What exactly is a DLP theater?

[Slickone]

I noticed a movie theater here has DLP on the marquee for one of their theater rooms now. Would it be much better than the normal projection normally used? Is this the same thing as Digital Cinema that people were raving about seeing Star Wars Ep 2 & 3 in when they came out? I question because just last year there were no Digital Cinemas withing a couple hundred miles of me (a large city), and only like 70 in the country, but now I see most theaters seem to have DLP. Yet this a search shows several theaters near me have DLP now.

 

[zephyrprime]

It's a theater that uses digital light projection chips from Texes Instruments similiar to those found in so many home theaters nowadays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dlp

In terms of image quality, I don't think it's so hot because the screen door effect is really visible and the resolution is pretty low. On the plus side, there are never any visible fibers projected on the screen and there are no burned out little spots on the screen anymore.

The equipment is expensive for theaters but they hope to save money over the long term because they can avoid getting reels of film which are actually quite expensive and maybe it'd be easier to manage all the screens also (not sure about that).

 

[krotchy]

Digital cinema is kinda a double edged sword. The screen door effect is pretty aparent on the digital projectors they use when doing the garbage ad's before movies at AMC theatres. I suspect they are using 2K DLP projectors though. (2048x1080 pixels). 4K projectors would likely be very good for digital cinema, so if they have those, the screen door effect will be very muted, and I suspect this would allow for a very good movie experience. 4K has 4 times more pixels than 2K.

Recently I read about a company that created an 8K projector, or at least source video that was in 8K format. Turns out the projector is actually 4 4K projectors digitally combined to create one giant 8196x4160 resolution movie.

The reason for the switch to digital cinema, is that it can cost ALOT of money to send out a film reel to every screen that is planning on showing a movie. The reels themself are incredibly expensive simply to produce. However with digital cinema, as long as the source server has a big enough data array, studios could theoretically stream the video to the movie theatre one time, and that theatre would have the movie availible on as many screens as it chooses.

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: krotchy
Digital cinema is kinda a double edged sword. The screen door effect is pretty aparent on the digital projectors they use when doing the garbage ad's before movies at AMC theatres. I suspect they are using 2K DLP projectors though. (2048x1080 pixels). 4K projectors would likely be very good for digital cinema, so if they have those, the screen door effect will be very muted, and I suspect this would allow for a very good movie experience. 4K has 4 times more pixels than 2K.

Recently I read about a company that created an 8K projector, or at least source video that was in 8K format. Turns out the projector is actually 4 4K projectors digitally combined to create one giant 8196x4160 resolution movie.

The reason for the switch to digital cinema, is that it can cost ALOT of money to send out a film reel to every screen that is planning on showing a movie. The reels themself are incredibly expensive simply to produce. However with digital cinema, as long as the source server has a big enough data array, studios could theoretically stream the video to the movie theatre one time, and that theatre would have the movie availible on as many screens as it chooses.

And kiddies at home with uber storage arrays can pirate full theater movies

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: blckgrffn

Originally posted by: krotchy
Digital cinema is kinda a double edged sword. The screen door effect is pretty aparent on the digital projectors they use when doing the garbage ad's before movies at AMC theatres. I suspect they are using 2K DLP projectors though. (2048x1080 pixels). 4K projectors would likely be very good for digital cinema, so if they have those, the screen door effect will be very muted, and I suspect this would allow for a very good movie experience. 4K has 4 times more pixels than 2K.

Recently I read about a company that created an 8K projector, or at least source video that was in 8K format. Turns out the projector is actually 4 4K projectors digitally combined to create one giant 8196x4160 resolution movie.

The reason for the switch to digital cinema, is that it can cost ALOT of money to send out a film reel to every screen that is planning on showing a movie. The reels themself are incredibly expensive simply to produce. However with digital cinema, as long as the source server has a big enough data array, studios could theoretically stream the video to the movie theatre one time, and that theatre would have the movie availible on as many screens as it chooses.

