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Posted by Jamie Glossop (Member # 2180) on 12-09-2007, 08:09 AM:

Hi.

Was just woundering is it possible to put a dvd movie into a 35mm format?

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-09-2007, 09:03 AM:

Most anything is possible...if there is enough money or if quality is low enough.

In the 1960's we had b/w 35mm films made of "Top of the Pops" clips to show in cinemas during the "British Invasion." (Beatles, etc for the younger set.) (Each scan line was in perfect focus, but nothing else was. Sound was OK, though)

Posted by Jamie Glossop (Member # 2180) on 12-09-2007, 09:38 AM:

Nice. Know any places where to get this done?

Posted by Joop de Gruiter (Member # 84) on 12-09-2007, 10:30 AM:

Why would you want to do this?

Posted by Brian Guckian (Member # 1678) on 12-09-2007, 10:39 AM:

You need to go back to the source format from which the DVD was made (DV Cam maybe?) and laser record the image to a 35mm negative. It may be possible to increase the perceived resolution of the source image via image processing, but ultimately the quality will be a reflection of the source material.

For sound, the original track will have to be re-recorded or even re-laid for 35mm Dolby SR purposes; more likely a Mono re-mix would be better.

Even using these basic techniques will incur considerable expense.

Many London-based laboratories and post-production facilities offer or have access to laser recording facilities, and it may still be possible to use the lower-cost method of shooting the 35mm neg from a high-definition monitor specially set up for the purpose.

What was the source material for the DVD?

Posted by Jamie Glossop (Member # 2180) on 12-09-2007, 06:15 PM:

Joop de Gruiter - I was just woundering thats all. I like the 35mm ways and our screens will show movies on DVD

Brian Guckian - I was looking at turning latest movies onto dvd onto 35mm so i can have a collection on dvd and 35mm. I used to work as a projectionist and the projects im working on now will use just normal dvds which i miss using 35mm film so thats why i want to change dvds into 35mm

Do you know of any London-based laboratories or what to search in google to find places like this?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-09-2007, 08:48 PM:

No laboratory will do a current movie onto 35mm from a DVD for you because that would be breaking a multitude of copyright laws and open them up to huge financial penalties.

Most likely, the only thing you could legally get made from DVD into 35mm would be something you produced yourself.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 12-09-2007, 10:08 PM:

Just to be clear, this is a lot of money. Probably anywhere from around USD$2,000 if it's done the cheapest/lowest quality way possible (kinescope!) up to 10x (or more) to do it properly.

--jhawk

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-10-2007, 04:08 AM:

Unless I am misunderstanding you, you are working in a theatre that has 35mm projection equipment but also runs DVD projection? If that actually is the case, then, why not just book 35mm film instead of showing a DVD? Just book the title from the 35mm distributor and run that. It will be a lot cheaper than trying to copy DVDs (which as Mike rightly points out, is very, VERY illegal and something which Hollywood studios consider worse than terrorism and so act upon it accordingly).

If this is not a commercial theatre, you can still book 35mm prints from non-theatrical distributors. Here in the states and Canada we have Swank Motion Pictures that handle most studio releases. I would assume there is some equivelant in the UK. Where do you book your DVDs? At least over here, whether you are booking a DVD. a 16mm or 35mm print from the non-theatrical distributor, the rental is the same, usually between $300 - $500 for titles a few years old and up to $1000 with near-current releases. The rental is the same because you are actually paying for the license to exhibit. 35mm will cost more due to the added shipping cost of the heavy print, but the licensing fee is the same.

Posted by Jamie Glossop (Member # 2180) on 12-10-2007, 02:42 PM:

Frank Angel The idea was for a new cinema that i was starting.

Im thinking now to stick with a digital projector which will probley be cheaper in the long term.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-10-2007, 03:05 PM:

Why not just book films in 35mm?

DVD is a really crappy presentation format and you can look forward to lots of on-screen menus, unskippable trailers, region-coded disks, subtitles and/or soundtracks that need to be selected at start time, menus that don't work, poorly authored disks that look like crap, disks that don't play, disks that play halfway and then stop, and cheap players that fail at the worst times.

For public exhibition of material available only on video, you would be better off getting the material in a more reliable professional format. Digi-Beta and HDCAM seem to be the most popular such formats at this time, at least in the US for festival screenings and such. Figure $10k-40k for the plaback deck. You will also need a good 3-chip DLP projector and maybe a scaler; by the time you are done, the cost will far exceed that of a new 35mm setup (to say nothing of used).

Trust me: if you're going to show video, DVD is just about the bottom of the barrel in reliability (even VHS is better) and quality.

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 12-10-2007, 04:20 PM:

quote: Jamie Glossop
Im thinking now to stick with a digital projector which will probley be cheaper in the long term.

Um 35mm projectors second hand are getting very cheap, some that I have been offered are cheaper than a basic home HD 720 p video projector!

