Digital Movies and The Big Screen 190
Logic Bomb writes: "The New York Times has an extensive article [free reg req] about the move from film, invented in the 19th century, to digital cameras and projection in the movie business. It sounds like the shift is building a lot of momentum, with a nice push from George Lucas' decision to shoot Episode II of Star Wars entirely using digital cameras. The article covers both the technological developments making it possible as well as the business alliances. One neat detail is that if a distribution system based on streaming (instead of data on DVDs, for example) is set up, theaters could show things like live concerts or other performances as they happen. Sounds great to me." Rather neat the impact that George Lucas is making in this area by filming episode II all digital. Could theaters gain back with exclusivity some of what they've lost to Blockbuster and NetFlix? And how soon till the equivalent of soundboard recordings are squished onto MP4 before the credits are through?
problem with digital. (Score:1)
Here (Score:3)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/arts/26SAB
herm.. (Score:2)
On topic note: If we had digital streaming....I can see that being a great way for football fans to have big superbowl parties. No place better than a theatre for a massive super bowl party...that is...if you are into that sorta thing. But...besides concerts and stuff...sports would be a big thing for live streaming into theatres.
Re:Here (Score:1)
Lucas... Digital.... How 'bout DVD's????? (Score:1)
-Aaron
Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:3)
The only solution to this grave problem, it seems to me, is to ensure that digital film is watermarked when recorded, so that if it is modified it is easy to tell. This is the only way we can preserve film as a trustworthy exhibit in the courts of the future.
If we do not, many innocent people will be jailed and many guilty people will get off free. The time to act is now.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
Lucas (Score:1)
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:1)
Why should we leave the capability to doctor evidence in the hands of highly paid lawyers and big corporations? Now the little guy can doctor his own evidence. I call that a level playing field.
Re:Lucas... Digital.... How 'bout DVD's????? (Score:2)
Just think of it (Score:3)
Men, Women, and children will be staring at him for hours on end and we will turn the population into a giant mass out to kill Lucas.
I, for one, just can't wait!
Digital is a good start (Score:1)
More choice in movie theaters (Score:2)
What costs lots of money, upfront, for a movie theater is the ability to pay distros for expensive first run movies. Hence you have the second run movie theater with the $1-$1.50 ticket.
This said, most movie theaters, even those with the expensive tix, make most of their movies through concession stand sales.
So, my hope is that digital filmmaking becomes enough of a popular activity that movie theaters can buy the digital films at low prices. This would allow for many more movie theaters specializing in genre showings, art movies, etc. Even those movie theaters which show major distro stuff could round out their stables with GOOD digital movies instead of B-movies as they do now.
For this to work, the digital producers need to get together and distro on a national scale, reaching out to indie and general movie theaters at cut-rate prices.
Just a note- the Independent Media Centers [indymedia.org] - my favorite thing to plug on slashdot - is an example of how digital video has already lowered the cost of news authored by multiple sources.
It's already out... (Score:1)
Correction. (Score:1)
should read.. "make most of their MONEY.."
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:3)
ROFL! And also what's to stop someone from doctoring a film digitally and then transcribing it to analog (tape) media? And watermarks can be faked and hacked. SDMI didn't last long. And SDMI 2.0 won't last any longer than the first did.
There is no such thing as a secure system or secure copy protection. Name me one that has never been broken.
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:1)
NYT: Username / password (Score:1)
This comment made possible by the command
Re:problem with digital. (Score:2)
You do have a great point there. Anything digital will involve some sort of limitation of resolution and color. The great thing about analog is that the limits are at the top and bottom of the color spectrum, with virtually infinate possibilities in-between. Even 32-bit color doens't make for every possible color.
However, I suppose that with the increased sharpness, the limitations of pixelization and color depth can't be discerned by 99% of the people watching it.
Also, digital filming has many great advantages that make up for any possible trade offs:
1. The 9999th generation copy is as sharp as the first.
2. It will end up being much less expensive.
3. It will be a lot easier to preserve digital films... People could go to a theater in the year 3001 and see Star Wars Episode II in the same sharpness and quality as when it was originally released.
There are a lot of classic films deteriorating now because they exist only in traditional film format.
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:1)
Umm, and exactly how does this scenario differ from the present time?
P.S. Bring me back some gum drops from the sugar cane forest while you are there. Thanks!
sorry.... (Score:1)
--------------
You should know better (Score:2)
Re:NYT: Username / password (Score:1)
Re:Lucas... Digital.... How 'bout DVD's????? (Score:1)
Similarly, there isn't much effort needed to put the thing on DVD. I don't really understand Lucas's attitude towards DVD. He was one of the early adopter of the old Laserdisc format. I've seen the Star Wars Trilogy on that format and it's much better than VHS.
I don't WANT to pay a premium for all those extras. Who cares? I just want to own my 3 favorite movies of all time in the format that I can best see them in at home.
The only "secret" rationale I can see for Lucas not releasing on DVD is that he doens't want to hurt the Trilogy and Episode I's re-release in theater value...
Re:problem with digital. (Score:1)
Companies moving in to new fields (Score:2)
It's nice to see that at least some companies are embracing new technologies and ideas and migrating into that field, instead of trying to slow its progress.
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:2)
I'd rather be below the anarchy line than choosing to leave in place oppression by the wealthy when there is the chance to escape it. That's not to imply that all who are wealthy will oppress. Some do and some don't. But the important thing is, now the tools to oppress are becoming something the masses can choose. While I would not encourage doing things like this, I think it's mere existance helps to reduce the impact of it when done by big corporations and such. Now the courts must acknowledge that the ability to doctor evidence really does exist, instead of dismissing such accusations summarily as they have for decades, just because there is no way to prove such doctoring (because it was good enough to escape detection). Now the fact will be too apparent, and have to be accepted.
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:1)
Which, by the way, is NOT "Natalie Portman" [imdb.com].
19th century? So what? (Score:2)
May I remined everybody that a computer is also a 19th century invention, but we haven't stopped using those. Charles Babbage designed the first programmable computer on paper in the 1800s. It was never built, but a modern computer is fundamentally the same machine.
And what about the wheel? That's a pre-historic invention, but I'm not going to take the wheels off my car anytime soon.