And kiddies at home with uber storage arrays can pirate full theater movies

How many kiddies have the money for a 4k projector?

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: krotchy

Originally posted by: blckgrffn

Originally posted by: krotchy
Digital cinema is kinda a double edged sword. The screen door effect is pretty aparent on the digital projectors they use when doing the garbage ad's before movies at AMC theatres. I suspect they are using 2K DLP projectors though. (2048x1080 pixels). 4K projectors would likely be very good for digital cinema, so if they have those, the screen door effect will be very muted, and I suspect this would allow for a very good movie experience. 4K has 4 times more pixels than 2K.

Recently I read about a company that created an 8K projector, or at least source video that was in 8K format. Turns out the projector is actually 4 4K projectors digitally combined to create one giant 8196x4160 resolution movie.

The reason for the switch to digital cinema, is that it can cost ALOT of money to send out a film reel to every screen that is planning on showing a movie. The reels themself are incredibly expensive simply to produce. However with digital cinema, as long as the source server has a big enough data array, studios could theoretically stream the video to the movie theatre one time, and that theatre would have the movie availible on as many screens as it chooses.

And kiddies at home with uber storage arrays can pirate full theater movies

How many kiddies have the money for a 4k projector?

I was suggesting more about hackers replacing bootlegs with full quality theater movies. You don't need a huge projector appreciate the high-defness and coolness of having a new release at home to impress your buddies.

Nat

*this is more about the switch to digital and less about the whole DLP/projector aspect...

 

[Slickone]

I should have stated I do (think) I know what DLP is (at least with TV), but thought it was just a method of projecting the video, regardless of the source (digital/analog). But my main question was I didn't know (and still don't) if it was the same thing as Digital Cinema, since Digital Cinema is a Dolby Labs technology, and every time I've ever read about or heard Digital Cinema mentioned (ie. back w/ Star Wars Ep 2,3), DLP was never mentioned once. And people were talking about how much better it was seeing it in a Digital Cinema vs. a regular one. So good that we almost drove 6 hours roundtrip to one. Yet you seem to be saying it's not really that great.

So are you saying these theaters with DLP are Dolby Labs certified Digital Cinemas? And their video source is digital?

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: Slickone
I should have stated I do (think) I know what DLP is (at least with TV), but thought it was just a method of projecting the video, regardless of the source (digital/analog). But my main question was I didn't know (and still don't) if it was the same thing as Digital Cinema, since Digital Cinema is a Dolby Labs technology, and every time I've ever read about or heard Digital Cinema mentioned (ie. back w/ Star Wars Ep 2,3), DLP was never mentioned once. And people were talking about how much better it was seeing it in a Digital Cinema vs. a regular one. So good that we almost drove 6 hours roundtrip to one. Yet you seem to be saying it's not really that great.

So are you saying these theaters with DLP are Dolby Labs certified Digital Cinemas? And their video source is digital?

We had this in our little podunk town theater that got rebuilt (at least I think we did, I remember that we were one of the few theaters in the country to show the SW prequels in their full digital glory) and frankly, whoop-de-doo. It sounds like it is more for decreasing distribution costs than anything else.

Nat

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: Slickone
I should have stated I do (think) I know what DLP is (at least with TV), but thought it was just a method of projecting the video, regardless of the source (digital/analog). But my main question was I didn't know (and still don't) if it was the same thing as Digital Cinema, since Digital Cinema is a Dolby Labs technology, and every time I've ever read about or heard Digital Cinema mentioned (ie. back w/ Star Wars Ep 2,3), DLP was never mentioned once. And people were talking about how much better it was seeing it in a Digital Cinema vs. a regular one. So good that we almost drove 6 hours roundtrip to one. Yet you seem to be saying it's not really that great.

So are you saying these theaters with DLP are Dolby Labs certified Digital Cinemas? And their video source is digital?

With digital projection theres alot of methods you can deal with. The 2 that have become the most popular are 3 Chip DLP and 3 Chip LCOS, because they are relatively cheap to produce. If you know what a DLP TV is, then you know what a DLP projector is.

