The Inevitability of Digital Cinema
by David Barda, August 2002
‘The unspoken, but insistent, assumption of all the digital hype is that ‘it all looks the same,’ and that audiences can’t tell the difference. In fact, the aesthetic issues of digital production and protection versus celluloid are far from being resolved. Over the past twenty years I have attended a number of ‘demonstrations’ of digital video technology. Often the video images produced are of outstanding quality. But in spite of all the speeches, the brochures, the white wine and the canapes, I have never seen a video projection, analogue or digital, which looked like projected film.’ - Alex Cox (Sid & Nancy, Repo Man) in The Guardian, May 27, 2002
If you were a cynic, you might suspect that digital cinema was just a marketing ploy, a way to sell more expensive TV sets. But in fact the march of digitisation has spread to virtually every area of the film industry, promising and delivering speed, flexibility, cost savings, and outdating many specialist skills along the way.
And while digital does not necessarily mean better quality, in recent years it has nonetheless been able to deliver images at least comparable in quality to film - which has been enough to ensure that digitisation will eventually reach the projection rooms of theatres.
In fact, only last year, George Lucas was threatening that his Attack of the Clones would be restricted to cinemas with digital projection. But as less than one hundred cinemas around the world actually have the technology, the plan was quietly shelved.
Nevertheless, even purists now acknowledge the inevitability of digital cinema. Why else would film giant Kodak be one of the leaders in the development of such systems? But whether they can act as a driving force, as opposed to a controlling force, remains to be seen.
Digital Projection
So far, a significant driving force behind digital cinema has been the projector manufacturers. In particular, both JVC and Texas Instruments have developed microelectronic technologies that improve the resolution, contrast, and brightness of digital projection and - for large venues such as cinemas - offer significant advances over CRT and LCD technologies.
Currently JVC are licensing their D-ILA technology to both Kodak and Sony, who intend using it in their own digital cinema projectors. Kodak’s digital projector (to be demonstrated in Australia in 2003) will be able to accept high resolution 2K inputs, and will also embed Kodak’s colour management technology. And while other projector manufacturers are claiming equivalent quality to film, Greg McKibbin, Regional Business General Manager for Asia and Japan, believes that what Kodak is developing will be ‘better than film.’
Texas Industries, together with licensees Barco and Christies, have already equipped almost one hundred cinemas with projectors using their ‘Black Chip’ DLP chips. Meanwhile, both Panasonic and Sharp are selling projectors using earlier versions of the DLP technology. Nonetheless, 100 cinemas represents less than 0.1% of screens worldwide.
Digital projection works best with digital source material. Unsurprisingly, proponents of digital cinema have taken advantage of newly released digitally-created flicks. At the recent International Electronic Cinema festival held in Portland, Oregon, a large Texas Instrument DLP projector was used throughout the festival. ‘The hands-down favourite was Toy Story II, a ‘film’ without film. This computer generated production was shown from a strike-off from the digital master. Professionals in attendance could not stop praising the startlingly new feel it had,’ says Dale Cripps of
www.ilovehdtv.com.
So why is an advocate of HDTV singing the praises of digital cinema? Probably because digital cinema might provide content to fuel the wider acceptance of HDTVs.
Standards and Formats
‘The projector end is not where the trouble is. The real trouble is with the high definition video servers where there are a multiplicity of high definition formats each with specific aspect ratios and colour space parameters.’ - Peter Williams, Manager of Atlab Image and Sound Technology.
A motion picture is first shot (or animated), then post produced, distributed, and finally exhibited. At each stage, images and sound are processed into formats that will be used by the next step in the chain. Eventually the motion picture appears on the screen.
The formats used at each stage of the journey must be standardised if they are to be taken up by the industry as a whole. At 111 years of age, 35mm is among the most venerable technical standards still in use. And while digital cinema offers unique benefits, it does require the industry to agree to certain standards in order to support the fast, secure, cost effective communication and processing of high quality images. (They must also provide an upgrade path from the old standards.)
