Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 11 new digital Ocean's

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Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 12-06-2001, 07:01 PM:

As laid out in the Hollywood Reporter yesterday:

"Warner Bros. said Tuesday that it will distribute 'Ocean's Eleven' digitally to at least 19 theaters via Technicolor Digital Cinema, a joint venture of Qualcomm Inc. and Technicolor. 'Ocean's' is the first movie to utilize Technicolor Digital Cinema's new digital delivery system. Instead of reels of film, theaters will get a hard-drive copy of the movie or 14 DVD-ROM disks, seven of which are backups. Many of the theaters that will show 'Ocean's' digitally were supplied the Technicolor Digital Cinema projector, playback unit and other necessary equipment gratis. The system is available for purchase, though, and Technicolor Digital Cinema expects to announce several commercial agreements by year's end to install and maintain units at theaters nationwide. Technicolor Digital Cinema president Dave Elliott declined to discuss the system's price tag. Digital copies of movies enjoy important advantages over film, including cost and nondegrading image and sound, no matter how many times the movie is shown."

What feedza DLP? Glorified DVDs! No 35mm for backup AFAIK. And it's our old friend Technicolor that's going to inflict this on the public in some of the most important theaters around.

FWIW the New York-area venues for the digital Ocean's 11 are the AMC Empire, the Ziegfeld and the Edgewater Multiplex.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 12-06-2001, 07:22 PM:

Is this the same Technicolor system where they give the theaters free projectors in exchange for 100% total control over everything that gets shown on them?

quote:
What feedza DLP? Glorified DVDs!

What's wrong with that? Shipping physical media can be more efficient than trying to transmit data over a network, especially for very large data sizes. All of the digital cinema demos so far involving network and/or satellite links have required special setups. Most theaters don't have satellite receivers or T3 land lines, so if they want digital cinema, the bits have to arrive via truck.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 12-07-2001, 10:38 AM:

I will be showing Oceans 11 on DLP but using the QuBit player rather than the AMS system.

WB has requested that any site that will be using the AMS have a TDC (Technicolor Digital Cinema) technician on site. Only so many techs around so I have to use the QuBit.

With very limited experience on the AMS, it will be quicker to setup a feature. Plan is to send a HD loaded with the master media and to copy it to an existing HD in the AMS. This copy takes a little bit longer than real-time, vs the 5-6 hours of feeding DVD's to the system. Once this is done, you create your platter, qc the show and once verified, copy the HD to a second drive for a backup.

Paul.

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 12-07-2001, 09:34 PM:

In the southwest corner of the USA, more Ocean's Eleven/

propaganda, courtesy of the San Diego Union-Tribune...
read this and wince...

Qualcomm's success in general helps fuel the San Diego economy, but I for one would wish that this fuel was not tainted with products that attempt to replace a very good, continuously-improved, 100-plus-year-old standard with a new standard that will probably not last fifteen years. I don't foresee the digital equivalent of a 1938 Simplex E-7 still giving faithful service some sixty years later. The "Q" folks should leave our 35mm film alone and stick to mobile phones and Eudora!

Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 12-07-2001, 10:28 PM:

Yeah, we're starting to hear this crap up here (it's playing in Toronto somewhere I think). "Can't tell the difference" and so on, so forth. Dear lord, what will movies be like when there isn't even ONE projectionist per 20 screens to periodically check and see what's on-screen?

What I want to know, is if they really do require twice the light on screen, what does a 4K bulb use in electricity in an hour? Where will the savings be when the theatre cans its minimum wage operator but then has to run a 7K bulb or more?

Ah, don't worry, some people say the internal combustion engine has been obsolete for 50 years, they're probably right, BUT nobody's ever come up with an economical alternative, not in the forseeable future...

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 12-07-2001, 11:06 PM:

I never seen digital projection on the big screen. I have read pro's and con's. As for now, I stand neutral on the issue.

The subject came up in one of our union meetings as far back as 1970 about using satellite transmission. If it comes to pass, I can see the theaters going nuts when there are sunspots. Those raise cain with the broadcasting industry even today.

IMHO, it will take years before it will be mass marketed. The cost is just too high.

What concerns me is that the small mom and pop theaters will be forced out of the market due to very high conversion costs.

If I recall correctly, when SRD and DTS hit the market, some of the mom and pop theaters were left behind at first. Probably because of the limited number of processors available. The big boys had the proirity.

It will be difficult for the mom and pop theaters to compete when any major player within several blocks of them has the financial backing to install and market such a system.