Basically a 3 Chip DLP projector, has 1 chip each decicated to R, G and B. A DLP chip itself contains millions of tiny mirrors that are switching at high speeds to create pixels on screen. Each pixel's brightness is based on the position of the mirror and the amount of time the mirror is directing the light for a specific color.

The difference between the TV and the projector is that, the tiny mirrors instead of focusing the light onto the back of the screen on a DLP TV, are projected outside like any other projector. 3 Chip DLP systems are generally only found in Projectors, while TVs generally only have one chip and a color wheel. With a 3 Chip DLP projector, you can get discrete pixels, which are 100% digital, at increadibly high refresh rates and contrast ratios. Also there is no rainbow effect with 3 chip DLP's like you can experience with color wheel DLP TV's.

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: Slickone
I should have stated I do (think) I know what DLP is (at least with TV), but thought it was just a method of projecting the video, regardless of the source (digital/analog). But my main question was I didn't know (and still don't) if it was the same thing as Digital Cinema, since Digital Cinema is a Dolby Labs technology, and every time I've ever read about or heard Digital Cinema mentioned (ie. back w/ Star Wars Ep 2,3), DLP was never mentioned once. And people were talking about how much better it was seeing it in a Digital Cinema vs. a regular one. So good that we almost drove 6 hours roundtrip to one. Yet you seem to be saying it's not really that great.

So are you saying these theaters with DLP are Dolby Labs certified Digital Cinemas? And their video source is digital?

Glancing through Dolby's Digital Cinema page, it appears their Digital Cinema certification just handles the movie storage/delivery system and not the actual presentation system. So a theater could theoretically have a DLP projector but not be a Dolby Digital cinema and vice versa.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: blckgrffn
We had this in our little podunk town theater that got rebuilt (at least I think we did, I remember that we were one of the few theaters in the country to show the SW prequels in their full digital glory) and frankly, whoop-de-doo. It sounds like it is more for decreasing distribution costs than anything else.

Nat

This should decrease the overall costs involved in running a theater. These savings can then be passed on to the consumers! No wait...that was in the twilight zone, in the real world, movie theater owners would just raise prices since they figure they can bilk you for more money due to the "digital experience" of the new projectors.

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: Boogak

Originally posted by: Slickone
I should have stated I do (think) I know what DLP is (at least with TV), but thought it was just a method of projecting the video, regardless of the source (digital/analog). But my main question was I didn't know (and still don't) if it was the same thing as Digital Cinema, since Digital Cinema is a Dolby Labs technology, and every time I've ever read about or heard Digital Cinema mentioned (ie. back w/ Star Wars Ep 2,3), DLP was never mentioned once. And people were talking about how much better it was seeing it in a Digital Cinema vs. a regular one. So good that we almost drove 6 hours roundtrip to one. Yet you seem to be saying it's not really that great.

So are you saying these theaters with DLP are Dolby Labs certified Digital Cinemas? And their video source is digital?

Glancing through Dolby's Digital Cinema page, it appears their Digital Cinema certification just handles the movie storage/delivery system and not the actual presentation system. So a theater could theoretically have a DLP projector but not be a Dolby Digital cinema and vice versa.

That's what I was thinking, but that's not what the others seemed to be thinking (or at least saying), or what anyone might think when reading TI's DLP website.

Also in that case, perhaps blckgrffn didn't get the full effect if he only saw it in a DLP theater and not (?) a Digital Cinema theater. Since again, I never saw DLP mentioned with the SW prequels talk; only Digital Cinema. And many people that saw the prequels in them really were saying good things about them.

 

[blckgrffn]

My guess is that it doesn't matter much compared to regular film if you are watching the first or second pass. It's when the film degrades from the heat that it visibly degrades, and this is where a digital version would be nicer.

My theater isn't on the list, but I know they advertised it as one of only ~60 theaters showing it in full digital, and people drove from all over (and continue to do so) to see the SW prequels and other movies even though it doesn't even have stadium seating...

Nat