Digital Cinema Projectors - Nigerian Movies & Nollywood on Naijarules.com

vince · #1 (**permalink**) 03-01-2004, 08:46 AM

vince · #2 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:00 AM

CP SERIES

DCP-H

http://www.christiedigital.com/Produ...o=38-DCP004-01

vince · #3 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:02 AM

Christie CP2000 Becomes First 2K DLP Cinema Projector Installed in a Commercial Theater in North America

Press Release, Dec 18 2003

Digital Cinema Milestone Reached at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with Premier of “The Last Samurai”
CYPRESS, CA – Christie Digital Systems, Inc., a major provider of visual solutions for business, entertainment and media, announced that the Christie CP2000 high performance digital cinema projection system was recently installed at the world famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. Featuring Texas Instruments’ 2K resolution DLP Cinema technology, it represents the first 2K digital cinema projector to be installed at a commercial theatre in North America.

In true Hollywood fashion, the Christie CP2000 screened Tom Cruise’s sweeping cinematic saga, “The Last Samurai,” which was viewed by a star-studded audience that included Cruise himself.

“The vibrant and sharp theatrical digital images from Christie’s CP2000 far exceeded everyone’s expectations for image quality and brightness on one of the world’s largest cinema screens,” noted Craig Sholder, senior director, business development and cinema sales, Christie.

The Christie CP2000 series is part of Christie’s comprehensive line of digital cinema solutions and represents the next evolution in digital cinema exhibition. All projectors include features such as the Christie LampLOC (Automatic Lamp Alignment), Christie LiteLoc to ensure constant brightness on the screen, the Christie SSM (System Supervisor Module) for remote system diagnostics and monitoring via Ethernet, and Christie Touch Panel Controller (TPC), which provides system setup and control via Ethernet. Christie’s digital cinema projectors support SMPTE/ATSC high definition video formats.

At Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Christie’s field service engineering team installed the Christie CP2000 in parallel with the existing film projector and integrated the CP2000 digital cinema system.

“This installation is another great example of Christie’s ability to work closely with the cinema industry,” adds Sholder.

About Christie

Christie is a leader in visual solutions for business, entertainment and media used by world-class organizations for diverse applications. Christie is the world’s single source manufacturer of a variety of display technologies including 35mm film projectors, digital cinema projectors, DLP and LCD projectors, rear screen projection modules and cubes, wall display controllers, networking solutions and cutting edge technologies such as immersive 3D, virtual reality and simulation. With expertise in professional projection systems since 1979 and film projection dating back to 1929, Christie has over 50,000 projectors installed in over 50 countries around the world. For more information, visit www.christiedigital.com.

vince · #4 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:05 AM

http://www.dlp.com/Default.asp?bhcp=1#Scene_1

vince · #5 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:11 AM

Eastman Kodak Company

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Kodak Digital Cinema System Demonstrated at ShoWest
LAS VEGAS, March 4 -- Kodak unveiled an advanced prototype of its full digital cinema system during demonstrations here at the annual ShoWest Conference of distributors, exhibitors, and suppliers to the industry. The Kodak Digital Cinema system, which includes a high quality projector and flexible operating system, is designed to improve the cinema experience.

"Interest in digital cinema is growing," says Robert Mayson, general manager and vice president of Cinema Operations for Kodak's Entertainment Imaging division, "and we are poised to take a leadership role in this emerging market. We are committed not only to putting superior quality pictures on the screen, but to working with the industry to make sure our system makes creative, technical, operational, and business sense for everyone involved."

Kodak's marketing strategy involves the creation of a dedicated company unit, Kodak Digital Cinema Services. This new unit will offer various business plans to enable the industry to adopt digital systems with minimal risk or fear of obsolescence.

For cinemas, Kodak service agreements will include system components, installation, training, and support. For studios and other content suppliers, agreements will include all aspects of digital print delivery to theatres.

"The goal of Kodak Digital Cinema Services," says Mayson, "is to combine Kodak's long experience in the industry, our reputation for service, and our capability in imaging to bring digital cinema to the market in a way our customers expect of Kodak. We see ways to strengthen existing relationships, to complement current practices, to identify new sources of revenue. There are lots of potential benefits in this new system."

