Many
people in the New York area spent the last day of
the Fourth of July weekend traveling, barbecuing,
and partying at the beach with relatives or
friends. Not me, I decided to spend the day in New
Jersey sampling the future of motion pictures, the
Electronic (E)-Cinema. Considering that the outside
temperature hit over the one hundred-degree mark,
it wasnt as crazy as it seems. I crossed over
two bridges into Secacus and Paramus, New Jersey;
the home of the East Coasts limited run of
the future of Motion Picture presentations. One
theatre was using the Hughes-JVC Image Light
Amplifier Technology (ILA), the other, a Texas
Instruments Digital Light Processing (DLP).
My first stop was the Loews Cineplex Odeon on
Rt. 4 in Paramus. The sign at the box office read
"Star Wars - The Phantom Menace in Digital".
I proceeded into the theatre to witness the first
movie presented to the public digitally. Being a
holiday, the theatre was about 50 percent of
capacity. I went to my traditional spot about
one-third the distance from the screen to the back
of the theater. I was told once a long time ago
that this is the sweet spot of a properly designed
motion picture theater (I have been viewing under
that assumption for over 25 years). Right before
the presentation started, the video projectionist
from Hughes-JVC gave the audience a little pep talk
on what we were about to see. He explained that the
movie was stored on a 360 gigabyte hard drive and
that Lucasfilms serviced the production and
conversion to digital, carefully monitoring all
aspects of the transfer. He went on to say that
THX® had modified the theatres sound
system and that the sound encoding was Dolby
Digital Surround EX. The presentation started with
preview trailers of a couple of movies in digital.
I dont remember the titles because I was
concentrating only on the image quality. I was
thinking of what I saw on the screen with my
memories of what film should look like and looking
for telltale clues that what I was seeing was
digital video. This wasnt easy to do. When
the second trailer came on I turned around just to
make sure it was still HD Video and not film, it
was. Then the movie began. The first thing to hit
me was that the print was perfect. No dust, no
scratches, or as we say in New York, no schmutz.
Once these digital theatres take over, I wont
have to run out to the first or second showing of a
movie to see a clean print. They will all be as
perfect, as the master and transfer.
The color, sharpness and look of the movie were
excellent. The blacks while not opaque, were damn
good. The colors were rich and I Could clearly see
grain structure from the master print. Digital
Artifacts were minimal. Considering that a lot of
the film contained computer-generated images (CGI)
it was difficult to know if the artifacts were in
the master as well. What I did not notice were
panning glitches, edge anomalies or the jaggies
that I often see in video presentations. The only
point in the presentation that gave me a clue I was
watching an interlaced video presentation was the
vertical credit roll. I would like to emphasize
that the effect was very slight and I saw no scan
lines or other common interlace artifacts that we
are all used to with 480 line interlaced NTSC
video. Convergence appeared close to perfection and
the star field and space battle scenes looked
magnificent. Overall it was very impressive. Was it
perfect? Not quite, the visual that was not as good
as film were the "peak whites". Scenes with blue
sky showing were a little washed out and seemed to
be somewhat overly bright, I must say, the
films outdoor scenes are overly contrasted
(sorry George.). Allow me to elaborate. When you
look at a stairstep test pattern on a projector,
the transitions of black to white should appear as
even gradient steps. In fact, that is exactly what
a perfect stairstep looks like on an oscilloscope,
even steps in terms of rise and time.
If a projector's output is not linear on the top
end, the difference in intensity will not be great
enough going from a light gray strip to a white
strip on the stairstep test pattern. In the
extreme, if the white level (contrast) control is
turned up way too high on a projector the last two
steps will be white and have no gradation at all.
This effect probably could have been corrected with
further adjustment to the ILA Projector. It may
have been set that way to offer a brighter image
with a slight penalty from a perfect stairstep. On
the other hand, the contrast ratio of the
presentation shined, with a quoted ratio of 1300 to
one (the ILA Projector has a greater ratio than the
1000 to one that is typically quoted for film
projection). I can confirm that the video off the
ILA appeared to have a greater dynamic range than
the same movie projected from the 35mm film
projector. The digital picture was much brighter
than the showing on film in Theatre 10.
At the end of the movie I spoke to Richard Totten
the E-projectionist from Hughes-JVC. He graciously
showed me the complete set-up and explained that
the movie is stored on 19 hard drives, uncompressed
and displayed as a 1920 x 1080 interlaced image. He
went on to explain that the projector is their
model ILA-12k, the same one that they were
displayed at INFOCOMM. He told me the projector
utilizes 3 infra red tubes for red, blue, and
green. These tubes are attached to three Image
Light Amplifiers that convert the infra red images
to red, blue and green reflective images on the
faces of the ILAs. It is an analog device and the
resolution is listed in their brochure at 2000
x1280. Since it is analog, it does not have a fixed
pixel structure and the digital data stream has to
be converted to an analog RGB + sync signal that is
inputted to the projector, just like a HDTV set-top
box connects to a HDTV.
