Commercial Cinema technology

Posted by: Derek Wright on 10 October 2007

What technology is used in full size cinemas to store and project digital films? and is any of it compatible with home theatre technology.

I saw the refurbed and digital Dambusters the other week and the picture quality was most amazing, no hint of it not being a 35mm film projected performance.

Posted on: 10 October 2007 by Frank Abela

My understanding is that truly digital theatres are receiving 50Gig AVI files via satellite nowadays!!

Posted on: 10 October 2007 by Derek Wright

Frank

Thanks

Do you know what type of projectors they are using.

I assume that the AVI file is stored locally on a hard drive or do you think that the file is retrieved and shown in real time.

Posted on: 10 October 2007 by David Dever

- Local storage, with real-time copy protection over Ethernet.

Posted on: 11 October 2007 by Frank Abela

Derek - no idea on the projectors I'm afraid, sorry.

Posted on: 11 October 2007 by Margan

The formats differ from home cinema. The best format is called I think 4K (4000 pixels per line), but it is rarely used. Commonly used is the 2K format (2000 pixels per line), which is slightly better than FullHD, not enough for real cinema in my opinion.