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The Future of Digital Cinema 271

Posted by michael from the floor-still-covered-with-jujubes dept.
prostoalex writes "This article on ABCNews talks about two different technologies, aimed at bringing the cinemas up to the standards of this digital age. It points out some interesting information regarding the status quo such as "of the more than 35,000 movie screens operating in the United States today, only 60 are digitally equipped, largely because of the technology's $150,000 price tag"."
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The Future of Digital Cinema

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  • I admit I know very little about film projection technology, but it took him 6 years to double the speed of a projector and camera???

    I mean, it's a nice idea and simple and it's been known that more frames = better quality for years. It's not like he had to sit around and actually think a lot about how to make the quality better, just the way of doing it. 50% of his work was already done for him!

    • Re:6 years??? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ptomblin ( 1378 ) <ptomblin@xcski.com> on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:12AM (#3907494) Homepage Journal
      Considering I saw "Imax Showscan" (which was Imax with double the frame rate) at Expo 86 in Vancouver 16 years ago,this is hardly startling new technology or a startling new idea.

      Besides, the shift to digital isn't about quality it's about distribution costs. A movie print costs between $1500 and $2500 PER SCREEN, just for the film, plus you've got to courier it to the theatre, and the projectionist has to make up platter by splicing the 5 or 6 spools that make up a feature along with trailers, ads, etc. The theatres would much rather get a couple of DVDs containing all their content for the week.

      And yes, we're working on better compression and encryption technology to make sure that the movies still look good, and nobody can steal the DVD and sell a million copies on the black market. On the system I'm working on, the projectors themselves may have a small single-board Linux computer inside to do the decryption, so the movies won't be playable anywhere but on the projectors they're meant for.

      • Re:6 years??? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by forgoil ( 104808 )
        Don't forget about the decay of the prints. One showing and the quality goes down. And then add all the mecanical problems of running at twice the speed. 24fps is enough to screw the projector over several times if you don't put a lot of time into calibrating it and making sure it doesn't move around.

        These problems are solved by digital projectors. I just wish that they could improve in resolution and frame rates. 24fps (double exposed so 48 updates / second) is not enough when panning for example.

        I am just hoping that they could install a digital projector somewhere in Sweden, I will take a little trip then for sure;)

        ptomblin: You say that you work on these systems. What are the chances that I as a consumer would be able to legally get hold of the movies in this kind of format? I would love to have a great projector at home for my home cinema, but playing DVDs on large screens are not nearly as fun as it could be.

        And do you have any spiffy links? I am sure I am not the only one who are interested in these kinds of things (and in my case not to break it and get a parrot on my shoulder).
        • ptomblin: You say that you work on these systems. What are the chances that I as a consumer would be able to legally get hold of the movies in this kind of format? I would love to have a great projector at home for my home cinema, but playing DVDs on large screens are not nearly as fun as it could be.

          I'm trying to be a bit cagey about the details, because while the company I work for has announced that they're working on a digital cinema system, we haven't finalized the details of the projector (which is why I said it might have a Linux board in it) or who is going to build it for us. It seems right now that the projector is going to be based on somebody else's projector, with our Digital Rights Management stuff and remote control stuff grafted onto it.

          I doubt there would be any need for our DRM technology in a home theatre setting. The whole point of DRM in the cinema world is to make sure nobody uses the content without paying for it. So the DVD of Matrix Reloaded intended for Cinema A won't play in Cinema B, and definitely won't play in Joe Warez D00d's DVD duplicator. We haven't worked out the details, but we might even have expiry times on them so you can't play them after x number of weeks without renewing the licence.

          This is obviously not the sort of restrictive technology you want pervading the home market.
          At least I sure as hell don't.

          • *smile* I know how frustrating it can be with industry secrets and not being able to tell everyone. But it is pretty much neccessary.

            I wasn't so much interested in being able to rip the movies off, more like being able to legally buy something that plays them at the same quality in my home.

            I wish that the zones would go away as well, that is just a pain considering all the region 1 DVDs I buy livining in Sweden (region 2).
      • I think people like Roger Ebert don't understand the costs of Maxivision.

        First, movie projectors would require much higher engineering tolerences to operate at 48 fps for long periods of time like you get in a movie theatre. That raises the cost of the projector substantially. I just can't imagine today's movie theater employees doing even minor maintainance on such a projector.

        Second, Maxivision projection will require a lot more film than today's 24 fps projectors because of its 48 fps speed. A 35 mm 24 fps print of 20 minutes of film weighs 35 pounds and you need six reels of film for a two hour movie; I can imagine a Maxivision 48 fps print weighing 60-70% more. The shipping cost for a single print alone would definitely be frightening, to say the least.

        Third, it would require more expensive movie cameras because of the need to shoot at 48 fps. Can you imagine how much more expensive a Panavision or Arriflex movie camera will cost to support 48 fps operation for long periods of time? These aren't special effects cameras where high film speeds are run for only a relatively short period of time.

        Finally, you still haven't solved the problem of print degradation over a long period of time. At 48 fps, there's likely a higher chance for a film print to get scratched or break.
        • If you read up on Maxivision you would know the reason the system is so great is because it doesn't use any more film per second at all. It removes the gaps between frames and the optical soundtrack which nobody should ever use these days. In their place are 48 frames, each frame is actually bigger than the old. Current cameras just mask off the optical soundtrack, and this is easy to fix.
          http://www.maxivisioncinema.com/maxivisionin fo0702 .pdf
          Page 7 of the pdf explains. Sorry there isn't a non-adobe format.
    • If you check maxivision [maxivisioncinema.com] out you'll know the hard part was making it backwards compatible.
      Page 7 of the pdf explains. Sorry there isn't a non-adobe format.

  • Not just the cost, but control (Score:3, Interesting)

    by richieb ( 3277 ) <richieb@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:16AM (#3907506) Homepage Journal
    I think one of the reasons that movie theaters are not eager to convert to digital format, is that this will give the movie companies additional control over what and how things are shown in theatres.

    DRM can give the movie companies almost total control over how and when movies are shown in all theaters. Which is something theater owners would prefer to control themselves - as you can respond better to your local audience.

    So, if "MIB-II" is tanking in Notown, USA, start showing "Minority Report" on an extra screen to bring more people in instead.

    ...richie

    • Then it is not a technical problem, but the problem that DRM tries to screw their customers over, just as RIAA/MPAA tries to screw their paying customers over (if you pirate you won't have any problems really).

      I for sure would drag my sorry ass over to the screens much more often if the quality of the theater rises (and the audience shuts up!). They do need to make good movies as well though.
    • I thought many of the theatre chains were being bought up by the various studios.

