Fullscreen HTML5Med Res (??MB)HTML4

DIGITAL CINEMA There is upheaval in the movie industry. More feature films are being shot with digital cameras and successfully transferred to 35mm film release prints with advanced technology. Surprisingly, film is still hanging in as a capture medium, due mainly to the pressure from cinematographers who claim that everyone wants that ‘film look’, while few set out to achieve that ‘video look’ in the cinema. Coming up fast on the inside is the ‘digital look’, as increasing numbers of cinemas around the world begin to install digital projection into their bio-boxes. Barrie Smith takes a look into the popcorn and choc-top world of the digital cinema revolution. 18  Silicon Chip siliconchip.com.au D epending on who you ask, the cinema industry, as distinct from the production side, is under challenge – from metre-plus LCD and Plasma 16:9 home screens — or it’s not under challenge, thanks to a flood of successful block-busters. These are pulling millions of dollars from patrons happy to travel to a multiplex, sit in the dark with a crowd and enjoy the movie experience after paying $16 plus for each ticket. The Australian figures are revealing: In its 10 week run Batman’s Dark Knight pulled $45 million while Mamma Mia! did $30 million in a similar period. Movies make money. Buckets of it. The two thousand cinemas that constitute the Australian exhibition industry all have film projectors, mostly 35mm models that have served operators well for decades. The principle of 35mm projection has remained basically unchanged since 1895, when the brothers Lumiere held their first public movie screening, at Paris’s Salon Indien du Grand Café. Wise minds would say “Don’t mess with it. It works.” That makes you wonder why there is a push to digital cinema. To find out, why I spoke to some industry players busy trundling digital projection gear into cinemas across the nation. Savings A man who could easily be described as the head of the push (to digital cinema) is Kodak’s Asia Pacific Digital Cinema manager David Sanderson. I asked him why we needed digital cinema. Sanderson responded by saying it could be compared to most new technologies in that it “offers potentially big savings in certain parts of the industry.” He tempered that by saying that in other parts “it probably doesn’t offer savings but the main drivers who are probably the studios and distributors out of the US would love to see it happen.” He sees that there is definite pressure to get the US market converted quickly but adds there is less pressure in other parts of the world. Europe, he feels, is probably a secondary area and probably the furthest away in US minds as far as conversion goes. As of now it is estimated that 1200 cinemas, or about 1% of cinemas siliconchip.com.au 35mm film projection has remained basically unchanged since 1895. As anyone who has been to a cinema knows, a lot can (and does) go wrong! worldwide, are equipped with digital projectors. Australia is also well back in the field with possibly 24 or 25 cinemas equipped with 2K standard digital projectors (see Info Box), virtually all in capital cities. For example, The Greater Union chain is currently trialling digital projection in some of its major cinemas, including the “Gold Class” cinemas where there’s the added attraction of dinner and drinks served to your seat (such as shown in our photo opposite). The situation here is that most film projectors that are still running side- by-side with digital are dedicated to 3D projection when it is scheduled. That situation would change dramatically when a serious roll-out of digital happened, Sanderson stressed. What are the benefits for the audience? The Kodak man explained that the benefits are very straightforward for an audience. For a start, you avoid today’s issues that we have today with film prints, where the film prints get scratched and dirty as they get cycled around the country. With digital it’s very different. First of all, you get projection of a pristine image from day one to the last day. The Barco DP3000 projector using a 3 cm DLP chip is a 4K machine with 6.5 kW lamps and ability to cover a 30mwide screen. AIST is currently testing this model and Barco’s DP2000 at the Greater Union George Street Sydney cinemas. December 2008  19 Atlab Image and Sound Technology are pushing ahead with their own approach to digital cinema and see little demand for 4K projection. other benefit for the audience is going to be that more cinemas will be able to show a new movie on day one, thanks to the lower cost per title. Country cinemas can then enjoy simultaneous release with the capitals. And for the cinema operator? Automation is the key to the cinema’s main benefits. When a cinema multiplex is fully digitised, a Theatre Management System (TMS) is installed — virtually, a computer that runs the show. The movie on a hard drive is loaded into a server and then the TMS works with the ticketing system that the cinemas use today to program what shows run on what screens. At that point, the TMS takes over and sends the movie data to the appropriate projector/screen and starts the movie at the right time. In fact, it runs the whole show — dims the lights, opens the curtains etc. The Key The movie can be delivered in any of three different methods to cinemas: via remote management on a Virtual Private Network (VPN), by satellite transmission or by physical media (a hard disk drive). Also sent to the cinemas is the Key Delivery Message (KDM), most likely in the form of a USB flash drive or sent via a phone line and a modem. This is provided by a film’s distributor or its laboratory. The KDM is the more than an antipiracy