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Well written and nicely put. I served my time as a projectionist also and miss the job to this day. And digital isn't the same, while they are "picture perfect"

Well written and nicely put. I served my time as a projectionist also and miss the job to this day. And digital isn't the same, while they are "picture perfect" with great colours there is still a deadness that I can't explain. Not too long ago I was back in the old projection hall which is now digital and it just sounded wrong I missed the mechanical sound of the old machines. Not everything digital is better.

devindotcom 4y ago
Very true. I can't stand the screen door effect you see on a lot of digital projections. It's horribly distracting. I saw Dune in digital IMAX and spent the whole time thinking there was something wrong with the projector. I think they need some kind of final analog optical step that mitigates the pixelated look many have. Plus with digital you never have the film getting stuck and melting - always a treat to witness!
- wilg 4y ago
  It's that most digital projectors in movie theaters are terrible: low resolution and dim.
  - hedgehog_irl 4y ago
    That's part of it for sure but even on a still scene 35mm projectors still had a small bit of movement because it was mechanical and alignments are never perfect. I know in the cinema I worked in even sat in the screen you could still hear the hum of the machines if you knew what to listen for. To me it was all part of the cinema experience. Digital has improved compared to the early generations yes. But if you gave me the option I'd watch 35mm over digital any day Edited to correct typo
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      Why do you want a wobbly picture and extra background noise? Those sound like negatives.
      - hedgehog_irl 4y ago
        Things don't always have to be perfect. It's a personal preference. While I appreciate the helpful suggestion the first part won't really work and but the second part is fair playing the sound at a low level could help with the experience. What I mean is this is my memory of the cinema and what I enjoyed. Digital achieves "Perfection" but in a way which is lifeless for film. From the point of view of a projectionist every machine had it's own quirks when running a film. I used to run 7 machines in one cinema and once you got to know the tone of the place you would often hear something starting to go wrong before seeing it. A click that shouldn't be there or a platter sounding rough as you laced a film up. The work was interesting in ways that digital never will be. I also prefer some things in electronics to be analogue rather than digital. And no matter the bit rate always remember digital is only ever a close approximation of that colour or that shape it's never perfect. However it may get to a point where the eye can't see the difference and the ear can't hear the difference but it's still only an approximation. I get it I like old tech if that's a crime shoot me. Edited to clarify and add more context
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - actionfromafar 4y ago
        It looks better. The noise is just nostalgic for me, it doesn't enhance inherently IMHO.
      - periphrasis 4y ago
        As an example, I recently saw Full Metal Jacket on 35mm. The last Boot Camp scene, the one in the bathroom, while unsettling in any context becomes positively haunting in 35mm. The lower light conditions introduce artifacting even in digital, but the slightly wobbly frame motion and the scratches and dust marks exaggerate that artifacting further. The resulting image is almost expressionistic, as though reality has become so horrifying our very perception of it is starting to breakdown. The same sort of effect recurs with the sniper at the end of the film. In between, the rougher, less pristine frames create a sense of grittiness that amplifies the mood of the film. In short, I thought seeing Full Metal Jacket on 35mm was a fully superior experience over watching it on digital (although I’ve only seen digital presentations of it at home and not in a theater).
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Mmmm... "Two-Lane Blacktop" ending.
- jackcosgrove 4y ago
  Was melting the film that common? I was an usher and witnessed it once at the end of the credits. I radioed into box, as we called it, that the film was melting on screen. Next thing I hear feet pounding from the projection room and the light shone on the screen became dimmer and the burnt corona of the film disappeared from view.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Especially once everything was spliced onto one big reel, no not common. But when you were switching from one projector to the other every 15 minutes, there were more things to mess up and it could happen from time to time. More common was just a botched reel change of some sort in which the old reel ran out and the timing to switch to the new one was off for some reason or there was just a problem with the film threading.
    - hedgehog_irl 4y ago
      Only time I had it happen in 7 years was when due to failing bulbs not striking so easy I had to strike em manually and left the manual switch in the on position. Well there was a power brown out and that killed the basic automation on the machines that would close a dowser when the film stopped. So the film stopped but the dowser stayed open and the bulb burned through. And for good measure that exact same thing happened on 2 machines at the same time. I believe I was heard in a screen as I responded to the situation with something like "For F*k sake" while restarting the other screens before having to splice the 2 burned films. To clarify these machines were platter fed so no changing reels. The dowser was used to light the bulb while the leader was still running through but not to be on-screen. Edited for typo and to add more details
      - ghaff 4y ago
        On the projectors I used I think doing the dowser thing was manual although the switchover was somewhat automated otherwise.
  - tomcam 4y ago
- mmastrac 4y ago
  That's been bugging me since the start of the digital era. Slightly defocusing the projector should work, shouldn't it? Or perhaps someone could create some advanced optics to spread pixels out.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    JVC has something which shakes the image slightly.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  "screen door effect"? I don't know that one.
  - detaro 4y ago
    That you can see the gaps between the pixels as a dark grid, as if you were looking through a fine mesh
xani_ 4y ago
It's just "nostalgia glasses"; only thing that is "alive" is the media being worse and worse after each use.
- hedgehog_irl 4y ago
  Some of it is nostalgia sure you say film degrades after every run But to counter that argument every time a sound or image is made digital it degrades due to quantisation noise that is added. High bit rates help but it's just an artifact of the digital world
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Quantization noise can be dithered below the threshold of perceptibility.
    - hedgehog_irl 4y ago
      True and agree and but digital is still only ever a close approximation. The way the tech works is all it ever can be. It gets to the point where you can't notice but it's still a very good approximation
      - dsr_ 4y ago
        I will accept this only if you agree that analog is also only ever a close approximation. The Nyquist limit is real and exists in the analog domain just as much as it does in the digital domain.

