I am curious to hear from everyone how digital cinema is doing compared to glorious analog cinema. I am well aware that they are two separate animals. Im not talking about comparing technical and obvious differences between them but rather sharing your feelings on the every day use of them and service. Which did you find to be more dependable, less break downs, better maintenance, ease of use, etc.
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Digital is definitely less work (and there's a lot less lugging stuff around), but it's substantially more expensive to keep it going. -
I guess it's a mixed bag. We're used to glorifying the past, but analog certainly had its issues too. Like Frank indicated, I don't think too many people really miss lugging around heavy tin cans all too much.
Whether or not it's more expensive to keep going depends a lot on the type of operation you are. In many single screens, the owner has been doing projectionist work, therefore avoiding expensive payroll positions. For smaller operators, the move to digital certainly has been a challenge and continues to be a challenge, as digital equipment tends to age far quicker than the analog counterpart.
If you are running a multiplex, employing projectionists was a major cost center. With that largely removed and outsourced, the bottom-line over the write-off period of the equipment, digital might turn out more cost efficient for the bottom-line in many cases.Comment
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People do not like digital sound, they say analog records are best. Even though it was never a good form of duplicating audio, just a cheap way of making copies. Audio enthusiasts say digital sounds unnatural, harsh and so on. If we look on early converters from the 1980s, there may be truth in it, they weren't great. But the current long term standard 48 kHz sample rate and 24 bit audio, or even 16 bit audio offers a quite nice reproduction of the original sound. Even when using compression and reduction codecs of recent revisions.
The same applies to digital cinema, there's been development in projectors and the playback standards were enhanced. Early projectors with slow switching DLP chips, huge gaps between active areas and a resulting, visible fly grid structure are a thing of the past. Current revisions offer an image quality, that even with small chipsets is superb.
I always hear, 35 mm offered machines that ran for decades. Which is true, these were great pieces of mechanical engineering. And I often saw really old machines in a job, also using really old optics and lamps. Glass ages, as do mechanical movement. Without reconstruction or replacements the image in an analog process degrades over time. Reconstruction was rare.
We did comparisons, the some movie, different lens combinations, from a socialist era back lens and anamorphic, over standard class 1980s lenses, 1990s lenses to a 70 mm 8 perf back lens and blue anamorphic. The difference was huge. Only the 8 perf lens Blue Star combo did reveal the full color spectrum, with visibly more saturated reds and blues in the same movie (Blade 98 Reel 1, the blood bath the vampires take is so nicely red, incredible how every other lens combo does a censorship here). Did normal theatres use it? No.
Going to a large prime hall in my hometown, offering 1000 seats, always meant to get quite inferior projections, dim, no contrasty images, as the huge screen could not be lit adequately. I had a discussion with the former tech manager of the company around Y2K. I owned a single screen with an even little larger area, and made the brightness and illumination reach SMPTE specs. The answer, it you 5 hours to adjust. We can't afford to pay that.
I have recently seen a movie in there again, with a new digital machine. Price to performance was pretty ok. The price low, below 10 bucks on a start weekend Friday for the prime hall, was pretty ok for what was offered. For the first time in there, visible images, yes there's been specle, yes there's been hot spotting, a bit compensated for by a slight curvature of the screen. But ok, for the price asked.
And better (except specles), than any time in 35 mm movies shown.
Is the cost really higher, when using digital gear? Not really. Theatres have no more need for a projectionist, even a teenage student didn't do it for free. Shipping of movies, which were heavy does involve cost. Now it's an internet transfer, but significantly cheaper than the film hauling guy. And lamp life. I'm not talking about carbon arcs and the prices these rods cost at the end, they were expensive. Let's compare to Xenon. The screen mentioned above requires a 35 k lumen light output, to make 3D work. With Xenon bulbs it required in the range of 6.5 kW lamps, with a lifespan of 750 hours, before they were down to 50% light. The digital machine clams 40k or 50 k lifespan of the semiconductor light source. That's approx. 60 bulbs The replacement price including service eventually is around 1 grand, so the savings in bulb costs are 60 grand. Taking the efficiency into consideration, the new projection machine is around 3500 Watts. Compare this to roughly 8 k Watt for the old analog. Multiply the difference with 60 k hours and your power price per kWh. I wouldn't say the new machine is really expensive. Add the savings of projectionist costs, film assembly cost, transportation cost and you end up - saving money long term. Even with replacement of equipment every 8 to 10 years.