device. It’s the content key that unlocks the encryption on the movie and therefore unlocks the movies for the correct dates on which the cinema is allowed to play it and what day it has to finish. If a theatre wants to screen a movie outside of the parameters the KDM allows, they would need to obtain a new KDM from the distributor. There’s even more to this locking process, as explained in the Info Box ‘Anti Piracy’. Out of Focus Today’s metro multiplexes are operated by minimal staff. You’ve probably found that the standard of film projection at your local multiplex confirms this, with delayed projection, the movie often out of focus or out of rack for five minutes or more, with sound frequently at painful levels until the projectionist corrects matters. Digital projection can only improve this situation and allow a multiplex with ten or more screens to be operated A portable hard drive, costing less than $100, compares to around $2000 for a 35mm movie film print. And the film print is easily damaged and is very heavy (some theatres have a fork lift to raise the spool to the projector!). 20  Silicon Chip siliconchip.com.au Main Players Christie CP2000-ZX (Above): A line-up of Christie DLP projectors with the lens inset at left. correctly with just a few operators. A handful of projectionists could move between screens and keep an eye on where things are from one screen to another. But, Sanderson stresses, “you know you need to have someone there in case something does happen, and that will still apply with digital.” Digital also means the whole show — say a movie plus ads plus trailers for coming movies, can all be run as a single program. Sanderson: “It’s all moving in that direction very quickly. At the moment you’ll tend to get the ads possibly run from a separate digital system to the main movie and the trailers could be today running on 35 mm film. Christie projector lens and LCD panel setup … the latter is used to create projected 3D. siliconchip.com.au There are five main suppliers of digital projectors to the cinema industry: Barco, Christie, NEC, Panasonic and Sony. Four of these, Barco, Christie, NEC and Panasonic, use the Texas Instruments DLP cinema chip, which is in essence the world’s most sophisticated light switch, using a rectangular array of up to two million hinge-mounted microscopic mirrors; each of these micromirrors measures less than one-fifth the width of a human hair. A DLP chip’s micromirrors are mounted on tiny hinges that enable them to tilt either toward the light source (ON) or away from it (OFF), creating a light or dark pixel on the screen. The white light generated by the projector’s lamp projection system passes through a colour wheel as it travels to the surface of the DLP chip. The colour wheel filters the light into red, green, and blue, from which a single-chip system can create at least 35 trillion colours in a 3-chip system. Sony, in its CineAlta SRX R220 projector uses a Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) imaging device based on a variant of LCD technology. Sony CineAlta SRX R220 December 2008  21 If a cinema wants to run 3D movies then it may need to install a high gain screen for some processes. Some cinemas currently run 3D movies with an on screen illumination of only 8 foot-lamberts One process, the RealD 3D system needs a metallised screen because it’s a polarised light system. There is also a Dolby 3D system which needs a high gain white screen, because of the filtering system used in the process. See Info Box ‘Three Dee’. VPF Christie DLP projector and associated server. “In the future it will all run through the one digital projector.” Is there a difference? I asked Sanderson would an audience know the difference with digital. He answered that generally the audience doesn’t, unless they are attuned to looking for scratches or dirt on the print. He added that the quality of film and digital are very similar. So, in fact if the audience doesn’t notice the difference, it’s a success. With a new digital installation it may not be necessary to upgrade the audio set up. If the cinema already has a high quality system the existing set up will work well. Unless the cinema plans to run 3D movies there is no need to change the screen itself. The standard screen illumination is 14 to 16 foot-lamberts and digital installs are designed to run at this level How will the cinema operators pay for digital? Sanderson: “At the moment, if they are running 3D, they’re having to do it out of their own pockets. This is countered by a premium price for 3D admission tickets.” Then there is the Virtual Print Fee (VPF) scheme requiring co-operation from the US film studios and a company like Kodak, who can support a roll out of digital cinema. Once agreements are struck with a finance company then you can start to roll digital installs. A VPF pays off the equipment and does not go to the cinema. The cinema basically has to put up a small portion of the total cost to join in the scheme and as soon as they sign up then the equipment goes into their cinema and from day one they just show movies in digital. Roll-outs The matter of cost per installation opens up another can of worms. According to Sanderson this figure can probably reach $100,000 “by the time you get the equipment and the screen and everything set up. “For every screen you have to have a projector. Then you’ve got to have what’s called a content player, a computer box that actually stores the movie on it that’s going to play to that screen. “And then you need automation interfaces — the devices that turn lights on and off, open the curtains and all that sort of thing. Added to this and constituting the master control is the TMS. You need one of these for the multiplex; it talks to each of the individual content players and projectors in each of the cinema halls.” 