Whats the video source in digital theaters? (1 Viewer)

[Allan Jayne]

In depth discussion of resolution must also include what happens to the adjacent pixel positions when discussing a given pixel position. Most CRT HDTV's can put spots in any one of the positions in a grid 1920 wide by 1080 high. But the minimum sized spot may be larger than 1/1920'th the screen width or 1/1080'th the screen height so the effective resolution (in terms of fine detail) may much less than 1080 lines vertically for example.

I would not rule out the possibility that for an LCD TV if one pixel was "white" some bleed over occurs so the adjacent pixels cannot be "black" but instead can be a best medium gray. This problem would set the mediocre displays apart from the excellent displays.

If you put up a test pattern, the resolution of what counts, the entire video signal path, will be revealed quickly.

 

[Leo Kerr]

The Sony XSRD projectors are very nice - quickly. Once you start to look at them closely, I've seen a number of problems with them, and I've heard that no one, especially a theater that looses money on the screens and only makes money at the concessions stands, can afford to actually operate one of the Sonys.

I've seen now, eight different units (different serial numbers) all in tweaked show conditions, over the course of two years.

There is unacceptable amounts of chromatic abberation in the glass lenses, and in every unit, the red panel has been both not properly registered, and rotated slightly relative to the other two panels.

Leo

 

[sammy segask]

I believe the very first 4K projector was installed at the AMC Century City 15 in Los Angeles last May for the opening of The Da Vinci Code.

The digital projectors in theaters have various resolutions (1024 x 1024, 1280 x 1024, 2K, 4K). I believe the source file doesn't have the full 1920 x 1080 resolution though. I think I remember a projectionist over at film-tech.com saying the resolution of the file of Revenge of the Sith in theaters was 1920 x 817 (a 2:35 ratio). And, I think it was about 600 - 700 gigabytes?

Any digital projectionists here?

 

[Leo Kerr]

RotS was lower resolution because they used the Sony FW900 HD-Cam camera, which, in theory, shoots 1920x1080x24p. They cropped the 2.35:1 AR 'cause they didn't have anamprorphic optics for the camera.

Unfortunately, because they were recording to HD-CAM tape, the first thing the camera does outside of the sensor is down-sample/filter to an effective 1440x1080. On the other hand, fortunately for RotS, where it was mostly special effect plates for backgrounds, only the live-action inserts are actually the 1440 horizontal resolution, and the backgrounds are full resolution.

Too bad they didn't shoot with the Thompson VIPER camera... now that's a camera to be reckoned with.

Leo

 

[Kipnis Studios]

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[Kipnis Studios]

Wow! That looks like quite a camera.

What do you know of the RED 4K camera, which I would like to use for my 4K projection system.

Cheers -

Jeremy

Kipnis-Studios

 

[Leo Kerr]

What I've been hearing about the RED camera is... if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Yes, sometimes it is possible to get beautiful stuff with it, but it's also a major pain in the --- to do so, both in production and especially in post.

On the other hand, I think it costs, what, about 20% that of the VIPER? Not sure there, that's all out of my league.

Leo