[geeks] Hello?

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Francois Dion <francois.dion at gmail.com>
>Date: 2007/07/18 Wed AM 11:03:44 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Hello?

>On 7/18/07, Joshua D. Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 10:36 -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>> > On Jul 18, 2007, at 10:31 AM, Brooke Gravitt wrote:
>> > > It's been quiet out here. Is anyone home? Did everyone go to see
>> > > Transformers and forget to tell me?
>> > I went a few days ago.  Saw it on a digital screen.
>>
>> I've yet to be able to see anything in digital.  It doesn't help that
>> Fandango doesn't say what I'll be seeing at any particular time.
>
>Am I the only one that is underwhelmed by digital movie theathers?
>
>When I was young, I lived in Montreal and we'd go to see movies on
>70mm. Near Philips Square was a pretty good theater there. The
>effective resolution of 70mm film would require almost 10K pixels wide
>in a digital format. Then starting in 1986 we would go and watch IMAX
>and 360 movies (in Vancouver and Montreal). The effective resolution
>of current IMAX film would require about 18K pixels wide. I still
>remember the feeling when, in a movie (cant remember what it was
>called), a skier jumping of a cliff with a parachute. On the curved
>IMAX screen, covering your whole FOV... wow. Almost fell off the seat.
>
>Now, I can have the privilege to pay a much higher admission fee (and
>$5+ soda) and get no better than a home theater setup (2K wide in most
>digital movie theaters, 4K in certain areas). Progress...
>
>Everytime we have switched from analog to digital happened to be when
>it was, not superior, but merely acceptable. This is not done for
>quality, but completely for commercial gains.
>
>DVDs are probably the only area where we have gained something, for
>those of us who are multilingual: buy one movie and get english,
>french and spanish (for example) soundtracks for the same price.

I first bumped into digital projection with "Meet The Robinsons" in 3D earlier this year - it worked pretty well, esp. since I wear glasses and had to put the "3D sunglasses" on my nose in front of my prescription glasses...

The screen wasn't *HUGE*, it was in one of the smaller screens at my local theater (AMC 24-plex), and I think it costs $1 or $2 more for digital features...

Lionel