Reading about Red has highest ratings!

[ghostcar]

I used to watch (TV) once in a while. But now I only read about Red and save my little checks for my future Red. I can barely contain my happiness for this. I have projects in the future that I will be shooting and they will all be ready (if needed) for film transfer because Red is a dream come true.
Thank you (all involved in Red) and Red fans:biggrin:

[Rick Darge]

Film is dead.. Embrace IT

[Finner]

Film is dead.. Embrace IT

Not for quite a while yet. 4k digital will give it a run but films versatility and being seen as the standard will keep film alive for a long time still.

[Petr Dvorak]

4K - post - data - SAT data distribution - 4K cinema

or

4K - post - film transfer - film copies - reels transport - cinema

[PaulClements]

I reckon they should just make it straight to cinema from the RedOne via satalite uplink :)

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Digital distribution is where the cinemas are definitely headed. It will be a lot more economical (perhaps more secure too) than film.

But I don't see film going away anytime soon. As others have said, it's going to be around for a long time as a practical, accepted workflow. And even once it has been fully surpassed by digital workflows and production tools several years from now, there will still be plenty of people shooting film. Even if for no other reason than to perpetuate film as an art form.

[Andrew M.]

Film will be marginalized as soon as distribution channels of film (transport) will be replaced by digital media. Once the end user will be ready to receive and present digital material, there will be no market force to keep film around.
For now the digital to film printers will be very busy.

[Martin Drew]

Film may well be around for some while, it has some advantages that are difficult to ignore. However it is interesting to see how quickly the transition to digital came in the stills photography market. Film is definitely dying there and the reason has more to do with workflow than quality. If digital projection becomes common place film might well become "exotic" in movie production for the same reason. The switch to digital might be a few years yet, but I suspect once it gains some mass it will progress very rapidly.

M

[Blaine Golden]

The real stumbling block is the digital delivery. No one wants to pay for it. Theater owners see it as a big advantage for the distributors since they don't need to make all those prints and feel the distributors should shoulder the burden. Of course, the distributors don't want to pay for the theater owners' conversions. Until that is worked out, the change over will be slow.

[Andrew M.]

So I see a business opportunity here.
To design the small insert/modification for existing projectors.
Instead of running film through it you just insert a set of mirrors/optics (high temperature over there) and you play the movie from the digital media keeping the old projector in tact.

[Thomas Mathai]

Digital distribution is where the cinemas are definitely headed. It will be a lot more economical (perhaps more secure too) than film.

But I don't see film going away anytime soon. As others have said, it's going to be around for a long time as a practical, accepted workflow. And even once it has been fully surpassed by digital workflows and production tools several years from now, there will still be plenty of people shooting film. Even if for no other reason than to perpetuate film as an art form.

I talked to a few small distributors and they said it's still cheaper for them to get a film print than it is for digital distribution.

A filmmaker I know had a film encoded for digital projection and it wouldn't play, so instead he had to play off a DVD.

It seems we're too new in the digital distribution end for indies to get the benefits of it right now. I hope a lot of these issues get resolved soon.

[Thomas Mathai]

Film may well be around for some while, it has some advantages that are difficult to ignore. However it is interesting to see how quickly the transition to digital came in the stills photography market. Film is definitely dying there and the reason has more to do with workflow than quality. If digital projection becomes common place film might well become "exotic" in movie production for the same reason. The switch to digital might be a few years yet, but I suspect once it gains some mass it will progress very rapidly.

M

The still photography market is more varied, from consumer to professional. It made sense for the consumers to switch to digital in mass first because of the cost savings.

Motion picture is entirely professional. I think digital will surpass film for a lot of productions, but film may not die off entirely for a good while as an aquisition format.

[J. Bernard Vallon]

So I see a business opportunity here.
To design the small insert/modification for existing projectors.
Instead of running film through it you just insert a set of mirrors/optics (high temperature over there) and you play the movie from the digital media keeping the old projector in tact.

what makes the big old projectors expensive isnt the bulbs or lenses, which is really the only transferable part, its the film-feeding system. Huge platters, smart feeds, very reliable gates, lots of moving parts. all that is junk to a digital projector.

The world will go entirely digital once it isnt profitable for film labs to process film anymore, or kodak decides to stop production. Both those are unlikely, because the infrastructure is already paid for in both situations. However, more and more of a lab's clients will go digital, making fewer people shooting film pay more to keep the labs open. as digital costs go down, film costs will go up. If you have the money though, you can shoot whatever you want.

