Dolby Digital Cinema with Dolby's Jeff McNall
Dolby Podcast Episode 47 - September 11, 2008
In this interview with Dolby's Jeff McNall find out:
- What makes seeing a movie in a movie theater that uses digital film projection so great,
- How digital cinema affects the filmmaking process, and
- Why today's 3D movies are so much better than those from the 50's and 60's.
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Mentioned in this Episode
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Announcer: Streaming to you from our headquarters in San Francisco, this is Dolbycast. The insider's guide to entertainment technologies. From the experts at Dolby Laboratories. We're here to give you the straight talk and news on everything you need to know about technologies that excite your eyes and ears.
Craig Eggers: Hello, and welcome back to Dolbycast. We have an interesting show planned today. A sort of back to where it all began and where it's all going to go theme, if you will. You know, in recent editions of Dolbycast, we've been focused on featuring guests that offer really unique insights into the entertainment experience. Today, we thought we would stay closer to home, and talk about trends in our local theater. So, if you really love movies, I think you're going to really get a lot out of this podcast. Stay tuned, we'll be right back.
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Craig: You know, we talk a lot about home theater here on Dolbycast, but the fact is that without the cinema, there would be no home theater. Many of the technologies that actually debut in our home theater came from the cinema experience.
But the cinema today as we know it is changing dramatically. And here to talk about those changes is Mr. Jeff McNall. Jeff is the Cinema Product Manager for Dolby Laboratories. Jeff, welcome to Dolbycast.
Jeff McNall: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Craig: So, tell our listeners, Jeff, what does a product manager for cinema at Dolby Laboratories do?
Jeff: Pretty much everything. As a product manager, you own a cinema product, so everything that's involved in that from research and development, to pricing, to marketing, to building the product, testing the product, everything entails me.
Craig: So, what is a cinema product then?
Jeff: A cinema product is something that would be used in a professional cinema environment, or it might be a screening room, or so on. Something that's involved within playing a movie.
Craig: So this could be an audio processor, but as we evolved into digital cinema, it's more than just audio, isn't it?
Jeff: It could be automation interfaces that drive the curtains, dim the lights, to digital storage, to 3D, everything.
Craig: That's really exciting.
Jeff: It's a fun job.
Craig: It must be. So, I just mentioned the word digital cinema, and we're so used to film and cinema, but obviously the buzzword in the industry today is "digital cinema." What exactly is digital cinema?
Jeff: Digital cinema's been the migration from traditional film, which actually started out as two projectors, where you're running back and forth, changing the reels to—now they use a single projector but they splice it into a really, really large wheel. And they use little sprockets, and so you got film running all over the place in the projection booth.
Digital cinema's where we actually put in a digital projector, and are now playing from hard drives.
Craig: OK.
Jeff: So, instead of a big case arriving with four large wheels on it that gets ruined after the first pass with scratches, the digital hard drive goes to a server that then plays out your content.
Craig: So, one of the immediate advantages of digital cinema obviously is if I'm watching a movie for the 50th time, I'm going to see, essentially, the same—and get the same experience on the 50th viewing, that I might of gotten on the 1st viewing. And that's not always the case with film right?
Jeff: With film, after the first pass you might pick up a scratch. By the fourth week it's not looking very good. If it might have been passed down from another circuit, it gets even worse. So, every time it plays, it's going to go down a little bit. Where digital's the same the 1000th time as the same as the first time.
Craig: Cool. So, we know that movies are created on film. Talk about the process in the past of how you would get the movie that was created on film into the projector in the cinema - where we go - and then talk about digital cinema has changed that.
Jeff: Traditional film, you would shoot it in film, and then you do passes from the negative to the positive. It would go back and forth as you're splicing it, creating your final version, which you are then making copies of that copy, so it's almost essentially 5th generation before you get to a movie theater.
Craig: And this is all on celluloid?
Jeff: Exactly. We've since changed in a lot of films now where it's totally digital. It's 1's and 0's from the first frame all the way to it gets to the theater.
Craig: Now, are we talking actual capture in the field or...?
Jeff: It would be—capture would be to digital cameras, HD cameras. All the editing is done in uncompressed digital, and then the final product is a digital hard drive.
Craig: But there still are directors and producers that go out and capture film, bring that back, and then transfer that to digital, correct?
Jeff: There will be some that do that but there's a whole new generation that are doing it completely as a digital process.
