Home cinema - Why distribute movies on film at all?

HomeCinemaBanter (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/index.php)

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- - Why distribute movies on film at all? (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/showthread.php?t=34193)

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 16:16:19 -0400, "Dave C." wrote:

And if the "average home theater" where you live can be beat by $1,000
home set up, then I feel sorry for you. Is your town stuck with
1970's-era equipment?

Actually, I'm comparing my own home theater to large chain cineplexes I've
visited recently like Regal, AMC and Showcase. There is no comparison.
Both video and sound quality are MUCH better at home.

Serz you.
thumper
But why should that
be surprising? Good quality home theater electronics are cheap, relatively
speaking. Ironically, the small independent theaters (in the areas I've
lived in anyway) have better picture and sound quality than the large chains
do. And my home theater still kicks the crap out of ALL of them. Our home
theater isn't exactly high-end, either. The only odd thing about our setup
is that we use an active mid-bass driver in addition to an active subwoofer.
That, and our monitor was professionally calibrated in our living room. We
also have all components placed exactly where they should be, so video and
sound quality, and surround effects are all maximized.

My point is, it's EASY to have a home theater setup that is MUCH better
quality than the average movie theater, as far as picture and sound quality
goes. But first you need to understand that setting up a home theater is
not as easy as just buying the right components. You have to have a good
room for it, and arrange the room around the home theater, rather than
arranging the home theater around the room. That means you set up the home
theater, removing or relocating furniture if necessary to accomodate the
proper placement of home theater components. I CRINGE when I walk into
someone's home to see a $5000 plasma monitor propped up in a corner, with 6
speakers placed seemingly at random. Some people seem to think that it
doesn't matter where all the home theater components are placed, as long as
they are there, somewhere. :) If you are one of them, then YES, your
local large chain movie cineplex is going to have better picture and sound
quality. -Dave

"Thumper" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 13:28:23 -0400, "Randy Sweeney"
wrote:

"Dave Oldridge" wrote in message
. 159...
"Dave C." wrote in
eenews.net:

DVD is too low resoultion when blown up to the size of a theatre
screen.

Do you think anyone would notice at the average viewing distance of a
movie theater, though? Also, a new high def format has just been
"agreed" upon. So resolution shouldn't be a problem much longer,
regardless of viewing distance. -Dave

Even 16mm film is WAY better than HDTV. Good widescreen filmed
productions are much higher resolution and better contrast than any HDTV
product yet on the market. Maybe when fiber optics are run into every
home and your local cable company can count on 10-20ghz of bandwidth,
into the home, you'll start to see that.

That said, I'm quite happy watching movies on my HDTV.

I attended a HD conference in Hollywood a few years back... the analysis
by
the industry was that 1080 was equivalent to the actual performance of
35mm
in distribution.

The problem was that 35mm practice was in general quite poor compared to
its
inate resolution and the resulting product at the mall cineplex was easily
matched by 1080.

Or they could fix the way they show 35MM. Many theaters have under
gone upgrading in the past few years.
Thumper

great... no place to go but up

the sad thing is that the "movie palaces" of the 1930's have optics that
surpass virtually anything built since 1970.

On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:12:35 -0700, Steve wrote:

Excerpts from Roger Ebert. A bit old (1999), but I don't think his
views have changed much...

Ebert is full of crap. There is no doubt film has a certain look that
traditional video lacks. But digital video with very high resolution
projected using a high-end projector looks as good if not better than
film. Software filters exist to give video a "film-like" appearance.
Practically all films are edited in the digital realm anyway.

Film is bulky, expensive, and annoying to work with. Think of all the
energy that is wasted transporting these huge spools of film to
thousands of movie theaters. Eventually it is all going away, this is
a simple fact. Film will become obsolete. It will take many years, but
it is inevitable.

In article ws.net,
Dave C. wrote:
For a little over a thousand bucks (cheap!, relatively speaking), a properly
adjusted home theater setup will kick the CRAP out of any movie theaters'
image quality AND sound quality.

Just not true. I'm frequently disappointed when going to a cinema, as it
appears that they agree with you and take no care in the presentation
whatsoever, but there are cinemas that care.

Basically, film is higher resolution than HDTV, whichever way you look
at it. Admittedly, a lot of Tv is shot on grainy 35mm, at which point
HDTV is capable of reproducing most of the information in the image,
except that obviously HDTV pixels are square, whereas film grain isn't.

