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Author
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Topic: 3D incompatible with 2D
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 04-25-2012 08:50 AM
If you have read any of my posts over the past few years about 3D, you know I am and have been an avid 3D fan. Loved it since I was baby. BUT. I have to finally agree with those who complain about what it does to 2D presentation. The vignetting that the silver screen causes on the 2D image is, in a word, unacceptable -- IMHO. It is almost as bad as the effect some lenses would cause in old silent films. It was a complete distraction for me during the whole of the last 2D movies I saw in 3D equipped rooms. And I realized that unless all of exhibition adapt the Dolby system (no silver screen), the degredation to 2D films is simply too much of a negative to let this stand.
Solution? Well, as I said, Dolby is one, but that won't happen. I suggest they just have 2D rooms and 3D rooms; That probably won't happen either. Or figure out a way to put a 3D screen on a track system that can move it behind the 2D screen. I saw a setup years ago in a commuity theatre where they had a U shaped track system that allowed multiple backdrop canvases to be pulled against the back wall and stored there. The backdrop that was needed could be pulled on it U curved track to in front of the group -- very ingenius. This could possibly be done in a cinema and alot more easily that that setup as it would only have to move a only single sheet back and forth.
Point is, as it is now, the look of 2D with on a silver screen with the terrible roll off of brightness and a hotspot in the center is just an abomination. Not sure if this gets better or worse depending on the lens focal length and throw (very short focal lengths and a very short throw causing more severe fall off around the parameter as opposed to longer FLs and longer throws?), whatever, they REALLY need to address this.
Isn't there a DCI spec on edge-to-edge brightness requirement? Where are the DCI Compliance Police when we need them? Or does DCI compliance concern itself only on what equipment you buy, but once it's in the booth, the exhib can pretty much do whatever the hell he wants? Great system.
I can't remember who on F-T had very eloquently made the cas about about how awful it was to see a 2D movie on a silver screen; I was skeptical and chalked it up to 3D hate, but I apologize. I was wrong -- silver screens for 2D are a DISASTER.
So they can futz around with their Atmos 13.2 or Auro 11.1 sound and throw a few dozen speakers up in the cieling and another dozen under the seats for sound up the wazzoo, but ignore this GLARING (only in the center of the screen, mind you) visual defect on the SCREEN IN FRONT OF EVERYONE and the cinema experience takes yet another hit, regardless of how many speakers they add around the room.
So is this just another case of The Emperor's New Cloths -- Exhibition's New Silver Hot Spotting Screen?
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Antti Nayha
Master Film Handler
Posts: 268
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 04-26-2012 06:09 AM
I’ve heard dual screen setups discussed before, even though I haven’t seen an actual installation.
It’s just that I don’t like silver screens for 3D any more than I like them for 2D. Frankly, I don’t see why the hotspotting, speckling and distorted color saturation should be any more acceptable just because your content happens to be 3D?
For what it’s worth, it seems Christie has come up with a way to compensate silver screen hotspotting by selectively dimming parts of the image in the projector. Of course, this can never be a perfect solution, because the location of the hot spot depends on where the viewer is sitting… But I guess it might help quite a bit in a carefully designed auditorium.
http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/pr.aspx?newsID=2784
quote:
CinemaCon/Las Vegas—Apr 24, 2012
Christie and RealD Debut Brightest Commercially Available 3D Dual Projection System at Cinemacon
Scenes from Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Hobbit” Brought to Life in 48 Frames per Second on Massive Silver Screen
Christie Duo™ combined with the new RealD XL-DP Cinema System today to project Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Sneak Peek” of The Hobbit in 3D, presented at High Frame Rates (HFR) of 48 frames per second, achieving an unprecedented combination of uniformity and brightness. Christie®, a global visual technology company, and RealD, a leading global licensor of 3D technologies, powered today’s major studio presentation in the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
In the setup for this presentation, projection engineers calibrated the system using brightness measurements taken towards the edges of the screen, rather than at the center. The abundance of light available allowed the center brightness to be reduced considerably and still provided luminance measurements in excess of six foot lamberts (ft-L) across the better part of this massive 70-foot-wide screen. By combining the Christie Duo and the RealD XL-DP 3D Cinema System, exhibitors can actually achieve double the light output over the previous leading large format solutions, and at a significant overall value during regular, commercial movie showings.
“With the new RealD XL-DP Cinema System, there is a technical solution for achieving 3D brightness at 2D light levels on some of the largest movie theater screens in the world,” says Rod Archer, vice-president of Cinema Products, RealD. “RealD technology delivers twice the light of other 3D providers, allowing premium large format screens to demonstrate the true potential of digital 3D cinema with a lifelike and immersive 3D presentation without compromising brightness.”
Says Don Shaw, senior director, Christie’s Entertainment Solutions product management group: “Although it may seem too good to be true, the incredible experience delivered today by RealD and Christie was achieved on a silver screen, using Christie’s Pureformity Color™ Technology to ‘control’ the center brightness, allowing us to obtain the most uniform image possible across this large screen. Standard Christie Solaria® projectors, the Christie Duo integration kit and the RealD XL-DP Cinema System combined to achieve this industry first, which will present a compelling alternative to the more costly, but half as bright, offering from the current large-format market leader.”
