{"id":3415,"date":"2012-02-03T23:02:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T13:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/?p=3415"},"modified":"2012-02-03T23:02:05","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T13:02:05","slug":"dirty-glass-dull-bulb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/?p=3415","title":{"rendered":"Dirty glass, dull bulb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, that was disappointing. This evening I went to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows<\/a><\/em> at the local cinema. The movie was okay, but I fear that I failed to enjoy it because I was totally distracted by the horrible picture quality.<\/p>\n

Now my local cinema is Limelight at Tuggeranong<\/a>. This was a new startup a few years ago which took over the closed-down multiplex in the shopping centre, put in digital projectors, gave the place a bit of a brushover, and reopened selling movie tickets at much lower prices.<\/p>\n

I’ve been impressed when I’ve been there previously. The black levels haven’t been up to the quality of a modern home theatre projector, but certainly adequate, while colours have been rich and engaging.<\/p>\n

So what was going on in Cinema 3 tonight at the 8:20pm showing?<\/p>\n

When they were running trailers, I was wishing that they’d turn down the house lights, because they were washing out the picture quite significantly. Then they turned down the house lights as the feature began. I couldn’t believe it. Totally washed out. Colours pallid. Contrast absolutely terrible. I don’t think I’ve seen a picture as low in contrast as this since Panasonic introduced the dynamic iris back around 2003!<\/p>\n

I was hoping that perhaps this was something to do with the movie’s prologue, but no it continued throughout the movie. I would have guessed a contrast ratio of maybe 500:1. Not only were the blacks at best a dull grey, the bright parts weren’t especially bright. There’s a scene when some of the characters are chugging across the waters on a clear day in a paddle steamer. Dull, dull, dull!<\/p>\n

So instead of being drawn into the picture, I’m wondering how a digital projector can lose contrast. As the lamp reaches the end of its life it dulls, but then the blacks should deepen commensurately.<\/p>\n

And there were inconsistencies. When we got to a darker section of the movie, in those scenes where almost everything was dark, then the black levels didn’t actually look too bad. That’s not the behaviour you expect from a projector (or any other display) with a poor contrast ratio, unless it has a particularly aggressive dynamic iris. Which I don’t think cinema projectors have. If light is leaking through the LCD panels or whatever, it becomes even more obvious in dark scenes.<\/p>\n

So what was going on?<\/p>\n

I had a guess, but waited until the credits started to roll before checking it out so as not to irritate those behind me.<\/p>\n

The first few credits of this movie are presented in a fancy script on a lightly coloured screen. When I turned back and looked at the projection booth, this was glowing brightly … on the glass of the booth, through which the projected image must pass.<\/p>\n

The ideal glass would capture no part of the light. All would pass through unhindered to the screen for maximum brightness. This glass captured quite a bit of the light. Probably only a couple of per cent of it, to be fair, but the image was clear on the glass. A moment later when the normal scrolling white text on black background credits commenced, the text was obvious on this bit of glass (although, obviously, of quite soft focus).<\/p>\n

So here’s my theory: the glass was dirty, and the lamp was dull, perhaps due to nearing the end of its life. I say the lamp was dull because I doubt that the glass — dirty or dusty though it may be — would itself be sufficient to reduce the overall brightness of the image.<\/p>\n

But the dirty\/dusty glass did, in my theory, far more damage. What it did, I think, was scatter part of the light.<\/p>\n

Whenever there was a bright image, there was plenty of light to scatter into the darker objects on the screen (all the men wore dark suits). When there was a dark scene, there was nowhere near as much light being projected through the glass to scatter, so they looked surprisingly good.<\/p>\n

So bright scenes looked washed out — including with pallid colours.<\/p>\n

So that’s my theory. Next week I shall put that to the cinema proprietors and see what they think.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m going to finish watching a movie<\/a> on a large LCD\/LED TV, and marvel at the rich colours and dark blacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that was disappointing. This evening I went to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows at the local cinema. The movie was okay, but I fear that I failed to enjoy it because I was totally distracted by the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3418,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions\/3418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}