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Author
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Topic: Samsung's "No Projector" Cinema Screen
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 07-17-2017 04:27 PM
quote: Mattias Mattsson
Wouldn't it be possible to use WFS (Wave field synthesis) instead of putting the front speakers behind the screen?
In 2015, Barco bought Iosono from the he Fraunhofer Institute. Iosono essentially developed a WFS system for large venues, like cinema auditoriums. Before Barco bought them, they even fitted a few screens with the technology and remixed a few movies. I haven't heard anything from them though, since they've been acquired. Whether Barco is planning a new audio decoder product and possible even a format based upon their technology or it will just rot away within their portfolio of unused technology with great potential, remains to be seen.
WFS still requires a very high speaker density. An array which envelops the subject from all sides, so most likely you would still need speakers in the front. I'm not sure what the effect would be, if they would be elevated and pointed down.
If a WFS setup would be required to make this type of screen work for large rooms, it would obviously only add to the costs.
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Daniel Schulz
Master Film Handler
Posts: 387
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 07-18-2017 10:39 AM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
In 2015, Barco bought Iosono from the he Fraunhofer Institute. Iosono essentially developed a WFS system for large venues, like cinema auditoriums. Before Barco bought them, they even fitted a few screens with the technology and remixed a few movies. I haven't heard anything from them though, since they've been acquired. Whether Barco is planning a new audio decoder product and possible even a format based upon their technology or it will just rot away within their portfolio of unused technology with great potential, remains to be seen.
I don't know if they're continuing development on WFS for cinema, but one nifty thing that came out of that acquisition was the AuroMax renderer, used to render an MDA object-based soundtrack into an Auro speaker configuration. Anticipating a future in which SMPTE standardizes on an object-based delivery system, they needed an upgrade path for cinemas that had already upgraded to Auro 11.1. They used the technology & engineering expertise from Iosono to help build a really first-class object-based audio rendering system, to compete with Atmos and DTS:X.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-18-2017 04:10 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Unfortunately, not really relevant until Samsung starts making them. Or others, like Daktronics join the DCI train and implement end-to-end encryption.
You can try to imply building LED boards at different pixel pitches or incorporated DCI compliant security are huge hurdles. They are not.
The only real problems with an LED-based movie screen is the high cost and the need for getting sound to pass through it rather than building speakers around it.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Also, even with variable pixel pitches, you're not as flexible as with current screen sizes. And you still don't account for the many different aspect ratios we're currently dealing with.
Pardon me while I laugh hard at that statement.
You're assuming current movie theaters are actually "dealing with" multiple aspect ratios when most are really taking a giant shit on them. There are countless thousands of un-masked, "wall to wall" common width movie theater screens showing damned near every movie letter-boxed, just like watching a fucking HDTV set at home -except the HDTV at least has the picture properly framed and in focus.
The 'scope format, which nearly every Hollywood release uses, is now the lowest quality, lowest resolution format. This is thanks in part to a cost cutting measure eliminating the use of anamorphics in d-cinema standards. They could have used the entire imager and a 1.25X anamorphic squeeze to yield a far better quality version of 'scope. Instead, we have TV quality 'scope.
D-cinema projectors don't come with wide variety of imaging chip shapes and optics. The imagers are all 1.9:1, either in 2048x1080 or 4096x2160 resolution. The optics are almost always spherical. The flat 1998x1080 format is the only one that gets treated properly in that setup. Everything else is getting cropped in some odd way or another. There's really no difference in what's going on there versus what you would see happen with a 2048x1080 or 4096x2160 LED wall, except formats like 2.20:1 wouldn't need to be window-boxed in a flat container the way it is in d-cinema projection.
LED walls can be built to just about any aspect ratio. Check out the giant 360 degree LED ring Daktronics is putting in the Atlanta Falcons' new stadium. There are custom projects where the LED board is an irregular shape or you have things like giant letters filled with LED clusters to play motion graphics and even video.
Developing a new DLP imaging chip for a d-cinema projector is a very expensive endeavor. Commercial movie theaters are a very limited niche market, which is yet another reason why companies like Daktronics may not even bother with selling LED-based screens to cinemas.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
At least, as long as I can zoom or anamorphically squeeze the image, I'm presenting the image without any scaling. You simply can't do this with a fixed pixel imaging device like a LED wall.
There is no need to scale the image with a LED wall. The image geometry is going to be perfect from the outset. You install the board for the size you need. Maybe you're forgetting why projectors have things like zooming and optical/digital keystone correction. The projector is trying its best to frame the image, sometimes from a very stupidly absurd high angle. Very often the image geometry doesn't line up all that well, which becomes all too clear on end credit runs or imagery with level horizon lines or patterns. What should be straight lines or level lines of lettering gets bent into a smile-like curve.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
This will even further complicate designing the display correctly, at least if I want to have my screen a "native" 4K resolution. You see, many of those modern PLF cinemas really run over-sized hunks of screens. On many of those screens you clearly can see pixels, EVEN in 4K.
Most movies aren't rendered in 4K; they're just 2K. Witness the joke that is the Ultra-HD Blu-ray format where very few of the titles have native 4K resolution. The 4K theater is either going to show these movies with a more obvious pixel grid or an image that is softer looking due to bicubic smoothing re-sampling.