Paul

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 12-08-2001, 12:57 AM:

quote:
Jon Miller wrote
In the southwest corner of the USA, more Ocean's Eleven/ propaganda, courtesy of the San Diego Union-Tribune...
read this and wince...

I think people on this board should politely e-mail the author of that article and explain to her why she cannot assume that digital projection is automatically better than film. Most journalists are unaware of issues related to resolution, color, and contrast, and are therefore prone to make such sweeping statements. Perhaps a little education from the community is in order.

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 12-08-2001, 01:23 AM:

Not to be cranky, but you guys are missing the point. I've run 35mm for 25 years, and the digital projection looks perfectly acceptable on screens less than (about) 25 ft wide, and that's usually what's at your local multiplex. Note I did not say "better" or even "as good as" 35mm. But plenty good enough that the public will accept it.

There are certainly problems with digital projection, but that's why these demos are done: to work out problems and publicly sell the concept. The quality is there *now* for smaller screens; next, the cost has to be reduced. It will take time, but it will happen. The increase in bulb cost will be nothing compaired to the savings by eliminating not just the booth staff, but the booth itself.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 12-08-2001, 01:39 AM:

Well, I have to disagree with that. One of the most annoying things about today's DLP projectors is their tiny contrast ratio, and that is independent of screen size. Even in the smallest cracker-box theaters today, I still get to see the full contrast range of film. Installing digital projectors in these auditoriums takes that away.

Also, I think a larger problem is that industries tend to standardize on whatever comes along first. Proponents of digital cinema may make noise about upgrades in order to placate critics, but I think once they achieve a certain critical mass of installations, they will drop those pretenses and say "done!" Today's digital cinema is kinda-sorta okay, but I would really hate to see it become a de-facto standard for the next 20 years.

The Technicolor system is particularly problematic in this regard, as Tech has no financial incentive to upgrade. Those 11 auditoriums are now stuck with the current state of digital cinema and will never improve. I'd bet money they will still be using the exact same projectors decades from now.

I'd like to see "digital done right", not "digital done in a hurry".

Posted by William Bunch (Member # 1040) on 12-08-2001, 10:00 AM:

As for the news article posted by Aaron above; I think the author covered all the squares and was fair to 35mm as well.

The last line of that article sums it up ....

Bill Bunch
Misawa, Japan

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-08-2001, 02:22 PM:

Kodak's view of Digital Cinema:

Kodak Digital Cinema Technology
Kodak Imaging Technology Center in Hollywood
Kodak Digital Cinema System

And a 22Mb QuickTime movie about it:
Kodak Digital Cinema QuickTime Movie 22Mb

(IMHO, Kodak has a pretty realistic view of the future, and will continue to improve BOTH film and digital imaging technology.)

As an example of unique Kodak technology that is needed for digital cinema, here is information about "digital watermarking" to aid in fighting film piracy:
Digital Cinema Watermarking Technology
Kodak Watermarking Technology

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Tod J. Weitzel (Member # 760) on 12-10-2001, 02:40 AM:

quote:
And it's our old friend Technicolor that's going to inflict this on the public in some of the most important theaters around.

Wouldn't a rapid adoption of digital cinema seriously damage Technicolor's bottom line? Does pressing 14 DVDs really make up the price of striking a print?

-Tod?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-10-2001, 05:50 AM:

No (although there is the cost of producing glass masters for short-run DVDs to absorb), but sooner or later they'll be charging as much as they did for a print. Ergo a bigger profit margin, which is why these glorified video projectors are being foisted on us in the first place.

I have seen a DLP presentation but only animation (Toy Story 2) so any shortcomings in the contrast range would not have been visible. It looked to me very much like a digibeta tape shown through an average CRT projector only with a much larger screen area. From comments I've heard other people make I suspect that the current state of this art is nowhere near a well graded 35mm print on modern stock, and, sadly, that 99% of paying customers will neither know nor care about this.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 12-10-2001, 08:48 AM:

Leo, I think you're right. Technicolor must be drooling at the prospect of charging the same amount as they do now, but only having to send out some data instead of a $2000 physical print. I can just hear them smacking their lips in anticipation.

quote:
As for the news article posted by Aaron above; I think the author covered all the squares and was fair to 35mm as well.
The last line of that article sums it up ....