The company indicated it has no intention to 'seed the market'; instead it will provide a variety of affordable business plans in which those who share in the benefits also share in the investments. "We're offering solutions that will make sense for the long term," Mayson says.

As an entry point to digital cinema, Kodak is demonstrating its Digital Cinema Operating System (COS), which involves installation of a 'digital backbone' into cinemas. With a server and proprietary Kodak software, the COS will receive encrypted or unencrypted digital content via DVD's, satellites, or fiber optic network, store it safely and distribute it reliably and easily to projection screens.

As more ads, movies, trailers and other content are supplied in digital form, the COS will greatly facilitate the make-up of show reels in the cinema. The system can handle any number of screens in a multiplex and can also schedule and deliver trailers, digital art posters, advertising, and even public service announcements to monitors and flat panel screens in lobbies.

"The Kodak Digital Cinema Operating System will open up new sources of revenue for cinema operators," Mayson notes. "Used imaginatively, it can strengthen and extend the relationship that exists between distributors and exhibitors and provide ways for advertisers and others to extend the entertainment experience."

To show first-run movies, the Kodak Digital Cinema projector, which is part of the Kodak system, offers a major step forward in digital image quality. It incorporates Kodak Color Management software and other proprietary Kodak imaging technology, in a projector platform from JVC. The projector uses new JVC D-ILA three million pixel chips.

"The new JVC chip offers more than double the resolution currently available in digital cinema projectors," says Mayson. "When you combine that gain in resolution with our color management technology, we are coming a lot closer to our goal of matching the best film quality available on screens today."

The Kodak projector supports decryption keys, so the movie stays encrypted until it's shown. Other anti-piracy safeguards in the projector include invisible watermarking data that can be later extracted to show when and where the copies were made.

Mayson notes that a key to the successful adoption of digital cinema is a process called digital film mastering. "There are more than 100,000 screens showing movies on film and so digital projection will exist side-by-side with film projection for long into the future."

With digital film mastering, the entire movie is scanned once, giving the cinematographer more creative options to manipulate the images for all uses. And then the results are recorded back on film or any other media, all with the same look to preserve the filmmaker's vision.

"Digital film mastering is a creative solution that makes business sense," says Mayson. "It's the heart of digital cinema."

Kodak is currently testing its Cinema Operating System in a "real world" situation during dark hours at a Hollywood multiplex. The company expects to install its first complete Kodak Digital Cinema systems in early 2003.

Mayson notes there are still questions around standards, acceptable system costs, adoption rates, and industry support, but Kodak will help the industry find answers.

"We're involving the industry in the development of our technology, and in the business options we'll offer," he says. "Kodak Digital Cinema will evolve with the requirements of our customers. Those who know Kodak know that we are always advancing technology, making better image quality available, making affordable systems easier to use, and supporting everything with world-class service. This is a new beginning to a long-term commitment."

vince · #6 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:15 AM

Getting Starry-Eyed Over Digital By Michael Stroud
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,51743,00.html

02:00 AM Apr. 13, 2002 PT

LAS VEGAS -- Star Wars: Attack of the Clones might just as easily be named "Star Wars: Attack of the Digital Cinema Projector Manufacturers."

Barco NV and Christie Digital Systems -- the two companies that dominate the nascent market for filmless projectors displaying movies in digital clarity -- are scrambling before the movie launches May 16 to at least double the number of the $130,000-plus machines they have deployed around the world.

Their goal: to jump-start a market for digital projectors that Star Wars creator George Lucas has said he hopes to see soon in thousands of theaters.

Industry sources expect about 50 new theaters will install digital projectors over the next five weeks, bringing the total number to about 100. "There are more demands for projectors than we can logistically support," said Michael Mooney, Christie's director of digital cinema.

And Harry Mathias, Barco's director of digital cinema for the United States, says he is "booked solid" with projector orders between now and when Star Wars rolls out.

