Marginal Revolution: Should we welcome digital cinema?

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Should we welcome digital cinema?

Movies projected digitally are bright, and blemish-free. Yet they feel ... odd.

Digital projection supplies a different experience than photochemistry-based projection. The image is clear -- eeriely so. But it's also less dense, less nuanced, and far less sensual than a good-quality traditional film image. Digital projection seems to suit thwacky-slammy pictures just fine. Action-adventure pix, computer-animated films, blockbusters, and dumbo comedies should do fine projected digitally. But quieter films, and especially films that deal in mood, poetry, and tactility -- movies like "Swimming Pool" and "Last Tango in Paris" -- would lose a lot. As far as I've been able to tell, movies projected digitally don't feel like what they're sold as: movies perfected. They feel like ultrabigscreen TV.

Here is the full discussion, which includes an analysis of the economics of digital conversion in the theater. Comments are open.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 27, 2005 at 09:46 PM in Film | Permalink

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Comments

I've never found digital cinema to be very visually appealing, at least not anything projected at a regular cinema. The image looks pixelated and lacks depth; I'm conscious of seeing a flawed image. Give me film any day.

Posted by: Tim at Oct 27, 2005 10:18:13 PM

Boohockey. Boohockey, I say!

Self-conscious art film lovers self-profess to love to gather in quaint old theaters with decor (that is invisible during the movie) and aging projector and sound systems. Frequently, as was the case with the Old Town theater before it briefly went out of business to return as a comedy/theater/rerun movie franchise, these systems aren't even providing enough lumens to approach the gamut of digital pictures.

I strongly scent a whiff of audiophile disease here, in which scratchy, poppy, stereo-separation-deprived records are hotly defended as superior to the "dry, lifeless" digital replacements--provided, of course, that one plays them in pristine condition on a turntable that costs more than the average car. The fact that even the vast majority of audiophiles don't own this equipment is of no consequence to the True Believers.

So while it may even be theoretically possible that a digital system generates a smaller gamut of colors, and hence doesn't do as well with subtle gradations of tone as a high-quality film projector, well tuned to the brightness requirements of the theater, my guess is that in the cramped, aging places that most urbanites see the latest EM Forester adaptation (anywhere on Mass. Ave or Shirlington, for example, in the DC area), you'll get a better experience and maybe even be able to understand more of the dialog with a modern sound system, to boot.

You might have made a better argument if you said that eye candy flicks were better viewed on film. After all, they are appreciated most at the visual level, whereas Adaptation has some nice moonlit orchid scenes but was just fine in the crappy art house I saw it in.

I'd be much more convinced with some "blind" studies, in which participants watched a Merchant Ivory film and, say, Star Wars Episode III in otherwise identical theaters and gave their opinion of how it looked without being told which technology they were viewing. The amount of confirmation bias here has to be staggering.

Posted by: Sandy Smith at Oct 28, 2005 12:05:53 AM

Personally, I've found that a standard Dell DLP projector, an 8-foot wide screen, and DVD resolution provides an experience superior to that of my local art-house theater. Yes, this is not even HD, and I know that ideally the film image should show much higher resolution and, I suppose, more subtle color gradiations, but the theater does not seem to approach those ideals closely at all. And this is a cheapo setup ($1000 XGA projector, $100 manual pulldown screen). I fully expect professional digital projection equipment to be more than acceptable (whether my wife and I will be willing to drive to a theater and spend $20 to see a movie rather than watch while relaxing at home on the couch is much more doubtful).

Posted by: Slocum at Oct 28, 2005 7:49:07 AM

I would suggest that any shortcomings of digital projection are transitory. The technology has come a long way, but it's nowhere near the theoretical limits of what can be done. Though I've never watched a digitally projected film, I understand that there are occasional complaints of visible pixellation. However, unless Hollywood decides to settle on an inferior standard, the technology will continue to mature. We'll reach the point eventually the power of digital technology is such that every nuance of existing film can be effectively emulated to any desired degree. As ever, one must be careful not to conflate the shortcomings of a technology as currently realized with the eventual potential of that same technology.

