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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Digital Projection - YUK!!!

Video never looked better !!!

In 2006 I had the pleasure of Engineering the workflow for “Dale” The Dale Earnhardt Story.
It’s a long involved story.. Here’s the Cliff notes........

The documentary was comprised of old analog footage,( beta SP) and recent interviews shot with a Sony F900 HDCam and VariCam.
We used the Snell & Wilcox Alchemist to up-convert the Beta SP footage and used a 1:1 configuration for all native HD footage. The final Avid out-put was to Sony SRW.
The Movie Premiere was in Charlotte N.C. in October of 2006 at Ovens Auditorium with seating for over 2,400.
We used a New Christie projector and the Sony SRW-5500 with a HD-SDI output and the Picture was out standing!

Most Digital theaters use a Non-Linear playback system that is Mpeg 2, so the master may be great, the projector may be great, but the media transfer and in-house playback system is still in need of an upgrade.
Note that Mark Cuban, (HDNet & Landmark Theaters), announced the purchase of 25 Sony SXRD 4K projectors for his theaters..others will follow. A REDONE and 4K projector with Mpeg 4 is a fantastic combination, and you will be hard pressed to see the difference from a 35 MM film. The bottom line for most Studios and theaters is in fact the bottom line, Digital Cinema offers savings at every turn, so it’s here and that's why I purchased Two REDONE’S.
 
nzben said:
This BTW has all happened since Rialto got brought out by one of the major cinema chains.
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How fabulous our government let the casinos into our country and the organised crime that comes with them, eh? It's just all one big knock-on effect.

For those not in the know, the SkyCity Cinema "Chain" was bought with money from gambling and other people's dispair and pee-soaked carpets along the way.

To be honest, I don't think I had even linked those two ideas together. My local cinema is one of these, it has nice seats and it is very conveniently located near my office. But I don't know if I want to give my money to these crooked people now I think it through.

Unfortunately if you trace just about all incorporated commerce it all leads back to some kind of murder or exploitation. Or maybe I have just watched too many episodes of Deadwood.
 
thornben said:
How fabulous our government let the casinos into our country and the organised crime that comes with them, eh? It's just all one big knock-on effect.

For those not in the know, the SkyCity Cinema "Chain" was bought with money from gambling and other people's dispair and pee-soaked carpets along the way.

To be honest, I don't think I had even linked those two ideas together. My local cinema is one of these, it has nice seats and it is very conveniently located near my office. But I don't know if I want to give my money to these crooked people now I think it through.

Unfortunately if you trace just about all incorporated commerce it all leads back to some kind of murder or exploitation. Or maybe I have just watched too many episodes of Deadwood.
Click to expand...

Initial accumulation of capital - In most cases there's something ugly in the beginning...
 
The biggest theater in Helsinki installed a Barco system as a test in one of their biggest cinemas. I went to see a Finnish film "The Year of the Wolf" there, originated on 35mm film, and it looked incredible. My friends didn't know it was digital projection (I did) and even they noticed it, and afterwards asked me "Why did it look so good?"

Flip side of the coin; in the very same theater I went to see Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" on 35mm film. It looked crappy as hell, having been run for several months.

Digital Cinema rocks, but not everything that's called Digital Cinema really is Digital Cinema :)
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I had the opposite reaction recently -- saw "National Treasure 2" and part of "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" (the second movie was shot on the Panavision Genesis so I snuck in to see ten minutes)
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I'm ashamed to admit it, but I took my girlfriend to see Walk Hard, it was a definitely 35mm projection but it never even crossed my mind that it was Genesis origination.

I'm not ashamed I went to that movie though. John C. Reily is great and Tim Meadows gets me every time.

(looking back though the picture quality was pretty meh. I just chalked it up to the type of movie.)

IBloom
 
Jaime Vallés said:
I have to say, watching digital projection at the Zigfield theater in NYC is my favorite. When I saw Mission: Impossible III projected digitally (2K, I think), I was completely blown away by the amazing quality. Crystal clear, sharp, great colors, perfect focus,.
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The focus of this film is all over the place. When I watched it on 2K DLP it was very obvious that many shots had focus issues, especially close ups with, for example, most of the face out of focus but the tip of the nose or an ear in focus. :blink:
 
Cinewalt said:
I nearly walked out of Last Samurai at the Fox in Westwood because I could see individual pixels on the screen. That was 2K. On the other hand, I saw Santa Sangre projected off a normal DVD via a 4K projector at the Nuart and it looked like film..
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DVD does not look like film. Due to lack of resolution you might see no pixels in the blurry images of some DVDs (no aliasing present), but lack of pixels is merely one of many aspects of the film look. Show me a DVD with no compression issues, no visible sharpening and no unclean digital edges, no DNR issues, no poor color resolution, grain that looks like real grain, no harsh highlights... It's technically not feasible. Everything that makes HD look different from film makes DVD do so all the more.
 
show me a film print in in the US that hasn't been scratched by the 15 year old running the projection booth. I've seen opening night movies that were scratched!. Just give digital some time- it will get much better
 
miha said:
The focus of this film is all over the place. When I watched it on 2K DLP it was very obvious that many shots had focus issues, especially close ups with, for example, most of the face out of focus but the tip of the nose or an ear in focus. :blink:
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Sorry, I should have clarified. I was referring to the focus of the projector, not to the work of the focus puller on the M:I-3 set. :biggrin: Yes, that movie does have a few focusing issues, as do many others. I was just happy that, in the theater, the projector was perfectly focused on screen, which is more than I can say for the usual film projections at the local cineplex.