Craig: So, obviously, one of the benefits is the experiential benefit. If I'm watching a digital cinema presentation—a consistent experience.
But what are some of the other advantages that you see in terms of delivery of my entertainment experience in the theater in a digital medium as opposed to film?
Jeff: Well, the digital medium, like once again, you don't see the degradation.
They're able to, for the production process, they're able to make decisions and so on and not have to wait for the film version to come in. The dailies might be a lower compressed version.
So, the turnaround time for them to do a digital film is much, much shorter. They don't have to wait for all the different films to come from the cameras.
As a live action concert footage, you can turn around a product extremely quickly... as opposed to if you had to pull film from every camera.
Craig: And I suppose obviously there's benefits in that you're not creating all these reels of celluloid that are going out to every motion picture house in the country, in fact globally. So there's got to be some 'green' aspect there, too isn't there?
Jeff: Oh well certainly, there's a huge benefit there. When you used to have multiple complexes around the country, you had to have a film print go to each of those different places. We've seen now less addresses for theaters, but there's more screens within that complex.
So, the number of screens in the U.S. has remained the same, but the number of addresses has decreased. So, with digital you can now send one hard drive and have that movie open on all 18 screens that night. You don't have to send 18 different prints to that one place.
Craig: Now, are you actually sending the hard drive or do we have...do we envision in the future where potentially you would see the information up-linked to a satellite and then down to multiple theaters where they might record and burn it on to a hard drive for playback?
Jeff: In some instances, it is done as a multicast satellite delivery, so then you're even saving having to send a hard drive or it could be a fiber network or so on.
Craig: So, your time to market is rapidly increased, because you're not creating all this content and literally shipping it around the world.
Jeff: Exactly.
Craig: So, obviously, one of the potential additional benefits of digital cinema would be to the content provider and, that is, obviously, security.
Jeff: Yes. I think built into the cinema scheme are very complex security major where when a film, when a hard drive gets sent to a location, it has to know in advance what the exact serial number is of the server and the exact serial number of the projector is, because there are then hidden numbers behind those.
And so, a key has to be able to be generated that says "this content will play on this server with this projector for this amount of time".
Craig: So, less of a chance of a movie debuting theatrically and being on DVD the next day somewhere on the street?
Jeff: That, that hard drive is essentially useless...
Craig: Exactly.
Jeff: ... unless you have the right keys to be able to play it back.
Craig: Jeff, I want to come back to a point we were speaking about earlier. And, that is, where does film fit in the future?
I know that there are purists out there that want to see movies on film. There are certain elements and aspects of film - the grain, etc., that create a very artistic impact. Where do you see film and digital video in the future playing and where is that going to go?
Jeff: Well, there will always be purists that want to use film for acquisition and so those benefits they see from it can still be maintained in a digital cinema playback.
Craig: Do you see things like film grain being part of an electronic experience? Obviously, we see cameras today that they record in 24 frame, just like film does.
Jeff: There'll probably be some techniques that, if you want to switch over to digital acquisition, you might be able to electronically put in some certain aspects to try to mimic maybe in film.
Craig: So, film as an art form, obviously, will continue to live in one form or another in the future.
Jeff: I think, for some people, they'll still want to continue to use it but, I think a lot of people are definitely starting out as digital acquisition from schools and colleges and just figuring that's the only way that you do this.
Craig: Good stuff. Thanks, Jeff. We're going to take a quick break but, when we come back, I want to speak to you about Dolby's role in digital cinema and what we're contributing to that whole experience.
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Announcer: You're listening to Dolbycast. To get more details about today's topic, log on to dolby.com/dolbycast.
Craig: And, we are back at Dolbycast, with our very special guest, Mr. Jeff McNall. Welcome back, Jeff.
Jeff: Why, thank you.
Craig: Hey, Jeff, in our previous segment, we were talking about digital cinema. Tell us what Dolby does and the role we play in digital cinema.
Jeff: Well, from the beginning, Dolby has been involved in the projection booth for the last 35 years with our cinema processors, audio processors and so on. Automation devices, those helped raise the curtains, dim the lights and so on.
So, with digital cinema, when it came about 3 years ago, we built a digital cinema server that can play back the content to the digital projectors.
Craig: OK.
Jeff: And then, we've also added a 3D element on top of the digital cinema.
