I saw Pirates 3, and after it was over I was walking out of the theater, looked down the hall and saw a sign "Pirates 3 DLP". Well, I had to stop in and see the action. I stood along the side for 5 minutes, at the part where the Black Pearl is escaping from Davey Jone's Locker. It's a pretty dark scene, and I had just seen it in 35 mm film. I was impressed with the shadow detail, and I think it's better than film. So does anybody know what 3 chip DLP equipment is being used?

What theater? It is all Christie, Barco or NEC - 2048x1080. Big difference is the source - 250Mbps JPEG 2000, 4:4:4 12-bit.

250Mbps JPEG 2000, 4:4:4 12-bit.

Man thats got to look good.

They are also experimenting with custom gamma LUT that enhance shadow detail.

They are also experimenting with custom gamma LUT that enhance shadow detail.
They need it with their poor 2000:1 contrast.

What theater? It is all Christie, Barco or NEC - 2048x1080. Big difference is the source - 250Mbps JPEG 2000, 4:4:4 12-bit.

The theater was an AMC. My question was really generic, however. Anybody got any links to further info?.

Okay, here's three: http://www.christiedigital.com/AMEN/Products/christieCP2000.htm
http://www.barco.com/digitalcinema/en/products/DLPCinemaprojectors.asp
http://www.nec-pj.com/products/dlpcinema/index.html

Now, looking at the specs on these things, I see that they are only 2048 or 1920x1080, as noted above. No wonder Hollywood is nervous about releasing HD material to the home market. 1080p can go on an 82 foot screen! Blimey! So with a 1080p PJ (with a xenon lamp), and an anamorphic lens, a home theater can basically match the big screen. Of course, the theater experience is more than that, there is the dedicated stadium, the huge sound system, the popcorn stand, the cellphone in the last row. Still, I'm a little disappointed the ante isn't any higher.

OBTW, does anybody know what the contrast ratio is for film?

So with a 1080p PJ (with a xenon lamp), and an anamorphic lens, a home theater can basically match the big screen.
No.

As mentioned above:
Big difference is the source - 250Mbps JPEG 2000, 4:4:4 12-bit.
You won't be finding that in homes any time soon.

Ok, that breaks down to 10.4 MB a frame carrying 2.2 Mpixels each, JPEG 2000 compression. Every frame is independent, which is crucial for editing. Not so important for display. On a frame-by-frame comparison, this will show superior to MPEG4, but I wonder who can see it in action.

I read on one of the Film forums they were trying to A/B BD to one of the jpeg2000 servers. They could not get BD into the projector. No HDMI or HDCP but one of them was able to hook it up via component via a separate switch bot from Christie. They said BD was better then they were expecting but not a fair comparison due to BD not shown at its best due to the analog connection.

The new Barco scaler looks very promising from a chroma depth expansion. It will take 8 bit or deep color 10 bit and convert to 12 bit dual dvi 4:4:4.

http://www.barco.com/digitalcinema/en/products/product.asp?gennr=1808

I know it is artificialy created but I bet it works since it is starting with a very precisely TI P7 rec 709 and rec 601 color calibration, so it won't look like a SIM5000. ;)

The new Barco scaler looks very promising from a chroma depth expansion. It will take 8 bit or deep color 10 bit and convert to 12 bit dual dvi 4:4:4.

http://www.barco.com/digitalcinema/en/products/product.asp?gennr=1808

I know it is artificialy created but I bet it works since it is starting with a very precisely TI P7 rec 709 and rec 601 color calibration, so it won't look like a SIM5000. ;)


Had to get that in there, if you had a bad day why not kick the dog instead. ;) :D

Art

Punting Ginger, the flea laden neighbor's Chihuahua. That's a thought. Thanks.;)

http://www.wimp.com/kick/

:) :)- :0

rolfmao. Reminds me of "Birdie Num-num".

http://www.wimp.com/kick/

I ran out of patience; what happens in the end?

.. Of course, the theater experience is more than that..

Actually it is less than that :D

I just had my first DLP experience, which was Pirates Three. I was impressed by how crisp the image looked, but put off a lot by the silk screen effect. Maybe the projector wasnt calibrated correctly, although it was AMC so I assume they know what they are doing. I noticed SSE even in dark scenes it really took me out of the film. In very bright sequences the SSE was far worse than my DLP tv at home. Has anyone else experienced this?

More than likely, that theatre has a silver screen for 3D. Not optimal for viewing 2D movies but necessary to retain the polarization for 3D. That is why you saw SSE.

Something interesting that I just found out in talking to an industry buddy of mine, the actual pixel count for digital cinema projectors is 2048x1080 but the content format and projected format may be significantly less.

Content format:
Flat (1.85:1) - 1080 x 1998
Scope (2.39:1) - 858 x 2048

Since there is often not technical personnel available when changing formats, the systems are usually set up as follows so that no adjustments to the projectors are required:

Constant width masking:
Flat (1.85:1) - 1080 x 1998
Scope (2.39:1) - 858 x 1998 (scaling and/or cropping)

Constant height masking (anamorphic lenses not used typically):
Flat (1.85:1) - 858 x 1588
Scope (2.39:1) - 858 x 1998

Constant width masking systems seem to be the norm in stadium seating auditoriums in all but the biggest screens. The reason anamorphic lenses are not being used is due to the very high cost (~$14k). Goes to show you how good the source content is, since the projected resolution is often less than 1080p on these 40+ foot screens.

I read on one of the Film forums they were trying to A/B BD to one of the jpeg2000 servers. They could not get BD into the projector. No HDMI or HDCP but one of them was able to hook it up via component via a separate switch bot from Christie. They said BD was better then they were expecting but not a fair comparison due to BD not shown at its best due to the analog connection.

I wonder which projector it because the Kinepolis group here in Belgium has at least 1 digital projector in each of their location and for their Gaming XL (http://www.kinepolis.com/be-nl/index.cfm?PageID=8301) they connect a Playstation 3 to the digital projector using a digital connection.

Filip

Just out of pure curiousity, what do jpeg2000 servers look like? Not physically, but build wise? Assuming 250mbps you'de need ~110gb per hour. How are they connected to the projectors? This is quite interesting.

EDIT

A little searching and I answered my own questions for the most part. One of the servers I found was http://www.doremicinema.com/products.htm# , NEC also has one called the Starus, but I couldn't find a lot of relevant statistics on it . Looks like has 800gb of storage... seems to be enough for any movie out there now. Connect to the projector would be via HD-SDI (sometimes dual link). Either way that appears to have plenty of bandwidth. On a side note, how do the film studios send the movies out to the theaters?

They look a lot like rack-mount atx cases, typically with a 7" touchscreen in the front, and a good old fashioned intel board inside. The video is output using dual-link HD-SDI like you thought, though it is a proprietary encoding format, so don't think you might whisk one away for your home setup.
New content is now sent out on hard drives, uploaded into a central library server at each theater, and then distributed amongst the houses.