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-10-2007, 04:46 PM:

I can't understand why anyone would want to transfer from DVD onto 35mm, unless, just possibly, it was for long-term preservation purposes (e.g. you just happened to be present when Gordon Brown was assassinated, holding your DVD camcorder, a la Zapruder).

If you want 35mm for screening, then as everyone else has said, just book a 35mm print from a distributor. If you're an independent cinema or film society which is too small for the distributors to deal with you directly, there are several booking agencies through which you can work, e.g. Troy. If you want to legally book a recent mainstream feature film on DVD for a theatrical or group screening, e.g. in a lecture theatre or pub which has DVD screening facilities but not film, then that can be done, too. For example, Filmbank, which used to be the main distributor of 16mm Hollywood features for non-theatrical screenings in the UK, will now license DVD screenings. Their DVDs are specially authored with a high bitrate and no menus, warning notices or North Korean subtitles you can't get rid of which, as Scott points out, can be a presentation hazard when attempting to screen a retail DVD.

Posted by Jamie Glossop (Member # 2180) on 12-10-2007, 06:10 PM:

There is also http://www.themplc.co.uk/

which allows you to buy any dvd from any retail store as long as its made from one of the studios provided on thier list.

Film bank also allow you to charge per screening per person which they take upto 35% of each ticket sales

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-10-2007, 06:27 PM:

How about transferring 35mm to DVD?

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-10-2007, 11:55 PM:

That only has to happen to you ONCE, my friend, like it did to me, and you will change your mind in an instant about the innocent looking little silvery disk. It's EVIL, I tell you.

In the middle of a DVD presentation that I was forced against my will to show of THE HAUNTED MANSION for a group of 100 plus screaming kids, the DVD stuttered and then just stopped. Wouldn't go forward, wouldn't go backward, wouldn't skip to a new chapter (do they still call them that?). Believe me, as Scott said, you'd wish you had a video tape instead of that DVD spaw from hell.

There you are, like a freakin jackass, with kids screaming so bloody loud you think your ears are going to explode and you're squeezing the remote with every ounce of pressure you could muster, wondering why the damn thing isn't shattering in your palm, and you're pressing the Play button over and over...play....PLAY...PLAY YOU SON OF A BITCH.

I promise you, Jamie, in that moment you would gladly offer up your right nut if only the thing would get unstuck. The only way I could get it to play was to GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING and fast forward, with the kids and their parents (who did NOTHING to shut the little brats up) laughing at me as I tried to get the thing to the spot where we left off.

Finally it played, but with English subtitles which, just as Scott said, wouldn't come off, and of course I dare not STOP it again. At this point I didn't give a crap. Just let them read the subtitles. All I was doing was praying that it wouldn't stop again, like at the climax in the last reel....or what would have been the last reel.

So Jamie....you want to tell us what terrible thing did you do in your past life that you feel the need to punish youself in this fashion? [Wink]

But seriously, I would strongly suggest you look more closely into used 35mm equipment and just go straight with film. Remember, if you are showing to the public, even if you charged NO admission, you would STILL be required the same royalty licensing fee to the distributor -- matters not if you can walk into a rental store and rent the DVD for $3, you still will have to pay the same as if you had booked the 35mm print. So if you've got to pay the Piper, make the Piper fork over a 35mm print. Why not get the best for almost the same cost (little extra for shipping a print)?

And besides, you yourself said, you were a projectionist and liked film ways; you said you miss 35mm film! So go with what you like -- after all, it's your theatre!

Posted by Phillip Grace (Member # 2262) on 12-11-2007, 02:41 AM:

Maybe the issue is 35mm print availability?
If its an old film with hard to find screening prints, DVD is likely to be an option, unless the film is known to have had a restoration, or a new print made in the recent past. Given the state of some of the prints in circulation on the repertory circuit, (faded, scratched, dirty, full of splices) any other screening media with the possible exception of VHS would better serve the interests of the audience and the film maker.
That being said, the only way to get 35mm quality on screen is to screen 35mm.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-11-2007, 07:09 AM:

Agreed, but you would be surprised how many prints still are running on the art house circuit. Most of the major studios have classics departments and the inventories are not all that devastated. I run 20 and 30 year old titles all the time. But you are right; you will come across prints where you have to say, no, that is just too far beyond what I will show. In such cases, yes, DVD, and now HiDef DVDs could very well be the lesser of two evils. But then again, it's nice that titles will becoming available on hi def, which ever one of these formats finally wins.

But to really take advantage of those better quality videos (which goes without saying are not the level of DCinema by any stretch of the imagination), even to for that quality, you need VERY expensive video projection equipment. You can't grab one of those $2000 consumer DLP unit and think you are doing the audience a service. Well, you could, but you would be very very wrong. [Wink]

Posted by Phillip Grace (Member # 2262) on 12-11-2007, 11:48 PM:

Absolutely no argument there!

