Vive La Revolution!

This past Saturday night, my wife, my brother-in-law, a friend and myself all went to see a midnight showing of a true pop film classic, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sadly, the experience was mired by problems with the incredibly old print the cinema was using. The picture was faded, and had a distinct sepia tone to it, the picture was jumpy, there was an inordinate amount of scratches, and the film even managed to jump off its sprockets at one point, causing an interruption in the film. Still, I would do it again, because I never had the opportunity to originally see the film on the big screen.

For the past two weekends in Los Angeles and New York (and I guess New Jersey as well), theaters have been showing a digitally projected version of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. All the reports coming in indicate that the experience is at least as good as, and in some respects better than, the film as projected through a conventional projector. Thus begins the digital revolution.

The advent of digital projection in theaters means a number of things for moviegoers. First, and foremost, it means when a film is shown some fifteen or twenty years after its original release date, the film won’t show any of the marks of time (aside from young actors and dated costumes and scenery, of course). The picture will be as bright and clear as it was when the film was originally released. Also, the odds of something going fatally wrong will decrease dramatically. Film is an analog format, and as such is subject to the wonders of physics. A true digital film would suffer from no such limitations, and the only possibilities for error would be human error, power failure or equipment failure. Of course fire alarms in the middle of the third act will always be a problem.

Digital film also means a number of other things for moviegoers and filmmakers alike.

For filmmakers, the cost of making a film will reduce dramatically, on all levels. A low budget filmmaker will be able to shoot a ratio of ten or twenty to one (i.e. ten “bad” takes for every “good” one) rather than the current two or three to one. The limitation would not be the cost of the film, but instead the cost of the time. And the independents are realizing this, as they are the first to embrace the digital technology.

Also, distribution is cheaper. The cost of a film print of a typical theatrical release is $1,500. The cost of a digital print is significantly less (right now, the cost of a RAID array of hard drives with the movie on it in MPEG-2 format – and the array can be reused, in future, the cost of a satellite uplink). The estimated total cost to the studios for theatrical prints in North America (Region 1) alone is $600 million per year. With satellite uplinks and digital theaters, that cost could probably be reduced to under $50 million per year. Unfortunately, this will probably only mean increased profits for the studios, not reduced admission prices for the moviegoer.

Lastly, the cost of telecine transfers for later video and DVD release is eliminated. Since the film is already stored digitally, it can simply be transferred to the appropriate medium and duplicated. The transfer is better (because there are no lossy stages in between), and it doesn’t cost the studios anything. Once again, expect increased profits for the studios, not reduced prices for the consumer.

The advantages to the consumer are multi-fold.

The biggest advantage, of course, is a more consistent experience at the multiplex. Rather than being at the whim of a piece of celluloid (which will scratch, and burn, and tear), the picture will always be crisp, and always be clean. For a great example of how bad film can get after a while, take a look at some of the Dolby Digital or DTS trailers. These trailers are recycled often, and eventually the print is absolute garbage. With digital cinema, Dolby would never have to strike another print. By streaming the film off a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Devices) array of hard drives, a hard drive can even explode and the film will keep on playing as though nothing happened.

Other advantages are still plentiful. When we all sit down to watch the High Definition HBO broadcast of Star Wars: Episode II – Jar Jar Gets Melted, we’ll be able to watch the film at full resolution, exactly as it appeared in the movie theater. This is because digital cinema is actually MPEG-2 video played back at 1080I resolution (1,080 lines, interlaced). Never before has the home theater. experience been as close to that of the multiplex. The screen may not be as big, and the sound system may not be as expensive, but the picture and sound will be identical, just on a smaller scale.

Also, DVD transfers will be better. Since digital film is, by definition, MPEG-2 video and anamorphic, we can expect that all digital films will be presented in the best possible format for DVD. Unless, of course, Disney and Fox still insist on downconverting to 4:3 letterboxed (which wouldn’t surprise me). Even HDVD will be no problem, since the early specifications call for it to be MPEG-2 1080I – that’s right, the same resolution, compression method, and aspect ratio as digital theaters

There are a few minor drawbacks to digital cinema. One is that the classic grain of film will slowly disappear with time. Many times film grain can be an annoyance, but there are instances where it is used to great effect to create a mood. I suppose nothing stops a filmmaker from actually using film then transferring it to digital, but I suspect over time it will become cost-prohibitive to do so (like shooting on black and white stock now – most black and white films are actually shot in color, then the color is removed because the film stock is cheaper). Digital filters and the like can help, but they really can only approximate film grain, it’s never quite as good as the real thing.

The other thing I suspect we may see over time is the occasional malfunction of an MPEG-2 decoder. Just like when you’re watching the umpteenth rerun of the Simpsons on television and those bizarre pixelly elements crawl down the screen. This, to me, is a minor issue. As times goes on, MPEG-2 decoders will get better, and these types of problems will slowly but surely disappear.

All in all, digital cinema is nothing but good for the industry and consumers as a whole. The only thing holding it back is the cost of converting theaters I suspect the studios (or maybe the MPAA, on behalf of the studios, so they all contribute a fair amount) may step in and assist with the necessary upgrades. I certainly hope so, because the sooner digital gets here, the better.

Last week’s quote of the week was from Ivan Reitman’s classic comedy, Ghostbusters, new this week on DVD. Several people got the quote right, but unfortunately my system screwed up and I lost everyone’s email…including the guy who’s gotten the last three quotes of the week right, but always seem to miss being first by about three minutes. Given that I’m using Microsoft Outlook for email, I’m not surprised that it won’t import its own backups. I guess it’s a good time to upgrade to Outlook 2000 (hey, who says beating a dead horse isn’t fun!).

I’ve had a cursory look at the Ghostbusters DVD, and I must say, I’m impressed. One area of concern, though, the Mystery Science Theatre-style commentary track does not work when watching the film in anamorphic mode. I realize that the silhouettes would be stretched, but since the picture is 16x9 enhanced, you’d think the commentary “angle” would be as well. Oh well, can’t have it all. Look for a full review either later this week or early next week.

Keep in mind that we’re giving away the Ghostbusters DVDs here at dvdfuture.com, so enter the contest if you haven’t done so already (and enter lots of times, Jay needs something to do!).

This week’s quote is probably harder than anything else I’ve done, and admittedly it’s skewed toward Canadian readers since the film played on Space last week. To give you a few subtle hints, Sylvester Stallone played a supporting role (the quote is spoken by him), and the film is set in the year 2000. The film is available on DVD, but may be difficult to find. I suspect the film transfer sucks, but in the case of this film that would be appropriate. It was released in the 70’s and probably cost around six dollars to make.

"You know Myra, some people might think you're cute. But me, I think you're one very large baked potato."

One last note. I’m still looking for title suggestions for this weekly column. Send quote guesses and column title suggestions to ken@dvdfuture.com. Until next time!