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Will Digital Cinema Wipe-Out Today's Movie Theaters? 513

Posted by Cliff from the artificially-high-prices-for-bleeding-edge-tech dept.
Phantoman asks: "I work for the Campus Cinema at University of California Davis and we are looking into getting a Christie or Barco DLP system for Digital Cinema projection. Now if this is the wave of the future I ask you all to compare 35mm to Digital. The price tag on a digital setup is roughly $140,000. Without content. 35mm isn't all that cheap, but if my old Century 35mm projectors break I can get replacement parts for usually less than $100-300. If something goes wrong with the DMD (digital micromirror device) I have a feeling those digital projector parts are going to cost me big. Are the movie theater chains going to get stuck with big costs down the road because Hollywood producers want to save money and have tighter control over distribution? As if they didn't a monopoly already: it costs us between $500-1000 (or half of our profits, whichever is more) for each night we show a movie!" At those prices it doesn't sound like digital theaters will overtake 35mm theaters anytime soon, but what would happen if Hollywood suddenly got the "bright" idea to limit 35mm reel distribution within the next few years?

"Digital is all well and good for the production end, but is anyone going to be able to foot the cost for digital on the presentation end or are we going to end up a straight-to-video world? Also, If anyone wants to help donate to a nonprofit for our digital system, email me. We were the second school to have 35mm, I would like to be the first to have digital."
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Will Digital Cinema Wipe-Out Today's Movie Theaters? More

Will Digital Cinema Wipe-Out Today's Movie Theaters?

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  • 35mm more 'natural'? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @04:53PM (#3640702) Homepage Journal
    I might be the odd one out, but I actually prefer watching movies on 35mm. Maybe it's similar to some peoples' preference to recordings on vinyl as opposed to tape or CD. There's just something about digital that seems, well, off. I don't know if it's something like an almost imperceptible but consistent digital artifact in the encoding that my subconcious is picking up on or what. Maybe my mind just prefers imperfections.

    • Re:35mm more 'natural'? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kenja ( 541830 )
      There is nothing natural about 24fps.
      • 24FPS is a limitation, but current digital theaters also display at 24FPS.

        The real problem with current digital projection technology is resolution - it's not nearly high enough for the throw distance. I saw Episode II on a digital theater in Elizabeth, NJ, and I must say that I am impressed with the technology, but it has a long way to go. I was able to see the pictures. I've also seen the film on a pristine 35mm print, and it looked far sharper, and more vibrant, and overall better.

        The technology is currently ungodly expensive, but it will come down. 35mm prints, if taken care of, will still look better. Digital projectors should require, in the long run, less maintenance, and will be much more consistent from theater to theater. Most movie theaters have very loud projectors that shake, are out of focus, and covered in dirt. Poor theaters with digital projectors will have, in the future, dead pixels, dying bulbs, and misaligned DMM chips (professional systems have three DMM chips -- Red, Green, and Blue. Doing this prevents the "rainbow" effects and various moire patterns that is present on many home DLP and DILA projectors).

        That all said, if the resolution is incresed to 4-8 times what it is now on those projectors (don't know what it currently is), one should not be able to see the pixels.
    • Amen!

      Digital is to low res for me. ATOC in ditigal looks like a super 8 home moive... just the grains are square.

      Remember STAR WARS, now called "A NEW HOPE" - was shot in 70mm -- to me about with about 64 times the res of ATOC.

      Boy, "A NEW HOPE" is a great name. Maybe some one needs to to bring back that old great tech.
  • If the studios limited 35mm runs they would hurt their own bottom line.

    The theaters have a lot of pull and they know it. There is a lot of pressure on films to make big bucks (as the initial investment is nothing to laugh at)

    It seems to me (an outsider admittedly) that this is a pretty symbiotic relationship where neither side can squeeze too hard w/out hurting themselves in the long run.

    But if I had to pick a stronger side I would say it is the theaters (big chains mostly AMC, Harkins, etc.) have an edge. That is where the revenue is actually generated on the outset.

    .
    • But if I had to pick a stronger side I would say it is the theaters (big chains mostly AMC, Harkins, etc.) have an edge. That is where the revenue is actually generated on the outset.

      I believe the studios are winning. See this [cfo.com] or Google movie theater chain bankruptcy [google.com] for more info. You will find that in the past two years, 7 of the top 10 theater chains have filed for bankruptcy or have been sold off. It's pretty bleak.

  • digital watermark? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hikeran ( 561061 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @04:54PM (#3640708)
    i'm waiting till they hide a subliminal watermark in the digial version (maybe able to be done with 35mm .. that will only be seen when a movie is cammed..

    ie human eye can't see it but when a camcorder records it and plays it back it covers the screen.. just imagine .. next time someone watches a camed movie it says busted right across the middle of the screen in big letters..

    the question is can they pull that off??

    • Re:digital watermark? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BusterB ( 10791 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:07PM (#3640832)
      How about projecting infrared light onto the screen. Most cameras are sensitive to infrared light, so it could be used to add invisible to the naked eye messages and such to the picture. It would probably require a second 'security' projector.
  • Once a bunch of theaters start to buy them the price will come down and there are some pretty good benefits to doing so. One, it makes it cheaper so movie studios can do more effects and maybe even hire a few decent actors. Two, it looks sweet. I saw SW: AOTC on both formats and I could see the difference. Imagine how slick the Matix would look in this format as well...

