A Few Words About A few words about...™ Digital Projection in the wild (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by DeeF /t/320364/a-few-words-about-digital-projection-in-the-wild/30#post_3922481
That is the COOLEST thing I've read today!
Some of my favorite movie experiences were at teenage parties, the Marx Brothers and The Maltese Falcon, projected onto a wall in the living room.

The original King Kong was always a big hit. Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Citizen Kane -- all in proper aspect ratio, and also films like An Affair to Remember and Two for the Road. The fun part was projecting CinemaScope on a screen probably 25 feet wide. Lawrence of Arabia in 16mm was always fun. The introduction in XXXLS of Ali looked like nothing more than something akin to the Lithuanian flag. Just some blue and yellowish brown. No Ali.

RAH

 

[bjwmovies]

Bless you Mr. Harris,
Your original post here reminds of when Nick Clooney (George Clooney's Dad for those of you who wouldn't know) formerly of AMC when AMC WAS AMC. Anyway, we had here locally advertised Nick will introduce "The King And I" and present it in its original Cinemascope glory. Well, when Nick (who just jumped off the flight)t arrived, he was amazed to see that this highly publicized and well attended event was being presented by the lowest quality video projector, (we are talking classroom) and possibly the earliest generation of DVD, maybe even VHS and on a very small screen. Horrible! I was sick, he was obviously embarrassed and though Nick said he would be back at the end to have a Q&A, he never returned and the audience (those who made it through this catastrophe of a presentation) left In disgust. Mr. Clooney I am sure found the first flight out, he was nowhere to be found after his intro. I hope TMC is not going in the same direction...?.

 

[Rob W]

I work for a major theatre chain and had to answer an angry e-mail from a customer today who was livid that we were not offering the 70th anniversary screening in an area where we were the only option. Having read about Fathom events before, I advised him that we had not pursued a partnership with Fathom for these very reasons and we felt that if we could not do something like this correctly we did not want to do it at all.
Some of us are still fighting the good fight !

 

[rdimucci]

I can't speak for everywhere, but the local Regal mutiplexes utilizing the Sony 4k projectors provide a superior picture to anything I've seen previously. The film presentations locally at all except the art house theater have been dependably out of focus for years now.

I, too, will offer praise to my local Regal multiplex, which switched over to the Sony 4K projectors last year. By and large, the showings have been excellent. The only problem I've noted has been some drop off in light levels in the largest houses. But that was probably the case with the earlier film projectors as well.

 

[PCineArchitect]

It's really nice to see the genuine concern for quality in cinema exhibition expressed in this forum. It's an old battle as film houses have had plenty of problems of their own in the past, which the TAP program attempted to address. But film and light was alwasy a constant. It was geometry, focus, and brightness that varied, but flat field uniformity generally did not. Film, light, and a lens handled that well for about a century. Now that we're moving past film, it would be sad if we let 'anyone' get away with murder in some new way.
Someone commented on the aspect ratio of the screen shots here. The image in our theater was projected at the correct 1.33:1 AR. The pictures were taken from a smartphone, and then included in a pdf document. An area select tool was used to grab and post them here, so errors in AR were induced by that process somewhere along the line. I can say the color uniformity problem you see in these pics is precisely what we saw live. Black and White content is the unmerciful revealer of this flaw which all LCoS and LCD devices struggle to correct as best they can. The DLP theaters would not have been a problem in this area as they are inherently linear so B&W is B&W. One of our colleagues reported from a DLP cinema that night and confirmed that to be the case. If you set it up a DLP to generate a good gray scale in the first place, they hang in there with only colorimetry tweaks needed generally at lamp cycle time.
Hey, at least it wasn't the Blair Witch Project; we were sickened enough by the projector's performance, a shakey handicam would have us running a lot sooner
Cheers,

 

[rdimucci]

A few years ago, in a conversation with a major studio's repertory booker, I found out that their famously fantastic digital versions actually rarely screen in digital theatres. Why? Because the studio would not allow the digital files out of their hands except through specially approved technicians who personally installed and removed those files. And the fee for that service, above the fee for feature rental, was in the four figure range. What I was told was that most cinemas simply ran the consumer DVD and just paid the studio a fee.
Couple years ago, in a conversation with someone who does projection in a vintage old cinema, he himself said they usually ran DVDs and nobody knew the difference.

