicked off in the back end of your Fashion Valley depot. Auditorium 15 is a small, mundanely efficient bunker where just two weeks earlier I witnessed a sparkling digital presentation of The Tree of Life. By now, it’s certain that someone has brought to your attention Ty Burr’s Boston Globe piece concerning illumination problems in AMC theatres resulting from a misuse of 3D lenses on Sony 4K projectors. While the "foot Lamberts" appeared to meet industry standards, Monday morning’s presentation was anything but brilliant.
As a former theatre manager, I know full well that it’s not the audience's job to spend precious movie-going time in search of an attendant to fix a focus problem. The second the white credits hit the black background, something appeared out of whack. I flagged a security guard who said he’d get right on it. Five minutes later, the same guard assured me the problem was reported.
Tick-tock, tick-tock…
Seven minutes in, I’m out of my seat and half out of my mind. I am an ineffectual theatre manager’s worst nightmare. Don’t expect me to be chipper when I am forced to leave my stadium seat for the third time and jaunt from the back end of a multiplex, up the temporarily out-of-service escalator to the main floor to find the manager on duty. Make that managers. There were two of them.
“It’s digital,” I’m told. “We can’t focus. It’s all internal.”
I was not sure about this until the following day when I was introduced to “George Kaplan“ (he asks that I not use his real name), a budding journalist and former projectionist who is well-versed in AMC booth procedure. All I know is this: once I was blind and now I can see. George was at Monday morning’s Fashion Valley fiasco and assured me that I was not alone in my disdain for the fuzzy presentation.
George set me straight: Once a Sony 4K projector is calibrated, there is no way to adjust the focus. He pointed me in the direction of the Alamo Drafthouse blog: “When the (3D) image leaves the lens of the projector, it passes through a polarizing filter in front of the lens.” The projectionist failed to remove the polarizing filters from in front of the lens for 2D screenings, thus accounting for the focus problem.
Here is something even more troubling. The auditorium in question also showed the new 2D X-Men sequel all weekend to the paying public. The focus issue remained the same, yet nobody complained until I barked at them Monday morning!
In 2007, your revenue totaled $2.5 billion with a net income of $134 million. I know you train your staff on the art of popping corn and filling soft drink cups with glaciers. Why not spend a few dollars training them in the art of visual presentation? If only you could fill our eyes in the same gratifying manner that you do our bellies.
They're turning up the heat on you, Gerry. Even Terrence Malick's private letter, instructing projectionists on the proper manner in which to present The Tree of Life, went public. Aren't you tired of hearing people say, "The picture looks better in my living room?" Do you want to see an end to film-going as we know it? Few people are in a position of power to make a change. Step up to the plate and prove your mettle.
I left several messages with your PR underlings, but to no avail. Until you have the problems straightened out, I suggest that you alert your managers to only book press screenings in 2D houses and remove all filters before each screening. It sounds like you could use someone to travel from theatre to theatre to investigate and weed out projection problems. I'll check my availability.
Drive safely,
Have to head to the Alamo Drafthouse link for some more interesting reading..and I'll post that link below:
Another linky-linky
quote:
Agreeing and Disagreeing with Roger Ebert on Dim Projection
Posted on May 27, 2011 by Tim League in General News, Main, National
.
There has been a great deal of chatter this week about Sony 4K projectors, dim bulbs and "lazy" projection. I like the dialogue that it is sparking and I wanted to weigh in on the matter, particularly since Alamo Drafthouse Lamar and Village have standardized on the Sony 4K projectors in question.
The debate reminds me of a time back in the analog days when it became known that some theaters were swapping out expensive and fast-burning jumbo bulbs for smaller, dimmer bulbs in some of their big houses to save money. See that article here. We stayed ahead of the curve then, and we are trying to do so now.
First, a little background...
a few days ago this article on the Boston Globe blog came out about dim 2D digital projection:
Then Ebert piled on with his blog post, The Dying of the Light:
Their general concern is correct. A theater should NEVER be underlit. There are industry standards for acceptable light levels for both 3D and 2D presentations. Cinemas should always operate within this range. Alamo owns a light meter and we check light levels on all of our screens monthly at a minimum, sometimes as much as weekly. It is a very easy tool to operate, all cinemas should own one, despite the reasonably high price.
At the Alamo, light levels are manually boosted for 3D screenings. Increasing amperage to boost the light level on the Sony projectors is a relatively easy adjustment. The bulb needs to be burning hotter to produce a brighter 3D image. When the image leaves the lens of the projector, it passes through a polarizing filter in front of the lens. You are also wearing what are ostensibly sunglasses in the theater, so in order for an image to be appropriately bright after passing through the filters and your glasses, the intensity of the light needs to be much higher for 3D films. Alamo projectionists make this adjustment for every 3D show.
Now, on to the Sony projectors...
Sony RealD is the best 3D technology available to cinemas today
There is no debate on this topic; Sony is the clear and undisputed champion of 3D presentation. Sony upgraded the technology in their digital projectors to introduce a new dual lens system for 3D. All other digital projectors use a single lens system that alternates between the image for the right eye and the left eye very rapidly. This can cause a perceived flicker. Sony projects two continuous images one in each of the lenses (both Ebert and the Boston Globe got this wrong in their articles, btw). When the lamphouse is adjusted correctly, Sony delivers the brightest, crispest, best 3D image in the industry. That is the reason why we went with Sony in the first place.