If Star Wars were to ignite demand, he's ready to ship thousands more. "The amount of money we're talking about is the amount of money dot-coms use up in second-round financing," Mathias said.

Both companies, which declined to reveal numbers of orders or customers, have been touting their products at the National Association of Broadcasters meeting underway in Las Vegas.

The first part may be easy. Julian Bond, executive vice president for digital exhibition and special projects at Star Wars distributor 20th Century Fox, says digital versions of the studio's current animated release, Ice Age, have been a big hit in theaters.

"In cases where screens (for Ice Age) were playing side by side, in just about every case, the digital (version) outperformed the other," he said.

That performance was boosted by newspaper ads touting the digital versions.

Consumers, Bond noted, have been primed for digital cinema by their experience with DVDs and CDs. "They associate digital with quality," he said.

Now the question is how many theaters will step up to the plate.

So far, only a minuscule number of theaters have done so. The 100 theaters with digital projectors expected to be in place by Star Wars' release compares with 30,000 in the United States alone equipped with conventional projectors.

What's needed is a big theater chain to invest in digital cinema.

Enthusiasts for the technology think they have the right person in billionaire Phillip Anschutz, who couldn't be reached for comment. He controls 5,800 screens at United Artists Theatres, Regal Cinemas and Edwards Theatres, making him the most powerful exhibitor in the country. He also happens to be the largest shareholder in Qwest Communications, whose fiber optic network spans more than 104,000 miles globally.

For the past year, speculation has been rife among digital cinema buffs that Anschutz wants to install digital projectors at some of his theaters and use Qwest's fiber to download digital product directly from studios to theaters.

Such a plan, one industry executive contends, would be "the perfect use for all that excess broadband capacity he has right now."

vince · #7 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:17 AM

by Nick Moenssens

Digital cinema is not taking off like gangbusters in motion picture theatres. The name "Digital Cinema" is still little more than marketing hype, resembling every other digital catch phrase.

Digital sound, digital watches, digital radio, digital bathroom scales -- if it's digital, it must be good!
Today, digital cinema is simply high- definition video projection with the movie stored on a digital medium. That's a product already available to consumers in their homes: Most computer monitors are capable of higher resolution than digital cinema projectors, and a theatre running a print made from an original EK negative, properly projected, could double the resolution of a digital venue. Texas Instruments DLP chips are available in relatively inexpensive, small video projectors. For consumers, this is an improvement over NTSC home projection. But at a theatre, audiences may not be getting anything more for their money. While film scratches may be absent, dim images, color problems, failed hard-drive interruptions and digital defects are a possibility. In some theatres, there will be the same old worn-out xenon lamps, the same lack of staff attention to the presentation, blown-out speaker systems, and the same procrastination in repairing problems.

Theatre owners do not want to splurge for the new equipment. At this point they have nothing to gain but an unproven marketing advantage for a handful of titles. And there's hardly universal agreement that the current digital picture resolution is equal to the film release print that is being delivered now. An investment of over $100,000, plus sound upgrades and technical support to handle computer and HD maintenance, threatens exhibitors' balance sheets. And they'll have to retain support and maintenance for 35mm projection as well.

So, where does this leave the studio projectionist and projection engineer? Will we be running film forever? Should projectionists put aside the learning of new digital technologies for projection and sound? The answer is an emphatic "No!" HD video projection is going to improve, and like other computer technologies, it will become less expensive. And although your local multiplex doesn't yet have a digital projector, digital video is taking off in production and post production. Running dailies digitally from hard drives and optical disks is becoming an everyday occurrence at studios. HD video is used for previews or to evaluate effects and animation. Electronic projection can save money for producers, eliminating the expense of printing dailies and effects to film, so whether it makes it to a theatre near you or not, it will still affect your role in the projection booth.

How should projectionists and engineers train for these new digital technologies?

