Posted by Stewart Pinkerton on 10/11/05 18:24

On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:07:36 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
<dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote:

>In article <434be8f9$0$29076$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net>,
> Ben <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
>> >>The film stock that studios posses certainly has very much higher
>> >>resolution than current HDTV standards, but the projected image that
>> >>you see in a typical cinema is probably about the same or even poorer
>> >>than HDTV resolution.
>> >
>> >
>> > Are you talking about electronic projectors or film ones?
>
>> Sorry if it wasn't clear, I was talking about the 35mm stock that ends
>> up in your local cinema.
>
>Right.
>
>> >>Kodak did a study into this in the early days of digital projection
>> >>and found that some cinemas were equivalent to only 900 horizontal
>> >>pixels (approximately PAL quality) while the average was iirc in the
>> >>region 1500 or so.
>
>But you've mentioned 'digital projection'?
>
>> > Wonder what source those projectors were using? In the early days it
>> > was U-Matic, which doesn't get close to broadcast PAL.
>
>> Ermm, 35mm film ;-)
>
>It would require an *incredibly* tatty 35mm film projector to give results
>in a cinema as soft as PAL at its best. And I doubt such a beast was ever
>used in UK mainstream cinemas. Of course if the lenses etc were filthy and
>it wasn't focused correctly...

Actually they were. I first saw 'The Elephant Man' in a video-based
multi-screen cinema in Dunfermline, Fife (one video screen, two film
screens). Yup, the picture was pretty shoddy, and the cinema itself
somewhat smaller than many of the 'Home Theatres' we now see in the AV
magazines. That would have been way back in the mid-eighties.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

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