What do they use in cinemas?

srynznfyra

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Hi
What kind of equipment do they use in cinemas for projecting the video and reproducing the audio with?

For example, do they use a film reel in front of a projector (that has been printed off of a digital edit using expensive equipment I assume), or do they use 4K digital projectors? If not why not (I know they exist)? Reason I wonder is that seeing as the edit is almost always done digitally (ie. using a computer/computers), then what is the point of using film at all when making a movie? Surely you could film using a RED 4K digital camera or something similar, edit, then export to a digital format (much cheaper than exporting to film isn't it?).

thanks
Fela

PS. this is just about curiosity I don't actually require this information for anything!
 
At the moment I think the majority of cinemas still use film projectors, there are digital cinemas which use 4k 2k projectors but I think these are still in the minority at the moment. The reason all cinemas don't use digital is the cost of upgrading, its by no means cheap. I dont know about the audio side of things I'm afraid
 
At the moment I think the majority of cinemas still use film projectors, there are digital cinemas which use 4k 2k projectors but I think these are still in the minority at the moment. The reason all cinemas don't use digital is the cost of upgrading, its by no means cheap. I dont know about the audio side of things I'm afraid

OK, so there really isn't any point in staying with film then (apart from cost of upgrading) - so maybe in 20 years or so everything will be digital :D (the reason I prefer digital is that film degrades in quality over time, you can't make personal videos with a 35mm camera but digital is a 'catch all' medium, and many other reasons aswell - the only advantage of film IMO is that there is no such thing as resolution so quality is infinite in terms of that (or is it/is there...?)).

Another question - upgrading the 35mm projectors might not be cheap but what about all that wasted money printing 35mm film and renting/buying 35mm cameras and their miles of expensive cinema film? Although I did hear that people are transitioning to RED now. Still, it must cost alot of time and money converting film to digital to edit and then back to film for projection...

cheers :thumbsup:
 
If a film is kept well it can still look fantastic many years later. Some films approaching a century old still look stunning.

Storing films digitally is not without its own problems. Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell commented on this recently in an interview - I'll try to find the link.

Steve W
 
I went for a look around my local independent cinema in Cleethorpes a few weeks back and they had 8 or 9 'film' projectors and 1 digital one talking to the manager though apparently they only went for the 'film' PJ's because the owner got them very cheap from another cinema that was closing down. The digital PJ is the one they use for the 3D content too.
 
If a film is kept well it can still look fantastic many years later. Some films approaching a century old still look stunning.

But the point is it does degrade in quality. You can keep a digital copy for as long as you like without any degradation in quality whatsoever (as long as you make sure you have a backup). Although I guess there is the problem of digital devices often having a very finite (more so than film) lifetime. But if an ultra durable digital backup medium was invented, you could copy old digital films to it right away - with film you can't keep it on different mediums (as film is the medium in itself).

Storing films digitally is not without its own problems. Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell commented on this recently in an interview - I'll try to find the link.

Steve W

That would be quite interesting to hear so thanks :)
 
I read it at the Powell & Pressburger Yahoo Group. I can't link directly as you have to join, but if you do it's on Post 35444 Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:43 pm.

A group member had posted:

In theory, but as of yet, there is no 100% guaranted foolproof way of storing all that digital information.... imagine going back to that disc/hard drive/whatever and finding the thing has become corrupted....and you can't retrieve that information.... so; currently, a 'hard copy' of the restoration is printed onto 35mm fine grain as well.

Another member replied:

Thelma Schoonmaker introducing TRS (The restored version of The Red Shoes {1948}) at Bath was adamant about that, ie that long-term digital storage was not as rock solid as people had thought, and made that exact point that to be really safe you had to film-out a new negative, which with careful handling could last 100 years.

Hope that helps.

Steve W
 
@Pecker

I joined that group and looked through some of the posts - they seemed to be saying that film negatives last UP TO 100 years if handled the right way. So it seems to me that it's much better to keep cheap digital copies (such as blu-ray discs and of course magnetic tape), and to always have a few backups available in the unlikely case that a few get corrupted - blu ray discs are cheap, remember, at least relative to my next point, ie:

with film you have to continually make more and more expensive (in terms of money and environment) prints and 'internegs' as they wear out. Surely this is a waste of time and money compared with the cheap and easy method of backing up onto blu ray disks (for example)?

