Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Alternative to RealD

This is topic Alternative to RealD - Shutter Glasses in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Peter Castle (Member # 1997) on 10-07-2006, 04:04 AM:

I noticed on In-Three's website a press release dated February 22, 2006 that Christie/AccessIT had agreed to install In-Three's shutter glasses system for 3-d digital films on 2300 screens.

Did this happen?
Are there any cinemas screening 3-d digital without RealD's polarisation system?

This seems to be the only way 3-d digital will get the coverage needed for 3-d to be viable. There are many cinemas that cannot use silver screens.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-08-2006, 08:00 PM:

Real-D is VERY expensive! Every theater has to pay a lease fee that is quite astronomical.... you'd think they were Imax! "chicken Little" has been the only film so far as I know that has been released. Dolby has entered into agreement recently with a European company to do Digital Cinema 3-D without the shutter type glasses. I think thats worth watching and waiting for.

Mark

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-08-2006, 08:28 PM:

What about "Monster House"?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-08-2006, 10:42 PM:

I donno... does that make two now? Geez, You'd think they'd have some stream of f ilms to cover each theaters 20K plus yearly liscensing fee.

Mark

Posted by John Koutsoumis (Member # 1855) on 10-08-2006, 11:07 PM:

"Monster House" is screening here in Melbourne in "Real-D", "digital", "3D", "the futre of cinema", or whatever it's called, at 4 Village Cinemas; Southland, Jam Factory, Knox and Sunshine.
Tickets are $17 for Adults and $13 for Kids!
Or you could go to their Waverly Gradens location and see it in 35mm on their "Bargain Screen" for $6.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-08-2006, 11:20 PM:

I saw it in 2D at the Lincoln Theater in Cheyenne last week for free... kinda cute and better fare than I thought it would be... decent mix too. Probably gave little kids nightmares later on after they saw it.

Mark

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 10-08-2006, 11:33 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Real-D is VERY expensive! "chicken Little" has been the only film so far as I know that has been released.

quote: David Stambaugh
What about "Monster House"?

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I donno... does that make two now? Geez, You'd think they'd have some stream of f ilms to cover each theaters 20K plus yearly liscensing fee.

The "Nightmare Before Christmas" 3-D re-release (discussed in this thread) is right around the corner. And "Meet The Robinsons" is due in a few months.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 10-09-2006, 04:28 AM:

Does anyone have any further information about the business end of Real D? Is the licensing fee really $20,000/year? Is that per screen?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 10-09-2006, 08:35 AM:

quote: Peter Castle
There are many cinemas that cannot use silver screens.

Why not?

I cringe at the thought of RealD shutter glasses. The image already flickers on the screen with their polarized system.

Posted by Peter Castle (Member # 1997) on 10-09-2006, 08:56 AM:

Many cinemas are too wide for a silver screen to be used, due to the direct reflections from such a screen. The screen's reflectance drops off very dramatically as the angle of view to the screen increases. That's why many can see hot spots on silver screens.

The alternative is to use a normal high gain screen and shutter glasses. Flicker should not be a problem since digital systems can generate high refresh rates like 144 frames per second - 72 to each eye. (I've seen both RealD presentations and haven't seen any flicker at these frame rates.)

BTW the system I asked about is not from RealD. It's from the company that showed 3-d conversions from 2-d at ShoWest in 2005 i.e. In-Three.

So my question still stands: given the press release in February, have any of these non-RealD systems been installed?

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-09-2006, 08:59 AM:

The main reason would be the shape of the auditoria; silver screens reflect the light over a fairly narrow angle, so the brightness falls off sharply as you move off-axis to the side. If you have a wide, fan-shaped auditorium then many of the side seats, especially in the rows towards the front would see a very poor picture. This can also cause problems with old theatres where the projection box is very high, and theatres with a balcony.

Silver screens are also more expensive, but if you can afford a 3-D digital projection system this probably isn't going to be an issue.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 10-09-2006, 09:39 AM:

Ah, forgot about the reflectivity angle problem with silver screens.

quote: Peter Castle
(I've seen both RealD presentations and haven't seen any flicker at these frame rates.)

So have I, and the alternating eyes method that's used creates a ridiculous amount a flickering and strobing especially with scenes where there's a lot of motion on the screen. Perhaps you haven't seen 3D presented where both eye images are always hitting the screen at exactly the same time? Or maybe your persistance of vision is better (or worse?) than mine.

I'd love to see 3D with two syncronized DLP projectors. I have a hunch it looks pretty cool.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-11-2006, 03:31 AM:

Quite a few years ago now I bought a system from 3DTV,Inc. It consisted of original 3D films from the 50s (HOUSE OF WAX, DIAL M FOR MURDER, etc) and some newer ones (JAWS 3D, HALOWEEN 3D, STARCHASER, ANDY W's FRANKENSTEIN, etc). The electronics are no bigger than a cigarette box with jack to plug in the Toshiba shutter headgear and an RCA jack for grabbing the signal from a regular composit output from the vcr (no DVD at the time). I projected the image thru an Advent VideoBeam to an 8ft screen and the results, while only SVHS quality and enough flicker to give an epileptic a seizure, it WAS 3D with as much depth as in any good 3D presentation I've seen using two strip film. And me having been crazy in love with 3D since I was 10, if you give me 3D depth, I will suffer NTSC low rez video with substantial flicker any day.

All that to say that the same company 3DTV also had a box that would take a composit signal and split it so that if you did have two projectors, you could do simultanious double image and use only passive polaroid.

On the other hand, with this volume of current 3D releases that seems not to stop coming, I am just waiting for the studios to see the goldmind they have and release these new title in this alternate frame system on DVD. After all, they have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are really primarily interested in DVD sales anyway. With HD/Blueray DVDs the rez would be much better than SVHS. How short a jump will it be for them to see the potential of being able to get their 3D releases into the home IN 3D? My recollection is that the headgear cost about $20 per unit, not much more than the ticket price for the lastest 3D offering at the theatres. I sure as hell would be in line to buy those 3D DVDs.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 10-11-2006, 08:25 PM:

It shouldn't take much to put the left eye on one disk, and the right eye on the other disk, and have them sync up in a dual disk player and play the frames in sync on two projectors instead of flickering back and forth. It will take a little bit of development, but not much. That's the system I would like to see in the home. Especially with the new HD formats.

Posted by Peter Castle (Member # 1997) on 10-12-2006, 05:41 AM:

For DVDs with 3d, try www.razor3donline.com although I'm sceptical about TV 3d being any good - too low a flicker rate.

Barco's website includes information about their stereo projectors (Galaxy series I think they're called) which use the system that Dolby are hooking up with called Infitec, which uses filter lenses (passive) like anaglyph but with better filter characteristics for colour viewing. The site also contains information about 'stereo lumens' to measuse the brightness of digital signals after passing through filters or polarisers like RealD's system. It's in the virtual reality section of their site.

Very informative.

But no-one has responded about the existence of non-RealD sites, so I guess there mustn't be any, even though it was announced in February that 2300 would be installed.