The maximum light output of a 35 mm projector has been around 12 to 13 k lumens, limited by the gate size. If we even take that value for 2D presentations into the calculation, the energy savings, are even higher, and the repayment is even earlier.
For me, projecting film on film is an emotional thing, not a rational one. And emotions make us feel well. Just like the HiFi fans loving gramophone vinyl records.Comment
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Stefen your response was a great read. I too have seen a lot of bad 35mm theater experiences. And like you I have seen digital in the same theaters and the picture and sound is great. I really didn't want it to be. I have to wonder if analog was too complicated.Comment
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I don't miss film like I thought I would. I miss working on the film, because it gave me "alone time" to escape from the world for a couple hours each week. But threading up, making splices, hauling cans up and down the stairs, dealing with shipping, and being stuck with the same trailer reel all week? Nope, don't miss that at all. I love being able to take a vacation and pre-program all the shows and not have to worry about finding someone to thread the machine or put together a new show. I like being able to control the booth functions from the office. I also like being able to stop the show and shut down if nobody comes in; being able to add (or take out) trailers on the fly; being able to put in my own slides and such. Being able to digitize my old favorite movies and watch them in the theatre is also great.
The picture quality from film to Xenon was a bit of a downgrade, especiallly in the contrast department. The laser machine has fixed that problem. I'm always very pleased to look at our image these days -- it looks awesome! And digital sound is miles ahead of analog film sound, I don't care what anyone says.
In short, if anyone gave me the opportunity to go back from digital to film, I'd say "hell no, thank you."
However....
Stefan is nuts to say digital is not more expensive to run. Since we went digital in 2010, I've spent approximately $150,000 in projectors alone, to say nothing of a $1200 to $1500 bulb every year (analog bulbs lasted about 2x as long and cost about half as much). We are also on our third server, so about $12k in servers. We moved to laser two years ago, so no more bulb expense at least. But like they say, you pay the bulb cost up front with laser.
Our film projector was 35 years old when we made the switch. The only expense it ever cost was the annual serivce call, about $500 a year, and some splicing tape and oil. It'd probably still be running today if the change hadn't happened.
Shipping is pretty much unchanged, because we spend $25 per title to have movies sent to us over broadband, and that's about the same that it cost previously to have them shipped in and out. (When I first got into the busines in 1979, we could bus a print to the depot, 400 miles away, for $3.30!)
We didn't hire a projectionist, I did it myself and still do, so no labor savings here. Even if we did hire a person, the cost wouldn't have been anywhere close to what these digital projectors cost.
I have no idea abour the energy savings (if any) since our power bill doesn't break the projection booth out from the rest of the building, but I will say we didn't notice any major reduction in power bills when we went to digital. Besides, our power bill fluctuates wildly due to the changes in our climate from one season to the next. Our power bill was $350 last month, but will probably be close to $900 this month since it's gotten much colder.
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Mike, I enjoyed reading your response. It was interesting to read that you don't miss running a analog movie. I am just the opposite. I missed it so much I put a set up in my basement. Your cost analysis was interesting also. Thank you for sharingComment
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Those who know me on the forum know exactly how I feel about the switch to D-Cinema (Or as I used to call it, D-Crapma.) Sure you saved on labor cost (Only in certain situations, most of the big non union chains used the popcorn kids to do the projection duties in between cleaning auditoria and selling snacks ...UA called them "Booth Ushers", which I made fun of all the time ..WTF did they do, tell the booth where to go? Sheesh.) and even in the union booths with the megaplexes, you only had two or maybe three projectionists on shift at any time. (IMHO the digital fanboys like to make it sound like every auditorium in a 'plex had a dedicated projectionist, just to fluff up the labor numbers.)
But NOW the labor costs shifted to having more frequent service calls to fix server errors, bricked LD's and Media blocks/IMS's, increased costs to REPAIR the projectors (even some cooling fan swaps (Looking at you, NEC) require you to almost completely strip the projector down to change a stupid $15 fan, which often costs 5-15 times more than that, PLUS LABOR. And light engines? You could buy two or three decent 35mm machines for the cost of ONE light engine (AND the 35mm machine would be less hassle and expense to install.) Most reasonably skilled "projectionists" or managers knew how to change a bulb, fix a broken splice, rig a platter or other transport to keep the show on screen, etc. All skills that for the most part have left the chat altogether at most locations.
