What is Digg?116 Comments
- Bradasaurus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+29Film on DVD is not possible with out some major form of compression. Math below(fair warning :-))
A DVD will hold "about" 9.4 GB of data.
Standard DVD resolution is 720 * 480 = 345600 bytes of data per frame
345600 * 24 frames per second = 8,294,400 per second
8,294.400 * 60 seconds per minute = 497,664,000
497,664,000 * 120 minutes(average movie length) =59,719,680,000
So a uncompressed movie in DVD format is approx 60GB in size MPEG 2 compression takes that down to about 3-9 gigs depending on a lot of variables not for this discussion.
35MM film stock is reported at about 4096 * 4096 resolution(to get the pictures close to film). Doing the same math as above. This would require 2,899,102,924,800 bytes of storage space. (approx 2.9 terabytes of storage per film) at a 10 to one compression ratio(I am sure there is much better these days) that would be 290 gigabytes a movie. I think whatever Blue-ray and HD-DVD have a long way to come before they will replace film in a theatre. - jokers10, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14This shows some pretty old machines. Most "theatre's" now have a platter system. This platter systems are like rotating tables, and the film lays on its side. The film is assembled usually on thursday onto the platter as one big roll of film. This way it is way less likely you will have a misframe in the middle of the movie. This is still a good digg!
- auhsor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Quite interesting. I had an idea of how it was done, but it's nice to see it explained.
- thehans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Come on man, what kind of theatre are you working at? This is obviously not a theatre that shows first run hollywood movies. Are we suppose to believe that with all the concerns with piracy, Hollywood is sending movies in a format that can be played of an iBook, You're full of *****. Furthermore you couldn't even play the film at anything higher than 1024x768 using an iBook. Now I am a die hard mac user, and as much as I would like to say this is true, it is not. But I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you work at an adult theatre where you can get away with this sort of piss poor presentation. If there is a theatre with this sort of setup you need to be more specific. Otherwise your statement is very misleading.
- Sabin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is true, though this article is interesteing it appears that the technoilogy is outdated. I remember once when i was working at a movie theatre as an usher the brain on the platter broke. With the platter system the film feed from the middle of the roll through an assembly in the middle of the platter called the brain. The brain has a swing arm that moves depending on where the film is being fed from on the reel and adjusting the speed accordiungly so you don't get film tearing (platter running too slow) or wraping around the hub (too fast). I had to speed up and slow down the platter by hand for the last 45 minutes of the movie. No fun
- acomj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I hope this link works.. Its the NYT.. But people have set up companies to scan film movies. The post processing is difficult. This company has 600 powermacs cranking away and an automated scanner.
Quote:
The Imagica machines are ultra-sophisticated digital film-scanners. They are loaded with reels from the original negative of the 1967 James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice."
The spools advance slowly, one frame every four seconds, which is how long it takes the Imagica to scan across a frame 4,000 times — a process known as 4K scanning.
During the scan, the machine creates a digital replica of the frame, consisting of 4,000 horizontal lines of data. A cable then transmits this data to a hard-drive server in an adjoining room.
To put the magnitude of 4,000 lines in perspective, a television displays broadcast signals as 480 lines. High-definition televisions have up to 1,080 lines. (The greater number of lines, the more detailed the image — the more closely it resembles a seamless, lifelike picture.) Impressive as HDTV looks, 35-millimeter film has far more color and detail. Engineers calculate that 4,000 lines of data would be needed to reproduce all the visual information in a frame of film — exactly as many lines as the Imagica delivers.