  • Digital Cinema (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eericson ( 103272 ) <harlequin&earthlink,net> on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @04:54PM (#3640713) Homepage
    The big advatage of Digital is being freed from having only a set number of titles you can run. Digitial takes up no space, doesn't wear out (media, not projectors) and you can run any title at any time. Quality isn't the big reason, flexibility is.

    -E2
    • I look forward to watching movies at 60 fps. :)

      Heck, they could even do things like have gorier versions of movies at later hours.

    • Re:Digital Cinema (Score:4, Informative)

      by foobar104 ( 206452 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @06:08PM (#3641323) Journal
      The big advatage of Digital is being freed from having only a set number of titles you can run. Digitial takes up no space, doesn't wear out (media, not projectors) and you can run any title at any time.

      That might be true if we were using eericson's digital cinema system, but that's not at all how it works in my neighborhood.

      The d-cinemas I've been to all use the Technicolor Digital Cinema system, which consists of an embedded computer system with hard drive storage and a point-and-drool interface. The system interfaces with audio processors, a digital projector, and an automation system. Movies are loaded into the system on DVD-ROMs, although Technicolor also advertises satellite or broadband delivery as options.

      Each auditorium has one AMS system showing one feature on one projector. The box essentially has no in and no out except for encrypted transports, making it pretty secure from piracy. There is, of course, always the possibility that somebody will steal the DVD-ROMs and crack the encryption, but you can never get rid of every possible weak link.

      A system like the one you describe-- in which the content lives on a central data storage system that feeds multiple projectors in a theater complex-- would probably never be practical. It'd be too big and expensive, or too insecure, or both.

      Digital cinema is really, practically, no different from traditional film cinema. Take the canisters/discs up to the projection booth, load 'em in the projector, and play the movie. When the run is finished, put the reels/discs back in the canisters/FedEx envelope and send 'em back to the distributor.
  • Fortunately Hollywood isn't the only place where movies are made...If they did decide to reel-in the 35mm format then there would probably be a marketplace looking something like:

    those that want (??) to pay 15-20 dollars for a film that is all flash, and no substance, and

    those that want to see a movie that is made on film because it's cheaper, and doesn't require mammoth amounts of special effects

    I'll take the cheaper option, foreign films and quality shows anyday...

  • "Will Digital Cinema Wipe-Out Today's Movie Theaters?"

    No.

  • Digital quality questionable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @04:56PM (#3640728) Homepage Journal
    I've seen two movies with digital projectors. One was in Paramus, NJ several years ago, and the picture was absolutely perfect. The other was in Framingham, MA last month, and the picture was poor. You could see the pixels in some scenes, and it was obvious in the closing credits. The image just didn't feel as sharp as I would have expected.

    Apparently the newer and cheaper digital projectors use a resolution slightly lower than that of HDTV (I'm sure someone will post the resolution). That's just not good enough.

    So stick with film until the digital resolution is good enough that you won't have people complaining. I, for one, will not be going to a digital theater again anytime soon.
    • I'm not sure how it translates to full pixel resolutions, but HDTV comes in three flavors: 480p, 1080i and 720p. That, of course, refers only to the vertical resolution and not the horizontal (I'm not sure how that translates), but I'm assuming that digital projectors aren't using interlaced video output so it's pointless to compare it to 1080i.

      I can't imagine using a digital projector even on par with 720p. Sure, it looks absolutely beautiful on a 56" HDTV, but blow it up to a giant theatre-sized screen and you're going to notice the pixels.

      • HDTV comes in three flavors: 480p, 1080i and 720p.

        I've seen those numbers bantered about.

        I presume the "i" is the bad old interlace, just like NTSC and that the "p" is for the harder but better-looking progressive scan.

        So there's no plans for a "1080p" then?

      • There is also 1080p which is what I think is meant by "HDTV resolution". The pixels are square and it is 1920 pixels wide.

        The projectors in use right now are 1280 wide and 1024 tall, and produce a 4/3 aspect image. This is projected through a panavision-style lens to stretch it horizontally. The reason the projectors are this resolution is they are designed for coorporate boardrooms to show PowerPoint presentations. I believe the manufacturers are working on new devices that are designed for cinema and are HDTV resolution.

        Not sure if even maximum HDTV resolution is good enough, most digital effects for 35mm are done at 2048 wide and about 1108 tall, though some are done at 1828 by about 988 tall. Lots of people claim this is not good enough and 4096 wide is needed to accurately represent 35mm film.

    • DLP Projector Specs (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cheinonen ( 318646 )
      The DLP projectors that they use in a theater have a resolution of 1280x1024, and that's progressivly scanned of course. So, you get approxmiately 1.3 megapixels out of it. For comparison, a 35mm print has around 4 megapixels of resolution, and a 35mm negative can have around 20 million megapixels of effective resolution. See why I don't like digital?
    • Crow writes:
      I've seen two movies with digital projectors. One was in Paramus, NJ several years ago, and the picture was absolutely perfect. The other was in Framingham, MA last month, and the picture was poor. You could see the pixels in some scenes, and it was obvious in the closing credits. The image just didn't feel as sharp as I would have expected.

      I saw Episode 1 in digital at McClurg Court (downtown Chicago) and it was absolutely perfect.