Also, as I said digital storage methods are continually getting better and more reliable, and transferring to a new method is as simple as copying the file over, whereas film will always stay the same (if you get what I mean).
 
@Pecker

I joined that group and looked through some of the posts - they seemed to be saying that film negatives last UP TO 100 years if handled the right way. So it seems to me that it's much better to keep cheap digital copies (such as blu-ray discs and of course magnetic tape), and to always have a few backups available in the unlikely case that a few get corrupted - blu ray discs are cheap, remember, at least relative to my next point, ie:

with film you have to continually make more and more expensive (in terms of money and environment) prints and 'internegs' as they wear out. Surely this is a waste of time and money compared with the cheap and easy method of backing up onto blu ray disks (for example)?

Also, as I said digital storage methods are continually getting better and more reliable, and transferring to a new method is as simple as copying the file over, whereas film will always stay the same (if you get what I mean).

I personally think it's a good idea to use a belt & braces approach.

Firstly the original film should be kept in the best possible condition, with good quality copies kept in a variety of locations.

Secondly the best quality film should be scanned using the best methods available, and digital copies kept in as many different locations and in as many different formats as possible.

The big problem is, of course, the expense.

Blu-ray Disc does not capture film precisely. I suspect that the very best quality print will have more detail than the Blu-ray Disc, usually greater contrast, and always a greater range of colour. Scrapping ever physical film today and relying on digital copies wil result in the loss of quality on the material which we would never see again.

Steve W
 
By the way the way it worked with the digital PJ at our local independent was that they purchased the film on Hard Drive with so many uses!
 
Blu-ray Disc does not capture film precisely. I suspect that the very best quality print will have more detail than the Blu-ray Disc, usually greater contrast, and always a greater range of colour. Scrapping ever physical film today and relying on digital copies wil result in the loss of quality on the material which we would never see again.

Steve W

I guess you have a point there :eek:
 
Blu-ray Disc does not capture film precisely. I suspect that the very best quality print will have more detail than the Blu-ray Disc, usually greater contrast, and always a greater range of colour. Scrapping ever physical film today and relying on digital copies wil result in the loss of quality on the material which we would never see again.

I think being more precise (pedantic), Blu-ray is just a way of storing digital data. The quality of the images is down to the Codec which is being used to encode the data and how severe a compression ratio is applied.

Question... does 35mm film have a comparable digital resolution, 4K 2K etc, where 1 pixel on the sensor would be equal to one grain on the negative or better.

Surely, with the use of a digital camera with suitable resolution and colour depth, the quality of the master then becomes dependant on the way in which the captured data is processed and compressed for storage.

But with lossless data (like a RAW file on digi camera's), you need one huge chunk of digital space to store it in.

Paul :)
 
Question... does 35mm film have a comparable digital resolution, 4K 2K etc, where 1 pixel on the sensor would be equal to one grain on the negative or better.

Around 4k apparently. Most films these days go through a Digital Intermediate which is usually 2K resolution. They can scan at 4K but then working and storing at that res can cost more:

http://www.digitalcinemasociety.com/downloads/HowManyKsDoINeed.pdf

So what we see in your local theatre is something like 2K or less.

Gary
 
Around 4k apparently.

Is that so? Because I thought that film (as it's big advantage over digital) was virtually infinite in that respect - I thought that the equivalent to each pixel on a digital recording was in the ball-park of molecules, size wise. How wrong I was :rolleyes:

In that case I take back what I said earlier to Steve, and instead say that there is no point storing 35mm copies, at least all the arguments I've found for it don't really 'float my boat'. :nono:
 
As far as I'm aware, a lot of 'digital cinemas' use the NEC NC2500S DLP projector, for example Cineworld.

