Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Sin City DLP

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Posted by Stephen LaPadula (Member # 3050) on 03-29-2005, 09:20 PM:

Hey, Im new to this site, and I think its great...I've tried to read as many posts in the past few weeks in hopes not to post repeated topics, and have also got some great ideas from everyone.

I'm a manager at The Regal Union Square Stadium 14 in Manhattan. I got to see the tech run down of our digital print of Sin City last night and it looks great. I didn't know much about the movie before hand, so I was kinda caught off guard by the violance, even if cartoonish in nature, it was pretty graphic. The story is awesome and very Tarantino-esque in plot delivery.

But the way this film is presented, between the cartoon, black and white and color sequences, everyone one should see it presented digitally. We are booked with 4 prints, one of them digital, so anyone in the area please come to Union Square to see it and say hi if I'm there.

Anyone else getting a digital print? Do your customers (average movie goers) notice the quality?...I sure could.

Posted by Jacob A. Velleman (Member # 2533) on 03-29-2005, 09:41 PM:

Hey. How does the DLP work with the 2wenty? Does it just loop into the movie automatically?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-29-2005, 11:22 PM:

I'm hoping they release this on Kodak 2393 stock. If they do, the colors and contrast should be awesome. DLP can't compare to a good film presentation. DLPs contrast is nowhere near what can be achieved with film. You'll see tons of discussions on that if you do a search, and I'm sure Mr. Pytlak will be along with some stats shortly! [Wink]

But, HEY! Welcome to Film Tech! Stick around for a while! [beer]

Posted by Stephen LaPadula (Member # 3050) on 03-30-2005, 10:27 AM:

The 2wenty and the regular film run off different projectors. The one for he pre show starts automatically, as it is linked to radiant, it knows the showtimes and exactly how far in advance to start the 2wenty presentation (sometimes it can be 20:36, or 22:10 min:sec long). The projector that runs the movie has to be started automatically by a projectionists.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 04-01-2005, 12:49 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
I'm hoping they release this on Kodak 2393 stock.

The print I inspected yesterday was on Fujicolor stock.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 04-01-2005, 01:13 PM:

If your DLP looks better than film I'm wondering what's wrong with your film equipment/handlers.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-01-2005, 01:41 PM:

Generally movies originated on video (such as Episode II, Sin City and computer animated stuff) look better when presented on DLP. Regular movies shot on film of course look better when presented on film.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-01-2005, 10:57 PM:

I'm not sure I totally agree with that. I noticed tons of aliasing artifacts on Episode II's DLP presentation, and the pixels stood out like a sore thumb. The film presentation didn't suffer from either of those problems. The film show had the "low detail in the dark scenes" problem, but so did the DLP show.

quote: Jeffry L. Johnson
The print I inspected yesterday was on Fujicolor stock.

As was mine, and I'm sure everyone else's. The contrast for the B&W was nowhere near what it could have been - but I think that was the fault of the digital camera used to shoot it, not the film used for the print. I forgot this was shot digitally.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 04-02-2005, 03:41 AM:

Indded, if the film was originally digital but compressed further for consumption by DLP equipment it should show artifacts more so than the uncompressed film version, right?

quote: Mark J. Marshall
The film show had the "low detail in the dark scenes" problem, but so did the DLP show

Similar issues have been reported with other films.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 04-02-2005, 05:59 AM:

I didn't see whichever Star Wars film it was which was shot digitally, but I did see the trailer, and thought it looked dredful. I saw 'Russian Ark', and thought it looked much better. Somebody told me that the same camera model, with different recording equipment, was used for both films; is this correct? If so, what did they do to the Star Wars film to make it look so bad? In both cases I saw them on film.

At a demonstration I have seen all four combinations of film and digital origination and presentation. All four looked different, and I don't think I would have too much difficulty telling them apart.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 04-02-2005, 09:45 AM:

quote: Stephen Furley
Somebody told me that the same camera model, with different recording equipment, was used for both films; is this correct?

