|
|
 
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Who is responsible for cinemas going digital
|
James B Gardiner
Film Handler
Posts: 91
From: North Altona, Victoria, Ausrtalia
Registered: Feb 2009
|
posted 03-02-2009 05:55 AM
Following is a post I recently did for my blog.
I wanted to mention it here and get some feed back.
Opinions.. etc.
Thanks,
James
--------------------
It has never been harder for a cinema owner to make decisions on how to move forward. Going digital and the VPF (Virtual Print Fee) has taken a lot of the control out of the cinema owners hands. You want to move with the times, but cannot afford to miss out on the VPF. How does a cinema owner deal with this labyrinth?
A recent article on Broadcast TV Faces Struggle to Stay Viable Its a great read, I recommend it.
A point to take from this is that larger productions like ER and friends are no longer viable for that industry. In reality we should consider how this will also be effecting the life blood of the cinema industry. The film makers.
Going digital is to the advantage of the distributors. That is what the VPF is all about. However, the world moves forward and new issues are surfacing. The decision to go digital is no longer a matter of the distributors saving/making more money. We need to consider some new developments.
Production viability
In the article I mention above there is an indication that the production of premium content is becoming harder for TV. This indicates that the big and popular blockbusters, the life blood of cinema exhibition, are also likely to be less viable.
Going digital, at some stage, is going to reduce film distribution costs and in the long run let film makers make better films with less money. In effect making them more viable. Feeding us good premium content that patrons will enjoy coming out to see again and again.
Going Green
Every year thousands of used polyester films are dumped into land fill. These films need large amounts of water and electricity to make while also introducing unfriendly chemicals into the environment. If the cinema industry is to move forward with the times it needs to turn over a new GREEN leaf and move to digital. The use of reusable hard drives could be a great thing to do for our planet.
No excuse
By no means do I make an excuse for the distributors to pay less on a VPF. In reality I do not think they have done enough. However, it is no longer time to sit on the fence to see what happens. If the opportunities arrives it is time to move forward and embrace digital.
P.S. This is taken from the blog www.cinetechgeek.com on the film industry.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
|
posted 03-02-2009 09:10 AM
I only have one thing to say, if distributors want to listen.
Put out a straight, nice, generous VPF open policy for, say, 10 years.
Watch the industry convert.
Then, 10 years later, it's their turn to start reaping profits from the digital era.
Until they do that, I see NO incentive for cinemas to switch.
Now, for new opening houses, it's a tough choice indeed.
I would certainly want to put at least 1 digital 3D screen in a new house. But I'm not sure if I would want to go 90% digital or only 10% digital. Regardless, I would still need to leave at least 1 screen 35mm for the time being, so not much savings yet for me in labor etc.
A few years from now, who knows.
It's distributor's pennywise attitude and studio's controlling urge that's leaving the whole industry/digital thing in the mess it's been in for the past 10 years.
And hardware manufacturers are not far behind, tooling around factories for many models just to esqueeze the extra buck. On their defense, they have their hands tied by Texas Instruments and need to recoup the $20million TI made them Pony up for the privilege of having a DLP chip cut to size.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 03-02-2009 10:02 AM
It's all about the fundamentals, which I think are being ignored. Management at movie studios don't want to face the reality of just how vital commercial movie theaters are to their business. Without the movie theaters, all movie studios would be reduced to nothing more than glorified TV production companies.
Anti-trust legislation broke movie theaters and movie studios apart from each other decades ago. Since then the two sides have been in a tug of war battle which the movie studio side of the business has been winning, but only in a manner that could be self-destructive.
Whether it is legal or not, movie studios need to be working very closely with exhibitors on maintaining the financial health of the movie theater industry, as well as taking a more active role with improving the quality of the movie-going experience. Serious quality control problems are present, even with digital cinema installed. It's going to take more people "working in the trenches" to maintain good presentation quality.
TV broadcasting is in its own state of trouble. We have too many networks spreading viewing audiences way too thin. Not enough viewers are sticking with a certain channel to bring about the kind of ad money it takes for a network to truly do well. DVRs have had a negative impact on ad revenue. The Internet is adding to the time-shifting phenomenon. As Internet speeds improve, ratings numbers for the networks will decline much further.
These are issues movie studios must consider for the long term if they want to keep eroding the foot hold of commercial movie theaters for their own short term stock gains. Movie theaters provide a unique, exclusive showcase for the movie studios' products. That same high production cost product will have an increasingly tough time competing for attention in the realm of home video.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
|
posted 03-02-2009 02:26 PM
Small towns will have a tough time in the ditial era. With 3D and 4K and all that somewhere in the horizon.
Hopefully, DCI will approve inexpensive equipment in the future that can suffice.
In spite what people say, I find even today's projectors in the $15K realm (almost) good enough for the purpose (i.e. close enough to 2K DCI for the lack of anything better). They are just not made with brightness large enough (but almost) because it's not needed for their market, but they could be. Or you could just put two of them together.
So, hopefully, $10K projectors of 10 years from now will totally match DCI projectors of today in quality and light levels. And hopefully studios won't insist in 4K by them and allow cheap 2K's for the smaller venues (most likely).
DCI "mandates" TODAY that all DCI servers support 2K 24fps, 2K 48fps and 4K 24fps. They also mandate projectors to be able to receive all these signals and project at least 2K 12bits 2000:1 14fl out of them.
As we know, most equipment today is not fully DCI (specially in 3D, but close enough) and they are just allowing it to be used until final specs are done and manufacturers get their acts together and put products out of the "beta" stage many of them are still in (very soon).
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
|
posted 03-04-2009 07:17 PM
Since you asked, DLP manufacturing over the life of the equipment, is not too bad. Film is less green, for sure.
Say a wafer with 200 chips and each capable of projecting 1 "print" a week for 10 years) ...
Each DLP engine (3 chips) would probably "save" some 500 prints (and trailers, etc).
No "mercury" or too weird stuff into semiconductors or mems (micro electro-mechanical systems). It uses quite some amount of energy, but not overly toxic stuff. Unless it's GaAs chips ![[Wink]](wink.gif) (used, but not too often, in some high-frequency applications)
Going "green" may seem like a red herring for film's demise, but it's actually a sensible position as an added "plus". Film already suffered the prohibition of several chemicals, such as the tetrachloroethylene used in wet gate telecine transfers for years, i.e.
But I don't think film industry impacts the enviroment so much that the change should be driven because of that.
Funny thing is, I have the feeling that if a 4K resolution 25,000 lumens projector existed for $20,000 with a 5 years guarantee, we wouldn't even been arguing over exhibition prints in 35mm which have originated as 4K (or even 2K) digital intermediates or increasingly straight digital adquisition (there are rumors of a camera with 23 stops of latitude, leaving film in the dust). Few would defend "film" (for this application), as it would pose virtually no advantages then and it would be a hassle and an enviromental nuisance.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic