What sound format is used with digital presentations?
Are there any audtoria which are equipped with digital only, or do they all have film as well.
Where a cinema has both digital and film, in the same screen, what proportion of their programming is presented in digital?
How many films have been available in digital form in the past year? Of these, how many were computer generated, how many were shot with digital equipment, and how many originated on film?
quote:
Now that digital projectors have been around for a while, how reliable are they proving to be, compared to film equipment?
We did not have any problems that I can recall with the DLP. Granted, I was only at that theater for 3 months, but at the time I was there, there were lots of problems with the film equipment in almost every auditorium. Things are gonna break when they're brand new. But we didn't have any problems with the digital setup.
quote:
What sound format is used with digital presentations?
Shows presented in DLP have their own 6-channel format included on the DVD on which they come. It is not Dolby Digital or SDDS or DTS. In our setup, it was connected as the 6-channel external format on the CP-650.
quote:
Are there any audtoria which are equipped with digital only, or do they all have film as well.
Ours had a DLP and a film setup in the largest house. I imagine most theaters with DLP are the same way.
quote:
Where a cinema has both digital and film, in the same screen, what proportion of their programming is presented in digital?
Hope this helps a little. Don't know the answer to the last question.
quote:
We did not have any problems that I can recall with the DLP. Granted, I was only at that theater for 3 months, but at the time I was there, there were lots of problems with the film equipment in almost every auditorium.
One of the things that I like about film is the fact that it is so reliable. I must have seen several thousand shows over the years, I have only ever seen one film break, on a nitrate print several decades old, which was fixed in a couple of minutes and the show re-started from just before the break. One show cancelled due to a power failure a couple cancelled due to non-arrival of the print, one could not be shown at the last minute because of a rights problem. Sound has been lost a couple of times, probably an exciter lamp failure, again fixed in a minute or so. On one occasion a take up belt broke, but the projectionist turned the take up by hand until the end of the reel.
Of these, the film break, exciter failure (if that's what it was) and belt failure are the only ones which are unique to film. The others could happen with a film or digital system, and would be no more likely to happen with one than the other. I have never known a show to be cancelled, or aborted, due to equipment failure What sort of problems have you had with film, have they been with equipment or prints? I assume it must have been one of these in each case as other possible reasons, power supply, staff sickness etc., would affect both media.
quote:
Shows presented in DLP have their own 6-channel format included on the DVD on which they come. It is not Dolby Digital or SDDS or DTS. In our setup, it was connected as the 6-channel external format on the CP-650.
Do you know how the sound is stored, e.g. is any form of compression used. Does the digital equipment connect directly to the CP-650, or is any additional equipment needed to interface it. Is the sound combined with the picture on the same discs, or do you get, for example, six picture discs and one sound disc? Have you ever received more than one track, e.g. alternative language versions, and, if not, is there provision in the system for this to be done? Also, is there provision for subtitles, not burned into the picture, but stored separately, and turned on if required? It would seem that these thing could be done quite easily with a digital system.
quote:
In the case of Star Wars Ep. II, it showed in DLP for the whole day for as long was we had it. There was no film shown in that house for 8 weeks. That theater currently has Signs in DLP, and I imagine it will be the same way.
I assume from this that all trailers etc. were stored on the DLP system. On the only DLP presentation that I have seen in a normal cinema, i.e. other than a technical demonstration at the NFT, the adverts and trailers were on film, and only the main feature was on DLP. Would this not be normal today?
quote:
Hope this helps a little. Don't know the answer to the last question.
Thank you.
I had to laugh out loud when I read that, as it implies that an all-DLP 30-plex would lose, on average, one show per day, which is completely unacceptible.
Having said that, though, DLP does seem to be pretty reliable _thus_far_ for a a technology which is essentially still in development. I know that there have been very few issues with the Framingham setup, although apparently some other locations (e.g. the AMC one in NYC) have had more issues (see John P's post on DLP done wrong).
It will be interesting to see how the equipment holds up over the long term, though. This week, I'm running a pair of Century Cs which must be about 50 years old; by contrast, I'd be amazed if any of today's DLP machines will be running in ten years.
quote:
I have never known a show to be cancelled, or aborted, due to equipment failure What sort of problems have you had with film, have they been with equipment or prints? I assume it must have been one of these in each case as other possible reasons, power supply, staff sickness etc., would affect both media.
