Digital cinema

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The digital cinema (Digital Cinema, D-Cinema) is a cinema technology , which replaces the previous conventional mechanical and photochemical storage and distribution of films on film rolls by digital methods. It includes 2D and 3D rendering. In 2006 and 2007 around 5,000 cinemas around the world were converted from film to digital projection, while in 2009 over 15,000 cinemas were converted to digital projection. According to the plans of the large US chains such as AMC Theaters or Regal , most of the cinema screenings in the USA should be digital as early as 2011/2012.

In a broader sense, “digital cinema” describes the digitization of the entire production chain from filming to post-production to archiving, distribution and showing of cinema films.

The article digital cinema camera gives a detailed overview of the cameras for digital cinema productions.

history

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Although digital recording is rapidly gaining market share, most films in the film industry were once photographed on film material , but almost all film productions are already digitized and made using digital intermediates . Post-processing then takes place exclusively on the computer . With digital cinema, above all the first steps - filming - and the last steps of film production, copying, distribution and performance or reproduction are brought up to date with the latest technology . This represents an economic, ecological and logistical advance, but at least at the moment still a qualitative step backwards, since the previous way of analog recording - digital intermediate - exposure - analog projection has been possible for decades with a very high quality (a digital intermediate material is usually In practice, in the cinema, you can hardly notice that it was digital in between), but despite the high resolution and contrast range of the cameras, the digital recording is still in its infancy in terms of technology and aesthetics, and furthermore, in particular, the sterile-looking projection with a digital projector with significant cuts (exacerbated by the fact that in many cinemas the digital projectors are not adequately calibrated, which is not necessary in analog technology and thus excluded as a source of error.) The image quality is reduced when exposed to film and subsequent mechanical performance and can never achieve the full image quality of the digital master, but comes closer to it in comparison to digital projection, since the imagers only illuminate a very small area optically flawlessly and without the necessary high brightness, and above all do not have to do this in real time. Film wears out when performing; Film copies, which are often used, lose a lot of their quality, but are naturally easy to replace, so this is an argument that is mainly interested in profit.

The decisive step towards this was the founding of the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) by all major Hollywood studios ( Disney , Fox , MGM , Paramount , Sony Pictures Entertainment , Universal and Warner Bros. ) in March 2002. Their activities have now become a standard created for digital cinema.

The concept has been implemented in Asia for a long time; on January 31, 2002, The Missing Gun, the first digital cinema film from China , was released. India followed on April 18, 2003 with Hero - Love story of a spy and Singapore with After School on November 22, 2003. By 2007, a single company had set up over 800 digital cinemas in India alone.

In Europe, the European DocuZone project started on November 12, 2004 in eight countries and 182 cinemas, 112 of them in Germany. The participating countries are Germany , France , the Netherlands , Austria , Portugal , Slovakia , Spain and Great Britain . This project is supported by film funding and EU funds and is deliberately focused on improving the evaluation situation of small films in small cinemas with small screens. European DocuZone focuses primarily on documentary film. The technology used here does not correspond to the DCI standards, which shows that the owners of the film rights have a considerable say in determining future standards.

After the adoption of the DCI specifications, over 10,000 screens around the world had been converted by early 2009, and thousands are added each year. In Germany, the development has only reached a minor extent in the multiplex chains, while abroad, however, the conversion is already taking place on a large scale. The German multiplex chains typically only offer DCI projection at their best locations, and there mostly only in a few cinemas, mainly to be able to show 3D films.

Another factor that promotes the spread of digital cinema is what camera manufacturers offer - all of the world's leading camera manufacturers and distributors now have cameras for digital cinema production on offer, such as the 1080p cameras (1920 × 1080 pixels):

Also the newer 4K cameras such as:

The digital cinema cameras make - unlike digital photography - still an expensive investment made.

New opportunities

There are follow-up costs for cinema operators if the existing film projectors are expanded or replaced by digital technology . In return, digital technology also offers new possibilities in terms of both automation and film content. In Germany and Austria, for example, special performances from the Metropolitan Opera or the Berlin Philharmonic are already being offered.

