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Brazil Takes Lead in All-Digital Cinema Projection 293

Posted by timothy from the flickering-images dept.
securitas writes "The CS Monitor's Andrew Downie reports that Brazil plans to open in May the world's largest digital movie theater network. About 100 theaters will use Sao Paulo-based Rain Networks' KinoCast digital theater DRM software. Rain based its system on Windows Media 9 software with MPEG-4 video compression. 'The MPEG-4 software can squeeze a feature film onto a file of just five gigabytes, 15 times smaller than the MPEG-2 technology presently used' at one-third the $150,000 cost. It takes 20 minutes to distribute a 90-minute film over a VPN and the system avoids the costs associated with transporting physical copies to areas largely inaccessible by road - it can cost up to $750,000 for 500 copies of a Matrix-type blockbuster to be distributed. Interestingly, in the affluent USA the fight between the 35,000 theater owners and Hollywood is about who will pay for cinemas to switch to digital projection. In December 2003 the Guardian published a story with more financial and technical details of the KinoCast digital cinema system."
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Brazil Takes Lead in All-Digital Cinema Projection More

Brazil Takes Lead in All-Digital Cinema Projection

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  • WMP9 (Score:4, Funny)

    by CptChipJew ( 301983 ) * <michaelmiller@gmail . c om> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:33AM (#8303291) Journal
    Rain based its system on Windows Media 9 software

    "Man, independant films are so weird. I totally didn't understand that one part where right in the middle of the car chase, it showed that big blue screen. What was all that weird text on it, the credits?"

    • Re:WMP9 (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:36AM (#8303301)
      "hey, projector person, right click and select full screen, it's too small!"
    • Silly question: WMP over here doesn't lock the screensaver out while playing videos in full screen. If I'm watching a film I have to periodically nudge the mouse to keep it all awake.

      Which twit didn't think of that one?

  • Yes but (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:38AM (#8303305)
    It takes 20 minutes to distribute a 90-minute film over a VPN and the system avoids the costs associated with transporting physical copies to areas largely inaccessible by road

    I have a feeling that if some area is inaccessible by road, it's not likely to have DSL or fiber running to it either. So they'd still have to bring the hard-disks (or whatever media) by hand.

    • Re:Yes but (Score:5, Informative)

      by REBloomfield ( 550182 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:39AM (#8303307)
      Wireless my friend, wireless. A microwave link goes over the 10s of kilometres at the lowest end, and the bandwidth is great.

    • Re:Yes but (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:40AM (#8303310)
      What about Sat?

    • Re:Yes but (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Yokaze ( 70883 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:42AM (#8303324)
      EM-waves travel quite good trough the air.
      Satellites, or point-to-point radio-systems come to mind.

    • The experience in India. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Cydonian ( 603441 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:51AM (#8303352) Homepage Journal
      I remember reading a similar thing for India's rural cinemas [outlookindia.com] as well:-
      No longer do you need to transport 50 kg of film reels in canisters.Instead, the movie will be stored in a high-capacity disc drive about double the size of a cigarette pack which will be couriered to the hall where the film can be downloaded to the server. Also, it'll be a digitally encrypted signal with an access password. This, to keep the pirates at bay. While a conventional print costs Rs 60,000-80,000, digital images come at only about 10 per cent of the expense, at Rs 3,000-8,000 for a disc.
      The weight of the stuff they're carrying obviously matters here.

    • Re:Yes but (Score:5, Informative)

      by HFShadow ( 530449 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:03AM (#8303406)
      Reading the article comes in useful here as they are doing it via satellite.
    • The films are then beamed by satellite from Rain's central computer in Sao Paulo to picture houses across the country. Depending on bandwidth, it can take as little as 20 minutes to send a 90-minute film to a theater.

    • Re:Yes but (Score:2, Funny)

      by janpf ( 752531 )
      If there are no roads, I can only imagine how the people are going to the theater: hanging on vines !?

      • Re:Yes but (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Winkhorst ( 743546 )
        There are no roads *TO* the area. There are obviously streets in the towns. And Brazil has something called the Amazon River Basin, by which one can travel to lots of places via a really neat modern invention called a *BOAT*.

    • Re:Yes but (Score:2, Interesting)

      by keyed ( 560115 )
      I have a feeling that if some area is inaccessible by road, it's not likely to have DSL or fiber running to it either. So they'd still have to bring the hard-disks (or whatever media) by hand.

      That's not why they won't be using the digital theater though. Seriously, who's going to be able to afford the $50,000 equipment and DSL connections when they don't have accessible roads. Obviously, this won't be an affluent area. How do the theater owners actually plan on making money off this?

