Digital Projection - YUK!!!

[M Most]

Are you sure?

Yes, I am.

[David Birdy]

Video never looked better !!!

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

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

Most Digital theaters use a Non-Linear playback system that is Mpeg 2, so the master may be great, the projector may be great, but the media transfer and in-house playback system is still in need of an upgrade.
Note that Mark Cuban, (HDNet & Landmark Theaters), announced the purchase of 25 Sony SXRD 4K projectors for his theaters..others will follow. A REDONE and 4K projector with Mpeg 4 is a fantastic combination, and you will be hard pressed to see the difference from a 35 MM film. The bottom line for most Studios and theaters is in fact the bottom line, Digital Cinema offers savings at every turn, so it’s here and that's why I purchased Two REDONE’S.

[thornben]

This BTW has all happened since Rialto got brought out by one of the major cinema chains.

How fabulous our government let the casinos into our country and the organised crime that comes with them, eh? It's just all one big knock-on effect.

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

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

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

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

How fabulous our government let the casinos into our country and the organised crime that comes with them, eh? It's just all one big knock-on effect.

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

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

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

Initial accumulation of capital - In most cases there's something ugly in the beginning...

[Cail Young]

Yes, I am.

Damn, I really liked that hat. In that case, then, I'm a now lot more comfortable about finishing in 2K from RED ONE, if it looks that great on a 4K screen.

[Oskari Sipola]

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

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

Digital Cinema rocks, but not everything that's called Digital Cinema really is Digital Cinema :)

[I Bloom]

I had the opposite reaction recently -- saw "National Treasure 2" and part of "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" (the second movie was shot on the Panavision Genesis so I snuck in to see ten minutes)

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I took my girlfriend to see Walk Hard, it was a definitely 35mm projection but it never even crossed my mind that it was Genesis origination.

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

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

IBloom

[Michel Hafner]

I have to say, watching digital projection at the Zigfield theater in NYC is my favorite. When I saw Mission: Impossible III projected digitally (2K, I think), I was completely blown away by the amazing quality. Crystal clear, sharp, great colors, perfect focus,.

The focus of this film is all over the place. When I watched it on 2K DLP it was very obvious that many shots had focus issues, especially close ups with, for example, most of the face out of focus but the tip of the nose or an ear in focus.

[Michel Hafner]

I nearly walked out of Last Samurai at the Fox in Westwood because I could see individual pixels on the screen. That was 2K. On the other hand, I saw Santa Sangre projected off a normal DVD via a 4K projector at the Nuart and it looked like film..

DVD does not look like film. Due to lack of resolution you might see no pixels in the blurry images of some DVDs (no aliasing present), but lack of pixels is merely one of many aspects of the film look. Show me a DVD with no compression issues, no visible sharpening and no unclean digital edges, no DNR issues, no poor color resolution, grain that looks like real grain, no harsh highlights... It's technically not feasible. Everything that makes HD look different from film makes DVD do so all the more.

[J.D. Frey]

show me a film print in in the US that hasn't been scratched by the 15 year old running the projection booth. I've seen opening night movies that were scratched!. Just give digital some time- it will get much better