Yes, that's exactly right. Both films were shot with the Sony HDWF900 Cine Alta, which nominally records 1920x1080. On Star Wars, however, the camera was masked in such a way so as to extract a roughly 2.35 area from the sensor, which dropped the resolution to only about 800 lines. In addition, the camera output was recorded on tape in the HDCam format, at a compression rate of about 2.7:1.

On Russian Ark, the camera's sensor was unmasked and full resolution, and its full bandwidth 4:2:2 output was fed uncompressed to hard drives, as there was no tape format available that could record a full 90 min. take at that data rate.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was shot on the newer version of this camera, at full 10 bit RGB 4:4:4 output. The new Sony HDCam/SR tape format is now available and accepts that amount of data. I presume, though, that they are still masking the imager somehow, so it will remain to be seen how much better the new camera looks. They went with better glass on this one too, switching to Fuji lenses from Panavision. I shot some footage on this system with these lenses last year in New Mexico (courtesy of Mike Bravin of Band Pro) and they looked incredible.

[ 04-02-2005, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Mark Ogden ]

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 04-02-2005, 10:40 AM:

Saw this last night at CENTURY 22 -San Jose, CA in their DLP house. This is the first DLP projected movie I have ever seen. I must say, I was quite impressed! I thought it looked very sharp, bright, and very vibrant. Very comperable to watching a DVD, which the general moviegoing public is accustomed to now anyhow. Sound was awesome too! No cue marks, no scratches, no bad splices. I'm all for DLP now. [thumbsup]

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 04-03-2005, 04:27 AM:

quote: Eric Hooper
Saw this last night at CENTURY 22 -San Jose, CA in their DLP house. This is the first DLP projected movie I have ever seen. I must say, I was quite impressed! I thought it looked very sharp, bright, and very vibrant. Very comperable to watching a DVD, which the general moviegoing public is accustomed to now anyhow. Sound was awesome too! No cue marks, no scratches, no bad splices. I'm all for DLP now.

DVD's are actually quite below good in my taste, now a days.
I actually don't enjoy them too much, especially on a large enough screen that the artifacts start to show up on.
The sound should sound awesome, I don't imagine the format would change too mcuh. Bad splices, scratches, dust, etc. are all issues with damaged equipment and lazy projectionists. Cue marks are hardly noticeable unless you're looking for them, imho.

Posted by Matthew Ballantine-Patton (Member # 3007) on 04-03-2005, 11:14 AM:

Our Regal theater here opened 3 prints of Sin City, and I figured it was a given that one would be on the DLP. To my dismay, there was none, and I figured there just wasn't a digital version. Now I'm even more disappointed! Digital features like The Incredibles and Robots look amazing on the DLP. I'm dying to see Sin City!

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-03-2005, 08:10 PM:

quote: Stephen Furley
Somebody told me that the same camera model, with different recording equipment, was used for both films; is this correct?

For Episode II, they used the Sony HDC-F900 HD camera. For Episode III, they used the newer HDC-F950 HD camera.

You can read about the new camera and the process Mark described in his post on the Star Wars website here and here .

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 04-05-2005, 11:59 PM:

The Century 22 in San Jose had its DLP house installed for Star Wars Episode II. At that time, Texas Instruments had not yet released a 2K version of their DLP technology. 1280x1024 was the max resolution. Unless it has been upgraded since then, the Century 22 auditorium is still showing material at 1280x1024.

I've seen two movies presented in DLP there, Episode II (scope) and Spy Kids 2 (flat). In both cases, pixels were clearly visible, even when sitting in the back half of the theater. Also, I noticed heat waves drifting across the image during Episode II. This was despite the fact that I could see through the booth port glass that the DLP unit had a much larger ventilation conduit reaching up into the ceiling than the 35mm unit.

I've not yet seen Sin City in DLP, but I have seen in it 35mm. To me, it looks as though Efilm did a very good job transferring the movie (which from what I understand is entirely at 2K resolution) to 35mm. I believe the film prints are showing every last pixel. For example, I could see jagged edges on the slanted letters of the word "films" in the Dimension Films logo at the end. The only way I could see that is if every single pixel of the image were being faithfully reproduced in the film print. Based on MTF numbers for today's 35mm print stocks, this is easily possible (and in fact would still be possible even if the original material in question were 4K instead of 2K).