      And as for the $15

      • Man, you are completely out of your mind. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by hummassa ( 157160 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:20AM (#8303777) Homepage Journal
        Seriously, who's going to be able to afford the $50,000 equipment ...
        Do you have any idea how much costs a current, analog projection gear?
        ... and DSL connections ...
        if you had RTFA you would know the connection is satellite-based.
        ... when they don't have accessible roads. ...
        what the fsck? the digital gear is way lighter, and it can be transported by air, water... now, if you were talking about DSL/fiber...
        ... Obviously, this won't be an affluent area. ...
        ? this has absolutely no logic. BR is a country bigger than continental US. don't you think we have big cities in less-acessible places (p.ex. Manaus)and to which digitally sending the movie is way cheaper?
        ... How do the theater owners actually plan on making money off this? ...
        Hmmm... it's better than an analog refit to an old theater? it's cheaper in the long run, and we can keep fees low (in a middle-sized town, a movie fee is, like U$1-U$2 down here).
        And, something you prolly don't know, cinema is in in BR lately, and many mid-sized and small towns are getting new/refitted movie theaters...
        ... And as for the $1500 cost of physical film, that's a moot point. Places like that will likely get it 3-6 months and 3rd or 4th-hand after the film has been circulated throughout other countries. ...
        Only now they can get the film as fast as the other places, because there is not only one copy that has to be transported!!

    • Roads (Score:3, Interesting)

      by truthsearch ( 249536 )
      What's a theater doing in an area inaccessible by road? If the populace can't afford to maintain roads why are they splurging on movies? I would assume the lack of roads is due to poverty. Roads are usually built leading to areas of even meager prosperity.

  • Bout time (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Owen ( 2514 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:39AM (#8303306) Homepage
    Its nice to go to the Cinema and have amazing sound, now we can watch the films and not have scratchy, popping, projected images!
    • I dunno about you, but scratchy popping is all part of the exerience.

      You see those black ovals? Cigarette burns.
      For that matter, it'd be harder to splice in single frames of hard core pronography as well.
        • For that matter, it'd be harder to splice in single frames of hard core pronography as well.

        Yeah, especially with the DRM and all. Now who wants to work at the cinema?

      • Re:Bout time (Score:5, Informative)

        by W2IRT ( 679526 ) <pjd@panix.com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:20AM (#8303771) Homepage
        You see those black ovals? Cigarette burns.

        Ahh....No. Those are Changeover cues. Two of them at the end of each 20-minute reel, the first separated by eight seconds from the second, and the second about 3/4 of a second from the last frame. Gives projectionists using older equipment the signal to startup the incoming projector with the light path blocked, then, at the second cue, instantaneously switch image and sound from one projector to the other for the next reel. It's the way it was done up util about the 80s or so. Now most cinemas have only one machine and a film transport system called a platter that handles the entire print. The problem is that one operator now handles an entire huge multiplex and is running from one booth to another, so he or she can't be around to catch any problems. Coupled to the fact most of these operators couldn't count their balls/boobs and get the same number twice, and you have the reason that 35mm projection is often so bad, especially in smaller cinemas.

        There are still many two-projector installations in the United States and Canada. I ran just about every one of them in Toronto in the 80s and 90s, and I still miss doing so to this day. Forget digital projection and stick with 35 and 70mm film. Just put properly-trained projectionists behind the equipment and the experience the movie-goer will get will be increased by an order of magnitude.

    • Re:Bout time (Score:2, Insightful)

      by WWWWolf ( 2428 )
      Its nice to go to the Cinema and have amazing sound, now we can watch the films and not have scratchy, popping, projected images!

      Right, we trade scratched prints to squealing and chirping sound and smudged, blocky, pixelated video...

      One of the most important laws of technology is that It's Never Perfect. =)

    • Re:Bout time (Score:5, Insightful)

      by W2IRT ( 679526 ) <pjd@panix.com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:07AM (#8303686) Homepage
      Its nice to go to the Cinema and have amazing sound, now we can watch the films and not have scratchy, popping, projected images!

      Maybe if the chains hired back some real projectionists who can put on a good show without scratching the print to ratshit after 3 passes you would have your wish. Expert film handlers and a good 35mm print (or dare I suggest it -- 70mm) will beat the optical quality of ANY digital projection system currently in use or likely to come down the pike in the next decade.

      If you ever get the opportunity to do so, carefully examine a 35mm print and a digital release of the same title. Look for the "swirling snow" digital artifacts in any light-coloured scenes (like snow or sandscapes); blocky shadows; colour that just doesn't look "right."

      It's still possible to put together a booth of older equipment that will put on a beautiful show for about $15,000 or less -- I've seen it done for under $8,000. No THX for that money, but good optical stereo, a nice, bright image and solid, mechanically-reliable hardware. Just add in a relatively-cheap DTS player and you're off to the races.

      Now consider that just a single Digital projector will cost, conservatively, $150,000. That's without the B-chain sound hardware (amps, wiring, speakers, etc). Out of a $10 ticket price, the exhibitor MAY see $1 to $1.50 per ticket if they're lucky. Most couldn't increase the concession prices any higher without having a full-time loan officer on site, so that's not much of an option either.

      The problem is that Digital is still very much the buzzword-du-jour. It's still not ready for prime-time, but idiot movie-goers are prepared to sit through a vastly inferior presentation (unless a 35mm projectionbaboon screws up) just to say "I saw it in Digital. Duh."

    • Re:Bout time (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gustgr ( 695173 )
      I belive the major achievement for Brazilian Cinemas is that we'll got the movies faster than it is usually done. Sao Paulo and other few state capitals are the only one who plays the Movie along with the premiere release.

      I live in Marilia (about 400Km from Sao Paulo City), a city with a population of 200.000 and some movies takes 2 or 3 months to get here. Digital Cinema will short this waiting time.

  • 24fps vs. blocky video (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:39AM (#8303309) Homepage Journal
    I remember when I first heard that movies are filmed at a very slow 24fps. Compared to tv which changes the display at 60fps, the 24fps is very slow. However it is a result of the high resolution as well as the movement of the actors (as opposed to multiple still-lifes) which makes the movie indistinguishable from normal movement.

    Now take digital with its ability to blit high resolution graphics at very high framerates compared to traditional film. As good as these systems are, the loss in resolution due to compression is a killer. Though we may have all been agog at the CG used in the Star Wars prequels as well as the LoTR trilogy, much of the compression artifacts were still clearly visible. I don't think digital is ready for widespread usage yet. MHO, of course.

    In Brazil, it fascinates me that there are movie theaters where there are no roads.

    • Re:24fps vs. blocky video (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:48AM (#8303344)
      60hz =! 60fps!

      tv scans every second line so 60hz is only 30 fps

    • TV is actually only 30fps interlaced. One pass updates every other horizontal line, and the next pass updates the remaining lines, so there is the illusion of 60fps.

    • Re:24fps vs. blocky video (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ubi_NL ( 313657 ) <joris.benschop@g ... Ecom minus punct> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:51AM (#8303358) Journal
      You are comparing apples and oranges

      TV does not have 60 fps. It just projects the image 60 times per second. This marks a fundamental difference between TV and cimema projection:

      * Cinemas project *the entire image* during the whole frame-time. The small blacks during image shifts are taken care of by your eyes (ever wondered why you do not see blackness when you blink normally?)

      * TV only projects a very small part of the image at the same time, and relies on afterglow of the projected area to make the image appear. By increasing the rate of the electron bundle, you get a more consistent brightness (less afterglow needed) and your image perception will improve.

      Your eyes are only capable of seeing 20-25 fps. This is why you do not see fluorescent links blink on and off. For this reason you will not notice when cimema projection will increase speed from 25-60 fps.

      • Re:24fps vs. blocky video (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        This is simple not true. Can you tell if your monitor is refreshing at 60 or 100 hz? Yes. Otherwise there would be little point in having those refresh rates. Same goes for 100 hz televisions.

        In moving pictures the difference is quite clear as well. Being a demoscene kind of person I can asure you that I can tell the difference if say a tunnel is running at 35 or 70 fps.

        Also Television is effectively 50 fps, as a single interlaced image contains two points in time.

        The next time you watch a movie in a the

      • Re:24fps vs. blocky video (Score:4, Interesting)

        by KeyboardMonkey ( 744594 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:12AM (#8303718)
        Your eyes are only capable of seeing 20-25 fps. This is why you do not see fluorescent links blink on and off. For this reason you will not notice when cimema projection will increase speed from 25-60 fps.

        20-25fps are sufficient with motion blur, which naturally occurs on motion film with long exposures. Film can start looking jittery when filmed in very bright outdoor scenes.

        60fps on computer games can look jittery because there is no exposure. It's just a rendered frame at that exact instant in time, and because of this your eyes can pick up on the sudden changes between frames. The effect is called temporal aliasing.

        Adding a motion blur, or simply blending with the previous frame can smooth out this affect.

        This generally should not be a problem with film images projected digitally.

      • Re:24fps vs. blocky video (Score:4, Funny)

        by /dev/trash ( 182850 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:14AM (#8303745) Homepage Journal
        Maybe YOU can't see the fluorescent blink off and on, but it annoys the living hell out of me.
      • Your eyes are only capable of seeing 20-25 fps. This is why you do not see fluorescent links blink on and off. For this reason you will not notice when cimema projection will increase speed from 25-60 fps.

        you are so wrong.

        First off watching a film that WAS shot at 60Fps looks and "feels" different. the surreal feeling from the lack of temporal information that 24p that film has is no longer there. 60p has much more temporal information and therefore feels more real, things look crisper due to the major

      • Cinemas project *the entire image* during the whole frame-time.

        No, they blink out once or twice per frame so each frame is shown 2 or 3 times over.

        TV only projects a very small part of the image at the same time, and relies on afterglow of the projected area to make the image appear.

        Normal CRTs rely on persistence of vision, the same as cinema projectors. The image on the screen fades very quickly. It is possible to make CRTs which fade slowly but this is generally undesirable since it results in a kind

      • "TV does not have 60 fps. It just projects the image 60 times per second."

        I hope you realize that sentence reads like a TV only works at 1 fps, this is wrong of course.

        Alright, everybody seems confused about how TVs work. Well let me start by saying, yes, TVs do operate at 60 fps. You are getting 60 distinct frames of animation per second on a TV. But before you hit that reply button to tell me I'm wrong, keep reading.

        TV's only have enough bandwidth to interpret 30 frames per second at 720 by 480 res

    • Re:24fps vs. blocky video (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:58AM (#8303385)
      In Brazil, it fascinates me that there are movie theaters where there are no roads.

      I suppose they were thinking about distribution to, say, Manaus, which is a big city in the middle of the Amazon. There are additional delivery costs either by air or by water. A digital delivery scheme would be faster and cheaper.

      Nobody is building theaters where there is no basic infrastructure. There are just natural obstacles to be overcome, like the size of the country and the remoteness of some highly populated areas with good infrastructure.

      This is exactly like the US. You can hire a plane to deliver your movies, or you can put bits down a backbone. Guess which is becoming increasingly more attractive.

      • The size of the country? At its widest, Brazil is about half as wide as California is tall. It's really not all that sizable. The real problem is that their Highways are laid out in the least logical style possible, and you can't truck things places in a reasonable amount of time. What takes us a few hours in the states, because we have highways running all over the place, will take you all day in Brazil. I think the other cost we're not considering here is duplication, it must cost quite a bit to make thos
        • Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world. It's larger than australia and the continental united states. Not to mention that it is filled with dense rainforest that makes travel almost impossible.

    • Re:24fps vs. blocky video (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It is actually 48 FPS (Sort of like interlaced) as while only 24 frames pass through the projector each is exposed to the projection lamp twice before being moved on.
    • The resolution of 35mm projection is amazingly bad. The area available for one image on film is just 16mm * 22mm, which is cropped to about 12mm * 22mm due to the widescreen format. That is a surface area of just 264 mm^2 on film, more than three times less than standard slides you take with your SLR camera. I don't know the technical details of the digital system in discussion but it should be no problem to beat 35mm film digitally.
      When it comes to IMAX, it's another story...
      • * 35mm film is anamorphic - you don't lose print space.
        * Believe me, I've seen the arguments many, many times and there's a strong body of opinion in favour of slow 35mm (=100ASA) over digital.
        * The complaint is largely centred around compression, anyway. They're doing a lot to get a full movie down to 5GB.
    • Actually, on tv films are shown 25 fps.

      The funny thing is that, since movies are taped 24 fps, movies on tv are often simply transmitting the 24 fps as 25 fps. A movie with a length of 1:40 will therefore only last 1:36 on tv. Of course, commercials stretch this to 2:30...

      Since I haven't watched any tv in the last 10 years, I don't know if this still happens with the rise of digital technology, but I have checked this a couple of times when I still spent 2 hours per night on the couch in front of the bo

  • that they choose to base this kind of project om Windows Media Player, since most poeple still look at linux, with for example mplayer, as untested and possibly unreliable technology. Although a system running linux/mplayer would probably be better, people still hang on to what is familiar to them.
    • Although a system running linux/mplayer would probably be better

      And why's that then?

      Just like the oh-so-amusing blue screen joke at the top, the linux geeks have to bounce up and down because someone chose not to use open source....

