Digital Projection
Is Digital Projection the way forwards for the Cinema Experience? Being naturally curious bods, the Jitty head along to check it out for themselves...
Three members of The Jitty were invited along to the Odeon to watch a digital screening of the latest Pixar animation, Cars, and then would be given a tour of the projection room to satisfy our curiosity. I mean, erm, to do some research. Excuse my slip up there…
We sat in the screen, eagerly awaiting the film, curious as to just how much difference there would be between the digitalised version, and a normal 35mm copy of the film.
The adverts started, and we were thrown. None of us could notice any difference. Were we missing a trick here?
Adverts swiftly out of the way, and we're launched into the main feature. I think there can be only one word: wow!
Even if we were just watching a standard copy of the film, it would be impossible to pick fault at the slick-ness (yes, I made that one up) of the production. As we've come to expect from Pixar.
But watching a digitalised copy? The colours were ten times as vibrant, the image twice as sharp, the sound battered at your eardrums, demanding to be taken note of. The only way I could possibly think of describing it, would be like watching it as a DVD showing on a screen the size of your average wall. Absolutely fantastic.
I'm not going to go on about the film, but it's one that everyone would love.
So, we come out highly impressed. And now, to discover the magic behind it all.
We were taken through the Magical Door of Dreams, up various sets of stairs, and into the heart of the Odeon. A long corridor with projectors firing out left, right and center. Not what I'd imagined at all.
It was here that we met Tom, one of the four projection technicians employed at the cinema. He showed us around, past the clunky boxes filled with reels of film, past the portholes showing films to a crowd of people oblivious to the heart of the operation buzzing away just feet from them. Past screens showing major Hollywood blockbusters ("no, wait, stop, I've not seen this one yet!")
And there we have it. Fifty thousand pounds of digital projector, looking rather dwarfed by the standard projector humming away alongside it.
We stood there awestruck as Tom wound the film backwards and forwards. As he showed us the simple touch-screen Window based controls running alongside a Linux based QuVis system.
And it was there we learned how the Odeon had come by such a fantastic piece of equipment.
The Arts Alliance, in conjunction with the UK Film Council had placed several of these beauties in cinemas nationwide in order to promote independant films across the UK.
The easy load system of just slotting in the hard drive and letting the machine dial up for an encryption key that could be set to a period of weeks, or limited amount of uses means it's more secure than a standard reel...although you'd think someone would notice you trying to steal a hulking great film reel from the projection room.
One click function change settings, one lens that can adjust its focus and screen ratio automatically and the ability to input data from external sources such as a laptop, dvd player...or even an XBox 360 make for easy usage indeed. And could you just imagine a game of Call of Duty 2 on a screen bigger than your bedroom wall?! Amazing.
Tom also went on to explain that as the film is stored on a hard drive, there is no loss of quality through dust damaging the film reel, or interfering as the film is fed through the projector.
We took all this in, our heads spinning lightly. We left the cinema feeling as though we'd just been let into a huge secret.
One thing's for certain though - the future's here. And it's digital.
