Movie studios are trying to kill off film.

[hbenthow]

Movies studios are now attempting to make film go the way of the dinosaur. Because of the lower cost and relative ease of digital projection, the studios are sending a "convert to digital or die" message to theaters everywhere. They have announced that they will completely cease shipping reels of film to theaters within a year. Many studios are are now even refusing to loan out film prints of classic movies to revival houses.

At first, this might not sound so bad. After all, switching to all-digital can save buckets of money. With digital projection, there is no need to make thousands of prints of film, or to pay to have them shipped to theaters. Digital files never got dust or scratches, and look as good when projected for the hundredth time as for the first. And the studios are even paying part of the cost to have digital projectors installed in theaters. But there is a dark side to it all. To many, digital projection looks sterile and lifeless. And digital files are notoriously prone to corruption and technical obsolescence, unlike film, which is far more future-proof. Also, the sudden lack of demand for film is causing most film manufacturers to shut down, making film harder to get for directors like Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson, who prefer to shoot on film. Theaters who cannot afford to put up their portion of the money to convert to digital projection are having to shut down, and revival houses are being hurt by the refusal to loan out archival prints.

The studios stand to profit literally billions of dollars from the decision to switch to digital. But is it really worth it?

http://www.laweekly.com/2012-04-12/film ... Hollywood/

[Rita Hayworth]

I'm totally against digital production because it is not "natural" to me. I seen digital production movies and I feel it is totally "fake" and not "realistic" to me. I rather watch an old movie on TCM than go to a Movie House that shows digital production movies any day of the week.

Digital Production is not my "cup of tea" period ...

[hbenthow]

I'm totally against digital production because it is not "natural" to me. I seen digital production movies and I feel it is totally "fake" and not "realistic" to me. I rather watch an old movie on TCM than go to a Movie House that shows digital production movies any day of the week.

Digital Production is not my "cup of tea" period ...

Having never seen a digitally projected movie, I'm curious about something. Does digital projection resemble HD television, or does it look like something else altogether?

[Rita Hayworth]

I travel to Victoria a lot in my lifetime and there is a movie house that shows movies in Digital format that you are conveying to all of us. Digital Production Movies ... I saw a couple of minor movies ... can't remember the titles of the movies but they were short in length and they are bad for those who have a hearing disability like me because the sound is digital and somewhat enhanced that resembled HD in quality but with a boost in decibels ... it is a fan for the younger generations ... ages 16 to 35.

To me, its a cross between HD, Increased Sound (not by that much), More Computerized, and most of all more color enhancement and its bad for film goers that has any form of color blindness.

I seen two of these types of film and I just don't care for it.

[hbenthow]

I've never seen a digitally projected movie myself, but I've heard a lot of complaints about it. The most common complaint I hear is that it looks sterile and lifeless, and the second most common is that, like you said, it looks "fake". Unfortunately, the studios don't care about any of that. All they can see is that digital projection costs them less money, so they're forcing it on all of the theaters.

[Professional Tourist]

I haven't been to the cinema in a couple of years, but prior to that I had seen several new movies in digital projection. I must admit I don't see any difference at all, but then I am a little near-sighted. Likewise with digital photography and digital music, I don't find any difference provided the resolution is high.

So a switch to all digital projection in the cinema doesn't bother me, even if I were still attending regularly. What is a loss is the closure of theaters whose owners cannot afford to convert their operations. I was reading an article this past weekend about theaters on certain military bases around the U.S. that are closing for that reason -- it will be a true loss for families who live on base. And it will also be a loss if revival houses, film festivals, and film societies can no longer get film prints of classic movies.

Regarding future-proofing movies, the concept of 'variable media' has been around for a while. Artists who create in Flash or other specific electronic environments, for example, want to make sure that their work can still be displayed when the time comes that there's no such thing as Flash Player. This involves more planning and keeping up with conversion of formats than when creating on canvas or paper. With film, up until now, as format and medium have evolved from VHS to laser disc to DVD to Blu-Ray, for example, studios have been able to go back to the original film and re-scan when preparing to release a movie for the latest-and-greatest format. Once there is no original film but a digital file, then it is (or should be) incumbent upon the studios to keep up with transferring the digital files from one form of media to another before the current format/medium is obsolete -- and this involves both file format conversion and media transfer. [Know many people who still have Zip drives or Jaz drives? Even if existing discs contained Jpeg or Word files, which are still current formats, how could they be accessed on a modern PC?] So in the long run this may be more work for the studios than was storing film cans and then rescanning when ready to re-release in a new format.

[ChiO]

A long, but interesting (to me), discussion on how movies are -- and may be in the future -- watched.

http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/2 ... -it-right/

[hbenthow]

A long, but interesting (to me), discussion on how movies are -- and may be in the future -- watched.

http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/2 ... -it-right/

I didn't read the whole thing, but I skimmed through it. It's pretty interesting. I really hope that physical media doesn't go extinct. There's just something about having a tangible book, record, CD, film reel, DVD, etc, that I like much better than just being able to access it somewhere on the Internet or having it stored on a hard drive.