Digital Cinema - Celluloid to Pixels
Last month, my friend Tanmoy and I watched Poseidon at Shaw Cinema. As usual, Tanmoy and I were caught in discussion… this time about the future of cinema. Not the creative aspect, but the mode of consumption – namely digital. I explained the little bit I knew of digital cinema to him, but young Tanmoy had more questions. I hope this helps… and the rest of you find it useful as well.
Usually, in the projection room, the projectionist feeds the film through the projector and the room buzzes with a lot of spinning sounds – if you visited the Nehru planetarium in Bombay – and the projection room at the movie hall there – well, its cacophony.
In today’s projection rooms at Eng Wah (Suntec multiplex, Singapore), beside each of the five traditional projectors sits a newfangled model that takes no effort to load and makes no noise other than the hum of a cooling fan. These are digital projectors for showing movies delivered on removable hard drives. Just push a few buttons and start a digital film.
While music, television, and even radio have all moved to digital formats, the movie industry still clings to technology dating from the days of Thomas Edison. That's starting to change, though, since Hollywood last year finally settled on a common format for digital movies. Digital-cinema advocates say the technology will lower costs, add piracy protection, and provide new sources of revenue to theater owners by helping them show live events such as concerts and soccer matches.
Singapore is leading the way. The government has covered about 15% of Eng Wah's up-front costs of installing digital equipment, which can easily reach $100,000 for the projector and computer, or about five times the price of a conventional projector. Today 15% of the city's 158 screens are digital, and the rest could be converted by yearend.
EMPTY SEATS: Still, it's tough for theater owners to make a business case for buying digital projectors. Cathay Organization Holdings Ltd. opened the first digital cinema in Singapore in 2003, but today it has only three digital projectors. One reason: Cathay can't raise prices to cover the $400,000 it has invested in the equipment. At a time when movie attendance in Singapore is falling: down 7% last year, the market can't handle even a small increase in ticket prices from the current $6 or so.
Last year just a dozen of the 150 titles shown in Singapore were digital. Cinema owners are expecting about twice as many digital films this year, now that Hollywood has adopted a standard format. Recently, digital versions of Mission: Impossible III, Poseidon, and The Wild were showing.
THE UPSIDE: Movie houses can also use the technology for more than films. With the projector hooked up to the Net or a satellite link, a whole new world of content becomes available. Cathay is presenting the World Cup soccer matches this summer. Eng Wah plans to add a further eight digital projectors and is looking to computer games as a way to make them pay off. Last year, Eng Wah hosted a competition with videogame maker Electronic Arts Inc. in which fans watched hotshot gamers compete on the silver screen. Another possibility: dozens of gamers facing off in a huge electronic brawl… converting the cinema into a game hall.
source: BusinessWeek (June 5, 06)
Usually, in the projection room, the projectionist feeds the film through the projector and the room buzzes with a lot of spinning sounds – if you visited the Nehru planetarium in Bombay – and the projection room at the movie hall there – well, its cacophony.
In today’s projection rooms at Eng Wah (Suntec multiplex, Singapore), beside each of the five traditional projectors sits a newfangled model that takes no effort to load and makes no noise other than the hum of a cooling fan. These are digital projectors for showing movies delivered on removable hard drives. Just push a few buttons and start a digital film.
While music, television, and even radio have all moved to digital formats, the movie industry still clings to technology dating from the days of Thomas Edison. That's starting to change, though, since Hollywood last year finally settled on a common format for digital movies. Digital-cinema advocates say the technology will lower costs, add piracy protection, and provide new sources of revenue to theater owners by helping them show live events such as concerts and soccer matches.Singapore is leading the way. The government has covered about 15% of Eng Wah's up-front costs of installing digital equipment, which can easily reach $100,000 for the projector and computer, or about five times the price of a conventional projector. Today 15% of the city's 158 screens are digital, and the rest could be converted by yearend.
EMPTY SEATS: Still, it's tough for theater owners to make a business case for buying digital projectors. Cathay Organization Holdings Ltd. opened the first digital cinema in Singapore in 2003, but today it has only three digital projectors. One reason: Cathay can't raise prices to cover the $400,000 it has invested in the equipment. At a time when movie attendance in Singapore is falling: down 7% last year, the market can't handle even a small increase in ticket prices from the current $6 or so.
Last year just a dozen of the 150 titles shown in Singapore were digital. Cinema owners are expecting about twice as many digital films this year, now that Hollywood has adopted a standard format. Recently, digital versions of Mission: Impossible III, Poseidon, and The Wild were showing.
THE UPSIDE: Movie houses can also use the technology for more than films. With the projector hooked up to the Net or a satellite link, a whole new world of content becomes available. Cathay is presenting the World Cup soccer matches this summer. Eng Wah plans to add a further eight digital projectors and is looking to computer games as a way to make them pay off. Last year, Eng Wah hosted a competition with videogame maker Electronic Arts Inc. in which fans watched hotshot gamers compete on the silver screen. Another possibility: dozens of gamers facing off in a huge electronic brawl… converting the cinema into a game hall.
source: BusinessWeek (June 5, 06)
posted by Arun Nair at
9:55 AM
3 Comments:
Nice post, although it has only made even me more inquisitive ;-)
Its interesting how the utility of a largish hall with BIG speakers and a projector is being entirely re-thought.
Your post starts off by talking about movies going digital, but then reveals the real underlying transformation.
As I see it there are 2 aspects, content and viewing experience.
So, how is 'pixellation' affecting these?
As far as traditional (movie) content is concerned, it seems to be a migration to a new storage media for additional protection against IP theft and perhaps some DVD-like features. (Sub-titling, enhanced content etc.)
What about the experience itself? How is it enhanced by going digital? (Better audio/video?)
Now in light of the waning interest in watching movies at the cinema, what could be the financial justification for 5 times larger investment in going digital? Can the new content such as computer games, soccer matches pull enough of a crowd considering their 'community based' nature?
'Pixellation' can be activated only with the new digital projector. Content is affected first because more material (apart from movies) can be screened. This is a great way forward - earlier there used to be content made specially for TV or DVD. Games, concerts, national events (launch of space craft to Mars), short films by aspiring film makers... I think content is limitless here.
The viewing experience may be similar - I think. But control - like piracy that originates from the projector room (as a recent arrest in the U.S shows) - will be greater. If the movie can be screened from the hard drive only 'x' number of times, it serves more purposes than one.
I think, in the long run, satellite transmission of digital signals directly to the movie theatre is the goal. So, in that sense, going digital is a means to achieve that.
the overall quality of the film viewing experience will be enhanced- IF the film is shot digitally- much like the DDD disc (do not think about boobs)
lucas was at the forefront of this with sw ep 3- it was shot digitally on a new camera that sony developed basis lucas' inputs (sketchy knowledge alert!). to digi theaters in the us the film was i think accessed by hard drive which was sitting at the lucasfilm ranch. conventional theatres were obviously sent prints which nderwent the reverse telecine process. an obvious benefit is cost- in india a print cost a lakh- so to make 300 prints- which was da vinci code- thats a cost of 3 crores. for something like fanaa which is 800 prints or so its 8 crores...imagine if that were invested in prodn or mktg!! so therefore what i think shd happen is the film makers themselves shd be offsetting the cost of the delivery to an extent, since the benefits to the film producer outweigh the benefits to the exhibitor...
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