22  Silicon Chip Operator using Barco DP100 projector. Relying on DLP chip it delivers 2K projection and can illuminate a 25m-wide screen and use Xenon lamps from 1.5k to 7k in output. siliconchip.com.au VPF is similar to a surcharge on the rental cost per movie, with the distributor or the US studio financing the roll-out. This would be a massive saving when the latter can distribute digital files to the cinemas when compared to the cost of distributing rolls of film today. This is happening in the US and Europe at the moment but has been stalled for the last 12 months, mainly because of the lack of finance. Release Will digital cinema help the smaller film producer with a title on limited release? Sanderson: “I think the answer is yes, because they can go through the post production phase which is probably lower in cost in digital, particularly if they want to get it out to a lot of cinemas, then making digital copies is a lower cost. A block-buster, such as a Batman or Bond movie, can face a simultaneous release to possibly 2000 or so screens Australia-wide. With a 35mm print cost likely to be around $2000 per copy, you don’t need a PhD in maths to see that a digital release of a movie on portable hard drives at less than $100 a pop would have the movie people salivating at the thought. The only counter to this is that, for a while to come, film distributors will need to have dual inventories of film and digital release media. In the long term though (probably within five to ten years), the benefits would be substantial. Satellite distribution would seem to ignite another fire in the movie industry’s eyes and remove all media costs. David Sanderson feels this is some way ahead and, to illustrate the situation, recalls talking to a very large company in India, who own a fibre optic network that encircles the country. He explains that, while the Indian company can distribute the movies via that system it still takes them something like twelve hours to push a movie out through the network. A two hour movie, even in compressed form, can reach 250GB. Opportunities Digital presentation also delivers many opportunities to the canny cinema operator in the form of television presentations. Both globally and in Australia, live presentations of sport and opera are already in train. The only attraction that film may still maintain is the culture of film. “Talk to any major cinematographer and you will hear they still want to shoot with film because of the creative benefits it affords them (real or perceived).” Although video camera technology is striding ahead, particularly in 2K or 4K? Digital High Definition TV has a vertical resolution of 1080 pixels, with a horizontal resolution of 1920 pixels. It’s generally understood that no detail whose width is tinier than 1/1920 the screen’s width — a single pixel — can be seen. Digital movies are created by digitally scanning the original 35mm film and packaging the data into a DCP (Digital Cinema Package) for distribution. Most commonly, the digital movie is distributed on a portable hard drive. 

There is compatibility between current 2K and 4K systems. Movie files created at 2K can be exhibited on 4K systems — 2K images are automatically up-converted to 4K data; a 2K projector can replay a 4K movie but limited to 2K quality onscreen. The interchangeability between 2K and 4K means that studios need only distribute one movie file, whether it is 2K or 4K, and it can be played by any compliant projection system. In a 2K scan from film to digital, the number of pixels across the width of the scanned film frame is, at most, 2048 pixels. In a 4K scan, that upper limit is doubled, to 4096 pixels. What is the difference between 4K and 2K projection? In digital cinema, a 4K image with a 2.39:1 (“scope”) aspect ratio has 4096x1716 pixels. A 4K image with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio has 3996x2160 pixels. By comparison, a 2K image with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio has 2048x858 pixels. A 2K image with a 1.85:1 (“flat”) aspect ratio has 1998x1080 pixels. Kodak’s David Sanderson made the point that future movie resolution might be 8k on the screen — and not 2K or 4k — but the audience would not see any difference at all. 4K Digital Cinema 2K Digital Cinema 1080 High Definition 720 High Def SD TV RealD 3-D system uses a single projector that alternately projects the right eye and left eye frames and circularly polarises these frames, using an LCD screen in front of the projector lens. siliconchip.com.au This diagram, courtesy of Red Digital Cinema Cameras, shows the relativity between a standard definition TV (grey), a 720pixel high definition screen, a 1080 pixel high definition screen, 2K cinema screen and 4K cinema screen. December 2008  23 Three Dee The RealD 3-D system is based on the traditional method of 3D imaging, using linearly polarised glasses. The traditional method works by projecting two linearly polarised images onto the same screen, polarised at +45° and -45° from the horizontal, which are then filtered by linearly polarised glasses worn by the audience. This type of 3D imaging requires two projectors, and often suffers from visible double-imaging if the head is tilted to the side, thereby cancelling the polarised effect. RealD however uses a single projector that alternately projects the right eye and left eye frames, and circularly polarises these frames, clockwise for the right-eye and counter-clockwise for the left eye, using an LCD screen in front of the projector