As things stand, these formats are being decided by a series of corporate strategy meetings, working groups, and committees around the world. Meanwhile, on the ground, the mastering format in predominant use for the digital mastering of films is Panasonic’s High Definition D5 format.
Security and Piracy
Digital media and communication networks make it easy to transport and deliver films. Distributors are therefore concerned that it will enable bootleggers to move more freely. This concern could be allayed if a secure protocol was in place to ensure files could only be decrypted by those with the necessary permissions.
The technology involved is ‘public key’ encryption, which requires a security code to be supplied both by the exhibitor and the distributor. These keys can be time sensitive, and control information can be embedded in the files to monitor or limit the number of screenings of a film. However, if such control information is put into distribution copies, will distributors start asserting even more control over exhibitors? Well, as is so often the case with new technologies, no one really knows.
The Red Carpet Rolls out in Post Production Houses
But where is the digital cinema we were promised? Is everyone really just waiting around for a set of standards to be agreed on? Actually, a number of post production facilities already have the equipment in place to post produce in high definition formats for cinema exhibition - or for High Definition TV - and these facilities are starting to provide quality digital content in a format that exhibitors can run with.
The post production equipment list starts with the expensive HD Telecine, and includes decks and disks to store the information, computers and software for editing and effects, cabling to connect the system, and monitors and projectors to preview the product before it is finally released.
Some post houses are investing in digital projection facilities that allow them to cheaply, quickly, and accurately preview a film at every stage of post production. (Imagine the cost savings on post production when dailies can be viewed immediately or when work-prints are no longer need to be struck to check an image!) Indeed, BEEPS on the Gold Coast have invested more than $150,000 on a JVC XXXX, using D-ILA technology. They also spent $10,000 on a high quality screen. As a result, films shot at Warner Bros Movieworld can take advantage of their cost-effective previewing at various stages in the production process, including the dailies.
In Sydney, Peter Whitemore of Winning Post has installed a Barco CRT Cine9 projector. According to Whitemore, the newer DLP and and D-ILA technologies are only required in larger auditoriums, where you don't have much control over the ambient light. Surprisingly, the CRT technology provides better resolutions and contrast ratios than other offerings.
Effects company Fuel, who recently did the titles and effects shots on Dirty Deeds, share Winning Post’s facilities. The projector was used to preview digital temps before shooting back to film. Fuel’s post production supervisor on Dirty Deeds, Paul Butterworth says, ‘Shots were prepared and saved on video servers which fed the digital component directly into the projector in the next room. We could adjust shots and preview them on the fly, meaning we were able to cut down the number of times we went back to film. It was an incredibly cost effective and interactive of preparing the effects shots.’ Geoffrey Hall, the cinematographer on Dirty Deeds was similarly impressed. ‘Judging off a computer monitor is hopeless, seeing it projected gives you a much a better idea... and the relationship between what I saw at Fuel and what was printed was very, very good. You still need to do a film colour grade at the end, but you’d have to do that even you were using work prints.’
With the decision to shoot Attack of the Clones digitally, digital projectors played an important role in the production of the movie. Lucasfilm brought a Christie projector to Australia for reviewing daily footage. In the final post production phase at Industrial Light & Magic, the filmmakers used a Christie Digital Cinema projector for the editing and mastering.
Xavier Desdoigts of Animal Logic is more critical. ‘The colour calibration is the main issue. It’s not even an issue of the quality being better or worse, its more a question of it looking like film’. Which suggests that as long as movies continue to be projected on film, most people will continue regard film as the most reliable source for high quality exhibition.
By disk or by dish
How films are to be stored, and transported to the various projectors in a cinema complex, is also important. Any such system must include functions such as scheduling, and high speed decryption and encoding. It must also have massive storage capacity (an uncompressed feature film can require up to 1500 Gigabytes), and be able to output data at high speed. Optimally, it will also be simple enough to be operated by the teenaged projection staff employed by many multiplexes. Hardware for these systems is being developed by Avica, GrassValley, Sun Microsystems, and IBM, etc. - and unsurprisingly, much of it can also be used for the capture and post production of high quality digital video.