    • i'm just curious, why would linux/mplayer be probably better?
    • I also hear from people with a real interest in it that Windows Media 9 is seriously better quality for the same bit rate than any of the Open Source formats. You may not like it, but M$ have identified multimedia, and particularly moving pictures, as a major driver for future development. They have spent real money developing their proprietary format and, from the reports I have heard, it works.

  • Fast VPN.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:41AM (#8303318)
    That's a fast VPN.. 5 Gigabytes in 20 minutes works out to about 4.3 Megabytes/second, or 34 Megabits/second.
    • Well from the article they are using satellite, and to compare, a *single* HDTV stream is 20 megabits per second [nedron.net], so I don't think this is too unrealistic. The films just have to be queued up for delivery at some stage before projection, and we are talking about a network with a limited number of endpoints (e.g. only cinemas, rather than everyone).

  • Episode III NOT coming to any theaters near you (Score:5, Insightful)

    by emily_the_dragonet ( 749396 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:41AM (#8303319) Homepage
    Hollywood has made halting forays into digital cinema - George Lucas says that he will show the next Star Wars installment, due out next year, in theaters only with digital capability. But the cost of converting theaters to digital and concerns over piracy has the US movie industry moving in slow motion

    Episode III, not coming to any theaters near you anytime soon. How many will just go to see it even if they know it's bad when they can't even drop down to their local theater? Nobody will inconvinience themselves for a movie who's draw is mainly "I just want to see how the thingends already". Of course maybe it won't be bad, but what are the odds of that?

  • DRM? psst (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AmVidia HQ ( 572086 ) <{moc.em} {ta} {gnufg}> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:43AM (#8303326) Homepage
    Wonder how long before it's cracked? This is going to bring a whole new meaning to Screeners ^.^

    Can someone comment on the security and encryption of WMV9?

    • Re:DRM? psst (Score:2, Interesting)

      by CdBee ( 742846 )
      Oddly enough, that's the first thing I thought

      For the movie industry to start issuing DivX copies of its films may prove regrettable

    • Re:DRM? psst (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's pretty difficult to crack the encryption if you don't have a license already. If you do have a license, it's pretty easy to strip the DRM from it by unencrypting it. There are tools out to strip DRM from audio files for which you have license files. I haven't been able to find tools that do the same for video files.
      • Maybe an easier solution would be a device that captures the (VGA | DVI) output. Or, even cheaper, a software that captures the frames. Even if it has protections against this kind of software, you could run it in a virtual machine, like Vmware.

        Does anyone know of a movie-capturing software ?
          • Maybe an easier solution would be a device that captures the (VGA | DVI) output.

          I really have to disagree on this one.

          It believe it's easier to decrypt an allready compressed stream, than to capture, recompress and write to disk cinema-class high-definition video-content.

          If the this is anything like say HDTV (to be modest) real-time compression will be pretty impossible in any reasonable format with any available standard-hardware. Even the less the ability to write the data to disk at the speed

    • Wait for the source code to leak, heh

    • Re:DRM? (Score:3, Informative)

      by schmiddy ( 599730 )
      As one or two others have pointed out, WMV9 encryption is actually relatively secure, at least as far as we know right now. It uses pretty strong public key encryption. Someone suggested just using another media player that doesn't respect the "protection". That's like suggesting just using another email client to open a PGP encrypted email if you don't have the private key.

      There are tools out there to strip the protection from WMV9 audio files, unf**k.exe and one other I can't remember right now. However

  • Costs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:55AM (#8303375)
    I run an independant Cinema and the cost per film is approximately 200-250 per showing. A lot of this cost is distribution and storage of the prints, so if digital projection happens then I would expect to see a suitable reduction in costs.

    Prints wear out, which is why the image gets worse over time, however the resolution of 35mm is much greater than that of most digital systems that I know of.

    DVD and DiVX look Awful on a big screen as you can see the artifacts on the system. This asks the question how it can be suitable for the large cinema screens.

    Also converting a cinema to digital, while still having the ability to show film is going to be expensive. So who should pay the cinema, or the company that is saving millions on costs.

    Another interesting point is do the distributers and films companies apporvie of the system?
    If not it will die on it's feet before it even starts.

    Call this a biased opinion from somebody who maintains windows servers (The cinema is in my spare time) but I can't see it being that long before the MS DRM (or any other system for that matter) is broken.

    If this happens then all releases will go back to film as piracy is such a concern.
    • DVD and DiVX look Awful on a big screen as you can see the artifacts on the system. This asks the question how it can be suitable for the large cinema screens.

      That's why they aren't talking about DVD/DiVX but rather much higher resolutions. The new Star Wars films were shot entirely on digital and then converted to 35mm for projection, and I didn't hear people complaining about the low resolution.