devindotcom 4y ago

Very true. I can't stand the screen door effect you see on a lot of digital projections. It's horribly distracting. I saw Dune in digital IMAX and spent the whole time thinking there was something wrong with the projector. I think they need some kind of final analog optical step that mitigates the pixelated look many have. Plus with digital you never have the film getting stuck and melting - always a treat to witness!

wilg 4y ago
It's that most digital projectors in movie theaters are terrible: low resolution and dim.
- hedgehog_irl 4y ago
  That's part of it for sure but even on a still scene 35mm projectors still had a small bit of movement because it was mechanical and alignments are never perfect. I know in the cinema I worked in even sat in the screen you could still hear the hum of the machines if you knew what to listen for. To me it was all part of the cinema experience. Digital has improved compared to the early generations yes. But if you gave me the option I'd watch 35mm over digital any day Edited to correct typo
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    Why do you want a wobbly picture and extra background noise? Those sound like negatives.
    - hedgehog_irl 4y ago
      Things don't always have to be perfect. It's a personal preference. While I appreciate the helpful suggestion the first part won't really work and but the second part is fair playing the sound at a low level could help with the experience. What I mean is this is my memory of the cinema and what I enjoyed. Digital achieves "Perfection" but in a way which is lifeless for film. From the point of view of a projectionist every machine had it's own quirks when running a film. I used to run 7 machines in one cinema and once you got to know the tone of the place you would often hear something starting to go wrong before seeing it. A click that shouldn't be there or a platter sounding rough as you laced a film up. The work was interesting in ways that digital never will be. I also prefer some things in electronics to be analogue rather than digital. And no matter the bit rate always remember digital is only ever a close approximation of that colour or that shape it's never perfect. However it may get to a point where the eye can't see the difference and the ear can't hear the difference but it's still only an approximation. I get it I like old tech if that's a crime shoot me. Edited to clarify and add more context
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      It looks better. The noise is just nostalgic for me, it doesn't enhance inherently IMHO.
    - periphrasis 4y ago
      As an example, I recently saw Full Metal Jacket on 35mm. The last Boot Camp scene, the one in the bathroom, while unsettling in any context becomes positively haunting in 35mm. The lower light conditions introduce artifacting even in digital, but the slightly wobbly frame motion and the scratches and dust marks exaggerate that artifacting further. The resulting image is almost expressionistic, as though reality has become so horrifying our very perception of it is starting to breakdown. The same sort of effect recurs with the sniper at the end of the film. In between, the rougher, less pristine frames create a sense of grittiness that amplifies the mood of the film. In short, I thought seeing Full Metal Jacket on 35mm was a fully superior experience over watching it on digital (although I’ve only seen digital presentations of it at home and not in a theater).
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Mmmm... "Two-Lane Blacktop" ending.
jackcosgrove 4y ago
Was melting the film that common? I was an usher and witnessed it once at the end of the credits. I radioed into box, as we called it, that the film was melting on screen. Next thing I hear feet pounding from the projection room and the light shone on the screen became dimmer and the burnt corona of the film disappeared from view.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Especially once everything was spliced onto one big reel, no not common. But when you were switching from one projector to the other every 15 minutes, there were more things to mess up and it could happen from time to time. More common was just a botched reel change of some sort in which the old reel ran out and the timing to switch to the new one was off for some reason or there was just a problem with the film threading.
  - hedgehog_irl 4y ago
    Only time I had it happen in 7 years was when due to failing bulbs not striking so easy I had to strike em manually and left the manual switch in the on position. Well there was a power brown out and that killed the basic automation on the machines that would close a dowser when the film stopped. So the film stopped but the dowser stayed open and the bulb burned through. And for good measure that exact same thing happened on 2 machines at the same time. I believe I was heard in a screen as I responded to the situation with something like "For F*k sake" while restarting the other screens before having to splice the 2 burned films. To clarify these machines were platter fed so no changing reels. The dowser was used to light the bulb while the leader was still running through but not to be on-screen. Edited for typo and to add more details
    - ghaff 4y ago
      On the projectors I used I think doing the dowser thing was manual although the switchover was somewhat automated otherwise.
- tomcam 4y ago
mmastrac 4y ago
That's been bugging me since the start of the digital era. Slightly defocusing the projector should work, shouldn't it? Or perhaps someone could create some advanced optics to spread pixels out.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  JVC has something which shakes the image slightly.
AlbertCory 4y ago
"screen door effect"? I don't know that one.
- detaro 4y ago
  That you can see the gaps between the pixels as a dark grid, as if you were looking through a fine mesh

xani_ 4y ago

It's just "nostalgia glasses"; only thing that is "alive" is the media being worse and worse after each use.

hedgehog_irl 4y ago
Some of it is nostalgia sure you say film degrades after every run But to counter that argument every time a sound or image is made digital it degrades due to quantisation noise that is added. High bit rates help but it's just an artifact of the digital world
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Quantization noise can be dithered below the threshold of perceptibility.
  - hedgehog_irl 4y ago
    True and agree and but digital is still only ever a close approximation. The way the tech works is all it ever can be. It gets to the point where you can't notice but it's still a very good approximation
    - dsr_ 4y ago
      I will accept this only if you agree that analog is also only ever a close approximation. The Nyquist limit is real and exists in the analog domain just as much as it does in the digital domain.