The current leads in the development of systems for cinemas and post-production, Kodak’s Digital Cinema Operating System is a custom software solution that supports loading, scheduling, control and playback of features, trailers, and pre-show content on multiple digital cinema screens. Decryption keys downloaded from the studio will allow features to be played back on digital projectors. The system also controls such automated theatre operations as lighting and sound.
At the moment, it seems likely films will either be distributed as downloads, via satellite, or as a series of DVDs. US aerospace company Boeing, which is positioning itself as a major player in the area of satellite delivery, recently took part in US and UK trial downloads of Attack of the Clones into selected cinemas for digital projection.
Block buster technology hits cinemas
What impact will digital projection have on exhibition? Of immediate concern to cinemas is the question of who will meet the expenses associated with buying, installing, maintaining, and upgrading the new machines. The projectors and related infrastructure are relatively new, and many cinema operators are sceptical about investing in a an unproven technology. What’s more, very little product in digital format is being offered by distributors.
It has been suggested that if distributors or producers were able to offer digital prints at a lower price to cinemas, this might make it worth their while to make an investment estimated at between $300,000 and $500,000. However, without a regular supply of top quality content, it would be extremely risky. Furthermore, if studios or distributors were to subsidise the cost of these projectors, what would they demand in return?
Exhibitors would, of course, benefit from the improved reliability of prints that did not degrade with time, and were free of dust, scratches, and gate jitter. Digitally produced pictures will certainly look better, and exhibitors should gain considerable flexibility in programming - successful films could be screened simultaneously on many screens. Smaller cinemas would not have to wait to get copies of a film, and indeed, all cinemas could synchronise their screeenings with national publicity campaigns. Country operators would make significant savings on shipping fees. There might even be savings in the costs associated with running projectors and preparing and checking prints - although digital projectors and servers will certainly require highly qualified (and expensive) technicians to service and maintain them. According to Alex Cox, ‘Someone must be responsible for maintaining and monitoring the sound system and the projectors. And digital projectors (with three lenses per unit) are more apt to go kerflooey than 35mm ones.’
Potentially, digital projection can help cinema owner maximise advertising revenue by bringing in smaller advertisers who cannot afford the current costs of film production. Similarly, larger advertisers will be able to afford wider and more focused campaigns. Val Morgan have already installed more than 60 Panasonic DLP projectors in cinemas around Australia. These project animated ads created in Macromedia Director, an improvement on slide-based advertising. While Val Morgan hopes that cinemas will eventually purchase the projector themselves, it appears that special arrangements are being made with individual cinema owners to assist them with the purchase. (It should be noted that these projectors are not yet able to project high quality cinema advertising and trailers in digital format.)
Unfortunately, these initial tentative steps to introduce digital projection provide few of the wider benefits promised by more integrated digital projection installations. According to Mark Sarfaty, Head of Dendy Cinemas, ‘Digital projection will be better for high end digitally produced wide release studio pix... but all the advantages are to the producer and the distributor. Even if it is as good as film, there needs to be a bigger benefit to the exhibitor.’
Alternative Uses and Alternative Content
‘What will people see at the local Megaplex after the revolution? My guess is that choices will include attractions such as Monday Night Football, the Home Shopping Network Supersale, the last episode of Seinfeld, Britney Spears with the Rolling Stones at the Hollywood Bowl, The Western Hemisphere Championship Wrestling Finals, Prince William’s wedding, The Three Tenors Do MTV’s Spring Break, etc. – and, oh yeah, the movie of the week.’ – Geoffrey Cheshire, New York Post, ‘The Death of Film, The Decay of Cinema’
The long term strategic benefits of digital cinema to exhibitors lie particularly in alternative content and alternative uses. Early trials in France and the US indicate that the biggest audience pullers for ‘alternative content’ have been live broadcasts of sports events and rebroadcasts of Broadway shows. Of course, this would require broadcasters to shoot the events in high definition, but according to Jason Byron of Sports Recording services, ‘The broadcasters are unlikely to capture sports events in high definition until the cost of cameras come down, or until the broadcasters are required to broadcast in High Definition (which under the current legislation will be 2008).’
‘Alternative use’ involves using cinema downtime for such things as seminars and product launches. Potentially, cinemas may end up direct competing with conference venues, schools, museums, libraries, galleries, pubs, town halls, etc. However, the introduction of high quality digital projection could also see these venues screening feature films themselves. And they would not need to set up the dedicated projection rooms and parallel infrastructures required to support both film and video. They might also be able to pass on these savings to consumers offering them cheaper tickets, or even free tickets with a meal and a drink. It is this threat that may force cinemas to invest in the new equipment and lock in the distributors before the new operators beat them to the punch.
Smaller cinema operators could find themselves in conflict with larger chains as well as with ‘alternate’ operators. Says Mark Sarfaty, ‘It is possible that only the major players could afford to upgrade their cinemas to digital. This could, in fact, consolidate the domination of the market by the major exhibition chains.’
Distribution Reels!
If every one of the 39,000 screens in the US were to convert to digital, US distributors would save a projected AUD$1.5 billion in film print production, insurance, and freight. In Australia, distributors would save more than AUD$55 million. Distributors would also earn more as exhibitors maximised the return on each picture with more flexible programming arrangements. Also, worldwide marketing campaigns could be synchronised by transmitting encrypted films via satellite, or on DVD. So why aren’t distributors pushing more actively for the introduction of digital cinema?
Initially, distributors were concerned with ensuring a universal distribution format. Then they were worried about piracy. Now that these issues are being worked through, they are beginning to wonder if distribution will soon become so easy that they won’t be needed at all. If all releases are simultaneous, then cinema owner will be able to order films direct from the studios or the producers. The only job left for distributors will be to coordinate local publicity and advertising... and the studios or exhibitors may prefer to subcontract this out on a flat fee basis.
When? How? Who?
‘No one is big enough to do it alone without the cooperation of the others.’ - Peter Williams, Manager of Atlab Image and Sound Technology
So who is going to move first? Who will put their hands in their pockets and help with the conversion to digital projection or digital distribution? How will it happen, and according to what schedule? And, crucially, what is the right business model?
Distributors and exhibitors are all tight lipped. Most producers and studios have very little idea about the cinema business, and the projection and technology companies have a very clear agenda of their own, namely, to sell their products for as much money in as many places as quickly as possible.
Probably the single most serious major player is Kodak, who currently controls 90% of the motion picture film market around the world, and who have the most to lose from the success of digital cinema.
Gary Bouchard, Business Development Manager, Kodak Digital Cinema Services, says ‘For long-term acceptance, digital cinema must make technical, creative, financial, and operational sense - which means it must meet the needs and expectations of all those involved in creating, showing, and enjoying content in the cinema. We need to start with image quality standards that are higher than high-definition television, and continue to push those standards higher. We need to protect against piracy and technological obsolescence. We need to make it easy for customers to get involved in digital cinema with systems they find intuitive, with options that minimize their fear of technological obsolescence or the need to make capital investments. We need to offer solutions that customers buy into, because they offer opportunities to increase revenue and control costs. This is a complicated, interrelated business... and solutions need to work for everyone, or they won't work at all.’
Concerning the prospective business model, he notes, ‘A typical print costs, on average, about $350 a week. To break even, digital distribution services would have to cost less than that - and we believe they can. We have formed a special unit, called Kodak Digital Cinema Services, which will offer a variety of services. We will sell, rent, or lease components and systems. We may provide a la carte services. We'll also offer full agreements that include installation, calibration, training, maintenance, and support of systems. For content distribution, Kodak Digital Cinema Services will work with studios and other suppliers to prepare and deliver content, compressed and encrypted, on DVDs initially, but eventually via satellite or other networks. During the next three to four years, we anticipate that there could be as many as six to seven thousand screens worldwide offering digital projection. That would provide an initial critical mass for first-run movies.
While Kodak’s public involvement in this area is quite new, their competency in image technology, their relationships with all the key players, the credibility of their position in the industry - and the fact that they have the most to lose if digital cinema succeeds - will see many looking to follow Kodak’s lead in this new and precariously uncharted area.