Given the fact that the vast majority of theatrical DLP installations are of the older 1280x1024 variety, it's likely one will actually be seeing more detail in 35mm than in DLP.

And I haven't even touched on the issue of dynamic range (as others have mentioned), an area in which film has an even greater advantage.

I will probably head over to the Century 22 sometime soon and check out Sin City in DLP for comparison's sake. Unfortunately, Century's website does not list which showtimes are for DLP. [Razz]

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 04-06-2005, 12:56 AM:

DLP Showtimes - Century 22 (per Fandango) - 1:10, 4:00, 6:50, 9:40.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 04-06-2005, 09:14 AM:

Aaron, heat waves that you saw are NOT an effect of the DLP. This has been described in other threads and a result of the HVAC in the auditorium. I have seen this effect while watching 35MM prints.

Also, were you TRYING to look for pixels or was it that obvious. If you were sitting that far back, you shouldn't have.

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 04-06-2005, 12:35 PM:

I saw the 6:50 show last Friday night, sat in the middle center of the auditorium right where the seats begin to become 'stadium', and I saw no pixels or heat waves... The presentation was flawless. [thumbsup]

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 04-07-2005, 01:40 PM:

Saw it again last night at LCE METREON in San Francisco at 8pm. Much larger screen than at the Century 22. No pixels. No heatwaves... Another flawless DLP presentation.

(However, they must have started the movie previews at 7:50 or something, because when we walked into the auditorium at 7:55, the lights were already lowered and previews were already playing. One more preview showed and then the movie began at 8:01pm, which pissed a lot of people off. People were mad they missed most the movie previews, and then lots of late comers coming in at 8:05 and 8:10 looking for seats in the dark ruined the first 15 minutes of the movie! Lots of complaining from patrons about this was overheard at the end of the movie when everyone was walking out. Did Loews get sued about the starting times of the movies or something?)

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 04-11-2005, 06:01 PM:

Sin City, on 35mm and my first glimpse at the 2wenty...
Regal Regency 7 in Merced, CA.
Auditorium #6
Crappy DTS and Crapier SR

The 2wenty seemed a little like the source was clipping, but yet it wasn't that loud. Just slightly distorted though. I like the idea but I think it's poorly executed.
The show started on time and as the previews rolled (without rolling stock amazingly) I realised something was wrong...
The picture was off the screen up top with shadows on the bottom and sides, that was disgusting.
And my favorite...The SR was so rediculously configured. It was a.) very very quiet and b.) distorted. There was absolutely no bass and every time a loudish scene (such as the action shots in the War of the Worlds preview) hit the sound would just clip so bad.
I walked out and told the manager on duty that there was an issue with the sound in there. He told me it's because some of the previews aren't actually in digital sound.
I told him I'm a projection manager at another theater and that it's not because it's in analog. I told him it's probably the optical preamp or a failing LED. I'm of course not sure of this, I havn't seen their booth in years so I can't be more specific and I'm not much of a sound tech.
Whatever. I doubt it'll get fixed.
My peve? The DTS wasn't much louder. I never once heard ANYTHING out of the surrounds, and there was a rediculous annoying pop out of the right screen chanell every 20 seconds throughout the entire feature!

But I digress...The feature wasn't scratched, the picture was bright, and the projector didn't shake too much.
Though the reflected light off the WHITE ceiling and the light on the screen from the house lights that never dimmed were a bit annoying.

In the end, what I saw of the 2wenty was really not that impressive in terms of image quality. It was sharp and steady but the colors weren't very well managed. It was like watching one of those hard-on-the-eyes LCD tv's.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-12-2005, 01:30 PM:

Having once worked for Regal, I know enough about their commitment to quality to know that all those resposible for that showing, including the technician who hasn't fixed any of those problems, will be fired immediately [Big Grin]

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 04-13-2005, 01:29 PM:

quote: Jesse Skeen
Having once worked for Regal, I know enough about their commitment to quality to know that all those resposible for that showing, including the technician who hasn't fixed any of those problems, will be fired immediately

Like that will ever happen here. Hah! I bet I go watch a movie in that same house in a month and it's still like that.
And it's probably the manager I spoke to who doesn't know jack about film that started that show. You see, this is an old UA from the buyout.
Same GM. And this guy has the most cut back payroll I've ever seen a 7 screen theater run on.
He's leaner than our 6 screen for crying out loud. And it shows when things like this happen or when there's actually a line at the snack bar on sunday night.