My next stop, back to the film playing in theater
ten. Except for the absence of a white level peak
on brightly-lit objects, I saw no superiority of
film over ILA. The print was loaded with dust and
dirt. It was not as bright and did not appear quite
as detailed as the video presentation.
Unfortunately this was not a true A-B comparison,
because the screen was not the same size in the two
theatres. Next stop, Secaucus, New Jersey.
The Secaucus theatre presented the Texas
Instruments DLP using a TI prototype 3 chip DLP
projector with an pixel image array of 1280 x 1024.
Unlike the Hughes-JVC, which is a digital to analog
presentation, this feature was presented purely in
its digital form. The data stream is sent directly
to the DLP via a serial digital connection from a
scan converter. The DLP has chips with over a
million microscopic hinged mirrors each that form
an image. The differences between the projected
pictures of the two competing projectors were quite
great. On the positive side the "over level" whites
were not present. The contrast of the image closely
tracked the film version. Once again, the
presentation was pristine with no foreign material
present interfering with the enjoyment of viewing
the movie. The overall image did not appear as
sharp or, simply put as, filmlike as the Hughes-JVC
presentation. I could see telltale video artifacts
or anomalies from time to time. The first and most
noticeable were digital artifacts viewed as trails
on horizontal pans. It appeared to me to be typical
of scaler artifacts. Because these chips are a 1280
x 1024 array, the signal has to be scaled down to
this matrix. Different model scalers produce
different quality results handling a down
conversion. Another scene where its "digitalness"
exhibited itself was on the Chancellor
characters costume. His outfit was black with
blue diamond shaped patterns. Whenever the actor
would move around, the diamond patterns would get
fuzzy and when the motion stopped the diamond
patterns would sharpen up. Vertical edges also
appeared to have a slight false outline quite
similar in look to a TV set's sharpness control
turned up too high. Color was excellent and clean
with no video noise, but black level did not appear
as black as the Hughes-JVC presentation. Pixel
structure was invisible until I moved forward to
the fifth row of the theater, a seating distance
that is ridiculously close to the screen.
The most interesting differences between the two
presentations were aspect ratio, brightness and
sound quality. According to the press kit, the
movie was presented in 2.39 to one in both the film
and the digital Hughes-JVC Presentation. The TI
theatre was displaying in an aspect ratio of about
2:1 according to the TI video projectionist
(videojectionist?). This was due to the screen
being the improper aspect for a proper
presentation. The additional side information was
masked off. The Hughes-JVC press release stated
10-foot Lamberts brightness while TI indicated
13-ft Lamberts. The Hughes-JVC was clearly brighter
and from my seat in the theater (one third from the
screen) it did not appear even close to the 13ft
Lamberts level. Having measured and set up many
front projectors I know what 13-ft Lamberts looks
like. I proceeded to the projection booth. In the
Paramus theatre the projector was mounted around my
head level in the back of the theatre, in Secaucus
it was at the second floor level of the theater
building. I looked out of the projection booth
window and from up there the picture appeared
brighter. My hypothesis is that the screen material
being used in both theatres was retro reflective.
This means that light is reflected back to the
source. By placing the projector at second floor
height, light being thrown by the projector was
reflected back to its source above the seating
area.
The more disturbing elements were vertical lines
that were present on the screen image in both
theatres. I was informed both theatres were
rescreened before the digital run. The man from
Hughes-JVC was kind enough between screening to
display a pure full white field on the screen for
me, and clearly it appeared that the framing
structure of the screens supports were making
their impressions on the screens surface. The
same effect occurred at the other theatre. This was
most unfortunate and a real unnecessary distraction
to such a fine presentation.
Both theatres had the Dolby Digital Surround EX
equipment in the projection booth and it sounded
fabulous in Paramus. There were literally wires
hanging off the wall of the theatre. I was told
that THX people had rewired and reworked the entire
system for the theater. The theatre had good
dynamic range; its separation and bass were as good
as the best I have ever heard in a commercial movie
house. Unfortunately the sound in Secaucus was the
typical poor sound quality of a multiplex. I
dont know if anything was done to improve the
sound. Neither theatre was THX Certified according
to a Lucas Films spokesperson.
I want to commend all the parties involved in this project. The presentation clearly demonstrated that the era of the E-Cinema is beckoning. In the time it will take to put all the aspects of a complete change in the distribution and presentation of motion pictures, all the remaining technical glitches will be overcome. Whether DLP or ILA ultimately wins the battle, the impact is both clear and greater than just the effect it will have on movie theatres. By incorporating the same video technology being used for HDTV today, movie theaters tomorrow, and eventually DVD, the implications are immense. Once we possess a universal digital medium, the entire way we will receive and view new motion pictures can and will change forever. Widescreen connoisseurs and film (E-Cinema) buffs we will have a digital art form that will maintain its aspect ratio, color, condition and look no matter how and where it is viewed. The director and artist will have a finished product that will translate to any venue, movie theatre, home theatre, or personal monitor in the same way that it was intended to be seen. It will be there, forever for everyone to see anytime, always perfect and (hopefully) always properly displayed. In the end the studios, manufacturers and movie lovers will be the winners.
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