What resolution do the DLP projectors used in commerical cinemas have?  

Almost all the commercial cinemas using DLP have 1280x1024 w/anamorphic lenses, but you could probably find some with even lower resolutions. They don't have a specific resolution that they run at any more than what resolution home theater projectors run at: the highest they can afford...

No DLP projectors can resolve full 1080i, but they (many) can resolve 720p.

Every E-Cinema projection system that I've seen or read about have 1280 X 1024 DLP 3-chip projectors with anamorphic lenses.

For 1.78:1 animated films like Toy Story 2 on a <40' wide screen, this looks very good, and visibly better than most film presentations ( not pristine film, perfectly setup).

But I saw Attack of the Clones twice at a digital theater, and with it being a 2.35:1 movie, and shown on a 60' wide screen, it showed visible stairstepping on high contrast object edges when viewed from the first third of the theatrical seating.

The second time that I watched the movie digitally, I saw it from the farthest third of the seating from the screen, and it looked stunning!

I'm sure that there is some big deal between the studios, theaters, and texas instruments, because the QXGA (2048 X 1536) D-ILA FPTVs have comparable contrast to the E-Cinema FPTVs, but they are capable of 3 times the resolution of the DLP models, which would no doubt look visibly better for larger screen theatrical applications even just showing the native 1080p resolution.

-Dean.

Jorus,

Just the fact that the screen size in a home theater is a fraction of a 40'-60' wide E-Cinema theater screen will give you higher pixel density. And there is often more reflected light in a real theater, and the accoustics are almost always better in a home theater room.

The SXGA DLP E-Cinema FPTVs are usually very bright, generally have 1000:1 contrast, and they have 4:1 proprietary compression from the original 1080p HD source, which would no doubt look stunning in a home theater setting.

But since the best that we have to see today is D-VHS or broadcast HD (with more compression), and most high resolution digital FPTVs have less than 1000:1 contrast, it's roughly a wash.

I'd say that it's amazing how good the picture quality that we can get at home is today, and HD movies at home are usually better looking to my eyes than film shown at my local multi-plexes, and very close to the picture quality of the E-Cinema theaters as well. :D

I saw at Phothokina in September the JVC QX1 2048x1536 on a 20ft 16:9 screen with a 1080p source (some sort of program on Indians' life). STUNNING!!! it blows away digital projections I've seen.
with HD DVDS coming in about 18months, and with so many digital projectors for HT already dealing 1080i-720p with brio (they even prefer these res than the 480i from dvds), we'll see some pretty large screens at home, I mean 4-4.5meters more often than the usual tiny 2.4m screens.

digital projections in theaters with the SXGA 3DLPs is too often in combination with too large screens. they should not go beyond 25ft imho.
TI really needs to manufacture 1080p (or higher) chips.

with HD DVDS coming in about 18months

Huh? Is that just wishful thinking, or did I miss an official announcement?

Mr. Poindexter I don't have anything 20,000 or more I'm only 20 but I was under the impression that 720p took up more bandwidth than 1080i because since it's progressivive it has twice as many fields. If 720p is equal to 1480i then why would a projector have more trouble resolving 1080i and be able to do 720p. Can you correct me if I'm wrong please.

Daniel Smith

Daniel,

The bandwidth of 720p is slightly greater than 1080i, but that only has to do broadcast and recording bandwith issues.

720p is not equal to 1440i.
But in fast motion pans 1080i can momentarily display as 540p.
The rest of the time 1080i has twice the resolution of 720p.

With digital projectors all displays have to have the video material converted to match the native resolution of the projector's panels.

Currently, only a couple super-high-end projectors can natively resolve 1920X 1080p resolution like the JVC QX1. And all of the E-Cinema setups that I've seen have 1280 X 1024p native resolution DLP projectors, with anamorphic lenses to optically stretch the image to it's proper widescreen format.

These E-Cinema setups have their source material mastered from 1080p digital sources, with 4:1 proprietary compression used to get the image down to the native 1280 X 1024 display resolution.

The bandwidth for these presentations obviously needs to be 10-20 times what broadcast 1080i or 720p needs, and that's why the movies are hand transported on hard drive packs to each theater.

Later, E-Cinema movies will be digitally transmitted using encrypted private satellite downloads to the individual theaters directly.

-Dean.

Thanks for correcting me Dean. Isn't E-cinemas where you plug the hd that has the movie on it into a reader of some sort and it then sends it through a network to different projectors in different theaters. I heard about the satellite thing too.

Daniel Smith

Daniel,

I've only seen one DLP projector setup in person (a Barco) and it appeared to be an individual setup with the projector having it's own separate hard drive pack, and control tower. It appeared to have a sizable cooling system, and two anamorphic lenses (for 1.85:1 and 2.35:1) movies.

So far I've been to two different E-Cinema theaters so far, both DLP, and I've seen seven different movies shown on those DLP FPTVs, and they have looked very good.

I went this last weekend and saw the latest Harry Potter movie. I had seen the same movie the week before on film and the picture quality was very close. My friend that I went with commented that the reproduction looked much better for HPII than StarWars ATOC, and it did look a bit better, with less stairstepping on high contrast image edges and text.

HP II was 2.35:1 shown on a 40' wide screen, and SW ATOC was also 2.35:1 on a (too large) 60' wide screen.

-Dean.

720p is 1280x720 at 60Hz
1080i is 1920x1080 at 30 Hz

The problem is that while a 1280x720 chip can display the entire bandwidth and resolution of 720p, when it comes to displaying the 1080i signal, it cannot handle the resolution. Interlacing reduces the effective refresh rate by half to increase resolution.

This is only a problem with fixed pixel projectors - DLP, LCD, D-ILA. It is not a problem with CRT and GLV. Fixed pixels cannot change their native resolution and therefore have a hard limit to their ability to resolve higher resolutions. Raster based projectors do not have this limit, although CRT does get to a point where the CRT tube face cannot effectively resolve any further resolution. At this point, it isn't a hard set number, but rather an approximate guess, like "what is the resolution of 35mm film?"

Currently E-Cinema and broadcast both master to the same formats. Panasonic HDD5 and Sony HDCAM. HDD5 is typically used for feature work as most studios feel the compression in HDCAM is too extreme. The format used is 1920x1080p/24 which has less bandwidth than 1080i as it's only 24 frames.

Some E-Cinema play from HDD5 directly. Some compress dowm to 80-100mbs. The Qbit server is one popular E-Cinema server that uses wavelet compression. Other server solutions such as Thomson and Qualcomm are MPEG based.

The only difference between HDTV and E-Cinema is:

1) Broadcast compresses down to 19.3mbs. Very high compression ratio that would not hold up on a huge screen.

2) Color correction is often different due to the much lower light level on a theater screen. Many E-Cinema versiona are timed in a small E-Cinema using the same projector technology thst will ultimatly project it. Example DLP requires different tweaks to the master than DILA.

whaT IS 1440i? did somebody develop a new standard while we weren't looking? Can you point me to the SMPTE standards?