Lamp costs are a bit more of a gray area, but how much did D-Cinema REALLY save? Most (some?) auditoria required the same size (or larger) Xenon lamps which have roughly the same lifespan of the film models. And if you pushed your luck and let a Digital machine lamp explode..... IF you were REALLY lucky you'd only damage the reflector and maybe a heat filter (Both costing more than the film versions) but often the Integrator rod or light pipe got damaged too... break out some more Benjamins for those parts AND the extra labor. Now D-cinema DID bring about the optimization of switcher power supplies for the Xenon lamps, so I give credit there. Most D-Cinema switchers are a LOT more efficient that their film counterparts.
D-Cinema also brought greatly improved lenses and optics to the table. Kudos there. While the up-front costs of a D-cinema lens is higher, the savings comes from not having to have multiple lenses and aperture plates for different aspect ratios. Again another plus for the D machines.
I'm leaving audio off the table as many theatres already had upgraded speakers and amplifiers for digital sound on film of whatever flavor. Those that still ran straight analog (35mm Optical, 70mm mag) had to (well, were supposed to) upgrade the sound during the switch..but at least in the early days, I knew of too many theatres that just ran L/C/R/S (no subs) and few even did MONO!
Film shipping costs...please. As Mike pointed out, that was a very small line item on most spreadsheets. And since many locations STILL PAY to get drives shipped, who REALLY saved any money? I'll tell you: THE F-ING STUDIOS. Just so they didn't have to strike hundreds or thousands of 35mm prints. Yes that is a huge cost but it was always the STUDIO who bore that cost! (Unless you really trashed a print, but in all my years running film and servicing countless locations, I can't recall any theatres actually getting billed for a damaged print, with a few high profile exceptions. A certain dome-centric chain who destroyed a BRAND NEW 70mm mag print (on the midnight press screening) of a high profile space movie comes to mind.)
I for one didn't mind schlepping the film cans, I considered it a part of my workout so I saved some money on gym fees.
And like Mike, I enjoyed film buildups and teardowns,. gave me time to relax and crank up the tunes in the booth. (Plus I made extra money doing it.)
Finally, as to the visual "feel" D cinema to this day always gives me a headache. Never had the problem with film (unless the shutter was damaged or slightly out of time.) Film done right doesn't have a distracting amount of dirt or scratches, and watching for the changeover cues was fun!. As a projectionist, a smooth running 35mm machine was soothing, and you could usually catch any impending show-stoppers just by the sounds of the projector and platter. And 70mm when done on a good machine (The Norelco AA of a certain Art Chain I ran) would literally purr with 70mm, so much so I usually had to fight to stay awake when running it. (K. Branaugh's ""Hamlet", which was great movie.)
Digital? You just never know, and have no warning of when (not if) a random power glitch, server error, communications fail, read errors from the drive or NAS will bring the show to a halt. And unlike film, often the cause of the stoppage is not obvious. SO it is often the power down, reboot and pray method. IF you were lucky it was only however long it took the server to reboot, the projector to power up and do the marriage, and away you went. Too many times it was longer, and you lost at least that show, sometimes multiple shows. Again, to be fair the same was possible with film, but....
In my film days, once I was notified of a film break I was able to get back on screen (with a proper splice) in TWO MINUTES or less. Bulb failed? 20 minutes max including cool down. I would focus the lamp with the film running then recheck during intermissions between shows. (Thankfully only had to do that twice in my career.) Rectifier diode blown? I had premade stacks ready to go in all my booths, so 20 minutes max downtime. Gear stripped? Well usually lost the show depending on which one went south. (On the Christie P35's I got belt swaps done in about 25 minutes. Only had that happen once because I tried to stay on top of belt wear and missed that machine.) Intermittent swap? Century, 20 mins. Simplex 30-35 minutes, never had to do a Christie. Platter problems? Motor swap, a few minutes. Payout "brain" failed or motor control card failed? Hook up the MUT and control it manually. Same for payout but that required someone to be there every minute, with feed you can cheat and get a few minutes of "away time" by setting the speed a bit fast.) Bottom line, most film based breakdowns were fixable in the booth the same day (often show) with minimal dark screen time, IF you had someone who knew what they were doing.