Actually, looking at it again, I see that I originally misread the line "digital cinema aims to provide better picture quality" as implying that it already does. You're right, the article actually is pretty fair, although the focus of it is mainly on the economics. And yes, that last line is a good point, although I wonder if it really is true. Buzzwords seem to have more of an effect on some people than actual quality.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-10-2001, 09:09 AM:

FWIW, film laboratories are currently investing heavily in building NEW facilities to make FILM prints.

For example:
http://www.technicolor.com/aboutus/press-filmlabcanada.html
http://www.bydeluxe.com/frameBuilder.shtml?loc=lab

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 12-10-2001, 10:27 AM:

Well, now that's interesting, especially the note about Technicolor's new facility. I'm surprised they are making an investment of that kind. Then again, the press release states that it is a multi-purpose facility, so perhaps when film release printing dies off, they will still use it for other things.

I wonder if this will result in an increase in the general quality of North American release prints?

Posted by Ted Costas (Member # 473) on 12-10-2001, 02:16 PM:

Can anyone say "dual inventory?"

As Digital Cinema expands, and it is going slower than anyone has predicted, the 35mm inventory may decrease, but it will never go away. I'll be "food for worms" long before the last 35mm print is made.

Yours, Ted

Ted Costas
Senior Manager
THX Digital Services

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-10-2001, 03:18 PM:

One trend is that "digital masters" or "digital intermediate" will be used to manipulate and enhance the image quality in more movies. This digital master can then easily be used to generate both film and digital copies for distribution to theatres:
http://www.cinesite.com/la/digital/background.html
http://www.cinesite.com/lo/digital/projects.html

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-10-2001, 08:40 PM:

"Digital Masters" and "Digital Intermediates" might become a little more common, but for such items to be an acceptable inbetween step or even origination process, the resolution specs must improve. Certainly the 1280 X 1024 standard of current DLP systems is unacceptable, and I don't believe 1920 X 1080 is good enough either.

Some proponets of digital projection might argue about the supposed sharpness of the image, but that is all relative. I mean, look at a 15 inch computer screen displaying a basic 640 X 480 desktop. You can argue that picture is pretty darned sharp, but it doesn't hold squat for actual image detail. That's why DLP has to improve by a few leaps before I think the image quality standards will be good enough to replace 35mm film projectors.

The same image quality standards have to extend over to film photography as well. A good 35mm motion picture camera and good film stock is going to do a better job of capturing image detail than a glorified HDTV 1080 camera. Perhaps when digital video technology matures to a level perhaps double the 1080 standard, then arguments for digital origination might make more sense.

Overall, the thing I cannot get past is the issues of cost and complexity with DLP. A DLP setup costs a lot more than any standard 35mm booth rack system and it surely seems a more complicated to operate. I think the image quality with DLP has to get dramatically better, projection systems much less costly and those systems much more simple to operate before they can be seen as worthwhile replacements for 35mm projectors. Right now, I see all the DLP showcases as nothing more than a commercialized experiment.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-11-2001, 01:26 PM:

Kodak is doing significant on-going research in evaluating image quality of digital capture and digital cinema systems. Recent work by Dr. Roger Morton has been presented at several SMPTE technical conferences. For example, "Assessing the Quality of Motion Picture Cinema Systems", Christopher L. DuMont, Roger A. Morton, and Kenneth J. Repich, presented at the SMPTE Technical Conference in Pasadena CA last year:
http://www.smpte.org/members_only/library/download.cfm?file=morton.pdf

Dr. Morton's work shows that 35mm film supports resolution of at least 4096 lines horizontal. Scanning and recording technology for this high resolution is becoming more available and cost-effective:
http://www.cinesite.com/CineonTech/resoultions/ResChart.html
http://www.arri.com/entry/products.htm

For example, Cinematographer Steven Poster ASC photographed the movie "Stuart Little 2" on 35mm KODAK VISION Expression 500T Film 5284, which was then scanned at 4K resolution for the effects, and then recorded back to film at 4K.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 12-11-2001, 09:50 PM:

It's great that the film production industry is starting to move towards 4K rather than 2K resolution, but there is more to good picture quality than just that.

I've become more and more concerned lately about contrast range. It's something that you miss if you're used to seeing it and it suddenly goes away. Having a big contrast range really makes a picture come alive, but unfortunately, many video projection systems like DLP don't have much in that area. And proponents of digital cinema tend to gloss over that problem. They just talk endlessly about how steady the image is. Hey, television is steady too, but I'm not in favor of replacing film with it!