The delivery of data (digital transmission of films), in particular the uninterrupted live transmission of sports events, for example, requires a connection with a high bandwidth that must be constantly available. The following possibilities are conceivable for this:

  • The transmission by satellite . This offers a high and constantly available capacity, but also means a high level of encryption effort in order to prevent unauthorized persons from receiving the data stream and illegally distributing the films in perfect quality over the Internet even before or at the cinema release.
  • Transmission over a DSL connection. More security is required against accessing the data stream from outside. With a Very High Speed ​​Digital Subscriber Line or the expandable DSL chipset Uni-DSL , a theoretical bandwidth of up to 200 Mbit / s is possible, which would also enable the transmission of live events.

digitalization

Digitization is necessary for existing film material . Most of the time, however, digitization is already taking place today for post-processing. The film is scanned and converted into a digital storage format. With digital recording, digitization takes place during the recording. For film-based projection, the image data are exposed on (mostly) 35 mm film at the end of post-processing.

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Data format

In order to be able to process material recorded by different cameras in systems from different manufacturers and to show their output with projectors of different quality, a common master format is required. Various standardization committees are dealing with this, but the greatest boost is currently coming from the DCI, which has now decided on M-JPEG2000 for digital cinema in its requirements for the distribution of digital films .

Image resolution

The image of a 35 mm film has a theoretical resolution of over 3000 lines in the negative, depending on the film speed, exposure and manufacturer .

According to measurements by independent institutes - after numerous intermediate steps and copying processes - German cinemas still achieve an average resolution of just under 1000 lines.

In practice, 4K scanning (4096 × 2160 pixels) is sufficient to reproduce all details except for the grain structure of the film material. Due to the various copying processes with negative, zero copy and positive copy, the material loses so much of its resolution that only a resolution of 2048 pixels can be considered realistic. For this reason, cinema films have been scanned in 2K resolution (2048 × 1080 pixels) for years, provided with digital effects in the same resolution and also exposed again with 2K resolution.

In the broadcasting sector, two further HD formats have established themselves with 720p (1280 × 720 pixels) and 1080p / i (1920 × 1080 pixels). The 1080p format in particular is now often used for digital cinema productions. For example, Avatar - Departure to Pandora , Apocalypto, Miami Vice, Star Wars - Episode 3 and Superman were produced in 1080p HD format. For further processing, the developed camera negative is scanned with 2K or more and more often with 4K.

Video codec

The high data rate of digital video or film material makes storage and transmission technically very complex and expensive. Data compression reduces both the amount of image and audio data. A so-called codec (compressor / decompressor) is used for compression and decompression . There is a large number of specialized codecs, especially in the video sector. The DCI standard is by far the market leader for digital cinema.

MPEG-2
Large distribution - particularly in the broadcasting sector - has in recent years MPEG-2 found. In addition to acceptable compression, MPEG-2 offers the reliability of an open standard that has been tried and tested over a long period of time. The MPEG-2-HD variant is widely used as a data exchange and storage format.

Windows Media
Even Microsoft has with Windows Media  9 (WM9) an HD-capable codec in the portfolio. In contrast to MPEG-2, its algorithm is proprietary and not disclosed. Furthermore, the codec is only available under Windows . Microsoft is trying to establish WM9 as the standard for HD video and HD DVDs . Trailers in 720p and 1080p resolution can be downloaded from the WM9 website. WM9 integrates DRM technology for rights control. Microsoft achieved a small success in digital cinema in 2003 when the Landmark cinema chain equipped all 177 screens in 53 cinemas with WM9-compatible hardware . At the moment, the highest resolution of WM9-encoded video is 1920 × 1080 pixels.

Motion JPEG 2000
In June 2004, DCI declared Motion JPEG 2000 the codec of choice. This is based on Part 1 of the JPEG 2000 standard. The JPEG-2000 standard is the successor to JPEG , a widely used method for storing raster graphics . Motion JPEG 2000 performs the simple stringing together of individual JPEG 2000 images to form a video. The codec has some unique advantages over the other solutions:

  • lossless or lossy compression
  • freely scalable resolution and quality
  • high color depth up to 32 bit per channel
  • different sampling formats ( RGB , YCbCr ) with selectable sampling frequencies
  • application-oriented compression methods (quality, VBR , CBR )
  • Intraframe coding, i.e. H. the image data of a frame are independent of the previous frame
  • MPEG-4 -based file format provides interoperability
  • Embedding of metadata possible
  • Alpha channels and multiple levels possible

The DCI specification

The DCI has defined its technical specification of a storage and transport format for digital film and communicated it to the SMPTE .