      Indeed, digital projection is likely to be better in most cases due to the fact that the film will not be sc

    • ...so if digital projection happens then I would expect to see a suitable reduction in costs.

      With all due respect, the words "like hell you will" spring immediately to mind.

      It's just another type of lock-in and the only people going to make bank off it is Microsoft and whomever they bought off to cook something like this up.

    • Re:Costs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by makapuf ( 412290 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:44AM (#8303560)
      What prevents me from making a DIVX in hyper good resolution/quality ? (aside from tweaking the codecs so that the parameters will be optimized for such resolutions ?)

      Of course the crappy screener on 320*240 won't be that fantastic on imax, but what about 10000x10000 pixels with a good compression ratio ? (or better)

      That's something that i've been wondering, why not use comrpession to remove unvisible information while using the added bandwith / capacity for increased quality ? (example: 1hour of 96khz 48 bits audio on a CD would be great to hear - better than an uncompressed CD i'd think)

      Besides, is it WM9 or MPEG4 ? I thought the chosen MPEG4 standard container was qt)
      • "why not use comrpession (sic) to remove unvisible (sic) information"

        That's what it does. "Psycho-visual" and "psycho-acoustic" modelling removes stuff that you can't really see or hear respectively, that's what MPEG compression schemes are all about! Any lossy format has to remove something from the data stream.

    • If this happens then all releases will go back to film as piracy is such a concern.

      Because there's no black market in pirating analog movies now, certainly.

      (The comment's meant only to be ironic, I agree with you essentially.)

  • Digital projection is clearer than film (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:56AM (#8303378)
    Even though most digital projection systems are lower resolution than film they appear higher resolution when projected since there is no film gate weave as the film moves through the tranport mechanism of the projector.

  • Distribution system (Score:5, Funny)

    by nmg196 ( 184961 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @07:58AM (#8303384)
    It takes 20 minutes to distribute a 90-minute film over a VPN and the system

    The distribution system used by Rain Networks is available for free here... [kazaa.com]

  • Bit rate (Score:5, Informative)

    by Shinglor ( 714132 ) <luke.shingles@gmaELIOTil.com minus poet> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:07AM (#8303424)
    5GB for a whole movie? Assuming the movies goes for 90 minutes thats 7.5Mbps.

    That's only a little past the bit rate of the average DVD. Sure MPEG-4 is more efficient than MPEG-2 but when you take into account the high definition resolution (1280x960 or higher) there are sure to be visible artefacts.

    • Re:Bit rate (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LordK2002 ( 672528 )
      IIRC standard DVD rate is around 11 Mbps, although I guess this could be the maximum rather than the average.

      MPEG-4 is more efficient at low bitrates than MPEG-2/1. I am not sure that MPEG-4 encoding is even capable of reaching 7.5 Mbps - the maximum I have seen for DivX movies is around 2 Mbps with the minimum quantiser used for all frames. For high bitrates I believe MPEG-2 is actually better, so I am not sure why they propose MPEG-4 for this purpose.

      K

      • Re:Bit rate (Score:2, Informative)

        by fruey ( 563914 )
        Well DVD movies are only 720x576, but "projectable movie" resolution is going to be at least double in both width and height, leaving your max 2mbps to become around 8mbps which fits perfectly with the 7.5mbps, minimum quantiser and max number of I frames. DVD encoding is around the 9mbps mark IIRC... it maxes out before 10mbps (9800kbps?) in the official standard.

      • Re:Bit rate (Score:3, Informative)

        by trezor ( 555230 )
        • I am not sure that MPEG-4 encoding is even capable of reaching 7.5 Mbps - the maximum I have seen for DivX movies is around 2 Mbps with the minimum quantiser used for all frames.

        DivX: One MPEG4-implementation
        MPEG4: A video-compression spesification

        Just because DivX doesn't provide higher rates than 2Mbps, doesn't mean MPEG4 doesn't. And to be honest, I think this restriction only applies to DivX3.11 and older versions.

        If you check out XviD, I'm pretty sure you can specify any bitrate, even if i

  • Lack of Public Roads (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:08AM (#8303432)
    if they don't have roads, how high up on their priority list should "Gigli" be?

    data on disc is about the smallest thing you can imaginable. there is no place on earth with a digital projector to which such a disc can not be delivered along with whatever other items come in to the outside world. no exceptions.

    at this particular state in time, should we really be cheering technologies that, however impressive the compression, actually deliver a lesser qualtiy image? how long will it take for the march of progress to make 5gb vs whatever the normal standard is seem as out of date as formatting 1.44mb floppy discs to 1.6mb or whatever that trick is that we used to play was..