Finally, presentation quality. As I posed about a week ago in another thread, theatres that "Did Film Right" had no problems doing the digital swap and continuing to "Do the Show Right". However, and this is the big one: Theatres that didn't (or couldn't) do film right looked GREAT right after the swap...but quickly degenerated to "Digital Done Wrong" due to the exact same lack of care and maintenance they suffered with doing film. And worse, they continue to limp along with substandard presentation because to a point, digital IS more forgiving of lack of attention on a regular basis.
Bottom line? Film was in many was a superior (and some ways, inferior) medium to distribute content. The visual and audio differences are real, and subject to individual tastes and perceptions. As for costs, with reasonable care and attention, film projectors required LESS (and less costly) maintenance to keep running smoothly, AND THEY DON'T REQUIRE SOFTWARE UPDATES AND EXPENSIVE "SECURITY" CERTIFICATES TO CONSTANTLY BE RENEWED. With platters and automation the labor was greatly reduced from the changeover days (and it allowed less skilled "operators" to thread and run shows.) So the arguments of savings in labor are NOT as big of a deal as the Digital fanboys make it out to be (In large multiplexes only though. Single, twins and smaller plex's DID make a considerable savings in not having dedicated projectionists.) Distribution costs didn't really have the impact to the cinemas themselves, only the studios benefited. Oh, and the skilled technicians that have to service the newer tech come at a greater cost than in the old film days, when independent techs competed with the "Big Guys" at lower rates (but with mixed results of course.)
As for the presentations to the public.... well you only need to browse this forum ( AND the the old forum) to see it REALLY hasn't changed much. "Digital Done Wrong" is far too common when you look at how it was thrown out as a selling point. Yes there is STILL a noticeable improvement BUT IT IS NOT THE RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS as it was sold to us.
Digital HAS some plusses, which I (and others) have covered. But one thing digital will NEVER have: the ability for someone to come across the media in 100 years from now, and have the ability to play it. We have already had digital archive issues, yet there are still film archives with film over 100 years old that can still be shown and re-archived, with the right equipment. Suck on THAT, DCP files!
Last edited by Tony Bandiera Jr; 12-10-2025, 09:53 PM.Comment
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This thread has been very interesting to read as a "digital cinema native & fanboy". I just barely missed the film days at the chain I started slinging popcorn in, but I worked with several people who were extremely proficient working with analog media. I heard all kinds of stories from those guys. One of them I still work with, and his favorite story to tell was one where an assistant manager was charged with transporting a print on a Friday afternoon between two buildings. Our state is known as a very windy one, and that afternoon was no exception. The assistant manager was told he would probably need help to avoid dropping the print during the transfer, but he decided he could do it himself due to ego, or ignorance. It doesn't really matter because as he was moving the print up the street and over the curb to get into the front entrance of the theater, a nice and strong gust blew him and the carrying cart over in a toppled mess. The wind kept blowing this almost new print all over the sidewalk scratching it to pieces, and that was after the initial, what I now know of as a "brain-wrap". The assistant manager and my coworker spent over 8 hours, late into the night, slowly cutting film from the wrap, laying it out on the lobby floor, cutting damaged sections, and splicing the whole mess back together. Every time my coworker tells that story I can hear the frustration in his voice at that assistant manager. I asked him if he missed film and he said in not so many words that he remembers working with film fondly, in spite of its many head and muscle aches.
I've also heard other nightmare stories about how a movie would run though its whole length without issue, only to find that some sprocket in the film path was scratching the print the whole time. That was the only print our theaters got, so they would have to play that film now scratched for the rest of its release window at that location.
I'm sure there are almost limitless stories about film. Some of them are remembered because of the amount of frustration someone went through to solve some sort of problem, but almost all I've heard are told with a certain amount of nostalgia and excitement and fondness for the medium. (Apparently it used to be a fun game to find and cut out a nude frame and splice it into a film you knew the employees would be screening. Or when a trailer reel would get spliced in upside down.)