      I watched AotC at the 'Star Southfield', (a "digital" theater outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan) and it sucked. Visible pixels, bad anti-aliasing on the titles, it looked like a bad DVD transfer.

      It's not clear if the difference is due to the theater, the type of digital technology (new Boeing transmission system) or what. I suppose I could go back to McClurg and watch AotC there and see if it is any better.

  • I think he makes a valid point, but I don't think we'll every actually see the effect he's talking about. There is potential for abuse here, but I think that any abuse that might happen will be outpaced by technology, and I'm sure eventually, that is, by the time this stuff goes mainstream, the equipment will be much much cheaper. In fact, I believe there is potential, over a long enough period of time, to be cheaper than 35mm.

  • not quite yet (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    One need only look at the track record of digital technology to answer this question.

    Microfiche gave in to digital archives, vinyl has been replaced by CDs for all but the nuttiest audiophiles, even books are more and more moving to an e-book format.

    For the moment, however, we're stuck with analog. I saw a digital projection of ATOC in New York, and it was a disappointment. The colors were off, blurry pixels were visible in many of the scenes, fast action shots were marred by compression artifacts, and there were too few scenes with Jar-Jar Binks. The digital sound was great, which should come as no surprise, as it's been great for the last half decade.

    Fortunately, we can always count on Moore's Law. Even as I type here at my dumb terminal, digital projection technology is being improved at a rate that analog tech can't touch. I'd hold out for the moment, but in a few years digital projection should be much better and more affordable than the "old school" systems currently in place.
  • or are we going to end up a straight-to-video world?

    GOD i hope not... if these people are gonna hype a movie like crazy, and make me just ITCH to see it I shure as hell BETTER get to see it on a screen bigger than 27 inches and with sound that is crystal clear, and makes the room shudder... without pissing off the neighbors.

    I think there is something to be said for the 'theatre experience' Its just not the same to watch a movie on video/dvd! I'll gladly shell out 10 bucks to see a movie in a theatre, it keeps me from having to spend tens of thousands of $$ for my home equipment :)

  • $150,000 (Score:4, Informative)

    by mosch ( 204 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @04:58PM (#3640746) Homepage
    $150,000 will get you a projector that does 45-bit color, at a whopping resolution of 1280x1024. Yes folks, that's correct, DLP cinema which Lucas likes so much is 1280x1024.

    Here's to hoping that digital cinema will be put on hold until it's better, and that Lucas will never be allowed to write love scenes again.

    • Re:$150,000 (Score:2, Insightful)

      by snerdy ( 444659 )
      While it's true that DLP systems don't run at some sort of magic uber-resolution, this doesn't sound right to me -- first of all, I remember hearing that the resolution was more like 5,000 pixels on the horizontal and second of all, that doesn't seem like the dimensions of a movie screen.

      Where are you getting your information?

      Ah!
      -Snerdy
      • I was told by a professional projectionist that the resolution was actually something like 1310 pixels wide. In any case, it is certainly less than the 1900 or so pixels wide that is HDTV. 5000 pixels sounds more like what you would need to match 35mm film resolution.

        By the way, you don't need to use square pixels. So you could easily stretch 1280x1024 to a 2.51:1 ratio cinema screen. Also, the advantage for digital projection is you get zero "frame jitter" (i.e., the film image bouncing up and down on the screen becuase of mechanical resonances).

    • 1280:1024 is almost square (well, 1.25:1)

      When you project onto 16:9 it seems like you'd have much better vertical resolution than horizontal. Is this the case?

      Sounds like those funky SVCD pixels... 480x480 for an NTSC 4:3 format.
    • From what I understand of the Barco Specs [barco.com], you get 1280x1024 in each of three channels, which leaves you with 3.9megapixels in total. I'm not sure how that compares with a conventional calculation of resolution for an LCD projector or anything, but the Barco people make a point of stating twice that it's 1280x1024 in each of three channels.


      Regardless, I saw AOTC in both analog and DLP modes (at the same theatre on different days) and I definitely saw the difference in DLP, and thought the DLP came out much better, so even if it is just at 1280x1024 it's turning out really well in the theatre (which is really all that matters, I would presume).

      • The individual chips are monochrome obviously, so there have to be three of them to produce color images (one each for RGB). However, the individual color components are aimed so that they end up "stacked", i.e. displayed directly on top of each other. There is no chance for sub-pixel display. Barco is being disingenuous by emphasizing the presence of three DLP chips. The final resolution is still only 1280x1024, which is downright pathetic. You can already go to Fry's and buy an HDTV monitor for your home that is higher resolution than that. Do studios and distributors really think theatrical exhibition will survive if home video resolution is allowed to surpass it?

      • Re:1280x1024 in each of three colors (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Cryptnotic ( 154382 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @06:08PM (#3641322)
        Uh, not really, unless you count your computer monitor pixels three times because it handles three different planes (red, green, and blue).

        What using three DLP devices gets them is a brighter image, which allows them to project onto a huge screen. Consumer DLP projectors use a wheel with red, green, and blue filters on it. The DLP device will rapidly switch to the correct channel when the corresponding filter is in the light path. That is why there is a "whirring" sound when you are operating a DLP projector (well, there's also the fan sound).

