Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Swank Motion Pictures encourages non-theatricals to switch to Swank Cinema Player

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Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 10-13-2008, 09:40 AM:

Swank Motion Pictures is encouraging its accounts to switch from film to their Swank Cinema Player. The exhibitor provides the projector. Resolution is 720 x 480.

Swank Cinema Player Technical Requirements web page

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 10-13-2008, 10:39 AM:

quote:
Minimum one-year lease for equipment

So if someone has to pay for the equipment to lease does that mean they don't have to pay a fee for playing individual titles? If the answer is "yes" then why would anyone switch?

Posted by Todd McCracken (Member # 4718) on 10-13-2008, 12:58 PM:

Hmm, seems a blu-ray player might be a better investment.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-13-2008, 01:11 PM:

This may not actually be a bad idea for their DVD and VHS (!) customers. In theory, it could provide DVD resolution, but with less compression and (again, in theory) better reliability than DVD or VHS.

Are they really trying to sell it to their film customers, though? It's clearly not in the same league as 16mm or 35mm film, based on the information on their web site.

And is their entire library available for it, or only new releases?

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 10-13-2008, 01:13 PM:

Resolution is 720 x 480

480p, that is NTSC resolution. Yes, I know NTSC is interlaced, but still, that sucks. You can buy a 720p (720 x 1280 resolution) for peanuts these days, and even 1080p projectors can be had for under $3000.

No good will come of charging admission for something that looks worse than what is available at home.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 10-13-2008, 02:39 PM:

I think this is the pertinent quote:

quote:
The Swank Cinema Player is the next evolution in delivering top quality entertainment to your students.

Swanks major market is schools, film clubs/student unions/film class. This is probably a few steps above the crappy 16mm I would see in college back in the 70's.

They don't appear to be even pretending to compete, commercially, with at home.

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 10-16-2008, 10:40 AM:

It seams strange to be restricting the system to DVD quality when higher quality is now available. It would seem more future proof to have some HD support (even if there is limited HD content to begin with).

quote:
When it is time for the show, the player will seek “permission to play” from Swank Motion Pictures, Inc. via an online connection and will play through your HDCP compliant projector.

This statement (from Swank website) does concern me. It would make more sense to use a key based system (like DCI spec systems) rather than rely on a network connection.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 10-16-2008, 11:37 AM:

Exactly what I have come to expect from Swank. Louis

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-20-2008, 06:28 AM:

Are they making any arrangements for a Virtual Print Fee to help pay for this equipment? [Big Grin]

quote:
4 x 3 presentation, 16 x 9 subject to availability

What's that all about? This really would be the deal buster -- I read it to mean you could conceivably get Pan & Scan versions of the latest titles because that's the format the studios release to the hotel and cable markets as PPV before they go to DVD rental. For the hotel and cable PPV release, they are almost always done non-letterbox/P&S. I'll bet Swank is piggybacking on that PPV window. This means that for the most current releases (for which they charge the higest rental fee) they are not getting versions made specifically for them but the same P&S versions that the cable companies and hotels get.

Same with their DVDs; even though they charge schools hefty rental rates for current titles, they don't have DVDs made specifically for their non-theatrical market, but they send out standard video store DVDs with all the gack up front and with the FBI warning that says the DVD is only for HOME USE. You would think they could press a version specifically for the non-theatrical market without all that crap, given the fact that the school is paying anywhere up to $1000 per show for that Home DVD.

And why only 16:9? Why not anamorphic versions? 720 x 480 resolution? [puke]

Come on -- that's a joke. What is it with Swank -- three steps backwards?

Besides, is shipping out the physical DVD (this is the way they do it now) all that complicated? Netflix doesn't seem to have any problems doing it and I dare say Netflixs is allot bigger than Swank.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-20-2008, 09:03 AM:

Interesting. I read that as saying that films shot in Academy will be available in 4x3 (as they should be) and that films shot in wider formats would be available cropped or pillarboxed or anamorphically squeezed to 16x9. Sure, it sucks for scope films, but I didn't see it as saying that they would be dumping a 4x3 pan-and-scan version on their customers. If that is what they mean, then Frank is right and this is a piece of junk.

