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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » Landmark Theatres to install digital projection (Page 1)

 
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Author Topic: Landmark Theatres to install digital projection
Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 04-03-2003 12:58 PM      Profile for Scott Norwood   Author's Homepage   Email Scott Norwood   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Comments:

- Could they possibly have chosen a worse technology than Windows Media Player? I particularly like the line about how they intend to provide theatres with "theatre-quality" exhibition. [Roll Eyes]

- I'd give this a week before the anti-piracy protection is broken and the digital files released in some non-crippled format by pirates.

- do they really think that locking themselves into a single-vendor proprietary file format and building an entirely new distribution infrastructure is going to "reduce costs"? It makes a $1500 35mm print look cheap by comparison, IMHO.

Article is here, text is below:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030403/sfth027_1.html

Press Release Source: Microsoft Corp.

Landmark Theatres and Microsoft Create the Largest Digital Cinema Circuit In the United States

Thursday April 3, 9:00 am ET

Windows Media 9 Series Expands Opportunity for Independent Distributors And Filmmakers With Tangible Cost Savings and Flexibility

LOS ANGELES and REDMOND, Wash., April 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
Today Landmark Theatres and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - News) announced that they are equipping 177 screens in all 53 Landmark Theatres across the United States with digital cinema playback systems based on Microsoft® Windows Media® 9 Series. This unprecedented agreement represents the largest digital cinema theater circuit installation to date in the United States.

For the first time, a critical mass of the independent film industry's infrastructure will be wired for digital distribution. This helps address the escalating costs of releasing theatrical films, which weighs heaviest on the independent sector, as it must pay the same costs to release a film as the major studios. The creation of a complete digital alternative represents a major breakthrough in these economies that will help guarantee greater diversity and access to the marketplace for independent filmmakers and distributors alike.

"Landmark's mandate has always been to build an alternative infrastructure dedicated to the enhancement and proliferation of independent film," said Bert Manzari, executive vice president of Landmark Theatres. "We exhibit over 250 films a year, and all too many of these films succeed or fail due to market economics rather than artistic accomplishment."

The newly outfitted theaters will be able to screen films encoded digitally in Windows Media 9 Series, which enables high-resolution, theater-quality experiences with up to 7.1 channel surround sound. The network rollout is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

"Landmark Theatres' commitment to specialty film and its established leadership in the independent exhibition space offers Microsoft the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the independent film community," said Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft. "Moviegoers get the high-quality theatrical experience of Windows Media 9 Series, while producers and distributors benefit from the cost savings associated with mastering and releasing films digitally."

Landmark President and CEO Paul Richardson was a featured presenter at a symposium on digital cinema at this year's Sundance Film Festival. "What has impressed me most is the enormous breadth of interest in digital cinema that has been generated since the festival. I've been contacted by key distributors, investment bankers and members of the creative community, all of whom want to know when we can deliver a complete solution to digital distribution," Richardson said. "I believe that we will look back at this moment as one when we were able to fundamentally change the business model in a way that will allow far more of these films to compete successfully."

Working with Microsoft and Landmark to deploy the network will be Digital Cinema Solutions (DCS). DCS will supply its solution, the Cinema System, which has powered the BMW Films Digital Cinema Series in 25 theaters since November 2002. The DCS Cinema System employs a networked PC architecture that integrates into existing theater infrastructure. Once the network is in place, Windows Media 9 Series allows films to be sent to theaters over private networks, on CD-ROM or on DVD-ROM, all protected with Windows Media Digital Rights Management technology.

"The independent film space has largely been ignored by digital cinema," said Jim Steele, president of DCS. "The small, current base of digital cinema installations targets the largest screens and multiplexes focused on mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. The program announced today by Landmark and Microsoft will change all that because it creates a nationwide network of independent digital cinemas, effectively solving the 'chicken and the egg' problem for the independent film community by allowing them to move forward for the first time with wide-scale digital distribution."

