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Feedback The HD decisions
were made without competent research, and pressure to meet federal standards
are unreasonable, especially in this period when
television budgets and standards are changing so radically, and so many
technical facilities and producers cannot afford to stay in business. Not until they bring the costs of the HD TV sets
down. The amount of users now barely registers, so why increase the demand? It may help improve the awareness and ease of access of HD content but not the demand – as the question states. HD demand will increase when people can get easy (low cost) access to display technology. A complete solution is needed starting with the display devices. Best bet [is] digital projectors in the sub $1,000 range. The price is about right, but you still need a screen and room for this “event device”. Best image [is] probably plasma or the DLP-RPTV’s
but they are big bucks and out of reach of the common Joe. And let’s
not forget the WAF (wife acceptance factor). If it’s too big (to
move or vacuum behind) they get to veto.
I
want to see the Super Bowl go HD. Last I heard they were still dragging
their feet. Having a nature documentary or some HD programs (that can
already be seen in regular-D) hidden away on a premium pay channel
is not my idea of a killer app.
Digital cinema faces several obstacles on the road to widespread implementation. In your opinion which one is the biggest obstacle? Improvements in projector technology Enduring Technologies I believe the greatest obstacle is the fact that cinema film projection is one of the most enduring technologies of modern science. For over a hundred years, 35mm cinema film projection has remained basically unchanged and universal throughout the world. The introduction of digital cinema provides a quantum change in every aspect of this hundred-year-old industry. From capture, to distribution, to theatre management and projection, everything changes. You're introducing new technological concepts such as digital, software, and firmware, all of which have a reputation for continual upgrades and improvements that create challenges such as compatibility with content formats, expertise in maintenance, cost and flexibility. Juxtapose these unprecedented variables against a projection systems that has proven its value and stability worldwide, with a known 50-year life span, and you begin to understand the confusion everyone in the industry faces. At Christie, we're addressing these issues by working
with our industry partners and the standards committee to help define
and establish cinema
technological standards and business models. Exhibitors and distributors
know that it's going to happen and they need to move forward with digital
projection. For now, until the world "goes totally digital," we
see the first step as helping exhibitors and the Hollywood community
feel confident that their Digital Cinema projection can coexist next
to their 35mm film projection system, and that they can conduct operations
seamlessly with either system.
Repeat after Me The greatest obstacle for digital
imaging technology right now is the absence of a quantifiable, repeatable
way to measure what we're doing.
Think of the elegant precision of Hazeltine printer lights on the film
side. Nothing like that exists in digital. When you're supervising a
telecine transfer, instead of saying "Make this two points bluer" or "Add
four points of density," you end up saying, "Give me more/less
of a spin on the tracking ball." What the hell does that mean? Also,
the lack of consistency in virtually every aspect of image creation,
post and delivery is appalling.
The Price of Popcorn? I think that number one obstacle
has got to be the cost to the theater owner of Alas, sometimes, I think that even if the costs
were even – film
projectors
Cinema Myths The biggest myth that is perpetuated
is that projectors are holding electronic cinema back. I have personally
demonstrated that existing projection
technology can look really good when used correctly. In regards to DLP
technology, the 1280 x 1024 chip is still the dominant format. I'll be
happy to use 2K projectors when they become commercially viable) and
looks as good today as it did two years ago. The main thing holding back
an accelerated deployment of these technologies is bad public relations.
Send out the Clones Ultimately, once distribution
chains are in place, the cost savings of an "all digital" pipeline
will outweigh most other considerations, especially with "wide" openings.
Imagine being able to open on 3,000 or even 6,000 screens without having
to make a single print?
And without having to make the dozens of duplicate negatives that making
that many prints currently require? Instead, a single master copy can
be used to make identical clones with no degradation from wear & tear.
A Standard Acceptance of a worldwide standard is
the biggest obstacle to d-cinema deployment.
