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[gofreak]

I was just reading how by the end of the year, pretty much every cinema in Ireland would be converted to digital projectors hooked up to a network for distribution of movies digitally through satellites etc. etc. I was wondering if anyone here had watched a movie in a digital cinema, and has thoughts on how it compares to "regular" movies? Apparently there'll be a far number of them ready in time for Star Wars, so I'm wondering how that'll be..

(edit - also, in my searching on GAF for digital cinema related threads, i came across news of "Digital 3D Cinema", and a demo by Lucas, John Cameron etc. that apparently was breathtaking. Will that work with these new Digital cinemas, and if so, will there be movies shown in that format soon? Too much to hope that I'll be watching the next Star Wars in 3d?)

 

[cybamerc]

http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=42800

Or if you can't be bothered: it's awesome!

 

[Tabris]

There's only 1 digital theatre in the Vancouver area and I only went there to see Episode 2.

The quality was a lot better it seemed.

 

[Warm Machine]

Many Theaters go the cheapo route and buy the low-res 1280x720 projectors. The real deal in digital cinema is 4000x2400 or there abouts. I don't know of a single theater that is doing that. Not to say they don't exist though. I don't know if studios have been actively giving theaters digital versions of their films to present.

I'm looking forward to it when it is happening though as we shouldn't be seeing movies with dust and scratches nor misframed presentations like I've been unfortunate to see.

 

[Warm Machine]

Here is a recent news story...

http://www.avrev.com/news/0305/24.sony.html

The new Sony projectors are the first commercially available "4K" projectors, which offer a 4096 x 2160 pixel resolution and a high contrast ratio. They use a Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) imaging device.

 

[gofreak]

Thanks for the link cybamerc! That didn't show up in search for some reason..

The ones being rolled out here are apparently 2000xsomething. The provider argues that the 4000x2000 ones are more suited to different projection environments (like how 35mm is the standard for film versus IMAX).

The 2000xwhatever ones meet the current standard, right?

edit - heh, I was reading the Lucas is going to release a different version of Revenge of the Sith to digital cinemas? That he can keep working on it up to a week before release, whereas he has to finish the film version much sooner, and so the digital version may be a bit longer? I guess any differences would be minor..i suppose this could be a good or bad thing, although i'm not a huge SW nut, so it won't matter to me much anyway.