quote:

---

But wouldn't the downsized digital version in theaters be more accurate in terms of color fidelity and overall steadiness?

---

By "color fidelity", I assume you mean color accuracy? Well, that's not necessarily going to be better on a digital system. It's true that every time you read the data off a disk, you will get the same value, but it does not automatically follow that the projector will actually produce the same color twice in a row if given the same input value. And I've heard that color calibration on DLP can be a nightmare. The data itself may be exactly the same each time, but it's still up to the display device to reproduce it correctly. That doesn't mean that digital can't still be more accurate than film, just that it's not a foregone conclusion.

Now, when it comes to color range, film definitely has the advantage. I've never seen a video projector, DLP included, that can produce the kind of rich reds that good film prints (especially dye-transfer) can. It's not impossible for a digital projector to catch up to what film can do, but again, it's up to the display device -- and I don't believe there are any currently available that can do that.

True, digital projection would almost certainly be more steady, since there is no possibility of film weave, although it's not guaranteed that it will be 100% steady (there could be flicker from the Xenon lamp, vibrations from who knows what shaking the projector, etc.) Really, steadiness is not that big of a problem with a good film presentation. Usually when I go to my local theaters, the picture is so steady I can fix my eye on an object or a subtitle near the edges of the screen and still not detect any movement. Poorly tuned film projectors can be bad about that, but if the theater does a good job, it's not an issue.

quote:

---

Printing to 35mm introduces it's own artifacts if I'm not mistaken.

---

Of course it does -- no one's saying it doesn't. No display system is perfect (despite what salesmen from digital cinema companies will tell you), but what I'm saying is that the advantages of film outweigh the disadvantages. I'd much rather enjoy the extra resolution, color, contrast of film (not to mention the lack of compression artifacts), even if it does have a few of its own disadvantages.

quote:

---

How does the brain perceive TV by comparison with film and digital projection at theatres? Your analysis concludes that digital projection is harder to watch than film at 24 fps but how does TV compare?

Here in Australia we have PAL colour which I understand is 625 x 625 pixels. Your NTSC systems is similar but has a lower number of pixels. Is TV harder to watch than film or vice versa? Are you more likely to get headaches watching TV?

---

This is an interesting topic. I'll see what I can find on this topic, as I'm sure it has been fairly well researched in the past.

In my earlier post, I may have indicated that TV or digital projection was harder to watch than film, but I didn't mean to. I was stating reasons why that would be the case if it is. I don't believe the problems with headaches would occur unless people had to strain too much to see picture details due to resolution being too low for viewing distance, picture being too dim, picture being unfocused, etc.

I will see if I can find anything analyzing the difference in the way the brain processes sweeping scan-line types of displays vs. film projecton.

quote:

---

But wouldn't the downsized digital version in theaters be more accurate in terms of color fidelity and overall steadiness?

---

Color fidelity and accuracy are interesting issues. How many of you are familiar with color gamuts for different devices? Film has a greater gamut than television displays because the only colors a television can reproduce lie in a triangular area on a CIE Chromacity diagram between the three primary colors used for the phosphors in the picture tube. Colors outside that range cannot be reproduced faithfully. Film has a larger gamut than television, so there are colors that film can reproduce that cannot be reproduced on TV. Most TVs don't use the standard NTSC specifications for red, green, and blue, and use a more restrictive triangular area in order to get brighter pictures. Color on TV, HDTV, or digital projection devices may be more consistent, but their color gamut will be more restrictive than that of film.

http://home.earthlink.net/~demografx/colorimetry.html

Unfortunately, there are no numbers or measurements to go along with the diagrams.

That apparently comes from a proposal back when the FCC was still trying to decide on digital TV standards. I really like the idea of an RGGB color space -- too bad the FCC declined that and other good suggestions (such as a proposal from ASC to make the aspect ratio 2:1 instead of 16:9 (1.78:1)).

Yes! Those diagrams are very similar to some that I saw a few days ago, but could not find again. Thanks for posting the link. "A picture is worth a thousand words."