Sony paved the way for 4K digital
Sony was the first to introduce a 4K digital projector. The industry standardized on a 2K image and that is the technology that has been rolled out in most cinemas. I personally flew to LA to do a side-by-side comparison of 2K vs. 4K and the decision was clear. We went with the Sony 4k projectors. In the last few months, other brands are now coming online with their 4k projectors, but it was Sony that led the charge and their product remains exceptional.
Sony has a serious design issue with their lenses
It is VERY difficult to swap out a 3D and a 2D lens. I HATE this design and so does every other Sony theater operator, I am sure. It is a known issue and Sony has told us that they are working on a solution. Perhaps with all the hubbub this week, that solution will come sooner rather than later. It takes about 1.5 hours or more to swap lenses and do the necessary calibration. Currently there are only two people at the Alamo that are technically capable of doing it and it is far too risky to attempt this between shows when the clock is ticking.
Alamo policy for swapping lenses
If we know we are showing 2D ONLY on a given screen, Alamo projectionists will swap out the 3D dual lens for the 2D lens. We are one of the only theaters in the country that routinely does this swap.
If we are running a complex schedule with 2D and 3D on the same screen on the same day, however, we DO leave in the dual 3D lens for the 2D presentations. However, we DO remove the polarizing filters from in front of the lenses for 2D screenings. The polarizing filters are what drastically reduce the light. You can have great 2D presentation with the 3D Sony lens PROVIDED YOU REMOVE THE POLARIZING FILTERS. The problem of low light levels referenced in the articles above point to the 3D lens as being the culprit. That is not the case. The problem is the filters and you can rest assured that these are removed any time we are showing a 2D film with a 3D lens.
I am a stickler for presentation and want to make sure that every screening at the Alamo lives up to my high standards. Bulbs are expensive, and it is very tempting to run bulbs well past recommended bulb life or to not run them as hot as you can in order to extend their life. From January to April, we spent $23,000 on bulbs for Lamar alone. We will not skimp on bulb size or bulb life at the Alamo.
Regardless of what technology you have: film or digital, Sony or Christie or Barco, there are very basic inspections and routine maintenance procedures that need to be done to ensure proper presentation. We do all of these at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin.
1) Have a light meter and train your projectionists how to use it. Run monthly light level reports on all screens.
2) Oversize your bulbs so you can bump the amperage to get light levels into spec for 3D
3) If you are using the Sony 4k digital projectors, train your staff on how to remove polarizing filters and always remove them from 2D screenings.
4) This is not light related, but we run a regular inspection on all discrete audio channels. We like the sound in the cinema loud and sometimes that blows speakers. Routine inspections can identify blown speakers.
You may look back at the projection port glass window at the Alamo during a 2D screening and see two lights coming out of the booth. This DOES NOT mean that we are running below spec light levels or somehow being lazy about our projection. We will let the picture on screen speak for itself. That said, if anyone ever has a bad presentation experience at the Alamo, I want to know about it. Send me a note on Facebook or send me an email to tim.league@drafthouse.com. One-time mistakes can always happen, but I will always continue to strive for the best possible presentation, and right now I believe that to be with the Sony 4K projection system..
-Monte
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-12-2011 01:07 PM
I've been doing a little bit of research on this whole light thing and 3D...silver screens, white screens, curved and flat.
What I have found is that if you want to get a FLAT silver screen to have the same nominal brightness as a matte white screen running a center brightness of 14fL, the same screen in Silver will require a Center brightness of about 22fL. The corners on that silver screen will still be pathetic and way below DCI spec of 85% of center BUT the average brightness of the white and silver screen will be the same/similar.
If you CURVE the silver screen with the Schneider "1/20" rule, that center brightness may be lowered due to a slightly better directing of the light...20.7fL seems to be average, thus far.
Now, if the silver screen takes on a more radical curve, say closer to R=2/3rds the throw (something close to an optimized curve for a 1.5-1.8 gain providing the lens also is curve-field), then the light requirement drops considerably...17fL in the center will have an average light similar to a white screen (pearl) curved similarly. DCinema lenses are not curve field corrected, by and large, at the moment. So, one can curve the screen a little less radically and still get a substantial improvement. Since the lenses are for flat-field, the image, on a shorter radius will be smaller at the edges than the center (barrel distortion). This will have an effect of increasing the brightness progressively towards the sides to counteract the effects of the higher gain screen. In fact, I measure the light on the sides to be within .5fL of the center and the light a little further in from the sides to be slightly above center.
Now for 3D things are similar but scaled down to the pathetic 3D levels. At the moment, the target light is 5.0fL (normally a range of 3.5-5.5 or 4.5-5.5 is given with the various movies). Again, this figure does not take into account the Silver screen since a white screen may be used for non Real-D/Masterimage 3D shows.
To get a FLAT silver screen to look like a white screen at 5.0fL, one should have the center light reading about 7.7fL. Again, curving the screen will reduce this requirement a bit. It is more like 7.4 for a 1/20 curve and 6.2 for a deeper curve (R about 2/3 Throw).
-Steve
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