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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Topic: Kodak to get out of the FILM business?
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-12-2007 05:08 PM
quote: John Walsh
I just don't see 70mm providing any kind of value justifying retaining film for theaters. Reasons are: I see no real demand by the public for higher-quality on screen image. (I feel the recent IMAX/35mm conversions too small a market to conclude people want that kind of quality.) They accepted the 1.3K digital projector, which was too "pixel-ly" for me.
Oh my god. John we've know each other for some time now and I'm agast that you used the above statement as any arguement against 70mm.
Look at the "logic" used. Since there is no push by the public for greater quality, then there isn't a need.
Using that sort of reasoning...there are MANY theatres that satisfied customers are listening to their films in MONO. Why are all these idiots spending money on stereo or even dumber, on digital sound? After all, this generation of kids will watch movies on their cell phones with tiny screens and horrible audio.
The facts are, 70mm HAS ALWAYS BROUGHT IN MORE THAN ITS FAIR SHARE OF THE REVENUE to theatres that play it. In particular, show places florish with 70mm. The AFI/Silver does wonderful business on any title it advertises in 70mm (2001:A Space Odyssey is coming up!).
Shooting in 65mm is a natural since it provides the studios with the best quality image for today and for future endevors, even if they are to be digital in nature.
Personally, I do not see the typical theatre of today that runs 35mm will survive in the future, even with digital projection. The theatre experience will be and often is too close to the home experience with the home often being the superior experience, technically.
The showplaces have the best chance in the future of surviving, if they can survive a bit longer. They will be able to draw the public out to them as a place to experience a movie. Expecting typical mall type theatres to survive in the future is like expecting the "Swanson TV Dinner Restaurant" to survive if such a thing opened. That is, a restaurant that served up EXACTLY what you can get at home but more money and less convienence than the home.
In another thread someone brought up some high dollar home theatre projector for over $100K. Well, Panasonic now has a 2K home theatre projector that has a street price of $4K. Panasonic has also issued a 10K lumen 2K DLP (3-chip) projector that is selling for under $60K.
3-chip DLP for the home is still too pricey but it gets more affordable each year and the LCD projectors with 2K resolution are already affordable by a great many people and they will continue to become less expensive. I don't see what theatres have to offer except an earlier viewing with their 2K or even 4K projectors. The home doesn't blow their images up as a much...they don't need it to be as good as cinema for it to look every bit as good.
Just like a good restaurant, theaters will have to serve up something more spectacular than just staying at home or going to another type of entertainment.
70mm isn't coming to the home any time soon, even in a digital equivalent. All the nay sayers on 70mm seem to refuse to look at its history. It is always a solid winner and nothing yet has touched its magic.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-12-2007 08:06 PM
While I certainly hope that there will be no end to improving digital imaging, I don't think it is at all like film in any or color developments in terms of the type of improvements that will be seen.
When film makers improved their products, all users of the product benefited. This was true with respect to grain, color, fading, durability, longevity. You name it...the rising tide truely raised ALL ships.
Larger guage films were not an invention but a different utilization of the existing product. If the photographer wanted more detail in their photos, they could use a larger guage film of any era and have more detail than the same film of that era. The same holds true for movies. The closest you can see to the struggle of that improvement would be 70mm. Just because a studio makes a film in a superior format does not mean that all exhibitors will purchase the necessary equipment to take advantage of it. If they did, digital would be still very much of the future since it isn't anywhere near 70mm of today.
As one moves up in digital quality (more pixels, less compression...etc), the market for such improvement becomes progressively smaller...making the push for such designs less desireable from an R&D standpoint since the market is not going to be big enough to recover suitable profit on the investment.
Whereas Kodak could realize the profit on an investment in film stock from ALL users (consumers and pros alike), the consumer side is far less likely to be clamoring for 4K and beyond pictures anywhere in the near future (for TV/Home Theatre). It will take them decades to realize the 2K pictures they can have now and the improved 2K pictures that are coming their way. TI, for instance has no interest in going beyond 2K at the moment...that is where the money is.
Your best bet for making a higher resolution technology for digital images for cinema is to probably follow the same model as film...and that is to use more of the same technology. Use say for 2K imagers to create a 4K imager rather than create a single 4K imager. Likewise for 8K, 16K...etc. No doubt, there would be a point where it would cost more to combine many imagers vs making one larger/denser one.
Making two tiers of technology (pro and consumer) makes the pro side VERY expensive and due to the relatively puny world market for cinema projectors (or cameras) will keep them very expensive.
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Cameron Glendinning
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 845
From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia
Registered: Dec 2005
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posted 02-13-2007 06:54 AM
quote: Lyle Romer
And then they hook it up at home to a 480i signal and show all of their friends how great it looks with all kinds of up-conversion and stretching artifacts.
Interesting point, I can see what your getting at, but its a start to a more discerning audience.
Here in australia we have pal, which looks much better and has 576, lines. H.D set top boxes are selling very well. Most Prime time free to air t.v is now being duel broadcast in 1080i.
As for sound, as much money as spent in developing 5.1 in the first place, has now been spent developing a 2 speaker version of it for home, (complete with stereo surrounds). Lets face it only cinemas can hide those ugly speakers behind the screen!
quote: Lyle Romer
buying the HYPE of HDTV
The quality of 1080 is very very good, be afraid, I am!
The audience is now complaining more as well, we were running a print that had been run at fox studios prieview theatre, they do large x (the entire frame) for c/o cues, (dont ask me why, im assuming the guy is blind) So many complaints about it the manager got a new print! 48 frames worth of x over a 100 minutes movie, I then had to explain that we could have cleaned it off if we had known! yes we now cheak for it! 10 years ago would anyone have complained?
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