AMC Theaters to Switch to 'Super HD' 2160p x 4K PROJECTION

[HDTV1080P]

"4K digital projection is so sharp and so rock-steady you really see every detail," says Kim Libreri, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. "It doesn't look like movies you've seen in the past. It's got this hyper-real quality."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...ryid=2222&cs=1

[kpkelley]

Nice, there is an AMC in my town.

No mention of when this might roll out.

[Y3k Bug]

More excited about this than I am 3-d.

It's just too bad all the AMCs around me are nasty.

[Johnny Vinyl]

The AMC near me is great. Very clean, about 24 screens.....expensive though! But aren't they all.

John

[Devildog151]

About time, the last movie I saw at a theater was The Dark Knight and even then I was really unimpressed with the PQ. I kept thinking that I couldn't wait to see it on Blu-ray to see a more detailed version. I just might to head back to an AMC and check out "Super HD".

[Rblu-Dblu]

how "super" is this going to be. Havent been to the theater in a while but I remember pq being bad. What is this supposed to put it at? 480p? 720p?

[mr.hidef]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

"4K digital projection is so sharp and so rock-steady you really see every detail," says Kim Libreri, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. "It doesn't look like movies you've seen in the past. It's got this hyper-real quality."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...ryid=2222&cs=1

so.......hopefully this will look almost like Blu-ray? That would be cool.

[iamsparticus9]

picture quality at the movie has more to do w/ the person running the projector then anything. If the projectionist doesn't recognize the films out of focus at the beginning all the pixels in the world are not going to help. sad thing is it's not that hard to notice or fix. I'd start every movie myself if they'd let me I get very angry when a movie is started out of focus when I was a projectionist i checked every movie I started at different points in the movie.

I'm speaking about traditional film projectors the theater I worked at only got a digital projector about a month before I left for greener pastures. So I'm not as familiar with them.

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by repete66211

It should be noted that a movie shot on film that's in good shape has no pixels. In other words, a good film has better picture quality than any digital format, assuming it's not being projected too far. Digitizing film reduces the picture quality of film-source material. (It also prevents degredation which is a good thing.) That said, 4k projection of movies shot with a 4k camera are going to look pretty impressive.

well don't tell the preservationists/telecine's over at Warners, Sony, Paramount, Disney that - they think otherwise - what would be the point of transferring all those movies into the digital realm if it's not adaquette at doing so?

[jeff92k7]

Originally Posted by repete66211

It should be noted that a movie shot on film that's in good shape has no pixels. In other words, a good film has better picture quality than any digital format, assuming it's not being projected too far. Digitizing film reduces the picture quality of film-source material. (It also prevents degredation which is a good thing.) That said, 4k projection of movies shot with a 4k camera are going to look pretty impressive.

But what you failed to note is that film does have individual grains. These grains are the analog equivalent of the digital pixel. The general consensus is that a 35mm film print will have a grain count between 2k and 4k digital resolutions. So yes, 2k digital cinema may not be quite as sharp as a well cared for 35mm print but, as you mention, there is no degradation of the picture quality with the digital formats.

Film will degrade over time even if it is never used but will degrade MUCH more rapidly when in constant use. With cinemas cramming in as many showings as close together as possible to make more money, they don't have time to do proper care for the films. Because of that, your digital cinema options will give you a more consistent picture quality over the entire length of the movie's run (weeks, months) while film quality will only be good for the first few days.

[repete66211]

Originally Posted by jeff92k7

But what you failed to note is that film does have individual grains. These grains are the analog equivalent of the digital pixel. The general consensus is that a 35mm film print will have a grain count between 2k and 4k digital resolutions. So yes, 2k digital cinema may not be quite as sharp as a well cared for 35mm print but, as you mention, there is no degradation of the picture quality with the digital formats.

Film will degrade over time even if it is never used but will degrade MUCH more rapidly when in constant use. With cinemas cramming in as many showings as close together as possible to make more money, they don't have time to do proper care for the films. Because of that, your digital cinema options will give you a more consistent picture quality over the entire length of the movie's run (weeks, months) while film quality will only be good for the first few days.

Yes, film does have grain. (I wouldn't equate it with a pixel, but the comparison is close enough.) The amount of grain depends on, among other things, the speed of the film. But it's more than resolution, it's also a different technology yielding a different image. Passing light through a piece of film creates a different picture than projecting pixels onto a screen. I had the opportunity to see a movie on nitrate film and, even though the film itself wasn't in the best shape, it projected an image different from anything I had seen before. I don't want to attribute magical properties to it, but it was pretty stunning, with a silvery glow to it. (I admit, my expectations and subjective reporting may have had something to do with my perception as well.)

So not only can film have higher resolution than digital, it can also have a different appearance. That said, I am pro-digital. I believe the transportability of the medium is a democratizing and cost-reducing feature of the digital medium. It allows virtually anyone to make a movie. This results in a lot of garbage (cf. YouTube), it also means more good projects get the green light due to what can be a reduced expense. And because it's in digital format we get to archive the movies and, assuming the technology still exists, see the same picture quality 30 years from now that we do today.

[garyrc]

Whether 4K would be overkill in a home theater depends on what you want to do in said home theater!

I estimated (I'll write up the measurement technique, if you are curious) that to recreate the relative size of the image -- on the retina -- I most enjoyed in classic 70 mm films like Around the World in 80 Days (Todd-AO, 1956, from the 7th row from the screen), or 2001; A Space Odyssey (Super Panavision 70, 1968, from about the 10th row from an 85 foot screen), I would need a home screen that was curved, and measured 17 feet across the chord of the arc, as viewed from 13 feet away. Can you imagine Baraka on that screen? Given the discussion in the posts above, 4k might be inadequate!

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

"4K digital projection is so sharp and so rock-steady you really see every detail," says Kim Libreri, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. "It doesn't look like movies you've seen in the past. It's got this hyper-real quality."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...ryid=2222&cs=1

Wow. Considering my local AMC is less than a year old, and uses the DLP units (and looks pretty crappy compared to my Kuro, to be honest) it's likely mine will be at the very tail end of the conversion. I would think they'd need to depreciate the current projectors first.

Gary

[LifeOfAPirate13]

I will never argue over 4k projectors! About time theaters started getting better equipped. Sometimes seeing a movie would look faded and the colors were bland compared to my Samsung. But with these new projectors they should improve theater quality quite nicely!

[OrlandoEastwood]

Originally Posted by LifeOfAPirate13

I will never argue over 4k projectors! About time theaters started getting better equipped. Sometimes seeing a movie would look faded and the colors were bland compared to my Samsung. But with these new projectors they should improve theater quality quite nicely!

Go to a movie theater on a US Base, they get the worse copies around. I lived in Germany and I hated going to the theaters on base. I was always happy whenever the Cineworld Kino got movies in English whenever I was there.

[DougMac]

I haven't set foot in a movie theater since right after I finished my home theater last August, and that was a special occasion (we were on vacation with the grandkids and it was raining). It was the one and only time I've seen digital at the theater. It was OK, but obviously not nice enough to get me back.

I'm going to get a piggy bank and every time I think of going to the theater, I'll make a comparable contribution to go to a new 1080p projector for home.

[tivoman]

I've seen I am Legend and Star Wars: Clone Wars both on Sony 4k digital projectors in Indianapolis and it was excellent. I think at the time I saw I am Legend there were only four theatres in the nation that had them. It's definitely something that would lure me away from my home theatre, along with Imax, and I would love if it would become the standard.