Theoretically, if you're playing with an unlimited amount of money, it's fully possible to build a large LED board with native resolutions well above 4K. The hard limitations of a DLP chip aren't getting in the way. New d-cinema cameras can shoot 6K and 8K resolution, but right now the only way you could conceivably get that resolution onto the screen is by using a 70mm film print. An ultra-fine LED board and bottomless wallet could do the same thing.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I know, because I've seen it. Back in 2013, when 4K slowly became a thing, I already saw a demo of a giant 4K LED wall by Barco. It looked amazing from a distance, but from a normal "seating distance" in any modern "PLF screen", I already started to notice the screen door effect.
What are the spes on this Barco board? How large was it, what was the pixel pitch and viewing distance? Four years ago very few jumbotron boards were even getting built near 2K resolution levels. The really tight boards in 1.2mm, 1.9mm and 2.5mm weren't getting made yet. So I can't help but wonder if the display you saw really was 4K. I've heard plenty of sales people stretch the truth or just plain lie when selling electronics.
Overglow from LEDs does a lot to hide the black space between the LEDs. Like I said earlier, the right kind of board has to be installed for the viewing distance. Customers buying LED boards for outdoor signs, billboards or even closer viewing indoor applications will often go with more coarse pitch displays to cut costs.
The fundamentals of LED boards are not really any different from a home TV screen. A giant sized 1080p screen viewed from only a few feet will be showing off a fairly obvious pixel grid to anyone with good eye sight. The same size TV in 4K will have a much tighter pixel grid. 6K and 8K shrinks the grid much more.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 07-18-2017 08:11 PM
quote: Daniel Schulz
I don't know if they're continuing development on WFS for cinema, but one nifty thing that came out of that acquisition was the AuroMax renderer, used to render an MDA object-based soundtrack into an Auro speaker configuration. Anticipating a future in which SMPTE standardizes on an object-based delivery system, they needed an upgrade path for cinemas that had already upgraded to Auro 11.1. They used the technology & engineering expertise from Iosono to help build a really first-class object-based audio rendering system, to compete with Atmos and DTS:X.
I think it will be somewhat of a loss if they discontinue developing WFS for cinema, because you should be able to use MDA soundtracks with this system. So, I hope they bought it for more than just the AuroMax renderer, which was based on their technology.
I don't know if you've heard the real Iosono sound system in action, but WFS is really what surround sound should eventually become.
quote: Bobby Henderson
You can try to imply building LED boards at different pixel pitches or incorporated DCI compliant security are huge hurdles. They are not.
Obviously, you have absolutely no clue at all what it takes to become a DCI certified supplier and what kind of security implementations are required to meet the specs. If it would be so simple, why didn't all those other projector manufacturers jump on the DCI train? Why leave this potentially lucrative market segment behind? Currently we have Barco, Christie, NEC and Sony to choose from. I can't install a Panasonic, Epson or whatever other brand of projector, because it simply won't play DCI content from any studio. I can't even just install any Barco projector I would want to use, I need to pick a model that is DCI certified. It's not just an optional check mark, I simply won't be able to play the content as the server would not allow me to.
If you think delivering a system that pleases the content industry is easy, name one manufacturer who currently will deliver a LED wall system that's HDCP 2.2 compliant for example?
quote:
You're assuming current movie theaters are actually "dealing with" multiple aspect ratios when most are really taking a giant shit on them. There are countless thousands of un-masked, "wall to wall" common width movie theater screens showing damned near every movie letter-boxed, just like watching a fucking HDTV set at home -except the HDTV at least has the picture properly framed and in focus.
So, there's a megaton of shit out there and that's why we should just accept shit as the new standard?
quote: Bobby Henderson
LED walls can be built to just about any aspect ratio. Check out the giant 360 degree LED ring Daktronics is putting in the Atlanta Falcons' new stadium. There are custom projects where the LED board is an irregular shape or you have things like giant letters filled with LED clusters to play motion graphics and even video.
Look, you can assume that I'm totally stupid (and maybe you're right)... But I actually do know how LED screens work. I had my fair share of issues with them too actually. I know you can build LED screens in almost any aspect ratio as you please, I know they're made out of modules and most manufacturers offer modules in many different pixel pitches. It's all fine and well, but that was NOT my point.
(Well, not entirely true, because right now, there's just one manufacturer to choose from and just a single pixel pitch.)
The point is, and I'm sure you're able to understand it, since even I do: If I want to build a new LED screen with a native AR of 2.35, because as you mentioned yourself, most new big budget releases are in that aspect ratio, I'm already in a pretty interesting situation. Because what will I choose as my native resolution? Will I choose 4096 × 1716? That would result in all movies presented in flat to be scaled. Will I choose 5066x2160 or something close to that resolution? In that case, all scope movies would need to be scaled.
There are plenty of other examples that I could mention, but I hope the issue is obvious now.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Most movies aren't rendered in 4K; they're just 2K. Witness the joke that is the Ultra-HD Blu-ray format where very few of the titles have native 4K resolution. The 4K theater is either going to show these movies with a more obvious pixel grid or an image that is softer looking due to bicubic smoothing re-sampling.