In contrast, the early days of digital are hardly ever spoken of, and if they are, the words said are most definitely not fond.
One of the first all-digital locations to open in the chain I work for used Christie 2000zx projectors with Datasat cinema servers. There weren't too many bad things said about the Christie's, I suppose because a lot of their problems were fixed with software updates. However, the Datasat systems were an absolute nightmare. Getting the server and projector to sync and be ready to play a movie was a small miracle. Content management was unintuitive and lengthy. Only one person only sort of understood how to fully work the system when the building opened, and she moved on to a real job after finishing her degree at a local community college. They lost shows all the time for absolutely no reason at all other than the servers were complete garbage at playing movies. OH, and if there was a power bump, they just closed the building for the rest of the day because it took that long to get the Datasat servers to come back online. (I'm not sure it that was completely true, but it was how the story was told to me).
A little later on in the digital adoption process, they moved from Datasat to DSS200's, which were largely a solid platform. Ironically, the UPS' previously installed to keep the Datasat servers online eventually started failing, and they would take the DSS200 down with them. The real pain points with the DSS' weren't until later firmware updates would cause a white screen, or the server would say it was playing back but not move the time code at all. I came in and started helping with maintenance and repairs around that time. While those issues were frustrating, we adopted a strategy that allowed us to have at least one spare for every piece of equipment important vital to playing a movie, sans a full projector. We learned over the years which parts on the projectors would need replaced more often, and stocked those too.
For 6 theaters spread across a very rural state, our response time to major problems started off being a week or more. But as we stocked up on parts, the biggest problems could be resolved within hours. Most issues are usually fixed with the off, pray, then turn back on method that Tony mentioned. It was surprising to me how many problems were solved just by doing that, and you could be back on screen within 15 minutes, no dirty hands required. As we've kept our equipment updated and maintained, the times we have to restart to fix something have decreased drastically over time. Sometimes we go a whole month without hearing from anyone about projection. For 64 screens! I have to call the managers of those buildings and say something like "have there been any projection problems you forgot to call me about?" And then of course shoot the breeze, because it's been a month since we caught up.
Digital for us has been extremely forgiving, and in some part, in spite of the up-front cost I think, has been a major factor allowing for the growth of our chain. Due to a lower bar of entry for premium formats as well, there have been several projects to upgrade theaters to Atmos, or HC-RGB laser. This, also, I believe has contributed to our growth. Atmos is more accessible than it's ever been as a cinema.
Tony also mentioned the issue of archival films, and I do think that point deserves to be emphasised. If somehow the world goes caput, the digital remnants of film will be all but useless. Sure, you might be able to find an ancient dvd/bluray player and a disk, but that just wouldn't be the same. The strategy of studios to use symmetric encryption to "protect" films long term means that it is all but guaranteed that the original source will be eventually lost. The keys they use are so protected from tampering that any attempt to expose the key would render it corrupt, and thus also whatever was encrypted by it. Who knows, maybe quantum computing will come along and render the encryption null.
From my observations, again as a "digital native", a well maintained and updated digital cinema experience is better than it's ever been. I do ultimately think the larger cost of repairs can be curbed by quality regular maintenance. Unfortunately, even though it initially seems like it, digital cinema is still not completely "set and forget". But again, today, it's better than it's ever been.Comment
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"Digital HAS some plusses, which I (and others) have covered. But one thing digital will NEVER have: the ability for someone to come across the media in 100 years from now, and have the ability to play it. We have already had digital archive issues, yet there are still film archives with film over 100 years old that can still be shown and re-archived, with the right equipment. Suck on THAT, DCP files!"
Amen Tony
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LOL you missed out on the most awesome period of film exhibition. I was also very lucky to know several of the "old-timers" (Who sadly are now gone, including our John Eickhof) who had a wealth of knowledge and some really funny stories to tell. This generation will never know that feeling of how film was a living medium, how each projector had its own "personality" and "quarks", and how showmanship was all done by hand. (I started at a fully manual, changeover booth on an Air Force Base... and it was the best time I ever had in the 30+ years I was a projectionist/technician.)