      Wasn't there an anti-trust case about this in the... 40's?

      Yup. Just looked it up. Cineplex Odius and Loew's are both owned by Sony. Certainly this can't be the only situation like that.

      Knowing Sony, they have some competing format.
    • I dunno. You could argue, were you so inclined, that it'd allow a much more dynamic programme; theatre owners would have much more flexibility in what they show; assuming that our theatre-owning chum had his own database of films from which to choose, a system could be set up (for example) whereby everyone in a particular auditorium votes for a film electronically; that film is then chosen.

      I'm assuming, of course, that movie makers realise how handy such features would be, and don't lock out such abilities.

      More on how digital cinema works, btw, can be found at How Digital Cinema Works [howstuffworks.com]
    • You are presuming control that doesn't exist.

      There is no DRM that I'm aware of in the digital theater market. You download the film from satellite, or get sent it on some physical medium, store it to your local drives, and play it whenever you so wish in whichever theaters you so wish.

      Yes, there's undoubtably some degree of digital watermarking at the start, and there are accounting procedures to go through to make sure the studios get their moola, but the studios can't directly control your content or your schedule.

      But thanks for the paranoid delusions.

  • 48fps makes the movie smoother? nah... (Score:3, Troll)

    by chamenos ( 541447 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:19AM (#3907510)
    "A conventional movie works by flashing a series of 24 pictures on the screen every second, creating the illusion of motion. All Maxivision48 does is squeeze in 48 frames per second and doubles the speed of the projector.

    The effect is twofold: The faster speed provides a stronger illusion and the shorter film exposure creates a sharper picture.

    It's a simple change that filmmakers and industry analysts say makes a dramatic difference. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that watching a movie in Maxivision48 is like looking through a window at the world."

    As far as I know, that's bullshit. Increasing the number of exposures to 48 per second instead of 24, would only reduce the trademark flickering of conventional film projectors.

    The reason for this is that a technique called motion blur has been used for as long as I remember, to negate the low frame rate of normal movie projectors. Notice if you pause a movie during a high-motion scene, the image is blurred. This is done in order to create the illusion of motion even in a still frame.

    A high-motion scene projected with a normal 24fps film projector definitely looks much more fluid than playing a high-paced game of quake with 24fps for this reason.

    Basically, film makers have created the illusion of fluid motion within the constraints of only having 24 frames per second by using motion blur, and video games have created the illusion of fluid motion within the constraints of not having motion blur by increasing the frame rate to levels way beyond 24fps.

    In view of this, I can see why "not a single theater or movie studio has invested in Goodhill's Maxivision48 technology". Technology? Overclocking conventional movie projectors to show 48fps instead of 24fps is not exactly "technology". I know if I owned a movie theater, I wouldn't pay for "technology" like this.

    • Re:48fps makes the movie smoother? nah... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by muggy2 ( 174809 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:48AM (#3907590) Homepage
      Well, you're kinda right, but not quite.
      Projectors actually show each frame twice in order to stop the flickering (if you just light the frame for longer, it weakens the print.
      Whereas this 48fps movie format actually has 48 frames, each with motion blur (it's not a 'technique', it's just what happens when you expose a frame for 1/48th of a second). maxivision48 has much higher resolution by using more surface area of the print and the images are sharper because there is less motion blur captured.
      Of course the downside of all this is that it looks more like TV. :( Humans have come to recognise 24fps as 'film' and 50/60fps as 'TV'. That's why HD has a 24fps setting when it can happily do 60.
      • For me, smooth=nice.

        HD is 24fps??? Yuck. One more reason not to upgrade for a while yet.
        • Well, it _can_ be, depends on the source material and the broadcaster.

          You have the option of 24, 25, 29.97 or 30 progressive or 50 and 60 interlaced.

          Most prime time tv shows are filmed on 24fps 35mm then telecine'd and converted to 30fps (60 fields per sec) for NTSC TV.
          • no, they aren't. If you're shooting film for American TV you shoot it at 29.97 fps - and than you don't need to add 3:2 pulldown when you telecine it. Same with PAL TV, film shot for PAL TV is shot at 25fps. Why would you shoot TV material to cinema standards? It makes no sense at all. Just go and have a look at a camera manufacturers website and look at their cams - try Arri or Panavision for a start - and you'll see that 24, 25 and 29.97 are all "crystal" speeds, among all the others. BTW, NTSC is 59.94 fields per second, not 60.
      • it's not a 'technique', it's just what happens when you expose a frame for 1/48th of a second

        Errhm, exposure time is actually rather independant of frame rate. Even movie cameras have shutters: the shutter opens, stays open for exposure time, closes, and then stays closed until the next picture is up. Which means that you may theoretically have an exposure of 1/250 second, but still 24 fps. For obviously reasons, exposure may not be longer than 1/24 though.

    • I tend to agree that a 48fps rate would be a vast improvement: blur is lost detail, which can never be recovered. If you're watching at 48fps, the apparent blur per frame would be halved, which is only a good thing, I think.

      I say apparent blur because real blur in a frame is of course related to the shutter speed, which is in turn a function of the film, the aperture, and available light. 48bps won't change that.

      Motion Blur is added in CGI to make motion look smoother. Imagine Final Fantasy (The Spirits Within) re-rendered at 48bps: the makers would probably find they could get away with less motion blur, again improving the perceived image sharpness.

      Then there's aliasing, which I would rather not have, thank you very much. This is the effect that you can see in old westerns in particular, when the chuck wagon is moving forward but its wheels are rotating backwards. I can't say if a higher frame rate would help here, but it can't hurt.

      By way of comparison, we're seeing a gradual shift to 96,000 samples per second in the audio field. People are generally right in arguing that this has no benefits for most material, but when you need it, you need it.

      If, like me, you tend to sit in the front row at any movie theater, blurring and aliasing artefacts can be a real hindrance to enjoyment of a movie.

      thx...

      • The "chuckwagon effect" depends upon the ratio between frame rate and rotational speed. Watch cars go by for a while and you may find that your eyes do it too, if the rotation speed is such that spokes are close to the same place every 18th of a second or so (doesn't actually have to be the same spoke, but it needs to look like the same spoke), then you may get a frozen look or a forward or backward drift.

        It's the way one adjusts the speed of a turntable.

    • I've never seen film at 48fps, but I have seen Showscan (60fps) and the realism is awesome.