        Everyone likes the AOTC digital version better because Lucas made the film transfer from the DLP instead of from the original HDTV 1900 pixel wide source. If he had used the higher resolution source, the film version would have looked better. And he didn't want that, since he's trying to promote his interests in digital cinema.

  • Okay maybe I'm an idiot, but hasn't there been only one major release that you could even play?
  • Seems to me that if it costs you "half your profits", they weren't really profits, were they?

    Of course, there is this small matter of recovering the costs of 100 million dollar films with which the studios have to concern themselves too.

    Really, I think movie theatres have a good deal - large control over costs, a pretty steady revenue stream, and the ability to charge $4.00 for a glass of Coke. Hey, come to think of it, if you want to talk about monopolies, how about the one you guys have at the concession area?

    In accordance, I'm making a new legislative recommendation to combat your anti-competitive behavior - from now on, all movie theatres will be required to accommodate any fast food restaurant which wishes to establish business inside of your movie theatre.

  • Hey! Those are my tax dollars (or at the very least money that could be spent on someone's education) you crazy kids are wasting! Is it possible that you've gotten just a ***tad*** ahead of the curve?

  • One of the big reasons studios want all digital theaters is that the distribution costs will plummit. Think about how heavy reels of film are and now think about how many of these reels are being shipped all over the world. It would be MUCH cheaper for studios to distribute digitally, by having each theater download the film to be shown.

  • Can't remember where I read it... (Score:3, Informative)

    by NoMoreNicksLeft ( 516230 ) <john.oyler@ c o m c a st.net> on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:01PM (#3640774) Journal
    But there was a company that was souping up analog film beyond belief.

    Basically, they added extra machinery to stabilize the film as it was wound through the projector, make sure the light was adjusted properly and colors were correct, etc. Can't remember if they upped the framerate, or not.

    Think it might have been Ebert reviewing it? Anyway, the guy said it was *at least* on par with the best digital projection, and this was the prototype. Not to mention incredibly price competitive (think chopping the legs out from underneath digital) both on projector equipment, and film distribution (uses tried and true plstic film).

    So, no, the future isn't necessarily digital. Then again, how many times have we seen a superior product die because someone influential pushes the inferior product (Lucas, in this case) ?
  • Because even though digital projectors and copy protected, digital only movies sounds good from an IP standpoint, when local theatres can't afford it and movies aren't available in middle america the studios will fall back on optical film. It's not good business to alienate the market just because you want to support your own halftruths about content theft...at the end of the day, it's receipts and not soundbites that feed the industry.

    Besides, look at the excuse Lucas made for why Ep 2's opening day was so soft..."not enough theatres had digital." Do you think your "Dude, Where's My Car" producers of the world want to reduce their opening draw (of which they keep the lion's share) any more by setting two dates: one for digital, one for optical?

    After all, not everybody supports THX or even Dolby. I saw Jay & Silent Bob for $4 at a stereo only theatre in Colorado. I saw the re release of Star Wars in Schenectady on a makeshift projector with a marshall stack. Both theatres were packed with people, and nobody complained about the quality.

    Digital film is an expensive solution to a nonexistant problem. Colour me a bright shade of unimpressed (use Pantone, please).
    • Theater owners are not in control of the process, they are controlled by it. Once the production companies tell them digital is coming, they will have to switch.

      Its not like Ma and Pa Small Business Owner in Nebraska will be adversely affected by this - all of the theaters are owned by large corporations now, so the rollouts will happen nationwide once there is momentum.

  • The contrarians here need to know that a major cost center for production companies is the management of physical reels. They are quite heavy.

    Once the technology is there, the studios will be pushing digital content heavily. Digital content will also make deployment to TV and DVD easier once the film has left the theater (if theaters are even still in use in twenty years).

  • Dazzled by picture quality... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by richieb ( 3277 ) <richieb@gmai l . com> on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:02PM (#3640790) Homepage Journal
    What use is picture quality, if the actual content sucks? Hollywood spends too much money on special effects and "stars" than on actual plots.

    Just think of books - does it really matter what sort paper the book is printed on? Of course, it may matter at extremes - books on toilet paper probably wouldn't be readable and books on fancy paper can be really beatiful. But ultimately the contents is what's important.

    Would "Blaire Witch Project" be any more effective on a digital screen?

    • This is a bad analogy. No, it doesn't matter what kind of paper a book is printed on. Yes, it matters, A LOT, what kind of environment a film is viewed in. Compare a modern film in a quality, well-air-conditioned, DTS-certified theatre against the same film on a 10" B&W TV. It's a completely different experience.

      And "Blair Witch Project" was shot on low-quality equipment, so no, of course it wouldn't matter. But that film is an exception.

      Content may suck, but presentation does matter, a huge amount. Good content with good presentation is quite a lot better than good content with poor presentation. Nothing will save bad content.

    • " books on toilet paper probably wouldn't be readable..."

      I can imagine. Black text on a brown background... totally unreadable.
    • Wrong question.

      Better question:

      Ever watch Apocalypse Now on a 9" black-and-white?

  • The cost of digital may start out high... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:03PM (#3640794)
    I have a feeling those digital projector parts are going to cost me big.

    The cost of digital may start out high, but it will rapidly decrease. Why?

    First of all, you're not using nearly so many moving parts. A digital projector is either going to read from a larg capacity hdd or some sort of laser media rather than a large, prone to failure, reel-to-reel system.

