Monday, October 13, 2003
Quality Matters ... But Dollars, Apparently, Matter More!
Digital cinema projection has been possible for years, but, like the infamous TiVo, has yet to make a foothold in the US market (let alone anywhere else). Digital projction is crisper, smoother and would make film distribution and storage substantially easier. So why isn't it on offer at the local multiplex: cost. The New York Times reports:
Digital cinema projection has been possible for years, but, like the infamous TiVo, has yet to make a foothold in the US market (let alone anywhere else). Digital projction is crisper, smoother and would make film distribution and storage substantially easier. So why isn't it on offer at the local multiplex: cost. The New York Times reports:
LA - Moviegoers who recently saw the Johnny Depp film "Once Upon a Time in Mexico'' at the Pacific Sherman Oaks Galleria 16 cinema here may have noticed that something was different. Instead of the traces of dust and scratches, and the slight shaking of the image that is perceptible at many screenings, they were looking at a picture that is pristine, sharp and steady. That is because the film was projected digitally, the images fed not from a five-foot-diameter reel of 35-millimeter film, but from a computer hard drive, and beamed onto the screen using a projector without any moving parts. ... Filmgoers evidently like what they see. "Given a choice between watching a 35-millimeter print or a digital file of the film, customers prefer the digital version," said Jerry Pokorski, executive vice president and head film buyer for Pacific Theaters, which operates the 16-screen movie complex in Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley. The theater's newspaper ads note when a film is showing in the digital format, and "our grosses are as much as 40 percent higher when we screen a film digitally," Mr. Pokorski said. ... The way the theater owners see it, the costs would not offset any benefits. A typical 35-millimeter projector, they say, costs $30,000 and lasts up to 30 years. But a feature-film-grade digital projector is expected to cost as much as $150,000, at least initially. And because it is a new technology, its effective life is unknown. Beyond the price of the projector would be the cost of the satellite dishes or high-speed transmission lines needed to receive the digital file, as well as an investment in the automated theater management systems to connect and control the entire operation.So, even new multiplexes are unlikely to be tempted for a while; and with over a billion dollars being made from film distribution a year, how many vested interests are there in keeping digital projection out of the cinema?
[Posted by Unknown] [5:22 pm]
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