      The first time I saw it, a guy came out on stage beforehand to explain what Showscan was and how it worked. It wasn't until they did a slow wipe from him to the beginning of the actual content that we all realized we'd been had, that he *was* the first part of the film.

      This was at a Showbiz Pizza Place, the precursor to Chuck-E-Cheese, circa 1983.
    • The Maxivision process goes _way_ beyond simple "overclocking" as you put it; the film is both shot & projected "jitter-free" by retrofitting existing cameras and projectors with a industrial-precision film-placement mechanism. Because the vast majority of films are not CGI-based/enhanced, this brings one of the most instantly recognizable benefits (lack of frame jitter) to film-based projection.

      Also, this lack of "jitter" enables the "blank" space between exposed film frames to be smaller, which enables either lower costs re: film (on 24fps productions), and more affordable film costs
      for 48fps productions (something like 1.5x the cost of a current 24 fps production, vs. many times that for Showscan or 70mm). Additionally, the area of exposed film can be even larger than 35 mm, resulting in a more detailed picture (which further benefits the resulting picture).

      Furthermore, the M48 mechanism allows various formats of film to be "strung together", which _no_ current system enables. This would make distribution/projection of trailers cheaper and simpler, and perhaps even make the distribution of short features viable again via affordability (personal wishlist).

      I can't say that I've seen the process in action, but I have seen digital film projection, and the quality is only debatably better than 35mm at great cost to the theater owner; the M48 process is over an order of magnitude cheaper to the theater owner (around $10k per projector retrofit), and also does not require major turnover in production equipment, which makes the studios happy.

      In short, there are significant benefits to be with this process on all sides even before the question of "24 vs 48 fps" is raised.

      P.S. FYI, current projectors display at 48fps, they just show each frame 2x.
    • Unfortunately, the article does not tell the whole story. Goodhill's system also includes a more precise pulldown and a larger frame area. The latter improvement is especially important, as it actually does increase resolution and light output significantly.

      His system also makes more efficient use of the film area. Normal 35mm is 4 perforations per frame, but Maxivision is only 3 perforations per frame. So it only requires 50% more footage, even though the frame rate is doubled.

  • 70mm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VaguelyBarming ( 162695 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:26AM (#3907533)
    I can understand why the studios aren't going for this Maxivision48 system. After all, if the studios were really interested in improving film quality, surely they'd have standardised on 70mm by now? The difference in clarity between, say, the 70mm print of 2001 and a 35mm print is very noticable.

    No, it seems to me that the principal (possibly the only?) advantage of digital is the ease of distribution, and that's why the large studios are pushing for it. Maxivision48 means you've got twice as much film stock to distribute, so I don't see it succeeding.

    • Re:70mm (Score:3, Informative)

      by noz ( 253073 )
      I agree, but 70mm is not the answer. Maxivision48 would be twice the size of the film print, and 2 canisters and 4-7 reels is a heavy print to ship, move, and platter/tower.

      Yes, 70mm is amazing, but the film stock is sooo expensive and huge. A similar flaw with this maxivision concept. 35mm is excellent quality. Enjoy a well projected show.

      P.S. Dirt and scratches ideally are not an issue. Throughout a films first-run screenings, they should be well treated. If you see too many scratches, don't go back to the same theatre.
    • Maxivision48 means you've got twice as much film stock to distribute, so I don't see it succeeding.
      From the article:

      "Goodhill says the Maxivision48 is a logical investment for theater owners since the projectors are "backwards compatible" in that they can be slowed down to the current 24 frames per second movie standard. That means theater owners who invest in the technology now will still be able to show any of the current movies while waiting for studios to convert over to the new faster 48-frame-per-second format."
    • You would think that from the article, but you're mistaken. Maxivision doesn't use any more film than current tech. It removes the optical soundtrack from film, which allows for a 33% larger frame, then moves all frames almost edge to edge. This removes the space currently between frames. The result is 48fps of larger frames in the same amount of film as ordinary 24fps film.
    • It's unfortunate that 5-perf 70mm died off in the early-to-mid 1990s, but if it were to come back today, it would be much cheaper than before, thanks to 70mm DTS. Studios would no longer have to pay for the expensive magnetic striping process to add the 6-channel analog soundtrack. Unfortunately, even without the cost of magnetic striping, it's still too expensive for the studios to even consider paying for it. A return of large scale 5/70 distribution will not happen.

      Besides, there is a little-known process called Super Dimension 70 [superdimension70.com] that combines 70mm and the 48fps frame rate, which I think would be better than either Maxivision or plain 24fps 5/70. Too bad it will never happen. Studios and distributors are already so hooked on the idea of digital being cheaper that they won't even consider a new system based on film, no matter how good it is.

      If only SDS-70 and Maxivision had come along sooner...

  • Digital not that big an improvement (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:28AM (#3907542) Journal
    When CD audio came out, there was no question the sound was cleaner. We were so used to hearing snaps and underlying noise on vinyl that the CD sound was simply gold compared to lead. So expecting a similar quality payoff from Digital Video, three of us made an effort to see Attack of the Clones in a digital theater. We were disappointed. In retrospect, it isn't that surprising. A new vinyl record sounds wonderful. It's not until it's been played a lot and collected dust and scratches that the CD/Vinyl gap favors CDs.

    For a consumer, the big digital payoff might be down the road when a movie has been through a projector so many times that the quality becomes objectionable on an analog print. But since the majority of a movie's gross is in the first few weeks of the run and the studios get the lion's share of the take during those weeks, the economics may work against digital. The studios reap the long term benefit of digital and the theater owner has to pay for it. If I owned a theater, I think I'd hold back as well.

    • What? The only difference I could discern between film and digital is that the digital projection didn't have any dust or cigarette burns. It was just....clean. I mean, blue skies were just....blue. No little black spots or anything. So sue me, I'm a perfectionist, but to me digital projection seems the way to go.

    • digital needs more resolution (Score:5, Informative)

      by _|()|\| ( 159991 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @07:20AM (#3907658)
      So expecting a similar quality payoff from Digital Video, three of us made an effort to see Attack of the Clones in a digital theater. We were disappointed.

      I thought the digital version of Star Wars II looked terrible. The individual pixels were clearly visible. For example, the Star Wars logo had poorly anti-aliased "jaggies."

      I suspect that the screen was too large and/or I was sitting too close. I'm sure the DVD will look spectacular, but I don't think digital has enough resolution to compete with film, yet.

      • I don't recall the exact resolution of the cameras lucas used, but I believe their resolution was quite a bit higher than that of the theatre projectors. I believe the projecters were doing the downsizing "real time", but that is just my speculation.