So, if it scans an original camera negative, as it's doing with "You Only Live Twice," it creates a data file that's a virtual duplicate of the negative.
end Quote:
Lowry digital (doesn't seem to have a web page)..
http://www.apple.com/pro/film/lowry/index2.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/movies/18KAPL.html?ex=1397620800&en=1f425922a579e78a&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND - beezn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I was a projectionist at a 7-plex, it was a brand new theatre and we had a lot of screwups, A fellow projectionist put the wrong reel of The Fast And The Furious in the wrong place and it showed the ending reel(#7) where #5 went, wierd thing is nobody complained for four days about it and I was the one that figured out that there was any problem, that same guy was moving the entire move at once (platter system) of A Knights Tale to a smaller theatre and dropped it, I had to wind the whole thing back up, resplice and put it on the theatre it was moving to IT TOOK ALL DAY! things went so much smother once he was fired.
- imacmike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I am currently a projection manager with 5 years of experience. So i thought I should share with you some additional facts about how movie projection works.
THE 35mm PROJECTOR
Most people think of film as running at a constant speed. In fact, the projector stops and starts the film 24 times every second. You see, the film must come to rest for a brief second while the shutter is open or else image would appear as a blur of color on screen. This movement is facilited by a special sproket in the projector called an interitent or geneva sproket.
ABOUT PLATTER SYSTEMS:
Platter systems are by far the most common way of showing feature films in the United States. The film arives in seperate reels, and is assembled onto the platter in order. Sometimes one frame is removed from the head and tail of each reel to use for reference when breaking the film back down onto reels for shipping. Platters offer the advantage of a fully automated show. Because all of the reels are spliced together, there is no need for changeovers. Thanks to platters, we now have theatres with up to 30 screens, instead of 4 plexes.
ABOUT SOUND
There are 4 major types of sound.
DolbySR: aka Dolby Stereo Spectral Recording
Analog stereo track recorded as wavy lines on the outboard side of the film (left isn't necessarily accurate as film can be flipped over...the outboard side indicates the side facing the projectionist while threading). Thie stereo is matrixed into the non-descrete channels L,C,R,Sur. Low frequency audio is forwarded to the subwofer. SR refers to a noise reduction technique Dolby came up with in the early 90s, which reduces audible pops and flutters that used to be inhearent in film. It replaced Dolby Stereo A-Type noise reduction, which had been used since the 70s. Analog sound is always captured by a reader located just below the gate of the projector. In older projectors it is picked up with a white light and a solar cell, however, most modern theatres now pick it up with a red light, in preperation for anlgo tracks recorded with cyan die as opposed to silver. Cyan is more eco-freindly when it comes time to destroy the film.
Dolby Digital:
Dolby digital is a fully descrete digital sound format that can reproduce up to 10.2 channels of audio, though at this time the most being used is 5.1. Dolby Digital EX ups it to 6.1, but it should be noted that the rear surround in the ex format is not discrete. Dolby Digital resides on the outboard side of the film inbetween the sproket holes. Dolby has exclusive rights to the space on the inboard side of the film as well, but is not presently using that space. If they were to make a film with more than 5.1 discrete tracks of audio, they would have to use it. It is not read with a laser, but is actually captured using a special solar cell camera. Most currnet readers acheive this using a red light, so its easy to see how someone would think that. Each black of video data is then processed and sent to the decoder as raw digital data, where it is converted to an analog audio signal and sent to the power amps. Dolby Digital reader can be located on top of the projector in whats called a penthouse reader, or bellow the projector, near the anaolg reader in whats called a basement reader. In any of the digital formats, dolby or otherwise, if there is any trouble with the digital audio, the projector will automatically drop out to analog untill digital sound is restored (usually within a few seconds). Sometimes this causes a noticebaly drop in audio quality out to the theatre. If youve ever noticed a suden loss of music volume or dynamic range in a theatre, chances are you've experienced a drop out.
DTS:
Digital Theatre Systems (not sound)
The sound is stored on cd-roms that are kept in sync with the feature via a small timecode on the outboard side, inbetween the analog track and the sprokets. The timecode is very small and hard to see if someone doesn't point it out to you. This tmecode is read by a reader located abouve or bellow the projector. Because the sound is on cd-roms, DTS offers the highest bitrate per channel of any major format.