    For those who haven't been inside a theatre projection room in the last little bit, these 'reels' are actually complex turntable systems that cost thousands to maintain.

    Also, as LCD projectors become more and more common, the bulbs and other projection equipment are coming down in price. You can already set up a reasonable home digital projection system for under $5000. Scale that up, and you'll see that as more and more of digital projection equipment becomes commodity hardware, prices will plummet.

    There is one caveat to this. Hollywood may see this as a bad thing since it lowers the bar for theatre ownership and therefore, control of theatre revenue. They may leverage their influence against hardware manufacturers or buy legislation that makes it prohibitive to buy the equipment, even if the prices would normally fall.

    • ...prone to failure, reel-to-reel system.

      For those who haven't been inside a theatre projection room in the last little bit, these 'reels' are actually complex turntable systems that cost thousands to maintain.


      The most prone-to-failure bit on any projector is the bulb. You need a REALLY high output bulb to make a visible image on a large screen. That is not going to change from film to digital, and is not likely to get much cheaper.

      The reels are not really that complex. The film path through the camera (and sound reading equipment) is where the complecity comes in. It's quite facinating, really. For those reading this message, you should see if you can take a tour of the projection booth at your local theatre.

      I was a projectionist for about three years. The projectors we used were over 20 years old. Aside from a few $2.00 micro switches (on the platters) dying, and a couple of roller bearings seizing (film path guides), and the obvious Xenon buld needing replacement there where zero projection failures. They paid the "head prjectionist" (who was responsible for prjector maintainance) less than $30,000 per year. And that included working 25 hours a week running the projectors.

      YMMV. I do feel that digital's maintainance costs will be lower... At this time, it's the early adoption period of new technology. Think about digital projectors as being the new GeForce 4 XP (whatever the new one is) video card of the Theatre business. The early adopters will pay out the nose to be the first kids on the block with the cool toys.


      ...it lowers the bar for theatre ownership and therefore, control of theatre revenue.

      What? What does theatre ownership have to do with controlling revenue? They Hollywood moguls control revenue by controlling distribution. It has nothing to do with theatre ownership. If you can pay, you can play.
  • You won't need a projectionist anymore - at least not one trained beyond pushing a few buttons.

    There goes that job description.

    Time to market is a good reason: Shoot, edit, project. Not Shoot, edit, print, distribute, project (simplified, I know.)

    Exact knowledge of what is playing at what time in which market. No more sneaking in an extra showing and keeping the profits for yourself (this has mostly died out except for rural markets due to constant checking.)

    No more throwing a print on a Telecine during the overnight, or off the workprint, to make a copy for Internet distribution before the film hits market.

    Do you know what it costs to have the prints made for a major release? There's nothing more some studio execs would like to see than Technicolor vanish from the corner of the Uni lot.



  • "As if they didn't have a monopoly already: it costs us between $500-$1000 (or half of our profits, whichever is more) for each night we show a movie!"

    Cost of a typical movie-ticket for a first-run show: $8.00

    Cost of a bucket of popcorn, a drink, and a box of candy: $12.00

    Cost to make a whiner STFU and quit bitching about how little his theater makes: PRICELESS

    Do the math, Eisnstein. $500 per night? $500.00 / 20.00 = Your theater needs to put just 25 people PER DAY to pay for the cost! Thats PER DAY, not per showing! A typical movie theater shows the same movie about 5 times a night. That means, in any theater, the money made off of just 5 people out of the entire theater is enough to pay the evil, satan-worshipping, tyrannical monopolistic Hollywood studio for the rights to show that film. Shut up.

    Coincedentally, the camera pays for itself for every 7,000 people who walk in the door. 7000 * 20 = 140,000. To get that many people through the door in most theaters would take about three days, tops. So quit yer bitching, clean the fucking floor once in a while, and use your toes if you run out of fingers to count on. Jesus.

    Cheers,

    • Well, the money the theatre makes is not pure profit. Think, rent/morgage and insurance on the building. Paying the employees (pay plus benefits). The popcorn and drinks are not actually free. Then there is electricity, other utilities and so on.

      Now if you add $500 cost per each showing, all of a sudden it may not be profitable to show the movie at all. Haven't you ever been in a theatre with only 10 people in the audience?

    • Not at all - this is Campus Cinema at UC Davis, the theater doubles as the largest of the Chemistry lecture rooms, and the price of a ticket is $3-4. Oh, and they don't sell refreshments - the building is primarily a lecture hall, so there's no place to sell them from. Try your math again, please.
    • Okay, first off, a lot of the ticket sales go straight to the movie distributor, NOT to the cinema owner. I've heard it said that the first two months (or maybe 2 weeks? not sure) of SW2 ticket sales has to go to Lucasfilm. Yikes. Okay, so this means that the cinema makes most of it's money from concession sales, NOT from ticket sales. Keep in mind the original poster here said profit, not gross. There are expenses to all the concessions, employee costs (salary & benefits, etc.), other costs such as cleaning costs, etc, plus costs for the building structure and upkeep, etc, insurance, blah blah blah.

      The math isn't nearly as simple as you like to make out, and cinemas don't make nearly as much as you're thinking.

  • Two words: "Moore's Law" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jack William Bell ( 84469 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:06PM (#3640825) Homepage Journal
    The price on the digitial projection equipment will not stay high forever.

    Besides I suspect that your current equipment cost nearly the equivalent in today's dollars when it was new. Or at least the early 35mm sound projection equipment did.

    Also, considering the cost savings in avoiding film prints alone, it seems pretty likely the movie distributors are going to push this technology pretty hard. Hopefully they will offer some kind of incentive to getting the equipment into the theatres.

    Jack William Bell
    • So if Moore's Law applies to things other than the transistor count of CPUs, then why don't 19" LCD screens cost 6 bucks? Or leaving electronics, why doesn't my car get 10^15 miles per gallon? They've been building the bastards for 100 years.

      -B
  • With the massive glut of movie theaters nationwide, and with the coming contraction in theater chains, I don't foresee a large shift to digital cinema anytime soon.

    The chains don't have the money or the drive to make the switch. They vastly overbuilt stadium seating mega-multiplexes and they are not going to rework those theaters for an extraordinarily niche segment.

    People might be inclined to make an effort and pay more for IMAX, but there is no such instinct towards digital cinema (Wow! Approaching the quality of film, if you don't look too hard. Here's my extra $1.)

    And if the studios cut back on the number of film reels they ship and say they'll only send them digital? Well, they'd be self-destructive to do it before there was a critical mass of digital cinema theaters nationwide, and there won't be for quite awhile.

    Consumers (rightly) don't perceive digital cinema as benefiting them, so they aren't driving it. Stadium seating did benefit them, which is why they'll pay extra and so many were built. As it turns out, too many, but that's because everyone was rushing forward in the boom times ignoring business cycles and such.

  • According to Ebert... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by srvivn21 ( 410280 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:09PM (#3640854)
    Love him or hate him, he is a famous voice in the movie review business. Here [suntimes.com] he says "Digital images contain less information than 35mm film images, and the more you test their limits, the more you see that."

    I have read (in another of his reviews that I can't find now) that movies that are "filmed" (vs. digitally recorded) look better on film, where as digitally recorded movies look better on digital projectors (duh). He also stated that film seems more suited for real life (vs. digital recording) where as digital projection is better for digitally created works (much of Clones, Monsters Inc., etc.).

    Wish I could find that commentary...
    • Here [suntimes.com] it is...

      "Since the movie was being projected on film on another McClurg screen...I slipped upstairs, watched a scene on film and then hurried downstairs to compare the same scene on video. The difference was dramatic: more detail, more depth, more clarity.

      Readers familiar with my preference for film over video projection systems will wonder if I have switched parties. Not at all. It's to be expected that "Episode II" would look better on digital, because it was entirely filmed on digital. Therefore, the digitally projected version is generation one, and the film version is one generation further from the source. Lucas is right as far as a computer-aided special-effects movie like "Episode II" goes, but may be wrong for the vast majority of movies that depict the real world on celluloid.

      [...]

      My feeling is that movies shot on digital video look better projected on video, and that movies shot on film look better projected on film.      "

  • ``...if Hollywood suddenly got the "bright" idea to limit 35mm reel distribution within the next few years?''

    Why they'll blame the resulting drop in movie theatre attendance on piracy over the Internet, of course. We all know that Hollywood is right about all things. Geez, to hear Jack Valenti talk, the most important export that the U.S. of A. has is the output of the Hollywood moviemaking conglomerates. So if they say it's because of piracy then it must be so and not, NOT, because of their reducing the quantity of their product.

  • Digital Camera is a GODSEND to Indie Film Makers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EXTomar ( 78739 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:10PM (#3640867)
    As noted current technology is both too price and still too low in quality to outpace standard 35mm film. There is a lot of mindshare built around how to make film look good on celluloid. Tossing it all out just for the alluring gloss of digital projection is stupid.

    However there is a legitimate and embraced usage of digital film making. The small time indy film makers have seen the costs of making films go *way down* by using digital cameras and a simple computer(think iMac) in post production.

    So the question in my mind isn't whether or not Digital film making is worth while. It is. It is whether or not projecting it in a theater is worth it, which currently it isn't.

    And lastly, why does anyone want to believe Lucas on this cinema technology? This is the guy that questions the wisdom of Scorsese on constructing sets that recreate 1850 New York(I believe the movie he was refering to was Gangs of New York). Lucas would rather see it all digitized except the actors. I'll take Scorsese's attention to detail than Lucas' SFX team anyday.
    • I found the Sarlacc pit scene to be a more believable scene than most of EP2. The lighting is dramatic and real, particularly on the inside shots. The scene was set well, and the action roamed around the set... and in the end, it blew up good. :-)

      I'm a little sad to see that era pass. I'm not sure that it should.

  • Digital will take over (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AaronW ( 33736 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @05:12PM (#3640881) Homepage
    A few months ago I attended a SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) meeting held at Pixar. The meeting was held in their screening room. The screening room is equipped with both a traditional 35MM film projector anda DLP projector with a resolution of 1280x1024.

    For the first part of the demonstration they showed a clip from Monsters Inc. split screen, with the left half the digital projector and the right half the film projector.

    It became immediately apparent the advantages of the DLP projector over the film projector.

    With the side-by-side showing, the jitter of the film became immediately visible. The detail of the DLP image was better. Also, the DLP is capable of much better contrast than film.