        If the resolution of the cameras and projectors are both sufficiently high, it seems like a worthwhile effor to me.
      • I heard that the digital version of AotC was 1028x768 (or whatever that is stretched to 16x9). No wonder it was pixellated. 4000x2250 would be more like it.
      • The problem isn't resolution; the problem is that digital artifacts, if not dealt with, are much more noticeable than analog artifacts. That is, jaggies are noticeable at a much higher resolution than blurriness, because our eyes target high-frequency noise and straight lines (which don't occur by chance much in nature).

        Film, being a chemical process, tends to lose high-frequency noise and sharp corners, which means that the jaggies wouldn't survive the transition to analog for distribution to analog theaters.

        I suspect that they just didn't properly anti-alias the digital version for raw output. The logo, after all, would have been trivial to anti-alias so that it looks nice (anti-aliasing line graphics is about the simplest thing). Of course, it it were anti-aliased, the analog version (which is what almost everyone saw) might have been marginally more blurry.

        Of course, the real solution is to have the digital projectors project gaussian dots instead of sharp squares (until digital is common enough to care) unless the movie is actually filmed for square pixels.
        • Actually, resolution is the problem. TI (the company that makes DLP) is aware of that, and tries their best to hide it. Go looking around on dlp.com and see if you can find any information about the number of pixels in a DLP-based projector. After much digging, you'll find it buried on one of the pages -- 1280x1024.

          Yes, that's right. 1280x1024. On a movie-sized screen. That's why it looks bad.

          Would people be so hip on digital cinema if they knew it had less resolution than an average conference room LCD projector? If they knew they could go to an electronics store and buy an HDTV monitor for a couple of thousand dollars that has more resolution (1920x1080) than the much-hyped digital cinema?

          TI did their first theatrical demos of DLP more than five years ago. It was 1280x1024 then, and it's 1280x1024 now. They've had half a decade -- a lifetime in the electronics business -- to increase the resolution, and they have not done it. Will they ever? Who knows?

          Further more, who cares? There are two competing technologies that are up and coming and will soon overtake it.

          The first is D-ILA [jvc-victor.co.jp] from JVC, a reflective technology that has better coverage and more contrast (and no moving parts, unlike DLP). Kodak is using D-ILA [kodak.com] in their attempt to build a digital projection system. It's already up to 2K resolution and should hit 4K by the end of this year. Secondly, there is laser projection [siliconlight.com], which is difficult to find details about online, but promises to also deliver far better resolution than DLP.

          So I'd say that resolution most certainly is a problem, and one that hopefully will be solved before too long, thanks to some good old fashioned competition. Take that, TI!

      • I had just the opposite complaint. The film print I saw was HIDEOUS...looked like a poorly-compressed DVD. I saw no jaggies, and the colors were far far far more detailed on the digital copy. For instance, when Obi Wan was in the Kamino office, the room had very clearly visible pearlescent effects on the digital copy, and looked whiter-than-white on the film copy.

        I think there were some serious issues going from digital to film print...but the digital master seemed OK to me.

        YMMV.

    • Re:Digital not that big an improvement (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AlecC ( 512609 ) <aleccawley@gmail.com> on Thursday July 18, 2002 @07:50AM (#3907747)
      Agreed 100% to this. A brand new print on well set up projection equipment gives far better quality that digital projectors. Simply, there are more bits there, both spatially and in depth. IIRC, Star Wars was shot at 1920 wide, but film is still giving more data when digitised over 3K wide. Likewise, film has the depth to allow really good gamma correction before processing - probably the equivalent to 14 or 15 bits, while cameras are at most 10 bits and often 8.

      However, the other point you make, that film degrades over time is very relevant. A film print nowadays costs about $6000, and will be showing noticable wear after 2 weeks (as said to me by a film person). And film needs to be physically transported etc.

      The problem is that the costs of digital projection fall upon the theatre owner, who sees very little benifit, whereas the benifits go to the producer. In order to make digital really take off, the producers are going to have to find some way of kicking back a percentage of their gain to the theatre owners. One way that has been suggested is for the producers, or a producer-oriented organisation, to buy the projectors and put them into the cinemas, then charge on a pay-per-view. If the digifilms don't come out, the theatre owner doesn't lose, if they do, he has the revenue to pay the rent. Which requires help from the money men - who are a bit suspicious of new-tech propositions at the moment.

    • 640K ought to be enough for anyone.

      There are many more uses for digital cinema technology that can even be thought of right now. I see this as another technology that precedes it's demand; uses will be developed for it once it's uptake gathers speed. I won't repeat the quality and distribution benefits already mentioned in this thread.

      Theaters could play 'censored' [i.e. no nudity, bad language etc.] versions to get extra revenue from the younger and religious audiences. The in-flight version of Outbreak was quite acceptable, though I can't imagine there'd be much left of the South Park movie ;-) How about audience participation? It's a long shot but it could be a laugh for some stuff. I know some people here would like buttons labelled [bra], [panties], [gravy] and [grits] for the next Natalie Portman flick.

      I havent had my caffiene fix and it's way too hot in here so I can't think of many more right now, but I'm sure other people can add to this list. As for the slow uptake of digital projection so far, I'd say it's either because AFAIK there's no finalised standard for digital film distribution, or because some people wouldn't know a good investment when it was staring them in the face. ;-) [gerrymcdonnell.com]

      Ali

    • You also have to take into fact the number the print is.. If you have a print that is say 3 generations from the first submaster (Which is a print off of the finished product master) which is typical for most theateres you get what we all are used to... kinda-fuzzy, kinda grainey, kinda icky all the way around..

      I have seen a second generation print. (Off of the submaster... I have never seen a 1st geeneration or the origional.. I believe that only the director get's to see these) and the quality difference is phenominal.. You dont get added dilution of the light because of the silver grains not lining up from print to print (This is what causes the degradation) plus distributed prints are on lower quality film.. To put it in ISO number that make sense to people.. ISO32 35MM film has awesome resolution.. you can blow up that shot to a giant portrait easily.. ISO440 has crappy res and will not make it past a 5X7 without looking bad. they use higher speed film for the copies as they can be exposed and processed faster.

      digital has a really really long way to go before it can replace film. until they can get me to where on the 30 foot wide screen pixels that are less than 1/4 of an inch square and in complete focus (That's the optics job) I wont be impressed.. Hell give me 1/2 in square pixels! that will be at least 4 times better than what they have now with their best projection equipment.
  • used to be owned by Hoyts and was only two theaters. Being small , Hoyts only allowed second rate movies to be shown so people would go to the bigger theaters in the surronding towns. Eventually they closed it down and it sat empty for a year till a local guy took out a loan, bought the place, renamed it Welch Theaters, upgraded to Digital and charges $7.50 for a movie. That's what I paid to see AOTC's midnight premire.
    It's not Digital Technology that is raising ticket prices, it is poor management. Welch Theaters is one example of why we need the little guys around.