Version 1.0 was published in July 2005 and version 1.1 of the DCI System Requirements and Specifications for Digital Cinema in April 2007.

The members opted for the Motion JPEG 2000 codec . The master resolution can be 2K, 4K and 2K in 3D. Lower resolutions are set depending on the camera and projector . ISO / IEC 15444-1 “JPEG2000” (.jp2) is used in the CIE-XYZ color space with 12 bits per component at 1 / 2.6 gamut, coded to 16 bit RGBA 4444 . The audio channel contains bit streams with 24 bits at 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling rate. The data container is MXF-compliant with an XML-coded table of contents and a maximum of 250 Mbit / s. 24 and 48 frames per second are specified at 2K , 25 are being incorporated, 30 are being planned, 4K is at 24 Hz. Projects such as the second part of Avatar - Aufbruch nach Pandora (director: James Cameron ) and the Hobbit trilogy ( Director: Peter Jackson ) are produced at 48 frames per second and therefore require 96 Hz for a projection in 3D (depending on the projection technology).

The format offers enough scope for further technical development. By using alpha channels and multiple levels, for example, subtitles can be integrated. The lion's share of the thousands of digital halls use 2K. The DCI has officially completed the standardization process, but is working on further details, including security issues and 3D projection.

DRM and watermarking

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With a digital film master, the studios have the opportunity to copy the film without loss and as often as desired. Unfortunately, for rights holders but also facilitates the illegal distribution of content via Internet - sharing networks . Music and copies of DVD films in particular are distributed via these peer-to-peer networks. Films that have been filmed from the big screen with the video camera keep appearing in file sharing sites. There is a concept to prevent filming, " Video Encoded Invisible Light Technology" (VEIL). Here, watermarks are stored in the film image, which are recognized by the cameras and should therefore lead to shutdown.

The presence of a digital film master increases the risk that a copy of the film will be placed on an exchange at any point in the production, transmission and performance chain. The amount of data generated by a digital film is still too high for rapid distribution over the Internet, but scaling or compression of the video and, above all, rapidly growing network bandwidths make pirated copies a serious challenge for rights holders.

For this reason, a future digital filmmaster could be protected with digital rights management ( DRM ) technology. This enables rights holders to retain control of their films even after they have been (digitally) delivered to the cinemas. DRM systems link certain restrictions and requirements to a media file in a license . These can include:

  • Period for which the license is valid (e.g. one month)
  • Time window in which the license is valid (e.g. late performances only)
  • Rooms in which the license is valid (e.g. commercially operated cinema or hall size)
  • Playback quality (e.g. resolution equivalent to 70 mm, 35 mm or lower)
  • Number of repetitions (e.g. test runs or demonstrations)
  • Obligation to show the entire content, i.e. not to skip any parts (e.g. credits)
  • Technology for which the license is valid (e.g. production computer or type of projector)
  • Technical safety standards (e.g. options for assigning watermarks )
  • Obligation to provide the playback data (e.g. title, time, location)
  • Passing on the data to third parties (e.g. production house, advertisers, etc.)
  • License costs (e.g. percent to be paid to the FFA) ( Lit .: FFA study, 2003)

The DCI pursues a policy of “control lightly, audit tightly” (meaning: “restrict weakly, monitor strongly”) with regard to digital rights management (DRM). This means that a film can be shown even though the playback license actually does not allow this (e.g. because of a time limit or a restriction on the number of copies running at the same time). At the same time, however, the system registers all activities seamlessly so that such license violations can also be charged or warned. This is intended to give cinema operators more flexibility and to prevent performances from having to be canceled due to technical or organizational problems with DRM.

In addition to the DRM measures, labeling by means of watermarking is also conceivable. Copyright information can be invisibly embedded in the image. These are then also retained when converting to other formats or when filming. The copyright information can be read out again by security officers using special software . For example, the name of the cinema for which the film is intended can be embedded. Watermarks can also be generated directly by the player during the performance. This could also hide the date of the performance and the cinema hall in the picture.

distribution

There are several options for copying and distributing the film information.