Like you already mentioned yourself, most movies are already shot in a resolution higher than 4K. I can assure you, post processing and special effects are now also commonly done in 4K for any big name Hollywood production. Even many independents are already using 4K as the norm.
The re-release of existing titles on UHD Blu-Ray is an entirely different thing. In many cases those UHD releases are mere cash grabs, where they just took a 2K or FullHD master and applied some filters on it and called it a day. Those aren't the reference standard for new productions though.
quote: Bobby Henderson
What are the spes on this Barco board? How large was it, what was the pixel pitch and viewing distance? Four years ago very few jumbotron boards were even getting built near 2K resolution levels. The really tight boards in 1.2mm, 1.9mm and 2.5mm weren't getting made yet. So I can't help but wonder if the display you saw really was 4K. I've heard plenty of sales people stretch the truth or just plain lie when selling electronics.
I don't know what the exact pixel pitch was, it was about 70ft wide, so you can estimate the pixel pitch from there. Like I mentioned, it had a NATIVE 4K resolution and was build for trade shows, to show off their LED modules. They did make sure it looked good. And it did, especially from a distance.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Overglow from LEDs does a lot to hide the black space between the LEDs. Like I said earlier, the right kind of board has to be installed for the viewing distance. Customers buying LED boards for outdoor signs, billboards or even closer viewing indoor applications will often go with more coarse pitch displays to cut costs.
"Overglow" doesn't work well with dark scenes and that's were your problems start to manifest.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The fundamentals of LED boards are not really any different from a home TV screen. A giant sized 1080p screen viewed from only a few feet will be showing off a fairly obvious pixel grid to anyone with good eye sight. The same size TV in 4K will have a much tighter pixel grid. 6K and 8K shrinks the grid much more.
The problem is simply the large dark space between the individual pixels in most models. The simplest solution to this problem I've seen is a diffuser in front of the LED wall, which helps to eliminate those dark spots at the cost of some brightness. Some studios also have started to use those diffusers, in order to avoid moire patterns for close-up shots with LED walls in the background.
(Just to be sure: I know moire will not be something you will see with your own eyes in this case.)
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-19-2017 07:15 AM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Obviously, you have absolutely no clue at all what it takes to become a DCI certified supplier and what kind of security implementations are required to meet the specs. If it would be so simple, why didn't all those other projector manufacturers jump on the DCI train? Why leave this potentially lucrative market segment behind? Currently we have Barco, Christie, NEC and Sony to choose from. I can't install a Panasonic, Epson or whatever other brand of projector, because it simply won't play DCI content from any studio. I can't even just install any Barco projector I would want to use, I need to pick a model that is DCI certified. It's not just an optional check mark, I simply won't be able to play the content as the server would not allow me to.
That was an uniformed moment there.
First, DCinema is NOT a lucrative market. For many it is a prestige market. There are about 150,000 screens in the WORLD. If you cut the pie up to just 4 suppliers you are down to 37,500 units. That is not a very appetizing number for a lot of manufacturers. And that isn't annual sales either! Exhibitors would like to get better than 10-years, preferably, forever. Annual sales (due to new-builds and attrition) are going to be in the 3-4 digit range unless you take some of your competitor's piece of the pie.
TI deliberately limited the OEMs to three! Digital Projection Inc was to be the third DLP OEM but got cold feet and backed out, freeing up NEC. Note a common thread there, all three OEMs were already DLP manufacturers. You can see a lot of their R/S projector line in the Cinema line to minimize re-engineering things. Heck, the NEC IS-8 (R/S) and the NC-800 (Cinema) were the SAME projector. Due to licensing, each lens even has to be licensed for DLP Cinema use, which is what limits the lens choices (hint, if you need a lens outside of the cinema offerings, odds are, the various projector companies have an R/S lens that will get you, typically, to a longer EF). It will be a DLP lens and it will work with the projector but it won't be a "Cinema" lens.
Even Kinoton and Cinemeccannica, traditional names in cinema projection had to use Barco's light engine to get around the licensing thing and I was told that it was an oversight of the DLP clause that TI closed (you don't see any other manufacturers using OEM light engines, including after Kinoton shut its doors).
Samsung showed their TV at Cinema Con 2017. It used a GDC server and guess what, it is already DCI certified. The big security hurdles are in the mediablock. That is where the valuables are turn from scattered bits into picture and sound.
Getting big screen TVs DCI certified isn't going to be the hurdle you think it will be. The prestige part of cinema has a lot of potential payoffs for display companies like Samsung that has a HUGE consumer presence. The money they spend on making cinema displays can be ported to potential consumer sales which takes them from 150K to hundreds of millions and billions with higher turnover rates.
You don't have many options on digital projectors because, in truth, it isn't a big enough (lucrative) market that anyone (else) want to put up the investment to get a VERY small piece of a VERY small pie. And, now that the conversion is essentially over for most, that pie is even smaller yet.
Think about it. With film, how many new projector companies were clamoring to break into the lucrative market of cinema? With film projectors, you just needed access to mechanical engineers and a machine shop. There wasn't any licensing needed. But how much time and money are going to put into a product that you hope to sell a few hundred a year?
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 07-19-2017 09:09 AM
quote: Steve Guttag
That was an uniformed moment there.
