A HAPPY BIRTHDAY to DIGITAL CINEMA

[Marcel Birgelen]

Ediphors must have been the most complex video projecting beasts out there. They essentially etched their frames in a thin layer of oil with an electron beam on a reflective surface, rotated into a big shiny light source and presented this on screen. Afterwards, the frame literally was erased using something like a windshield-wiper... Yet, the resulting picture was pretty good and they made those kind of machines right until 1990.

The Barco Reality 1209 - 9" tubes with electromagnetic focus. I dreamed of that projector so many times

Haha, yeah, it was the best of the best of CRT projectors out there. My unit was taken from a cluster of four which was part of a simulator that was retrofitted with DLP projectors, because the maintenance on those things became too expensive, as Barco's support on it expired. The DLP picture, while technically brighter, never looked as good as the original image and had some serious artifacts on the edge-blended parts. It takes some efforts to keep those beasts humming and its footprint is larger than most DCI projectors. Since it uses relatively short throw lenses, your setup options are also limited. But if all the video projectors I've seen over the year, this machine put out the most film-like image. If you had a good, low compressed source, the resulting image would almost look like looking at 100% stable film.

I guess the only thing that's better is either real film or an OLED or LED display of equal size. But even some OLEDs sometime suffer from some strange aliasing effects in dark scenes. I often thought this was due to limited bitrates of the compressed material, but I recently tried this with an uncompressed 10-bit HDR stream and still, the effect was present in some shots and apparently that's a common issue in OLED panels...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The GE projectors were very similar to the Ediphor in that a thin layer of oil was scanned. They were somewhat tempremental, but they also had a decent resolution and eventually became a fairly compact for an early color projector. A friend owned a rental house and had three of them that were constantly out.

[Marco Giustini]

I guess the only thing that's better is either real film or an OLED or LED display of equal size. But even some OLEDs sometime suffer from some strange aliasing effects in dark scenes. I often thought this was due to limited bitrates of the compressed material, but I recently tried this with an uncompressed 10-bit HDR stream and still, the effect was present in some shots and apparently that's a common issue in OLED panels...

I have a very old OLED, I was told NOT to touch the calibration controls as they just add artefacts and banding. When it comes to consumer TVs it's a minefield. You need to know what to touch, how and on what FW. Things are seldom fixed on a consumer TV, they just fix it with the following model!

My LG would mess up the input signal if the "computer" ICON is selected on the input GUI. The software turns off some processing to optimise the lag (without telling you of course) and you end up with crushed blacks and an impossible gamma. Also anything but I cannot remember what signal format would result in crushed blacks etc. Then you also have nVidia driver issues to consider. A minefield.

I wonder whether Samsung RGB panels behave better as there is no white LED to mess things up.

I have some cool memories of my old Sony CRT projector! It was never boring, always requiring some adjustment!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have a very old OLED, I was told NOT to touch the calibration controls as they just add artefacts and banding. When it comes to consumer TVs it's a minefield. You need to know what to touch, how and on what FW. Things are seldom fixed on a consumer TV, they just fix it with the following model!

My LG would mess up the input signal if the "computer" ICON is selected on the input GUI. The software turns off some processing to optimise the lag (without telling you of course) and you end up with crushed blacks and an impossible gamma. Also anything but I cannot remember what signal format would result in crushed blacks etc. Then you also have nVidia driver issues to consider. A minefield.

I wonder whether Samsung RGB panels behave better as there is no white LED to mess things up.

I have some cool memories of my old Sony CRT projector! It was never boring, always requiring some adjustment!

These days very few look towards Samsung. LG has taken over for the most part. They have broadcast monitors that knock your socks off, and are beginning to switch the broadcast monitors over to a special version of OLED. These days, if you go into a broadcast station, you will usually find LG. If you go into a video production place, it's 70% chance it's going to be LG. It's mainly because LG can produce screens faster than Samsung. But Samsung remains Film-Tech Cinema Systems

"Who makes the best LCD panels?
LG Display (Chinese name is LG Display) is currently the world's No. 1 LCD panel manufacturer, affiliated to LG Group, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, with R&D, production, and trading institutions in China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States and Europe.Feb 8, 2023"

[Marcel Birgelen]

Below one of the many iterations of the Eidiphor (image source Wikipedia), on top of it a seemingly more modern video projector. The human to the left serves as a good size comparison.



To me, this thing looks somewhat like a Dalek:


Another picture of an Eidiphor setup in what looks to be a back of a theater:
eidophor.png

As for the competing GE Talaria system, while getting more transportable at the end, a fully fledged system wasn't really hand luggage compliant:

Hibino-GE-Talaria-3LV-Turbo.png
The less X-rated version, dressed with its side-panels, looked like this:
Hibino_Talaria-3LV.png
The light valve, with the oil in it clearly visible:
light-valve-front.png

Everybody that was lucky enough to have ridden the Horizons attraction at Epcot, has at least once experienced those GE Talaria projectors in a pretty interesting horizontal stack, where multiple projectors side-by-side projected a moving image in front of the horizontally moving ride vehicle:

Some interesting reads, including sources of above pictures.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Those are much older models... not very portable. This is a rather long but fascinating video from YouTube that shows and describes the GE's that he had...

It also shows other projectors, including the very complex original Ediphor, and the Advent Video beam. So,I should mention that I attended the second ever Advent Video Beam training class at Advent in Boston in 1974. It was mainly intended for use in Homes and Bars, etc. The projection tubes were of the Schmidt type, and very expensive to manufacture. Later projectors had a simpler less expensive tube that was a little brighter as it eliminated the Schmidt reflector part. These projectors were strictly NTSC, but the circuitry was of uber high quality and the video system had a full 4.5 mhz bandwidth through the use of comb filters. I'll never forget watching Star Trek the first time on one. It also employed a special concave screen that was covered in Kodak Ektalite material. The screens were also made in Boston near Advent's main factory. Am pretty sure the retail on them was 6K at that time. That translates today into enough money to buy a new Corvette... Or over 38K today.

