This is topic Why won't NATO push for 4K D-cinema? in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-21-2006, 12:03 PM:
 
In the early days of D-Cinema, NATO constantly put out statements that D-Cinema had to exceed the quality of what is available at home. Now at Showest, I read a quote from the president of NATO that said the 2K equipment IS better than what is available at home. Now, while that may have been technically true when he said it, HD-DVD went on sale a couple of days ago which makes it untrue (unless you start nitpicking technically about 2.07 Megapixels vs. 2.21 Megapixels and less compression).

My question is, why isn't NATO pushing for 4K equipment which is clearly superior to anything available at home (or likely to be available to the masses within 15 years)? I realize the exibitors want D-cinema to save on payroll but it's going to take 3 or 4 years to convert anyway. Why not push for 4K and delay the rollout by a year or 2. If NATO and the big exibitors (AMC and Regal) said "we're not rolling out D-cinema until we can have 4k" don't you think the studios (which desaparately want the rollout) would get the manufacturers to produce it?
 
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-21-2006, 12:17 PM:
 
Probably because of a cost issue there is already a revolt on the part of some exhibitors regarding the cost
It is all well and good to say nothing but the best but only if at the end of the day the theatre still makes a profit
 
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 04-21-2006, 05:00 PM:
 
4K's already passe anyway. NHK will be showing their 7K UHDV this next week at NAB. That's what NATO and the studios should be aiming at if they really want to abandon film.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-21-2006, 06:31 PM:
 
Actually, 4K is going nowhere because Hollywood in general is too cheap to support it.

With computer power and disc storage space increasing in geometric proportion, Hollywood only wants to take advantage of those improvements by getting 2K effects work and digital intermediate done faster and cheaper.

Current technology is more than powerful enough to handle 4K efficiently. It can certainly handle 4K more efficiently than our technology could manage 2K material at the beginning of this decade.

In the end, we have no "D-Cinema" material being produced in native 4K resolution. It's all done at 2K, which is just a hair above 1080 HD native resolution. With shrinking windows between theatrical and home release, bean counters in Hollywood have even more incentive to only pay for 2K work.

There's two ways how 4K can supplant 2K as the defacto standard for CGI effects and digital intermediate work.

1. A highly influential filmmaker can insist on producing natively in the higher quality 4K format and promoting the difference in conjunction with 4K digital projector installations in movie theaters.

2. This is more likely. Home technology will actually support 4K first. Home computers and video games will likely be able to display native 4K by the time this decade is finished. The video game industry already brings in more money than the movie industry, so there's plenty of incentive for resolutions to increase. Computer monitors are going to keep getting bigger and adding more native pixels. They're also going to be pulling double duty has HDTV monitors. Basically the movie industry will be forced to support the 4K standard in a mode of playing catch up to keep video games and other alternative forms of entertainment from putting them out of business.
 
Posted by Todd Leach (Member # 883) on 04-22-2006, 12:47 PM:
 
From attending Showest this year I got the impression that on the production side scanning film at 4K was becoming the standard to make the DI. On the projection side after seeing the Sony demo of 4K, I really can't say that there is much of a difference in picture quality from 2K. There seems to be many more variables than the 2K and 4K number. I would venture to guess that a 1K projector that could display the same color depth and contrast as todays 2K and 4K projectors would look about the same.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-22-2006, 04:09 PM:
 
Well, I'm not surprised folks weren't more impressed by Sony's 4K setup. I didn't see the demo for myself, but others have stated Sony used a 2K original and blew it to 4K. If Sony did that, they sure made one very retarded mistake.

The act of demo-ing a 4K system with material originated at 2K is like demonstrating 70mm projection potential with something shot on 35mm. Why even f**king bother?

There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between 2K and 4K. It's quadruple the number of pixels. It is a huge jump above HDTV levels of imagery. Today's computer technology is mature enough to handle it. Just over the space of this year and next, CPU horsepower is going to take another geometric jump in muscle.

Nearly all CGI and DI material is rendered at 2K. Lots of people just keep doing business at that level. They just throw out that vague "digital film" crap, like any standard of resolution no matter how low is good enough since it's digital.

Damn near everything is digital anymore in creative circles. That makes the "digital" word extremely retarded and meaningless.

It is way past due for technology sellers to move past words like "digital" that have turned to mud and use terms that actually mean something SPECIFIC.