    Now the film that was shown was of higher quality than that shown in the theaters, and the projector was also better than that in most theaters (and is also better maintained).

    This isn't to say that there were no DLP artifacts. There were some, but they were not very noticable compared to the artifacts that usually appear in film. The film shown had no dirt or scratches, but in the typical theater this is not the case.

    Unlike film, there's nothing to wear out in the media.

    As far as the projector lasting a long time, the only real problem I hear of is that the light bulb must be periodically replaced (which cost around $100). The DLP should last a long time.
    • I hate double posting [slashdot.org], but feel that here it is warranted...

      In Roger Ebert's opinion [suntimes.com] (re: AotC on digital vs film):


      "Since the movie was being projected on film on another McClurg screen...I slipped upstairs, watched a scene on film and then hurried downstairs to compare the same scene on video. The difference was dramatic: more detail, more depth, more clarity.

      Readers familiar with my preference for film over video projection systems will wonder if I have switched parties. Not at all. It's to be expected that "Episode II" would look better on digital, because it was entirely filmed on digital. Therefore, the digitally projected version is generation one, and the film version is one generation further from the source. Lucas is right as far as a computer-aided special-effects movie like "Episode II" goes, but may be wrong for the vast majority of movies that depict the real world on celluloid."


      The same thing would apply for Monsters Inc. as it is a digitally created work. Do the same test with a "real life" film (Insomnia for example) and see how the picture quality matches.

      Yes with digital you get rid of the "jitter" and the dirt and scratches. But at what cost to the image quality and color depth?

      • Re:Digital will take over (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @06:00PM (#3641260) Homepage
        Image quality can be debated... my personal opinion is that the amount of crap that winds up on a film reel after just a couple showings of a movie degrades the stock to below that of digital already.

        As for color depth - forget it. Not even an issue. Colors in film stock get washed out very quickly from projection. And one of the big gains expected out of digital delivery and projection is the elimination of color variations between film stock. Film being film, it's very difficult to expose exactly the same twice. Much less get similar exposures between different reels. So you wind up with slightly yellow or blue tinted media going out to the retail chains... now generally it's not something that's noticeable, especially since you generally have no comparison at the time of watching, but it's still there and it's another distribution nightmare to match up similarly tinted film stock.

        I wish TI would push higher resolution DMD's for theater level projectors. They have demo'd a 1920x1024 DMD, but say it's cost prohibitive to produce (and it very well may be right now... but 1280x1024 w/ a panamorphic lens just doesn't cut it).
  • Though I have no doubt that prices for replacement parts will be inflated in the beginning, Digital Projectors should have fewer moving parts than a normal 35 MM projector. It seems to me that they'd be more longer lasting.

    Personally, I wish the MPAA would spend more time making movies fun than tring to optimize scre... i mean profits.
  • I've seen a lot of people say "The digital quality is better!" Sorry, folks, it just ain't so. For the same reason your fancy digital camera doesn't have the same resolution as your SLR film camera - film has a finer grain than CCD's and provides a better image.

    The studios want to "go digital" because it gives them more control, not because it gives them better quality. If they were really after quality, they'd have stuck with 70mm film rather than shifting back to the cheaper 35mm format.

    Cinemas are already on a thin edge. The reason food's so bloody expensive is because they have to give such a huge cut of the box office take to the studios. Adding the cost of digital equipment to the mix will mean higher ticket prices than we are already paying. Considering the abysimal quality of most movies oozing out of Hollywood, it's already too much. Who really want to pay even more just to amortize the cost of Hollywood exercising more control?
  • they'll go digital. Eventually, the cost of film will drop to damn near zero and the digital transmission costs will have been raised because of all the alleged one-eyed gentlement who don't really exist. (The piracy argument is as much of a crock as it was back when the neo-Luddites objected to the player piano.)

    Then the theatres all go tits up.

    The issue, believe it or not, is real-estate. Theatres eat up a lot of urban real-estate and that can be put to better use by developers (I wonder how much Jack Valenti is being paid off by the real-estate developers?)

    The film industry will eventually collapse and then we're all supposed to sit at home watching reruns on friggin' huge home theatre (but not HD-TV since that doesn't simply use existing infrastructure and the crap they want to re-run doesn't warrant the expense.)

    Jack Valenti will have won and you'll pay for every packet coming to your house, whether you watch it or not.

    The death of creativity and the maximization of reuse.
  • Article Backing into Digital Cinema [mkpe.com].

    Some clips:
    - " The simple fact is that the killer application for electronic cinema is advertising."
    - "As low-cost electronic projectors land firmly in place for advertising, other types of content will gravitate to the theatre. Typically called alternative content, this could include independent films, Broadway plays, sporting events, pop concerts, or interactive games designed for cinema."
    - "Rather than charge into digital cinema head-on while trying to figure out the business plan, it's far more likely that exhibitors will back into digital cinema by first implementing all other forms of electronically projected entertainment."

    I believe the man behind this article has a good point, it's not that bad for the Cinemas, it will open a lot of new possibilities as well.
  • ...as much. You've got to realize that the digital projectors don't have moving parts, and therefore, aren't going to be as prone to breakage. You'll have to replace the bulb now and again, just like any other projector, but not any motors or gears or wheels or any of that rot.