Hard drives with DCP from Clash of the Titans in a transport case

Removable media

Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) are mostly used on hard drives , since a 90-minute film is around 70 GB in HD resolution. The use of DVD media is not considered due to the amount of data required. This type of distribution would prevent live events from being broadcast; a complex copying and distribution process would still be necessary. The DVD solution also appears to be relatively problematic in terms of data security.

Depending on the manufacturer, the digital cinema servers have different procedures for importing the data from the hard drives. Depending on the server, eSATA, USB2.0, USB3.0 or CRU removable disks are available.

In order to copy these hard disks with the highest possible data rate, there are special hard disk copiers. There are copier systems for each format that simplify the duplication of data carriers. One hundred percent identical copies of a master hard disk are made. These copier systems are usually operated by different service providers.

Data line

Compared to the interchangeable carriers, there is no copying process. However, every cinema would have to be connected to a distribution station via a data line. This procedure would be relatively secure against eavesdropping on the data by third parties, but it would be very expensive.

Satellite connection

As the information is broadcast across the board, there is no need for copying or connecting the cinemas with dedicated lines. If necessary, only one telephone line would be required as a return channel for broadcast information, number of broadcasts. There is a risk that the data transmission will be intercepted and decrypted by unauthorized third parties.

Projection technology

Texas Instruments Cinema DLP Projector (2000)
Cinema DLP projector from NEC
Christie projector from the front
Christie projector from behind
Christie projector with polarizing wheel
Christie projector with touchscreen and monitor / keyboard from the server "Doremi"
Christie projector, lens

The playback takes place via a computer and a digital projector . To protect against piracy, both are typically housed in one housing, so that the data stream between decryption and playback cannot be tapped using simple means.

A projector for digital cinema has much higher requirements to meet than a typical consumer - Video projector can afford. In addition to higher resolution (2K or 4K compared to the usual 1080p), color depth (12 bits per basic color instead of 8 bits for Blu-Ray) and color space (DCI instead of Rec. 601 or 709), a significantly higher luminosity is particularly necessary in order to see the big cinema screen to illuminate sufficiently (xenon lamps from 0.8–10 kW instead of the UHP lamps with 200–300 W commonly used in home cinemas). Two technologies for digital cinema projectors are currently competing for the favor of cinema operators and standardization bodies, as well as a third as a prototype:

Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors

Digital Light Processing - DLP projectors for short, use Digital Mirror Devices (DMD chips for short) from Texas Instruments . These consist of millions of smallmirrors arranged in the form of a matrix , which are mounted on rockers (see micromirror array ). Depending on the position of a mirror, the light from the lamp is reflected to the imaging lens (bright pixels) or guided past it (dark pixels). The more often (and therefore longer) a mirror is in the On position during a frame (1/24 s), the brighter the pixel. In the systems offered by Texas Instruments for the digital cinema sector and marketed under the name "DLP-Cinema",a separate chip is responsiblefor each of the three primary colors red, green and blue, the unichrome images ofwhich are combined using color filters and prisms to form the finished image. Currently (2012) there are DMD chips for digital cinema with diagonals of 0.98 and 1.2 inches at 2028 × 1080 ( 2K ) pixels, and 1.38 inches at 4096 × 2160 ( 4K ) resolution.

DLP projectors have very high contrast ratios. Texas Instruments supplies NEC , Christie and Barco with DMD chips for integration into their projectors.

LCoS projectors

Projectors with Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) technology work in a similar way to DLP devices. Instead of a chip with small mirrors, however, an LCD is used. This also reflects the light from the projector lamp onto a screen. Contrast and black level correspond to those of the DLP projectors. In contrast to DMD chips, LCoS chips do not need any bars between the individual pixels, which also means a higher light yield. The technology is used commercially by Sony under the name SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) and by JVC under the name D-ILA (Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier). 4K projectors suitable for digital cinema currently use this technology. Disadvantage of this technology: The colors change over time due to the high temperature of the lamp, as the liquid crystals become unstable when heated.