  • Don't read too much into it... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dcs ( 42578 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:11AM (#8303444)
    I live in Brazil's capital (which happens to be Brasilia, not Buenos Aires :), and there's not even a THX movie theather.

  • This is cool (Score:3, Funny)

    by Molina the Bofh ( 99621 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:11AM (#8303446) Homepage
    'The MPEG-4 software can squeeze a feature film onto a file of just five gigabytes, 15 times smaller than the MPEG-2 technology presently used

    Cool. Now where can I download this movie ?

  • Windows Media is Not MPEG-4 (Score:5, Informative)

    by mbone ( 558574 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:15AM (#8303463)
    Windows Media does not support standards compliant MPEG-4. What Microsoft calls MPEG-4 is their version of a early draft of the standard with their own transport mechanism.

    Envivio used to offer a MPEG-4 plug in for WM, but no more (or at least not for free). [envivio.com]

    I wish people would not perpetuate this confusion.

  • Goodbye Movie Theater (Score:3, Interesting)

    by j1mmy ( 43634 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:19AM (#8303478) Journal
    They may as well start releasing all movies direct to DVD now. You can easily put together a nice home theater for under two grand these days and the cost is continuing to drop. If all future films go digital, theaters won't have any reason to exist anymore.

  • It's all about costs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:23AM (#8303490)
    Brazil is a nation where technology costs much: US$ 1,00 can buy R$ 2,90 (Real - local currency) and there are heavy taxes on imported material. When running low on budget you have to be creative to solve problems and reduce costs. That's why the elections here are all digital for more than 5 years ago (it costs less and it's more secure than the classic way) and why banks here have more clients using internet to access the bank systems than anywhere in the world. Can this system be the best? Maybe not... but surely it can help to make easier to distribute the movies faster while lowering costs. And it can also help the local cinema industry to increase the audiences and revenue.

  • Who will pay in US? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mirio ( 225059 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:26AM (#8303504)
    who will pay for cinemas to switch to digital projection

    Hmm...ultimately the customers will.

  • piracy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ajs318 ( 655362 ) <sd_resp2@@@earthshod...co...uk> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:30AM (#8303513)
    I have one thing only to say to the people who complain about "piracy" {the industry's preferred dysphemism for "independent distribution"}.

    Look at the ready availability of photocopiers, scanners, printers and the like. And look what's on offer at your local W.H.Smith, or Waterstones, or any independent local newsagent, or remainder store.

    Now ask yourself "why don't newspapers, magazines and books have a piracy problem, with all these copiers and so forth out there?"

    Whatever the Printed Word industry has done to protect itself from "piracy", the music and movie industries have to do the same thing to protect themselves from the same threat.

    • Re:piracy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:52AM (#8303595)
      Now ask yourself "why don't newspapers, magazines and books have a piracy problem, with all these copiers and so forth out there?"

      Several reasons:

      - Just how long would it take you to photocopy Harry Potter and how good of a copy could you make without destroying the book in the process.

      - If you were to take the time to scan it, who would want to bother to print it out since the cost of the paper/toner would probably end up being more than the original book.

      - Paper products have a long history and people are accustomed to their "interface" (i.e. I can take it on the bus or in the bathroom or in bed, I can fold it up, throw it in my bag, and I'm only out $5.95 (.50cents for a paper) if I lose it).

      - With video and audio, EXACT reproductions can be made with a single mouse click.

      - The nature in which their distributed lends themselves to easy reproduction (DRM efforts not withstanding).

      Whatever the Printed Word industry has done to protect itself from "piracy", the music and movie industries have to do the same thing to protect themselves from the same threat.

      You can't compare the two. Different mediums that came at different times. Just like 30 years ago, film piracy was no big deal. Before cassette tapes, audio piracy wasn't a big deal. Had ebooks taken off, then the "printed" people would be stressing out about piracy as well. Just so happens the preferred distribution media is just some damn inconvenient to reproduce.
    • By the time you'd scan and post the NY Times, the next days version would be out.
    • But not with photocopiers. This trend is getting more common, a decent quality small digital camera or a cellular phone with built-in one, youth just pick the magazines, flip pages making photos, then leave the paper version and read the new issue of their favourite $20 magazine for free, from screens of their computers.
      If they like it, they sometimes buy the dead tree version.

