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Author Topic: Real D Costs To Theatre Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 11-21-2007 11:31 AM                     What I haven't seen yet is what it costs to rent/lease the equipment, what the theatre pays for the glasses. Can the equipment be rented short term, as for a single run of 2-3 weeks? What set up involves.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-21-2007 08:23 PM                     I have a customer that asked... they wouldn't quote him a price even though he is approaching 100 screens. In SLC I was told by reliable sources that its 20K per year just for the lease and you still have to have that damed silver screen. The color almost always sucks on Real-D(umb). I would highly reccomend Dolby's 3-D system way before I'd ever even bring up Real-D(umb). The Dolby 3-D system not only has great color rendition it also has the best 3-D effect of all the systems out there.. sit anywhere you want! It also wastes less light... a very important operational cost to conside as 6 and 7kw lamps are not cheap to run and have a short 500 hour life! Glasses are alot more expensive and you will loose a few pairs now and then but with the studios soon to pull the 3-D glasses support that makes the Dolby 3-D even more attractive. It was 26K outright last I checked and it doesn't require a silver screen... just a 1.8 gain surface. Maximum screen size is at 38 feet wide... not over. If you're over it would be best to mask it down to the reccomended size. The filter wheel part is daptable to almost every major D-Cinema projector in existance. The most difficult to install it on is the BARCO DP-100 where it requires a different aperature heat sink for the integrator rod.... not really that big a deal, adds an extra hour and a half to the install. Mark [ 11-21-2007, 09:32 PM: Message edited by: Mark Gulbrandsen ]  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 11-21-2007 08:37 PM                     quote: Mark Gulbrandsen If you're over it would be best to mask it down to the reccomended size. I wonder if Dolby will make a special 2 projector version for bigger screens. You wouldn't need the color wheel just fixed filters. The same color shift would be applied by the server and just sent to 2 different projectors. Obviously you could do 2 projector without real-d or dolby 3d but it would still require the silver screen.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-21-2007 09:34 PM                     Don't know about larger screen sizes and Dolby for now... I have a two projector 3-D install comming up as soon as the Software is ready for the Dolby Server. Mark  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-21-2007 10:54 PM                     quote: Mark Gulbrandsen The color almost always sucks on Real-D(umb). This comment is stated from someone getting paid by Dolby. I am not paid by either Dolby or Real D. And I think the color (and 3D) with Real D looks great.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-22-2007 12:40 AM                        I have been a great fan of 3-D since the fifties and I agree with Bobby that Real D is great. I too have no affiliation with either Dolby or Real D -Claude  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-22-2007 08:46 AM                     quote: Bobby Henderson I am not paid by either Dolby or Real D. And I think the color (and 3D) with Real D looks great. Hardly paid by them..... but that would be nice . Its VERY obvious that you haven't yet seen Dolby 3-D... All other systems will always suffer from strange color space and directional 3-D characteristics because they require a silver screen.  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 11-23-2007 09:54 PM                        3D in Digital is achieved with polarized pictures the information for both pictures is on each frame of the digitized picture so there is no need and probable no way to do two projectors. Silver screens give off a lot of light and you can use less lamp watts but they have hot spots and with digital probable would have some amount of unwanted movement of pixels.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-23-2007 10:08 PM                     Both the Doremi servers and the Dolby with a soon to come software addition will do two projector 3-D. This was covered in another thread on this forum someplace. But the A output feeds one projector and the B projector feeds the other projector. With the price drastically dropping on mid size d-cinema projectors using a second 3kw projector instead of paying the high "Imax Style" liscensing fees that Real-D(umb) charges makes the two projector method look all the more appealing. The projector to eye combination polorizers that are in common use eat up approximately 50% of the light output of a projector be they linear or circuluar. The Dolby 3-D eats up way less than that and while I'm not sure of the exact figure I want to say its in the 30% range making it at least 20% more efficient than competing systems. And to boot you don't need a silver screen nor have any of the highly directional downsides of having to use a silver screen. All in all the Dolby 3-D system is far more seat accomodating... meaning that a theater can sell more seats since everyone in an auditorium will get the same 3-D effect... This is typically not true of 3-D systems using silver screens where the center seats or seats more in line with the projectors get the best 3-D. Mark  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 11-23-2007 10:38 PM                        Hey Mark the original question was a two part question the second part being can you rent the equipment for short times or short runs. I would tend to think that situation wouldn't happen, it doesn't make much sense to move equipment of $100,000 or so around from location to location, move the existing projection out of the way and set the new and then reverse the process in 3 to 4 weeks. I mean what would happen if (God forbid) someone drops the projector while setting it up? What would the set up cost be? Who would move the equipment and who would operate it while it was at the rent house? I just don't know that it would be an anyones economic interest to do that that way. Maybe I'm all wet I have been in the past! Ron  |  IP: Logged Scott McGuire Film Handler Posts: 94 From: Elmira, NY/United States Registered: Oct 2007 posted 11-23-2007 11:15 PM                     If i remember right didn't the original 3-D set up use dual projeoctors? Obviously not old enought to have run them. but i am pretty sure that is what i saw  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 11-23-2007 11:21 PM                        Actually they did Scott in the 50's after that I'm not sure when they became a one print thing. In the 80's it had one picture on the top half of the frame and one on the bottom (color shift still) and special lens that combined them. Now it is laid one picture over the other so in theory you could have cinema scope with 3D. But no one is putting 3D on film now other than the large format they do it on Digital instead. I was around in the 50's started running projectors in the 70's and I have never run 3D on two projectors. Ron  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-24-2007 09:26 AM                     Actually I did answer that if you read between the lines. Its a yearly lease... of around 20K. and since you need a silver screen for Real-D(umb) you'd have to buy that. Mark  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 11-24-2007 12:12 PM                        Mark, I stand corrected! It is an intriguing thought though to buy a projector just to lease out on a limited basis but then you how many different lenses would you need to keep? Oh the cost on this idea is staggering isn't it? I know a guy that does some kind of outdoor theater thing with a digital projection system. He is Colorado I think I haven't talked to him in years though and I don't remember the details or often he does it. But then he owned the screen the sound system the projection and everything else. He would set up an outdoor theater and they showed classics I think, it was all above board and proper but did he ever make money on it? I think that is why he is still a service tech so probable not! Ron  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-24-2007 09:01 PM                     Actually what we are going to do is keep the film projector in both theaters... there is tons of booth space in this building. When the theater is running 3-D we will simply unplug and move one projector over on top of the other... in a special custom stacking mount we are building. Then that theater that is minus its digital projector will just return to running 35mm film. What I was inferring though as regards to Real-D is that its cheaper in the long run for a given theater to buy the second projector and do 2 projector 3-D rather than 2 and a half years of Real-D leases. At least the theater then has a spare projector head most of the time. Mark  |  IP: Logged

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