You know, if somebody came up to me and said "Hey, there's this great piece of technology that solves such-and-such problem, you should check it out", the first question out of my mouth is not going to be "What year was it invented?"
That's the lousiest reason I ever heard of for getting rid of a particular piece of technology.
cool (Score:1)
That could be a sweet job if ya get free drinks/popcorn.
As a side note, I think my local theatre already has something like this. They offer Pay per view events that you would normally view on your Home TV, but you get to enjoy the "crowd effect". For example, if you like WWF wrestling, you get to hang out with a theatre full of other WWF fans.
Also article in Scientific American (Score:3)
I hate this (Score:5)
Now we have 35mm-only, with 5-channel compressed digital sound.
Soon, we'll be moving to HDTV. Yes, that's right, HDTV. That's what Lucas is using for SW Ep. II. He's using a Sony HDTV camera that captures images at 1920x1080, cropped to about 1920x800 to form a widescreen 2.39:1 "scope" image. (Compare that with the resolution of 35mm film, which is equivalent to about 4000x3000 for an anamorphically squeezed "scope" image.) Add to that the fact that the color and contrast ranges of HDTV are smaller than that of film, and you've got a nice step down (yes, down) in picture quality.
Also note that the DLP projectors built by TI are only 1280x1024, so you won't even get to see the full HDTV image if you go see this movie in a theater with digital projection.
All told, this is yet another reduction in quality for theatrical presentations. What's there to be excited about?
Re:problem with digital. (Score:3)
Lucas pioneered it? HA! (Score:1)
The reality is, even though Episode II is being filmed all digital, the film industry is going to remain reluctant to switch to all digital formats, primarily because they know that compared to film media, digital media is much easier to copy and distribute, and since they already have a monopoly on the distribution channels, it makes no sense for them to upheave everything and switch. The only reason they will ever switch on a wide scale is if the costs deem it much cheaper (not only for materials, but logistically, labor, etc) for them to mae such a bold move.
I forsee that the changes will come slowly, but rest assured, there will be strings attached, such as proprietary digital formats, equipment, etc. By the time the industry gets its gears in motion to move to any new format, there will inevitably be a newer, shinier one that is hiding in the corner.
Let's say it again: (Score:1)
One way the digital method is cheaper for movie theaters is no need to ship and protect fragile movie reels. Another way is you, theater owner, can download whatever movie you want on the spot. This promotes choice but is unsafe for reasons mentioned above.
So you need an independent way to verify the film that's NOT a watermark. This calls for a human bean, who can travel around and 1) download your movies for you with some proprietary software or hardware or, 2) verify the copies you have downloaded. This is also a good way to insure payment of distributors and producers in the digital method.
Once the download is verified, put it on a LAN! You can still mess with Jar Jar, but it will require the active cooperation of theater staff. This is possible with film reels, which can be spliced to include split second shots of pr0n, or whatever (see: Fight Club [foxmovies.com] )
Re:problem with digital. (Score:1)
The REAL problem is resolution. In order to drive this thing, your going to need something a lot higher than 2048x1024. Which starts getting into bandwidth problems, which leads to compression issues, which leads to compression artifacts.
TI has been advertising their DLP system for a while. These chips currently have a max of 1280x1024(if I remember correctly), and their what most theaters around here are using. I believe higher resolution version are being worked on, and other firms have their own competing technologies. I expect in the next few years, the equipment will be their to do extremely high res projections, and this sort of thing will begin to be the standard.
Re:Lucas... Digital.... How 'bout DVD's????? (Score:1)
While that may be what he's said, it doesn't much sense. It's not that hard to shove a plain DVD out either. Fans want the DVD, and will pay top retail price for it, extras or not. In a few years, when Lucas has time to throw in extras, he can release a director's cut DVD, and serious fans will pay a premium for the rerelease. Two DVD releases combined should generate more revenue than one release.
So what's his real motivation? Here's one guess. Lucas knows the info above. But he also realizes that if he releases only VHS for the next couple years, at least through Episode II's much-hyped release, people will buy the VHS version of Episode I. Then when he releases a DVD (plain or with extras), many of the same people will buy the movie a second time. Then if he releases a directors cut some time after that, he can get the die-hards to pony up a third time!
Any evil movie publisher who can get good sales on VHS today but knows the movie will still be in high demand in five years would do well to follow Lucas' lead.
Re:Lucas... Digital.... How 'bout DVD's????? (Score:1)
I wish the distribution companies would save the 'making of' snippets and actor biographies for the special-edition re-releases. I don't care if the collectors 'have' to buy the film twice to maintain the complete collection; serves them right for being so anal.
Just get on with releasing When Harry Met Sally (out in January, woohoo!), The Godfather, and other classics so I can watch them untrimmed and unflickery at home.
It has been solved for analog media (Score:1)
Digital film only makes editing easier and cheaper.
Not the first (Score:1)
Re:Digital is a good start (Score:1)
Overcoming digital problems. (Score:4)
A lot of this problem hinges on a single fact: Analog by nature is in a state of constant flux, think of a curve-like wave in comparision with constant packet-like bundles of binary data. Yes, I know that's a rehash of what many people already know, but consider the finer points of it: Analog can, in fact, be replicated using certain methods of transfer over a network or indeed, on a local host, over the local bus of that host. The trick is to triangulate hexadecimally produced void resultants, so that static resultants in the codec delimiter don't stay at one logical depth the whole time. In other words, we need to retrometricise symbolically compressed equation identifiers in such a way that the resultants of the code interacting with the codec is in a state of flux similar to that of analog motion. Using these methods, we can design octadecimal output tuned theoretical pipes in the software interfaces interacting with the codecs and create logically programmable integrated exchange dividers within the codec interface itself. This will basically eliminate the problem with digital resolution/colour.
Re:problem with digital. (Score:1)
The pixelisation effect (aliasing) does also appear in films. A films is not a continous, but is covered by fine grains that are sensible to the light. Exactly as a a standard CCD camera, but with a high resolution. Nevertheless, last CCD cameras can provide the same or _better_ resolution than standard films, mainly if you are using films for low light lavel, which uses coarser grains, and therefore they provide lower resolution.
