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Author
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Topic: DLP & D-ILA @ 2K
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Oscar Neundorfer
Master Film Handler
Posts: 275
From: Senoia, GA
Registered: May 2000
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posted 10-10-2003 08:27 PM
I also saw the Barco presentation that Richard mentioned. As Barco was right across the aisle from us, I got to spend a lot of time watching their presentation. It was nothing short of spectacular. It was like looking through a spotlessly clean window into reality.
I am sad to say that I don't see films presented anywhere close to that quality in some theaters I attend.
Now bear in mind, the projection was on a screen maybe 8 feet wide, but even in very bright scenes at a distance of less than a foot, I could just barely make out the pixel structure.
Contrast was good as far as I could tell in the brightly lit convention hall (obviously not a good place to judge contrast). Colors were very true, at least to my uncalibrated eyeballs. Focus was exceedingly sharp, and light uniformity looked right on the money.
The exhibitor that bought the unit is about 2 hours from me, and when he gets it installed I intend to go see it on a bigger screen (42 feet I think). After that, I can give a better report on what it can do in more realistic situations.
It was VERY impressive. I would not mind having one at home. Now if only had $150,000.00 ......
The unit on display had several video format plug-in cards and the d-cinema server built in. It would accept rgb, s-video, ntsc video, and others. I am not really too knowledgeable about all the various input formats, but it seemed very versatile.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 10-11-2003 05:03 AM
Oscar said: quote:
believe his plans are to show alternative pre-show content in addition to any d-cinema feature releases. I think he is also planning to show such things as sporting events, concerts, etc.
That sounds like a lot of work for an exhibitor. Going after alternative content. If the event/concert promoter is not offering prepackaged download, that means this exhibitor is going to have to spend a lot of time negotiating to get access to alternative video production sources. It's not going to be like picking up the phone and calling a distributor to book a film. Sporting events and concert promoters all have non-theatrical outlets already contracted, many exclusively with their traditional outlets; he will be competing with them and have to convince the owners that his venue would be lucrative enough for them to consider, something that would be a very hard sell, I would think.
We are an exhibitor with an ideal venue for things like concerts, Broadway shows, etc., -- a performing arts facility with a fairly large capacity (2500 seats) and we routinely mount a wide variety of productions. I find 1) there is a dearth of prepackaged events that are offered for exclusive exhibition locations, and 2) when such rare events such as very unique music concerts the producers want venues with huge seating capacities, which put us out of the game before we even start. How big is the theatre this fellow is putting his video projector into? Of late, I haven't seen anyone offering live streaming video simulcasts to small exhibitors.
Years ago, in the mid-80s we presented close circuit fights. The producers in Las Vegas sold the rights to venues such as ours and we used the three tube CRTs and rear screens -- primitive, but effective and very, very lucrative. It was a very nitch-driven demographic and the producers tightly controlled the venues so as not to over saturate the locations. As soon as pay-per-view became a viable alternative for what could be considered those first D-Cinema exhibitions, that was the end of our foray into D-Cinema exhibition. The producers told us that the money they could make with pay-per-view, cable and satellite transmission was exponentially greater than all the theatrical outlets they had used heretofore. We thought we could still do good business running simultaneously with the other outlets, but found that whereas we used to get guaranteed full houses before pay-per-view, attendance dropped to below break-even the last two times we tried to compete. Sadly,p-p-v, cable and satellite sucked the life out of alternative programming for us -- they've pretty much killed the goose that laid those golden eggs for the small exhibitor, and don't see that a different kind of video projector is going to change that.
So where are all the alternative program sources already prepackaged and with a viable economic model that can give the exhibitor a profit margin that will make buying the exhibition rights a reasonably lucrative investment? If history teaches us anything, it's that distributors want most of the gate, I don't understand why anyone would think that buying a concert would be more lucrative than buying a blockbuster movie? And I don't understand why an exhibitor would think that the owner of the concert rights will be more generous than the distributor who owns the rights to the blockbuster movie. The poducer/distributor is going to want as much of the gate as he does now -- 90% which still leaves the exhibitor with his new D-projector trying to eek out a living on his concessions sales.
So now reality hits and your friend who just bought that projector finds there is little out there in the way of product, and this thing that people seem to think is a magic profit bullet which they call alternative programming is pretty much a nonstarter. And so he looks to go back to what he really knows how to buy and sell, which is movies. And there, as Scott notes, he finds very few of the releases are available in digital form, at least not at this time. So what to do. Well, if he's lucky, he still has a second port window where he can stick a 35mm projector so he can at least put something on the screen.
And as for all that talk that I have heard about D-Cinema being used to pull in audiences on the off-ours when film audience typically are nowhere to be found, I really think that is grossly optimistic -- there are good reasons that people don't come to the theatre at 10 am on Monday mornings, and it has nothing to do with program content. There is nothing on the planet that could be digitally streamed to a D-Cinema that will bring in an audience at that off-time. As for the idea that the video projection could be used for business conferences, selling time to corporations....does anyone seriously think there is enough demand from businesses for this kind of rental to make it profitable for an exhibitor? Not unless his theatre also has conference rooms and a host of other services that go with video conferencing.
Sorry, but I think it will be a long, long time before the investment in that digital projector is amortized, if ever.
Frank
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