DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

1. Introduction

An average household today is loaded with digital technology. A well equipped home may have some or all of the following devices:-

A personal computer A DVD player Several CD players A CD burner A digital camera A digital camcorder A digital gaming console A computer scanner A digital television set Several digital mobile phones A digital satellite reception system A digital video recorder

Clearly, digital technology has already taken over much of the home entertainment market. It seems strange, then, that the vast majority of theatrical motion pictures are shot and distributed on Celluloid film tape just like they were more than a

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

century ago. Of course, the technology has improved over the years, but it's still based on the same basic principles. The reason is simple: Up until recently, nothing could come close to the image quality of projected film. Firstly a video shot with a digital camcorder does not have a sufficiently large resolution to be projected on the big screen. Also, the colour range that each pixel can represent is very limited. A pixel must be able to take more than a trillion colours, to come close to the quality of video recorded on conventional film tape. As a result the video from a camcorder is unfit to be used for movies.

But things are starting to change. George Lucas kicked off the digital cinema charge in May of 2002 with Star Wars: Episode II, the Attack of the Clones, the first big budget live action movie shot entirely on digital video. Most theatres played 35-mm film transfers of the movie, but some played it on digital movie projectors. Film never entered the picture. With more and more filmmakers embracing the new technology, including big names like Steven Soderbergh and Robert Rodriguez, digital cinema is well on its way.

2. Elements of Digital Cinema

Digital cinema is simply a new approach to making and showing movies. The basic idea is to use Bits and Bytes (Strings of 1s and 0s) to record, transmit and replay images, rather than using chemicals on film.

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

The main advantage of digital technology (such as a CD) is that it can store, transmit and retrieve a huge amount of information exactly as it was originally recorded. Analog technology (such as an Audio Tape) loses information in transmission, and generally degrades with each viewing.

Digital information is also a lot more flexible than analog information. A computer can manipulate bytes of data very easily, but it can't do much with a streaming analog signal. It's a completely different language. Digital cinema affects three major areas of movie-making:

Production - how the movie is actually made Distribution - how the movie gets from the production

company to movie theaters

Projection - how the theater presents the movie

Production
With an Rs.20,000 consumer digital camcorder, a stack of tapes, a computer and some video-editing software, you could make a digital movie. But there are a couple of problems with this approach. First, your image resolution won't be that great on a big movie screen. Second, your movie will look like news footage, not a normal theatrical film. Conventional video has a completely different look from film, and just about anybody can tell the difference in a second.

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Film and video differ a lot in image clarity, depth of focus and colour range, but the biggest contrast is frame rate. Film cameras normally shoot at 24 frames per second, while most television video cameras shoot at 30 frames per second (29.97 per second, to be exact). Most video footage is also interlaced -- each frame is split into two sets of horizontal lines that fit together. Video is designed this way to work with the standard television format. A television's electron beam paints every other line as it moves down the screen (for example, every odd-numbered line). Then, the next time it moves down the screen, it paints the even-numbered lines, alternating back and forth between even-numbered and odd-numbered lines on each pass.

All of these factors give conventional video a completely different flavor than film -- the image seems to move differently. In order to mimic the characteristic look of film, movie-makers use digital camcorders that shoot like film cameras. For example, George Lucas shot "Attack of the Clones" with Sony HDW-F900 HDCAM camcorders outfitted with high-end Panavision lenses. These camcorders can shoot conventional 30frame interlaced footage, but you can also set them to shoot 24 frames per second, just like film cameras. On this setting, the camera can shoot progressive video -- video made up of complete frames instead of interlaced fields. The camera also has a similar light range and depth of field to film cameras.

These professional digital camcorders work on the same basic idea as cheaper consumer models. They use charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to convert the incoming

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

light from a scene into an electronic signal, and an analog-to-digital converter to turn this signal into a stream of 1s and 0s.

Other than frame rate, the main difference between a professional camcorder and a consumer model is image quality. Professional camcorders use higher-resolution CCDs to pick up more information from the scene. For example, the HDW-F900 records 1920 x 1080 pixels. They also use more CCDs than cheaper models. Inside the camera, a beam splitter separates the light from the scene into red, green and blue light. The camera records each colour of light with a separate CCD in order to capture the full colour range. When you recombine these colours, you retrieve the full colour image. Cheaper camcorders use a single CCD to capture all colours of light, which compromises image quality a good deal.

Sony HDW-F900 camcorders record in a high-definition format called HDCAM, which is designed to rival film in image resolution and to adapt well to a variety of other video formats used around the world.

Experts disagree on whether digital video is up to the quality standards of film, but it is definitely close. If a filmmaker is satisfied with the image quality, there are some distinct advantages to using video.

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA Production Benefits

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Apart from image quality, there are two huge differences between film and digital video: cost and flexibility.

Cost Film is hundreds of times more expensive than digital video. The raw video alone is extremely cheap, and there is virtually no processing involved before the editing stage. Filmmakers on a real shoe-string budget can even re-use the tape multiple times. By Hollywood standards, digital video costs nearly nothing. The "Star Wars" crew can definitely back this up. In an interview Rick McCallum, one of the producers on "Attack of the Clones," said they spent $16,000 on 220 hours of digital tape, and they would have spent about $1.8 million on 220 hours of film.

Flexibility For the filmmaker, the most exciting element of digital technology is how easy it is to use. Most filmmakers have already switched to digital editing systems because they make it so much simpler to put a movie together. In the current process, filmmakers actually convert the film footage to a digital format for post-production and then back to film again for its theatrical release. The conversion process is costly, it ends up degrading the image quality somewhat, and it takes time.

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Digital video doesn't have to go through this conversion process. As soon as they shoot digital footage, filmmakers can immediately play it back and start editing it. With film, they have to send the footage off for processing before they know what they have. A director might spend all day shooting only to discover the lighting was off and the footage is totally unusable. On the "Attack of the Clones" set, the crew could review the footage after every shot. They could shoot a scene in the morning and start editing it that afternoon.

Additionally, the crew doesn't have to get extensive coverage (repeated takes) in case something looks wrong. They know right away if there were any problems.

Distribution
For the business side of the movie industry, the most compelling aspect of digital cinema is distribution. In today's system, production companies spend a lot of money producing film prints of their movies. Then, working with distribution companies, they spend even more money shipping the heavy reels of film to theaters all over the world, only to collect them again when the movie finishes its run.

Because the distribution costs are so high, production companies have to be extremely cautious about where they play their movies. Unless they have a sure-fire hit, they take a pretty big risk sending a film to a lot of theaters. If it bombs, they might not make their money back.

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

If you take the physical film out of the equation, things get a lot cheaper. Digital movies are basically big computer files, and just like computer files, you can write them to a DVD-ROM, send them through broadband cable or transmit them via satellite. There are virtually no shipping costs, and it doesn't cost the production company much more to show the movie in 100 theaters than in one theater. With this distribution system, production companies could easily open movies in theaters all over the world on the same day. The digital distribution system also helps out the individual theaters. If a movie sells out, a theater could decide to show it on additional screens on the spur of the moment. They simply connect to the digital signal. Theaters could also show live sporting events and other digital programming.

Projection
To the audience, the most important aspect of digital cinema is the projection system. This is the final piece of technology that controls how the movie actually looks at the end of the line. Pretty much everybody agrees that a good film projector loaded with a pristine film print produces a fantastic, vibrant picture. The problem is, every time you play the movie, the film quality drops a little. When you go to a movie that's been playing for a few weeks, you'll probably see hundreds of scratches and bits of dirt.

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Many critics hold that a projected digital movie is inferior to a pristine film print, but they recognize that while a film print gradually degrades, a digital movie looks the same every time you show it. Think of a CD as compared to an audio tape. Every time you play an audio tape, the sound gets a little warped. A CD's digital information sounds exactly the same every time you listen to it (unless it gets scratched).

3. Advantages of Digital Cinema

Digital Cinema is advantageous to the Film Makers, Distributors, Exhibitors as well as the audiences.

i)

Directors
Immediate Preview: The scenes can be previewed immediately after they are shot with a digital camera so the director can immediately judge if a change in lighting conditions are required or a re-shoot is required. Upgradeable Equipment: Digital cameras are often highly configurable and use detachable modular components for flexibility and upgrade-ability. They can also record high resolution images up to 4096 x 2304 pixels. Encourages Low Budget Films: Digital cinema is advantageous for low budget cinemas made with limited man-power as such movies have lower budgets and alternatives are available for cheaper capturing, editing, processing, recording and distribution of digital cinemas. Convenient Post-Production: The post production steps like editing, rerecording, dubbing, graphics and special effects etc can be undertaken using computers. This requires that the film is in digital format. There is no need for