Funny you mentioned the nudes and the upside down trailers.... The nudes idea was started by Walt Disney's animators way back in the day...legend has it that a single nude frame was spliced into a workprint (the movie usually mentioned was "Snow White" but others have been said). Walt always bragged about being able see each frame as projected (the digital equivalent would be seeing each frame flashing). When that frame hit the screen, Walt screamed to stop..and demanded to know what the hell that redhead 36 double d who was shaved was doing in his film. (Again the description varied, but still all agreed he noted every detail in that one frame). As for the upside down trailers, I once put our chain's "No Smoking" snipe upside down on purpose on all four of my screens right before I took a vacation. (I was testing my relief operator who had a history of not checking the screens when the feature was supposed to start.) Not only did I come back after TWO WEEKS, only to find ALL of them STILL upside down, but no one (management or otherwise) said a word about it. (The manager would always listen for the silence after the trailers to go close the auditorium doors and check the screen.) Dumbasses.
Dropped (or thrown) prints were the bane of any platter operation, I only had a few thrown prints off my horrid Potts "Alpha" Platters (later made by strong) and a few brain wraps caused by sticky splices. Your point of scratching an entire print is also a direct drawback of platter ops combined with inattentive "operators". When I ran my first multiplex job (UA 8 Buena Park) we had 4 separate projections rooms with #8's being the size of a large closet. During my shifts, unless I had to build trailer packs or prints, I was constantly checking all 8 machines to hopefully catch problems before the escalated. My worst breakdown happened in theatre 8, where a edge split in the film caused the (acetate) print to start splitting right down the middle for most of the first reel (the failsafes finally activated when it hit the splice and one half broke completely.) So in most cases a full print scratch is 100% operator inattention.
Seems like your chain cares about presentation quality, so kudos for them and you for taking care of things. Now if so many of the others who can't even do digital right would step up their games, we wouldn;t be having this discussion.
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This reminds me of Cinema Paradisio. "During the shows, the audience can be heard booing because there are missing sections, causing the films to suddenly jump, bypassing scenes with romantic kisses or embraces. The local priest, the owner of the cinema, had ordered these sections to be censored, and the deleted scenes are cut from the film reels by Alfredo and piled on the projection room floor, where Alfredo keeps them until he can splice them back in for the film to be sent to the next town."
"Alfredo's widow tells him that the old man followed Salvatore's successes with pride and he left him something: an unlabeled film reel ..." "Salvatore returns to Rome where he watches Alfredo's reel and discovers that it comprises all the romantic scenes that the priest had ordered Alfredo to cut from the films; Alfredo had spliced every kiss together to form a single reel."
Great movie!
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In short, for decent presentation of picture and sound in cinema, digital was winning card!!!
I could write libes and lines about it, but i think it is not necessary. Since i did servicing back in 35mm age, i've had a lot of cinemas using old lenses with faded colors, vertical lamphouse with u even and low light output, sound system with some improvized solar cell preamp, mono sound etc etc..... Now, when they went to dci projector, even cheapets combination for them decent color/focus/light on picture, aes sound which can sound decent even put direct to pa mixer after D/A and most inportant, operator error is way minimized compare to 35mm skill they should have.Comment
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Addressing the question that was actually asked by the thread starter - "how the whole digital cinema vs analog is doing," as distinct from evaluating their perceived pros and cons - the answer is that digital has almost entirely superseded analog for mainstream theatrical use, but that analog has had a longer tail than some predicted in the arthouse world. There have also been occasional 35mm and 70mm releases of mainstream titles for the subjective/emotional reasons discussed by Stefan, and in cases where the filmmakers' economic power has enabled them to do that. The transition to digital has likely not delivered the economic benefit to most exhibitors that it was sold as promising, because reduced staffing costs in theaters have been largely offset, if not more than offset, by increased equipment and maintenance costs. The cost of the technology needed to deliver the image and audio to the screen has in effect shifted from being mainly paid by studios up front (manufacturing and shipping film prints) to being paid by exhibitors up front (buying and maintaining DCI projectors, servers, and the infrastructure around them). As against which, a majority of mainstream theater customers who feel able to make an informed comparison would likely claim that the subjective quality of technical presentation has improved.
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Leo,
As long as Kodak and a couple of others manufacture film, then analog will exist. Smart theater owners kept at least one or two film projectors in a given complex. Especially with all the 70mm that's been out the last 5+ years.Comment
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