France Goes Digital

[flavious27]

That would work for a 35mm presentation but the IMAX screens are significantly larger.

Screen size doesn't matter when it is not a fixed number. IMAX screens come in a whole range of sizes, they are typically larger because the audience is positioned closer to the screen.

When comparing between IMAX and a digital format, you need to look at what the resolution is. An IMAX film has about 4500 lines of vertical resolution, 4k is at 3112 lines.

This graph shows that IMAX has a large resolution, but the trade off for disney is just have a hard drive connected to the projectors instead of a huge platter of film.

 

[Expo_Seeker40]

Have to count me out as a fan of film for disney parks. They are played so much, so many times a day, and barely taken care of. Am glad impressions de france can be preserved digitally. Saw it a last month and the films were out of sync, and so many dust and scratch marks.

 

[Magenta Panther]

The France pavilion movie "Impressions de France" has gone digital. It is the same movie and same soundtrack, no changes, the only thing that changed was the media.

I heard that it is greatly improved really crisp and clean images and remastered it and adjusted some color and some alignment issues.

Great news, thanks!

I hope the same treatment is given to Philharmagic soon. Last time I saw it, it looked kind of blurry.

 

[s8film40]

Screen size doesn't matter when it is not a fixed number. IMAX screens come in a whole range of sizes, they are typically larger because the audience is positioned closer to the screen.

When comparing between IMAX and a digital format, you need to look at what the resolution is. An IMAX film has about 4500 lines of vertical resolution, 4k is at 3112 lines.

This graph shows that IMAX has a large resolution, but the trade off for disney is just have a hard drive connected to the projectors instead of a huge platter of film.

Screen size and resolution are both a factor in IMAX, especially in the case of Soarin' where you have a large image and your positioned very close to the screen where you can pick up small details. There is no "lines of resolution" or pixel dimensions for film, film is made up of grains not pixels or lines. It is usually compared to video in this way however by determining at what point it becomes a reasonably indiscernible difference. In reality capturing new data can still be achieved with a 35MM film all the way up to an 8K scan. While you could "get by" with a 4K projector for a 35MM film projected at a large scale it still wouldn't achieve the same level of quality as you would be loosing some resolution. IMAX however has a significantly larger film frame and with that comes a significantly larger amount of resolution to project.

 

[flavious27]

Screen size and resolution are both a factor in IMAX, especially in the case of Soarin' where you have a large image and your positioned very close to the screen where you can pick up small details. There is no "lines of resolution" or pixel dimensions for film, film is made up of grains not pixels or lines. It is usually compared to video in this way however by determining at what point it becomes a reasonably indiscernible difference. In reality capturing new data can still be achieved with a 35MM film all the way up to an 8K scan. While you could "get by" with a 4K projector for a 35MM film projected at a large scale it still wouldn't achieve the same level of quality as you would be loosing some resolution. IMAX however has a significantly larger film frame and with that comes a significantly larger amount of resolution to project.

True, but for disney, it would be smarter to go digital and use 4k or 8k projectors instead of use IMAX. The quality is going to be slightly less, but the lesser operating costs and lack of deterioration will even itself for disney.

 

[s8film40]

True, but for disney, it would be smarter to go digital and use 4k or 8k projectors instead of use IMAX. The quality is going to be slightly less, but the lesser operating costs and lack of deterioration will even itself for disney.

Well the problem is with an attraction like Soarin' the image is so large and you are so close to it that even with the IMAX format you can see some graininess. If you dropped the resolution down to video comparable to 35MM film you would have a very annoying "screen door" effect as the pixels would be very large and noticeable.

Kind of like this:

 

[dr_teeth90210]

I finally got around today to seeing the digitally upgraded "Impressions". The film does look more clear but I came away disappointed. They over saturated the colors during the "restoration" process and the film has lost much of it's contrast. There was definitely a loss of dynamic range.

The warm and inviting feeling has been replaced with digital MEH. I really wished they would have just stuck with cleaning the film prints.

 

[dxwwf3]

Personally I thought the film looked fantastic. Best attraction in WS

 

[OnWithTheShow]

Both film and digital have their downsides.