Laser projectors

Laser projectors are another technology . These project the image onto the screen with three diode-pumped solid-state lasers (628 nm, 532 nm and 446 nm). In contrast to the other two solutions, laser projectors manage without optics. This means that curved screens can be used without losing sharpness. Another advantage is the variable resolution of laser projectors. This is (almost) only limited by the control electronics. Initially, this technique was mainly used by planetariums .

Since mid-2015, the first cinemas of the Belgian Kinepolis Group have been upgraded to the DP4K-60L laser projector from Barco ; in Germany, Kino 4 in the Cinedom in Cologne .

actors

The Hollywood Studios

The producers who dominate the world market - the major Hollywood studios - have now clarified all standardization issues with their initiative to standardize the digital cinema DCI. They have the greatest interest in the complete digitization of the cinema and they are able to push it through worldwide with the necessary force.

politics

In general, politics does not play a major role in D-Cinema either in the USA or in Europe . In Asian countries and especially in China , however, politics exerts a targeted influence. However, different opinions about the essence of a good film are decisive.

In the US, film counts not as a cultural, but as an economic good. In this respect, there is no state funding for D-Cinema. However, the big studios are accommodated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which, among other things, prohibits circumvention of copy protection and grants rights holders extensive powers to prosecute pirates.

In Europe, however, film and cinema are seen as cultural goods. Numerous state and European film subsidies support filmmakers and cinemas financially. Funding from the MEDIA program is made available for pilot projects such as the CinemaNet Europe mentioned below . However, neither the European Union nor the German federal government see a need to get involved in standardization processes.

Not so in China. The country is currently experiencing a tremendous economic boom due to globalization . The new significance of China is to be demonstrated through high-tech prestige projects such as the Transrapid . In the entertainment sector, too, a technical upheaval is currently taking place - controlled by the state. Since many cinemas and multiplexes are only just springing up, it makes sense to use digital technology right away. Due to the close interlinking of state and economy, China can introduce its own standards for D-Cinema. The state monopoly China Film Group (CFG) regulates foreign imports and controls China's film market. Your Chief Technical Officer , Chen Fei said:

The Chinese government realizes that digital movie technology is a good opportunity to push the Chinese cinema industry to reach [that of] the developed countries' level. ( Lit .: Freeman, 2004)

The Chinese government plans to install 100 DLP projectors in cinemas as a pilot project. As one of the largest world markets in the coming decades, China is also interesting for Hollywood . One of the reasons why Hollywood demands the highest possible quality standard for D-Cinema is the fear that China might otherwise regard this standard as inferior and create its own standards. ( Lit .: Freeman, 2004)

International standardization bodies

One body is the ITU-R SG 6 working group of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is a UN body . The ITU represents the broadcast side and has among other things developed the HDTV standard. The ITU is trying to establish the HD standard 1080p as the basis for D-Cinema. A project that the distributors rejected because the image quality of HD was not sufficient for cinema projection. The ITU-R SG 6 is currently playing a marginal role:

We think that movie people know the most about the movies, not broadcast people. We're asking the ITU to step back and let the international cinema standards groups decide the best standards for cinema. (Wendy Aylsworth from Warner Bros., responsible for communication between ITU and DCI, February 2003) ( Lit .: FFA study, 2003)

The European Digital Cinema Forum (EDCF) is also supposed to standardize. However, its economic and political power is very little in contrast to the SMPTE working group. The status reports of the EDCF indicate little progress. For these reasons, a generally binding standard will hardly come from the EDCF.

The SMPTE DC 28 is the D-Cinema working group of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. This association is the authoritative professional and standardization organization in the film and television sector in the USA. Because of the international influence of the American entertainment industry , the standards of the SMPTE are also important in Europe. The SMPTE DC 28 is currently developing standards for the digital exploitation chain. Both the production side and the distributors are represented in this body, so that the decisions of the working group will most likely be generally accepted.