About Landmark Theatres

Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., Landmark Theatres is the nation's largest specialized film exhibitor with 53 theatres and 177 screens in 20 markets across the U.S. Landmark has been dedicated to exhibiting first-run independent, foreign language, documentary and restored classic films for more than a quarter of a century. Landmark recently opened new theatres in Minneapolis, MN; Bethesda, MD; and New York City (Lower Manhattan) and has recently announced the largest specialized cinema complex in the country: the 14-screen Westside Pavilion Cinemas in West Los Angeles. More information about Landmark Theatres is available at http://www.landmarktheatres.com/ .

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device.

NOTE: Microsoft and Windows Media are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

- posted 04-03-2003 01:26 PM      Profile for John Pytlak   Author's Homepage   Email John Pytlak   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Here are the published MPAA "Goals for Digital Cinema":

http://www.mpaa.org/dcinema/DigCinemaGoals.doc

quote:
These goals consist of the following:

1. ENHANCED THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE - The introduction of digital cinema must be used by the motion picture industry as an opportunity to significantly enhance the theatrical film experience and thus bring real benefits to theater audiences.

2. QUALITY - The picture and sound quality of digital cinema should represent as accurately as possible the creative intent of the filmmaker. To that end, its quality must exceed the quality of a projected 35mm “answer print” shown under optimum studio screening theater conditions. Any image compression that is used should be visually lossless.

3. WORLDWIDE COMPATIBILITY - The system should be based around global standards so that content can be distributed and played anywhere in the world as can be done today with a 35mm film print.

4. OPEN STANDARDS - The components and technologies used should be based on open standards that foster competition amongst multiple vendors of equipment and services.

5. INTEROPERABLE - Each of the components of the system should be built around clearly defined standards and interfaces that insure interoperability between different equipment.

6. EXTENSIBLE - The hardware used in the system should be easily upgraded as advances in technology are made. This is especially important in evolving to higher quality levels.

7. SINGLE INVENTORY – Once a consensus on digital cinema standards is reached and implemented, upgrades to the system should be designed so that a single inventory of content can be distributed and compatibly played on all equipment installations.

8. TRANSPORT – The system should accommodate a variety of secure content transport mechanisms, including electronic as well as a physical media delivery.

9. SECURE CONTENT PROTECTION – The system must include a highly secure, end-to-end, conditional access content protection system, including digital rights management and content watermarking, because of the serious harm associated with the theft of digital content at this stage of its distribution life cycle. Playback devices must use on-line authentication with the decrypted content files never accessible in the clear.

10. REASONABLE COST - The system standards and mastering format(s) should be chosen so that the capital equipment and operational costs are reasonable. All required technology licenses should be available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

And here is a similar document from the NATO website, outlining Digital Cinema User Requirements for exhibition:

http://www.natoonline.org/digitalcinemauserreq.htm

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Brian D. Whitish
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 103
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

- posted 04-03-2003 01:41 PM      Profile for Brian D. Whitish   Email Brian D. Whitish   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
My theatre in Seattle was one of the test sites. We ran Standing In The Shadows of Motown for five weeks. We also ran a demonstration for a SMPTE group a while back while they were meeting in Seattle. We ran a Showtime movie called The Maldanado Miracle. Obviously, we are close to Microsoft in Redmond. Dont know if this made any differance but Bill Gates comes to our theatre fairly often. The setup is in our #2 auditorium which has 200 seats. Screen is 12'6" by 23' for 1.85 and 12'6" by 29' for scope. The projection is via a Digital Projection unit. I forget the model number. It has a 1500 watt zenon. I expect thats what they will use in theatres our size or smaller. It runs off a Dell Pc with a touch pad control. The movies appear to be aboout 7 GB in size which is a lot of compression. How much space would an uncompressed 35mm feature of 2 hours take up? The unit sits on a custom cart. It has a patch bay in the front for computer monitors, DIN component, DIN composite, and consumer S video. I will post later with the model number on the Digital Projection unit. They have all the models and specs on their web site.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

- posted 04-03-2003 01:55 PM      Profile for John Pytlak   Author's Homepage   Email John Pytlak   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Brian Whitish asked:

quote:
The movies appear to be aboout 7 GB in size which is a lot of compression. How much space would an uncompressed 35mm feature of 2 hours take up?