Last month I went to the American Film Institute's Silver Theater to see Nicholas Ray's KING OF KINGS. While I had hopes that Warners would provided a 4K DCP to the AFI for the showing, they actually provided nothing except permission, and the AFI projected the Blu-ray of the film on their screen, letteringboxing bands and all.

 

[NY2LA]

If the AFI doesn't care either... I'd say the movie industry is being run by sloppy hypocrites.
I've been to screenings at the posh Directors Guild theatre in Hollywood, where people routinely put the dirty soles of their footwear all over those nice red velour seats and no one even noticed.
Exhibition has gone to hell... and they wonder why they don't make more money.
Variety reports the Home Video industry is lamenting the fact that the DVD boom is not being repeated in BluRay. They completely ignore the cheap and shoddy they have handle Blu Rays and they are surprised that this "superior format" is not booming. It's their own goddamn fault.

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by rdimucci /t/320364/a-few-words-about-digital-projection-in-the-wild/60#post_3922664
I, too, will offer praise to my local Regal multiplex, which switched over to the Sony 4K projectors last year. By and large, the showings have been excellent. The only problem I've noted has been some drop off in light levels in the largest houses. But that was probably the case with the earlier film projectors as well.

The 4k units are designed and built for larger houses. For smaller houses, there is no viable rationale or need of 4k.

RAH

 

[Robert Harris]

http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/05/tech-advances-havent-stamped-out-subpar-pictures-at-the-multiplex/

 

[Kurosawa]

"...the cheap and shoddy they have handle Blu Rays..."
Pretty strong and sweeping statement. I'd say the overwhelming majority of Blu-rays are handled professionally, with beautiful results.

 

[Todd Erwin]

That is exactly what Lucasfilm's Theater Alignment Program (later merged with THX, then dropped entirely when digital sound made 70mm virtually obsolete) was all about.

Initially, the program was created to have a technician visit the theater showing the 70mm print and make sure everything was operational. Then, over the next 10 days of release, an evaluator would visit the theater and watch the film with a paying audience. Once on opening night, three days after release, and 10 days after release. After each visit, the report would be phoned in to TAP/THX with a written report faxed or mailed in the next day. That report would then be sent to the theater manager and projectionist (now one and the same in most cases).

Sometimes, it would result in corrections made to the presentation or the shipment of a new reel or entire print. More often than not, though, it would fall on deaf ears and blind eyes.

Originally Posted by bgart13 /t/320364/a-few-words-about-digital-projection-in-the-wild#post_3920884
One somewhat simple answer is the distributors need to include specific instructions for projector settings and send inspectors around to each and every theater. Either that, or maybe distributors need to show up when the "prints" are delivered and set the projectors correctly if the theater managers aren't able to do so.

 

[Todd Erwin]

It should be noted that, AFAIK, the screenings mentioned in this thread of Casablanca, Ben Hur, etc were all NCM/Fathom syndicated showings at local movie houses, and not independent screenings.

I have yet to attend any of these NCM/Fathom "One Night Only" shows, mostly because of the bad word of mouth many of these screenings have received in the past due to shoddy projection and reception/compression issues.

The 4k data files look precisely as they should, as WB did a terrific job.