Furthermore, human eyes aren't analogic at all, we can normally distinguish no more than 600.000 different colours, so 32 bits is more than enough for "normal" eyes (or complain in the same way as those vinil fans regarding digital audio...).
Most of the "analogic movies" are post-produced already in digital, so quality and resolution is not a problem. Perhaps the only one is how to achieve the same "chromacity", but defintely, aliasing and colour resolution is not a problem.
Film is digital too! (sorta) (Score:4)
What does digital mean? It means it's represented in ones and zeros. But that isn't what people are talking about when they compare film and digital media. They are complaining because digital media is quantized: It is split into little finite segments and chopped to hard values. No one cares how it's stored. Film is quantized as well.
Look at film mechnically, it consists of an array of fiber like strands of photo-reactive material. Some strands are more reactive to Red, some to Green, some to Blue. Chemically each reactive molecule is either exposed or it's not exposed, the exposure is timed so that the number of exposed molicules is purportional to the amount of light hitting it. So the dynamic range of a color is directly releated to the number of reactive molicules within a sufficently small space. The values are quantized, the quantization is non-linear varries by spacial location and the exact thresholds are randomized, but it is still quantized.
Film is also quantized in space. It has a resolution (directly related to grain sized).
So how does film compare to 'digital media'? It has a much lower dynamic resolution for luminance (thus color) compaired to state-of-the art digital stuff, and it's much more expensive to use higher resolution film (you simply use BIG film).
So why isn't digital unargueably better? Because it turns out that the quasi-random quantization of film is *MUCH* more perceptually acceptible then the rigid ordered quantization used by digital media.
Because of this, we use oversampling and dithering. State of the art digital film making using 12bpc (12 bits per color component per pixel) and a resolution several times greater then would otherwise be used for film. When we need to output to display devices with lower resolution and dynamic range we use dithering both in space and on values. With dithering we mix small amounts of 'colored' (frequency filtered) noise into low-order part of the selection of 'high quality' contentent brought into the low quality mix. This increases the percieved quality greatly.
Is digital media today better then film? When you mix in cost as a factor (it always is): YES! Because digital cost so much less then film, you can afford to use sufficent oversampling to make it look better then film of a simmlar price point.
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:1)
Well, as far as secure crypto systems go, no one-time pad, properly executed, has ever been broken, nor will one ever be broken. Note that utter stupidity, such as reusing a pad or using a compromised key, does not count, and should not count, as breaking the system. A broken implementation of anything will get you nowhere...
--
Re:19th century? So what? (Score:1)
(Of course, I use my digital PCS cell phone as my primary line, but that's not the point...)
Finally (Score:1)
Re:cool (Score:1)
Re:Overcoming digital problems. (Score:2)
Thanks, you've made this muddied pond oh so clear... and I thought it was a problem with the flux capacitance of the alloys used -- silly me!
dolt.
Survivor (Score:1)
I guess Jar Jar Binks won't be the most annoying character in the Star Wars series after all...
Actually watermarks can be washed away (Score:1)
Unfortunately watermarks can be removed.
No watermarking method is truly secure and useful unless
- It can be proved there is no feasible method of erasing or changing the watermark.
- The probability of the method incorrectly detecting a non-existent watermark is extremely low, ideally 0.
- The probability of the method correctly detecting a true watermark is very high, ideally certain.
Together these requirements are tough for a watermarking scheme to meet. See the StirMark project [cam.ac.uk] for examples of supposedly "secure" watermarking methods being broken.Re:I hate this (Score:2)
To 98% of the population, this won't matter anyway. It hasn't mattered that:
Generally speaking, nobody cares. Look at digital TV: The FCC is having to force it down our throats because we know no amount of technology is going to make Jerry Springer's guests look good. Nobody wants more set-top boxes. Nobody want to toss their analog TVs. Nobody cares.
--
Money, not quality (Score:5)
(A) Remember, live actor footage for SW Ep. II has already been completed. It's long over. Lucas (and company) are spending the next year or two on post-production and effects. For analog film, how do you add in laser blasts, matte shots, lightsaber blades, and other fun stuff? The traditional way involves someone sitting down on the film with a very expensive crayola marker, while the more modern version involves transfering the footage to a computer, doing it digitally, and then spooling it back out. Either way is substantially more difficult than just taking it digital all the way through. It's the same issue as with analog vs. digital LCD monitors. The digital ones have fewer steps, so they are faster, cheaper, and have better pictures.
(B) It takes time to paint in all of those blasters/phasers/lasers. And it takes even more time to piece together all of the various scenes, especially when each scene exists in seven different pieces. Remember the brief shot in the original Star Wars, where Luke is practicing with his lightsaber against the robot ball while Chewie and the droids are playing chess in the background? That shot contained over five different "layers" that had to be put together and synched, and then all alligned with the rest of the footage. That takes a fraction as much time to do when it's all in Adobe Premier (or whatever program LucasFilm uses) than when it's all on celluloid rolls.
(C) Time is money, or so say the beancounters. The time you save by doing development and post production digitally will translate into less money you have to pay your post-production people (good for the studio, bad for the post-production people, which means the major studios will go with it every time), which means higher net profit. In addition, chemical film costs a lot of money. So does the development cost. And then you need the storage space to archive all of it until the movie is finished, and sometimes even then you keep all the bits and pieces. (Lucas did for the original trilogy, which is why they were able to do the Special Edition release.) Digital equipment is not cheap, but once you have your cameras and a few (dozen) DV tapes, you're set. All you need for storage then is a ton of hard disk space, which is now going for a song. You then have perfect reproduction copies of all your footage, and you can reuse the tapes for the next scene, or the next movie. Over the long run, that brings the cost of production down substantially, just as digital still cameras do compared to 35mm film cameras, even if the quality isn't quite as good yet.
We can argue until we're blue in the face about whether the quality of digital film (that's a fairly big misnomer, isn't it?) is noticibly poorer or better than traditional film. But to a studio, quality is irrelevant. (Just look at some of the stuff coming out in theaters.) Time, money, and simplicity are what they work on, and in all three of those categories digital video wins hands down. I expect that for art films and movies without many FX, traditional film or even the "enhansed" film we're starting to see will continue for a long time. But for anything requiring substantial FX or post-production, digital is going to take over, whether we like it or not.