High quality film is far more detailed that coarse grain, and gets used
in different circumstances, but typically for film production. Think of
the difference in quality between a 100 ASA camera film and an 800 ASA
film. Even on a 6x4 print, you can tell the difference, but get an
enlargement and it's obvious.

And when you're projecting at cinema screen sizes, the difference
between 35mm film and 70mm film is noticable. I remember the fuss when
our cinema got the 70mm print of Backdraft. Wow.

IN the home realm, I'm perfectly happy with my 85" projection screen.
But even at that size, I can see each pixel pretty clearly from my
1280x720 device. That doesn't happen at the cinema because there are no
pixels. Even grainy film looks good because grain is irregular.

Soundwise, home cinemas are good, but if you think yours is as good as a
cinema, then you've clearly not heard of THX certification. I doubt your
home cinema is anywhere near approaching the level required. Sorry. And
whilst most people now have 5.1 at home, the majority of those systems
employ weedy little satellite 2" wide speakers that really don't deliver
enough punch. Sure some people have good speaker kit, but trust me you
won't get as good as you *can* get in a cinema. Oh, and Lucas re-released
Star Wars in EHX well before 6.1 was available in most home cinema
receivers.

Now, I agree that most times I go to the cinema, I'm disappointed. Not
because of the technology, but because of the fact that they don't care.
The film is invariably out-of-focus (I've only seen ONE film out of
about 30 in the last year that was in focus) for example. But it can be
good. I used to be a projectionist at our very well kitted out
university theatre. We had DTS *and* THX 10 years ago, being the third
cinema in the country (UK) to have THX, and one of the few 70mm rigs
around. And anything less than perfection was not tolerated. There would
always be other projectionists hanging around, criticising anything that
was slightly off, and people took pride in what they projected.

So, in summary, home cinema is great for the home, not nowhere near good
enough for a cinema. Currently there is no home-class projector capable
of sufficient brightness to project on a 30 foot screen from 150 foot.
Current HDTV resolution is just woefully insufficient for this size
screen, even 3840x2160 would look grainy at that size.

Ralf.
--
Ranulf Doswell | Please note this e-mail address
www.ranulf.net | expires one month after posting.

So, in summary, home cinema is great for the home, not nowhere near good
enough for a cinema. Currently there is no home-class projector capable
of sufficient brightness to project on a 30 foot screen from 150 foot.
Current HDTV resolution is just woefully insufficient for this size
screen, even 3840x2160 would look grainy at that size.

Who says the projector has to be that far from the screen? On a 26' wide
screen, dlp looks fantastic. Yeah, it would look like hell if the projector
was in the projection booth, though. -Dave

"DaveR" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:12:35 -0700, Steve wrote:

Excerpts from Roger Ebert. A bit old (1999), but I don't think his
views have changed much...

Ebert is full of crap. There is no doubt film has a certain look that
traditional video lacks. But digital video with very high resolution
projected using a high-end projector looks as good if not better than
film. Software filters exist to give video a "film-like" appearance.
Practically all films are edited in the digital realm anyway.

Film is bulky, expensive, and annoying to work with. Think of all the
energy that is wasted transporting these huge spools of film to
thousands of movie theaters. Eventually it is all going away, this is
a simple fact. Film will become obsolete. It will take many years, but
it is inevitable.

This sounds like the discussion that keeps going on in rec.audio.high-end
about whether LPs are better or worse than CDs. In other words, if your
sample is big enough can you duplicate the pure analog signal. I forget the
number, but the digital sample is huge to duplicate film. That doesn't mean
one cannot achieve a satisfactory digital picture, just that it probably
won't equal film, at leeast for a while.

"Ranulf Doswell" wrote in message
...

Sure some people have good speaker kit, but trust me you
won't get as good as you *can* get in a cinema.

I agreed with everything else you said but not with this. Any
top-of-the-line audio system will blow away what you get in the theatre.
The question is whether you want to pay $50K or not. You are absolutely
correct with respect to the box systems sold for use with home video. The
problem is not the 2" speakers, which can be quite good if set up properly,
but with the sub-woofer, which is gong to be totally inadequate. You need
something that can get down to 25 Hz or so with real authority. If your
floor is shaking and everything in your room that is not nailed, glued or
screwed down is buzzing, then you are there. I have achieved this kind of
response with low organ pieces in my home. However, the visual impact of
video is such that lack of this low end may not even be noticed, just as the
fact that LCDs can't do black may not be noticed.

Color me romantic. I like the experience of going to a theater and
seeing a story unfold on a Big Screen. Celluloid and digital are
worlds apart.

W : )