Irish cinema set to go completely digital within a year

[miker]

yep, compression is used and at 80Mbps I would still assume monster hardware is required (DVD is typically 4 - 8 Mbps)

artefacting is not as prevelant as it used to be, it only really appears if you don't target enough bandwidth (like when I watch cable TV -- I've never noticed artefacting on a modern DVD movie though, or while using miniDV for example).

JPEG2000 uses Wavelet compression which is apparently more efficient still, but due to floating point type calculations needs decent hardware to decompress realtime.

One day I'm sure lossy compression will no longer be required, but when you consider the bandwidth required for a single frame of cinema quality imagery at a minimum of 32bits per pixel ....

[Bnew]

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the vast majority of people just won't notice a difference in image quality. It will be interesting to see though whether the same old Hollywood schlock gets played, or whether independent films get a bigger audience. The digital screen network that the UK Film Council is setting up sounds promising for that reason, although it is not an attempt to replace 35mm projection, well, not until the technology improves to match that of 35mm projection.

@Nigel: how will that make any difference from the current situation, where many of the biggest films are telecine'd and those that aren't have their screeners ripped? Sure they'd have slightly better pirate copies out there without the dust and scratches, or without the 'promotional copy only' message, but really, in this day and age ALL films which have wide releases are pirated, digital projection might make it easier, but it will make no real-world difference, it is easy enough anyways. Many many people are completely happy watching films recorded from the cinema with a video camera even (telesyncs / cams), if people don't want to go to the cinema to watch the film, they won't go no matter what. If piracy of all cinema releases was stopped those people would just wait a few months for the DVD to be pirated.

@Miker:, IMAX isn't digitally projected, I think what they're saying is that 2k projection will give 'acceptable' (i.e. don't wait for 4k, install our systems right now!) results for everything except 70mm and IMAX films.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 21, 2005 08:07 AM: Message edited by: Bnew ]</font>

[Nigel]

The viewr may not notice the difference because they don't have anything to compare it too. Side by side.

I would be curious to see how little color space they will be using for the projection. Since it is color space that makes an image look better. Compare MPEG-2 DVDs to even DVCam and you will see that DVDs just don't hold up. It is similar with the whole new HDV cameras. They use MPEG-2 and they look like shit.

Alex, either interact like a rational and reasonable person or just don't chime in. There was nopthing misleading about the thread and it is far from filled with misinformation.

Good Luck

[Andy.tom]

You could easily hold a higher resolution film on a blu-ray disc (Sony's replacement for DVDs) which have about 10x the storage capacity of current DVDs

[peter_g]

That's not true, Andytom. A dual layered blu ray disk can only store 54GB (A DVD-9 can store approximately 9 GB) and is intended to be viewed on a domestic HDTV, not a professional projection system. It would be a terrible mistake on the cinemas part if they were to use technology that will be rivalled by what will be the de facto domestic standard five or ten years down the road.

It occurred to me that a lot of projectionists are going to get fired as a result of all of this. Being a 35mm projectionist is, I understand, a fairly specialised job. Judging from the Avica website, anyone who knows how to use a CD player will be able to work as a projectionist now.

[jb_617]

Originally posted by Peter_G:
It occurred to me that a lot of projectionists are going to get fired as a result of all of this. Being a 35mm projectionist is, I understand, a fairly specialised job. Judging from the Avica website, anyone who knows how to use a CD player will be able to work as a projectionist now.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's a really good point, Peter. Yet another example of how the "Digital Revoloution" (whatever that means) is continuing to cost skilled people their jobs. More faceless corporations, making cheaper crap, that drags the standards down just a little more every time.


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You know, every time someone says "Digital Projection", a Swan dies.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Bnew:
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the vast majority of people just won't notice a difference in image quality. It will be interesting to see though whether the same old Hollywood schlock gets played, or whether independent films get a bigger audience.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Perhaps more than a digital versus film issue, what this is really about is a "live, entertainment" issue versus storytelling.

Once the digital projectors are in place, there may be pressure from the big corporate conglomerates to beam live concerts and shows from other parts of the world to theatres all over the world.

Can't go see Madonna in Rio, go to your local HD Digital projection theatre and see it there. Many may love to have the opportunity to see live TV from elsewhere bigger than life, but should those venues replace or infiltrate movie theatres, or should they just build their own venues and simply be another option for the moviegoer?

In many ways, the bigger issue of the instant popularity of "reality" live TV versus classic storytelling may be at the root of theatre owners reluctance to switch from film to satellite projection.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Peter_G:
Alex, I think that in pursuing a personal vendetta against me...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You're not the first one to make an irresponsible topic title that spreads misinformation. Virtually everyone who reads the topic title you created for this thread will assume that film has been vacated as an acquistion format in Ireland.

I'll assume you didn't mean to make your topic title sound that way, but you also haven't gone back and modified it, either.

[MatJimMood]

Originally posted by Alex:

You're not the first one to make an irresponsible topic title that spreads misinformation. Virtually everyone who reads the topic title you created for this thread will assume that film has been vacated as an acquistion format in Ireland.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">How can a topic title spread misinformation? People look at the topic title and then read the post for the information.

There's nothing misleading or even ambiguous in Peter_G's post.

[jb_617]

Originally posted by Alex:
In many ways, the bigger issue of the instant popularity of "reality" live TV versus classic storytelling may be at the root of theatre owners reluctance to switch from film to satellite projection.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't see it like that. I mean, do theatre owners really care about the quality of the film they're showing? It's a business, they'll just show whatever gets bums on seats, and then try to expand said bums with popcorn and sugary drinks. All in the name of the almighty profit.

This thread is really about the picture quality and I think that digital projection will give an excellent and stable picture for the customer. The trouble at the moment is that there is very little investment being made in 35mm projection by theatre owners and so the picture quality suffers.

Coming back to the reality TV thing. What? People go to the cinema to watch films, that's what they're there for. That's why people have TV's in their houses, so they can watch TV there. Also, concerts are already broadcast around the world as a live transmission. Here in the UK, a lot of football (that's real football, not the American thing) stadiums are regularly used to show concerts and other things. What kind of a person wants to see a gig whilst sitting in an armchair? I doubt that it will happen. Those kind of freaks can sit at home and watch it on the internet and stop sucking up tickets that the rest of us want to buy.


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Does nobody find it ironic that "Digital Underground" used analogue recording techniques?