[geeks] Hello?

[Francois Dion]

On 7/18/07, Joshua D. Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 10:36 -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> > On Jul 18, 2007, at 10:31 AM, Brooke Gravitt wrote:
> > > It's been quiet out here. Is anyone home? Did everyone go to see
> > > Transformers and forget to tell me?
> > I went a few days ago.  Saw it on a digital screen.
>
> I've yet to be able to see anything in digital.  It doesn't help that
> Fandango doesn't say what I'll be seeing at any particular time.

Am I the only one that is underwhelmed by digital movie theathers?

When I was young, I lived in Montreal and we'd go to see movies on
70mm. Near Philips Square was a pretty good theater there. The
effective resolution of 70mm film would require almost 10K pixels wide
in a digital format. Then starting in 1986 we would go and watch IMAX
and 360 movies (in Vancouver and Montreal). The effective resolution
of current IMAX film would require about 18K pixels wide. I still
remember the feeling when, in a movie (cant remember what it was
called), a skier jumping of a cliff with a parachute. On the curved
IMAX screen, covering your whole FOV... wow. Almost fell off the seat.

Now, I can have the privilege to pay a much higher admission fee (and
$5+ soda) and get no better than a home theater setup (2K wide in most
digital movie theaters, 4K in certain areas). Progress...

Everytime we have switched from analog to digital happened to be when
it was, not superior, but merely acceptable. This is not done for
quality, but completely for commercial gains.

DVDs are probably the only area where we have gained something, for
those of us who are multilingual: buy one movie and get english,
french and spanish (for example) soundtracks for the same price.

Francois