This is a 2K model. Here's a link:

DLP Cinema projector : NC2500S

I recently saw Avatar at Cineworld so it was interesting to see it since it was my first digital cinema experience.

The PQ was very impressive indeed. The contrast ratio of the PJ is stated as 2000:1 which, next to the current trend of super high figures banded about by PJ manufacturers, sounds rather low. However, the image quality in the cinema was quite amazing, and the contrast was very good indeed!

I was also wondering if any pixelation would be evident in the image, considering how big the projected picture is and that the 2K resolution is not much higher than standard 1080p. But in reality I had to get quite close to the screen during the end credits to see the pixel structure of the image.

So for me, digital cinema gets the thumbs up and I guess it's the way forward.

Perhaps as it becomes more popular, the price of these enormous DLP PJs (they weigh 120kg!) will come down so more cinemas can afford to install them.
 
But the point is it [film] does degrade in quality./QUOTE]

Yes it does, but then so do the most common digital carriers too. In both analogue and digital it depends mainly on the storage environment.

Recordable Optical (especially DVDs, CDs, Blu-Rays) can hold data for quite a while, but leave it on a desk in a sunny office and it will corrupt sooner rather than later.

Magnetic media - especially the large capacity drives - suffers from bit-flipping, especially when fast-moving data (eg, the latest weekly blockbuster, with the last weekly blockbuster being deleted to make room) and slow-moving data (eg, stuff the cinema wants to store and re-release at some unspecified date in the future) both being stored on the same drive. Its an unlikely scenario but those people with just a C: drive on their computers should take note, this silent data corruption affects you in particular!

In both these digital cases, error detection and correction is the key to long term storage, multiple copies in different locations also helps. Its very unlikely that anything digital could be considered "permanent" though.

As for film, ive heard of loads of issues. The main one affecting UK viewers of even "new" films is wear and tear - the films we get tend to be second-hand from US cinemas to start with, so have all those extra issues/scratches etc built-in before we ever see the film in the UK. Not to mention storage, improper storage can allow water/heat/fire damage etc which can ruin an analogue copy just as easily as a digital copy.

A little off-topic, My local showcase just upgraded to 3D (probably digital) in a couple of its screens, though the glasses appear to have a red/blue tint to the left/right eye. You dont suppose they cheaped out and went back to the '60s way of projecting 3D, do you?? :eek:

Jas.
 
A little off-topic, My local showcase just upgraded to 3D (probably digital) in a couple of its screens, though the glasses appear to have a red/blue tint to the left/right eye. You dont suppose they cheaped out and went back to the '60s way of projecting 3D, do you?? :eek:

Jas.

LOL they probably did - the glasses in my local 3D cinema (the vue in islington, London), use polarizing glasses and they're just black, no blue/red tint. So do the two (or three maybe) IMAX cinemas near-ish to me.

Surely if they use the old method the image will be grayscale?
 
As far as I'm aware, a lot of 'digital cinemas' use the NEC NC2500S DLP projector, for example Cineworld.

This is a 2K model. Here's a link:

DLP Cinema projector : NC2500S

I recently saw Avatar at Cineworld so it was interesting to see it since it was my first digital cinema experience.

The PQ was very impressive indeed. The contrast ratio of the PJ is stated as 2000:1 which, next to the current trend of super high figures banded about by PJ manufacturers, sounds rather low. However, the image quality in the cinema was quite amazing, and the contrast was very good indeed!

I was also wondering if any pixelation would be evident in the image, considering how big the projected picture is and that the 2K resolution is not much higher than standard 1080p. But in reality I had to get quite close to the screen during the end credits to see the pixel structure of the image.

So for me, digital cinema gets the thumbs up and I guess it's the way forward.

Perhaps as it becomes more popular, the price of these enormous DLP PJs (they weigh 120kg!) will come down so more cinemas can afford to install them.

this tells me two things:

1) having a properly set up room to view is important - reduce reflections, decent screen etc.

2) people need to stop fussing about 32" 1080p TVs. 1080p can clearly blow up just fine to real cinema sizes (2k is pretty much the same resolution), so tiny TVs won't make the most of it at all.
 
