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The one that I am familiar with is so cool you can put regular DVDs and show them on the big screen by just playing play....
...after seeing the quality of "Monster House" and now "Nightmare before Xmas" it is like looking through a window the qaulity is so good! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
No offense... but I don't see how a dvd-based setup can be made to approach what we have now... especially since there are still questions about the quality of the full-priced machines.
Whether digital cinema can match or surpass the quality of film is beside the point. If it does, I think they need to do their comparisons with real, live content... NOT CARTOON-BASED ANIMATION. Side-by-side comparison with installed film systems should be encouraged, which would go a long way toward convincing the nonbelievers. As far as I know, these kinds of comparisions are rare, if they happen at all. Why is that?
Many people will say that the computer-based content from the Star Wars films looked absolutely stunning in digital, while the live scenes had a dull, lifeless feel, without the detail that should have been present... especially on larger screens.
With animation and CGI based content, you have no realistic reference from which to base a comparison between film and digital, because you don't really know what the image was supposed to look like in the first place. CGI and hand-drawn content are figments of the creator's imagination, and therefore, the realism of the cinema playback is a matter of yours.
A Bugs Bunny cartoon could be shaded slightly green or blue. Fine detail and color nuance could be intentionally omitted to make the creation easier to produce, and you'd have no way to know that it wasn't done that way on purpose. In that light, you can not take computer-created content and use it to glow and burble over the wonders of digital projection and how it's virtually assured to be our future.
Ask yourself why most of the digital demos that get the greatest recent publicity are computer-based (Cars, Narnia, Nightmare, Chicken Little, etc). I think it's to prevent that true reference to reality, so you don't have a realistic baseline from which to evaluate what you're seeing. An honest demo shouldn't involve any content like that.
It may not be out of the question that digital could bring superior presentation to our audiences, but the use of imaginary content and the constant drumming about dirt, wear, fading and scratches on film really should stop.
[This message has been edited by rodeojack (edited November 06, 2006).]
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