HDTV manufacturers are finally moving somewhere in that direction, with terms like "1080P", now that they finally have some products that actually achieve real HDTV resolution.
 
Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-22-2006, 07:20 PM:
 
In the Film Handlers Forum thread "Digital Cinema at Showest" Ian Price said
quote:
I know that the Baraka clips in the Sony 4K demo were scanned at 4K by Chris Reyna specifically for the Sony Demo. They looked great, I sat in the second row for those clips.

 
Posted by Thomas Dieter (Member # 2507) on 04-22-2006, 07:41 PM:
 
Is AMC and Regal, and these large corperations apart of NATO? I would think that NATO would have the mind set of the little guy, and not push for Digital Cinema in any regards, but push for better product. That's what's killing us.
 
Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-22-2006, 07:46 PM:
 
Regal is. Or anyway they have a NATO decal on the box office window here.
 
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-22-2006, 09:43 PM:
 
I also thought the studios had decided on 4K as the scanning and archival standard for D-Cinema. The main reason that 4K isn't being pushed right now is that the companies pushing D-Cinema don't have a 4K T.I. based projector to push. Also many exhibitors are VERY leary of jumping on the bandwagon with anything from Sony after being pissed on with SDDS. Its is said that many actually brought that point up to those in the Sony booth at this past Showest. Of course the Sony people completely denied knowing anything about that [Big Grin] . Having delt with Sony on at least three different levels of products over the years fomr my experience overall Sony is a really piss poor company to any buisness with. Nothing is done in either the dealers or the consumers favor. The "you don't like it thats just too bad" policy of Sony may finally be comming around to bite them in the butt! I would much rather wait for T.I. to do something with 4K!

Mark
 
Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-23-2006, 09:20 AM:
 
In minor defense of one small division of Sony, there is one area where they shine: AIT tape drives. Sony's AIT tape drives are well-built, fast, and reliable, and they come with a 3-year, no hassle warranty. If the drive fails, they will overnight a replacement to you. We started having an intermittent problem with an AIT-1 drive after 1 year of heavy use, and Sony sent us a brand-new replacement, no questions asked. Since then we've also acquired an AIT-3 drive, and an AIT-4 Library, and they've worked flawlessly.

In consumer electronics in general, Sony products tend to have weak warranties compared to other companies. Don't know about their professional products. Sony Cinema Products may have to make some kind of extraordinary support commitment to exhibitors to overcome the negative SDDS reputation.
 
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-23-2006, 10:22 PM:
 
Dave,

It'll be mighty difficult for Sony to convince the guys at AMC to ever buy their equipment again. The SDDS episode had to cost them a ton of dough, not that they didn't deserve to be screwed anyway. Other large chains will also look at the AMC episode with rememberance. Alot of smaller chains and cinemas also took the shaft from them, most with dignity. I can honestly say that personally I have never sold any SDDS product since it appeared..... We certainly have made alot of $$ repairing it though.

My Boss's SDDS motto: "It sounds good when it works"

Thank You Sony!

quote: Paul Mayer
4K's already passe anyway. NHK will be showing their 7K UHDV this next week at NAB. That's what NATO and the studios should be aiming at if they really want to abandon film.
Its certainly what Imax needs to aim for. The digital files will show up on hard drives that will still fill a 15/70 shipping case [Big Grin] !

Mark
 
Posted by Thomas Dieter (Member # 2507) on 04-24-2006, 12:16 PM:
 
quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
My Boss's SDDS motto: "It sounds good when it works"

Thank You Sony!
I so have to agree with is. I watched Red Dragon at the Regal Auburn 17 when it came out in SDDS and being a fairly big fan of DTS I was in AWE. Naturally I know the problems that people have had with DTS, but I've yet to have one with the DTS units that I had at my first theatre, and the new DTS 6-AD that we have installed on one of our current screens.

Just Remember;
Soon
Only
Not
Yet
And the ever Famous
Still
Dosen't
Do
Shit

--Tom
 
Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 04-24-2006, 03:19 PM:
 
I never owned (thank god) a SDDS unit. But based on my experience with Sony's consumer products, and the absolute piss poor support they provide, and their laughable worthless manuals they include.....there is no way I'm putting a Sony projector in any booth I have anything remotely to do with. I would like for it to have a little more life, than 10 days past the end of the warranty expiration.
 