However, the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) - an amalgamation of the seven major Hollywood studios Disney , 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros., founded in February 2002, has now presented a specification that has a surprisingly large impact on the standardization process , which describes the requirements of the rental company for digital technology. This document was sent to the SMPTE DC 28 as an “announcement”, with which the DCI explicitly strengthens the SMPTE DC 28 as a standardization body. In April 2007 version 1.1 of the DCI System Requirements and Specifications for Digital Cinema was published.

production

For film producers, digitization has medium to long-term advantages. Lucasfilm states the savings in film material costs for Star Wars III compared to the digital technology used (Sony hdcam sr) at 1.8 million dollars, with a total budget of 113 million dollars. Otherwise, the work on the set becomes more complicated, calibrated monitors and various other measuring devices (Vectroscope etc.) are required. The exposure latitude of the light-sensitive chips is smaller than with film, especially in the lights (bright areas of the image) there is a risk of clipping, so it has to be illuminated more carefully. For example, in "day outside" scenes with a cloudless sky, it means significantly more effort to keep the contrast of the subject within limits. The calculation is different for low-budget productions, i.e. the productions that had to shoot on video anyway can now shoot with much better quality with modern, relatively inexpensive digital cameras (e.g. RED One). Nothing changes in further processing, in the meantime the camera negative is practically always the first to be digitized and then processed with this data.

One advantage is having high-resolution samples on set immediately instead of the next day. In the case of a film production, errors in the recording cannot be detected immediately, but rather the next day at the earliest, provided that a budget, a position in the staff and a laboratory are available nearby.

Filmmakers

Some filmmakers are skeptical of the technology, others strongly support it - a well-known saying by George Lucas in this regard is “I will probably never ever shoot another film on film”.

Some examples of staunch proponents of digital cinema include:

Neutral representatives who use both the digital cinema camera and 35 mm film:

Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan are two of the best-known opponents of digital cinema, both in terms of recording and projection. Neither of them have shot any of their films digitally so far and who often make statements against digital cinema by using less common film formats such as 70 -mm film or classic IMAX and circulate the corresponding copies, such as B. Nolan with Interstellar or Tarantino with The Hateful Eight , sometimes they have already equipped cinemas with projectors at their own expense.

The biggest advantages of digital technology are

  • Immediate control of the result on site possible
  • lower production costs per recording time

Technical outfitter

The technology providers for digital cinema come from two different areas.

The classic film technology manufacturers such as Panavision or ARRI had to face the new requirements of digital film technology in order to continue serving the market. You can fall back on many years of sales experience, high quality and strong customer loyalty. On the other hand, significantly larger corporations such as Sony, but also financially strong newcomers such as RED , have already been able to sell extremely high quantities - for example, Sony already has over 30,000 HDCAM devices on the market, while ARRI has only been able to deliver hundreds.

Panavision , the dominant camera rental company in the USA, had Sony develop the 1080p Genesis camera and successfully rents it out. The D-cinema cameras Viper from Grass Valley and the HDCAM cameras 900 and 750 from Sony are much more widespread . With the Viper and the Sony HDCAM 900, for example, collateral was filmed, with the Sony cameras, for example, Star Wars Episode III . Arri offers the D21 , the ONE from the manufacturer RED enables even higher resolution .

Electronics companies like Sony pioneered the digital cinema market in 1999. They have extensive know-how in data processing, filtering, compression and storage. The current state of the art is the 1080p format, which with a resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels represents the lion's share of all digital cinema productions by the US majors.

Digital cinema is a considerable investment for cinema operators: a digital cinema projector costs over 50,000 euros, whereas a film projector only costs around 5,000 euros. However, the competitive pressure is growing from home cinema, where the HDTV format with up to 2 million pixels is beginning to establish itself.

Lend

For the major film distributors , digitization is both a blessing and a curse. By eliminating film copies, you can save over a billion dollars a year. On the other hand, distributors have to fear losing their oligopoly , since film producers can now bring their films to cinemas without a distributor.

The relief for the distributors goes so far that the question of their right to exist as mediators between rights holders and cinema operators arises.

In addition, there is a much higher risk of digital copies reaching pirate copiers and file sharing networks. Nevertheless, the distributors expect huge savings and are driving the development of D-Cinema. The seven major Hollywood studios Disney , Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. have joined forces in the Digital Cinema Initiatives to represent the interests of the distributors. As mentioned above, the DCI is actively involved in the standardization process.