I dare to differ, let me explain why:
quote:
First, DCinema is NOT a lucrative market. For many it is a prestige market. There are about 150,000 screens in the WORLD. If you cut the pie up to just 4 suppliers you are down to 37,500 units. That is not a very appetizing number for a lot of manufacturers. And that isn't annual sales either!
If there would not be the requirement for DCI certification, but simply something which could conform to e.g. HDCP, then many more manufacturers would be in the Digital Cinema market. Some of them could even be in the market "by accident", without specificially choosing to be in that market. I'm not implying all would be better, but at least there would be more flexibility if off-the-shelf solutions could be used.
quote: Steve Guttag
TI deliberately limited the OEMs to three! Digital Projection Inc was to be the third DLP OEM but got cold feet and backed out, freeing up NEC.
Sure, but there were and are other technologies available than TI's DLP. Sony used their LCoS solution to get there, there are other OEM LCoS manufacturers. Other technologies like 3LCD could have been a feasible solution for smaller screens. Several projector manufacturers offer many different light engine technologies across the board.
quote: Steve Guttag
Samsung showed their TV at Cinema Con 2017. It used a GDC server and guess what, it is already DCI certified. The big security hurdles are in the mediablock. That is where the valuables are turn from scattered bits into picture and sound.
The last thing I heard it was not yet certified, but it is undergoing the DCI certification process. At least, at CinemaCon, back in April, it was NOT YET certified.
An integrated mediablock is required for the more advanced DCI features. Why do you think this is? It's primary in order to shorten the unencrypted data path to an absolute limit. It's really a no-brainer to transport e.g. 20 GBit/s worth of traffic between Device A and B, you can do it with a cheap HDMI cable nowadays.
But in case of a big LED walls, those signal paths will be much, much longer. The entire secure chain of DCI would break if there would be an exposed, unencrypted signal path. So, I'm pretty sure the stakeholders in DCI will require signal paths to be encrypted up into the very display modules themselves. None of the LED wall suppliers I know currently employ this kind of encryption. It's not something that CAN'T be done, but it requires a considerable investment for, like you already indicated, a rather niche market. So, if you need to put in a lot of R&D, you might just decide to not cater to this market.
HDCP 2.2 certification also requires encrypted signal paths inside unprotected parts of the imager, maybe DCI's stakeholders will become more reasonable and accept HDCP 2.2 as a "good enough" security scheme for any interface behind the actual mediablock. HDCP 2.2 also, hasn't been cracked, until now, despite a few 4K UHD rips showing up in the wild.
quote: Steve Guttag
Getting big screen TVs DCI certified isn't going to be the hurdle you think it will be. The prestige part of cinema has a lot of potential payoffs for display companies like Samsung that has a HUGE consumer presence. The money they spend on making cinema displays can be ported to potential consumer sales which takes them from 150K to hundreds of millions and billions with higher turnover rates.
We're talking about Samsung here, one of the biggest technology and heavy industry conglomerates in the world. If they put something in their minds, they'll get there. Smaller manufacturers simply have far less money to play with.
quote: Steve Guttag
Think about it. With film, how many new projector companies were clamoring to break into the lucrative market of cinema? With film projectors, you just needed access to mechanical engineers and a machine shop. There wasn't any licensing needed. But how much time and money are going to put into a product that you hope to sell a few hundred a year?
With film, you needed to invest a lot of money to come up with pretty complex mechanical devices to make an entry into this market. The technology in those devices would also be of limited practical use for other endeavours. There are many projector manufacturers out there, including quite a few who build pretty decent big venue projectors, which can do everything a DCI projector can do with the proper lenses.
Going from such a projector to a cinema projector would be an almost zero investment, if there would not be the need to tightly integrate it into the DCI system and you could do with a simple HDCP-compliant interface for example.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-19-2017 01:13 PM
They achieved DCI compliant by March 22nd 2017
http://www.dcimovies.com/compliant_equipment/KEIO-Samsung-RAK0116ZZ-F7PG-20170323.html
So they had it by CinemaCon.
Getting various technologies to meet the image quality requirements is harder than you think. LCD is miserable for color stability and the panels die very easily in the heat. There is more to the DCI projectors than just the security that is in them.
As for HDCP security, screw-THAT! What an abomination that crap is. HDCP is the bane of any A/V installer's project...it hiccups way too easily. Generally, if you have the KDMs, the DCinema security doesn't get in the way too much with the KDMs themselves being the big PITA.
Again, you'd find that the likes of Panasonic would not see the minuscule cinema market very lucrative. They, like Samsung could view it, though, as a prestige for selling consumer sets.
As for making a film projector, it is easier than you think, particularly if you take a Christie approach and just use belts and pulleys but even with gears, it isn't rocket science.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 07-19-2017 02:21 PM
quote: Steve Guttag
They achieved DCI compliant by March 22nd 2017
http://www.dcimovies.com/compliant_equipment/KEIO-Samsung-RAK0116ZZ-F7PG-20170323.html
So they had it by CinemaCon.
Interestingly, their [url=https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-premieres-the-theater-of-the-future-with-new-cinema-screen-technology]own PR[/quote] wasn't aware of that.
quote: Steve Guttag
Getting various technologies to meet the image quality requirements is harder than you think. LCD is miserable for color stability and the panels die very easily in the heat. There is more to the DCI projectors than just the security that is in them.