"Digital Done Right" is just as important a concern as "Film Done Right". The most difficult aspect of digital imaging is the amount of smoke and mirrors the sales reps want to throw up between us and the screen.

How about "Motion Imaging Done Right" [Smile]

And Thank God for Film-Tech BTW!

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 12-14-2007, 01:04 PM:

I saw an earlier comment that even VHS is more reliable than DVD. As much as I hate the time-base errors, the heterodyned color, and the 3 MHz limitation on luminance bandwidth (and around 300 KHz for color), I must admit that I've never had a VHS machine stutter or stop on me unless the tape was severely damaged.

I cannot find a new DVD player than can play a movie without a skipping or stuttering or without some kind of blemish (dancing staticy rectangles) somewhere in the movie. The early players were far more reliable than the new ones, but their picture quality was not as good.

Posted by Jamie Glossop (Member # 2180) on 12-15-2007, 10:56 AM:

VHS died years ago.

Im still shocked its still around...

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-15-2007, 11:06 AM:

The problem with VHS is that there is no direct replacement for a widely available and inexpensive format which allows the end-user to make recordings that can be reliably interchanged between players, and which will last for 10-20 years when sitting on a shelf. There are also many pre-recorded tapes that have been released on VHS that are still not available on DVD; many will never be available in any other format.

(I can't believe that I'm defending VHS. It's a really crappy format that probably should be put out of its misery. On the other hand, home DVD burners still leave much to be desired.)

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-15-2007, 11:27 AM:

quote: Evans A Criswell
I cannot find a new DVD player than can play a movie without a skipping or stuttering or without some kind of blemish (dancing staticy rectangles) somewhere in the movie.

Are these rental DVDs that have been "previously abused"? I never rent DVDs, only ever play ones I own, and I've never had any problem with stuttering or skipping or "dancing staticy rectangles". Sometimes there's a split-second pause at the layer change on dual-layer discs but that's it. I've owned 4 DVD players: 3 Sony, and now an Oppo. The Oppo even seems to be able to make the layer transition seamless. All the players have worked flawlessly with all my DVDs. I'm pretty picky too -- If the format was as bad as you describe, I'd be the first to dump on it.

Note that I'm referring to glaring playback problems, not inherent issues like MPEG compression artifacts.

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 12-15-2007, 02:57 PM:

David, DVDs are that bad. I have had many onscreen problems exactly as described. Not a big issue at home, but when you have a cinema full of customers, playing a DVD either made by a distributor or TV studio for the purpose and it plays up, freezes or stutters.
Well the experience for the projectionist is pretty horrible and very memorable!

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 12-15-2007, 03:42 PM:

Burned DVD's for corporate and private screenings are a "heart attack" as well. I hope for color bars and audio tone at the front to set up the playback...but I have done many "on the fly" color correction, aspect change, audio clean up....with 300 - 500 people in the audience for the ride [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-16-2007, 03:03 AM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Note that I'm referring to glaring playback problems, not inherent issues like MPEG compression artifacts.

And MPEG artifacts are an aweful lot of elephant poop to ignore. It's intrusive, it's random, it's so apparant that it never drifts into the background of the content. At least with VHS, the lack of resolution and the color anomolies are steady-state. You know they are there but you can tune them out. It's like the difference between pops on an LP and hiss on audio tape. Hiss is steady-state and can almost sink below consciousness; LP pops are like someone hitting your toes with a hammer -- no way you can ignore it.

The very first DVD I ever saw was 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I couldn't believe my eyes -- the inability to resolve VERY single fade-out and fade-in but instead got these dancing squares of blacks and grays as big as freaking milk crates (oooh...am I supposed to be black or gray?...hmmm, I guess I am gray, no, black, no gray; oh hell, I can't make up my mind...I'll just jump back and forth) and those aweful, stepped concentric circles around light objects that are supposed to be a smooth, step-less glide but are as obvious and distinct as the Warner Bros circles around the W in the Looney Tunes opening logo. To me, all of that junk is intolerable. And what was worse, EVERYONE just raved about how GREAT this new !DIGITAL! DVD looked. I am thinking, is this a case of the emperor's cloths? Or has everyone just gone crazy....or blind? They think this is better than U-Matic or Laserdisc?

Given THAT experience, is there any wonder why I was VERY skeptical and highly cynical whenever I heard the word "DIGITAL" applied to cinema projection? Imagine how I had to hold back from up-chucking lunch when I heard (Lucas interview, CBS Radio, circa 1999) that this spanking new digital cinema projection (1.3K mind you) was much, MUCH better than 35mm film ever was or could ever hope to be....and that there wouldn't be any film in cinemas within 5 years!? Is it any wonder why it got to be that every time I heard the word "digital," it soon became synonymous with snake oil and televangelists promising heaven for a $1000 donation? No...better: it was like the promise of getting 40 virgins for blowing yourself up in a car bomb, only to find out the virgins were all billy-goats.....and ugly ones at that.

[ 12-16-2007, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: Frank Angel ]