Craig: I want to talk about 3D in just a second.
So, we're kind of involved in a whole chain now. We deliver great audio experiences, we deliver the automation experience into the theater. We're now working with theater owners to deliver the content and to help them to project the content?
Jeff: Exactly. So, we're now involved in the whole chain. Our production services group works with the different film companies to make movies as well.
Craig: So, Jeff, you mentioned 3D earlier and I want to go there now. 3D is really the rage right now if you're going to movies. But, quite frankly, it's not that new, is it? It's been around for a 100 years, hasn't it?
Jeff: Well, variations of 3D have been around a while, but it's really the technology of digital cinema that's able to make 3D fun.
Craig: Yeah, I recall reading about 3D movies made of train crashes and then we migrated into the 50s where, obviously, you had those pictures of images of the audiences with their glasses gazing at the screen. And all of that was film‑based.
Jeff: Yes, they would use a two film projectors, one for the left eye and one for the right eye, with some filtering for their, what they call anaglyph, those little paper glasses. They're red and green or red and blue or they might have even had polarized glasses. So people would watch these two films playing at the same time and I hear stories of how nauseous people got.
Craig: I guess the film projectors had to be totally synced to each other and, just getting that right, would have been an issue. Right?
Jeff: You naturally see 3D.
Craig: OK.
Jeff: You see 2 images and then your brain reconstructs it as 1.
So, when you have 2 films playing and you're trying to match mummy left to mummy right and they're shaking back and forth a little bit because it's film, dancing in the gate, you're getting extremely sick. After a short period of time, your eyes are getting tired.
Craig: So I suppose that digital solves that problem to some extent.
Jeff: Digital takes care of that.
The films they're making now, they're being very, very cautious to not overdo what was done in the 50s, where stuff would constantly go in and out of the screen the whole time. Now, they're being very tame with it that, as an art form, to not get the audience nauseous or tired.
Craig: I like what you said; you said "art form" and that leads me to the next question.
Is 3D in the cinema as we are hearing about it today, is it a fad or have we now the tools in place to really make it a compelling experience, a compelling art form?
Jeff: The tools are in place to do feature animation because when you do a 2D version, you can say, I'll do a 3D version, it doesn't take that much more effort.
Craig: That's interesting. Now, animation, you used to do animation in film, but now you can do it digitally. The advantage of doing it digitally?
Jeff: With digitally, you can take that little Smurf guy and move him across the screen with a couple of clicks, where in the old days you had to paint every single frame of that little guy. So now with computers you can say "let me add a partner, let me add another one" all with clicks and so on, and you can say "let's move this mountain farther back" for 3D, all in computers, all is digital.
Craig: So, far more compelling, far more accurate, a better art form totally, then.
Jeff: Yes. You can put out a product quicker, faster, and it looks very clean.
Craig: More exciting. I understand a lot of the Hollywood directors are lining up in support of 3D and we're going to see more content from Hollywood in 3D.
Jeff: When some of the first latest generation 3D movies came out, such as "Chicken Little", "Monster House", Hollywood saw the success of this and said "We think there's a great future in this" which all of the sudden brought up several people claiming to be "kings of 3D".
Craig: [laughs]
Jeff: So, we now have some directors who have gotten very immersed in this, and all their future products will be 3D. We see James Cameron with "Avatar" which will be coming at the end of 2009, we see Katzenberg with all his DreamWorks productions, we see Zemeckis who recently did "Beowulf" and is coming out with "Christmas Carol," so we now see all of these famous Hollywood directors being "kings of 3D".
Craig: So, it really is going to become an even more credible art form as we move forward.
Jeff: All feature animations for several of the major studios going forward will be 3D.
Craig: That's really exciting. Now, obviously Dolby has a role in 3D. Can you speak to that?
Jeff: Our role in 3D is to enable theaters to be able to play 3D in what we think is the cleanest, sharpest 3D possible.
Craig: So, how do we have the "cleanest, sharpest" 3D?
Jeff: Well, we weren't the first 3D system on the marketplace, so we had a chance to stand back and say "what do exhibitors really want?"
Craig: Mm‑hmm.
Jeff: And the earlier systems required them to change out their screen to what's a silver screen...
Craig: Right.
Jeff: For polarization and it's kind of a shiny screen, if you were to paint the walls of your house you might use the highest gloss possible. That would be your screen.