I still don't see why everyone thinks that this is such a horrible idea, if we accept it as being intended only for existing DVD and VHS customers and not for their film customers. The picture quality can't possibly be any worse than VHS (can it?), and it is probably more reliable than DVD. Further, it could actually offer higher image quality than DVD, depending upon the type and extent of compression used.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-20-2008, 11:46 AM:

....and the speed of the client's internet connection.

I suppose "subject to availability" could mean that all wide screen titles will be 16:9 but, then why even need to say that given that all titles since the 60s would be 16:9? It sounds too iffy to me. I would want that clarified right up front. I am just going by Swanks other "subject to availability" fine print, like their 35mm film title list which is also "subject to availabilty." That pretty much means 9 times out of 10 you are not going to get a 35mm print.

This system might be security-driven. With this DVD-less system, studios might me more willing to release titles earlier than Swank usually gets them....maybe even right after the break which the studios wouldn't do with the vulnerability of shipping DVDs. This system has no pristine copy-able copy floating around thru the mail or laying around some student dorm in the hands of kids. It also adds that "key" idea as another layer of control.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 10-20-2008, 05:33 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
....and the speed of the client's internet connection.

Of course. Then again, anyone who goes with this kind of system and uses a slow connection is shooting themselves in the foot. Sure, I'm fine with netflix's "view on the computer" thingy with low-ish quality (due to my slow connection) but I sure wouldn't do the same if I were using that for exhibiting.

quote: Scott Norwood
I still don't see why everyone thinks that this is such a horrible idea, if we accept it as being intended only for existing DVD and VHS customers and not for their film customers.

The only reason I seemed suspicious of it is that it seems strange if you have to both rent the player and the individual movie. Now it would be different if the player rental included access to the movies or if at least the individual movie fee was lower than the one for when you rent a DVD/VHS.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-20-2008, 09:08 PM:

Speed of the internet connection doesn't matter. The only realtime internet aspect is the cryptographic key exchange / authorization handshake, which doesn't take any bandwidth. The web page disucces shipping hard drives, as well.

For me, this is bad because it is yet another case of taking the control out of the hands of exhibitors (even incompetent ones, if they're showing VHS...). I also wonder how bulletproof Swank's system and software could possibly be, and would tend to fear for the worst, like it breaking down at the worst possible moment.

It also seems unreasonable to expend any money on a system that only supports standard definition, especially with no quality guarantees. Will it look like VHS, or will it look like DigiBeta?
[somewhere in-between, of course.]

--jhawk

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-21-2008, 11:10 AM:

They will have to offer clients more than just a DVD-less/shipping-less system as the incentive and advantage to buy into this system; perhaps it can allow them to offer booking dates for the latest films earlier than the booking dates for the DVD clients and cheaper rental rates since this digital system will eliminate their having to stock DVD and run a shipping department with the attendant salaries, etc.

Besides, with product now becoming readily available on Blu-Ray, why go with a lesser image quality of this internet system?

And again, I would want writen-in-stone proof that I would never EVER get any hotel P&S crap; bad enough it's video -- if there is even the remotest possibility of getting Pan&Scan versions, then Swank needs to find a dumpster for this system. On occasions we would open the shipping case and find a P&S AND edited-for-TV 16mm print -- right back in the case it would go and out the door. There are certain compromises where you have to draw line in the sand. P&S is one of them, if indeed that is what that rather ambiguous language means.

I will talk to Brian Fox at Swank; he is a teriffic booker over there & will give straight answers (he's always honest about print quality; no BS). I'll report back.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 10-21-2008, 11:41 AM:

My suspicion is that many venues will eventually buy their own consumer grade 1080p video projectors and rent blue-ray's from their local video store, rights be damned. In fact, for many rights will not be an issue due to fair use exceptions for class room use. I think Swank is shooting themselves in the foot on this one.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-21-2008, 12:57 PM:

Does Swank offer Blu-Ray? My direct experience with them does not extend beyond film (35mm and 16mm), but I know that they offer VHS and DVD as well.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-21-2008, 01:00 PM:

Yes, they do offer BluRay Disc.

"Does Swank offer HDCAM SR or D5?"