Posted by Peter Castle (Member # 1997) on 04-25-2006, 04:34 AM:
 
I've read here many people complain about SDDS, holding my tongue. We've had an SDDS unit since 1994 and still use it as a preference over both Dolby and DTS. I accept that we, being a once-per-week cinema do not wear the unit so much, but we certainly see prints come through with very dodgy DD tracks which fault-out while the SDDS continues without a fail. Several weeks ago we had "Walk The Line", a print with about 6'-8' of white paint at the head of each reel. As expected that side of the film lost its signal, but there was no discernible audible dropout. We also showed an original print of "From Dusk to Dawn" with not problems using the SDDS track while the DD track failed continuously. (If you are wondering, we have a Kinoton FP-25E with basement DD reader.)

Saying that, we did try to install a reader on our reserve projector and couldn't get a second-hand one to stop failing.

So, while we continue to get prints with SDDS tracks we'll continue to use them - at present this amounts to about 75% of films.

On a different topic, I talked to a local Sony person about their 4k projector, explaining that we had been burnt before when Sony sold DLP projectors (we still have one sitting uselessly under our current projector). The guy didn't even know that Sony had ever made them!! Not good for future support.
 
Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 04-25-2006, 04:07 PM:
 
quote: Lyle Romer
My question is, why isn't NATO pushing for 4K equipment which is clearly superior to anything available at home (or likely to be available to the masses within 15 years)? I realize the exibitors want D-cinema to save on payroll but it's going to take 3 or 4 years to convert anyway. Why not push for 4K and delay the rollout by a year or 2.
There's a time to wait and sit on your hands, and there's a time to bite the bullet and make an investment. Just like with any technology, whether it be computers or audio/video equipment, there will always be something better coming out "real soon now" and it will most likely be cheaper as well as higher performance.

For those theaters that want 4K now, they can have it if they want to buy from Sony. Buying 4K would probably add to the amount of useful life of the projector, but only if the industry moves in that direction in the useful lifetime of the projector, and only if the cost of buying 4K now isn't more than the cost of buying 2K now and 4K (or 6K/8K/etc.) later.

As Fithian said in his keynote, there is more to image quality than just resolution. 2K is already better than film just because of the lack of jump and weave. Any minor differences in "resolution" are outweighed by the fact that the image isn't doing a caffeine dance all over the screen. Other factors, like color saturation, grayscale tracking, lack of 3:2 pull-down, etc. make digital cinema better than home theater.

If the resolution isn't substantially better than HD in the home, don't market the resolution! That's Marketing 101.

One of the other points I got from the transcript of Fithian's keynote was that he hoped theaters wouldn't play the resolution game. Don't concern the customer with resolution figures, make the customer impressed with the image quality and the resolution won't mean a thing in the grand scheme of things.

You reach a point with technology where a certain level of performance is good enough to move forward with. Most people don't need digital cameras that are more than 4MP, and even digital camera manufacturers are backing off the constant megapixel upgrades because the higher resolution sensors create more issues than they solve, at least at the consumer-level price points.

Sure, it's possible to say that you're not going to buy into digital cinema until a certain performance criteria is met. What that threshold is is completely up to the one footing the bill. But if you wait forever for the next big thing on the horizon, you never get the benefits of pulling the trigger and getting on with life.

The 2K movies at Showest on a 55' screen were beautiful and better than the 35mm presentations in the same theater.

See 2K and 4K for yourself and then decide whether the difference is worth waiting for and/or worth paying extra for. I think that 2K is ready to go, and now all that matters is price and product.
 
Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 142) on 04-27-2006, 06:57 PM:
 
I have seen Sony 4k demos, the most recent was at the Australian International Movie Convention last year. It was noticeably better than any 2k I'd seen but:

It was dull, even on a moderate sized screen.

All the material screened was shot in either 8/35, 8/70 or 15/70 film!

The longest clip screened was from the 1962 film The Music Man which was a Technirmama 70 film. They need to use 44 year old film to demonstate what the process can deliver!

They could have threaded up The Music Man on the 70mm projector in the box behind them and ran it at no cost!

Digital will continue its horredously slow roll-out for the very reason that it is not a revolution to the movie-goer. Sound, colour and the various wide screen processes revolutionised how the patron experienced films; to 90% of the audience digital looks the same. It simply does not revolutionise the cinema experience.

Film done right looks as good if not better than the carefully staged digital demos we see at conventions. A local digital cinema recently had an averge of two failures per week during a season.

David
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-29-2006, 05:08 AM:
 
Agreed about the 'dull' look. We had a Sony 4k demo at last year's AMIA conference, at which clips from The Wizard of Oz and Chinatown (scanned from safety seps) were shown. The colours didn't look anywhere near as vibrant and saturated to me as a print should have done - especially an IB print. The sharpness and definition were impressive, though.

quote: Bobby Henderson
This is more likely. Home technology will actually support 4K first.
There are lots of precedents. The conversion to sound happened in the wake of electrical audio amplification being established in the radio, telecommunications and recorded music industries. Widescreen was ressurected (it was initially developed in the late '20s but never rolled out, mainly for economic reasons) and colour went mainstream partly as a form of product differentiation from television. And stereo hi-fi equipment in the home had become a widespread consumer technology before Dolby SVA standardised it in the theatre.
 
Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-29-2006, 05:16 AM:
 
quote: Leo Enticknap
And stereo hi-fi equipment in the home had become a widespread consumer technology before Dolby SVA standardised it in the theatre.
Don't want to push this off-topic, but guess I need a refresher here.
Was the "Hi-Fi" terminology coined with the advent of LP records and related equipment... or was it something else?
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-29-2006, 12:07 PM:
 
quote: Leo Enticknap
Agreed about the 'dull' look. We had a Sony 4k demo at last year's AMIA conference, at which clips from The Wizard of Oz and Chinatown (scanned from safety seps) were shown.
I should point out this is likely a problem with the projector's lamp design or something somewhere else in that hardware chain.

It would be very ridiculous for anyone to conclude 2K is better than 4K because it is somehow brighter. More native pixels in the image is always going to be better than less. And I think it is very important for commercial cinemas to have as wide a quality distance as possible from home theater. At the 2K level it is too easy for many average people to assume their home HDTV setup is every bit as good as that of a commercial theater digital projection setup.

quote: Scott Jentsch
If the resolution isn't substantially better than HD in the home, don't market the resolution! That's Marketing 101.
Even if you can keep theaters tight-lipped on slight resolution difference between D-Cinema and HDTV, how exactly do you stop the legions of electronic store salespeople from capitalizing on that slight difference?

It's pretty obvious when formats like Blu-Ray start showing off movies in true 1080p format (and the HDTVs accept that full 1080p signal) the electronics stores and even the electronics companies are going to proclaim their stuff is equal to movie theater quality. They'll just throw out the "digital" word to obscure the fine print numbers.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-29-2006, 12:33 PM:
 
quote: Jack Ondracek
Was the "Hi-Fi" terminology coined with the advent of LP records and related equipment... or was it something else?
The earliest known use of the phrase I can think of off the top of my head is in Michael Flanders and Donald Swann's song A Song of Reproduction, which was late '50s or early '60s. I'm not sure if 'Hi-fi' or 'High Fidelity' were phrases that were specific to LP technology or generic to the marketing of home audio equipment. It could have been record-specific, as a form of product differentiation from 78s.
 
Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 05-01-2006, 01:06 PM:
 
quote: Bobby Henderson
Even if you can keep theaters tight-lipped on slight resolution difference between D-Cinema and HDTV, how exactly do you stop the legions of electronic store salespeople from capitalizing on that slight difference?

It's pretty obvious when formats like Blu-Ray start showing off movies in true 1080p format (and the HDTVs accept that full 1080p signal) the electronics stores and even the electronics companies are going to proclaim their stuff is equal to movie theater quality. They'll just throw out the "digital" word to obscure the fine print numbers.
That's why theaters shouldn't concentrate on marketing that side of the movie-going experience over and above the benefits that it will provide their customers over their current setup or that of competitors.

The movie-going experience for the customer consists of everything between choosing to see a movie at a particular theater (web site, phone recording, newspaper ad, box office marquee) to stepping in the building, buying their tickets and snacks, using the bathroom, seeing the movie, and leaving the theater.

In my humble opinion, theaters need to concentrate on every single aspect of that experience and do the best job they possibly can in each of them. Theaters sell the package, they don't sell the picture quality alone.

DVD's have had Dolby Digital and DTS sound for a long time, just as theaters have. Did digital sound in the home bring about the complete downfall of the movie theater industry? No, but it probably hurt the theaters that had crappy sound, because customers started to realize just how crappy it was and demanded better.