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
--GrouchoMarx
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:1)
Lucas isn't going with the flow... (Score:1)
George Lucas is pushing the envelope of new technology, not just going with the flow of it. Digital Film would not be where it is today without what he is doing on EP2--Lucas has defined the format of large scale digital movie production, the tools, the look...
Credit where credit is due.
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
Oh, I dunno, crystal clear quality?
You still listen to records, don't you?
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Re:problem with digital. (Score:1)
3. It will be a lot easier to preserve digital films... People could go to a theater in the year 3001 and see Star Wars Episode II in the same sharpness and quality as when it was originally released.
This assumes that whatever format that the movie is stored in is still readable in a thousand years. There are 20-30 year old computer files that are effectively lost now because there's no way to read them. Microsoft Projector 3005 may not support those archaic formats from the twentieth century.
-jon
Small theatres could lose out (Score:1)
Re:I hate this (Score:1)
I quite agree. Although its even worse compared with Star Wars which used cameras that turned the film sideways to avoid having to squeeze it.
As far as I understand it though, most cinemas don't have the equipment for 70mm prints. Hopefully resolution will get better, and digital will allow 70mm quality. We shall see.
Re:problem with digital. (Score:2)
Re:problem with digital. (Score:1)
And a sig of: Looks as though 1984 was only 20 years off
An interesting sig line for this comment. A big part of 1984 was the constant alteration of the past. In the novel, they had to constantly recall all of the books, newspapers, magazines, etc. If it was all digital, it would just be that much easier. It would make the changes from the original Star Wars to Star Wars: Special Edition impossible to trace....
Bingo. It's called "TV" not "digital film" (Score:1)
This is the same ploy that hucksters have used for years to give validity to some product, by saying that it was "digital." Likewise, it's the same as the old moniker "as seen on TV", like that makes it better.
There is premium movie projection technoligies (higher film rate, bigger negative, IMAX) that creates a far more realistic experience than traditional 35mm film we use to day. It's too bad that "digital film" is actually a step backwards. I would like too see the studios roll it out though, because of the way they behave they deserve to take a hard hit.
My guess is that it will be like "New Coke" that was supposed to be better. Nobody was fooled on that one. People will just stay home to watch "TV" rather than hassling with going out to watch "TV." It's called "convenience" - unless you give me a reason to bother to go see the film. Screw "the experience." I don't want to bother with it already.
The theatres are having hard enough time of it as it is. Too bad this is going to be like an oncoming train.
Re:Lucas... Digital.... How 'bout DVD's????? (Score:1)
My question then is this, why doesn't he take the same effort that has been put into releasing the countless VHS re-releases of StarWars into releasing a DVD set? I don't understand I guess...
Probably because VHS is a lot more fragile than DVD -- tape will wear out, but discs won't (theoretically).
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
Among other things, it makes it a lot easier to MAKE movies. Film is a pain in the ass to work with, and expensive on a per minute basis. Ironically this isn't that big of a deal for big productions like Star Wars (and I can't understand why they are the ones first adopting it, especially since it has to be processed so much to add in the effects), but once this tech gets filtered down to the indie producers, I think we will see a lot more creative and fluid movies out. Think of this as a step UP for all those productions currently using video or crappy 16mm and 35mm equipment. These cameras will get as cheap as betacam rigs in a couple years.
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:1)
I also doubt that good old analogue films are un-modifiable. There exist many verifying methods, analysing the noise, focusing etc. but at least as many modifying techniques.
Re:I hate this (Score:5)
The TI DLP projectors are prototypes, and while they are indeed 1280x1024, the production ones will be 1920 pixels across. Even so, my digital film effects company went to see Mission to Mars on a digital screen, sitting in the fourth row of a huge screen, and only two of us noticed that it was digital.
Contrast and brightness are issues, and TI is working on them. Still, they are not issues for the huge majority of the viewing public. The striking quality advantages of digital -- no weave, no scratches, no projector changes, consistent vibrant color, and all the rest are true advances; and once the contrast, brightness, and resolution are improved it will be better in almost every respect.
The freedom to tweak the digital negative, which is part of the digital cinema paradigm, is a great deal. On film you have only the most ham-handed ways of adjusting color balance and brightness of a scene (and no way to adjust contrast or hue). Directors and cinematographers will gain tremendous abilities with digital negative.
I really like this. It's going to change my business in a hundred different ways; some bad, most good. The biggest change for us will be that we'll get to (ok, we'll have to!) work up until the very last day before a film is released -- right now it takes a couple of weeks to make prints and distribute them to the theater. I'm positive that some movies will take even longer; that some shots will change from Friday to Saturday, or the first weekend to the second, as last-second shots get added or audiences weigh in on the first screenings.
thad
Re:It's already out... (Score:1)
Re:Money, not quality (Score:2)
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:2)
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
Now we have 35mm-only, with 5-channel compressed digital sound.
And you claim that 1. you can tell the difference between 35mm and 70mm and that 2. analog sound is better that Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS? I claim the opposite. Even if the quality of the sound was a little worse, at least is doesn't degrade after 1000 uses of a copy.
Soon, we'll be moving to HDTV. Yes, that's right, HDTV. That's what Lucas is using for SW Ep. II. He's using a Sony HDTV camera that captures images at 1920x1080, cropped to about 1920x800 to form a widescreen 2.39:1 "scope" image. (Compare that with the resolution of 35mm film, which is equivalent to about 4000x3000 for an anamorphically squeezed "scope" image.) Add to that the fact that the color and contrast ranges of HDTV are smaller than that of film, and you've got a nice step down (yes, down) in picture quality.
I don't know about the resolution of analog film so I cannot comment on this but I've heard that currently digital effects are done in resolutions close to that of the digital camera used by Lucas (which is done by Panavision too, not just Sony).
And why are they cropping to 1920x800, can't they use non-square pixels?
All told, this is yet another reduction in quality for theatrical presentations. What's there to be excited about?
Well, I think it would be the first and I'm not that pessimistic.