The RealD XL-DP Cinema System is a pair of matched left and right eye polarizing filters featuring the patented XL light recovery technology. This Cinema System is designed for use on dual DLP projector installations on large screens, usually over 65 feet in width (20 meters). Early users of this combination of the XL-DP Cinema System and dual DLP projectors report 3D presentation brightness at 2D light levels on screens as large as 92 feet (28 meters).
Christie Duo and Christie Pureformity Color™ Technology Immerse Audiences in the Movies
Introduced in February, the Christie Duo is a new dual–projector integration kit intended to give exhibitors the ability to create and deliver their own, branded premium theater experience. The Christie Duo™ integration kit can be used with either 2K or 4K Christie Solaria® Series digital cinema projectors, purchased with new projectors or purchased as a standalone integration kit for Christie customers who already have Christie projectors. Christie Solaria® Series digital cinema projectors are the world’s best-selling, DCI-compliant digital cinema projectors, with close to 30,000 shipped and installed to date.
The integration kit features the choice of two configurations: a compact and convenient stacking system for 3D installations, or a new, innovative physical configuration that perfectly aligns every pixel on the screen for optimal 2D and 3D presentations. Coupled with automated features that easily calibrate, align and optimize the images from both Christie Solaria® Series 2K or 4K digital cinema projectors, Christie Duo delivers a completely seamless, premium movie experience for the world’s largest screens.
Pureformity Color™ Technology – a contraction of the words Pure and Uniformity – aptly describes Christie’s innovative ability to achieve optimal image color and brightness uniformity. While every Christie projector is built to exact DCI standards, every projection system has inherent color and brightness uniformity variations across the screen, especially towards the left and right hand edges. These effects can sometimes be exacerbated by certain screen materials and auditorium lighting conditions. Christie’s Pureformity Color™ Technology provides an unprecedented level of field optimization for these issues so that image quality perfection can easily be achieved across the whole screen.
Christie’s Commitment to HFR
The two main goals of Christie’s HFR activities are to help the industry develop the best HFR content and the best delivery system for HFR content. The first goal involves assisting leading-edge filmmakers and post-production companies in perfecting HFR movie creation, so the industry has the most engaging, entertaining content possible. The second goal is to assist exhibitors in showing these 3D HFR movies in all their glory. To these ends, Christie is helping create the standards for 3D HFR movies through formal and informal technology-development alliances with major producers and directors, post production facilities, studios and technology partners. On the exhibitor’s front, Christie provides one stop shopping for all the hardware, software and services that enable exhibitors to deliver a filmmaker's vision in stunning 3D HFR quality. For more information visit http://www.higherframerates.com.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-29-2012 10:35 PM
I suppose the setup at Cinemacon tells the full story: With any 3-D content, a silver screen was used. Whenever 2-D content was being projected, the silver screen was flown out to reveal a white matte screen behind it. If they had any confidence in 2-D on the silver screen, why couldn't they just leave it in place?
We sat way off to one side at Sony's presentation, and the hot-spot was very distracting in 3-D. The whole picture looked crappy, in fact. They shouldn't have been using those seats. (We didn't sit there by choice...we arrived late and the place was packed, but there was plenty of room in the "closed" balcony.)
One thing I did notice this year was that RealD almost completely dominated the 3-D presentations. We had MasterImage glasses at one screening, and XpanD glasses at another, but RealD at all the rest. Dolby 3-D was relegated to a spot on the backside of their booth (and used at the Atmos demo, of course).
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 05-01-2012 09:29 PM
Well the sure got an earfull about HFRs!
If you read all the old industry literature about CinemaScope, THAT was a silver screen, not for 3D of course, but because they were spreading the light out over twice as much screen they needed to compensate - silver helped a lot. But you read no complaints about hot-spotting with what Fox called the Miracle Mirror or some such nonsense. But it WAS silver. Also, the CinemaScope spec called for it to be CURVED (as Steve says, that helps but spreads the hot spot into a hot band, which may be less offensive). BUT, the silver screen for 1950s CinemaScope wasn't like today's 3D silver -- it was lenticular, not smooth flat. Now from what some techs told me at MCI Screens a few years back before 3D, was that lenticular silver screens had practically no fall-off, but very complicated to manufacture and that was why they were abondoned. At that time I never asked if they would hold polarization for 3D like today's silvers do. If they don't they may eliminate the hot spot but so what, they are no good for solving our problem.
I have seen a number of active shutter systems (not the 3D TVs but actual projection) and as expensive as that is, that system had the best of all worlds, as does Dolby but of course active shutters glasses are wildly expensive. If Dolby (or someone else) can come up with INEXPENSIVE color interference glasses and get them down to say the price of a ticket so people could buy them just once and then keep to reuse, that would do it -- it would illiminating all the labor cost and washing nonsense of the Dolby albatrose glasses.
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