When you're accustomed to watching movies in a home theater, things like jump and weave are incredibly annoying. Poor sound and poor picture are inexcusable, and so is poor customer service. Theaters should be able to do a better job of these things than what I can get in my home, not worse.

Bottom line: don't sell the picture resolution alone. Don't sell digital sound alone. Certainly, don't sell the $15 combo snacks package alone. Theaters need to sell the fact that when a customer comes to their theater, they get a great movie experience from beginning to end.

People still like to have things done for them, and they're willing to pay for the pleasure. But theaters have to earn it, they can't treat their customers like senseless cattle and expect the box office receipts to keep rolling in.

If 4K delivers a better picture than 2K, and that difference can be quantified in the additional business that a theater will make over the usable lifetime of that investment, great. They can buy from Sony and be happy. In my limited exposure to both 2K and 4K in the same theater, albeit with different material, and who knows what differences in preperatory work, I would head in the direction of buying 2K and spending the difference in cost on other things that would improve the movie-going experience.

That's all assuming that going to Digital Cinema in the first place is justified. If a particular theater is doing film right and there are no issues with picture quality, and there's no business reason for it, then don't invest in Digital Cinema. Last I checked, no one was holding a gun to anyone's head.
 
Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 05-01-2006, 03:46 PM:
 
If digital is to be promoted on a quality basis then there need to be more films shot in high-definition formats. In the UK d-cinema is marketed on choice and flexibility, and ease of distribution. The draw of having a high-quality picture and sound is only going to be of use in areas like London where the market is crowded. My view is that shorter video release windows and poor films will kill off cinema before home theatre does.
 
Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 05-01-2006, 04:26 PM:
 
To follow up my post, I thought of another way to approach the inevitable situation of having to compete with the perception that Digital Cinema = HDTV.

Aside from the fact that the average TV salesperson at a big box retailer shouldn't be trusted to tell someone the time much less provide information about complex subject like HDTV and home theater, it's probably inevitable that people will believe the clueless ramblings, which may even have a shred of fact and truth buried in it. It's possible...

Anyway, a theater investing in digital cinema should be prepared with information about what they believe makes the movie-going experience better than HDTV. Starting with picture quality and resolution is probably an obvious place to start, since the resolution and the names behind the digital sound formats are the common factors.

I haven't gone looking for the specifics yet, but the ones I can think of off the top of my head are:

These are the types of things that could be placed on a theater's web site, and perhaps printed for staff to reference when needed.

Rather than just bash on theaters in general (like my previous message leaned toward), I'm hoping that the above starts a thought process of how to overcome the comments that may accompany a transition to Digital Cinema.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-01-2006, 07:13 PM:
 
If video being shown in commercial theaters operates at bitrates as low as 30Mb/s then the "HDTV is as good as D-Cinema" claims will not be very far off base.

D-VHS "D-Theater" tapes run at bitrates near 30Mb/s. Blu-Ray movie discs will run at roughly the same rate. HD-DVD runs at a lower bitrate (even as low as 15Mb/s).

My understanding was the DCI spec for D-Cinema demands a data rate between 150Mb/s and 250Mb/s for 2K material. Every frame has to be encoded separately in JPEG2000 format and have no more than 3-5 tiles and coding transforms per frame. If those bitrates are only maximums allowed and the material can be coded down to 30Mb/s territory, then there indeed would be little difference between home HD video in 1080p and what theaters would show.
 
Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-01-2006, 11:57 PM:
 
quote: Scott Jentsch
If a particular theater is doing film right and there are no issues with picture quality, and there's no business reason for it, then don't invest in Digital Cinema. Last I checked, no one was holding a gun to anyone's head.
Well, yes... that would be nice. However, a bunch of us independents are being told that we're likely to be left out of the grand, one-time studio financing handout, if we don't jump on the train... and do it RIGHT NOW!

With all of the questions surrounding Digital Cinema, the 14 answers to each of them (including all the uneducated speculation and inflated claims) and the motivations behind the sales hype, it's a very confusing world right now, and not a difficult one to be cynical about.
 
Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-02-2006, 03:15 PM:
 
one-time studio financing handout

Handout? That would imply the projector is a free gift. Financing is always going to be available, if not from the studios, then from other sources.

No different from automoble incentives, there is always another one coming along.
 
Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 05-02-2006, 03:39 PM:
 
According to this document:

http://www.dcimovies.com/DCI_Digital_Cinema_System_Spec_v1.pdf

On Page 25:
The maximum bitrate of a 2K distribution will be 250Mbps at 24fps and 250Mbps for 2K at 48fps.

Going to 4K at 24fps will still be only 250Mbps maximum.

Table 9 on page 52 shows the capacity that would be required by storage mechanisms, and it lists bit rates between 80-250Mbps. Section 7.5.3.6 dictates that the storage system be capable of providing a continuous stream of 307Mbps for compressed image, uncompressed audio, and subtitle data.

I believe that this bitrate includes audio & video, but someone please clarify if I'm wrong.

In comparison, the (broadcast) ATSC chosen scheme, 8VSB, limits the transmission bitrate to 19.38Mb/s. If channels do multi-casting, they have to divide up that bitrate. DirecTV provides what many people refer to as "HD-Lite" which is 1280x1080i instead of full 1920x1080i, and 1280x720p. This site even took some measurements to see what different shows and different channels were getting as far as bitrates, which measurements as low as 7.8Mbps (on Showtime no less) and as high as 18.1Mbps. I'm sure that cable does similar tricks to reduce the "burden" of providing HDTV to their customers.

I couldn't find a reference to the color depth of HDTV, BluRay, or HD-DVD, but since my understanding is that HDMI is limited to 12 bits per pixel, that would be a third of the 36 bits per pixel that the DCI spec calls for. Whether or not that difference can be discerned by the naked eye might be debatable, but there is a difference in the two specs. (Although Table 9 shows 12-bit, but I can't figure out the reason for the conflict, unless the reference to 12-bit was per-color)

One measurement that doesn't work in Digital Cinema's favor is contrast ratio. DCI specs 2000:1 minimum, and Christie's CP2000-X says that it's capable of ">2000:1 full field on/off" whereas many home theater projectors are capable of greater contrast ratios than that and actual measurements have borne out 4000-6500:1 ratios on some front projectors. Sony's KDS-R60XBR1 rear-projection unit was measured to have a contrast ratio of 13,330:1 max, with 3,100:1 in its most restricted iris mode. Whether or not the measured contrast ratio in most people's homes would approach that is debatable, but the same might be said for theaters as well (sconces, exit signs, open auditorium doors).

This is the just the video side of things, but another area of comparison is in the audio. The DCI spec allows for 16 uncompressed channels of 24 bit audio at 96kHz sampling rates. That's much better than any home theater system is capable of, even if you disregard the currently-unused channels.

So, I think there's quite a bit to tout a 2K digital cinema installation over HDTV and home theater. Plus, that's just the technology, which isn't the only thing theaters have to offer their customers.

Looking over the DCI spec makes me wonder how 2K at 48fps would stack up to 4K at 24fps on a reasonably-sized screen. Does anyone know what frame-rate the 2K releases are being done at?
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-02-2006, 06:14 PM:
 
Just any movie, digital or not, is going to be shown at 24fps. That's how they're natively photographed.

As to bitrate limits of HD video formats, it's a moving target. Right now HDMI 1.1 is a bit of a liability. Several features of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD surpass the capability of that digital input/output spec. HDMI 1.1 doesn't allow 1080p signal transmission without some hackery (which Sony says they'll do for Playstation3). The new Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, DTS-HD and DTS-HD Master formats have all the capabilities of any D-Cinema sound format. However, HDMI 1.1 limits the bandwidth and number of channels on some of those formats. For instance, early HD-DVD players will not send out Dolby True HD signals over HDMI with anymore than 2 channels. Ugh!

Basically, anyone who hasn't already jumped on the HDTV bandwagon would be doing himself a huge favor by waiting until HDMI 1.3 is fully adopted across product lines.

Back to the D-Cinema bitrates.

I can understand why the 250Mb/s allowable bitrate max and physical overhead max of 307Mb/s is put into effect. You don't want to outstrip the physical capability of RAID systems on how many bits they can push through a data pipe. Over the next few years that number can certainly be raised quite a bit.

The part I find very disturbing is there seems to be little in the way of minimum bitrate standards. Frankly, that's the far more important number for me. It isn't what the system is capable of showing. What kind of quality is it actually showing in commercial practice?

If the movies are highly compressed and run at bitrates down in the same neighborhood as consumer formats, then the electronic store people can say whatever they want about their HDTV sets being equal.
 




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