A recent email exchange prompted by correspondant in China, brought out this essential capturing definition of digital cinema. “What exactly is Digital Cinema.”
This question is a little broad. Better answers depend on your purpose and needs. But, in general…
For nearly 100 years, motion pictures have been delivered to theaters on 35mm film and have been shown with film projectors.
Digital Cinema, officially called D-Cinema in the technical community, delivers movies to theaters as digital files - most often on harddisk, sometimes via satellite, probably in future also by network/internet. The movies are then shown using digital cinema servers (special purpose computer systems) and theater-grade digital projectors. D-Cinema also includes/requires a number of digital and physical security mechanisms, to keep content (movies) safe. The key documents are the DCI "Specification" (actually a requirements document) and a number of SMPTE standards.
D-Cinema requires support for 2048 x 1080 or 4096 x 2160 images and 14 foot-lambert brightness (similar to film standard brightness, although theaters sometimes use lower light levels for cost). Movies are distributed in 12-bit X'Y'Z' color - much more color detail than HDTV's Rec. 709. X'Y'Z' can represent all the colors that a human can see, but the real limitation is the projector (and, to be fair, the camera and post-production process). All D-Cinema projectors show at least a minimum color gamut which is a significantly wider range of color than Rec. 709 - similar to the range supported by film.
For some markets or purposes (e.g. pre-show, advertising, maybe small markets), some people use things informally called electronic cinema, e-cinema. There is no formal standard for e-cinema although there is some informal agreement in certain areas. E-cinema will have lower resolution, narrower color, less brightness, and little or no security.
Major studio content will only be distributed to D-Cinema systems that meet the SMPTE and DCI specifications and requirements, and have passed the DCI Compliance Test.
David Reisner
D-Cinema Consulting
image quality, color, workflow, hybrid imaging
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.d-cinema.us
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