In the long run, of course, it'll all be digital. The economics of an end-to-end digital system (from photography to post-production to distribution to projection) are simply too compelling, and efficiencies to be realized from working solely within a purely digital medium are too great. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the age of the conventional movie theatre (digital or not) is almost over. The advent of relatively inexpensive HD televisions, DVDs, and digital surround sound systems makes the home theatre experience ever more compelling, and the theatre experience isn't experiencing the same manner of gains. Mark Cuban is already mounting his war on Hollywood by promising to push DVD releases up to coincide with theatrical releases. Time will tell whether his actions are quixotic or revolutionary...

Posted by: Peter at Oct 28, 2005 8:26:50 AM

I can see your point. My friend sent me pictures of an alaskan curise that he took. Somthing was unsettling about the pics. I then realized that EVERYTHING was as crystal clear as it could possible be. He had a fairly nice digital camera. The mountians and lake 3/4ths to a mile away were TOO clear.

I normally have weak eyesight, and my vision is not that good. When this were brought into to clear of focus, it seemed weird.

Posted by: Cube at Oct 28, 2005 10:31:30 AM

It is easy enough with digital cinema to apply any effect you wish. If the look of traditional film is what you want, the director or cinematographer can apply that look to the digital. It actually widens the possibilities.

Posted by: Deron Bauman at Oct 28, 2005 11:20:38 AM

This seems to parellel the first CDs, before they really learned how to master for the medium. Mastering for vinyl required a lot of boosting of high frequencies, while digital is more likely the opposite. CDs released today sound much better than 15 or so years ago, even though the medium itself hasn't changed.

Posted by: Todd Fletcher at Oct 28, 2005 12:06:24 PM

The biggest difference that is often overlooked between digital and film is the continuity of projection. Digital projections are a continous stream while film is not. Remember that in film one frame has a beam of light shone through it which is then followed by the equivalent of one frame of complete darkness. This might lead viewers to accept this imperfection as "more real" when compared to digital. This is then magnified with the basic clarity/focus differences between the two mediums.

Posted by: Patinator at Oct 28, 2005 12:08:34 PM

I'm tangentally involved in Digital Cinema file standards. I've seen "The Incredibles" projected using a Christie 2K DLP projector and it was a very awesome experience!

I have also seen the SMPTE standard Digital Cinema test clips on that system as well with real-life actors, and it looks great. When you compare it to film side-by-side, you notice that film frames bounces around a lot on the screen, and it is amazing that the human eye can ignore it!

I am not bothered by the lack of film grain - I actually hate 16mm productions with bad cameras and the resulting horrible grain. On the other hand, I expect it will actually take a while for high-quality film production to move away from 35mm film, regardless of whether it is scanned at 2k or 4k resolution for Digital Cinema distribution.

Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at Oct 28, 2005 12:19:42 PM

That's not just sentimental nonsense. Traditional film and projection can reproduce a broader range of colors (especially darks) than digital solutions. However, there are many obvious advantages to digital solutions such as higher resolution, higher frame rate, easier and cheaper distribution and storage. It is a tradeoff.

It's a similar tradeoff with digital cameras; film cameras can still reproduce a better range of colors. For most people, myself included, the advantages of digital cameras *far* outweigh this disadvantage versus film cameras but this is still very real.

Casual observers often notice this loss of color range but are almost never be able to specifically identify it. They may say that film looks better but they can't say exactly why and describe the quality difference in vague terms. Of course, many people are very familiar with the advantages that digital technology brings and arguments to the contrary seem like sentimental nonsense.

I've written professional color correction software for film and print for many years, so I am familiar with this issue.

Posted by: Giovanni at Oct 28, 2005 12:37:56 PM

The dynamic range with digital versus film is real, but I think that the difference between the two is nowhere near as big as the one between vision and film. Now there's a gap. . .shooting with slide film, which I don't do much of any more, taught me how narrow the exposure latitude of film is compared to the human eye. I think that until the technology improves, though, that cinematographers will compensate with lighting and set design, in the same way photographers have a box of range-compressing tricks.

Posted by: Derek Lowe at Oct 28, 2005 4:05:13 PM

One digital movie that I think was done right was Collateral. The story was okay, but I absolutely loved all of the nighttime shots. I was blown away. It was gorgeous. While the dynamic range might not be as great, digital can be just as beautiful as film. What matters is who is behind the camera (and who manipulates the digital images).

Posted by: Daniel at Oct 29, 2005 10:54:34 AM

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