3LCD isn't suitable for large screens. The LCDs indeed have a problem with extreme heat, they start to loose color and in some cases they can even turn entirely black.
But Epson has been building 3LCD projectors for many years now. Color stability doesn't seem to be a major issue anymore. They seem to know what they're doing and they still seem to be committed to the technology, at least for now.
LCoS already made it into DCI with SXRD. DiLA by JVC is a pretty amazing alternative to SXRD and I think it's a loss they never used it for bigger projectors.
Every technology has their own shortcomings, but there were multiple imaging technologies available, which could do the job, but never found their application in DCI.
quote: Steve Guttag
As for HDCP security, screw-THAT! What an abomination that crap is. HDCP is the bane of any A/V installer's project...it hiccups way too easily. Generally, if you have the KDMs, the DCinema security doesn't get in the way too much with the KDMs themselves being the big PITA.
I'm not a big fan of HDCP and yeah, it often gets in the way. Yet again, the content industry will continue to insist on DRM.
The problem actually often isn't HDCP itself, but the crappy implementation of it on many devices. DCI has, in this case, the advantage of a limited number of devices needing to communicate with itself. HDCP is also not a single protocol, it is a stack of protocols attempting to secure the chain from the delivery media (e.g. a BluRay or digital download) to the actual imager.
The newer standards have become increasingly strict. If they could encrypt the stream right into your brain, they would've done so. DCI also relies on watermarking, which is not a requirement for HDCP.
quote: Steve Guttag
Again, you'd find that the likes of Panasonic would not see the minuscule cinema market very lucrative. They, like Samsung could view it, though, as a prestige for selling consumer sets.
In order to become part of the secure DCI chain, you've to go through quite a few hoops. Those hoops, no matter how you look at it, will require quite a major commitment. This commitment might be too high for new parties to join the DCI marketplace. I've mentioned HDCP 2.2 as an example, because everybody who even wants to be of any significance in the AV industry at large, would need to confirm to it anyway.
If HDCP 2.2 would be deemed sufficiently secure for the part between mediablock and imaging device, other manufacturers could easier join the DCI market with their products. Essentially, there would not really be a DCI market anymore or in other words: the DCI market would join the "global market".
This is also why I don't see e.g. a Daktronics or other LED wall manufacturer being too willing tp join the DCI market. So, Samsung could very well be the only DCI compliant LED wall supplier for quite some time. The only serious contender I could see is Barco, as they already are in the DCI niche with both video and audio products and they don't want others to eat their lunch.
quote: Steve Guttag
As for making a film projector, it is easier than you think, particularly if you take a Christie approach and just use belts and pulleys but even with gears, it isn't rocket science.
I agree that it isn't rocket science, but it still requires commitment to a particular industry and the associated market. Turn back the clock 25 years or so. What would be the potential market for a 35mm film projector outside of cinema?
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 07-19-2017 04:33 PM
As long as the color is good, and the sound issue can be worked out, I think this technology would be a very good thing for movie theaters. Who cares what technology is doing the job? Shouldn't the most important focus always be on the end result? With all its quality tradeoffs, digital cinema is far better than the days of film that was projected by less-than-capable theaters. No jump. No weave. I'll take that anyday.
Let's get rid of poor contrast due to 3D-friendly silver screens. Let's get rid of images that smile because the projectors aren't lined up properly with the screen. Let's get rid of blurry/soft images because someone didn't clean the port glass, used the wrong port glass, put an HVAC outlet in the path of the image causing heat waves, etc.
I could see this screen working for drive-ins, if the price was reasonable for them.
- The sound behind the screen isn't an issue.
- If the screen is bright enough, it would allow the first feature to start earlier.
Given that so many Jumbotron-type displays are in outdoor stadiums, and electronic billboards are always outdoors, exposure to the elements must not be an issue.
As far as DCI compliance goes, that's just a matter of money. You throw money at the technology to make it compliant, and/or you throw money at the licensor to make them happy and persuade them to flex their requirements. I would think technology compliance is the least of the obstacles to making this type of screen a reality in movie theaters.
Standardizing on panels like this could bring back true widescreen sources. No having to be limited to the 1.9:1 container, just because the projectors aren't made in 2.35:1. If different DCI files can be made for all the different variations out there, certainly they could make a source file with a 5,184x2160 resolution for a 2.4:1 display panel, if there were enough to make it practical.
A far bigger issue is that some theaters would try to get away with a screen with too large a dot pitch, simply because it was a little cheaper.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-20-2017 12:36 AM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Obviously, you have absolutely no clue at all what it takes to become a DCI certified supplier and what kind of security implementations are required to meet the specs.
Obviously you have no clue about the engineering capabilities of companies like Daktronics. Hell, Barco has been making LED jumbotron displays for years and they're one of the few companies who make d-cinema projectors. They're just not nearly as dominant as Daktronics in that jumbotron market.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
If you think delivering a system that pleases the content industry is easy, name one manufacturer who currently will deliver a LED wall system that's HDCP 2.2 compliant for example?
