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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: New Non-Digital Projection System
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Kenn Fong
Film Handler
Posts: 47
From: Oakland, CA 94610 USA
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted 08-16-1999 12:26 AM
Brad,I thought your readers might be interested in this story from the Los Angeles Times about Maxi-Vision. Apparently it uses more of the print because it eliminates the analog track. New Non-Digital Projection System http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/COTOWN/t000071357.html
Maxi-Vision (sidebar) http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/COTOWN/t000071358.html I have no opinion on this. I'm just an usher in a movie theatre who writes screenplays at night. I read your forums because the projectionists are the smartest people in the theatre. It helps me understand them. (Not brown-nosing. Some of the concession people are aggressively stupid -- one high school grad couldn't mix soft drinks properly because she didn't know there were four quarts to a gallon. As she wasn't the least bit ashamed.)
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Kenn Fong http://qwertyuiop.net
Screenwriter's Home Page
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John Pytlak
Film God
Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 08-16-1999 11:49 AM
Those that have seen the 48fps MaxiVision demo (e.g., Roger Ebert, Dean Cundey ASC, etc.) have been very impressed. Ebert even featured it on his TV show. There is no doubt that higher frame rate and larger image area improve presentation quality.Joe Redifer is correct that a new "Switchable Format Projector" is required, which has a switchable pull-down (3-perf and 4-perf), and variable frame rate (up to 48fps). The proposed system also uses a "Super 35" format, where the analog soundtrack is eliminated to allow more image area for the picture. The MaxiVision website is at:
http://www.maxivisioncinema.com I personally like the concept, but think it will be a "hard sell". It demands 100% reliability from the digital soundtrack (no analog back-up), and would require "dual inventory" prints for quite some time. ------------------
John Pytlak
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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today
Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99
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posted 08-16-1999 09:36 PM
I have been reading and thinking more about MaxiVision and I must commend and condemn it.I commend it because it is using film, not digitally compressed video (yuck). I am glad that they believe in film enough to try to improve it. Digital "film" will be horribly compressed, even more so than DVD. And I hate the picture on most DVDs because it is so noisy and has tons of artifacts! I must condemn it for the 48 frames per second thing. Why? More is better, right? Not always. Our brain does quite a bit of interpolation when we watch a normal 24fps movie. Even when we watch that same movie on TV. Looking at something running twice as fast will look much different. There will be less interpolation by the brain and it will look more like footage from COPS or a soap opera. I think that 48 fps would look too "real" to be acceptable for viewing a fictional movie. When I shoot video with my Canon XL1, I always shoot in 30 frames per second mode as opposed to 60 fields per second. Sure, it is a bit more jittery, but 60 fields per second just looks too much like camcorder footage, news footage, or cheesy soap operas. I also don't like the $17,000 price tag to convert a single projector to run MaxipadVision.
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Pat Moore
Master Film Handler
Posts: 363
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 08-05-2000 05:44 AM
Some other comments -- eagerly awaited, I know...
The price bandied about the street right now for the cinema versions of DLP Systems are a "List" Price in the low- to mid-$300,000 range. There will be plenty of deals available, of course, but that's still a sticker-shock number. I'm with John P., I just don't see much relief in the near future. Content is not there to justify prices near that level and the theatre's coffers are a bit short right now.
For Maxivision, I love parts of the concept, but also have to say that a lot of this has been talked about and proposed before. Maxivision kind of combines a lot of things that have been talked about before, using an electronic film motion system to cover the bases.
30-frame projection rates have long been advocated by many, many folks but the industry (production and exhibition side) wasn't too thrilled about needing 25% film stock to do it -- cost issue there. Projectors could be pretty easily modified and most recently manufactured mechanisms would take 30FPS -- I feel good saying that about our stuff, anyway. Either a fairly simple gearing change is required, or an 3-phase motor and inverter would allow either 24 or 30FPS operation by a switch. We even built a series of automations ten and twelve years ago anticipating that dual mode of operation possibility, but as we all know it never quite got there.
The industry got a little serious about 30FPS, but wanted to tie it to 3-perf pull-down to do it. Rationalization was that most release prints were in 1.85/1 anyway, and that 3-perf would cover that format. The conversion costs were pretty significant now, since intermittent and film handling pieces needed heavy modification, not to mention the problems of wrapping film around the smaller diameter sprocket and keeping the image steady. It wasn't easy to go back-and-forth between formats on regular machines -- that's why an "electronic" version of a machine would make sense.
So the potential benefit of 30FPS was offset by locking ourselves into the small image problems of the 1.85/1 ratio -- doesn't matter how fast you run it or what anamorphics you might put in front of it, it's still 1.85 with most of its problems.
There were some great demo's of 35mm running at 30FPS a few years ago -- wow. It's not Oklahoma on 70mm, but it was pretty damn good. Look at a scope image in that format and it's a wow -- a lot of movement and other image problems seem to go away, film flex effects are actually reduced and the 60IPS rate is really good to the eye. Problem was that extra film cost, especially on the production side. How much the "real costs" might be, I can't say for sure, but it's pretty high. If you talk to those folks about a 25% increase in negative stock and the resulting processing costs going to positives, etc., they give a small whimper in protest.
Maxivision's approach to use the whoile film frame is a great idea, if we could get away without the comfort level (and necessity in much of the market) of an analog soundtrack. But that's just good old "Super 35" -- again, something available today and talked about often in the past.
Those of us on the image side of things would love to see it in theatre's today. Run that at 30FPS, with or without an anmorphic for ratio changes, and you've got a formidable image projection system that any digital format would have a tough time dealing with anytime in the near future.
As it is, leave the soundtrack in place, use the whole frame and use a 1.5X Anamorphic for 1.85/1. John and others (myself included) advocate such a format -- again, use the whole film image and it's amazing how good it can be.
I hate 1.85/1 -- anybody notice?
Too early on a Saturday -- time for some coffee.Pat
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