Here is one estimate:

http://www.cinesysinc.com/PIRANHA-CINEMA.HTM

quote:
A 110 minute feature film consists of 158,400 frames. Over 1.8 Terabytes of data. Literally each second spent processing a single frame will increase production time by 44 hours. Additionally, simply moving the data over a 1000baseT network can take well over 7 hours.
Of course it depends on the resolution and bit depth chosen. Most experts agree that a 35mm motion-picture frame needs to be scanned at a resolution of at least 4K to capture all the detail it contains.

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Aaron Haney
Master Film Handler

Posts: 265
From: Cupertino, CA, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

- posted 04-03-2003 02:57 PM      Profile for Aaron Haney   Email Aaron Haney   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
This system sounds like it is meant to show material shot on standard definition video formats like miniDV, which is a category a lot of low-budget "indie" movies fall into. This Variety article (use free trial registration to view the article) contains the following:
quote:
All auditoriums in Landmark’s 53 theaters, located in 20 markets nationwide, will be outfitted with d-cinema playback systems based on Microsoft’s Windows Media 9 Series. DCS will select digital projectors from a variety of manufacturers.

The Windows Media systems are substantially less expensive than other systems, because they essentially represent off-the-shelf technology, officials said. The playback systems will be married to relatively inexpensive digital projectors, because the smaller size of its screens requires less illumination to project an image of acceptable resolution.

Landmark chief Paul Richardson said he doesn’t expect a lot of immediate interest from specialty distribs in converting their primary releases for digital distribution. But he believes they may be more inclined to acquire niche pics shot in digital video than previously.
Notice the bit about "relatively inexpensive" projectors. Sounds like they are just going to use cheap conference room and home theater style LCD and DLP projectors for this system. I would not be surprised if none of the projectors are even capable of HDTV resolution.

Although looking at Brian's post again I see he mentions a 1500 watt xenon in his theater's trial system, which sounds more like a "large venue" trade show style projector than a smaller conference room or home theater model. Still the sort of thing that is available off the shelf. I'll bet the max resolution is somewhere in the 1024x768 to 1600x1200 range.

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

- posted 04-03-2003 03:04 PM      Profile for Carl Martin   Author's Homepage   Email Carl Martin   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
the embarcadero center cinema here also did a run of standing in the shadows of motown, but it sure didn't last 5 weeks. i was going to try a side by side comparison, but it was gone too quick. i did take a peek at it from the booth (though i don't work there), and it looked pretty good. but then it was shot digitally. it did have a rather video-y pallette, which wasn't necessarily due to the projection. it was on a medium sized screen, and had a 35mm print as backup in case of snafus, which as far as i know was never resorted to. the really stupid thing was that if the projector stopped for some reason, it could not be restarted in the same place. hopefully that bug will have been fixed.

an important thing to remember is that video vs. film is an aesthetic choice, and works may be geared to either aesthetic, but they really should not be considered interchangeable. why breed apples that taste like oranges? when i want an orange i'll buy one, and when i want an apple i want it to taste like an apple.

since "motown" was a video-captured production from the git-go, it was i suppose an ideal test for the system. but the results should not be overgeneralized. i hope the article wasn't suggesting that this system will supplant 35mm on all landmark's screens. that would be tragic. even sharing one screen per theater seems a little extravagant. we have 3 screens, and i don't really see there being room unless new port windows are opened up in the upstairs booth. i can think of a dozen better ways to spend that money.