2) people need to stop fussing about 32" 1080p TVs. 1080p can clearly blow up just fine to real cinema sizes (2k is pretty much the same resolution), so tiny TVs won't make the most of it at all.

Slightly off topic but this made me laugh because my computer screen is 1080p but only 22 inch, maybe that's why I don't really notice any difference between standard and high def when viewing films on it...
 
Is that so? Because I thought that film (as it's big advantage over digital) was virtually infinite in that respect - I thought that the equivalent to each pixel on a digital recording was in the ball-park of molecules, size wise. How wrong I was :rolleyes:

In that case I take back what I said earlier to Steve, and instead say that there is no point storing 35mm copies, at least all the arguments I've found for it don't really 'float my boat'. :nono:

Okay, a few points.

Firstly, 35mm film can have an equivalent resolution of much higher than 1080p.

Secondly, the print in your local multiplex probably doesn't show much more detail than 1080p.

Thirdly, as I pointed out earlier, film's advantages over digital are far more than just the definition/visible detail. Home HD 1080p (as you'll find on your Blu-ray Discs, on which you're suggesting keeping copies) is only 8 bit 4:2:0 whilst DCi as projected on a 2k projector will be (I believe) 12 bit 4:4:4 (someone should correct me on that if I remember it incorrectly).

Still life in the old dog yet. :thumbsup:

Steve W
 
Yep, points taken. Think we got the equivalent resolution for film to be about 4K.

Yes, current Blu-ray movies use 8-bit 4:2:0 image processing. Nothing is stopping Blu-ray's being made using a 10bit 4:2:2 signal or 12bit 4:4:4 signal, it's only the lack of movies being created in this format that's stopping its use.

12bit 4:4:4 is part of the HDMI v1.3 spec and a lot of current HD devices are capable of processing and transferring a full 36bit signal. Plus, full 12bit display panels are starting to become more commonly used in TV's and Projectors.


The push for 30bit and 36bit movies at home will probably co-inside with the push for 3D capable units in the home. Though the new Blu-ray 3D & 3D ready devices are to use HDMI v1.4 connectors and cables.

Re-jig: Blu-ray is purely a storage medium, the way in which the material is encoded and compressed for storage is down to the codec. Blu-ray can use either MPEG2, VC-1 or MPEG4 AVC ... each offers 8, 10, 12 or 16bit per RGB channel, only MPEG4 AVC supports the use of 4:4:4 chroma sub sampling. MPEG2 & VC-1 are 4:2:0 only.
 
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Thirdly, as I pointed out earlier, film's advantages over digital are far more than just the definition/visible detail. Home HD 1080p (as you'll find on your Blu-ray Discs, on which you're suggesting keeping copies) is only 8 bit 4:2:0 whilst DCi as projected on a 2k projector will be (I believe) 12 bit 4:4:4 (someone should correct me on that if I remember it incorrectly).

These aren't actually limitations of digital movies. You could easily store a 4K, or 28K (if you're a nutter) digital movie on a blu ray (or something with rather more capacity in the latter case...think JBOD or RAID0 :D).

I think we had a misunderstanding, you thought I meant blu-ray as in the technology they use to encode movies and put them on blu ray disks, when in fact I meant blu-ray as merely a way of storing digital data (you could use anything that records a fantastically huge number of zeros and ones).

There might still be life in the old dogs, but truth be told I prefer to move on and accept digital as a more versatile format (which surely you can't argue with me on?). I do definitely accept that film has advantages though.
 
I think this read may prove interesting

HD vs 35mm FILM - Digital Cinematography Resolution, Film vs Video

Regards,

Alberto

Yes, also one more thing: the argument is made even more moot by the new RED cameras - digital video cameras with 4K resolution.

Another thing that I've actually been wondering the whole time:

Wouldn't all of 35mm film's 'advantages' go right out of the window when the film is converted to digital to edit? You're not telling me hollywood studios still use cutting desks, so they must have to convert it to a digital format and then back...thereby getting rid of film's resolution....surely?
 

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