RAH

 

[Rob_Ray]

I attended the Fathom screening of "The Wizard of Oz" and the presentation was delayed due to a problem with the source feed. Even though once the program started, it came off without a hitch, I never lost the feeling that I was basically paying a premium price to watch a public television screening. I won't attend another such "event".
The only digital screening that has knocked my socks off was the American Cinematheque's screening of The Ten Commandments at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre. That was amazing. I can't say it looked like any print I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a few). It looked absolutely perfect beyond what any print possibly could.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Before the transition to DCP, Regal, Cinemark, and AMC ran both their pre-show and Fathom events on a commercial-grade 480p DLP projector.

Currently, Regal still runs the pre-show on the crappy 480p projector, switching to the Sony 4k for trailers and main feature presentation. Not sure what Regal does with their Fathom events, though.

Cinemark, on the other hand (at least in my neighborhood), has gotten rid of the crappy pre-show projectors and run everything on their Sony or Barco 4k projectors.

No idea what AMC is doing, since it has been years since I've been to one of their complexes. We have mostly Regal (formerly Edwards) in my neck of the woods.

Originally Posted by Peter Apruzzese /t/320364/a-few-words-about-digital-projection-in-the-wild#post_3921122
The Fathom events I've seen recently in northern New Jersey at AMC locations have been via their standard digital cinema projectors ( Sony, IIRC). The content for some of them has been via DCP, live events are from satellite. About 3 or 4 years ago I went to my first Fathom and it was showing on the preshow machine, which obviously didn't look very good. The next year I took another chance and was very happy to see the changed their projection to using the cinema projector.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

It wasn't always perfect in the good old days either. Sure, there professional operators who cared greatly about their craft and made every effort to provide the best show and cinematic experience for the audience.
Then there were the others who only cared about getting a picture on screen.
I recently found a quote from the Polaroid Corporation. Obviously, they had a vested interest in the continued success of third-dimensional movies.
In October 1953 during the first decline, they said that 50% of surveyed 3-D presentations were shown either out of sync or out of phase, resulting in severe eyestrain and fatigue for the audience.
These presentations could have been run perfectly if the operators were attentive to the equipment and their presentation.

 

[NY2LA]

That is exactly what Lucasfilm's Theater Alignment Program (later merged with THX, then dropped entirely when digital sound made 70mm virtually obsolete) was all about.
Initially, the program was created to have a technician visit the theater showing the 70mm print and make sure everything was operational. Then, over the next 10 days of release, an evaluator would visit the theater and watch the film with a paying audience. Once on opening night, three days after release, and 10 days after release. After each visit, the report would be phoned in to TAP/THX with a written report faxed or mailed in the next day. That report would then be sent to the theater manager and projectionist (now one and the same in most cases).
Sometimes, it would result in corrections made to the presentation or the shipment of a new reel or entire print.  More often than not, though, it would fall on deaf ears and blind eyes.

again I can tell you that their "evaluators" had no special skills and were not professionally engaged. TAP was no assurance of real time day to day quality.

 

[NY2LA]

"...the cheap and shoddy they have handle Blu Rays..."
Pretty strong and sweeping statement. I'd say the overwhelming majority of Blu-rays are handled professionally, with beautiful results.

I'd have to say you are missing the details and the point.

 

[Tyoneon]

Have you seen any B&W in these presentations? With B&W the issue is much worse than with color.

 

[PCineArchitect]

In our Boston viewing the pre-show fanfare and TCM content was all through the Sony Projo. As you can see, the projection booth ran with lights up..not cool, and no side masking on the screen. Also not cool. Beyond that, I would expect the content quality to exhibit well on a pixel mapped 1080p DLP projector where the video noise level would be low, and the uniformity performance high.

 

[PCineArchitect]

Just as an FYI in our Boston theater viewing all content inlcuding pre-show was from the Sony 4K projo. As you can see the booth lights were left up, not cool. The screen was open to 1.85:1 leaving sidebars next to the 1.33:1 image, equally not cool. Otherwise I suspect the 1080p content would have looked fine on a pixel mapped 2K DLP (1080x1440) which would have much less video noise and far superior flat field uniformity (a color free B&W picture, that's all we ask!).