The Degradation of Cinema Projection

[jax_rox]

Interesting article from Haris Zambarloukos BSC (DP of Thor, Mamma Mia) on cinema projection and how the quality is lowering, mostly due to the advent of 3D projection. Intersetingly, most cinemas have installed RealD 3D projection, because it is the cheapest to install, and also has cheap glasses that they can sell to movie-goers, rather than have to worry about re-using and cleaning the glasses. This, however, means that screens have to be silver (as the cheaper technologies like RealD require silver screens), and that projection of 2D movies are happening from 3D projectors, which are otherwise optimised for 3D. Dolby 3D (passive) and Xpand 3D (active) both use white screens, like a normal 2D movie, and are generally accepted as having better picture quality, better colour, and an overall better experience than RealD, but they are also comparitively more expensive to install and maintain, and the glasses are much more expensive, meaning they have to be re-used. Anyway, just a bit of background. Here's the article:

http://www.imago.org/index.php?new=716

 

[Jack Lynt]

Hopefully folks will get wise to that corner cutting and vote with their dollars to discourage theater operators from continuing that practice. I mean, maybe they'll just be shooting themselves in the foot when more people get the idea that the theater experience is crappy and that they might as well just wait to see it on home video.