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This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Author
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Topic: why is the "digital transition period" being handled so badly?
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Justin Hamaker
Film God
Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004
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posted 10-12-2011 07:30 PM
Scott, can I point out that the only reason manuals for any equipment appear on Film-Tech is because someone added them to the site. There is absolutely nothing preventing manuals from all the other equipment being added to the site (assuming they are not limited by licensing issues). Heck, I'll send in the manuals I have for the GDC servers, ACT Automation, Dolby CP-750, and NEC NC2000C.
Of course the conversion from film to digital could have gone better, but again there are so many people and variables involved, that it would have been near impossible to prepare every detail in advance.
You mention that they should have had a drop dead date for 35mm a long time ago, but I feel there were just to many players and too many variables involved for any firm date to have been established. Although it might be something we'll start to see in the near future. How many drop-dead dates were issued when they converted to cyan sound tracks? And yet many theatres failed to upgrade and resulted in the date being pushed back many times.
The other problem, as with any new technology, is that it is impossible to look forward and know how long it will take to see the technology move forward to the point where it completely replaces the older technology. Sometimes it moves much faster than expected (like DVD replacing VHS), but most the time it moves slower than expectations.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 10-12-2011 09:34 PM
quote: Martin McCaffery
Because it is ALL about the financial interests.
It's not about art. It's not about quality.
Do you guys really think it hasn't ALWAYS been about money?
The classic movie palaces of the past weren't built that way because the owners liked to surround themselves in luxury. They were built that way to attract big audiences who would -- surprise! -- pay to get in. A lot of those places were built after the depression. Sure, a lot of stupid decisions are made today in the name of money but it's not like it hasn't always been that way.
As to the question of why an end-of-film announcement hasn't been made...it would be short-sighted of the distributors to do that.
Let's say that they announced tomorrow that no more prints would be struck after Dec. 31, 2013. That would start the ramping-down of the print production industry. People would be laid-off, and the industry would gear down....but what if another recession hits? And maybe a strike, or some other thing happens that slows down the production of digital gear? Maybe the financial market hits another crisis and some of the bigger cinemas are unable to make that deadline. With the end-of-film wheels in motion, it would be a lot harder to ramp film production back up.
Was there ever a specific date set for the end of silent movies? If you didn't convert to sound you'd be dead in the water?
It just makes sense that once the big players are all converted, and about 85 or 90% of the industry's revenue is coming from digital locations, that's when there will be an announcement that in a year or so, film will end -- or if not outright end, prices for a print will increase dramatically.
One more thing: The reason for no manuals is (yup) to save money, because they know that most people never even crack a manual. I agree they should be available online for people who DO read manuals (I'm one of them) or want to print their own.
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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster
Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 10-12-2011 10:41 PM
Scott, I don't quite agree with your assessment. In the past Exhibitors have been faced twice with similar AND more costly conversions. Just because different people in different times in the same industry are going through this doesn't make it a bad thing. The first more costly episide was the conversion to sound. According to Norm Schneider whose dad worked for Western Electric and actually installed Vitaphone systems told me that it cost over 100 grand in 1928 dollars just to install sound in a 2500 seat theater. Convert that to today's dollars for me please! There existed some optical tracks that required special equipment to play back or they wouldn't play back, or gee... didn't we recently go through round two of that? Second, there was Cinemascope which just about every standard theater in the world had to equip for, Todd A-O and other wide screen processes also showed up. Projection and sound equipment for some of those systems was extremely expensive in it's day AND SO WAS REMODELING THE ENTIRE BUILDING TO ACCOMODATE IT. And not all locations that installed it did all that well with 70mm road shows or Todd-AO. So in reality if some single screen house has to spend 60 to 70 grand on equipment so what. Thats the price of a good car... or a decent theater sound system today. Times change, things change and thats all part of life. No doubt the kerosene lantern manufacturers hated Edison! Sound and wide screen also filtered out the unprepared and the unfit just as D-Cinema will. It's happened before and it will happen again. As for all your other complaints I've not had any major issues nor have my customers nor has anyone else I know, in fact some of them claim LESS down time than with film. I installed lots of D-Cinema this year and we sometimes called for a KDM 5 minutes before show time... no problem! Like I said above... if you install Sony expect trouble! Exhibitors should have learned from their past follies. I don't think I even have a single piece of anything Sony in my house. Only one problem with content in the last 4 years and drives show up days early in case there is a problem so it can be ironed out. But like film, there will always be something there that occasionally comes up. Also, don't forget that D-Cinema is in it's infancy and actually functions pretty darn well for as new of technology it is. No standards... blame SMPTE for that! They have become all but usless any more. Early jet engines were awful and Color tv was not that great when it first appeared, nor was radio, the automobile or the tractor... All the complaints you list also have counterpart complaints in the film world. Nothing is perfect and nothing ever will be so don't expect it to be, for every one theater that did film right a thousand others did it wrong!
I had to go back and skim your last post... on the manual thing. They actually do exist for almost all products and many are very comprehensive right down to how to dismantle it and put it back together. Lots of the gear is too complex or requires special tools or understanding of a given piece of gear in order to be able to work on it.... just like a projector intermittent does or a shutter gear box or a digital sound processor so they may not be available to the general public. I can tell you that they are not hiding them. Go get qualified to work on some of the gear and you'll have so much documentation to deal with that it makes projector manuals seem quaint.
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