Well, I saw Revenge of the Sith today. Not bad, not bad... Lucas hasn't lost his talent for writing dialog. Nor has he gained any talent at writing dialog... It filled out the story nicely, and the battle scenes were good.

Anyway, I saw it in digitla projection. I was in the 5th row of a stadium style theatre. I could see the pixels. That's pretty pathetic. Anyone else notice this? Any idea what resolution they're using?

All existing digital cinemas showing feature films use a screen resolution of 1280 x 1024, so that at 24 fps (frames per second) and assuming 10-bit colour, the uncompressed file size for a two-hour feature film will be of the order of 850 Gbyte.

(Not my words, I looked it up. Shark Tale & Finding Nemo are also in Digital Cinema)

That can't be right. 1280x1024 is 5:4, not even close to 16:9. And 1080i is 1900x1080, so it should be higher than that. Hmm....

I think the way that works is :

- image is compressed horizontally before recording on film

- image on the film is 5:4 or thereabouts

- image is expanded horizontally during projection

I imagine it is easier to use the same equipment for digital as for film production. The above could all be hopelessly obsolete but I don't think so...

No, I think it's definitely all digital; ie not on film. What you're talking about may be the transfer from digital to film for non digital cinemas.

Sorry, I didn't say it well. I realize no film is involved, just suggesting that maybe they are using the same anamorphic lenses to horizontally compress the image to a 5:4 CCD array and horizontally expand at projection time.

Or maybe the pixels are just not square

They looked pretty square where I was sitting. It was worse on the ads (they run the ads digital, but not the previews!), but there was one bit where you could see Obi Wan's belt, and it was badly pixelated. And jeezus, what's up with the ads?! I didn't pay $8 plus parking for a noon movie to sit through 15 minutes (seriously!) of badly made, insipid advertisements. I kept looking for the remote. Of course, the 8 second back feature on TiVo would have been nice on some of the dialog in the movie, too.

>>I didn't pay $8 plus parking for a noon movie to sit through 15 minutes (seriously!) of badly made, insipid advertisements.

Yes you did

Have you considered this newfangled "home theater" idea ? I think it might catch on some day...

Which bay area theatre has digita? I'm one of the few that hasn't seen it yet...

AMC Bay 16 Emeryville. Gee, if I'd know you hadn't seen it (and remembered you were in the area), I would have seen if you wanted to go today!

Oh.... Damn... you're right.

However, perhaps it should be noted that my "home theatre" is my living room. Complete with my honking huge 27" TV. And that's not going to get all that much bigger any time soon.

This was just one of the few I decided I needed to see in the theatre, and boy is that list getting shorter all the time.

Reading over youse guys discussion, MY list has been further reduced to.....well....it's really small now!

I still have some of the hassles though: putting the throw rug over the front of the fireplace, pulling the speakers dangerously forward in their cabinets, dragging the chairs about a foot and a half foreward and a little to the right, hanging the beach towels on the rear wall! You know, the little things you do when you want to watch a flick!

It's all fun!!

That is why you have young people around the house. Can the grandkids not be trained, or do you have to keep giving them back before their training is completed ?

They can be trained, but I can't!

Each time they require that I tell them where to station themselves, and each time I can't remember where I put them last.....So, they LAUGH at me when I misposition them! And invariably the one I end up placing behind my chair on the wall has the bony knees!!

You bring up another problem: we can't give them back....they were a gift!

I believe Lucas captures at 24 frames per second progressive at 1920x1080 resolution.

There's the man I was waiting to hear from! Wow. They really need to bump up that resolution before digital is ready for primetime.

That, or block off the first 10 rows.

Pretty much. And their pre-show ads were really badly calibrated. I was afraid the movie was going to be that off. It wasn't.