-jfedor
If Spinal Tap made digital video cameras.... (Score:2)
Still, the first high-definition digital video camera said to be worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, the one Mr. Lucas used for "Episode II," is now a reality, a result of a six-year collaboration between Lucasfilm and Sony and, more recently, Panavision. What makes it different from other high-definition cameras is that it captures video images at the 24 frames-per-second speed of film, rather than the 30 frames-per-second of conventional video. "In the film world, 24-frame is the de facto standard, and it is much loved and considered integral to the `film' look," said Larry Thorpe, a Sony vice president responsible for the camera's development.
It took Lucasfilm, Sony, and Panavision six years to develop a camera that's only distinguishing characteristic is a shittier frame rate?? I wonder if they have any engineering openings...I could get into a work schedule like that.
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
Are you really sure that analog sound is better than compressed digital? And how long does the analog recording last in terms of number of playbacks before it goes to pot?
The 5 channel compressed digital sound typically has the ".1" channel and is effectively a sixth channel, and now there is an "EX" format which gives a seventh channel, a rear center to go between the right rear and left rear (rear == surround in my terminology here)
The effective resolution of 35mm film that you state is measured on a per-frame basis. There is a reduction in resolution when you move then at 24 fps, when considering the film/shutter movement (not unlike jitter) it actually cuts the real resolution by at least half.
The cropping and resulution reduction need not to happen as one can use non-square pixels, see anamorphic mode on DVD, and alas, film projection and exposure systems can use anamorphic lenses to do the same thing.
There are projectors that can output a higher resolution, I think I've read about a 2000x1500 pixel LCD projector.
One also has the drawback of film scratching when playing the same film print several times a day for a month or so, that doesn't happen with digital storage.
Re:I hate this (Score:3)
Do you have anything to back this up? There are some cases where the LD produced was better than the DVD but that was due to incompetent compression encoding / mastering but that isn't the rule.
Most DVDs remastered with anamorphic transfers take down LD's quality wise hands down.
Also I get problems with color separation that rarely show up with DVDs, LDs store color as composite analog which have to be separated before it gets put on screen, DVDs store them pre-separated.
LD was always too d@mn expensive anyways. The size is about 4x thick with ~5x surface area. The size and weight made it too inconvenient to handle.
Who watches Jerry Springer?
Also, HTDV costs a little more and advertisers are unwilling to pay more for HD program advertising, which is really what is holding up more programming and the purchase of displays. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario. I do agree that mass adoption will likely be delayed as few people feel like upgrading their stuff every five years.
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
This is not about digital vs. analog. We all know about that, we all understand the advantages of digital over analog, and I am not arguing about that. This is about quality.
Hypothetically speaking, would you replace a high quality analog audio system with 1-bit/1-KHz digital sound? No? Well, the standards being proposed for digital cinema are almost that far out of whack. There needs to be more pixels, a bigger color range, a bigger contrast range, and no compression. I am not slamming digital movies becuase of some misguided notion of clinging to the past, or because I'm a technophobe, or because I'm a Luddite. I am slamming them because as they stand now, they do not have the same quality as film.
A shank in the back of Lady Liberty (Score:4)
There are very serious problems with this, ones that many people completely disregard. In order to make a 100% digital movie, you need complete vertical integration. This means your cameras need to be digital your editing is all digital and then your distrobution and display is all digital. This is prohibitivly expensive! Digital cameras are getting cheaper indeed and maybe we'll see some 6 megapixel cameras that can deliver 25fps and 36-bit colour (12 bits per colour channel for oversampling). Digital editing is already in place and in some cases can be considered a comodity if you think that even low budget movies can have non-linear digital editing or CGI effects in them. The biggest and most serious barrier is distrobution and display. Do you ship some hude RAID box to theaters like Lucas did with the digital viewings of Episode I? Or do you try to download the literally terabytes worth of video? After you figure out how to get the movie to theaters there is the problem of showing it. The TI DLP projectors in use now are of pretty low resolution and won't scale past 24fps; not only are they pretty locked down in that regard but they are twice and a half more expensive than a single good film projector. DLP projectors can't use the lighting that film cameras use and those things are fucking expensive. Film is high resolution which makes it easier on the eye to watch on a large screen. You can of course really oversample digital video to emulate the analog-ness of film. That in turn adds another layer of complexity to the digital video because the projectors become that much more expensive and the video is that much larger due to the extraneous data. Theaters are already fucked because a good number of them are on the border of bankrupsy. How can these companies that can't afford shit afford to revamp all of their theaters with really expensive new projectors? Small theaters are going to be completely left out because they exist on even smaller margins than big chains and new projectors would be way too much for them. You've also got to take into consideration that studios probably won't be making digital copies of their old movies any time soon so the theater by your college isn't going to have a Kevin Smith festival or be able to have that money making Rocky Horror late-night screening if they replace all of their projectors with new fangled ones. No infrastructure == slow transition.
Resolution, resolution, resolution. And color. (Score:4)
>
> Oh, I dunno, crystal clear quality?
>
> You still listen to records, don't you?
But you're missing the point that you're actually getting much less quality. Yes, digital instead of film means that there won't be the occasional specks of dust on the print. But there'll be less picture resolution.
It's like this: Imagine you're given the choice between two images to work with. One of them is taken with a digital camera and gives you a 1024x768 16bpp picture with no dust or other analogue issues. The other was taken with a film camera, and gives you something like 4000x3000 with better-than-32bpp, but there may be small dust specks. I'd want to work with the film image, because there's more to work with and a few dust imperfections can be fixed--if they're even noticeable.
As for your remark about records versus CDs, that's not fair because CDs give sound quality almost equal to that of vinyl, but with the advantages of being digital and easier to take care of. But, resolution of digital video cameras isn't nearly the equal of 35mm film cameras. The right analogy would be comparing a record to a low-quality mp3 recorded at only 112kbps. Sure, it's digital. Sure, most people won't notice the sound difference. But a lot of people *will* notice the sound difference, and it's a huge step down.
Roger Ebert is one of the most consistent critics of digital film and digital projection. He says they're wonderful for independent projects and for films that big studios won't agree to produce. And he's right--they're great for that. But if it's a major film with an actual budget, it should be shot on film. I think he's right. Film has a much better, less harsh look than video, too. Video is often sharper, but not as true with its treatment of colors and contrast. But the killer is that video resolution can't touch film. What happens 50 years from now, when we're moving to HDTV-2? It will surely outstrip the limits of video resolution. Lucas's new pet all-video Star Wars saga will look pathetically scaled-up. Yet, anything shot on film will probably still need to be scaled *down* to fit the new standard.
