Digital Cinema

Over the next decade, we will see the end of film in movie theaters. The film that we use today has lots of problems - it gets scratches, the sprocket holes wear out and it is heavy and bulky. But the biggest problem is the cost. You have to spend thousands of dollars to make a film print for each theater, and then you have to pay to ship the print to each theater.

What we are moving toward is the digital movie theater. Films will arrive at the theater on a hard disk, or over the Internet, and a digital projector will put them on the screen.

You have probably seen small projectors used in schools (or even people's homes) to project images on the wall. The same kind of technology will come to theaters, but there will be two differences. First, the projector used in a theater will be much bigger and brighter. It will use a 2,000 to 4,000 watt xenon bulb just like a film projector uses. Second, it will have incredible resolution. An HDTV screen has 1,920 x 1,080 pixels at its best resolution. The projector in a movie theater will have what's known as "4K resolution"-- that's 4,096 x 2,160 pixels. The theater projector will have four times as many pixels as the best home HDTV screens.

Photo courtesy Texas Instruments Incorporated On left, a 2K DLP Cinema® Chip; on right, micrographic photo of ant leg on the DLP® chip surface

These projectors will use something called DLP chips to create the image. A DLP chip uses millions of tiny mirrors. Three tiny mirrors (one for red light, one for green light and one for blue light) control each pixel on the screen. The light from the super-bright Xenon bulb shines on the mirrors after going through a red, green or blue color filter. If the mirror reflects toward the screen, that pixel lights up on the screen. If not, the pixel is dark on the screen.

Hollywood will switch over to 4K cameras as well, and the detail will be stunning. Every movie will have the kind of resolution we see in IMAX movies today.

The first 4K cameras and projectors are just starting to appear. It will take time for everyone to switch to the new standard. But the transition will happen quickly as the projectors get less expensive. By the time you are 25 or so, it’s possible that no one will be using film anymore.

Dolby Digital creates six tracks of sound. Center (plays from the center of the screen) Left surround surround (plays from speakers on the left wall) Left (plays on the left side of the screen) Right surround (plays from speakers on the right wall) Right (plays on the right side of the screen) LFE (low-frequency effects) (plays from a big subwoofer) This configuration is commonly referred to as 5.1, for five main channels plus an effects channel. The effects channel uses a subwoofer and is often called the boom channel because its main use is for explosions and other powerful, teeth-rattling sounds.