Film-Tech Cinema Systems
  Home     Products     Store     Forum     Warehouse     Contact Us    
Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE


  
my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Digital Cinema Forum   » Film era fades to black (Page 3)

 
This topic comprises 7 pages: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7   
Author Topic: Film era fades to black
Dave Macaulay
Film God

Posts: 2321
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: Apr 2001

- posted 09-26-2011 08:21 AM      Profile for Dave Macaulay   Email Dave Macaulay   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I think I did read it, Frank.
The basic theme is that you get to spout your opinions and nobody else should have that right.
Nothing I wrote denigrates film. I like film , I've spent 40 years working with it. I liked hand twisted pretzels too, and being able to talk to a real live telephone operator was pretty sweet as well.
The cinema experience is not about what gets the show on the screen.
You brought up the AFI top 100 movies. That is 100% about the films, not at all about their projection. I can take a cabriolet ride through central park, I can search out an arc-lighted nitrate screening of The General... but a cab is faster (and usually smells better) and the movie experience is essentially the same on a big screen TV.
I agree that the marketing BS is pretty thick on digital projection. I caution owners to be realistic in their expectations.
The article was written by a reporter who apparently spoke to various Cineplex employees and the head of their service company. Obviously they all have to be positive about the conversion. Regardless, nothing quoted is a lie.
In the USA and Canada, movies on actual film is on life support and fading fast. Share your "old-timer" reminiscences but please do not presume to tell use what we dare say here. Brad does that already.

 |  IP: Logged
Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

- posted 09-26-2011 09:31 AM      Profile for Sam D. Chavez   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Dave and Frank both write very well and vividly about their perspectives.

I feel like I was the person Dave writes about; paying my way through school while being able to study. But I ended up staying and making a career in this industry and it's an exciting one.

Dave sounds resigned to "progress", as in get over it and move on, while Frank writes about honoring what got us here with a lot of heart and perhaps a little bitterness.

What I dislike is that digital cinema will inevitably result in not one technically oriented employee in the typical multiplex and they still need one "adult" in the complex who knows what to do when things go bad.

 |  IP: Logged
Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

- posted 09-26-2011 10:55 AM      Profile for Monte L Fullmer   Email Monte L Fullmer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Sam D. Chavez
still need one "adult" in the complex who knows what to do when things go bad.
Agree. But, are the big box cinema companies willing to justify a good wage for that one, on-site "adult"? We just don't know yet.

 |  IP: Logged
Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

- posted 09-26-2011 04:16 PM      Profile for Tom Petrov     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
The millions upon millions that loved all those AFT Top 100 Films -- they saw them and experienced them ON FILM.

RESPECT the history and the heritage that is film...
I would love to agree with some of what you are saying, but I just can't. I don't miss film at all (I was a projectionist for more than 10 years), its all great and all that people saw movies on film back in the day but the new gen don't care. The studios are re-releasing some classics and I have noticed its all digital.

Cineplex has reported record profits and you can't say that about the union/bankrupt days of the 80s.

 |  IP: Logged
Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 09-26-2011 04:36 PM      Profile for Mark Gulbrandsen   Email Mark Gulbrandsen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: David Mann
We will see how tickled pink the pro-digital people are when they start receiving the bills for the lamps that don't last as long, and are higher priced. I'd much rather have to deal with replacing a $1,000 movement than a $27,000 light engine.
I'm just sayin'.
Well, for starters there are 2400 warranty hour 2kw lamps made by at least two different manufacturers. That equates to .3541 per hour for operation plus electricity. Electric consumption typically goes down with digital because all the power supplies are switchers. Operation has been pretty economical considering the new technology. As cinema lamps fade from sales books and D-Cinema becomes the most sold then prices may drop even further.