Posted by William Bunch (Member # 1040) on 12-12-2001, 02:10 AM:

This has something to do with Ocean's 11 so maybe its OK to post here.
Nothing digital about us but we manage to keep the troops entertained.

Our little AAFES (Army & Air Force) theaters all around the world are no match for the glitter of the megaplexes back stateside but we do manage to attract some big celebrities on opening night.

The entire cast of the movie "Ocean's 11" recently deployed to Incirlik Air Base for the world premier of their latest movie.

Jerry Weintraub, producer of the film headed an all star cast, which included George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. Our theater staff rolled out the red carpet, literally, for the entourage to arrive with all the fanfare of a Hollywood premier. The crew and ushers were outfitted in Las Vegas casino regalia....just to add more flair to the excitement.

Even European Motion Picture Technicians got envolved, helping by fine tuning the projection and sound system. Technician Alain Orgnon did a superb job making the system perform at peak capacity.

The theater posted six performances, with each show having a maximum participation of 244. The stars spoke to the audience for the first two events before having to be whisked away to London, England. An additional three performances were added to meet the community's needs and maintain the excitement.

Kudos to the stars who took the time to stop and see our forward deployed troops at the 39th Wing and Operation Northern Watch.
http://www.af.mil/news/n20011210_1764.shtml http://www.etonline.com/celebrity/a7959.htm

I have never personally visited this site but can assume they are running 1950 vintage Simplex XL changeovers with a Dolby CP55. Probably still using RCA 9030 soundhead too.

Bill BuncH
Misawa, Japan
Army, Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES)

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 12-12-2001, 09:52 AM:

I have said this before and I will say it again.

D-Cinema is not about getting rid of film. I think we all know this. It is partly about lower distribution costs, constant presentation quality and other items that the "non-caring" projectionists do to film.

You also have to look at DLP costs with this in mind. The components involved in the manufacture are being custom made. Custom circuit boards, heads, all the stuff. Once a production run is made, these costs will come down. Take a look at any new invention. These costs are high until production can happen. I don't see how the DLP is more complex. The playback units tie into your existing automation system.

Another thing to think about since we are talking about Technology Adaptation.

How long did it take the industry to accept new sound formats and were the "same" complaints being waged then? How long did it take the theatre chains to add in digital sound and did they complain when a new technology was introduced?

(I may not have these in the right order and for that I apologize)

Dolby --> Dolby SR --> DTS --> Dolby Digital --> THX --> SDDS

Did the proponents of sound in film say that I'm not going to accept this digital stuff, my analog sound is great. Yes, analog sound can be great and is still in use today (when the digital track fails) and has not been replaced totally. It can't be because of the reliability of digital readers. Same with D-Cinema. It will not replace film.

There are people on this forum that I know will prefer to see film over D-Cinema. They have a keen eye and a great film presentation adds to their fulfilment of watching a movie. This should never go away. However, for Movie Companies, distributors, and all others involved, this technology will become more accepted.

One last item. What are we as comsumers going to do if they replace DVD technology with something else in say 20 years? Just let it happen and throw away our DVD players or force manufactures to keep this technology alive. I would suspect that DVD players will still be made just like turntables are still made today.

Paul.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 12-12-2001, 12:35 PM:

Update to my original post: AMC Empire and Ziegfeld are running Ocean's 11 in DLP. Edgewater Multiplex is running Ocean's 11 in a Technicolor unit.

Paul: IIRC the sequence on sound runs

Dolby > Dolby SR > THX > Dolby Digital > DTS > SDDS

How can I tell? General Cinema opened Bridgewater Commons around 1988 with THX in the largest hall. That theater installed Dolby Digital for The Crying Game and DTS for Jurassic Park.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-12-2001, 01:27 PM:

Charles gave the sequence of recent sound developments as:

"Dolby > Dolby SR > THX > Dolby Digital > DTS > SDDS"

I would make it:

Kodak 16mm Prototype Stereo Demo (Ron Uhlig) > Dolby > Dolby SR > THX > John Allen Fantasia demo > Kodak CDS >Dolby Digital > DTS > SDDS

Kodak's Ron Uhlig demonstrated a prototype 16mm stereo optical soundtrack that used Dolby noise reduction in October 1972 (published SMPTE Journal April 1973), showing the feasibility of using stereo variable area analog tracks with efficient noise reduction.

