Random question about Cinemas/Pictures

I thought this was an interesting piece - comparing digital and film stills (Nikon D700 vs Nikon F5 respectively) where the digital camera won.

Both were based on 35mm film frame (the digi camera used that sized sensor) and the digi camera had 12MP resolution (4,256 x 2,832) - the final printed image was approx 17m (H) by 10m (W)

http://fwd.five.tv/videos/challenge-blow-up-part-3

So Digital 4K might be the point in cinema where across the board its superior than celluloid...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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there was something on the news the other night about how when all the cinemas move to HD type projection, the smaller independent cinemas wont have the money to change and will lose new films and therefore business and have to fold
 
PoleY_15 said:
there was something on the news the other night about how when all the cinemas move to HD type projection, the smaller independent cinemas wont have the money to change and will lose new films and therefore business and have to fold
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Only if distributors move quickly to digital-only, which is highly unlikely for a long time. Part of the reason that digital cinema is so slow in coming is that the industry is caught in a catch-22. Distributors wont release films in digital formats because no cinemas are equipped to exhibit them. On the other hand, cinemas wont upgrade to digital because there are hardly any films to show.

As people seem to be getting hung up on resolution, i will just copy/paste from my dissertation of a few years ago:
3.1 Resolution

Resolution has long been one of the most contentious issues facing digital cinema advocates. The initial problem faced was that there was no real way to quantify resolution from 35mm film grains. However, the SMPTE Engineering Guide 5 goes some way to attempt this, by stating that a standard 35mm frame requires 80 lines per millimetre of resolution. As Sychowski (2000) explains:
“This means that 35mm film should thus be equivalent to 1,800 scan lines of resolution. Alternatively, given an over-simplification of one halide-particle equalling one pixel, academy aperture film would contain 11 mega-pixels at 4,500 x 2,500 resolution.” (Sychowski, 2000, p24)

However, what is important to note is that film degrades. A film reel could start off with a resolution similar to that quoted above, but after a few hundred plays the audience could end up watching at a resolution less than 1K (Sychowski, 2000). This simply will not happen with digital movie files.
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That said, resolution is actually fairly low down on people's lists of things to 'fix' with digital capture and exhibition. One of the biggest issues is colour representation. Film is a subtractive system, digital is an additive system. Film produces vivid secondary colours such as yellow, cyan and magenta, where digital produces vivid primary colours such as red, green and blue. Even with the newest digital cameras (such as Red) they're having a huge amount of trouble getting it to look as it should. Contrast is also a huge issue; film carries a huge amount, and also detail in the blacks. The first digital prjectors struggled with recreating this at all.

Chimerical said:
Film, essentially, is dead. Digital Projectors, Digital Genesis Cameras, Digital Editing & Digital Distribution are all becoming more mainstream in Hollywood and cinema chains. Films like Superman Returns used digital cameras, for example.
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Film is by no means dead. Not even close. You'd be hard-pushed to find DOPs that prefer digital over film at this point in time. I work for a post production company in Soho that specialise in colour grading and pretty much all of those jobs are on film. In the past week for example we've done a number of big name music promos and they've all been on film. And they always are. Likewise with the big-money commercials.

Chimerical said:
A HDCAM/Mini HDV tape costs about £10-£30 for two hours of footage.
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Not for HDCAM/SR. You're looking at ~£30+ for a 6 minuter off the top of my head.
 
Raikiri said:
Red One cameras maybe? The epic records in 5K (about 5000x3000 pixels) iirc.
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Well I guess that would be better than 2k.

It's not all about resolution tho, I've heard that film also has a greater colour depth/contrast ratio? I'm not sure myself, but 16 bits per chan may look nicer especially on films with lots of dark scenes?
 
I thought films these days were recorded digitally? With all the digital editing that goes on these days I just assumed it would all be held digitally and then if they do have send reels off to cinemas then these would be generated/printed from the final digital version?
This clearly isn't the case if, as someone said above, the original negatives are used at premiers unless they're printed as well??
 
ps3ud0 said:
I thought this was an interesting piece - comparing digital and film stills (Nikon D700 vs Nikon F5 respectively) where the digital camera won.
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The only thing I wonder about this is how was the film image made that large. What I mean is the film image would have had to have been scanned in before it was printed whereas the digital one wouldn't, and this could have adversely affected the quality of the film image.
 
megakid said:
This clearly isn't the case if, as someone said above, the original negatives are used at premiers unless they're printed as well??
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I said normally original neg 'prints' are used for premiers. This does not mean they project the actual negative! :eek:

An original neg print is struck from the neg. Also from the neg comes inter-positives, which in turn are used to make inter-negatives. Inter-negatives are used to make show prints. You even go down another generation for bulk printing.
 