lens. Circularly polarised glasses make sure each eye sees only its own picture, even if the head is tilted. A high frame rate of 72 fps per eye is used — each frame projected three times to reduce flicker, as the source vision is usually 24 fps. Some of the films in RealD: Chicken Little (2005), Monster House and Beowulf (2007). Globally, 1000 screens ran the latter title in 3D. Dolby 3D is based on INFITEC (Interference Filter Technology) technology, originating from a research project of DaimlerChrysler. INFITEC uses an extremely fine-tuned colour/filter wheel. Light waves entering the eye are separated into three different spectral ranges by three types of receptors, related to the primary colours. Dolby 3D uses six very narrow bandwidth colour bands — three for each eye. This allows the use of one light source in a single-lens projector. There are processes in the works to 3D-ise moves that were not originally shot in 3D. Dominic Case has the wry comment that while “there are some very clever people who are purporting to take an old 2D image and 3D-ise it, I’m waiting to see Casablanca in 3D — and slit my wrists when that happens!” 24  Silicon Chip the form of the RED camera, it does not change the technique of making movies: the cinematography, the lighting, production design etc. It’s the technique and the culture, not the technology. As David Sanderson stresses “It’s about the creative requirements of the guys that produce the movies and the creative people who have very, very high ideals of what they want. It’s not just a matter of saying here is the new thing, let’s go with it. To change the way you actually make a movie is a very different set of criteria.” Another matter is that Kodak does make the odd roll of motion picture negative and print film, sold to film companies and laboratories by the millions of metres. Film will be around for a while, even if Kodak pushes the digital barrow as strongly as they intend. Another Approach To get a totally different view of the technology I spoke to Dominic Case, Communications Director of Atlab Image & Sound Technology (AIST) in Sydney, a major player in the Australian industry who previously, as Atlab, had been the country’s major processor of motion picture negative and prints. AIST’s digital cinema ‘product’ is ‘ec2’. This approach arose because the company viewed the approach by the Hollywood majors as one based on a financial model that did not make sense, at least in the Australian environment. The company began with ec2 some years ago as a method that provided quite low end digital projectors for cinemas to run pre-show advertising in the form of TV commercials transferred to film, or as slides and PowerPoint-like presentations. Case: “We started out doing that and supplying the equipment through our cinema equipment division called Atlab Image and Sound Technology (AIST). We have now upgraded that to a level where the image quality is suitable for showing features in all but the largest of cinemas. It’s a slightly lower resolution than the 2K that Hollywood demands — it’s 1.3 or 1.4K — and we manufacture our own server that handles the files for that. This rolls out to the cinema operator for little more than $20,000.” Case claims that, for a suburban multi-screen cinema with a smaller screen, the quality is close to that previously experienced with film projection. He adds that there a “couple of hundred cinemas” are currently showing presentations in a process that has come to be called eCinema. “The point about eCinema is that the Hollywood studios won’t allow their product to be shown in it but independent distributors can tap into live screen presentations of ballet and opera, organised by the Australian Film Commission and screened live in a handful of rural cinemas.” It also means that the independently-owned smaller chains as well as regional cinemas can now get art house and Australian-made films, supplied on portable hard drives that they couldn’t get before because there weren’t enough prints available. In a typical ec2 install the cinema is supplied with a server and a digital projector. AIST fits its own logic boards and operational software to supply the Panasonic LCD projectors. At this pricing level it also means a private home could install cinemaquality theatre to run top movies. The only flaw in this idea is that a private individual would probably not obtain access to first-run films. Case sees the whole approach as an exercise in diminishing returns and it means you can get 90% of the on screen quality for a quarter of the price. In practical terms, Case is a realist and believes that watching audiences probably cannot differentiate between film and digital projection … “essentially most audiences we find haven’t a clue of what they are watching, qualitywise. Very few people can actually say digital is better or worse.” More likely is a negative response when “some cowboy shows a DVD on a data projector and calls it digital cinema. We hear of a few of those and people come out of that saying: ‘If this is digital cinema, I don’t want to go again.’” The cinema operators see it quite differently, Case explains that one of the attractions is that they can rent movies (in digital form) that they wouldn’t get otherwise: “They can enjoy quite flexible programming. They’re not changing from film to digital. They’re putting a digital projector in alongside a film projector.” “This means they can still be showsiliconchip.com.au ing their mainstream films, their blockbusters in the evenings of high attendance days like Thursday, Friday and weekends. Then, earlier in the weeks, or afternoons, they can run art house movies and attract a whole new