my experience with 'digital' projection systems, regardless of the 'digital' storage format is this:
i have a 12,000 lum projector. it accepts componant in, s-video in, and regular video in. i have a dish on my roof that points to another roof 6 miles away. that roof has a big dish that subscribes to various tv and internet feeds. in turn, i subscribe to a portion of those services thereof. in such, my television and internet all come through the same dish ... similar to directv, or sky, or dish networks, but this one is more like a wireless router/bridge that gets its signal from what is called an earth station.
as such, the box/router/whatever its called has optical(audio) out, componant out, s-video out, and ethernet(data, internet) out from the router box that is connected to the dish on my house. i have the all of these(except the ethernet connection)hooked into my AV receiver. from there, i take the optical and componant signals out to the dvd/hdd recorder. from that device i take the the componant out to my 12,000 ansi lum projector. from the AV receiver i send componant to my hdtv. so i have the option to watch on a television, or on a projector. when i watch regular tv, i use the tv. when i rent dvd's, i watch them using the projector. now then, there are some signals i receive through the satellite service that are obviously more detailed/clear/clean/crisp then others. but only some programs, and only some channels, and only some of the time. these shows, i am able to view them in excellent picture quality with the project set at 5 meters screen width. if it is normal programming, 5 meters looks good, but not crisp. dvd is about the same as the regular progamming at 5 meters width. if i take the projector down to 2 meters width, my dvd's look the same as those special programs at 5 meters width. i still have not figured it all out yet, but both my TV and projector automattically know when a higher res programm is being displayed, and it therefore displays it. so what gives? are these higher res programs sending more data at one time? or is the data they are sending better quality, same sized data as all the other programs?
i have recorded all three onto the panasonic hard drive at high resolution. if i record a dvd to hdd, it looks the exact same as the dvd. if i record a regular tv program to hdd, it looks the same, or a little worse/pixally. if i record one of those high res programs, it looks better. so if the recorder is recording the same way for all three signals, then it would indicate the same signal can carry better or worse quality / resolution images/programs. correct? i have s-video out and into my mac, and when those high-res shows are playing, the mac does not recognize the differance(well, i sued to have the mac, just traded it for a 7008p
, and the picture quality is the same. so that means that the hdd recorder, and the hdtv, and the hdtv 12,000 ansi lum projector have some special hardware that recognizes better quality programs/pictures. correct? when a particular program is in higher rs, a pop-up screen with tell me something like 480i, or 576i, or 1080/60i(or 24i, cant remember). now although i do not have the room, it is claimed this projector can project 36'. so considering the 5 meters/15-2 feet image quality is excelent with the abov mentioned special programs, i would think it would also look good at the 36' they claim in the owners manual. how big is a movie theatre projector?
anyways, what i am trying to explain is, i dont think the theatres will be using dvd's to show the movies, i think they will be using what is called hd. i think the special programs i see sometimes on my tele is called sd. but i am not certain. but now that i think about it, it is starting to make sense to me ... the new cameras like the panasonic and jvc have dv, sd and hd recording capabilities. however, i do not know if you can record usingthe hd setting, and then copy it onto your computer via the firewire port as is done with the dv setting. but no matter, all three are recording to the same media/tape. so that means that conceivably a dvd could 'store' hd data, it would then be a question of having a reader that could play back that stored data ... cause thats all a dvd is, a storage device. so if a movie that is dv quality fits onto a dvd storage device/disk, then what about that same movie that is sd or hd quality.
i am running into these issues as i write this. i am trying to figure out what video camera to get, so that when i make my dvd, am able to use the minimal type of equipment, for the maximum possible resolution that is possible for the typical dvd consumer deck, hence what is typical for the average dvd authoring codec/compression algo/image-picture quality. the folks at pro8mm.com are having to do something for me that they have not down to date. my film that has been telecined to digibeta, serve me no purpose unless i have a digibeta deck. and because i do not even have a DV recorder/deck, i cant have them send me a dv tape. and if they send me a DVD disc with my footage, i have no way of getting that footage off of the dvd and onto my computer for making some mpeg or mov's to post to this site to show the differances in the film stocks i used with all the various lens/lighting/fps/asa/etc tests i conducted. i thought i could use my panasonic dvd/hdd deck to output viw firewire to my sony laptop, which has firewire. but that deck does not have firewire out, only componant and s-video, and my laptop does not have those inputs. so i had asked if pro8mm, during their transfer process, and 'before' their dvd authoring process, take the digitzed film files, and save them onto cd rom for me. but neither i, nor they, know if this will work. will it work? in other words, does when one takes a digibeta tape and using an sdi cable to capture onto a nle computer, what file format is that footage saved as? is it mpeg? mov? what? whatever file format it is, it can be saved onto any type of storage media, including cd rom ... correct? i am not saying i am going to play it on the cd rom, i am simply going to copy it from the cd rom onto my computer, and then open it up using my video editing software. but i am out of my league here ... i do not know what is possible. i will not have my new mac for another 3 weeks, so in the meantime, i wanted to take those 20 rolls of film and make mpeg movies that i can transfer into the ftp directory of this site, so others can see the differances in the various film tests. if anyone can offer me a interim solution, i would really apreciate it!! think of it as a benefit to the members, as 'every' film stock was used in these tests under almost 'ever'y lighting condition using a wide array of lenses with every f-stop/iris setitng and every on-camera asa setting and at all fps settings and a good deal of combonations thereof.
so this was a rambling message with both info and questions ... sorry i mixed it all up, but thats just how it came out.
eric.
so if this is the case, then i would assume the theatre in question