Acquaint yourself with computers: Become computer literate. This doesn't mean you have to become a computer expert. But if you are not able to learn the basic operation of a

computer, you probably won't catch on to most of the picture and sound equipment on the horizon. Basic computer techniques are used to navigate through the playback menus of digital projection systems. If you have never operated a computer or touch-screen system, your neighborhood fast-food cashier has more experience in this area than you do! One major studio's staff projectionists are all trained to operate computers for digital sound quality-control checks. Computers are playing an important role in their jobs well beyond basic tasks such as sending and receiving e-mail.

Become familiar with digital audio playback equipment: Digital audio is becoming a standard part of dailies projection. Both Tascam and Akai make hard disk recorders that can lock to film projectors or video decks for dailies and full-length feature presentations. Training on this equipment is highly desirable. Operating manuals for this gear are available on the Tascam and Akai websites, so if you are Internet savvy you already have an advantage. Ask your department head to let you train with recordists who operate Tascam's MMR-8 and Akai's recorders. Learn to pull up the files, load the tracks for the reels, and lock the unit to the projector. Learn how to read the level tones on these units as you would a loop of Dolby level test film.

Learn video projector setup and operation: Video projection has advanced to the stage that it is now an acceptable substitute for film dailies. If you have ignored learning about video setup, it's now time to get with it. Seek training on every video projector your studio A/V or projection department owns. It's important to know how to look at color bars to quickly tell if the system is producing an accurate image. Your experience with film projection comes in handy here -- you already know about lenses and picture quality. If you don't learn basic A/V setup, you might find your boss asking his secretary to run the show.

Operate professional video decks: Learn to set up and operate video decks using all professional formats: DV, Betacam, Digi-Beta, Panasonic D-5 and Philips D-6. Many of the new machines have features meant for editing and recording, so it's just as important to learn what not to mess with as what to do for playback. D-5 and D-6 formats can be used for digital cinema playback, so learning them kills two birds with one stone.

Master the operation of digital cinema storage systems: All digital cinema systems require you to know fundamental computer skills in order to start the show. Technicolor's Qualcomm system, the QuVis QuBit and others require the operator to pull up the show file and select play (after you turn on the HD Projector and check the color bars and light levels). Setup is the projection engineer's job -- the projectionist's job is to run the show. Some studios may require you to load the feature into the hard drives. But you won't be doing anything if you don't get trained on these devices.

Explore editing systems: An Avid or Final Cut Pro system might be connected to a video projector and audio system for dailies. An assistant editor will probably come glued to the editing system. If not, you may be required to pull up the clips at the viewer's request. Subsidized training on these systems is available through the Editors Guild.

Maintain showmanship: The difference between an HD video and a film presentation is only a matter of equipment. It's still about putting on a good show. Experience in showmanship is something most projectionists already have. It's a key advantage and difficult to learn, so don't underestimate it. Even when you project a feature in video, use the curtain as you would if you were running film. Don't let audiences see countdown leaders, color bars, slates or let the audio pop on when the video begins. After all, the play is the thing: It's just old wine in new bottles.

Editors and sound professionals have learned new technology in the last decade. Many of them accepted new technologies, and their jobs are more exciting than ever. Some call these changes a revolution; others call it an evolution. If you want to be part of it, your job abilities need to evolve with it.

Related Article Digital Distribution

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Nick Moenssens is a Guild board member representing studio projectionists and
projection engineers. Formerly Chief of Video and Film Projection at the ATAS
Goldenson Theatre, he is currently a staff projectionist at Walt Disney Studios.
He can be reached at shutterghost@earthlink.net

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vince · #8 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:21 AM

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.

vince · #9 (**permalink**) 03-05-2004, 05:25 AM

How Digital Cinema Works

by Tom Harris

The typical American household is loaded with digital technology. A well-equipped house might have:

A DVD player
Several CD players
A CD burner
A personal computer
A digital camera
A digital camcorder
A video game console
A computer scanner
A digital cell phone
A digital television
A digital satellite system
A digital video recorder
Clearly, digital technology has already taken over much of the home entertainment market. It seems strange, then, that the vast majority of theatrical motion pictures are shot and distributed on celluloid film, just like they were more than a century ago. Of course, the technology has improved over the years, but it's still based on the same basic principles. The reason is simple: Up until recently, nothing could come close to the image quality of projected film.