Posted by Jarryd Beard (Member # 2543) on 04-13-2005, 02:18 PM:

I hope Jesse was joking. If not, I call bullshit.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 04-13-2005, 07:33 PM:

Anyone interested in the making of Sin City turn on tonight at 8:00 or right now on the east coast to CBS on 60 Minutes 2.

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 04-19-2005, 09:55 PM:

Mike: Thanks, I forgot to check Fandango. Interesting that it has the information, while Century's own site does not.

Paul: Can you point me to some of the past threads that might have discussed the heat wave phenomenon? Any info would be appreciated.

I did not mean to imply they are particular to DLP or any other type of projection system. I certainly don't think they are coming off the DLP chips themselves or anything like that. However, that DLP screening in the Century 22 was the only time I have ever witnessed them. Not even in the very same auditorium during 35mm presentations have I seen them, before or since.

To clarify, what I saw was a focused image of heat waves on the screen. I did not see heat waves themselves in front of me, merely an image or shadow of them on the screen. Doesn't the fact that it was a focused image mean they must have been occuring in the air somewhere relatively close the projector lens? And is not the biggest source of heat in that vicinity going to undoubtedly be the projector lamp? I was hypothesizing that the source of the heat waves was excessive heat and inadequate ventilation in the booth. The only connection I was trying to make between that and DLP was merely the fact that DLP typically requires a larger lamp than 35mm for the same size screen, which might exacerbate such a problem. Other than that, I did not think there was any direct connection between DLP and the heat waves.

As to your second question: no, I am not looking for pixels. I really would rather not see them. In addition to the Century 22 in San Jose, I've seen DLP presentations in NYC, San Francisco, and Plano, TX. In each case, I've always been able to see the pixels. Not in every shot, but in brighter areas of the picture they really stand out. This is without any sort of deliberate searching on my part. The eye is very good at edge detection -- sharp boundaries such as those between pixels tend to draw attention.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 04-19-2005, 10:51 PM:

Aaron, when you were in Plano, you must have been in my big 1K theatre at the time. That has since been replaced with a 2K

Here are the links:

Click 1

Click 2

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 04-26-2005, 01:14 AM:

Thanks for the links, Paul. Yes, I think I actually saw DLP in two different auditoriums at the Legacy. Once was "Toy Story 2", and another time was "Ocean's Eleven". I'd like to see how things look now that you have a 2K setup. Next time I'm in town I'll see if I can catch something.

I finally caught Sin City in DLP at the Century 22 in San Jose this weekend. I sat a little more than 3/4ths the way back in the auditorium. It looked pretty nice. The contrast was better than I expected, and the pixels were not very apparent this time. I did notice very thin horizontal lines in the credits had a flickery appearance as they scrolled up. I suppose this might be a scaling artifact (the movie started life at 2K and had to be scaled down to the projector's native resolution, resulting in a some unwanted oddities). I also saw some slight video compresion problems in the form of banding in smooth gradients. Overall I'd say it's kind of a toss-up between that and 35mm. They both looked quite good, with no serious drawbacks to either.

There were only a few trailers: I remember "The Lords of Dogtown" looked very nice with all its bright outdoor scenery and strong colors. "House of Wax" did not look good at all, the contrast was almost nonexistant. There was a short Christie digital projection snipe before the feature that I don't recall seeing last time I was there (for "Spy Kids 2"). Perhaps this is a new projector?

Unrelated to the picture, there was a serious audio problem with this presentation. The front-right channel was cutting out. In fact, I think it was actually out for most of the feature. The only time I did hear anything from that channel it was accompanied by a crackling noise, as though there were a loose connection somewhere. During the end credits, I walked very close to the screen and confirmed that there really did not appear to be much, if any, sound coming out of the front-right channel.

[ 04-26-2005, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Aaron Haney ]