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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: digital nightmare
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
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Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 01-27-2012 12:00 PM
Obviously one big advantage of 35mm over digital is you could inspect the print, build it and screen it to make sure there were no problems and even do so days before opening day. Normally any movie theater should be able to preview the show to make sure everything is set properly and working properly. The paranoia from content providers (the movie studios) are making this much harder to do with digital projection.
Plenty of things can go wrong in a digital projection setup. When 3D is added there's another possibility of technical problems. If there is a last minute problem with the KDM it just raises the risk level even higher.
IMHO, the movie studios and digital projection service providers should have IT crews working and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for digital projection equipped commercial movie theaters. It's a global business. No matter the time of day, hundreds or thousands of digital projection equipped theaters are playing movies somewhere in the world. It's ridiculous to think a theater in Australia has to deal with people working normal office hours in the United States and then bounce calls to London, etc. to salvage a show. If the studios are going to play games with a KDM, making it unable to work until the last minute then they ought to be immediately available, not just available during office hours, to solve any problems that could arise.
quote: Mike Blakesley I've never seen a key that wasn't valid for at least 24 HOURS ahaed of the first screening time. And they never expire until something like 4 AM the morning after the last day of the booking...at the earliest.
Given the theater is located in Australia, I wonder if this theater's KDMs are configured in a different manner.
I'm not going to name names to risk getting any friends in trouble, but I have heard of some releases that didn't unlock until Friday, opening day with only an hour or two to spare before the first afternoon showing. Sometimes a service provider (like AccessIT) would have to log into the theater's network and deliver the keys remotely. This may not be happening now, but it has happened in the past at a certain digital projection equipped theater. Normally their keys would arrive and be valid days before opening day. Every once in awhile a studio would get funny with the KDM. Add to this the potential for a KDM to get delayed or lost in the mail.
To me, I think the system of shipping KDMs on USB flash memory sticks is stupid. I think the content providers should either e-mail them or have the service providers drop them into the systems remotely. Isn't every digital projection equipped theater connected to the Internet? Don't these systems "phone home" so to speak when a movie is shown? I guess I just don't see the point in snail-mailing a KDM. Snail mail makes sense for a 500GB hard disc holding a 250GB movie that would otherwise take a long time to download.
quote: James Westbrook I've had some KDMs kick in Thursday night at 6PM or 8PM, but usually it's 00:01 Thursday.
This brings up another issue of those Thursday at midnight screenings going into Friday morning. It's another opportunity for DCP keys to be delayed until the last minute.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
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Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-27-2012 07:43 PM
The problem with video, as I see it, is not that things will go wrong any more or any less than they will when you play the real thing but, when they do go wrong, you can often come up with a workaround when using film.
I've had problems with movie projectors that could literally be fixed with duct tape and coat hanger wire. I have done it. I'm sure everybody here has done it. These "Yankee Ingenuity" type fixes are undoubtedly temporary just to save the show and get you through until you can make the correct repairs. But, when showing programs on video, if there is a problem, it is very likely that there will be no way to fix it without ordering expensive replacement parts which will take at least 24 hours to arrive.
This begs the question that it's a problem that even can be repaired. What if the digital file is corrupted or if the blu-ray disc is scratched? You might not know until the program is well under way and, when it happens, you probably won't be able to diagnose and repair the problem in a reasonable amount of time to save the show.
Just this week, I had to present a movie from Blu-Ray and the disc would not recognize in the player. This was not a problem with a scratched, dirty, damaged or corrupt disc. I have other discs that will successfully play in the machine, as well, thus ruling out a damaged machine. Turns out the disc was incorrectly formatted when it was made.
I had to run out to Best Buy, with the disc in hand, and try it in every player in the store until I found one that would recognize and play the disc. I finally did at 5:00 pm on the evening before the show.
What's worse is this whole digital video thing is done, ostensibly, to save on labor costs. Well, if I hadn't been there and INSISTED on a test screening before the show, nobody would have known that the disc wouldn't play until it was too late. Everybody just assumes that a Blu-Ray is a Blu-Ray and that you just put it into the machine and press "PLAY." Well, that ain't necessarily so but most people don't even understand that.
Like Bobby said, you can't actually inspect a digital video the way you can inspect film. You don't have reasonable assurance that the show will play as planned until you actually attempt to play the show and, when video goes wrong, you can't fix the problem with ordinary methods like you can film.
I have had two video programs that failed in the middle of the show. In both cases, the disc played perfectly for the screening and the first show but, on the second, the disc failed. I never took the disc out of the player. I simply powered it off. If I could show a movie two times in a row without problems, shouldn't I be able to assume that it will play the third time, too?
I can tell you from experience that one of the worst sounds you can ever hear is the collective moan that goes up in a theater when the video stops playing! It feels even worse when you realize that there's probably nothing you can do to prevent it.
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