Wondering how the whole digital cinema vs analog is doing.

[Frank Raia]

"FIlm projection in 50 years?The folks here at Film-Tech are the Obi-Wan Kenobi last hopes for that. in 50 years? Everyone is gone, equipment is in short supply (and that’s VERY optimistic), what skilled theater techs and projectionists remain are in similar short supply, so what are we talking about? I estimate that at that point there will be only 50 places in North America where one can truly expect film projection to be more than a shadow of its late 20th century peak. Even today it’s so much less good…this point is clear to all here and needs no further explanation. You guys are forgetting just how much you know!!!"

Steve Gutagg better live forever or better yet his brain should be digitally archived !!!

[Marcel Birgelen]

—comment on the issue of cost of the conversion to digital. This is sorta beyond question, vs. how long projectors last, etc. and has been dealt with eloquently in many responses
—refer to what will happen post-nuclear armageddon, in terms of film vs. digital. Or what happens, 10,000 years after that, when earth (and the movie vaults) are re-discovered. Yeah, film might be better then, but . . Call me optimistic, but I’m assuming that life (and technology) as we know it will continue on its current, *continual* path. (In other words, not leaping forward 100 or even 25 years.)

Based on our own short history on this rock floating through space, I'd call this delusional rather than optimistic and I consider myself to be an optimist.

Archival will always remain a pretty hard problem, nobody can predict the future, nobody can predict how to archive our knowledge and what we deem valuable about our culture for the future, that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try...

Even without trying to get political, as soon as the current U.S. Government got into place, they started to remove vast swats of information from official government sites, because "woke material" has now been banned... Like Churchill noted: History is written by the victors... We may think we have evolved, but based on my short and certainly biased look on the part of history I observed myself, the entire world is currently running on some kind of ketamine fuelled Dunning-Kruger induced circle-jerk... The only proof we need for that, is the (almost) 24/7 live-feed from the White House, the part that's still standing...

[Harold Hallikainen]

they started to remove vast swats of information from official government sites,

Luckily, we have archive.org . It would be interesting if they had a diff utility so you could see the changes between certain dates.

I think archive.org is great and send them monthly contributions. I do, however, wonder about copyright. They did get sued over making scanned books available, but it seems like web sites are also copyrighted. A copyright owner has the right to dispose of material and stopping its distribution except for the "first sale" doctrine on media. There, once someone buys a book (or audio or video on paper, disk, film, etc.), they are free to sell it or rent it, but not make copies. So, I wonder how archiving web sites is affected by copyright law.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I appreciate the work archive.org is doing and it would be great if there were more incentives like it. I've also made quite a few contributions over the years, just like I've contributed to Wikipedia and I'd encourage everybody being able to do so, to do the same.

Copyright and public archives has always been somewhat of a mess, especially with all the little differences between jurisdictions. I guess archive.org gets away with most copyright cases by claiming to be a library, which, in many copyright laws have quite some copyright exemptions and the fact that they're a non-profit and focus on stuff that has been abandoned. They're also protected by the U.S. DMCA as long as they actively process takedown notices.

Still, it's interesting that a somewhat controversial movie like "Song of the South" can be watched and downloaded for free, while Disney itself has essentially put it under embargo.

[Buck Wilson]

if you think digital won't be around in 100 years then you're looking at a dystopian future and looking at an old film that will be the least of our problems.

Look at what all has changed in the last 100 years. You cannot tell me that a dystopian future isn't distinctly possible. I mean we're right on the estimated lines projected by the 1972 MIT report "Limits to Growth". If there is ANY constant, it'd be change....

[Bruce Cloutier]

Not to rekindle this thread but...

Did any of you catch the episode of Switching Gears that streamed (aired?) last night? Not far into it he blows off a suggestion to go to the movies complaining about garbage and sticky floors. That is not helping anything.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Still, it's interesting that a somewhat controversial movie like "Song of the South" can be watched and downloaded for free, while Disney itself has essentially put it under embargo.

The "reel" fanatics can own it on 35mm right now if they are feeling spendy. Color looks good... are these reprints or IB?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/257305186337

Or the trailer
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267530599878

There is a 2nd print on ebay right now too, but guy wants 25K for it.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/354844316646

[Hong Sung Hyeok]

Honestly, the romance of Cinema Paradiso has been gone for too long.

I heard that even IMAX film projectors are having trouble maintaining them these days because it's hard to find spare parts.
In less than 20 years, much has changed and disappeared.

But I don't miss it.

[Ed Gordon]

There is a scene in the movie Dr Zhivago where the execution of the Russian royal family is announced. Someone asks, "Why would they do such a thing?" and someone responds, "They did it to assure that going back to the old ways would be impossible."

When movies went from analog to digital, it was done in such a way to assure that there would be no going back to the old ways. And here we are...

[Ryan Gallagher]

Another nuance, if you are showing back catalog... is that there are STILL some titles you cannot get as a DCP, BluRay or even streams above DVD quality... but prints exist out there. The 35mm exhibition might be the best way to see some titles still if you get lucky with print condition, and prints can get pretty messy before they start to feel subjectively worse than watching a DVD on the big screen. Although we have shown DVD screenings with no complaints, so it's kinda a toss up. Film is just more fun.

PS the 16mm perf hole in the thumbnail for that video makes me giggle.