On the light engine thing... I don't know of one that costs that much... perhaps a 4K light engine does. With NEC the light engines are field servicable meaning that a failed formatter board can be changed in the field, I assume this is possible with Christie... I've never had to do it on either. No light engine is generally tossed unless the prism is damaged. They are remanufactured if a DMD Chip fails and the light engines are put into Repair-Exchange programs for use in field service. So far in the brief history of D-Cineam I've had to change 4 light engines.... out of over a hundred machines installed. All were replaced due to stuck pixels... all were covered in warranty... even though one CP-2000 projector was manufactured in Oct. 2005!

On film fading out. Good riddens! I'm tired of changing oil and cleaning oil filters in projectors, seeing film wraps and other film related nightmares. I've put up with it for over 30 years. 2-K digital accomplishes what filum can only strive to do, 4-K accomplishes even more...

Mark

 |  IP: Logged
Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

- posted 09-26-2011 05:09 PM      Profile for Monte L Fullmer   Email Monte L Fullmer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I'm tired of changing oil and cleaning oil filters in projectors, seeing film wraps and other film related nightmares...
..and fully agree: It's fun to work with digital-to learn and work with something new .... just hope that I can keep my job, or might have to plan on something else.

 |  IP: Logged
Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 09-27-2011 07:42 PM      Profile for Mike Blakesley   Author's Homepage   Email Mike Blakesley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Ian Parfrey
ever since our location ( a single screen Arthouse weekend screener) had switched to digital presentation- nudging 2 1/2 years now - we have had to cancel 5 shows due to server drive failure, incompatibility file type used by the distributor's drive, replacement drives being blank, ingestion refusal and corrupted drives.
That must be an exaggeration, or else you have the worst luck in history, or maybe really really bad equipment. We've had our system for 15 months and we have not lost one show yet, have never had a drive fail to ingest, always received keys on time, etc.

 |  IP: Logged
Justin Hamaker
Film God

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

- posted 09-27-2011 07:51 PM      Profile for Justin Hamaker   Author's Homepage   Email Justin Hamaker   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Mike, I have to acknowledge that we have had some issues in a very short space of time. While we have never lost a show on our first two digital screens, we did have some bad luck on our final three screens.

First we had the OS drive fail on one of our three newest screens the third day it was up. Because it went down on a Saturday, we were dark until Tuesday - fortunately we were playing Idiot Brother and One Day a few weeks off the break so I was able to drop half the shows of each and had very little issues with dissatisfied customers.

Secondly, and also on our new installs, we had a bad hard drive for The Help. Unfortunately we discovered this after taking down our last 35mm house - by which time the print was already gone anyways. Fortunately we discovered it with enough time to have a drive sent over from our sister theatre and we didn't miss a show - just ~20 minutes late on the first digital showing.

Both of these issues happened within three days.

 |  IP: Logged
Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 09-27-2011 08:38 PM      Profile for Mark Gulbrandsen   Email Mark Gulbrandsen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Justin,

The first three weeks are typically when problems will show up if they are going to. The old saying goes that if you make it past three weeks you'll make it to 30 years... but probably not with any D-Cinema gear. There IS no excuse by your dealer for letting you go that long without a replacement OS hard drive being delivered and installed. So I certainly blame that one on them. It takes all of 10 min. to replace the drive and just another 15 min. to load the OS back onto it... if you have your server mounted on a pair of 40 dollar rack rails. You can actually do it yourself if need be. You could have gotten a hard drive from Wal-Mart... quite literally and load the OS onto it your self from a USB drive. The OS is available on the GDC FTP Site, you just need the password for that software in order to load it, that is available from Tech Support. GDC will also remote in and do the repair for you although you'd have to physically replace the drive your self. So do you now have a spare OS hard drive in your booth so you are able to save an important weekend if it happens again? A 30 buck hard drive can already be loaded with the OS and you can be back on the screen in no time flat just by doing a restore from the config files you've saved for each server. Ditto for the RAID drives. Do you keep a spare 1 TB or 1.5 tb or what ever size your's are in the booth? Do you have all the config files for your servers and all of your projectors kept in the booth in a secure place so they don't get lost and can be easily accessed by the technically inclined...you can store all of your server and projector configs on an an 8 buck USB stick from Wal-Mart.