    Oh, and one more thing.

    FUCK HOYTS!

  • 3 steps to DivX heaven:

    • 1. Get dumbass minimum-wage job at local digital cinema.

    • 2. Tap into the Firewire or whatever they use.

    • 3. {insert favourite p2p network here}

  • Jump and Jive (Score:3, Insightful)

    by robbway ( 200983 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:44AM (#3907581) Journal
    Watch the scrolling text at the beginning of any Star Wars Movie. Watch that same movie on digital, like DVD or Episode II in a digital theater. In analog, the text moves around visibly. In digital, the text is rock-solid. The entire film is doing this!

    48 fps should be an improvement, but the debates against digital are anti-technology, and frankly anti-copying. You have to ask why this technology, as old as it is, wasn't adopted awhile ago? My guess is cost. Note the lack of technical detail in the article. My guess is that non-standard projectors will not be adopted regardless of cost.
    • Today's digital standard costs $150,000, and the resolution is so low, the pixels are very visible.

      In a word, it sucks. This isn't anti-technology. This is anti-sucky-technology. When they start projecting at 3-4 megapixels, then we may have something worth watching.

  • Enough with new technology! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18, 2002 @06:53AM (#3907600)
    Things really went downhill at the movie theaters when they sprung that "talkie" crap on us. What was wrong with reading captions, and having an organist to provide sound? Who needs to hear what the actors are saying?

  • Want a quantum improvement? Just use 70 mm! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @07:11AM (#3907639) Homepage
    70 mm film, popular in the seventies and eighties, is a well-understood, simple, reliable technology that provides jaw-dropping, knock-your-socks-off improvements over 35 mm. Big, bright, crisp images... few of the current generation have ever really SEEN "2001, A Space Odyssey" or "Lawrence of Arabia."

    As I write this, the number of theatres equipped to show 70 mm is probably greater than the number equipped to show DLP, but few prints are being struck, mostly for special events.

    Yeah, I know it's probably lost cause... but this is NOT an "LP's sound better than CD's if you can listen 'through' the noise'" or "tubes sound better than transistors" thing. This is a case where the simple technology in wide use a couple of decades ago is a quantum leap better than anything you've seen on a multiplex screen lately.

    Meanwhile, digital cinema, compared to 35 mm, is in that grey zone where it's a judgement call as to whether it's even better. "It's just as good..." "It's not as sharp, but it's steadier and there's no dirt or scratches." "Yeah, but in DLP the blacks are washed out..."

    In resolution, at least, plain old 35 mm is higher than HDTV... and 70 mm doubles that. DVD enthusiasts who think they are "seeing" Ben-Hur on their home screens are kidding themselves.

    • Re:Want a quantum improvement? Just use 70 mm! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:43AM (#3908030) Homepage
      I don't disagree that 70mm (or even 35 mm) has greater resolution than current digital cinema.

      However, you made a number of incorrect statements in your post.

      "Yeah, but in DLP the blacks are washed out..."

      If you compare it to CRT, yes. If you compare it to film projection? DLP has better blacks. Far better. In fact, it has better color reproduction across the board.

      The reason CRT gets such good blacks is because when you say "display black" it displays nothing at all - no illumination, period. Film, however, displays black by coloring a segment of the frame black and then projecting a high intensity bulb through it and hoping that the black doesn't leak too much light. This is even worse than how DLP/D-ILA/LCD do blacks. Color reproduction is better for digital as well, since you don't have to worry about film stock variances, minor mistakes in producing the film stock, etc. It's exactly the color the director was expecting, every time -- and film degrades rapidly in the color spectrum after repeated showings.

      Fact of the matter is, 70 mm is dead. It simply costs too much to produce and distribute. Only Imax is still handling it on a regular basis, and that's part of why you pay $8+ for a 45 minute film.

      DVD enthusiasts who think they are "seeing" Ben-Hur on their home screens are kidding themselves.

      Yeah, but I bet I can get a better overall environment for a new film at home than I can at a theater. The picture resolution may not be as high, but the sound is considerably better (only have to optimize for a few seats vs an entire theater), the black levels are better, and color reproduction is more true (you did have your projector or monitor calibrated by a certified pro, right?)
      • Well, you're somewhat correct, but not entirely ;-)

        CRTs most definitely do display something when they display black -- just try turning the brightness up on your TV some time and look at the "nothing"!

        DLP, in fact, comes much closer to displaying nothing for the blacks -- if the mirror is pegged to one side, the only light you've go is spillage from the edge of the mirror and other light bouncing around the system. (Actually, I think they never actually do this, but they vibrate pretty slow)

        Film, actually, can get pretty decent blacks -- better than you ofter see. Ofter the problem is with the prints -- not something inherent to film itself. Keep in mind that the print you see at the theater is several generations down from the original negative -- your blacks will get a little less black (or you gain contrast) at every stage. With proper planning, and with some variations in the processing (like bleach bypass) you can get very good blacks even in a release print.

        The other thing to keep in mind is that it's really your perception of black that's important. The brighter your whites are, the blacker your blacks will be perceived. This is a problem with many low- to medium-end theaters -- the screens just aren't bright enough, which ironically makes the black look less dark.

        You're right about inconsistencies with release prints, but there are other problems with digital projection as well. Certainly a DLP or some such digital projector will be more consistent for the duration of one movie than film (no more subtle changes in color or contrast at a reel change!), but there are still many potential pitfalls in terms of overall accuracy and consistancy between projectors. Different manufacturers of projectors (even amongst the DLP ones) all use different LUTs, which means that different grades of a film must be made for universal display. I've heard of some films (Monsters Inc, I believe -- but probably also TPM) that have had as many as 7(!) different grades made! Not to mention the difficulties in adjusting and maintaining the projectors themselves.

        Personally, I think that digital projection will eventually have a huge payoff, but probably not for another 2 generations or so of projectors. We need to get the resolution and the reliability up first. IMO of course.

  • C'mon, remember competition? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ianscot ( 591483 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @07:24AM (#3907668)
    Movie crowds are as happy with the experience as they've always been, said Jonathan Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, so there's little demand for an improvement in the technology.

    "Our industry is really hot and patrons are very happy," Fithian said...