carl

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

- posted 04-11-2003 03:40 AM      Profile for Carl Martin   Author's Homepage   Email Carl Martin   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
just a couple corrections of the above post.

firstly, i was informed that "standing in the shadows of motown" in fact was a 16mm blowup, so the limited color pallette probably was a "feature" of the video projection.

furthermore, the setup at the embarcadero did crash several times. if indeed this system is employed at all landmark theaters, as it stands they'll still need 35mm backup, which begs 3 questions: where is the added flexibility of showing material not available on 35mm? where are the savings? and most importantly, why not just show the damn 35mm print in the first place?

carl

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

- posted 04-11-2003 10:37 AM      Profile for Darryl Spicer     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
What a waste of money at this time. I can see it now watching a movie all of a sudden the ol' message pops up. This program has comitted a general protection fault or what ever type of message. The program will shut down and must be restarted. I hope people demand there money back and proclaim they will never return again. May film live on as long as it can. Film done right is better than 1's and 0's crashing. [Smile]

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Darren Briggs
Master Film Handler

Posts: 371
From: York, UK
Registered: Dec 2001

- posted 04-14-2003 07:05 PM      Profile for Darren Briggs   Author's Homepage   Email Darren Briggs   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Digital is only any good for sound and low quality images, ie DVD

LONG LIVE FILM
Why dont people just shoot on 65mm if they want better picture quality!??? these peope must walk around with there eyes shut.

Even 35mm-70mm blow ups can be damn fine, along with DTS70.

LONG LIVE FILM!!!!!

Darren

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

- posted 04-14-2003 07:17 PM      Profile for David Stambaugh   Author's Homepage   Email David Stambaugh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
So many theatres could improve their film presentation without spending a wad of cash on digital crap that will be obsolete in 5 years. Bah. LONG LIVE FILM! (I confess I'm slightly drunk right now.)

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
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- posted 04-15-2003 10:11 AM      Profile for John Pytlak   Author's Homepage   Email John Pytlak   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Both the MPAA and NATO goals for Digital Cinema make it clear that it must equal or surpass the quality of "Film Done Right". IMHO, if movies become only "HDTV on a big screen" or large screen computer displays, theatres are in trouble.

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Jon Miller
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 973
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Registered: Sep 1999

- posted 04-15-2003 03:01 PM      Profile for Jon Miller   Email Jon Miller   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Well, as long as the MPAA and NATO strictly adhere to their digital-cinema adoption standards and Kodak, Fuji, et. al. keep improving their film stocks, I think film will stay around for quite a long time to come. "Film done right" is a tough standard to beat! [Big Grin]

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 11-16-2003 10:39 AM      Profile for Scott Norwood   Author's Homepage   Email Scott Norwood   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Latest news is that, with the new ownership of Landmark, this plan has been scrapped. Thankfully.

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Aaron Sisemore
Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day!

Posts: 3061
From: Rockwall TX USA
Registered: Sep 1999

- posted 11-16-2003 03:02 PM      Profile for Aaron Sisemore   Email Aaron Sisemore   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
since [Standing In The Sahdows Of] "motown" was a video-captured production from the git-go...
WRONG!!!!! But, after reading on further, I discovered that you had corrected yourself.

quote:
firstly, i was informed that "standing in the shadows of motown" in fact was a 16mm blowup...
WRONG AGAIN!!! I have spoken to SITSOM director Paul Justman and producer David Scott, and it was absolutely shot on 35mm film. They even mention that it was shot on 35 in the special features of the DVD, and there are several scenes [in the DVD features] where you can see several Arri 35 cameras.

-Aaron

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

- posted 11-17-2003 05:32 AM      Profile for Carl Martin   Author's Homepage   Email Carl Martin   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
aaron:

well dang, it's been so long i don't know where my (unreliable) information came from. i'll take your word for it; i never got around to seeing it anyways.

scott:

hmm, i was just asking my boss about that the other day and heard it was still go, but then i really should check my sources better! i agree it's good news.

carl

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