That's a stupid question. We're talking about a product that's a freaking prototype. And then you're showing off your lack of knowledge about LED technology, going on and on as if it's just impossible for these companies to ever bring something to market. I've been working closely with this stuff for the past 20 years, watching the technology mature. The pace of improvement has been pretty rapid the past few years.
I don't think a solid board, like the DCI compliant unit Samsung recently demonstrated will work -at least not on any really large sized screens. I think it's a must for sound to be able to pass through the boards, which would require a different kind of LED panel.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
So, there's a megaton of shit out there and that's why we should just accept shit as the new standard?
You're trying to characterize a fixed resolution LED screen as something worse than what's in a d-cinema projector. News flash: every "digital" display currently being manufactured has a fixed, native resolution. The chips in d-cinema projectors have only one native resolution. All other digital projectors currently being sold have one fixed resolution. Flat screen TV sets and computer monitors all have only one native resolution.
As I said earlier, projectors do have certain disadvantages -ones that become severe when people making decisions in how movie theaters are designed create an impossible alignment situation between the projector and screen. For example, the two biggest "grand" auditoriums at Warren Theaters' Broken Arrow, OK location have deep curved "infinity" screens. I thought the image alignment on these screens was terrible. A LED-based jumbotron screen could be formed into a deep D-150 curve without any problem.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The point is, and I'm sure you're able to understand it, since even I do: If I want to build a new LED screen with a native AR of 2.35, because as you mentioned yourself, most new big budget releases are in that aspect ratio, I'm already in a pretty interesting situation. Because what will I choose as my native resolution? Will I choose 4096 × 1716? That would result in all movies presented in flat to be scaled. Will I choose 5066x2160 or something close to that resolution? In that case, all scope movies would need to be scaled.
The answer is you choose whether the screen will be 2K or 4K and then build it as 2048 X 1080 or 4096 X 2160 -the same overall resolution as the chips in d-cinema projectors. And that's if the people mandating standards want to stick with the current standard, which very much favors common width screens.
In a perfect world common height would be given priority in standards. Hollywood studios would shift to making 2.5K and 5K DCPs at 2582x1080 or 5162x2160, with flat movies pillar-boxed (and masked) as was done previously many years ago. LED boards can be made to fit those resolutions precisely.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Like you already mentioned yourself, most movies are already shot in a resolution higher than 4K. I can assure you, post processing and special effects are now also commonly done in 4K for any big name Hollywood production. Even many independents are already using 4K as the norm.
I strongly doubt that, judging by just how few movies are finished in 4K. You can't assume just because a movie production has the latest Arri or Red cameras on set that they're shooting at the camera's max resolution. Plenty of them still shoot at only 2K. Most CGI and digital intermediates are still rendered at only 2K, even if they had a 6K or 8K camera on the set. Rendering only 2K is much faster and cheaper. The production can fart around making changes closer to the last minute with 2K. And considering the movie will be on home video only 90 days after the theatrical debut, why bother wasting all that money rendering 4K?
Even if Hollywood actually embraced higher resolution production, like native 6K, 8K or higher, a LED-based panel seems more likely to be able to show off that resolution than a digital projector. I keep looking, but there appears to be no plans at all for d-cinema projector manufacturers to go beyond the 4K level. No one is going to spend countless millions or even billions of dollars creating a new breed of DLP chips that deliver native 6K or 8K resolution.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The re-release of existing titles on UHD Blu-Ray is an entirely different thing. In many cases those UHD releases are mere cash grabs, where they just took a 2K or FullHD master and applied some filters on it and called it a day. Those aren't the reference standard for new productions though.
Actually, it seems like more old catalog titles, ones with a film-in/film-out workflow, are getting real 4K releases on UHD Blu-ray. Some reviewers are raving over the new UHD BD of Leon: The Professional -a movie made years before the tyranny of 2K digital intermediate took hold.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
"Overglow" doesn't work well with dark scenes and that's were your problems start to manifest.
Overglow is more a creation within your eyes and it (like persistence of vision) is actually a good thing. We wouldn't be able to tolerate looking at our TV sets or computer monitors without the lumens of every pixel filling in the dark spaces between.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The problem is simply the large dark space between the individual pixels in most models. The simplest solution to this problem I've seen is a diffuser in front of the LED wall, which helps to eliminate those dark spots at the cost of some brightness. Some studios also have started to use those diffusers, in order to avoid moire patterns for close-up shots with LED walls in the background.
Um, NO. Screw sticking anything in front of a LED panel. Doing that would harm color fidelity and contrast. And then there's an issue of ventilation. Most conventional LED panels are ventilation through the front and back.
Moiré can be a real pain in the ass if you are trying to take a picture of a LED billboard or jumbotron. I speak from experience on this. It's a lot more fun taking a picture of a neon sign than a LED board. The moiré pattern is caused by two fixed pixel grids conflicting with each other. The camera's imaging chip has a fixed pixel grid and so does the LED board. If the jumbotron has a tight enough pixel pitch the moiré pattern will disappear. TV productions that install LED boards on their sets have to spend extra for higher resolution panels to combat moiré from showing up in the background. They can also use depth of field, separating a person they're photographing from the LED board in the background. That gets rid of moiré in the image too.
The giant Google jumbotron on the Marriott Marquis building is one display I've seen photographed and shot on video numerous times. Moiré doesn't show up in the footage unless someone photographs it pretty close. The 323' x 77' Mitsubishi display has a native resolution of 10048x2396 and a pixel pitch of 2.59 pixels per inch, pretty close to 10mm. That's fairly coarse, but it's overkill for most outdoor displays.
quote: Steve Guttag
First, DCinema is NOT a lucrative market. For many it is a prestige market. There are about 150,000 screens in the WORLD. If you cut the pie up to just 4 suppliers you are down to 37,500 units. That is not a very appetizing number for a lot of manufacturers. And that isn't annual sales either! Exhibitors would like to get better than 10-years, preferably, forever. Annual sales (due to new-builds and attrition) are going to be in the 3-4 digit range unless you take some of your competitor's piece of the pie.
I guarantee Samsung and other LED display manufacturers would only develop this kind of LED cinema screen technology only if there were possible applications in other areas. The product Samsung demonstrated is barely any different from other indoor LED-based sign displays.
To me, a real LED movie screen would have to be a different breed of product (which I already described). There are already numerous applications for "flexible" LED displays. They've been applied to the exteriors of buildings, even in such a manner where people inside the building could still see out of the windows. Concert sets have had various examples of it. Different kinds of businesses with high foot traffic could utilize it.
quote: Scott Jentsch
I could see this screen working for drive-ins, if the price was reasonable for them.
Cost would be a critical issue for any theater, but it would be more critical for drive-ins given they can only run evening shows. These LED panels are bright enough they could be run during day time, but day time just doesn't seem right for watching movies outdoors.
LEDs do have a limited life span. Some products hold up better than others. But you're still looking at perhaps a 10 year life span at best for one of these boards. By then all sorts of issues come into play, like availability of replacement parts. No electronics supplier will keep making the same exact product forever.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 07-20-2017 04:49 AM
quote: Scott Jentsch
Let's get rid of poor contrast due to 3D-friendly silver screens. Let's get rid of images that smile because the projectors aren't lined up properly with the screen. Let's get rid of blurry/soft images because someone didn't clean the port glass, used the wrong port glass, put an HVAC outlet in the path of the image causing heat waves, etc.
Unfortunately, every technology has their own annoying failure modes if not taken care of. Digital cinema has theirs and LED walls can be plagued by broken modules, which will be much more annoying than a stuck sub-pixel. No technology is proof to willing neglect.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Obviously you have no clue about the engineering capabilities of companies like Daktronics. Hell, Barco has been making LED jumbotron displays for years and they're one of the few companies who make d-cinema projectors. They're just not nearly as dominant as Daktronics in that jumbotron market.
Really Bobby? I don't doubt the engineering capabilities of those companies. Like both I and Steve in his own way already put forward: DCI is a considerable niche market.
It can be a lucrative niche, especially if you have products that could fit into this market. Still, there are just a limited number of companies trying to get into this market. The reason why is simple: The DCI specs and especially the security part of those specs are something exclusive to this market only. They are a major hurdle to get into this market, not because they're so difficult, but it's a cost-benefit analysis.
Also, I'm not saying other manufacturers will never jump into the market, my point is: I don't expect too much competition.
quote: Bobby Henderson
That's a stupid question. We're talking about a product that's a freaking prototype. And then you're showing off your lack of knowledge about LED technology, going on and on as if it's just impossible for these companies to ever bring something to market. I've been working closely with this stuff for the past 20 years, watching the technology mature. The pace of improvement has been pretty rapid the past few years.
Just try to understand what I'm writing right there, alright?
I'm not doubting the engineering capabilities of those companies. I'm only indicating what kind of priorities can be expected from those companies. We've all seen this technology mature over the years. And it's not a stupid question. You know why you don't see HDCP 2.2 just yet? Because it is a pain to implement and for most manufacturers it's too much of a niche. How often will somebody use such a screen for content that requires HDCP 2.2? I'm pretty sure it will eventually arrive, but it is not a priority.
You know why I mentioned HDCP 2.2? Because I actually read quite some parts of the specs (I had to, it wasn't because it's fun to do). The security precautions they require mimic in large part the latest DCI requirements, I'd say the requirements are actually even more strict than the DCI requirements.
quote: Bobby Henderson
You're trying to characterize a fixed resolution LED screen as something worse than what's in a d-cinema projector. News flash: every "digital" display currently being manufactured has a fixed, native resolution. The chips in d-cinema projectors have only one native resolution. All other digital projectors currently being sold have one fixed resolution. Flat screen TV sets and computer monitors all have only one native resolution.
Sorry Bobby, this is down to kindergarten level. News flash: I do have a barely functioning brain, I know that every raster display imaging solution has a fixed, native resolution. Thanks for repeating this invaluable knowledge though, in case I start losing my mind and expect my LCD panel to magically divide its pixels when I select a higher than native resolution.
Also, I'm not trying to characterize a fixed LED screen as something worse than a D-Cinema projector. If you'd read all of my posts and would try to follow the points which I'm making, then you would see that I actually do see quite some merits in the technology itself. I'm only trying to bring forward some real issues that are going to arise if not taken account for.
