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Topic: 50% dematerialized DCP in USA ?!?
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Stephen Furley
Film God
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Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 01-12-2010 09:48 AM
Nothing's new, is it?
quote: Work did not stop, however. The fire-damaged equipment was covered by insurance, and the Baird Company went on to install experimental Intermediate Film transmission systems in military aircraft, along with developing large-screen TV, plus colour television transmissions from the South Tower, using the original 500W transmitter on 8.3 metres (37 MHz) and a small studio on the ground floor of the tower. There was also an experimental 200-watt 2-metre antenna and transmitter at the fourth floor level. This was used for 600-line transmissions (though generally nothing more than field strength tests) for an ingenious scheme. Gaumont-British intended to distribute their newsreels by 2m television to their theatres, and hoped to be allowed to break the BBC monopoly to run, essentially, the world's first all-news television service. Unfortunately for them, the war intervened.
Quite what they intended to do with these electronic newsreels when they were received at the theatres, is not clear. Television projection did exist at that time, but there was no video recording, at least not in a practical form, so they would either have to be shown live, or film-recorded at the theatre. Television projection in theatres had been demonstrated then, but the picture was small, even by the standards of the screens of the day; pictures that I've seen seem to show a picture about 2-3 m across, with the projector sitting on the stage in front of the small screen.
I believe that film-recording a transmitted signal in the theatre and then processing and projecting the film a few minutes later was done during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1953, but the Gaumont-British newsreel proposal was long before that. It sounds from the quote above that they intended it to be more than just an experiment, but I doubt that it would have been very practical, given the technology of the day. An odd technical demonstration maybe, but not a regular service to lots of theatres.
The quote comes from this page:
web page
Several other ideas which were long ahead of their time.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 01-13-2010 11:54 AM
With a NEW 250GB EXTERNAL hard drive *retailing* for about $50, including a 1/2/3/5 years manufacturing warranty, I'm surprised they are trying to recover the hard drives after being shipped.
I mean, how much is the shipping/handling/testing cost of individually recovering a drive? $10?
If, let's say, DeLuxe went to a hard drive manufacturer and said: look, I need 5000 hard drives a week to ship out new movies, but I don't care about 3 year warranty. I just need them to work for 5 weeks. No bells and whistles, no speed, no jumpers, no packaging, no manuals, just the drive inside an USB external enclosure that's tested to work as cheap as you can make them. What price can they get? $40 for sure, probably well below $30.
Then ship out the stuff as disposable and ask theaters to throw them away. Save the personnel in the replication facility that's receiving/testing them.
If they are worried about security etc, that's lame, because you can always make a 1:1 copy of the drive and return the original.
I foresee a side business by ushers, though. Sudden flood of 250GB USB external drives on ebay.
How much is satellite delivery per-film compared to a (say) $30+$10 s&h one-way disposable hard drive? In volume, I guess satellite would be cheaper, but the cost to the theater is not "free", as receiving equipment is needed, as well as maintenance of such.
PS: a know a few movies might take more than 250GB, but that should be a minority, and the cost of 320GB is not much higher, and you can always ask for those drives back
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 01-13-2010 02:14 PM
quote: Todd McCracken Additionally your only figuring in the the hard drive cost, not the case or the CRU sleeve
As said in my post, I was quoting prices for EXTERNAL (i.e. including an external case) USB drive, which are almost equivalent to a proper CRU enclosure and come in a retail case/box/packing. Not quite CRU, but you get the point. With 2.5" drives they can be USB pòwered or, if needed, you could send a power adapter "to keep as needed" and then the drives as disposable. Drives "only" retail for $30 already instead of $40 with the enclosure/USB interface that I quoted.
About studios worring about content floating around: sure, but it's already floating around if they claim to been shipped back only (say) half the drives anyway and anybody, at anytime, can make a 1:1 copy of the drive anyway. I'm sure they don't like the idea and will try to fight it, but makes as much sense as sending someone to a booth 3 weeks after the movie opens to "make sure the hard drive is erased".
"Proper" disposable hard drives may not happen due to the enviromental concerns and whatnot, but it's already "happening" is as much as half the drives sent are never recovered/reused. I'm just saying it may make sense not to even try to recover the other half from the $ point of view.
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