But things are starting to change. George Lucas kicked off the digital cinema charge in May of 2002 with "Star Wars: Episode II, the Attack of the Clones," the first big budget live action movie shot entirely on digital video. Most theaters played 35-mm film transfers of the movie, but Lucas hopes his next digital picture, "Star Wars: Episode III," will play mainly on digital movie projectors. With more and more filmmakers embracing the new technology, including big names like Steven Soderbergh and Robert Rodriguez, digital cinema is well on its way.

In this article, we'll find out what digital cinema is all about, and we'll see what it means to the film industry. As it turns out, the rise of digital cinema will have a pretty big effect on the world.

Elements of Digital Cinema
Digital cinema is simply a new approach to making and showing movies. The basic idea is to use bits and bytes (strings of 1s and 0s) to record, transmit and replay images, rather than using chemicals on film.

The main advantage of digital technology (such as a CD) is that it can store, transmit and retrieve a huge amount of information exactly as it was originally recorded. Analog technology (such as an audio tape) loses information in transmission, and generally degrades with each viewing. (For more information, see How Analog and Digital Recording Works.)

Digital information is also a lot more flexible than analog information. A computer can manipulate bytes of data very easily, but it can't do much with a streaming analog signal. It's a completely different language.

Digital cinema affects three major areas of movie-making:

Production - how the movie is actually made
Distribution - how the movie gets from the production company to movie theaters
Projection - how the theater presents the movie
In the next sections, we'll look at each of these areas in detail to find out how digital cinema is different from conventional cinema.

Production
With an $800 consumer digital camcorder, a stack of tapes, a computer and some video-editing software, you could make a digital movie. But there are a couple of problems with this approach. First, your image resolution won't be that great on a big movie screen. Second, your movie will look like news footage, not a normal theatrical film. Conventional video has a completely different look from film, and just about anybody can tell the difference in a second.

Film and video differ a lot in image clarity, depth of focus and color range, but the biggest contrast is frame rate. Film cameras normally shoot at 24 frames per second, while most U.S. television video cameras shoot at 30 frames per second (29.97 per second, to be exact). Most video footage is also interlaced -- each frame is split into two sets of horizontal lines that fit together. Video is designed this way to work with the standard television format. A television's electron beam paints every other line as it moves down the screen (for example, every odd-numbered line). Then, the next time it moves down the screen, it paints the even-numbered lines, alternating back and forth between even-numbered and odd-numbered lines on each pass. (See How Video Formatting Works for more information.)

All of these factors give conventional video a completely different flavor than film -- the image seems to move differently. In order to mimic the characteristic look of film, movie-makers use digital camcorders that shoot like film cameras. For example, George Lucas shot "Attack of the Clones" with Sony HDW-F900 HDCAM camcorders outfitted with high-end Panavision lenses. These camcorders can shoot conventional 30-frame interlaced footage, but you can also set them to shoot 24 frames per second, just like film cameras. On this setting, the camera can shoot progressive video -- video made up of complete frames instead of interlaced fields. The camera also has a similar light range and depth of field to film cameras.

These professional digital camcorders work on the same basic idea as cheaper consumer models. They use charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to convert the incoming light from a scene into an electronic signal, and an analog-to-digital converter to turn this signal into a stream of 1s and 0s. (See How Camcorders Work for details.)

Other than frame rate, the main difference between a professional camcorder and a consumer model is image quality. Professional camcorders use higher-resolution CCDs to pick up more information from the scene. For example, the HDW-F900 records 1920 x 1080 pixels. They also use more CCDs than cheaper models. Inside the camera, a beam splitter separates the light from the scene into red, green and blue light. The camera records each color of light with a separate CCD in order to capture the full color range. When you recombine these colors, you retrieve the full color image. Cheaper camcorders use a single CCD to capture all colors of light, which compromises image quality a good deal.

Sony HDW-F900 camcorders record in a high-definition format called HDCAM, which is designed to rival film in image resolution and to adapt well to a variety of other video formats used around the world. Check out Sony: HDCAM for more information.