One of those issues is the following:
There is no doubt that you will still be able to see pixels even in a fully DCI compliant 4K theater, once you sit close enough to the screen or once the screen reaches a certain size compared to the room. In the latter case, you will even be able to see them from the center of the room. Those pixels are primarily discernible in details like subtitling, credits, etc. The fact is: They are still visible. They usually do not really distract, because they mostly appear as "discernible little blobs".
On a LED screen, since the space between the pixels is much higher and there is no way to "blur" those individual pixels in such a way the space in between them gets "filled out", like you could do with a projector, where you just slightly put the imager out of focus. So, you will see dots in many scenarios, especially where the pixels aren't bright enough to "overglow" the space between them.
So, the point is: you would either need a way to blur those individual dots or a 4K LED wall is just not good enough.
That's why I'm saying: Let's not fall into the same trap again. 2K wasn't good enough for DCI. It was way too many trade offs and it is barely above the threshold of being acceptable. We should not fall into the same trap again.
If we're stuck with a fixed resolution surface, we should make sure that we get the most out of it. I think I made clear that even 4K is not good enough for this. That's why I say, before we start rolling out this kind of technology en-mass.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The answer is you choose whether the screen will be 2K or 4K and then build it as 2048 X 1080 or 4096 X 2160 -the same overall resolution as the chips in d-cinema projectors. And that's if the people mandating standards want to stick with the current standard, which very much favors common width screens.
So, there it goes, the possibility to build a screen in whatever aspect ratio you please?
And the unwritten standard, like you put forward yourself, for almost all big Hollywood releases is scope, not flat. Yes, it is delivered in an awkward way, where scope is less than flat. You know this, I know this, we all know this. Still, Hollywood seems to prefer scope. So, let's just give scope the treatment it deserves.
But again the point is:
A 4K or even worse, a 2K LED wall simply isn't good enough for many rooms out there. And especially if you would need to do scaling to fit it on your wall and use the maximum size possible for your content. If all you do is showing flat and scope and you don't mind scope being letterboxed, then screw it. But cinema should really be better than watching TV, we all seem to agree on it.
With optics, you have the possibility to optically zoom in, which is what happens at almost every cinema doing scope on a screen with an AR of 2.35. Zooming in, in a fixed resolution wall display means scaling. Scaling means artifacts. If you use an imaging surface with sufficient high resolution, those artifacts will become negligible and that's the entire point.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I strongly doubt that, judging by just how few movies are finished in 4K. You can't assume just because a movie production has the latest Arri or Red cameras on set that they're shooting at the camera's max resolution. Plenty of them still shoot at only 2K. Most CGI and digital intermediates are still rendered at only 2K, even if they had a 6K or 8K camera on the set. Rendering only 2K is much faster and cheaper. The production can fart around making changes closer to the last minute with 2K. And considering the movie will be on home video only 90 days after the theatrical debut, why bother wasting all that money rendering 4K?
We're talking about production companies that spend millions and millions of dollars on a single feature. Most recent big-budget productions also already employ HDR (mostly Dolby Vision). But they're not producing 4K releases targeted at the cinematic release, but because 4K is the new norm at home.
Heck, even modern series are shot, produced and released in 4K, some of them even in HDR. Just fire up your Netflix. And yeah, the compression might suck, but they clearly are produced in 4K.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Even if Hollywood actually embraced higher resolution production, like native 6K, 8K or higher, a LED-based panel seems more likely to be able to show off that resolution than a digital projector. I keep looking, but there appears to be no plans at all for d-cinema projector manufacturers to go beyond the 4K level. No one is going to spend countless millions or even billions of dollars creating a new breed of DLP chips that deliver native 6K or 8K resolution.
Putting so many pixels in such a tiny surface area is pretty challenging. The best solution to increase both resolution and brightness using projectors is a stacking solution. It obviously comes with other challenges, but it is entirely doable. My credo is: If I can do it, so can anybody else with half a brain.
Unfortunately, in DCI it is not possible to stack projectors other than to overlay them 1:1.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Um, NO. Screw sticking anything in front of a LED panel. Doing that would harm color fidelity and contrast. And then there's an issue of ventilation. Most conventional LED panels are ventilation through the front and back.
Ventilation is also one of those issues which needs to be accounted for in a cinema install, also because of the possible noise. Barco uses liquid cooling for their rear projection video wall modules, but I've not yet seen it in a proper LED wall.
Still, sticking a bunch of micro-lenses in front of a LED wall will most likely be not too harmful for both contrast and color. We've been doing high-efficiency optics for ages. Nowadays, you can even 3D print optics with pretty amazing results (we've ordered some 3D printed lenses a short while back.)
quote: Bobby Henderson
TV productions that install LED boards on their sets have to spend extra for higher resolution panels to combat moiré from showing up in the background. They can also use depth of field, separating a person they're photographing from the LED board in the background. That gets rid of moiré in the image too.
Well, what I've seen is that they really became fed up with all the limitations with such a backdrop. That's why they switched back to projections, video walls based on LCD panels, green screen or started to use diffusers in some cases.
I've seen an "art wall" using a diffuser, where the image is sharp and bright from a distance, but once you get closer, you get a nice looking "bokeh" instead of seemingly random flickering dots. I was rather impressed at how it looked from all distances.
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