Dept. of E&C

DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

conversion of film into digital format using expensive processes like Telecine if the film is shot using digital cameras.

ii)

Distributors
Duplication Costs Reduced: The cost of making duplicate prints of a digital film is significantly lower than making duplicate prints of celluloid films. Better Piracy Prevention: When conventional film tapes are used, they have to be physically transported to the theatres. The exact process is not formalized and it can lead to unauthorized persons having access to the film. This carries the risk of piracy. Whereas in Digital Cinema, the signal is encrypted and transmitted using satellites. This protects the content from piracy. Large number of screens simultaneously: Due to ease of transport and reduced distribution costs, the movie can be screened at larger number of theatre simultaneously. Reduced costs of distribution: The cost of distributing prints to theatres over the satellite network is lesser than physical distribution of celluloid prints.

iii)

Exhibitors
More flexible scheduling: If all the screens of a movie are sold out owing unexpected sudden demand, the exhibitor can immediately arrange for an additional screening by placing an order with the distributor for transmission to another screen. New entertainment ideas: New ideas of entertainment like lighting FX, aromas, etc can be made possible due to better synchronizing which is possible with digital cinema. 10 Dept. of E&C

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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Alternate content: With satellite broadcast of content to theatres, exhibitors can screen alternate content like live coverage of sports, events etc.

iv)

Audiences
Higher quality entertainment: Digital cinema provides for higher picture and sound quality than conventional cinema. Easier Access to screenings: Larger number of screens playing the movie means easier access to audiences.

v)

3D
Digital 3D uses polarization instead of coloured glasses (used by older 3D cinemas) to portray the 3D effect. This ensures that the colour of the finished image is not corrupted

4. Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI)

Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC or DCI is a joint venture of major motion picture studios, formed to establish a standard architecture for digital cinema systems. The organization was formed in March 2002 by the following studios: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Paramount Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment 20th Century Fox Universal Studios

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DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

The Walt Disney Company Warner Bros.

The primary purpose of DCI is to establish and document specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality. By establishing a common set of content requirements, distributors, studios, exhibitors, d-cinema manufacturers and vendors can be assured of interoperability and compatibility. Because of the relationship of DCI to many of Hollywood's key studios, conformance to DCI's specifications is considered a requirement by software developers or equipment manufacturers targeting the digital cinema market.

On July 20, 2005, DCI released Version 1.0 of its "Digital Cinema System Specification", commonly referred to as the "DCI Specification". The document describes overall system requirements and specifications for digital cinema. The specification also establishes standards for the decoder requirements and the presentation environment itself, such as ambient light levels, pixel aspect and shape, image luminance, white point chromaticity, and those tolerances to be kept. Even though it specifies what kind of information is required, the DCI Specification does not include specific information about how data within a distribution package is to be formatted. Formatting of this information is defined by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) digital cinema standards.

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DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Image and audio capability overview:

2D Image: 2048x1080 (2K) at 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s, or 4096x2160 (4K) at 24 frame/s In 2K, for Scope (2.39:1) presentation 2048x858 pixels of the imager is used In 2K, for Flat (1.85:1) presentation 1998x1080 pixels of the imager is used In 4K, for Scope (2.39:1) presentation 4096x1716 pixels of the imager is used In 4K, for Flat (1.85:1) presentation 3996x2160 pixels of the imager is used 12 bits per colour component (36 bits per pixel) via dual HD-SDI (encrypted) 10 bits only permitted for 2K at 48 frame/s

CIE XYZ colour space TIFF 6.0 container format (one file per frame) JPEG 2000 compression

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DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

from 0 to 5 or from 1 to 6 wavelet decomposition levels for 2K or 4K resolutions, respectively

Compression rate of 4.71 bits/pixel (2K @ 24 frame/s), 2.35 bits/pixel (2K @ 48 frame/s), 1.17 bits/pixel (4K @ 24 frame/s)

250 Mbit/s maximum image bit rate Stereoscopic 3D Image: 2048x1080 (2K) at 48 frame/s - 24 frame/s per eye (4096x2160 4K not supported) In 2K, for Scope (2.39:1) presentation 2048x858 pixels of the imager is used In 2K, for Flat (1.85:1) presentation 1998x1080 pixels of the imager is used Optionally, in the HD-SDI link only: 10 bit colour, YCbCr 4:2:2, each eye in separate stream Audio: 24 bits per sample, 48 kHz or 96 kHz Up to 16 channels WAV container, uncompressed PCM

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DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

5. SMPTE DC28 SYSTEM

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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Working of the DC28 System:

The content owner or distributors data has four attributes: Image: The image signal, along with its metadata goes through an image

compression stage after which it is encrypted if required. Subtitle: Subtitle track and its associated metadata may be compressed if needed

and encrypted. Audio: The audio track and its metadata are compressed and encrypted. Auxiliary: This data comes into play in the case of new entertainment ideas such

as lighting FX or aromas.