What might be the nail in the coffin though is a digital camera that can do what film cant: the RED VI, with a 65mm sensor and 16bit color that can shoot 1000fps at 16mpxl into your pocket flash drive. That sounds ridiculous, but thats the future, and no film will have anything over it.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What might be the nail in the coffin though is a digital camera that can do what film cant: the RED VI, with a 65mm sensor and 16bit color that can shoot 1000fps at 16mpxl into your pocket flash drive. That sounds ridiculous, but thats the future, and no film will have anything over it.


...That sounds no more rediculous than the RED ONE would have 5 years ago. And, without knowing for sure until I get my own hands on RED, I have a feeling that one of the top feature requests for the next upgrade or RED release is going to be a vast increase in max frame rate.

[Andrew M.]

John, you are right, bulb and lens, but why in still cameras the conversion was so fast?
Workflow? No transport?

It is very costly to produce all these films for distributions, 10X100GB Blue Ray disks is fraction of the cost, even sending 1000GB 4X250GB external hard disk will be less then $600 if not reused. How much is a film cost for 120 minutes run?

[Chris Kenny]

I reckon they should just make it straight to cinema from the RedOne via satalite uplink :)

This sort of thing is actually happening. The New York Metropolitan Opera House has done a few live broadcasts of its productions into digital theaters. Theater owners are very interested in being able to easily show content other than feature films from the major distributors, because the major distributors demand such a large fraction of the box office gross.

As Blaine points out, there is still some hesitancy to paying for digital projection equipment. But there are funding models which could resolve this -- like distributors paying a "virtual print fee" to theater owners, which would be less than they'd have had to pay to strike a film print, but enough to compensate theater owners for their investment in equipment, particularly on top of the sort of alternative revenue streams I mention above.

Ultimately, digital projectors are going to end up being a lot cheaper than film projectors. They're mechanically much simpler (practically no moving parts), and their electronic components will come down in price fast. This means less up-front cost and less ongoing maintenance. They can also be run completely unattended. There's no need to change film rolls, they don't vibrate around, so they don't have to be focused nearly as often, and there are provisions in the DCI spec for theater automation. All of this will make digital projectors the default choice for newly built theaters and for replacing end-of-life film projectors.

[Andrew M.]

"They can also be run completely unattended"
This looks like the revolution in the cinema theatre....
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=146905

You got it right in the head,....it started....

[Thomas Mathai]

John, you are right, bulb and lens, but why in still cameras the conversion was so fast?
Workflow? No transport?

It is very costly to produce all these films for distributions, 10X100GB Blue Ray disks is fraction of the cost, even sending 1000GB 4X250GB external hard disk will be less then $600 if not reused. How much is a film cost for 120 minutes run?

Still photography has a consumer base that is more drawn to the low costs and immediacy of digital cameras. It took the pros a bit longer, but the cameras got cheaper and better.

I"m told it costs $1500 for a film print.

[Martin Drew]

The still photography market is more varied, from consumer to professional. It made sense for the consumers to switch to digital in mass first because of the cost savings.

Motion picture is entirely professional. I think digital will surpass film for a lot of productions, but film may not die off entirely for a good while as an aquisition format.

But digital stills cameras were/are more expensive than film stills cameras. In the consumer and the professional arena it was workflow that killed film. Professional adoption lagged consumer adoption because the quality was initially not good enough. As soon as quality was sufficient professional users switched to digital alarmingly quickly. My point is that the quality just has to be good enough, because there are great potentiol workflow advantages with digital.

The biggest thing film has going for it is the huge installed base of theatres, across the world, many in very poor countries that lack resources to switch to digital. But maybe the future isn't theatres... maybe it is online!!! An awful lot of people using digital stills cameras don't make prints anymore, they view their images in different ways.

M

[Thomas Mathai]

But digital stills cameras were/are more expensive than film stills cameras. In the consumer and the professional arena it was workflow that killed film. Professional adoption lagged consumer adoption because the quality was initially not good enough. As soon as quality was sufficient professional users switched to digital alarmingly quickly. My point is that the quality just has to be good enough, because there are great potentiol workflow advantages with digital.

The biggest thing film has going for it is the huge installed base of theatres, across the world, many in very poor countries that lack resources to switch to digital. But maybe the future isn't theatres... maybe it is online!!! An awful lot of people using digital stills cameras don't make prints anymore, they view their images in different ways.

M


The prices for the digital still cameras stayed the same and the quality and capacity got better. Low cost printers and software provided output solutions that made it even more appealing.