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Author Topic: RANT! Why not E-Cinema? Makes so much sense to me! Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-07-2010 01:35 PM                     A couple of points at least up here there are no VPF being paid to independents so one must bear the entire cost I agree with stev in most of the comments he made this industry has allowed itself to continously spiral to the lowest common denominator that is why theatres regularly receive damaged and scratched prints single chip dlp has no place in an enviroment with paid admissions  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 04-07-2010 04:59 PM                     quote: Steve Guttag Using the top number of your statement of $76,000. And my lowest life span...7-years. The cost of DCinema is $10,857/year. That is a CHEAP employee. The longer it lasts, the cheaper it gets. This is probably what Rhonda was meaning with the $10,000 per screen comment. Tried to correct my post within the hour but was too late to edit. Then it told me I could not double post.  |  IP: Logged Ron Curran Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 504 From: Springwood NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2006 posted 04-07-2010 10:55 PM                        This is an ideal example of what e-cinema is for. We will be running Mid August Lunch from a hard drive but will wait for 35mm on The Sheila With The Gecko Decco (and thanks to John Wilson for the liveware spellcheck). Our e-cinema gear is mostly for pre-show (coming attractions and theatre and community information). It is a quantum leap from slides. I am one of those people who see the rainbow effect – our Optoma dlp projector in our home cinema displays it. Fortunately neither my wife nor any of our guests notice it. I say this because I don’t see it from our e-cinema projector and it is single chip dlp. The brightness, steadiness and clarity are a bonus. Also, the media player reliably puts out 5.1. Lucky, I suppose. Image and sound quality are actually better than I had hoped from a digital source. So I am not terrified of the day we have to switch from film to d-cinema, except for the necessity of selling a kidney to pay for it. Oh, and I still have an appendix if anybody’s interested; barely used. If all film was done right we there would be no discussion.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-08-2010 12:42 AM                        Ron - yes there would, because the film co's are saving all that money, and the big exhibs would like to trim jobs, whether film was being done right or not.  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 04-08-2010 04:11 AM                     The Sheila With The Gecko Decco update, new letterboxed version is on its way  |  IP: Logged John Wilson Film God Posts: 5438 From: Sydney, Australia. Registered: Dec 1999 posted 04-08-2010 05:08 AM                     Well, sort of...  |  IP: Logged Ron Curran Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 504 From: Springwood NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2006 posted 04-09-2010 04:14 AM                        Mike, my sympathies lie with independent distributors. Major distibutors here have access to used prints and worthwhile discounts on large runs for new prints so the cost of 35mm is irrelevant. Although 5,000 prints of a bad movie that doesn't open becomes very expensive. The small indies are paying top dollar for subtitled or small run prints and they can't afford d-cinema copies. The e-cinema route gives them the opportunity to get some return from specialist fare. Despite what others are saying, their latest 2K files look pretty good. But, just like d-cinema, they can't get Scope right and that is the most important format in contemporary cinema presentation. Having seen crap digital presentations from majors at conventions, I have to keep my cool when they tell me they will not support e-cinema in any form on grounds of quality. I can't understand how they could get e-cinema presentation so bad at those affairs, unless it was to reinforce their argument on quality. Any Film-Techers who have a decent home cinema set-up will admit that they enjoy better results there than they get from many shows on a cinema screen. I certainly have. E-cinema can be done right and it should be if you are asking for an admission price. The mid-size distributors charge the same hire to give a cinema a film print or a 2k e-cinema hard drive.  |  IP: Logged Ronda Fitzsimmons Film Handler Posts: 75 From: Pottstown, PA, USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 04-11-2010 11:54 AM                        Sorry about the confusion on the $10K per screen. I was quoting Steve's estimate of the cost (without interest, I might add) of installing D-cinema per screen per year. Where as a pretty decent e-cinema setup would be $10K total per screen - or less - much more affordable over a few years time, and much more upgradable affordably as newer, better, cheaper systems come out. Not to mention there's at least SOME possibility of me actually being able to get finacing for $10k per screen total, even self-financing over a couple of years if nothing else. Whereas there really is no way for me to get financing for $10k+ per screen per year. And this doesn't include the additional cost of the "required" maintenance contracts, where with the lower cost system, I can just have a backup on hand, and send anything that breaks out to be fixed... And unfortunately Mike, it would take a whole lot more than a quarter raise in my prices to pay for D-cinema. My personal experience shows that every increase in price results in a decrease in customers. And the only thing that keeps us going is butts in the seats. With the ever shortened window between show openings and video release, we are already seeing shorter runs on some of the bigger movies. Not enough as yet to seriously impact the bottom line, but it's coming... I don't lose staff with digital, which I've seen mentioned a couple of times here. We run bare-bones now. So there is no offsetting savings from cutting labor. From what I've heard, not confirmed, there isn't a savings or much of one in electricity use either. And I understand there isn't any savings in shipping costs either. Although I expect we'll start seeing higher shipping costs either way since we won't be able to pick up prints from local first runs as we do regularly now. Anyone have real data on this? Will film companies allow pick up of hard drives? And while I haven't done a full check on the technology out there, I do know there is affordable equipment out there that would work beautifully on my smaller screens. I really didn't expect anywhere near the responses I got from my rant... Nice to see some thoughtful discourse on the subject, and to see some of the surprisingly vehement replies as well...  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-11-2010 01:34 PM                        quote: Ronda Fitzsimmons And I understand there isn't any savings in shipping costs either. Someone correct me if this is wrong, but I understand Technicolor charges the same rates for film or digital. Deluxe charges the actual UPS rates (or close to them) and you are free to ship prints back any way you want, so you can save a bit on shipping Deluxe prints.  |  IP: Logged

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