  • More Approximations (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why is it that everyone always insists upon using approximations? Even with the highest quality mpeg encoder, the approximations that mpeg 4 employs will be visible on the big screen at that bit rate. Of course you could use a small enough resolution that the bitrate wouldn't produce artifacts, but that would not come near the effective resolution of the analog media that this is replacing.

    Approximation has it's place, but at this bit rate quality anywhere near 35mm prints is nye impossible. Approximati
    • Approximation has it's place, but at this bit rate quality anywhere near 35mm prints is nye impossible

      We're not talking about the US where digital is pushed as a "superior format" to that of film. When we go do digital movie houses, we expect quality that exceeds that of "regular" 35mm. That the theatre owner saved some bucks by having the film downloaded is irrelevant to us, and it doesn't mean that my 12plex is going to get movies that it wouldn't normally otherwise. NOW Brasil on the other hand, is
  • City of God is a 2002 movie, not a 2003 movie.

  • "It takes 20 minutes to distribute a 90-minute film over a VPN and the system avoids the costs associated with transporting physical copies to areas largely inaccessible by road"

    Hey, wait a minute... There are pure digital megaplexes with internet connectivity that allows 5G in 20M (what's that 700kbps?), but you can't get there by road??? Seems odd, no? Can someone expand on that point? (Or maybe I should break tradition, and RTFA... Nahhhhh, I want to fit in here.)

  • One of the problems with physical prints is that the studios often save money by sending second hand prints to foreign markets after the opening weekends in the US. It's simple economics really, if each print costs the distributor $1200 to make, and the number of cinemas each movie plays at drops fairly quickly after it's initial release, they can save by shipping the excess prints a few weeks or even months later to foreign markets. This is particularly common with small budget and independent films.

    The f

  • Some info on how the different formats compare (Score:3, Informative)

    by CompWerks ( 684874 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:40AM (#8303881)
    Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com]

  • Not to mention... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dark-br ( 473115 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @10:51AM (#8304466) Homepage
    ...that Brazil also leads with 100% electronic voting.

    Sometimes less money leads to more simple and viable solutions. US should take a look on what is going on below equator and maybe save lot's of money using solutions already tested. Just't becouse it was done here it doesn't mean it's not worth a look.

  • HOLLYWOOD, CA--In other news today, several of the Hollywood studios have released financial figures dealing with the new, all digital projection systems. After the initial cost of the projection hardware and the VPN servers is paid for, say 12 months with todays ticket prices, and the fact that they no longer have to buy film from Eastman Kodak to make distribution copies, their overhead costs drop significantly. What does this mean to us, the consumer?
    More price gouging!
    Because of the "higher quality" of the "films," ticket prices will rise approximately 25% every six months. Why you might ask? "Because we can and I need to help drive up real estate prices here on the West coast by purchasing my 4th summer house," said one executive. "Its all about profits, not quality or affordability," said another. A third had this to say, "I personally believe the high prices are worth every penny. The consumer sees better quality movies. This should increase demand by 10% a year." What he failed to mention is that all of his studios' movies this year were prequels, sequels, remakes, or new adaptations; not one new original movie.

    Sarcasm aside, once the new digital systems are in place, even with maintenance costs, total overhead costs should drop. I'm sure that the studios will make sure that they don't pass on that benefit to consumers. Instead they will pad their own pockets and those stars on the $20m+/movie list. They could spend the savings on hiring some new writers who have some original ideas. Just a thought...
    Amigori

  • That will be crap (Score:3)

    by ratboy666 ( 104074 ) <<moc.liamtoh> <ta> <legiew_derf>> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @12:52PM (#8305746) Journal
    Take it from someone "in the business"... (my creds are: (1) performance analysis for experimental digital project, uncompressed video
    (2) design wireless networking for 10/54Mbs home video transmission (3) HD mode development for ATI Xilleon, and other projects).

    The effective data rate for this "theater" is the same as digital SD television -- not even HD.

    If the compression is THAT much better, I would have heard about it... and I haven't.

    They won't be able to blow this up to a big theater screen (unless its filtered to hell). It's not gonna look good. Of course, we *could* be talking about a bad quality small theater screen...

    So this is a big yawn. Worse -- they DO have the intrastructure needed to move 30Mps. The just want to, what, cut costs? Give 'em at LEAST HD resolutions (36Mbps).

    And, if the compression is THAT GOOD (6 to 10 times better than current) -- there are other applications we would have seen it in first -- high end cam-corders, and (at least) a proposal for a DVD replacement format COMPLETELY COMPATIBLE with existing DVD technology (HD DVDs would be possible, with a blue laser!).

    So this is bunch of hooey.

    Thanks for you time; I needed to vent.

    Ratboy.

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