Experts disagree on whether digital video is up to the quality standards of film, but it is definitely close. If a filmmaker is satisfied with the image quality, there are some distinct advantages to using video, as we'll see in the next section.

Production Benefits
Apart from image quality, there are two huge differences between film and digital video: cost and flexibility.

Cost
Film is hundreds of times more expensive than digital video. The raw video alone is extremely cheap, and there is virtually no processing involved before the editing stage. Filmmakers on a real shoe-string budget can even re-use the tape multiple times. By Hollywood standards, digital video costs nearly nothing.

The "Star Wars" crew can definitely back this up. In an interview with Cinematographer.com, Rick McCallum, one of the producers on "Attack of the Clones," said they spent $16,000 on 220 hours of digital tape, and they would have spent about $1.8 million on 220 hours of film.

Flexibility
For the filmmaker, the most exciting element of digital technology is how easy it is to use. Most filmmakers have already switched to digital editing systems because they make it so much simpler to put a movie together. In the current process, filmmakers actually convert the film footage to a digital format for post-production and then back to film again for its theatrical release. The conversion process is costly, it ends up degrading the image quality somewhat, and it takes time.

Digital video doesn't have to go through this conversion process. As soon as they shoot digital footage, filmmakers can immediately play it back and start editing it. With film, they have to send the footage off for processing before they know what they have. A director might spend all day shooting only to discover the lighting was off and the footage is totally unusable. On the "Attack of the Clones" set, the crew could review the footage after every shot. They could shoot a scene in the morning and start editing it that afternoon.

Additionally, the crew doesn't have to get extensive coverage (repeated takes) in case something looks wrong. They know right away if there were any problems.

Distribution
For the business side of the movie industry, the most compelling aspect of digital cinema is distribution. In today's system, production companies spend a lot of money producing film prints of their movies. Then, working with distribution companies, they spend even more money shipping the heavy reels of film to theaters all over the world, only to collect them again when the movie finishes its run.

Because the distribution costs are so high, production companies have to be extremely cautious about where they play their movies. Unless they have a sure-fire hit, they take a pretty big risk sending a film to a lot of theaters. If it bombs, they might not make their money back. (See How Movie Distribution Works for details.)

If you take the physical film out of the equation, things get a lot cheaper. Digital movies are basically big computer files, and just like computer files, you can write them to a DVD-ROM, send them through broadband cable or transmit them via satellite. There are virtually no shipping costs, and it doesn't cost the production company much more to show the movie in 100 theaters than in one theater. With this distribution system, production companies could easily open movies in theaters all over the world on the same day.

The digital distribution system also helps out the individual theaters. If a movie sells out, a theater could decide to show it on additional screens on the spur of the moment. They simply connect to the digital signal. Theaters could also show live sporting events and other digital programming.

Projection
To the audience, the most important aspect of digital cinema is the projection system. This is the final piece of technology that controls how the movie actually looks at the end of the line.

Pretty much everybody agrees that a good film projector loaded with a pristine film print produces a fantastic, vibrant picture. The problem is, every time you play the movie, the film quality drops a little. When you go to a movie that's been playing for a few weeks, you'll probably see hundreds of scratches and bits of dirt.

Many critics hold that a projected digital movie is inferior to a pristine film print, but they recognize that while a film print gradually degrades, a digital movie looks the same every time you show it. Think of a CD as compared to an audio tape. Every time you play an audio tape, the sound gets a little warped. A CD's digital information sounds exactly the same every time you listen to it (unless it gets scratched).

Today, there are two major digital cinema projector technologies: Micromirror projectors and LCD projectors.

Micromirror projectors, like Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing (DLP) line, form images with an array of microscopic mirrors. In this system, a high-power lamp shines light through a prism. The prism splits the light into the component colors red, green and blue. Each color beam hits a different Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) -- a semiconductor chip that is covered in more than a million hinged mirrors.