    Don't worry about the thing breaking...just make sure you've got a warranty and a service contract.
  • Yea, digital is desparately expensive...now.

    Two years ago, HDTVs were desparately expensive.

    Five years ago, DVDs were desparately expensive.

    Seventeen years ago, CDs were desparately expensive.
    Last I checked, CD's are mainstream, DVD's have begun to pull ahead, and HDTV has come down 50% in price. All digital devices have gone the same route. They start extremely expensive, but as people get lured into the "quality" of digital, demand goes up, supply goes up, and cost goes down.

    Now, to answer the question, I wouldn't buy into digital right now. There's a lot to be worked out. But I believe that you will eventually have to lay down the sword and move into digital.

    Realize though, that there will ALWAYS be a market for Analog. Don't believe me? Question: Why do record companies still produce LPs? Because they sound better...no, wait. Correction: they sound more real. Just like there was a bit of a surprise with the Slashdot article [slashdot.org]
    about Vacuum tubes on motherboards. Though people thought that they wanted "clearer" sound, "crisper" pictures, and the "digital experience," there is a small growth of people now saying that it doesn't sound "real."

    Bottom line: consumers will never be able to make up their minds.
    • Realize though, that there will ALWAYS be a market for Analog. Don't believe me? Question: Why do record companies still produce LPs? Because they sound better...no, wait. Correction: they sound more real. Just like there was a bit of a surprise with the Slashdot article.

      I may be wrong, but I thought most of the current LP market is actually for DJs to use on their turntables.
  • Right now, the prices for digital systems are stratospheric, but the advantages could, in theory, more than make up for the cost. You can use it to hold telecasts: bring lectures in from Oxford, live bigscreen showings of away games for the University's football team. The cost of renting movies drops through the floor as the cost of distribution approaches nil.

    The problem is, there are no clear standards yet, and a whole lot of competing ones: Boeing, Technicolor, Sony, DLP, etc. You choose one option, there is =zero= guarantee it will use the digital projection standards for distribution and format that the rest of the industry winds up settling on. Then you have a $150,000 betamax VCR, and the professional equivalent to the dwindling "BETA" section at the local Video Store. No Oxford lectures. No away games. Not even Spiderman II.

    I'd give the industry a few years to decide which way it wants to jump, or, barring that, a stone-solid contract from whichever vendor you go with that they will provide you with an upgrade to the equipment to make it compatible with dominant standard in case you pick a looser. Of course, if a proprietary standard is settled upon, you're screwed anyway.

    SoupIsGood Food
  • I think digital is the way of the future but it still has a ways to go. Likely, half of the amazement at the "quality" of digital is from seeing a film without any dirt, grime or other artifacts that go with reels of film.

    As others pointed out, the resolution ain't much better than a desktop PC... and it's being projected onto a *huge* screen. I saw Ep 2 from the back of the theatre and I could spot pixelation in text *very* easily. The jagged lines was kind of annoying.

    Theatre owners simply can't afford to buy projectors that'll be obsolete in a couple years. The industry is fairly screwed at the moment.

    It'll probably take 10 years or so for digital to overtake film projectors, once a high-quality format is agreed upon. But the current tech? No way.
  • Movie theaters are the retailers for the movie studios' product. The studios won't make a movie unless they know they can sell it to the theaters.

    In fact, studios generally *pre-sell* their product to the theaters. They go around to theater owners showing them pre-production clips and asking them to front a share of the production costs. If the studio can't raise enough cash from the theaters, they don't make the movie.

    If theaters don't want to deal with digital projection, all they have to do is add a rider saying they will only invest in a movie if they get the finished product on film.
  • George Lucus originally said AotC would only go to digital equiped houses, but only 19 were ready for the digital copy (I saw it at the one here in Orlando). I guess the thought of threating them with not having Star Wars unless they were digital, did not make all 3500 theatres go spend the 140k for the equipment.

    Unless more than 70% of the houses go digital, 35mm will remain.

    The studios could buy the projectors for the movies houses so they can get the control they seem to covet.
  • As if they didn't a monopoly already: it costs us between $500-1000 (or half of our profits, whichever is more) for each night we show a movie!

    The more you tighten your grip, the more Divx ripoffs shall slip through your fingers.

  • I suspect the problem of getting repairs will be less than the problem of getting the equipment in the first place. I'm sure there will be leases, and repairs will come as part of the lease procedure; then there will be service contracts, and when a significant number of theaters no longer have service contracts, the technology will have matured enough that spare parts won't cost a bloody fortune.

  • Prices go down (Score:2, Insightful)

    by WiggyWack ( 88258 )
    Like all technology, the price of digital projectors will go down. In a couple years, repairing your analog projector may cost more than repairing your digital, just like it costs more to fix a reel-to-reel audio machine than it does to fix (or buy a new) digital audio editing station.

  • I'm unimpressed with digital (Score:3, Informative)

    by multiplexo ( 27356 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2002 @08:16PM (#3642112) Journal
    I saw AoTC at the Cinerama in downtown Seattle last Friday. The Cinerama is set up to do 70mm and it's damned impressive when they do (LoTR was
    completely awesome). Yet I was unimpressed with AoTC, there were digital artifacts scattered throughout the film which I assume are caused by the TI DLP system used for projecting the movie.
    If digital can make it easier to distribute films great, but not if the quality is going to suck.

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