Out of this World Most of the savings from the transition from physical celluloid film to a digital product come in the distribution process. So, from a business standpoint distribution is extremely important. When you talk about distribution today, you’re still talking about a truck rolling to an individual location. That comes with an incremental cost. Terrestrial and landline distribution adds cost, too. When you deploy a satellite network, you save money on your overall network given its flat rate pricing and given the fact that the more sites you add to the network the less it costs per downlink site. Satellite broadcasting of digitized movies would be done on a point to multipoint basis. Would you rather have a locked box to which a satellite signal is feeding a major studio release, or a DVD or a hard drive that you’re handing to a 17-year old? In terms of security, satellite wins hands down. With satellite you can be as secure as you want or need to be. One of the concerns that have been raised is that satellite, because it is broadcasting, puts the security of digital cinema at risk. In theory, anybody out there could be remotely listening to the satellite and hack into whatever files are being transferred. That’s a pretty weak argument because every bit of encryption that you can put on a terrestrial-based network can and is applied to satellite. Additionally, the barriers to hacking a satellite are much greater than if you were trying to hack a terrestrially based network. To hack a satellite network, you have to know which
satellite it’s
on, which transponder, which polarity, what encryption scheme is being
used in transport, what file encryption is being used, which conditional
access is being used and what the key rotation is. And [you have to]
have access to the keys which could change as frequently as every second.
If you had every bit of all of that information, you might be able to
download one-second’s worth of an encrypted file. One second. Given
all of the natural barriers to hacking that satellite provides it is
the most secure mechanism.
Our editorial in Issue #14 that praised the American Society of Cinematographers for its recent initiative to study digital technology as it applies to motion pictures prompted this response. With regard to your Big Picture column titled, "Applause For the ASC," I'm forced to take issue with your contention that the recent formation of the ASC Technology Committee is a notion that "must have certainly been resisted by many people within the Society’s own ranks." To the contrary, the majority of our membership has been clamoring for this type of action for quite some time. And contrary to belief in some corners, the argument over film technology versus digital technology has never been an issue for us. In keeping with our tradition, we at the ASC welcome any new tool that will help us do our jobs more effectively and creatively. If there's any doubt, I refer you to the history books. Since day one, cinematographers have been the prime force behind the demand for new technology within the industry. Our only caveat has been that innovations brought to market actually improve upon that which we already have. This ethic is especially relevant right now. Furthermore, when you state that "the ASC’s announcement should...legitimize the idea of using digital cameras as a viable alternative," you miss a very critical point. It's not the device that is the important thing, it's the thought process that finds a way to apply it. In a sense, it has always been viable to shoot with digital cameras, just as it has always been viable to use 65mm, 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, Super 8 and whatever other format camera you could possibly imagine. In any event, the script and cinematographer's artistic taste are what dictate the proper choice. And your remark about a film print "bearing little resemblence to the vision of the filmmakers" after more than ten screenings, well, what can I say? It does indeed happen, sometimes after even fewer passes through the projector. But don't think for a moment that digital projection will be problem-free, even in its most advanced state. One of the ASC Technology Committee's main goals is to insure that the standards being set in all areas of digital image creation, post and delivery will result in theatrical experiences superior in every way to the best of what we're able to see at the present time. "Thanks to this move by the ASC, now everyone
stands a better chance of getting the quality motion pictures they deserve." I couldn't have
said it better myself.
We do not believe that the Landmark deal constitutes the biggest "digital
cinema" installation, as your article suggests, because we do not
believe that the technology being installed constitutes "digital
cinema" at all. Please see my attached memorandum to our members.
Landmark's deal with Microsoft makes sense for them. It's for small independent
movies for small screens. But it's not digital cinema.