John F. Allen's demo showed the promise of digital sound in theatres. February, 1985:
"HPS-4000® and the Century Plaza Theatre make history once again
with the first ever public presentations of a film with a digital stereo soundtrack. The film used for this historic occasion is Walt Disney’s FANTASIA, coincidentally, the first film ever presented in stereo. In May, 1985, Digital film sound makes its east coast premiere in Washington D.C.Again, the film is FANTASIA, presented in HPS-4000® and digital sound":
http://www.hps4000.com/pages/articles_page_.html

Kodak worked with Optical Radiation Corporation to develop Cinema Digital Sound (CDS), the first sound-on-film optical digital soundtrack, introduced in 1990. Although not commercially successful, it led to the development of digital sound by Dolby, DTS and Sony:
http://members.aol.com/cds3570/

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 12-12-2001, 02:10 PM:

Has anyone seen a list of digital sites for Oceans 11?

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 12-12-2001, 04:21 PM:

Neither the Ocean's Eleven nor the TI DLP sites have been updated with any play locations yet. The Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar section lists the following SoCal DLP locations:

Century City Lowes Cineplex Century Plaza (4 screens)
Santa Monica AMC Santa Monica 7 (2 screens)
Burbank AMC Media Center North 6 (1 screen)
Irvine Edwards 21 Megaplex (1 screen)

No DLP of any kind anywhere near where I am at the moment.

Cheers!

Paul
On the road somewhere in northern New Mexico

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-12-2001, 06:18 PM:

Something I've always wondered about...why did Kodak and ORC go to market with CDS when the soundtrack location was the same as the analog? Surely they must have known that such a thing would have a rough time being accepted. It seems like the marketing dept. should have said, "Well it's great, but let's figure out a way to keep the analog soundtrack as a backup before we take this to market."

Too bad they didn't put the data somewhere else and leave the analog track alone...if they had, we'd probably all be running the same digital system today.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 12-12-2001, 07:31 PM:

>>Kodak 16mm Prototype Stereo Demo (Ron Uhlig) > Dolby > Dolby SR > THX > John Allen Fantasia demo > Kodak CDS >Dolby Digital > DTS > SDDS<<

Actually THX belongs inbetween Dolby A and Dolby SR, as THX debuted in 1983 with 'Return Of The Jedi' and Dolby SR debuted in 1987 with 'Innerspace'.

-Aaron

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 12-12-2001, 08:09 PM:

I think the CDS people needed a large area for the soundtrack.. only the optical analog area was big enough (with the avaible technology at the time.)

Rarely do engineers say "What if my product fails?" They try to make not fail in the first place. Also, the enginners probably thought once theaters had digital, who would want analog?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-13-2001, 04:58 AM:

And one issue related to both digital sound and pictures is what happens when it does 'fail'. With any kind of analogue recording, physical damage to the carrier or a minor equipment fault will degrade the signal, but you'll still see and/or hear something. However unpleasant the experience is, you can still watch a badly scratched print or listen to a misgraded variable density track.

With digital, you either get everything or nothing. OK, error correction, checksums and so on will protect against lost data up to a certain line in the sand, but beyond that line, nothing - silence, or, in the case of DLP, a blank screen. Presumably it was this thinking which lead to all the digital sound systems using the pre-existing SVA track as a backup.

What will happen, I wonder, when a multiplex full of digital video projectors gets a virus in its server or suffers a head crash? Rather a lot of refunds, I suspect...

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-13-2001, 08:42 AM:

AFAIK, the CDS track was printed in the analog soundtrack area because the edges and perf area were deemed too subject to abrasion and wear during projection. The track itself, and the error correction were very reliable, especially since the track area was not subject to much wear. But hardware problems (overheating) in the early units doomed the system to failure when there was no analog backup.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 12-13-2001, 09:58 PM:

CDS... Did early sound houses keep the piano player on standby in case the new-fangled sound failed?
CDS used the sound track area for the sound track... doesn't that make sense? It included 5.1 sound, a MIDI track for special effects, and a SMPTE time code for... all sorts of things. It was a very well designed system and had a chance to become a new standard coexisting with or even supplanting SVA.
Its biggest drawback was the dual inventory problem, the lack of fallback analog can be seen as honest at least - how many places advertise DIGITAL! but give no notice if it isn't?
The unexpected failure of almost all CDS units when it first opened with Dick Tracy was pretty bad publicity. Basically this was the first time the units were run with the access doors closed - they overheated and silence was golden. CDS techs handled it pretty well, the problem was diagnosed and customers told to leave the doors open until a fix arrived and not many shows were actually lost.