If anything, the perfectly focused digital projection highlights any focus puller errors in a movie! But I'd still rather see those few focus drifts in a digital screen than watch the whole movie be soft and scratchy in a film projection.
 
miha said:
DVD does not look like film.
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I'm not saying "DVD looks like film." How dare you.

My point was that this particular film, when projected from a DVD, looked more like film on a 4K projector than Last Samurai, which was being projected from higher rez source material via an inferior projector. All of the artifacty stuff you refer to was not readily apparent on the screen, whereas the Last Samurai specifically looked like watching a DVD.
 
No, I didn't.

If I wanted to say that, I would have. I don't believe it to be true, and didn't when I wrote that. I apologize if my point still isn't clear, but here goes again:

I had the subjective experience of viewing a DVD in a certain manner in which it would pass for film to my eye and to the eyes of most people. Most would, indeed, say "It looked like film." There may be caveats, but the phrase "it looked like film" would generally be considered accurate. THE SPECIFIC.

On the other hand, the objective statement "DVD looks like film" is a ridiculous thing to say, it negates everything that is known about video compression and film. THE BROAD.
 
nzben said:
The other day, for the first time I walked out of a cinema showing a film I actually wanted to see. It was also the first time I had been to a film screened in a "digital" cinema.

I hope that the problem was with the cinema I went to, and this is not what is in store for the movie going experience. I was really aware I was seeing a video projection within a few seconds of the picture starting (I didn't know that it was a digital screening beforehand). It was especially distracting on the subtitles, but also made film shot on 35mm look like it was on digibeta.

Apparently the projector was HD (2K). The resolution was fine, its just looked like nasty video, very domestic. The projector was a panasonic PTD550E, installed by ATLAB. Here is the link that shows the specs:

http://www.rialto.co.nz/vistait/village/Default.aspx?Control=Sessions&CinemaID=R08

It's a nice bit of propaganda about how bad 35mm projection is.

In comparison, I recently saw a film that was shot on sony 900, printed out to 35mm and projected on one of NZ'z biggest screens. I went specifically to see how it handled a big screen viewing. I was suprised how good it was. Although it looked like it had been shot on video, it had no obvious artifacting, pixelation, etc.

I also recently saw a screening of a dark (artistically) film that was shown on the biggest screen in the southern hemishpere, where the projector had the bulbs dimmed quite a bit, it looked fine - certainly better than the digital screening.

I really hope that digital projection is not this bad. And the ticket price was the same. I wouldn't bother in the future. If anyone is going to a screening of a film at the "Rialto" in Auckland, check if you are seeing a digital projection. If so, don't go!!! I can't believe a semi "arthouse" chain is doing this!! Very disapointing.
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I had the exact opposite experience a few days ago. Our theater has had Christie projectors for a while...so I am use to seeing that nice clear and crisp picture it produces. To my surprise...when our movie started I noticed extreme dirt and scratches on the opening previews and theater announcements. I was so confused for a few minutes before I realized this screen was using a film projector for some reason (I guess they had problems with the christie). That just reminded me of how much I like the clean and crisp digital projection. However, after seeing film again I do miss the "organic" feel it has that the digital just doesn't carry over, IMO...but I'll take clean and crisp any day.
 
Cinewalt said:
My point was that this particular film, when projected from a DVD, looked more like film on a 4K projector than Last Samurai, which was being projected from higher rez source material via an inferior projector. All of the artifacty stuff you refer to was not readily apparent on the screen, whereas the Last Samurai specifically looked like watching a DVD.
Click to expand...
Are you sure it was a DVD and not a Digibeta?
 
To come back to Blade Runner: Final Cut for a sec, - I saw this at the cinema the other night (Duke of Yorks in Brighton) in 2k, and I noticed that the lens flares from the flying vehicles looked spherical.

I thought they were meant to be wide since it was filmed with anamorphic lenses.

Anyone know why this is or am I not looking hard enough? Do any D Cinema projectors use anamorphic lenses to project, if not could this explain the spherical flares?
Like this - Shouldn't it be wider?
Bladerunner_tyrellbuilding.jpg
 
Also I've read the bluray has been released with 2.20:1 (Anamorphic)
aspect ratio. But I've also read its 2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen.

What was the OAR?
 
Projectors

Projectors

kosmos3d said:
there is a huge difference as has been said in the projectors that are made for home cinema and or large venue rental versus the cinema projectors. specifically, dlp originally licensed the cinema chips to only 3 oem manufacturers; BARCO, Christies and DPI. panasonic and others were not willing to pay the millions required to be "cinema projectors". .
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True, but this Panasonic projector isn't even designed to be a home theatre projector. Its a business / education product - hence XGA resolution. The average theatrical release movie projected on that would only use about 1024 x 440 pixels .... and as a business projector its only rated to have a 400:1 contrast ratio. No shame on Panasonic for that, its being used in an application it was never designed for.
 
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