The other day I heard how we are on the verge of movie theatres going digital. From a logistical standpoint in regards to distribution alone this makes sense.
I still enjoy going to the movie theatre because of the size of screen. Then I started to think and wonder if the digital movie theatre experience can be just as good if not better than the current 35mm movie film experience? In respect to image quality (presuming optimal film viewing conditions which isn't always the case)
A large screen projection system is something I dream about and hope to eventually own in my home and I am aspiring to reproduce the same quality as film can deliver, with the advent of digital technology I am curious to see if I can achieve my goals with today's technology.
I did some digging on the internet and here's what I found so far:
35mm movie film is almost identical to what you have in a 35mm film camera, only instead of 24/36 frames per roll, its multiple by the thousands on a reel. 35mm file has a useable area of about 24mm by 18mm once you deduct the holes for the sprocket wheels.
Film is an analog medium, so it doesn't have "pixels" per se, but if were to approximate the required resolution of 35mm film we would need a digital resolution of about 20 million "quality" pixels to match a top-quality 35mm shot. What this means is that a 5300 x 4000 digital camera would be required to produce a shot equivalent to a scan from a quality 35mm camera. I don't even think they exist yet to capture 20 million pixels.
The eye, however, is not as discerning when looking at a picture in the usual context as it can be when looking at things blown up. So many can also argue that a shot of around 9 million pixels would look as good to the eye as a 35mm shot, except when blown up very large and looked at quite closely.
From what I have read, the highest digital cinema projectors can display 4096 x 2160 pixel resolution. Thus called "4K digital projectors" costing as much as $ 60,000 each in some reviews online that I have seen.
Based on info I have found on the net, the eye, however, is not as discerning when looking at a picture in the usual context as it can be when looking at things blown up. So many can also argue that a shot of around 9 million pixels would look as good to the eye as a 35mm shot, except when blown up very large and looked at quite closely.
George Lucas shot the film "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clone" with a Sony HDW-F900 HDCAM, a professional grade camcorder that records 1920 x 1080 pixels.
At even 1920 x 1080 ( about 1.5 MB per frame in Jpeg format as an example, hoping mpeg can compress more) resolution, for a 2hr movie, the storage requirements would be somewhere around 253GB per film (7200 seconds x 24 fps x 1.5MB per frame). I think I a going to buy stock in Seagate or other Hard Drive mfg's.
LOL
So what does this all mean?
This is strictly my opinion but from what I can tell, digital cinema viewing has the potential to approximate film but we still have a long way to go. From what I can tell, if the actual recording is still done at half lower resolution (referring to a Sony HDW-F900 HDCAM at about $100,000 per camera), it will be a long time until we can say digital is better than film. Your only ever as good as the source.
I was hoping that the new HD broadcast formats regulated by the ATSC would somehow help consolidate all the different technologies into possibly one cohesive digital solution that would be transportable into almost limitless viewing experiences but I was expecting too much.
Costs $$$, Storage, Image capturing, Image transfer/rendering, distribution/bandwith limitations etc. are all real challenges that we are still facing today.
I guess I'm going to have to wait a while...until then I just have to dream (In Technicolor of course)
Comments are welcomed.
Thanks for reading.