audience.” There is also reduced pressure on film prints wanted by the distributor who may need to ship it out to Orange or Oodnadatta. Copyright AIST itself handles the dubbing to hard drive, so it becomes a subsidiary and complementary form of release. To illustrate this, Case recalls a typical film — The Queen — in 2007. This went out on about twelve 35mm film copies, which went into metropolitan centres, added to which were about forty digital copies. These were encoded into an MPEG format, compatible with ec2. If a film is supplied as a film master, AIST can make digital copies or transfer to film. What do you do about copyright protection? Case: “When digital release started people were more concerned with getting their film out there than they were with copyright protection. Hollywood is, as you know, fairly neurotic about the level of copyright protection because there is significant money to be made — and because if it’s a Hollywood product — it’s all about the first week’s returns. “With the sort of typical art house product, it tends to be a different audience. The audience is not disappointed if it doesn’t get to see it on Day One and the distributors are just anxious to get the thing out there. You know AIST copyright would not incur a big haemorrhage of revenue. But now we’ve got ec2 established, we’re looking to some form of encryption.” The company has dealt with “a couple of hundred cinemas around the country, more so in the provincial centres. Most of these are independentlyowned, although the Reading and the Dendy cinemas along with the Palace chain have a few digital installs. So cinemas have retained their 35mm projectors and will for some time. In Case’s view “The issue as far as the mainstream cinema is concerned is the enormous cost — we are talking up to $200,000. It’s coming down but it’s not coming down that quickly.” siliconchip.com.au The financial challenge for cinemas, especially independents, is that it’s not a matter of ‘either/or’, it’s a matter of ‘plus’. Cinemas already have 35mm projectors installed. Case: “They are usually paid for, amortised and they are churning on. If you’re putting in a new cinema you can’t afford just to put a digital projector in, you’ll be putting film in as well, so it’s an additional cost. The exhibitor gets nothing extra.” VPF Again Case sees the Virtual Print Fee as an anchor around forward-looking operators. He recalls that in the US it would take about eight years to amortise the cost of digital projection and ancillary equipment. Eight years is a long time to amortise the cost of digital equipment of any sort, especially with the high rate of changes in technology and rapidly falling costs. AIST is also pursuing 2K and 4K business. Case explains that they are just starting: “We’ve got the equipment for the encoding and the encryption.” Holdout About the only sector in the cinema game that would seem to be safe from a digital version would be the IMAX process. The 70mm film format has seen off many rivals in its 40 year lifespan and purpose-built cinemas around the world still show the enormous picture. What stands in the way of a digital IMAX format would appear to be the sheer size of the film frame: 69.6x48.5 mm. Transferred to digital, each frame would run to 70 million pixels. Twenty-four frames in each second would see the need to process 168 megapixels of image data. In view of this, it’s interesting to note that Hoyts cinemas plan to install IMAX theatres within three existing capital city venues. And these will use digital projection — but not with the same resolution or screen size as the film version. Surely, an admission that a full IMAX frame would defeat digitisation? But the surprising news is that, starting in mid-2008, all new IMAX projectors will include digital DLP technology and eliminate the need for elaborate film-based projector setups currently found in IMAX theatres. Anti-Piracy It is no secret that Hollywood has been concerned about movie piracy for a long time. On the morning following the world premiere of Phil Noyce’s “The Ugly American” in Hanoi pirate DVD copies were on sale throughout the city, captured by an audience member and his/her camcorder. One trade association claims a camcorder copy of a movie can be the source of more than 90 percent of all illegal copies during initial release. David Sanderson explains that every movie is 128-bit encrypted on the medium delivered to the cinema. If you intercepted an encrypted hard drive containing a movie and tried to play it, it won’t play: “Even if you set up a full digital cinema, you couldn’t play it. You need to have the KDM that is supplied with it. That KDM will only allow the movie to be played at a particular site, as in a multiplex, one particular multiplex between certain dates — and you try to do it any other time, it doesn’t work, so that makes the distribution side very, very secure. “If you are going to take your video camera and set it up in the back row of the cinema and record the movie off the screen, then it’s very high risk, because both the image and the audio track now have watermarking on them. If needed, the movie’s distributor can go back and find out exactly which cinema it was actually shown in.” Even when the movie is burnt to a DVD, the forensic watermark can still be detected and the cinema that showed the movie can be pinpointed as well as the date and time of projection. More info on watermarking: www. techweb.com/wire/192201447 Acknowledgement: Barrie Smith would like to thank David Sanderson and David Hill of Kodak and Dominic Case and Ben Wilson of AIST for their considerable help and assistance in preparing this SC story. December 2008  25