With film you have to worry about the gradual fading of the medium with the eventual lose of image clarity and color. In addition you have the dust and grime which can lead to the specs and hairs noticeable on screen. Films with the audio data on the medium will also gradually loose audio clarity and gain extraneous noise. (Not sure if any WDW attractions store the audio data on the film but I doubt it). Then you get into the mechanics of the projector itself. For film all you need to worry about for the most part is the lamp, shutter, and motor. As the lamp ages it decreases in intensity giving a darker picture. If not maintained the shutter can also produce a noticeable onscreen flicker (this is definitely beginning to happen on Soarin)

Digital has its own problems while the source material wont degrade you still get a dimmer picture as the lamp ages and the color will gradually degrade also as the filters burn out. You also have to worry about the sudden loss of data signal which seems to be occurring quite a bit on Star Tours and Midway Mania.

In the end I imagine nowadays it is cheaper to put in new data projectors every few years than worry about maintaining film prints and aging projectors. One can only hope that maintenance is going to follow a reasonable service schedule for their data projectors.

 

[NoChesterHester]

Screen size doesn't matter when it is not a fixed number. IMAX screens come in a whole range of sizes, they are typically larger because the audience is positioned closer to the screen.

When comparing between IMAX and a digital format, you need to look at what the resolution is. An IMAX film has about 4500 lines of vertical resolution, 4k is at 3112 lines.

This graph shows that IMAX has a large resolution, but the trade off for disney is just have a hard drive connected to the projectors instead of a huge platter of film.

Interesting. Thanks. I had no idea there was THAT big of a difference.

 

[flavious27]

Interesting. Thanks. I had no idea there was THAT big of a difference.

Between 1080p and 4k/imax or 4k and imax? There is going to be a trade-off in quality using 4k instead of imax but digital is easier to maintain and run than imax. Disney could use 8k, which is only a couple hundred lines of resolutions off, it matters how much they are willing to spend to get that close to imax.

For disney to revamp every show with a 4k or 8k projector system, the prices will have to come down to a point that disney would be losing money by not switching over.

 

[Communicore]

I saw this today for the first time since the 90's. I like the remaster, it makes Soarin' look old and dated. It also does not seem as 80's as it used to be for some reason. Those 80's cars are awesome!

 

[officeboy]

I was of the impression that Simpsons in FL was 6 or 8x Sony 4K custom projectors. The projectors were custom built for the room with special optics and light engine. They had to overhaul the air conditioners to deal with the added heat load from the projectors.

Been a while since I heard all that though...

Can't wait to see how the IDF show looks now. The roll off in the corners was getting annoying. Was that originally acquired in 35? sometimes it seems really grainy to me and I wonder if maybe portions were shot in S16.

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

Great news it can now look like dated ________ with great clarity.

 

[MarkTwain]

^ Pumbas! You're back!! :sohappy:

Your deep yet biting sarcasm has been sorely missed.

 

[flavious27]

Sony’s First Ever 4K Home Theater Projector Shoots Super Resolution for Super Cash

Sony’s F65 CineAlta 4K Camera Is a High-End Hollywood Monster

These two articles came up on gizmodo and I thought back to this thread, good thing someone resurrected it.

I don't see and hope that disney isn't going to use a bunch of 4k projectors as the main viewing source for an attraction like sorain and not even Impressions de France. But there are uses throughout the park that they can update their projector systems to this larger resolution format. Along with that, I can see a need in the parks for a 4k camera to capture video. I hope that the castle won't be a projection screen for home videos for long, but this camera would make them look better.

 

[flynnibus]

If just talking about display size.. 4k isn't the solution... you do what everyone else does for high resolution today... you sew multiple screens/projections together through video processing. This is what builds 'video walls' and other oversized displays you have today.

You're still bound by the DPI of the display technology, but you can expand the canvas greatly this way.

 

[AEfx]

Great news it can now look like dated ________ with great clarity.

LOL that was my very first reaction as well.

 

[BrightImagine]

I think this film is a timeless representation of its country. I'd be sad if it got updated... plus it's one of the last places I feel connected to "old" EPCOT. I can't wait to see it in a couple of weeks.

 

[flavious27]

If just talking about display size.. 4k isn't the solution... you do what everyone else does for high resolution today... you sew multiple screens/projections together through video processing. This is what builds 'video walls' and other oversized displays you have today.

You're still bound by the DPI of the display technology, but you can expand the canvas greatly this way.

I really wasn't looking at using a multi-projector setup, but instead replacing any of projectors on the smaller screens like the one in the main street cinema. The quality would be increased and futuresproofs what they could do, along with getting sponsorship for it.