    ...Pickerill said Polson Theaters will be forced to keep up with the quality of the megaplex competitors 70 miles away in Missoula, Mont., but added that at current prices, a digital projector would cost more than some of the smaller nearby theaters.

    Theaters with "arena seating" have seized a real competitive advantage in the last two years, basically made it hard to imagine starting a new theater without the steep floor and real sight lines. Why don't the theaters see Maxivision or digital as another potential way to get a leg up? We're going to these tiny boxes and seeing washed out movies, by comparison with what these technologies offer anyway. You'd think one owner in a city would bite, and that'd become the hot place, and everyone would have to catch up. Ain't happening.

    This description of Maxivision puzzles me. They double the fps, but that obviously doesn't mean things have been filmed at that higher rate. Do they just play each frame twice, or something? Are there twice as many feet of film, then? You have to buy a new projector, but can you just put an existing print in there? I don't get it.

    (Either way Maxivision doesn't do anything to help distribution of prints, the way digital potentially could. Doesn't it sound like twice as fast, twice as many frames, twice as much wear on the print?)

    • This description of Maxivision puzzles me. They double the fps, but that obviously doesn't mean things have been filmed at that higher rate. Do they just play each frame twice, or something? Are there twice as many feet of film, then? You have to buy a new projector, but can you just put an existing print in there? I don't get it.

      They do a number of clever things - they do film at the higher rate, but they reduce the wasted space between frames and on the edge of the frame to give you a bigger negative area for each frame with less film used. They give you the option of (a) recording at 24 fps using their system so you get equivalent/better quality than standard cinema at lower film cost, or (b) recording at 48 fps and using about 50% more film than a standard reel and getting the cool effect, or (c) playing existing film stock.

  • reasons (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TooTechy ( 191509 )
    Why do the movie guys want digital? Is it for quality? That is likely a secondary reason. More likely they want to bring down their costs and bring in customers. How much to stamp 100,000 12inch discs?
    Probably less than a couple of reels of film. The whole world could be covered by one pressing. (languages and all). Digital sub titles etc.
    We the customer are just a means to an end. Make them richer.

  • The real advantages of digital projection (Score:4, Insightful)

    by joshv ( 13017 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @07:32AM (#3907693)
    Ok, the real advantage is not quality, it's flexibility. As digital distribution dramatically cuts distribution costs, theatres could play more, and more varied movies. When getting a new movie into the theatre consists of a fed-ex delivery of 10 DVDs it's a hell of a lot easier to get a new movie on the screen. Lower cost of distribution also levels the playing field, making it easier for independents to compete.

    Another huge advantage is the ability to play live content. Weeknights are typically pretty slow nights at the theatre, so why not show some baseball, football or, basketball games depending on the season.

    -josh
    • > Ok, the real advantage is not quality, it's flexibility. As digital distribution dramatically cuts
      > distribution costs, theatres could play more, and more varied movies.

      You would think that, wouldn't you? But here in Cincinnati we have a digital projection theater (Showcase Springdale) and they don't seem to view it that way. I haven't seen Attack of the Clones yet, so I called there last week and they said that they currently aren't running any movies in the digital theater. Seems asinine to me, but it's what they said. They aren't getting my $8.25 to see Attack of the Clones on film - I guess I'll wait for the DVD.
    • Well said. But there are other advantages coming in the future. For example, on can conceivably do away with the screen altogether. One could have private booths set up with digital viewing goggles. 3-D anyone?

      Heck, who needs the theater at all? Digital movies can be piped to homes, restaurants, etc..., without any loss in quality. Just a thought. And the resolution argument against DP is just stalling tactics. As DP technology improves, its resolution will eventually surpass that of film. Besides there is nothing like a little competition to spur things in the right direction. There are currently two competing DLP technologies that I know of:

      Silicon Light [siliconlight.com]

      Digital Light Projection [dlp.com]

      In my opinion, Silicon light has an advantage because their projector is cheaper and potentially better. Check both of them out.
  • The money saved by the studios will be absolutely enormous with digital distribution: no more thousands of prints, no more shipping them to tens of thousands of theaters.

    As an incentive to theaters, they could offer a discount for theaters that is equal to the amount they save on distribution by going digital. Do this for the first several years to help the theaters offset the cost of the equipment.

    This way, the studios get the digital projectors out there and some years down the line they'll reap the cost savings when the carrot discounts disappear.
  • I've live outside Milwaukee. As many of you may know from the MLB All Star game, we just got a new staduim. Wait, I take that back, the BREWERS got a new staduim. Even though I don't like in Milwaukee, I'm still paying for it.

    The argument is always that baseball brings in more business. But really, who comes to see the Brewers? They suck. Now, we also have a brand-spanking new Midwest Express Convention Center. I don't know the details behind that behemoth, but there sure wasn't as much controversy about it. I KNOW it brings people into the city (for CONVENTIONS, duh), and those conventions help pay for the new building. Bigger building, more convention/office space. No issues.

    What does that have to do with movie theatres? For some reason both Pro-Sports, and the MPAA think that the end-user should pay UP FRONT for whatever new-fangled thing they want. They need to learn to stop mooching, and pay their own way.

    I work for a fitness company. We distribute Weight Lifting Belts to a LOT of retail outlets. I can't imagine going into a Dick's or a Champs, and saying, "Oh yeah, we have this new product, but you'll need to remodel your store to carry it."

    As if THAT would ever happen.

    • I'm sorry....your point is....what, exactly? It seems to me Dolby and Sony went to movie theaters and said we have a new sound system but you'll have to remodel and get rid of the shitty front speakers you've been using for decades. Maxivision and Lucas both offer private screenings to compare their systems so how is this any different?
      • I'm sorry....your point is....what, exactly? It seems to me Dolby and Sony went to movie theaters and said we have a new sound system but you'll have to remodel and get rid of the shitty front speakers you've been using for decades.

        That they can't expect to radically change the content, and expect their outlets to absorb the entire cost.

        Do you have your HDTV yet?