Technology progresses, and one day probably soon there will be a digital video camera that can rival the quality of film's resolution and color. But that time is not now. Shooting on digital video is pathetically shortsighted, unless you think resolution will never, ever get better than current HDTV formats. Where a budget demands, fine, go for digital video. But, film is better. And yes, sitting at a theater, you *can* tell the difference between a real film and one that's being shown digitally.
Re:crystal clear maybe (Score:2)
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
Don't patronize me, you don't know anything about me. I know that 'digital' means the reproduction will look exactly the same as the master recording. I know that it's easier to transmit digital, lends itself better to compression for faster transmission, and that the recordings last longer and don't wear down in repeated playings. I have also actually SEEN several digital projected movies, and they looked astounding. So I'm not just talking theory, as you probably are.
This is not about digital vs. analog. We all know about that, we all understand the advantages of digital over analog, and I am not arguing about that. This is about quality.
Yes, and the quality of the movies I saw (both of which were shown in analog and digital) was outstanding. And when there were quiet parts in the movie, I did not have to hear the clickety-clack of the film projector.
I am slamming them because as they stand now, they do not have the same quality as film.
You're right, the digital projected films I saw looked BETTER than the analog films.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Re:Resolution, resolution, resolution. And color. (Score:2)
Sorry, I'd want to work with the digital as long as it looked better, lasted longer, and offered the other perks of digital works. That's why I use a good digital camera instead of an awesome film camera.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
But people forget. If you were to watch "Saving Private Ryan" in a movie theater and immediately after in a TV, you would clearly see the difference. Yet, people are satisfied enough to buy the DVD or VHS version a few months after watching the film, because they can't remember the difference in resolution between the film and the video. The 525 lines, 30 frames/second, RS-170 video standard we have now dates from 1939, but most people think it's good enough. Amazing. Yeah, well, you know, there's people who are satisfied with MS-Windows, too...
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
I have actually seen TI's system as well, so I am not "just talking theory". And after having seen it, I still stand by my statements.
I'll bet the movie you used to make your comparison was "Toy Story 2", wasn't it? Well, that's not a fair comparison, because the film prints of TS2 looked awful. They used a CRT-based recorder to get the digital information out to film, and not a laser recorder like they should have. If you think the film prints of Toy Story 2 looked bad, blame the transfer mechanism, not the film.
If you can hear the noise from the projector in your theater, then it's not properly insulated. Well-designed theaters do not have that problem.
It sounds like you have never seen properly done film projection. That's too bad, because it's quite an experience. Film, when pushed to its limits, beats the current digital systems when they are pushed to their limits. Maybe someday there will be a digital system that matches film bit-for-bit, pixel-for-pixel, but not at the moment. People should not be in a hurry to replace film just because it's "old". It should only be replaced when a system that has the same or better technical capabilities comes along.
Further oppurtunity for small budget distribution? (Score:4)
After all, the theatre knows that seven tickets are better then one, and since it has the film at hand, it shows it again for the additional marginal revenue.
But what if an underutilized cinema screen could be showing any current movie in existance [at least, more recent ones that have the benefit of being digital]? This could add significantly to the competiveness of the theatres by alowing them to diversify their offerins significantly. A group of 7 to 25 people who want to see some particular low-budget or subversive art film could get together and bid as a group for a desire to reserve a screen at a certain time. Both the theatre wins by offering exactly what it's customers democratically bid on, and the customers win, by having an enormous expansion of the available material in the theatre.
---
man sig
24 Frames per Second (Score:3)
Much loved?
I think Larry Thorpe has been smoking too much crack. One of the really annoying things about film is the low frame rate. It requires cinematographers to avoid certain types of shots, since they will look terrible at 24 FPS. Higher frame rates, such as the 60 FPS format promoted by Douglas Trumbull, look much better.
More choice for filmmakers == Good thing (Score:2)
I just hope studios don't eliminate celluloid altogether. Just as there is an undefinable "warmth" to vinyl for some people, there is also a certain indestinguishable quality celluloid has that makes it enjoyable to watch. I saw Waydowntown [waydowntown.com], a Canadian indie movie, which was shot almost entirely on digital, with a few scenes of celluloid. You should check it out to see if you can tell which scenes were on (real) film. I found it odd that the difference in the scenes wasn't so much quality as it was tone. Diversity of filming techniques has been used to great effect many times before (eg. Natural Born Killers). I think digital film will be most effective if it is used as another film making tool, instead of a replacement for celluloid and traditional film entirely.
Of course it's allready becoming apparent that digitial film is making appearances in indie films much more than traditional movies because of the cost benefit, and also the general experimentation which is usually present in indies. It will be interesting to see movie making become as prolific and accessible as music making is.
Who gives a crap? (Score:2)
Instead of focusing on the technology, why don't they focus on the story? I heard Episode I was a terrible, terrible movie story-wise.
Not to mention that they over-marketed that movie. Too much marketing; I refuse to EVER see that movie on the grounds that I could probably piece it together scene by scene if I took the time to remember all of the movie, game, pizza, and soda commericals... c'mon, I had Darth Maul staring at me from my Mountain Dew cans for MONTHS!!
---
evil adrian
Star Wars was not shot all digital.... (Score:2)
What are movie theatres good for then? (Score:2)
I must agree with this (Score:2)
But, on the other hand, the NUMBERS for digital video are much less than analog pictures. How can one compare 1280 lines HDTV pictures with the 7500 lines achieved by 35mm film?
Star Wars Episode II = Digital Junk (Score:2)
Re:Not the first (Score:2)
Not by a long shot. A major studio release, shot in HDTV, starring Kathleen Turner, Gabriel Byrne and Sting was done in...ready for this...1987.
Julia and Julia [imdb.com] was shot using the Sony 1" 1030i format as confirmed by Leonard Maltin [imdb.com].