Nothing that would cause a show to go down. Just little things here and there such as cue detectors requiring adjustment, an aperture plate motor that would not move, platters being out of time, etc, etc. I suppose stuff like that is going to happen when a place is brand new.
quote:
Do you know how the sound is stored, e.g. is any form of compression used. Does the digital equipment connect directly to the CP-650, or is any additional equipment needed to interface it. Is the sound combined with the picture on the same discs, or do you get, for example, six picture discs and one sound disc? Have you ever received more than one track, e.g. alternative language versions, and, if not, is there provision in the system for this to be done? Also, is there provision for subtitles, not burned into the picture, but stored separately, and turned on if required? It would seem that these thing could be done quite easily with a digital system.
Star Wars came on two DVDs. To my knowledge, the soundtrack is a separate file from the image, althoug I don't know how much space it takes up compared to the image. The TDC (Techicolor Digital Cinema) server connected directly to the input for External 6-Track Digital on the CP-650. Other processors may require an additional interface, but I don't know. I don't know if Star Wars came with additional languages or subtitles.
quote:
I assume from this that all trailers etc. were stored on the DLP system. On the only DLP presentation that I have seen in a normal cinema, i.e. other than a technical demonstration at the NFT, the adverts and trailers were on film, and only the main feature was on DLP. Would this not be normal today?
Yes, the trailers were all digital. I assume this is normal today, because they all came on the disc with Star Wars; they were not provided separately.
A time code driven dual system would be required for a "next generation" uncompressed digital surround format for film and also require a proprietary sound player to handle the recorded media, whether it is on removeable hard discs, DVD-ROM, etc. That hardware alone would make the "format."
On video projection setups, the sound is part of the bitstream so it is kind of tough to be able to advertise a distinct sound format to go with the video. It will be more difficult for companies like Dolby, DTS and Sony to put their brand names on the gear and in the stack ads for those shows.
While we had about the same reliability with 35mm, in fairness I have to note that the last showing of "Clones" looked exactly the same as the first showing. OTOH most, but not all, of our 35mm prints did not look as good on their last day as they did on the first.
I have had experience with DLP for close to three years now in the theatre that I am at. I can think of two shows out of all that we have played in that time frame that we had to run the film print instead.
The sound from the playback device is hooked directly into your sound processor. Mine happens to be a CP-500 through the external 6 channel digital sound. I don't know the exact spec, but assume each channel may be PCM data. I will investigate and find out.
When ever we have DLP content, it runs that title exclusive in that auditorium. I have never had a split screen where you run film part of the day and DLP the other. The studios have invested a lot of time and money to have the print transfered (Telecine) or other means to allow other content on that screen.
As far as rolling stock is concerned for ads, these are not presented for DLP theatres as they are not encoded for storage on the playback system. It would also be too much of a hassle to run ads, then switch over for DLP.
Any type of DVD that is used in D-Cinema is DVD-RAM. It provides 4.6? GB of storage space compared to 650 MB from a typical CD.
For Signs, I received one trailer on the original set of HDs and then received additional trailers on DVD-RAM. It was just a matter of copying the content from them to the HD.
Paul.
Wow, I've gotta say, that doesn't speak very well of the reliability of the DLP system. In the last 25 years, I only had a projector breakdown once. And even that didn't prevent me from running the show, I just had to take a intermission to rethread the second LP reel on the other working machine.
Karen at DTS
khultgren@dtsonline.com
If I could remember what the specific instance was, I would pass them on, but I don't recall.
Also, I didn't say that we lost shows, just had to use film instead.
'Nough Said. I know that you are one amongst others here that d-cinema will NEVER be good enough. That's fine. The manufacturers out there understand that and are working on improving things everyday and they even know that they will not be able to satisfy everyone.
But ask yourself this, What % of the general public go for the story? Unless you are a true film buff, the public is not going to understand the term "contrast ratio" or understand what message the DP is trying to convey by using a certain film stock.
What the public deserves is "Presentation done right" regardless if the medium is film or DLP. I stress this as much as I can in my booth and my staff knows it.
Your opinions of Digital Cinema are appreciated and the digital manufacturer lurkers are taking notes.
Paul.
quote:
As far as rolling stock is concerned for ads, these are not presented for DLP theatres as they are not encoded for storage on the playback system. It would also be too much of a hassle to run ads, then switch over for DLP.