--jhawk

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-22-2008, 11:51 AM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
My suspicion is that many venues will eventually buy their own consumer grade 1080p video projectors and rent blue-ray's from their local video store, rights be damned. In fact, for many rights will not be an issue due to fair use exceptions for class room use. I think Swank is shooting themselves in the foot on this one.

Unfortunately, Mitchell, students already do that all the time and with inpunity, especially in the dorms. The students' attitutde is, the dorm is their home and their home is their castle & they can pretty much do whatever they want there. At three colleges that I am familiar with, almost every dorm has a common room and a very high percentage of those have things like movie/beer & pizza nights using consumer video projectors and rental DVDs. They range from very simple setups with low-end projectors and portable screens to a few that have gone pretty wild with permanent setups, big screens and the higher-end projectors and elaborate sound systems, really mimicing the better home screening rooms.

Preactically speaking, trying to reign this kind of thing in under the copyright infringment law is a real up-hill and I'd say pretty much a loosing battle. Even the administrators have either no problem with it at all, or just look the other way - one actually told me that the school was what he called in loco parentis and the students, especially in each dorm were considered a family unit. He insisted that showing DVD rental movies for recreation in the dorm common rooms was not a violation. I am sure the MPAA would have a very different opinion on that, but then again, if you let those people have their way, they would want to implant monitoring chips in the back of everyone's necks and make even THINKING about a movie an infringment and punishable by death.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 10-22-2008, 12:07 PM:

Well in those students' defense, a dorm is the equivalent of an apartment that just happens to be on school grounds. It's different if the school itself puts on a screening, though I would think. Like my old school had an auditorium and they'd sell tickets for cheap (or in some cases free) to see a movie that'd been out in theaters not to long ago (or in some cases, classics). That's a whole different situation.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-22-2008, 12:26 PM:

The key question here is whether it is a "public performance." It's clear that showing a movie in your apartment with some friends is not a public performance, showing it in a large auditorium and selling tickets is.

There is a wide space of grey areas between and there is not clear settled law about them. There have been cases where individuals and schools have settled out of court in some of them, but I think there has been very little litigation, and many of those settlements might not be viewed as reasonable.

On one side, most people agree that a single student watching a movie in his dorm room isn't a public performance, and similarly that a few friends in a room doing the same is not.

What about when a suite of rooms (say 4) have a small common room with a TV -- is that public? What about a small lounge on a single floor of a dormitory?

At the other end, a dormitory-wide common space with a nice video projecter is pretty close to a public performance, but what if one guy walks in with a DVD and watches a movie by himself on the big screen? What if a friend joins him? What if no more than would fit in his dorm room join him?

The answers aren't clear, and school administrations don't particularly want to get involved in this losing battle between student rights and legal liability, especially with a lack of presumption of good faith on either side.

There is a huge difference of opinion as to whether in loco parentis doctrine applies. I think most schools currently feel they do not act in loco parentis and treat their students as adults; this has serious implications for school liability in the event of alcohol incidents, etc., etc.

At MIT, the administration takes the view that advertised showings of movies qualify as public performance. That gets people upset on both sides (esp. depending on how you define advertising), but it generally means that studios (or their agents) are unlikely to litigate against non-advertised shows, since of course they are not advertised and they are not aware of them.

As a practical matter, those people who might want to show a DVD with a group of twenty friends are somewhat trapped -- even if they want to pay for a nontheatrical public performance license, they probably cannot afford $800 to do so, and even if they could, can't justify the expense versus $5 at BlockBuster (or cheaper). If nontheatrical licenses were more reasonably priced, I imagine a lot of these problems would disappear.

It should go without saying, but when we show films (35mm or otherwise) as part of our film program, we always have those shows properly licensed. Of course, we almost never show anything on DVD (and certainly never VHS)...

--jhawk

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 10-22-2008, 06:25 PM:

We showed 35mm films for 30 years at the University of Louisville. Swank screwed up our deal since they "control campus use of films." Several Universities have given up on film because of Swank and their pricing (ten times what we paid through a theatrical booker.)

I know of at least 3 campuses that use dvd and video because Swank is too hard to control and very much over budget. I'm talking about after-sub-run. Louis