All above data are packaged into a common multiplexed signal. This is transmitted over the transport system which may be hard disks, DVDs or the most common satellite links to the theatres. At the theatre it is temporarily stored. They then go through Decryption, and Decompression.

The image signals and subtitles track are sent to the display system to be projected on the screen. Audio track is sent to the theatre audio system. The sync between audio, video and other effects is achieved using the metadata.

A conditional access and key management system is in place. At the originator (Content owner/Distributor) end as well theatre end, a password or biometric verification is required to access the content. This ensures security. The theatre management system helps to manage and schedule screenings.

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DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

6. Image Capture Flow

The image capture flow in a digital cinema camera is as shown. The Light is incident on an image sensor which in turn produces charges on a charge coupled device (CCD). The charges are digitized using an analog to digital converter.

An image processing stage is present for processes such as DCT/IDCT, colour space conversion, compression, adjustment of brightness, contrast, sharpness etc.. Non-volatile storage is implemented in the form of compact FLASH, hard disks or CD-R interface.

The system control unit has two parts: System controller: Hardware I/O, memory decoding, synchronization,

status, interrupts etc. manager etc. Microcontroller: Scheduler, task manager, resource allocator, menu

The display driver stage manages timing control and frame rate control to facilitate display on the LCD screen.

A high speed transport stage is necessary to stream the data into the next stage which may be a computer. It comprises of USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 and Ethernet MACs.

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DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Image capture flow:

7. Transport Network
The transport network is used by the distributors to distribute the digital cinema content to the theatres. It involves the physical transporting of content stored in a storage medium or live transmission over high speed networks, the latter being the more popularly implemented method.

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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Transport Network:

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DIGITAL CINEMA The transport network has the following blocks : i)

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Packaging System: The packaged digital cinema content is stored in a packaging system storage which communicates to the packaging management conditional access ass well as the distributor gateway block via Ethernet using an attached LAN/SAN interface.

ii)

Distributor Gateway: This forms the bridge between the distributors infrastructure and the transport network. Here the data can take two forms: It can be stored in transportable physical media such as hard disk. This is not generally preferred though. It is stored in a buffer from which it is transmitted live.

iii)

Transport service providers: If the data is stored in transportable physical media, then it is transported to theatres physically using a courier network. Else it can be streamed live in the following ways: Via satellite using IP and ATM Via high speed terrestrial networks using Ip and ATM/SONET Low speed telephone network using POTS

iv) Theatre Gateway: This connects the transport network to the theatre systems. Data can be received in the following ways: The physical media is received from courier network The lice transmission of movie is received by gateway I/O and buffered.

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DIGITAL CINEMA vi)

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

Theatre Storage system: The data reaches the storage system via Ethernet using LAN/SAN interface.

Conditional access systems are in place at both distributor end as well as theatre end to prevent unauthorized access to content. A theatre management system manages the theatre infrastructure and schedules.

8. Projection Technology
Projection of the cinema on the screen is done using digital projectors. The major projection technologies are :

(i) Digital Light Processor Digital Micro-mirror Device (DLP-DMD)

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DIGITAL CINEMA

Sir MVIT, Bangalore

A DMD is a plate consisting of thousands of MEMS activated micro-sized mirrors. When a grayscale video signal is supplied to it, each mirror (representing a pixel) turns to an ON position and reflects the light falling on it if the corresponding pixel is bright. The mirrors flip between on and off several times a second. The proportion of time for which it is on defines the pixel intensity. This is how a gradient from light to dark is achieved.

The projector has three separate DMDs for the three basic colour components red, blue and green. The component video signals are respectively supplied to them. The white light from a local light source is split into its fundamental red, green and blue components by using a prism, and the respective components illuminate the corresponding DMDs.