SDDS
Sony Dynamic Digital Sound
Read much the same way dolby is, SDDS is located at the very edge of the film, in the space between the sprokets and the edge, on both the inboard and outboard side of the film. The soundtrack on both sides is identical. This is because of SDDS's propensity to fail a lot due to being recorded at the edge of the film. SDDS has advanced EQuing bulit into the processor, and is prefeered by many audiophiles. SDDS does not have a home format, which I find quite odd since Sony is a consumer electronics maker.
ABOUT DIGITAL CINEMA
Texas Instruments rolled out DLP cinema projectors in 1999 for Star Wars. It wasextremely low resolution, at just under 1,300 horizontal lines. This is still today the most common digital projection format. You can see the pixels on screen, especially durrnig the green band. Current model DLP cinema projectors have just over 2000 horizontal lines, and are much better looking. I should note that DLP cinema is NOT the same as dlp used in home theatre applications. DLP home uses one chip and a rotating color wheel, wherass dlp cinema uses 3 chips, one dedicated chip per primary color. As a result, the image is brighter, and does not suffer from color strobing found in its home theatre counter part. Many people are impressed when the see dlp cinema for the first time. That is becaus light is refleced off of the chip rather than through the film, resulting in a lot more light on screen. Older 1k projectors have very poor contrast though as a result. Pay attention to the blackest of blacks on screen, and you'll find its actually a shade of grey. Newer 2k dlp projectors have addressed this issue. Sony last year roled out a projector with 4000 lines of resolution, however has not yet showed a working demonstration utalizing all 4000 pixels for video. It is assumed that the pipeline required to process move that much data is not yet cost effective. When sony demos it, they usually show a 2.5k video of Sound of Music. They then show a couple of still images at 4k, and dare you to walk up to the screen and "find the pixels".
Currently not very many auditoriums are equipt with digital projection. The technology is almost 5 times as expensive to buy than conventional 35mm film equiptment. Even the most busy multiplexes in the world only have two or three installed.
The future is bright for digital though, as digital technology keeps improving. Also digital can be used for polarized 3D that rivals the quality of most 3D theme park atractions.
THE PROJECTIONIST
Proponents of digital cinema advocate that the quality of the image doesnt deteriorate over time, and that is true. However, niether does the image quality of film if the operators handle it corectly. Everytime you see a defect on screen such as a scratch or speck of dirt, it is the result of film misshandling. If the projector and filmpath is kept clean, not much dirt will settle on the print. Furthermore, projectionists should be using products lke film guard to remove what little dust does settle on the print. Scratchs are UNNACEPTABLE and ALWAYS the result of projectionist error. I always demand a refund if the print is scratched. If you have a both full of good operators, film should look as good, if not better than Digital presentations for months after relese. I ran a print of Napolian Dynamite for 6 months, and when I returned it, it was 100% free of dirt or scratches.
The thing that contributes most to the poor qualtiy of film presentation comes from the move from salried union projectionist to low paid college or high school students, who simply come to work to put in there 8 hours and leave. It is unfortunate that large chains are unwilling to pay fair wages to booth personel, at as a result, it has damned 35mm to extinction, as the public now generally associates it with being dirty and scratch prone.
If you find a theatre in your area with excellent 35mm presentation, support it! And let the manager know what a great job the booth staff is doing. In projection, if something goes wrong everyone sees it, but when things go right no one notices at all, and movie magic occurs. Its often a thankless job, but its one worth doing right. :-)
Projectionists and Theatre enthusiest alike should spend some time poking around this site.
www.film-tech.com - jwalk81980, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3National anthem before a movie? That's crazy. I would love to witness that in person, though. That would be hilarious to see everyone in a movie theater suddenly stand up in unison.
- SakisRakis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hmmm...nowhere in America I assume? Major companies will not distribute digitally. I suppose you could be running indie films etc though? Many of the movies which play at Sundance are now being submitted on DVD, although why you would use an iBook makes no sense.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3hey sorry for the spelling, cut me some slack though I typed it at 3 in the morning after getting off!
- cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Film projection has changed little over a hundred years. So any theater would be dated by these terms. It is much like the cathode ray tube, same 100 year technology and still out preforms lcd displays. For now film still out preforms digital in it color range, how it handles blacks and its latitude for error.
Sound on the other hand has changed a lot. - tjl2015, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10Wow, talk about dinosaur tech. Next week on digg:
-Learn to operate a steam engine.
-See how cotton gin's are made
-Beginner's guide to type writer maintenance and repair.
Still interesting, though - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3it actually is on a military base...i failed to mention that, i didn't think people would be this in depth. But yea, its military.
- HiddenForce, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Movie theatres on military bases (at least the ones I've been to) would always play the National Anthem before the movie (and everyone would stand up for it, too). I've never heard about it playing in civilian movie theatres, though (but wouldn't mind it seeing it).
- JeffD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Oddly enough, while I was looking for showtimes earlier today I stubled accross this:
http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/pics/kanata/kanata.html
Basically pictures of the type of set up youre talking about from a local megaplex. - sherb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2When i was a projectionist, Harry Potter and movies like Lord of The Rings were about 7 to 8 reels long.
- kirk06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Can I get a brian wrap???
Haha...I'm a theatre manager, which means I'm a projectionist too, of course. Love it! - Kryptonitfusion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2well any ideas on how it gets on to dvds
- ThinkBox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Kudos on the spelling in the article staying true to the headline
- cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i feel old
- WrecksTXP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Ever wonder how movies are played at the theatre?"
You mean out of focus with gum on your shoes and a fat guy next to you lopping over into your seat? - mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2..not because they aren't bright enough. the comparitive resolution between dvd and film is like comparing a digital watch to.. an HDTV 100inch plasma screen..
..ok i know, not the best analogy, but you get the point. - cortez_a, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Here a cache in case of Digg Effect: http://www.zamwi.com.nyud.net:8090/wordpress/?p=80#more-80
- John184, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you properly set up and maintain your system brain raps are rare and the digital sound system doesn't fail. granted their are still switch over system around but they are in no way "better". and it takes 20 minutes to build and 10 minutes to break them down MAX. Any longer and you need practice.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's called a changeover. The movie keeps right on going and no one in the audience has any idea.
- mrivorey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I remember walking in a door one time and seeing a reel at the bottom of the projection room steps... amazingly still feeding the projector. You can imagine how dirty the print was after that! Platters are definitely more reliable. And no rewinding!
- AKron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think that was a good article, although I can't wait until movie theatres go away. I pay good money to see a movie. not commercials, not previews of upcoming movies, not warnings about copying, not other people's personal opinions. I'll stay at home, and digg stuff instead.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1thanks dad...haha...j/k..I am just pleased for the publicity digg has brought to my site, while you're there you ought to check out everything else, especially zamtv!
- Strangers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dugg. Pretty good article.
But, if you're reading a magazine/watching the Office (hopefully the UK version =P), how can you keep an eye out for the signal to change reels. Your system sounds pretty open to flaws with the timing. - ogletree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I remember seeing the platter system in an old theatre back in 1991. That is a very out of date theatre.
- noeljohnhoward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1how long have you worked at sony?
- ncampo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Do you actually think that Hollywood will send out there Brand New Opens Friday Greatest Movie Ever on a dvd. They are willing to practically put you in jail for copying a purchased copy of Mr and Mrs Smith. They will have you publicly hung for copying Superman Begins. The system will be a completely closed with the projections only options being what theater and what time to screen. It most likely will be streamed into your theater system over a period of time.
A First Run Movie Theater projector cannot be purchased at Best Buy. Right now the cost is between $45,000 and $120,000 per projector and the picture is brighter, cleaner and as warm as 35mm. When the change happens (5 - 10 years) it will be an amazing difference.
www.christiedigital.com/markets/postProduction/index.asp#Digital - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1indeed it does, they're actually pretty smoothly done!