        • No I don't have HDTV yet. I'm not really familiar with the history of Dolby Digital and SDDS. I do know big budget movies are made to be shown in both formats or ancient stereo. If a movie is filmed in Maxivision because the director sees the benefits, it can always have half the frames removed and downgraded to the crap we get today. Just like the SDDS mix can be downgraded to stereo. Theaters upgraded sound systems because consumers wanted it. I remember avoiding a theater in Berkeley a couple years back because it hadn't upgraded yet to SDDS. Consumers voted with their wallets. Hollywood will incur extra costs as well for new equipment, but the maxivision system isn't anywhere near as expensive as going digital. I imagine if the public sees The Matrix Part 4 in Maxivision, the theaters showing it will have a massive advantage for several years until everyone upgrades. I think that plenty of stars and bigwigs in Hollywood see the flaws in current projection and would like their experience improved as well. I hope the lower cost Maxivision system catches on because unless there are some major breakthroughs, digital won't be going any higher than 2k by 4k in the next five years, and must reach about 3k by 6k to equal todays film.
  • As usual, a slashdot story that links to an article *** totally *** devoid of any technical details that would make it news for nerds, or merely stuff that matters.
    • Quite shameful of couse, since it means tens of people already spouted off getting karma for asking questions handily answered at http://www.maxivisioncinema.com/maxivisioninfo0702 .pdf
      or just www.maxivisioncinema.com if you can't deal with the pdf.

  • Very happy with it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:30AM (#3907969) Homepage
    I made the effort to see Episode 2 at a digital theater and was very happy with it. I know a lot of people have complained about jagged edges, but I really didn't see any. To me the difference between watching film and watching digital was the difference between watching VHS and watching DVD. The screen didn't jitter up and down. There were no scratches and no dust. The colors were vivid and very clear... I thought it was great and worth the extra drive to get to the theater. Even the "Don't Talk, Throw Away Your Trash" opening sequence was much better.
    • The jaggies are most noticeable in the subtitles, where you're looking at absolutely straight diagonal lines of a single color.

      By contrast, the "natural" stuff was always devoid of them, even for the digitally generated Yoda. I kept looking at the weave of Yoda's robe and seeing details that looked smaller than the jaggy pixels on the screen. It's just an illusion; the eye notices only on unnaturally straight lines and corrects automatically for natural ones.

      I loved the rock-solid picture, and I thought it looked good almost all the time, but it's going to need another generation or two before I stop noticing the aliasing artifiacts.

  • Digital != good quality. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @08:36AM (#3907994) Homepage
    Why do people think digital is so good? I do photography and still use film. Why? Because film has a much higher quality than a top of the line digital camera. Good low grain 35mm film (which is actually 24x36mm) can hold an image equivalent to a 130meg uncompressed digital image file.

    Now look at an 8x10 camera, that's a very large sheet of film that is commonly used. To scan in that image and get all of the information in the image, it's going to be about 14G of data.

    Now when you view these images, no top of the line home digital equipment can even approach the viewing quality of a good slide projector with film.

    So what's so good about digital? Well, you can repeatedly reuse and copy it without the image degrading. It's also cheaper to make copies of. Analog video and film still has the highest quality and will continue so for a long time. Digital is just a cheap consumer product. Comparing digital to film is like comparing McDonalds fast food to a gourmet restaurant.

    Let me just add, I'm not bashing digital. I would like to get a digital camera for snapshots and lots of other quick stuff. But when I want quality, I still choose film.
    • I agree that, in terms of image quality, digital cameras don't hold a candle to film. And analog tools for image manipulation are much richer than digital.

      But, digital has the advantage of incredible convenience. I can shoot a picture, crop it, and post it online in 30 minutes. When making portraits, I can capture a dozen pictures and keep the best ones. And I can see the final image immediately and decide whether to try other poses. This introduces more spontaneity and experimentation into photography.

      Also, digital lends itself better to certain creations, like animated snapshows (example [umich.edu], example [umich.edu], tutorial [umich.edu]).

      So, digital cameras are inferior if you'll use them exactly like a film camera. But if you take advantage of the instant feedback and negligible cost-per-shot, digital can promote great creativity.

      AlpineR

    • I used to believe that digital blew chunks. When I used my first DV cam, my only reaction was that it was glorified Beta. That was 1997. I've shot many a film and only recently I've joined a group that relies heavily on digital. Their best example was a short film titled Sweet. My jaw dropped at the pure clarity and quality of the work.

      Digital is getting there. And after looking at all these shorts, I realize its all about light. Video - especially Digital - needs a crapload of light. But one properly explosed, you can produce some great images.

      The best thing I like about Digital is that I can have a home production studio studio for under 10,000 dollars. No way can you have that with film. Hell, an Aaton 16 costs over 100,000 dollars. Then you have processing, printing, and video transfer. Its such a damn expensive process that only a select few can afford.

      This LA Times article [latimes.com] goes into digital production and makes the claim that we are at a point in history similar to the end of the silent film era during the transition of sound. A lot of people were left behind because they could not make the move.

      Some nibblets for thought.
    • ...at least some think so.
      A quote from: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/d60-first.htm [luminous-landscape.com]

      "I have yet to do extensive testing with the [Canon] D60 [a 6 Megapixel digital camera], but I can say that D60 8X10" prints, and indeed the one D60 11 X 16.5"print I have done so far, are better than any previous 8X10" or larger print I have made from 35 mm colour, no matter how printed. In fact, I would say that the 11X16.5" print is pretty close to similar-sized images printed conventionally (or digitally) from 645 format negatives. In simpler words, I believe the 6 MP D60 is superior to 35 mm colour film-not just the equal. A possible exception might be a really good print from a Kodachrome slide -- but I can't claim to have any that are in fact better" ...[cut cut]... "I doubt that I will ever 'seriously' use 35 mm colour film again! When I want to produce a quality result, I will choose digital -- or a larger format than 35 mm."

      And as a side note, MegaPixels aren't always a good measurement of the quality of Digital Cameras. For example the Canon D30, a 3 megapixel camera produces better images than Sony F707, 5 megapixel camera. Why? Here is a quote from http://www.luminous-landscape.com/dq.htm [luminous-landscape.com]

      "The reason is simple, it [Canon D30] has a much better SNR. Why you ask? The Sony pixels are much, much smaller. Smaller pixels have less area to gather light. Less light means less signal. For a given semiconductor process, the noise stays the same regardless of pixel size and the signal increases with pixel size."
      • The D60 is an amazing camera. I want to own one someday (or a D90 or whatever will be out when I can afford it). It's something like $2200 ($2699 MSRP) for the camera body alone. You'll need more money for lenses. Plus you'll want a couple hundred more for either a Microdrive or a 512MB compact flash card. Compare that to maybe $600 for a roughly equivalent Canon 35mm body that probably comes with some kind of lens. The difference will buy you a lot of film and processing fees.