April 3, 2003 Today’s announcement by Microsoft and Landmark regarding the use of Windows Media Player 9 for the presentation of independent movies is significant. We congratulate Landmark and wish them all the best with their new system. But we want NATO members to understand the differences between this system, and the digital cinema systems that will be designed consistent with specifications being developed by Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) with NATO’s input, and the standards for digital cinema being developed by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). In other words, this announcement does not reflect a roll out of “digital cinema” as DCI and NATO mean by that term. The announcement concerns smaller, independent films, projected on smaller screens. This announcement, along with the well-known efforts of Regal CineMedia, demonstrate that there are areas of business today where electronic distribution may make perfect sense, both in terms of business economics and in terms of quality. But the technology is very different from that being contemplated by DCI. When considering Microsoft's technology as a replacement for film, Windows Media Player 9 has shortcomings. The compression used is proprietary to Microsoft, meaning there can never be competitive suppliers of this technology. From a quality viewpoint, the best image resolution possible is 1280 x 720, resulting in a much lower pixel count than that of the 2K electronic images seen at ShoWest. In simpler terms, Windows Media Player 9 will display approximately 880,000 pixels for a 1.85 image, while the 2K systems, one of which was used for several movie presentations at ShoWest, will display just over 2.1 million pixels for the same 1.85 image. (These numbers quoted for non-anamorphic lenses.) The projectors for the Landmark installations also are very different than those the major studios intend to use for their motion pictures. The Microsoft installations use mid-range DLP projectors, which are designed for television-quality video, and do not have the expanded color space, the contrast ratio, or the brightness, of the “digital cinema” projectors. What this means in non-technical terms is that the images produced by these projectors are not a match for the technology targeted for digital cinema, and for that matter, not a match for film. None of this is to say that Landmark has made a poor choice. For the application to which they have targeted this technology, we expect they have chosen well. But does this mean that the digital cinema revolution has begun? Absolutely not.
Our editorial in Digital Cinema Report Issue #4 posed the question, “Is HD Already the Digital Cinema Standard?” People in the production community responded with an overwhelming yes. But there were some that disagreed. To see the NO responses, CLICK HERE.
HD Digital Cinema does
offer one huge advantage over film. I can go see a movie in a Digital
Cinema that is 2 weeks old (or older) and watch
a pristine picture, free of scratches, pops and other garbage. That's
an experience I truly enjoy!
Michael Karagosian says it will be a decade before
they will have a market-ready electronic system capable of the color
space that can be considered acceptable for the studios and theatre owners
to be satisfied. I say, "I'm not a patient man".
It seems that everyone who is expressing a negative
opinion about the acceptability of the HD standard is biased in that
direction. Home theater systems are becoming more common, are getting
less and less expensive to construct especially when compared to the
cost of movie theater tickets for a family, and provide a better quality
picture and audio than many commercial movie theaters still operating
with older projection systems in rural America. Do people really want an even higher quality standard? At what cost?
Most people are still watching NTSC video. Everyone needs to put themselves
in the public's shoes and decide, are we creating new standards and technology
because we can or because it is desired by the viewing audience?
HD should be the minimum digital cinema
standard in a hierarchy of various technical capabilities....the main
reason is cost and proximity to implementation. According to the president
of NHK, a 4k standard is 20 years away with a cost structure end-to-end
that is unknown but is likely to be far more expensive to adopt.
Consumer HD is not only not good enough for the long term, it is not
good enough for the short term. The consumer video color space and dynamic
range is limited compared to what we experience in the movie theatre
with film. DLP Cinema projectors have an expanded color space, greater
than consumer (but still less than film), which is why Hollywood will
show movies on no less today. Newer technologies are in the lab which
are capable of the full film color space, but it could be a decade before
we see such devices on the market and affordable. DC28 is working on
standards that will address the full color space, and there are companies
whose expertise in color space mapping will find a market in digital
cinema to bring uniformity to the pictures produced by the various projector
technologies.
The ability of HDTV pixel sampling to resolve the
amount light information of detail contained in current emulsions is
far from sufficent resulting in a definite quality loss. This is especially
critical in the production of films but has implications for projection
too.
I basically concur with the previous comments by others that the theater
experience should be something better than could be available at home,
higher resolution, better sound, more of a special environment / experience.
Although many of the cinema grade products look very good they still
have a long way to go to meet the smooth image, color depth and contrast
depth available with film. Basically any standard where a finite number
of resolution lines or pixelization is discernable in the image is unacceptable,
in my opinion, for the cinema experience.
“Digital cinema is becoming a real market,
one that deserves the kind of coverage that a seasoned pro like Nick Dager
can give it, and delivering the news and insights digitally is a good
match. If his subsequent issues can match the breadth and depth of his
premiere one, it will be a ‘must read’ for movers and shakers
across a broad range of hardware manufacturers, content producers, advertising
folks, and others.”
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