[Marco Giustini]

These days very few look towards Samsung. LG has taken over for the most part.

Well it's simply because Samsung introduced the world's first RGB OLED about 18 months ago. LG introduced the first WRGB OLED back in 2017 and have been the one and only supplier for all OLED panels worldwide before Samsung released their OLED panels.

But a WRGB panel has no chance to be more accurate than an RGB one

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have only seen the LG stuff because I still have friends nearby that work locally in broadcast. Plus I bought a 23x9 LG OLED computer monitor when Staples had a killer sale going on about 6 months ago. I do a lot of panoramic photography, so it's easy to justify that one.

I would have only seen Samsung OLED at Costco, and then I wouldn't really have paid attention to that stuff anyway because the whole setup at any Big Store is an unknown. If I watched more TV, I'd probably have an OLED tv set. But IMHO, todays tv in this country isn't good enough to justify the expense. Attached is an LG blurb on the new OLED screens they are making starting this year.

https://www.lgcorp.com/media/release/27695

[Bruce Cloutier]

I have to agree with Mark in that there is no content (TV or otherwise) these days worth the expense to upgrade to the latest and greatest. And my flat panel TV is like 11 or 12 years old. I am just going to avoid going on a rant and down that rabbit hole about content, commercials, etc. now.

I am still very satisfied with the 84" LED backlit LCD panel that I have. I don't really want to give up the passive-3D capability it has.

Wikipedia has LG selling the first 4K UHD panels beginning on October 25th, 2012. I had to work with a VP there at LG to place my order. We brought in the local stereo shop in order to establish a dealer through which the sale could be officially completed. By CES 2013 when LG debuted the panel everyone was clamoring to find out how to become dealers. The stereo shop guys were there and discovered that they were not only already a dealer but had the panel on display in their showroom back home and one placed in a residence. In February I started the official LG 84LM9600 Ultra HD 4K owner's thread on the AVSForum. Well... no big deal. Just interesting.

I clearly don't have the first panel but I am almost 100% certain it was the first in Pennsylvania. I can tell you that whenever I needed it I got VIP support. They had a defect with the early LCD and so they completely replaced my screen. Then they replaced a good percentage of the electronics to deal with the HDMI version creep and other things (app stuff). All no charge. It was like having George Washington's original axe. You know, the one he used to cut down that cherry tree. And, over the years you've taken such good care of it that you've even replaced the head and gave it a new handle.

So, no this isn't HDR and the new tech clearly blows it away. But damn it is still more than I need to watch rodents driving cars that they think I should be buying right now or insurance people acting like idiots, pet emu or any of that. And how many ways do you really need to access Netflix? Not to mention that most of that streaming tech is slowly degrading. I think we have to reboot my new Roku every other week to get out of some lock-up or other. Things like keeping track of the episodes that you have watched used to work really well but now... not so much. Uh... I said I wouldn't. Ugh.

But the real question is whether or not all of the new tech really fills seats in the cinema? Has the expense been worth it? Maybe I should rephrase that to ask if the ongoing expense is going to ever be worth it?

[Marcel Birgelen]

But the real question is whether or not all of the new tech really fills seats in the cinema? Has the expense been worth it? Maybe I should rephrase that to ask if the ongoing expense is going to ever be worth it?

It's never technology alone and it never was. It's still part of the equation though, because the technology at the theater needs to be in-line with what people expect from it and what they do have at home is the minimum base-line you need to match.

Technology can be a temporary driver, as long as there is content. Avatar was a big driver for digital 3D back in 2009, although the technology itself was around for several years back then. Any new technology needs a good "demo". What's the purpose to buy a stereo set when all you can buy is mono records?

But cinema is more than a big screen and a big sound system to match. It's first and foremost an experience. It's a social experience, at least for most it is. I've learned this more than ever since I've had access to a fully fledged screening room. Everything in that room outclasses your average cinema, yet I still go out to watch movies in a regular movie theater.

While going out to a movie probably involves sitting in a dark room without communicating too much with the people around you for ±90% of the time, it's still a social event, at least as long as you're not the only one in the room. People are social beasts, they want and need to connect to each other. That's also one reason why I do advocate for the return of proper intermissions.

Getting back to the technology question, my opinion, for what it's worth: You have to keep up with the Joneses, otherwise people will not take you seriously anymore. But any good technology also needs good showcases, otherwise it's pointless. The industry needs to evolve with the market, but we need to avoid expensive mistakes, technology that only leads to dead ends. There have been many of such in cinema history, from failed sound systems, image formats and whatnot. But a lot of them had failure written all over them before they even launched. A prime, pretty recent example: Remember Barco Escape?

[Bruce Cloutier]

As we have gotten older there is something to be said for the PAUSE button for that trip to the facilities that can't be delayed. I have had to get used to watching with the closed captioning always present. That brief rewind to replay a moment of confusion is precious. And, well, the ability to adjust the audio levels as you might need to actually hear the dialog. I think these things impact the box office too. It is really awful now that there are two of us with different needs trying to enjoy the same content. Getting old sucks.

I completely agree that there has to be more than the tech to make the trip to the movies an important part of people's lives.

Oh, and being able to watch the parts that you slept through the night before is invaluable.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I ran across this pretty interesting Eidaphor commercial, or factory info film. What ever you want to call it... It's pretty interesting. Keep in mind this was in the NTSC, and European, and very early HD days.