It looks a little different with smaller independent and film art distributors . If it were widespread, digital technology would offer them the opportunity to start their film in as many cinemas as possible at the same time. The cost of 35 mm copies often prevents them from carrying out uniform advertising measures, since the few copies are often sent across the country for months. Measures for the publication of a film can thus be controlled more centrally and mastered with less personnel expenditure.

So digital technology seems to be beneficial for independent filmmakers. However, today only a limited number of copies of blockbusters are made for cinemas. Smaller cinemas therefore do not have the chance to get the latest blockbusters. You therefore often have to offer independent programs. If all cinemas should be digitized, the small cinemas can also play blockbusters. The independent filmmakers are therefore also at risk of losing their venues.

Cinemas

While the distributors expect enormous savings, the cinema operators also have to make enormous investments. After the last major wave of investments in surround systems such as Dolby Digital , DTS or SDDS , which were written off in the 1990s, investments are now being made in digital projection technology, but also in advanced surround systems such as Dolby Atmos .

While a 35 mm projector can already be bought for 5,000 euros, even smaller D-Cinema systems (including servers) such as those used by DCS (digital cinema services GmbH) cost considerably more, while large 4K systems can even cost over 100,000 euros. Many cinema operators want the distributors to provide financial support for the retrofitting. In Germany, this has already happened insofar as European funding for the project was applied for via the European digital cinema network CinemaNet Europe . Likewise, in Germany, in contrast to the USA, the film industry is to be found even more under the “culture label”, so that at least in Germany numerous film funding agencies have also participated in the co-financing of this theatrical equipment.

New sources of income could still be developed through e-cinema. Concerts, sporting events or computer game tournaments can be shown with the digital projectors. Context-sensitive cinema advertising - depending on the time or audience of the main film - is possible and would give cinema advertising a new dynamic.

Some cinemas are switching to digital technology, while others are closing, for example three cinemas in the city of Salzburg in 2012 and 2013, most recently the Mozartkino , which has been running for 109 years , because the cinema operator found it difficult to switch current films to analogue films at all to get. The Mozartkino was reopened in November 2014 after a break of over a year; the acquisition costs of the digital projectors were borne by the Altstadthotel Kasererbraeu and the State of Salzburg.

Intermediaries

Rentals and cinemas are now facing the chicken and egg problem . The distributors cannot pay for the installation of the distribution network and the equipment of the cinemas out of their own pockets. In addition, neither rental shops nor cinemas have experience with the transmission of digital data. Intermediaries step into this gap. They finance and build the distribution infrastructure and rent it out to cinemas and distributors. They usually offer a complete process chain from production to projection. This also includes the operation of playout centers that deliver the digital film master to the cinemas. Particularly active players in this area are the German Media Broadcast , Technicolor and Boeing Digital Cinema as well as the European Ymagis or XDC initiative. ( Lit .: Slansky, 2004)

outlook

Mechanical projectors are now almost no longer sold and manufactured, and D-cinema system sales have surpassed mechanical projection systems since 2005. In particular, the standardization and development implemented by DCI, the billions in financing provided by companies such as AccessIT or AAM and the fact that classic cinema technology providers such as Kodak, Technicolor and Christie switched to digital instead of mechanical technology were decisive for this. The considerable savings and quality improvements made possible by D-Cinema are relevant for the cinema industry, and so, particularly in the USA, several thousand screens are currently being converted from 35 mm to digital each year. Germany was initially less developed in this regard: While 300 to 400 screens have been converted monthly in the USA since 2005, only around 150 cinemas were digital in Germany in the summer of 2008.

In the course of 2009, however, the number of digitally recorded screens worldwide increased very sharply, with Europe able to catch up part of its previous deficit. In the run-up to the theatrical release of James Cameron's stereoscopic blockbuster Avatar - Aufbruch nach Pandora , a large part of the theaters and halls were converted by some cinema chains, so that the distribution of digital cinemas tripled:

According to statistics from [the European film promoter] MEDIA Salles, the number of cinemas in Europe equipped with DLP projectors or SXRD / LCoS technology rose to 4,693 by December 31, 2009 - an increase of 206.9 % compared to 2008. […] Most of the digital cinemas [Europe] are still in Western Europe. […] The countries with the highest growth are also the countries with the greatest number of digital cinema screens [(France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain)]. The market share [of digital cinemas in all cinemas in Europe] had thus increased to 13% in December 2009 - compared to 4.1% in the previous year. [...] In Europe it is mainly the large cinema chains that are increasingly relying on digital technology. [...]

