On Friday, August 26, 2005, at 09:25 PM, John Francis wrote:
But there _is_ a compelling reason to change - the cost of
distribution,
storage space, etc. If you look at how much a cinema pays each week
for
the reels of film, and compare that with how much they'd have to pay
for
either shipping a box of DVDs or just simply downloading over a fast
link
a digital projector easily pays for itself over its estimated lifetime.
Add to that the fact that the studios, distributors, etc. *want*
digital
distribution rather than shipping film (they still think that they can
come up with a rights management scheme that crackers can't break), and
you can expect to see digital rapidly replacing film over the next
years.
It isn't so much shipping film as the cost and logistics of making all
of those prints to send to every single theater. If a film opens
nationwide on a certain day, that's many thousands of prints to have
made in time and shipped on time by courier.
The digital scheme I hear talked about most would involve encrypted
feeds from satellites direct to the theaters. Nothing to physically
ship other than promotional posters and such, and I can see theaters
outfitted with wide feed inkjet printers for that.
But this really has nothing to do with whether the movie is shot on
film or digital. The majority of movies are still shot on film because
that's how production crews and directors learned to work. There are
also some strong unions that have to be dealt with in making the
transition to digital shooting. Then there is the "look" of film,
which is completely different from the "look" of digital video.
If you want to know what is happening in this field, look for DV
(Digital Video) magazine.
Bob