- volcompimp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nice read... I used to work at a theatre myself (well 2, cause I transfered to another that's owned by the same company and literally in line of site of the other. They both are next to a freeway on seperate sides) but I was never a projectionist. I would've needed to carry a stool around every time I needed to mess with em.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yea it is out of date, but for 3.50 a ticket who can beat it?
- cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Modern safety film is fireproof and slow to burn. It is made of an acetate and replaced flammable nitrate films beginning in the 20's. Polyester film replaced acetate in the 90's as it does not deteriorate as quickly. However nitrate film was made up to the 50's. Projecting nitrate films requires special booths and projectors with water-cooled gates, and only a few places in the world can show them.
It is unlikely that a print will catch fire. The projector catching fire is a different story. - cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lots of places still to change overs, not all small or private theaters have platter systems. I prefer to do change overs, you don't have to spend a half an hour loading the film on a platter and then another half and hour taking it down, no brain wraps, less chance of the film breaking, less wear on the film, etc. But that is only idea for prints run once in a one screen house.
If you hear a pop at a reel change the sound has defaulted to analog and you are not getting the digital sound experience you paid 10 dollars for. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well I usually do that while the movie is on big reels, which means they are about 40-50 minutes...when its on small reels I have to watch really closely, but to be honest why watch King Kong, when I haven't seen the new diggnation?
- joshduck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You'd also need an fast machine to decompress and push that data to the projector. Add the cost of a projector that can handle 4096 x 4096 pixels (do they even exist?) and you're looking at a lot of money to switch over.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Uh, 8 bpp? Those must be some pretty movies.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1haha thanks...i just like how theatre is spelled.
- thehans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There's actually several different sound formats supported on each movie. The sound format explained on this website is Dolby Digital. DTS, another digital format stores the audio on 2 CDs, and matches the sound from timecode read from the film. There is also analog sound, which is actually the wavy lines the projectionist is speaking of. The analog signal is read with a small focused light, where as the digital formats are read with a laser. The analog lines are the very edge of film frame before the sprocket holes. Then there is also SDDS, which is a digital sound format created by Sony and that information is read from the very edge of the film, on the thin edge after the sprocket holes, now I might be wrong about SDDS since I never had any direct experience with an SDDS system.
- dmcipod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1besides the fact that it wouldn't fit, a lot of theaters resist that move because projected film and anything digital don't look the same. the whole interlacing and the attempt to be true 24 frame are not things that most people can point it out, but do notice something "strange" about what they are seeing
- ross., on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You act like 2.9 TB is a lot of data!
In less than two years we're all going to have more than this just in our home PCs.
Couldn't movies just be given to theatres in the form of an array of harddrives...approx 6 * 500GB HDDs, which could then be returned after screening to have another movie copied onto them, then begin the cycle over and over again.. - kd5ftn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As far as digital projection goes, Most cinema digital projectors are 2K, there are very few 4K projectors out there. Also, until recently, no one was scanning film at a 4K resolution.
Digital projection is nice, but it has complications of it's own (Bandwidth, distributors sending hard drives, securing the digital content).
It'll be sad to see film go. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1wow I am pretty pumped that so many people found this story interesting...COUGH ...still awaiting a digg from Mr. Rose...COUGH..but hey I'm pleased..
Anyway everyone should check out my zamwi.com side project, its a little internet sitcom called Video Class...its pretty funny, check it here: http://www.zamwi.com/zamtv-vc.html - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yea our stuff if old, our left machine sucks too, we need platters!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1our tickets are 3.50 - 4 bucks!
- vd0man, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As a former projectionist I'm getting a kick out of this thread.
If you want to see what all the various sound formats look like on the film there's a nice diagram of it here:
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/images2/filmprint01.JPEG -
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