Overall, it pays to be prepared to deal with these aspects (from the beginning) rather than being bitten in the rear by them... And shame on your dealer!!!

Mark

 |  IP: Logged
Justin Hamaker
Film God

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

- posted 09-27-2011 08:49 PM      Profile for Justin Hamaker   Author's Homepage   Email Justin Hamaker   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Mark
I actually did the trouble shooting to discover it was a bad OS drive. When I called GDC, I asked if it was possible to get an off the shelf drive and write an image to the drive. They told me no because the server serial # had to be hard coded onto the drive. Perhaps I didn't probe far enough or they didn't understand my computer skills. Regardless, I could have taken care of putting the OS on the drive. And yes, I did pull the bad drive and put in the replacement.

Given what you're saying now, I will definitely look into having a spare OS drive on the shelf. We have talked about having a spare set of RAID drives, but we haven't moved forward with this yet.

Can you link me to the rack rails you're talking about so I can kick those up the line. I did have to pull the server out of the rack in order to change the drive and that was a major inconvenience.

 |  IP: Logged
Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

- posted 09-29-2011 12:24 AM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
I have been through the issue in depth with GDC. The OS drives can not be magically re-created in the field like Mark says. When they die (an honest statement because ALL drives WILL fail and there is not even a RAID1 level of protection on the GDC), you are down.

Yes Mark, down. Dark screen. No movie. Go home.

An off-the-shelf drive from Wal-Mart can ONLY be used in the content raid if it came down to it, but that is of no use when the OS is dead.

GDC probably hated the several page and hour-long discussion I had with their design techs this last spring going over their server design, but good things come to those who listen to logic and reason, as it looks like they are now looking into a RAID1 system for the OS, which would be the smartest thing they could possibly do.

For those who don't follow me on this, most hard drives these days have an average lifespan of 3 years. Taking that in mind, you now have a ballpark ETA of the death sentence issued. So give-or-take a little bit, every GDC server WILL DIE about every 3 years and if Mr.Murphy has anything to do with it, it will take down a weekend of shows.

There is no excuse for that design (and the silly 3 drive content raid). I look forward to seeing their new server offering in the future. If they listened, it will be great.

 |  IP: Logged
Justin Hamaker
Film God

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

- posted 09-29-2011 01:50 AM      Profile for Justin Hamaker   Author's Homepage   Email Justin Hamaker   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I was in touch with GDC today and they can send an OS drive to keep on the shelf and then remote in to set the certificate. It's not as good as being able to do it myself, but it's better than being down over the weekend.

Brad, I do agree that the lack of a RAID for the OS drive is a critical oversight. I don't know about the reliability of a 3 disk array for the content, but as long as you don't lose more than one disk at a time, it shouldn't be an issue.

 |  IP: Logged
Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

- posted 09-29-2011 03:10 AM      Profile for Monte L Fullmer   Email Monte L Fullmer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I take it, in this discussion above, that GDC doesn't have their OS in a flash section in their units where it releases the drives as storage drives in a RAID configuration, but one drive holds the OS?

 |  IP: Logged
Justin Hamaker
Film God

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

- posted 09-29-2011 04:09 AM      Profile for Justin Hamaker   Author's Homepage   Email Justin Hamaker   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
There's a 3 drive RAID and a separate drive for the o/s.

 |  IP: Logged
Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 09-29-2011 05:05 AM      Profile for Carsten Kurz   Email Carsten Kurz   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Question is, can you make a simple image copy of the final OS drive to keep it as a backup on the shelf.

- Carsten

 |  IP: Logged


All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
This topic comprises 7 pages: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7   
   Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic    next oldest topic   next newest topic
- Printer-friendly view of this topic
Hop To:



Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.3.1.2

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.

© 1999-2020 Film-Tech Cinema Systems, LLC. All rights reserved.