Re:Not the first (Score:2)
George Lucas' claim to be the first in this area is limited to the very qualifier-laden "the first major motion picture, shot on the new 1080i/24p Sony camera and projected digitally". Every single part of that statement has been done by other film-makers. HDTV shot films are all over the place. I attended an HDTV Film Fest [hdfest.org] just last week (most of the films sucked, but that's hardly the point).
Digital Theatre is good for 3d studios (Score:2)
I know one of the expenses for studios that produce 3D only is the converting from digital to film.
This process reverses the problem that other studios going from film to digital have. The color correction is a big one. I know that we have to look at it being a big factor for taking our digital content to film.
On Digital Cinema (Score:2)
Right now in the movie industry there is a big commotion about digital cinema. Everyone agrees that it is an increadible technology and everyone belives that it is the way of the future. However the problem is that no one wants to have to pay for it. Right now in the industry there are basically 2 things that are holding up widespread digital projection.
The first hurtle the industry must overcome is the security issue; how do they prevent some punk from stealing their movies? This has been addressed in other threads already and the choices that have been thrown around the industry are as follows:
1. Ship the movie on some sort of digital media to theatres instead of cans of film. Pro: Just as secure as current methods. Con: Not much cheaper than current methods since every screen still has to have an item shipped to it.
2. Send the movie electronically and then store it locally at the theatre. Pro: Expensive to start out with since each theatre will need an extensive network upgrade but VERY cheap over the long run since once the groundwork is layed movie transmission will be virtually free. Cons: "Hackers" could steal the movie during transmission and release the movie on the internet before it opens in the theatres. (gasp!!)
What the industry is waiting for is a way to transmit movies without the need to worry about people tapping in to their system and stealing the movie. Another hurtle they have to overcome is the file transfer method. Sure Titan AE was transfered digitally between coasts perfectly fine but that was just one theatre being sent one movie. What happens when you have thousands of theatres each needing to download 3-4 movies weighing in at a couple of gigs a piece? How many transfer errors do you think there will be? Granted every theatre won't be accessing every movie all at once but it will still be a huge load on any network.
This however can be overcome, network technology is being improved almost daily and there are other options such as splitting the movie up into smaller chunks which are then combined after recieving all of them very much like a rar archive. This also has the added benefit of additional security since someone would need to steal all the parts to the movie in order to watch it. This however is actually not the biggest hurtle the theatre industry needs to overcome before digital projections becomes commonplace.
The real obsticle holding theatres back is the question of who is going to pay for the upgrades to the theatres. The exhibitors (theatre owners) believe that the distributors should pay for the upgrade since they are the ones who will see the immediate benefit from digital distribution. Distributors on the other hand think the exhibitors should pay for the upgrade since it's their theatre. This is the true hurtle that the industry must overcome before digital projection can become feasable, someone can develop the most incredible encription scheme known to man that is uncrackable but it won't make a lick of difference if only 1/20th of the theatres are equipped with digital projection capabilites. However if the distributors and exhibitors can come to a finacing agreement than the securtiy issues would be dealt with quickly by both parties.
Of course these are just the ramblings of an asst. theatre manager with too much time on his hands, so who knows how it will turn out...
The Real Reason Hollywood is Going Digital (Score:2)
Digital movie making is not about picture resolution and quality. It is not really about using optical effects instead of digital effects. It is mostly about film distribution.
Making 1000 prints of a movie for opening night costs a lot of money, say several million for a big release. Doing the same thing on digital costs significantly less. Thats really why the studios want to go digital. Even a cheaply filmed movie gets expensive really quickly. You can shoot a movie for $4000 but you can't release it for less than several hundred thousand.
As for effects, well yes, all digital means you save a generation in editing but the studios don't really care about that. All effects today are done on computers, effects are not optically composited. They are digitally composited. Switching to digital means you don't have to transfer the footage to digital to do the effects work and then transfer the footage back to show the movie. Cutting out this annoying and time consuming process is probably the real reason Lucas is so keen on digital. It makes the effects heavy movies he likes to make significantly easier to create.
The big question is how good is a movie which is shot and edited digitally, like Ep 2, going to look when shown on 35mm film at the local theatre. Remember, there are limitations on current filming techniques too (you can't read signs on most moving objects for example) so hollywood is not considering this for the look of the end product.
Re:Resolution, resolution, resolution. And color. (Score:2)
You do realize that this is *Star Wars* you're talking about, right? Take a look at the technology used to create the original Star Wars (the costumes and effect), and take a look at the technology used to advance the story line (the map of the Death Star and C3P0 with wires sticking out everywhere).
The Original Star Wars isn't very impressive compared to contemporary offerings on either side, yet people still enjoy watching the movie. People who will enjoy the next Star Wars (not I -- I wasn't impressed by Episode 1) will still enjoy it in 50 years despite it's campy quality -- afterall, that's what the series is all about -- a campy space opera!
You're also forgetting something else about the advancement of technology. The current limit to visual advancement is the human eye. We can't see faster that 60 fps, we can't distinguish more than 16.77 millions colors, etc. Anyone know what the maximum resolution the human eye can distinguish between might be?
--Cycon
Re:Digital Film should be Watermarked (Score:2)
Re:Resolution, resolution, resolution. And color. (Score:2)
Actually, I know the answer to this one. Some of the gamers don't realize that they can only see 60 fps, they just assume that a larger number of frames == better, so they go ga-ga over one-ups-manship.
Of course, the real benefit to having >60 fps on a video card is that during complex scene renders (when you have lots of people on the same screen, or lots of explosions) then the video card is harder-pressed to render all of that detail, and the framerate will drop starkly. The higher your maximum framerate, the higher the framerate will remain when the scene gets complex.
Also, bear in mind that gamers are also looking for higher and higher resolution at that magic 60 fps number. Currently, the highest-end gaming cards can get 1600x1200 @ 60fps ... but once you have many characters on the screen at once, the slowdown is going to be visibly noticable as the framerate drops.
--Cycon
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
I've seen both Toy Story 2 and Tarzan. I did not think the film projection looked any worse than other films I have seen, and I am pretty particular about the audio and video in a movie theatre. I'm the first one to leave the room and complain about the audio, the video being out of focus, the lens not being screwed on tightly (causing a strange glare effect on-screen), etc.