By 2011, Tyrol was the first federal state in Austria to switch all cinemas to digital projection.

In terms of image quality from a technical and aesthetic point of view, only future plenoptic light field cameras and laser projectors with improved safety technology are likely to be worthy successors of well-exposed, high-quality digitally post-processed and re-exposed, cleanly projected chemical film material. There are indications that the reason for the hitherto unsurpassed effect, and ultimately this is in the foreground in an entertainment and art medium, of analog material on humans is that both analog film and the human eye react chemically to light stimuli.

As in many other areas, LED technology is now also being used as a playback medium in cinemas. Samsung equipped the first cinemas in Europe for this. The "Onyx Cinema LED" wall is DCI-certified, measures 10.3m by 5.4m and consists of 96 individual interchangeable modules that together offer a 4k resolution. The image can be up to 10 times brighter compared to conventional projection technology. The reduced average energy consumption and the long service life have so far only been offset by the lack of sound transparency, which has made it necessary to change the loudspeaker positioning.

Other advantages and disadvantages

A film projector requires a number of mechanical components that prevent an absolutely steady image . For example, forces are exerted on the film by the Maltese cross and the pulley . These forces cause the film to move more or less strongly in front of the image window, depending on the projector, maintenance of the machine or the quality of the film copy , but this is imperceptible with correctly set projectors.

With digital projection, on the other hand, there are fewer mechanical influences due to the principle involved. While with DLP technology a color wheel rotates behind the DLP chip and this itself uses a movable mirror, there are no mechanical components in projectors with LCoS technology. Currently only Sony is using this technology.

literature

  • Peter C. Slansky (Ed.): Digital film - digital cinema. Uvk Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-89669-431-6 .
  • Beate Hundsdörfer, Inga von Staden: FFA study “Majors plan digital rollout”. 2003 (PDF; 451 kB).
  • Alma Freeman: The Digital Divide . In: In Focus . August / September 2004.
  • Hahn, Philipp: With high definition into digital cinema. Development and consequences of the digitization of the film. Schüren, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-89472-401-3 .
  • Robert A. Gehring: Digital Cinema Initiatives and Digital Rights Management. In: FKT. 60th vol., No. 4, 2006, pp. 179-184.
  • Sebastian Richter: Digital Realism: Between Computer Animation and Live Action. The new visual aesthetics in feature films. (paperback), Transcript, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 3-89942-943-5 .
  • Barbara Flückiger: Visual Effects: Film images from the computer. (illustrated, paperback), Schüren, Marburg 2008, ISBN 3-89472-518-4 .

Web links

technology

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ microsoft.com
  3. ↑ www.dcimovies.com/DCIDigitalCinemaSystemSpecv1_2.pdf ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dcimovies.com
  4. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from April 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.darkhorizons.com
  5. ↑ Texas Business ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.texasbusiness.com
  6. ↑ Texas Business ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.texasbusiness.com
  7. ↑ https://www.barco.com/en/References/2015-06-26---Kinepolis-2015.aspx
  8. ↑ Cinedom Kino 4 with new picture and sound technology
  9. ↑ digitalcinema-europe.com ( Memento of the original dated May 13, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.digitalcinema-europe.com
  10. ↑ Digital Cinema System Specification ( Memento from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/nachrichten/18493839.html
  12. ^ Stefan Schäfer: Digitization and Internet: Consequences for the Film Industry. ( Memento of the original from March 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dfjv.de
  13. ↑ http://salzburg.orf.at/news/stories/2600658/ Mozartkino closes after 109 years, ORF.at, from August 29, 2013
  14. ↑ 3D films make digital cinema screens boom ( memento of the original from March 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 26, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kino-zeit.de
  15. ↑ Tyrolean cinemas are gearing up for the blockbuster year , Tiroler Tageszeitung , January 6, 2012, accessed on March 6, 2020.
  16. ↑ Cinema LED Screen: First German cinema hall with LED screen , heise online , July 4, 2018.