Craig: Mm‑hmm.
Jeff: Exhibitors didn't want to have to change out those screens, because they felt it compromised their 2D presentation.
Craig: And the other thing I understand is with the silver screen if you rub up against it, if you mar it, if you smudge it, you basically ruin it.
Jeff: One lost Coca‑Cola in the air would ruin your screen.
Craig: Is that right? Wow.
So we have a better solution we believe in terms of the screen in the theater. How else do we impact that experience?
Jeff: Being able to have the servers to play it out, from being able to have kits that go inside of the professional projectors to make them 3D. So, we make it a very simple process for the exhibitor. In fact, all of the screening rooms that are making 3D have pretty much chosen Dolby 3D, so that they can do a 2D project and a 3D project all in the same day.
Craig: Interesting. Now, do we utilize the cardboard glasses that we're so familiar with from the 50's and 60's, or has that technology changed also?
Jeff: Gone are the days of cardboard...
Craig: [laughs]
Jeff: [sarcastically] There's a new material called plastic that's very popular for the glasses, and it's with our glasses...
Craig: [jokingly] I hear the future's in plastic.
Jeff: [jokingly] Go figure.
[both laugh lightly]
Jeff: It's light, it's durable, and with our glasses we actually design it so the theater can re‑use them and wash them again and again and again, so, therefore you're not having these one‑time glasses going into the garbage can, so we think that just builds on our 'green' message even further.
Craig: That's interesting. What's in it for the people who own the cineplex's? Why do they want to be in this business, and what's the motivation for them?
Jeff: For them, they've looked at features where you might have had a 2D release, while at the same time you have a 3D release for that same picture.
Craig: Mm‑hmm.
Jeff: Examples of that are "Beowulf," "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" and so on. And they've looked at it and compared the box office, and for a 3D version, they've sold 3 times more tickets than the same 2D version of that movie.
Craig: Is that right?
Jeff: Yes.
Craig: [impressed] Wow, that's incredible. So it sounds like consumers are really embracing the whole concept of 3D, too.
Jeff: When I've been out there in the field and interviewed people after movies, they really enjoyed the 3D. It changed all the myths that carried over from the 50's. They said "I'm amazed I'm not sick, I really enjoyed it."
And I've been in theaters where they had a 2D film version of a cartoon, and then they've had a 3D version, and I've walked into the auditorium that had the film version, very few people in the audience, maybe the 3D schedule didn't fit into their schedule and they still wanted to see the film...
Craig: Mm‑hmm.
Jeff: And I looked at this cartoon and it looked like I was watching maybe a TV, it was fairly flat, cartoon, and it was film, was kind of flickering and so on, some scratches, and then I walked over to the 3D house and it was completely different film.
Craig: Lots of "wow" factor I suppose, right?
Jeff: Yes. This cartoon now had depth to it, it had characters coming out of the screen, the colors, the brightness, were all consistent.
Craig: So, sounds like a great experience. The question is: how do our listeners find out where they can get this experience?
Jeff: Well, to really enjoy the experience we have a couple of alternatives they can do. They can go to dolby.com and they can look there and they can see a list of all the theaters around the world that carry the Dolby server, so they can see a digital cinema presentation, which we talked about earlier, and we also list which of those sites also have Dolby 3D.
And then to get an idea how popular this 3D trend is, they can go to boxoffice.com, and there's a link there that they maintain that lists all of the upcoming 3D features that will be coming out for the next couple of years.
Craig: Cool. So visit www.dolby.com and/or the other website was...
Jeff: www.boxoffice.com.
Craig: And you go there, and you have access to all of the latest and greatest movies that are out there in digital cinema, and 3D utilizing Dolby technologies.
Jeff: Exactly.
Craig: Jeff, this has been really great, and I got to tell you, the whole idea of 3D really gives a whole new meaning to "reach out and touch someone" in the movies, I think. We really appreciate you being on our program, we look forward to talking to you in the future, and learning even more about how the cinema experience is changing, and becoming even better and even more compelling.
I know I'm going to go out this weekend and watch a 3D movie, for sure.
Listeners, that's it for Dolbycast, this edition. Don't forget to send us your questions to dolbycast@dolby.com or call us up, leave us a message at 1‑888‑6‑DOLBY-C. Until next time, I'm Craig Eggers. This is Dolbycast. Talk to you soon.
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