The digital projections were bright, clear, and flawless. I will leave my final opinion until I see Star Wars 2 projected in both methods on huge screens (i.e. live action, filmed digitally). But I see no reason to complain thus far.
I also realize that the movie is in the theatre for a few months, but it's in my DVD collection forever. I'd be very surprised if SW2 doesn't look phenomonally better than the best DVD's that are out now. Again, I will wait and see, but have no reason to complain thus far.
If you can hear the noise from the projector in your theater, then it's not properly insulated. Well-designed theaters do not have that problem.
Well unfortunately the most well-designed theatre we have in Orlando is probably the AMC at Disney, and I don't feel like driving 45 minutes anymore to get to it. The new Regal theatre is 10 minutes away, and is the one I speak of regarding the noisy projector.
It sounds like you have never seen properly done film projection. That's too bad, because it's quite an experience.
It must be wonderful to have such a theatre near you, but I bet most of the US does NOT have such a theatre, and digital projection will be a huge step up for all of those people. Like the other guy said, digital projection leaves less room for error in regards to the audio and picture focus
Maybe someday there will be a digital system that matches film bit-for-bit, pixel-for-pixel, but not at the moment.
That's like saying they shouldn't have started filming in technicolor when it first came out, because if they just wait a decade, the color will be so much better.
The fact is: films are constantly being filmed in higher and higher qualities. The picture qualities get better all the time. Now we're going to make the leap to digital format, for dozens of reasons named already and more. As digital film projectors get more popular, they will become cheaper. As they become cheaper, they will become more advanced. As they become more advanced, they will reach the pixel quality that matches film density.
This is how technology advances. Bring it on!
-thomas
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
No, that's different, because going to color film did not require theaters to install new projectors. Since each new movie required a new piece of film anyway, they could use a new process for each movie, without requiring theater owners to perform any upgrades. (Besides, Technicolor's three-strip process looked great right from the start. It didn't require much improvement.)
Digital projection, on the other hand, requires a new and very expensive projector to be installed at the theater. A good film projector [kinoton.com] costs about $30,000, and a crappy one [christieinc.com] costs a little less. In contrast, digital projectors currently cost about $250,000! And theater owners are notoriously spendthrift. It's hard enough to get them to spend the money to change out the Xenon bulbs when they should, which is part of the reason why film projection looks so dark in a lot of theaters these days (and by the way, that will still be a probelm with digital projection, since such projectors still need Xenon lamps to provide light). Knowing that, do you really think that once a theater buys a digital projector, that they will ever, ever upgrade? No! Whatever gets installed today will be it for generations to come. The resolution will never increase. That's what has me worried.
The fact is: films are constantly being filmed in higher and higher qualities.
I only wish that were true. The real fact is, except for a brief period during the 1950s and 1960s, photography for movies has always gone towards cheaper and more convenient, not higher quality. 40 years ago, there were several releases a year that were made using 65mm negatives and 70mm prints. Then filmmakers and studios switched back to 35mm negatives, and a mixture of 70mm and 35mm prints. Then when theatrical digital sound came along in the early 1990s, 70mm prints died off, and everything is now 35mm-only. It looked like advancements in the grain structure of film stocks were going to make up the difference, but then filmmakers decided to start using the Super-35 process, yet again reducing the negative area and thus reducing quality. To see what I am talking about, compare the DVD of 1961's West Side Story [imdb.com] to just about any movie from last year or this year. Even with DVD's limited 720x480 resolution, you can see a difference. Just imagine what it looked like in 70mm! A movie made nearly 40 years ago looks better than anything being made today.
Also, back in the days of big-screen epics, theaters took great pride in providing good presentation. A projectionist used to have to go through a full six months of training before being allowed to even enter the booth of an actual theater! Nowadays, some kid who did a good job selling popcorn gets shoved in the booth with no training and 20-odd screens to run all by him/herself. No wonder presentation quality sucks these days! And the sad thing is, the worst-case scenario of today is pretty much the only standard that proponents of digital ever talk about. They just point to the problems I mentioned and say, "Well, at least we'll be better than that." No mention of how they might try to equal the quality of yesteryear, back when moviegoers actually had it better than we have it today.
Talking about theater quality, I don't really have it as good where I live as I would like, but I still prefer what I get to see at the Century 25 [centurytheaters.com] (a 45 minute drive for me) over most places. They have Kinoton projectors, so the images are pretty much rock steady, and they keep their screens well-lit. Only rarely do I see scratches or dirt (which proponents of digital would have you believe magically appear on every frame of film ever made, no matter how careful you are with it). The sound is good, too, thanks to their auditoriums all being THX-certified.
However, if you want to see a real movie theater, the one that made me fall in love with 70mm film when I was a kid, then go to this site [film-tech.com] and click on the "pictures" link in the bottom frame. Then click on the link labeled "GCC Northpark West 1&2" (sorry, the site does not allow direct linking). That is what a truly great movie theater is like. It breaks my heart to know that it is gone now.
And just to let you know, I am not a sentimental old fart who is misguidedly clinging to the past. I am only 27 years old. I work in the computer industry. I am not a Luddite or a technophobe. It's just that I've seen with my own eyes what film is capable of delivering, and TI's digital system just doesn't measure up. I want them to get it right before they permanently stick us with an inferior solution.
Re:The Real Reason Hollywood is Going Digital (Score:2)
You irritate me too much to comment on your views for digital effects creation.
All films are editied digitally, scanned, transferred 12bit RGB. Fullstop.
As for moire pattens, which you refer to for moving objects, they occur because the frames rate is 24fps, nothing to do with analogue or digital
Re:I hate this (Score:2)
Puhleeze! Do you honestly think these projectors will remain $250,000 units forever? They are expensive now because they're basically brand new. DVD players used to be $1000+. Now you can get a decent one for under $200. It's the same for every new product.
A movie made nearly 40 years ago looks better than anything being made today.
I think you're living in some other world! I have never seen an old movie that matches the quality of, say, Contact or any other movie in the past 5 years. Sure, some old black and white movies look incredibly sharp, but it's not just film stock and resolution that matter to me, it's (more importantly) the vivid, accurate colors and sharpness that is present in most recent movies.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."