Dolby is really who killed CDS by announcing Dolby Digital just after CDS premiered, and about a year and a half before they actually delivered a product. Dolby stressed the analog fallback to capitalize on the unfortunate overheating incident while the story was hot even though they had no digital system to sell. I still think it's strange to advertise your product by saying you expect it to fail. Good marketing from Dolby but the death notice for CDS.

Both Dolby Digital and SDDS have limited print life capability - the data area is abraded in normal projection. DTS too, but the DTS data density is so low it will survive print damage much worse than SRD and SDDS can handle. CDS - with the data on the protected sound track area - could still work after enough passes that all other digital formats' data is obliterated.
It didn't NEED analog fallback like the others all do.

Oh, and Betamax is still better than VHS.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-14-2001, 01:07 PM:

The most interesting was a system proposed by the National Film Board of Canada that superimpossed the digital ontop of the analogue track and had a beam splitter in the rear of a century soundhead with a laser and a CCD type camera There was a article in a SMPTE journal about it but I can't remeber the issue

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-14-2001, 02:15 PM:

Dave Macaulay said: "CDS used the sound track area for the sound track... doesn't that make sense? It included 5.1 sound, a MIDI track for special effects, and a SMPTE time code for... all sorts of things. It was a very well designed system and had a chance to become a new standard coexisting with or even supplanting SVA.
Its biggest drawback was the dual inventory problem, the lack of fallback analog can be seen as honest at least."

Thanks Dave. CDS was a really great system, with one fatal flaw. But it really did usher in the era of digital sound by proving it could be done. Kudos to the development teams at Kodak and ORC. But being first out of the gate doesn't assure success, a lesson that still applies with Digital Cinema.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 12-16-2001, 03:47 PM:

Perhaps I should make myself clearer.

I actually want digital to replace film, but only after it achieves a certain quality level. Unfortunately, there are some people who want that replacement to happen now, before the quality is there. I am not accusing anyone on this board of being that way, but yes, such people do exist. Phil Barlow of Disney is one. Philip Anschutz (the guy who is buying out Regal and other exhibitors) is another. These people are in positions of sufficient power and control that they just might succeed in converting everything to digital before it's ready. That bothers me.

Paul, since you mentioned digital sound, I'll use that as an analogy:

Imagine if, years ago, someone had come along and said they wanted to replace analog sound with 8-bit / 11Khz digital sound. Why, everyone would rightly have told them they were crazy! Well, that's how I feel about digital video. It's a good idea in theory, but today's implementation isn't good enough.

I don't really have a "keen eye", nor is my vision really all that great. But I do try to pay attention. And I don't understand how anyone can look at a side-by-side comparison of current digital vs. film and not see the same thing I see. It's currently not good enough, and I wish they would keep it out of theaters until it is good enough, lest its current state becomes a de-facto standard and we end up stuck with it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-16-2001, 04:02 PM:

"Both Dolby Digital and SDDS have limited print life capability - the data area is abraded in normal projection."

Dave, that is absolutely not the case if FilmGuard is used on the film. Digital track life will not degrade one bit.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-17-2001, 05:22 AM:

Dave: I don't know whether early sound houses kept the pianist on standby or not, but unlike with digital, 'failure' didn't usually mean sound or no sound. It meant a technical problem with the soundtrack which usually wasn't serious enough to stop the show. With digital systems of any sort, IMHO, they tend either to work perfectly or not at all. It's quite interesting to look at trade publications from the early 30s to see which systems and equipment became established and which didn't, usually because of higher operating costs and unreliability.

And John P's point about innovators often failing to produce the version of a product or idea which eventually becomes an industry standard applies equally to early sound. In fact, if you look at the introduction of the three major analogue systems - Warners/Vitaphone (disc), Fox/Movietone (variable density) and RCA/Photophone (variable area), RCA came last and eventually superceded the other two. Discs had disappeared by the mid 30s and VD by the early 60s.

Posted by Trevor Bailey (Member # 75) on 12-18-2001, 04:32 PM:

Back on the topic of Ocean's 11 digital projection...I finally had a chance to catch the beginning of that show today at the NA Showcase Randolph, MA and I was very disappointed. I only watched the trailers, but there was VERY noticable pixalization on all titles. The previous digital demo I saw only showed moving images and no titles (purposefully, I'm sure). This was my first chance to see a "digital show" and I walked out after the trailers. I appreciate that everyone will have differing opinions on this, but I can't image many who saw what I did today would say it was acceptable. And I don't think anyone would say it was "as good as film".