        One interesting difference between film and digital is that with film, you can get fast film speeds (e.g., ISO 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, etc). Digital doesn't really do that yet. Most digital camera CCD's are somewhere around 100 ISO. It will sometimes try to fake a higher speed by bumping up the sensitivity of the CCD, but the results are noisy and "grainy". It's actually better to underexpose the CCD and alter the image in an image editor later. So currently, digital cameras are no good for "sports photography" or any kind of pictures where you have rapidly moving subjects.

        Another area of interest is long exposures. CCDs tend to introduce a lot of noise to long exposure shots (e.g., night shots). One interesting way the Canon D30 and D60 cameras get around this is by using a CMOS sensor instead of a CCD. I'm not really sure how else the choice of CMOS versus CCD affects imaging.

    • Regular photography is great but then you have to consider the enormous costs of darkrooms to process film.

      The costs for a do-it-yourself darkroom that can do Kodak C-41 color print processing borders on silly, to say the least. Such processes may be worth it if you're doing medium-format (6 x 4.5 cm or 6 x 7 cm) film negatives or 8" x 10" view camera photograhic plates, but for the vast majority of amateur photographers it's not worth the trouble. Especially now with 4 megapixel and higher resolution digital cameras that can produce prints on home printers that closely rival and often exceed what you get from a commercial photo-processing lab.

      Anyway, look at the MiniDV digital format camcorders. The picture quality is good enough that they are just about indistinguishable from Betacam professional recorders used by many news organizations--and MiniDV is definitely way cheaper than Betacam.

  • Film is Dead. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nattt ( 568106 ) on Thursday July 18, 2002 @09:11AM (#3908226)
    Maxivision 48 is just going to compound the problem. The staff in cinemas can't even cope with the current film standard. I see a lot of film previews - the prints are bad even then, with splices and dirt. Even when the print is clean it's often out of focus.
    The current cost of digital is high, and the resolution os lower than HDTV, but all this will change. The cost will drop dramatically, and the resolution will first improve to full HD, and then beyond as HD also improves.
    The cost of making a movie on HD is dramatically less than film. If they're doing SFX with CGI, then HD makes this cheaper. Even when CGI is added to a film movie, the resolution used is no greater than HD.
  • As I understand it, most projectors already show each frame twice -- the film is at 24 fps, but the projector actually shows a frame every 1/48th of a second. Otherwise the flicker would be unbearable.

    Reading the article, it's unclear how Maxivision48 differs from this.

    • Re:most projectors already do 48fps (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A standard 35mm film projector has a two-bladed shutter. The shutter makes one revolution per frame (i.e. each frame flickers twice) to reduce visible flicker. Some screening rooms and smaller theatres where screen brightness is less of an issue have three-bladed shutters to reduce visible flicker even more. The film still runs at 24fps, however.

      What Maxivision is proposing is a system where the film runs at 48fps. Thus, the exposure time (in the camera) is less and each individual frame is sharper, which, combined with the higher frame rate/reduced flicker, provides a much better illusion (yes, it's still an illusion) of motion on screen. Maxivision also uses 3-perf pulldown rather than 4-perf pulldown like conventional 35mm film, so the total footage is only 150% of that of regular 24fps 4-perf 35mm film given the same running time.

      Of course, Maxivision won't happen. It's a nice idea, but film exhibitors aren't going to spend money on this. A return to 70mm would be more likely to happen, if only beause there are hundreds (thousands?) of theatres in the world which are already equipped to show it, contrasted with approximately zero theatres which are equipped to show Maxivision.
  • "of the more than 35,000 movie screens operating in the United States today, only 60 are digitally equipped, largely because of the technology's $150,000 price tag".

    Heck, at $4.00 for a cup of soda and $7.50 for a candy bar, the local theatre ought to be going digital before lunchtime tomorrow, eh?
  • The article gives a "price" for the digital equipment.

    Something important to consider is that businesses LEASE their equipment. Also, consider that the standard "old fashioned" equipment will run between $30,000 to $50,000 per screen (for a platter system, scope lenses, etc.) and THAT stuff is usually leased also. Sure, any theatre that is currently in busniess has sunk costs on that stuff, but the digital isn't *astronomically* more expensive.

  • the site contains a white paper describing the technology in full (goes into much more detail than the thing article), as well as Ebert's testimony to the visual impact of Maxivision.

    www.maxivision48.com [maxivision48.com]
  • I have seen Minority Report on one of these digital theaters in Westwood, CA. All I can say about it is negative:

    - color resultion: really really suck. It appears they use 4-4-3 bits for RGB or something equally inferior. Openeing scene had very visible banding instead of smooth gradients. While this could be dithered, it was not, probably because of compression requirements. It truly sucked, or have I already said that.

    - pixel resolution: is OK, but the black space between pixels is visible. That makes the pixels visible, and that sucks. They need a better LCD panel.

    Changes they have to make before I consider digital is:

    a) higher color fidelity
    b) possibly higher resolution (1.5x - 2x horiz. and vert. too)
    c) dead space elimination between pixels
    d) less agressive compression (ie. bigger storage)
  • It's almost there, but not quite.
    • Resolution needs to get up to 35mm film levels, which are somewhere around 3K by 6K on a good day. 70mm levels (4x that) would be even better. Current "digital cinema" is actually less than HDTV resolution, although the compression is much less so it looks better.
    • Digital cameras need to be better. Right now, you have to use 3-imager CCD cameras to avoid those dumb artifacts that come from all three colors not coming from exactly the same place. The Foveon imager should fix this. (One effect of this is that black and white line patterns stay black and white, without color fringing. There are lots of "video no-nos" that film doesn't have.)
    • Frame rates need to go up. 72FPS digital would be a big improvement, and it's not out of reach. The Showscan experiments indicate that somewhere in the range of 60-100FPS, humans max out and can't detect higher frame rates. So that's the goal. A generation raised on 75FPS video games sees 24FPS film as choppy.
    • Better data storage is needed for distribution. Those 1TB optical disks discussed yesterday on Slashdot are a possibility. Right now, a digital movie is delivered as a truckload of hard drives. (Can't compress much. Compression artifacts look awful on the big screen.)
    • Projectors still cost way too much. $150K is insane. Theater owners will listen when it gets down to $25K or so. Which it should. The big problem now is that the quantities sold to theaters are so tiny that they're uninteresting to companies like TI, who build those micromirror display devices.
    • The whole production chain needs to be upgraded for these bigger images. That's expensive, but there's no technical obstacle.
    The current sub-HDTV digital theater technology just isn't worth deploying. It's nice to get rid of film dirt and pulldown jitter, but not worth it.

    When this is all done, though, high-quality digital movies won't cost any more to make than current 35mm productions, and will probably become cheaper over time. But it's a few years away.

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