The reflected beams are then combined by projection optics to form a single beam and it is projected on the screen.

ii) LCD Projection

There are three transparent LCD arrays. A grayscale video signal can cause partial opaqueness of the array. Each pixel turns transparent if the pixel is bright. The degree of transparency varies for creating light to dark gradient.

A high intensity white light source emits a beam of light which is passed through wavelength selective dychoric mirrors as shown. Hence the three fundamental components are

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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

incident on respective LCD arrays. The output beams are reflected and combined into a single array using projection optics. This beam is then projected on screen.

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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

LCD Projector
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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

9. Problems facing D-Cinema

D-cinema is facing a number of limitations as of today which we hope will be resolved in the near future. The major drawbacks are:

i)

Different experience from theatre to theatre:

Ambient light, display/screen reflectivity, projector lamp intensity and optics etc are factors which affect the final look of the movie on screen. The final look of the same content differs from theatre to theatre because today there are a number of companies providing digital infrastructure like Christie, UFO, Qube Digital, etc. All of them follow different standards.

ii)

Not enough standardization

SMPTE DC28 is trying to solve this but currently there are no products that really support DC28 for real-time applications. Also, the DCI specifications have not been fully implemented yet by all providers.

iii) Huge storage and bandwidth requirements

At post production stage, more than 200 Terabytes of memory space is required to store a movie. Also, links of several tens of Gigabytes/s bandwidth are required to stream the movie to theatres.

iv) Risk of technological obsolescence

As any other upcoming digital field, the risk of very rapid technological obsolescence is a chief drawback of digital cinema.

v)

Burden of investment of exhibitors

The decrease in duplication and distribution costs benefits producers but however the exhibitors need to bear exorbitant costs to renew their systems and install digital infrastructure.

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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

10. Digital cinema Video formats

Unlike other video formats, which are specified in terms of vertical resolution (e.g. 1080p, which is 1920x1080 pixels), digital cinema formats are usually specified in terms of horizontal resolution. As shorthand, these resolutions are often given in "nK" notation, where n is the multiplier of 1024 such that the horizontal resolution of a corresponding fullaperture, digitized film frame is exactly 1024n pixels. Here the 'K' has a customary, improper meaning: it should be the binary prefix "kibi" (ki) instead. For instance, a 2K image is 2048 pixels wide, and a 4K image is 4096 pixels wide. Vertical resolutions vary with aspect ratios though; so a 2K image with a HDTV (16:9) aspect ratio is 2048x1152 pixels, while a 2K image with a SDTV or Academy ratio (4:3) is 2048x1536 pixels, and one with a Panavision ratio (2.39:1) would be 2048x856 pixels, and so on. Due to the "nK" notation not corresponding to specific horizontal resolutions per format a 2K image

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Sir MVIT, Bangalore

lacking, for example, the typical 35mm film soundtrack space, is only 1828 pixels wide, with vertical resolutions rescaling accordingly. This led to a plethora of motion-picture related video resolutions, which is quite confusing and often redundant with respect to nowadays few projection standards. All formats designed for digital cinematography are progressive scan, and capture usually occurs at the same 24 frame per second rate established as the standard for 35mm film. The DCI standard for cinema usually relies on a 1.89:1 aspect ratio, thus defining the maximum container size for 4K as 4096x2160 pixels and for 2K as 2048x1080 pixels (either 24fps or 48fps). When distributed in the form of a Digital Cinema Package (DCP), content is letterboxed or pillarboxed as appropriate to fit within one of these container formats.

11. Conclusion
Digital cinema not only reduces the production and distribution costs of movies but also fights piracy, the biggest evil to creativity. Digital cinema enhances the cinema experience for consumers and paves way for new entertainment ideas and alternate content. The world has embraced digital cinema, and in particular digital cinema is revolutionising the Indian Film Industry. With more than 1,50,000 theatres across the globe waiting to switch to digital, digital infrastructure providers are seeing theirs as one of the most potent business ideas too. Digital cinema is certainly the future of cinema.

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12. References

http://en.wikipedia.org http://www.mkpe.com/publications/archives.php INS Asia Magazine http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-cinema1.htm Digital Cinema by Michael Karagosian, Karagosian MacCalla Partners 2004 Digital cinema in India by Nirav Shah, Karagosian MacCalla Partners 2004 http://www.qubecinema.com/ http://www.dcinematoday.com/ http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/ http://www.digitalcinemasociety.org/ http://www.digitalcinemainfo.com/ http://www.qube.in/

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