M0T said:
The only thing I wonder about this is how was the film image made that large. What I mean is the film image would have had to have been scanned in before it was printed whereas the digital one wouldn't, and this could have adversely affected the quality of the film image.
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I would have to work on the assumption that the printing place should be able to afford the equipment to scan that image to high enough resolution (or quality) for that printer of theirs. Its their bread and butter...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
Scam said:
Film is by no means dead. Not even close. You'd be hard-pushed to find DOPs that prefer digital over film at this point in time. I work for a post production company in Soho that specialise in colour grading and pretty much all of those jobs are on film. In the past week for example we've done a number of big name music promos and they've all been on film. And they always are. Likewise with the big-money commercials.
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Yeah, I understand that its still in use. Most of the top Hollywood Directors still use it, etc. But what I'm saying is that film has no future. It can't exactly be 'improved' unless everyone starts using 70mm for no reason in particular. Also, I didn't know that music videos used celluloid, or that film was that widespread still. :)

Give it ten years and it'll mostly be gone I reckon (using my own uneducated powers of fortune telling).

Not for HDCAM/SR. You're looking at ~£30+ for a 6 minuter off the top of my head.
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Fair enough, I didn't know it was that expensive.
 
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megakid said:
I thought films these days were recorded digitally? With all the digital editing that goes on these days I just assumed it would all be held digitally and then if they do have send reels off to cinemas then these would be generated/printed from the final digital version?
This clearly isn't the case if, as someone said above, the original negatives are used at premiers unless they're printed as well??
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They convert the film to digital for editing then convert back to celluloid for cinema, I think. :confused:

Its sounds like a pretty inefficient & costly process and pointless if you ask me. As soon as you're having to convert something to digital to edit, I'd assume it makes more sense to simply record in digital in the first place. Film converted to digital still maintains superior quality to digital from digital, but that's all it has going for it.

Factor in CGI and green screen movies like 300 which all need to be digitally implemented and film seems pretty archaic.
 
Dr.EM said:
Most times I've been to the cinema the picture quality has been dissapointing. Nearly always quite out of focus and the picture moves around a bit too. Once the whole movie had the front right sound channel blasting from the rear right speaker, very distracting! Seems there arn't any proper projectionists there, they just stick the film in and hope for the best! Film may indeed be better but all the times I've been to the cinema DVD quality at home has way outperformed it.
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This is what is changing things at the moment:

http://current.com/items/89069504_video_game_sales_surpass_dvd_sales_in_2007

According to the NPD Group's year-end figures, the US retail gaming industry took in $18.85 billion during 2007. That's nearly twice the Motion Picture Association of America and Nielsen EDI's record-setting US box office take of $9.6 billion for the year. The gaming industry even surpassed DVD sales in 2007, reported to be $16 billion by the Digital Entertainment Group and $15.9 billion by Adams Media Research.
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Its an article about videogames, but as said, home entertainment is winning against cinema (videogames, DVD). I genuinely believe cinema will have to go all digital to survive. This means that your local multiplex could be treated like a large updated TV theatre (live broadcasts, etc), and draw in more revenue.
 
Games are bound to take more, since they are supposed to offer more play time and they cost more for end user to purchase.

Live broadcasts are slowly taking off it seems, though to be honest if they want them to be big cinemas are going to need more toilets closer to screens with live broadcasts, and a bar.
 
peetee said:
Games are bound to take more, since they are supposed to offer more play time and they cost more for end user to purchase.
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Oh yeah, I accept that games are more expensive, and its their only source of revenue.

But if people are spending money on games, HDTVs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, mobile phones, computers, sitting on MySpace then cinema is losing.

It can't compete with all of that.
 
I was at cinema the other day and the picture quality is pretty poor compared a nice home setup.

Obviously the screen is much larger, but colours never look as good and line are no near as sharp.

The sound more than makes up for the though.

On a seperate note i was supprised to find it costing me £10.50 to see a movie
 
englishpremier said:
On a seperate note i was supprised to find it costing me £10.50 to see a movie
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holy hell, £10.50??
Its £5.40 here or something, but Iv still got a student card, and you get a little voucher whenever you go to get a quid off next time.. BUT orange wednesday>all
 
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