Based on the information encoded in the video signal, the DMD turns over the tiny mirrors to reflect the colored light. Collectively, the tiny dots of reflected light form a monochromatic image. To see how this works, imagine a crowd of people on the ground at night, each holding a square-foot mirror. A helicopter flies overhead and shines a light down on the crowd. Depending on which people held their mirrors up, you would see a different reflected image. If everybody worked together, they could spell out words or form images. If you had more than a million people, pressed shoulder to shoulder, you could make highly detailed pictures.

Photo courtesy Texas Instruments

In actuality, most of the individual mirrors are flipped from "on" (reflecting light) to "off" (not reflecting light) and back again thousands of times per second. A mirror that is flipped on a greater proportion of the time will reflect more light and so will form a brighter pixel than a mirror that is not flipped on for as long. This is how the DMD creates a gradation between light and dark. The mirrors that are flipping rapidly from on to off create varying shades of gray (or varying shades of red, green and blue, in this case).

Each micromirror chip reflects the monochromatic image back to the prism, which recombines the colors. The red, green and blue rejoin to form a full color image, which is projected on the screen.

LCD projectors, such as JVC's Digital Image Light Amplifier (D-ILA) line, work on a slightly different system. These projectors reflect high-intensity light off of a stationary mirror covered with a liquid crystal display (LCD). Based on the digital signal, the projector directs some of the liquid crystals to let reflected light through and others to block it. In this way, the LCD modifies the high-intensity light beam to create an image.

There is a flip-side to digital projector technology. In both projector designs, individual pixels may break from time to time. When this happens, it degrades the image quality of every single movie shown on that projector. In contrast, if a film print gets scratched, it's only that particular movie that's damaged -- the next print looks fine.

Making it Happen
It's a given that at some point, digital cinema will replace the old film system. The question is when and how.

George Lucas and many other filmmakers say it's already time to make the switch to digital production, as its quality is comparable to film and it's much easier and cheaper. Others aren't ready to give up the old standby so quickly, noting that despite what Lucas says, digital video hasn't yet reached the level of film. As technology improves, however, digital video will likely find more converts. Eventually, digital production's main obstacle will be nostalgia and familiarity. Film has served Hollywood well for decades, and it will be hard to give it up.

Digital cinema makes a lot of economical sense on the distribution front, but it would involve huge changes in the industry. For one thing, distribution companies wouldn't have nearly as much work to do -- it's a good bet it would cut down their workforce considerably. Even if the result is a cheaper distribution system, the restructuring could be a major hurdle.

The other obstacle is piracy. To make off with an illegal copy of a movie on conventional film, a bootlegger either has to hold up a delivery truck or sneak a camcorder into a theater. In the first case, bootleggers have to use expensive machinery to make video copies, and in the second, the pirated tapes really don't look that great.

But if a movie were already in the form of bytes of data, anybody could make an exact copy by hooking into the data stream. To make broadband and satellite transmission feasible, the movie industry will have to come up with advanced encryption schemes.

To movie theaters, the main obstacle to digital cinema is money. Today, it costs somewhere around $150,000 to convert a film theater auditorium into a digital theater auditorium. Most movie theaters aren't going to do this unless they're compensated in some way. After all, the production and distribution companies will save millions and millions if the switch to digital is successful, but the theaters will be conducting business as usual.

In the end, the most important question about digital cinema is how it looks to the audience. Digital cinema's proponents cite market research showing that audiences generally prefer the look of digital movies to filmed movies, but many movie buffs aren't so sure. Digital cinema will have to win over a large majority of movie fans before it can completely take the place of film.

Another concern is the convergence of home entertainment technology and professional theater technology. Today, there is a huge gap in image quality between high-end digital projectors and home models, but they are actually built on similar technologies. As home theater projectors improve and drop in price, will people still bother to go to the movie theater? In the past, the difference between film and conventional TV was huge, and theaters still had a hard time packing in crowds. In order to keep the business alive, theaters may have to add a lot more than new projectors.

Fortunately, transmitting video digitally also opens up possibilities for improved surround sound, varied programming and interactive cinema. If production companies and theaters fully explore the scope of the new technology, digital cinema may be the biggest thing to happen to movies since the talkies.