The Ziegfeld in Manhattan did just that. It WAS an awkward moment as there was about a 30 second gap between the last ad and the first preview (the curtains were left open). The lamp houses were well balanced, however. Both seemed to give a brighter image than the 16 footcandle standard.
BTW, Paul has an excellent point. I've seen PLENTY of botched film presentations where the theatre gave out refunds in masse. Maybe instead of saying "Film done right," we should now say "presentation done right" as digital projection is just another tool for showing a story.
And no, you are wrong. I have NEVER said that D-Cinema can never work; I have never been a reactionary, quite the contrary, I have always been right there when new technology came over the horizon. But the technology has to offer me something BETTER than what it is trying to replace. So far, the PRESENT state of digital projection offers an astronomically expensive, unworkable economic model for image quality that anyone looking unbiasedly at a DLP image on a theatre screen cannot possibly say is reproducing the rich, complex look of film.
Believe me, I am in the dog-end of the business....I have to beg borrow and, well, borrow, to get decent prints of classic films. The supply of quality, playable prints is finite and constantly dwindling. Art houses have closed all over the country because of it. In the very near future, much of our film heritage will not be available to be experienced by newer generations. Digital may be the only answer to preserve the ability for us to screen the classics....but I am sorry to say, it just won't be THIS digital, just like the unfortunate Kodak/ORC digital sound system was not the digital that would bring superior sound to theatre audiences.
If you told me there was a digital system that could make 2001 or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA look as good as it did in the original presentation, nothing could make me happier or make me want to get that system into my booth. I know THAT's where the future of the art houses has to go, unless there is some catastrophic change in the way the studios think about and deal with their classic print libraries. Turner had the right idea, but no one else seems to be doing what they did. I just don't think settling for less that what we have with the present film technology makes any sense at all.
Frank
quote:
In the very near future, much of our film heritage will not be available to be experienced by newer generations.
...which is causing a vicious circle effect: as the number of arthouses diminish, the number of rep prints in circulation and viewing copies being produced by archives are diminishing.
An archive which has a mountainous backlog of nitrate to preserve and a finite amount of money to do it with has to decide whether to use that money (for example) to make dupe negs for preservation of 10 features or dupe negs and viewing copies (i.e. release prints) of 5. As the screening opportunities for viewing prints diminish, archives are increasingly choosing the former option. There is a large and growing amount of material which is 'preserved' in the technical sense (i.e. a master status element exists on polyester or pre-autocatalytic acetate base), but which cannot be viewed.
If digital technology can eventually help to break that vicious circle, it would be wonderful. But it can only happen when the cost of making digital viewing copies is significantly lower than producing them on film and when those copies are at least of equivalent quality to a film print.
As Frank points out, we're not at that point yet. But the comparison with CDS is an interesting one. Back in the '20s Vitaphone too was a flawed system, but it showed that synchronised sound was an economically viable prospect, with the result that Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone appeared within a couple of years. Those technologies went on to dominate the market. Same with CDS - it showed that the public wanted digital sound, but that the industry would not accept dual print inventory releases, hence the launch of Dolby, DTS and SDDS shortly afterwards.
So maybe the current range of digital projection technologies are effectively prototypes for a far more versatile, robust and cheaper generation of systems which are just round the corner...
*** EDIT HERE *** 08/08/02
The signal format is SMPTE 292M. Also know as HD-SDI.
*** END EDIT ***
HD technology shouldn't change for quite a few years until d-cinema is farther advanced.
Paul.
Sorry
Paul
Standard SMPTE 292M-1998 is "for Television -- Bit-Serial Digital Interface for High-Definition TELEVISION Systems".
AFAIK, despite lobbying efforts of some current vendors that this TELEVISION standard is "good enough" for the data required for Digital Cinema, I sense that there is growing consensus (especially among distribution and exhibition) that it is NOT adequate for good Digital Cinema, and new standards specific to the higher quality requirements of Digital Cinema are needed from the SMPTE DC28 Digital Cinema Committee.
In other words, even the data standards have NOT been written yet, much less all the other required standards for a complete Digital Cinema system.
As to Leo's concern, although archival film materials may be transferred to HDTV for convenience or commerce, the 35mm or 65mm original films STILL have much more visual information than is being recorded by today's digital formats. In other words, KEEP YOUR FILM ORIGINALS to transfer to future digital formats that will offer higher quality than today's changing "state-of-the-art" digital formats.
------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion