Digital or Analogue?

[Marcus Telcontar]

Here is a discusion question that I think would be well to consider.

In the years coming, we are going to see more and more digital in movies (Especially projection) and less analogue. How do you feel about that? Excited? Sad?

Discuss.


For me, I think we are taking a big step backwards. Digital is a nice and flashy but to me, it lacks something. Digital music definantly is not as good as analogue, except when the steppings of digital recording are very, very small. Then, the data sizes become huge to get the information into the datastream. Digital is not infinitely variable either.

However, Analogue is, but there is no way for a digital medium to carry analogue. However, it is possible for analoge to carry digital. If you look at a analogue signal, it's a nice sine curve. Digital is a nasty stepped curve. Compare the two and you can see the differences.

We live in an analogue world, yet we omve to digital. When you convert to digital, some of the analogue is lost for good. Now of course a digital signal is perfectly copyable without loss, unlike Analogue. Digital is also cheaper and is easier.

To me, the passing of Analogue sucks. I dont care how good Digital gets, it cant get close to Analogue as any audiophile will tell you. Sure, the extremes an audiophile will go to for perfect sound are ridiculous - and some even use value amps!!!! - but the point stands. I for one am listening to a Creed song, encoded in MP3, and I notice the flatness and the dullness to the sound. It's should be much crisper. A vale to analogue and real CGI free moviemaking.

Or is it? Thankfully Jackson used as little as possible CGI as he could. I really hope the art of camera tricks is not lost to the computer.

[Morgan Evanar]

1 - You're listening to a lossy compression format, probably encoded by some nerf using RealJukebox and the incredibly crappy xing mp3 codec. It's probably fairly lacking in the bitrate department (about 128 kbits/sec).

I encode my own stuff with LAME... and its a night and day difference.

No way for digital to carry analog? Sure there is. Lossless codecs/formats.

[Figrin D'an]

I have to agree with Morgan. At least as far as mp3's are concerned, it's all about what software/codec you use to create the file. I also use LAME to encode... I can easily hear the difference between a LAME-encoded file and some of the older stuff I have in my collection. Check the bitrate too... anything below 190 kbps is not going to sound even close to the track from your CD collection...


You need to remember that this is a continually evolving process, as well. Digital technology in 20-25 years is going to make what we have today look like the stone-age.

[Master Yoghurt]

I agree with Figrin & Morgan. Digital technology is here to stay. Digital Cinema is still in its early stages, but sometime in the future, the analogue equipment we use today will seem like stone age.

Degrade of sound quality depends on the compression used. With a high bitrate, you should not be able to notice the difference.

[JediBoricua]

huh?


had to post it.....it was the first thing that popped up in my head.

As long as I enjoy the film i'm ok with it.

[JonathanLB]

Digital is superior, so of course I love digital.

I saw digital at the Celebration II and it was just, wow, I heard it was clearer but I never imagined the difference. I really could see a huge difference, the picture was incredibly sharp and like nothing I have seen before, not just because the AOTC footage rocked. It was truly, as McCallum has said, a major difference that is as significant as addind sound to a movie or color. It's a huge revolution.

I wish we had more digital theaters near, but in Oregon we got a big fat ZERO. I do hear there will be one in Seattle very soon, i.e. like in the next few days or a week, and I will go up to see AOTC there once. My dad already agreed (he drives there on business often).

My MP3's all sound great, sound just like my CD's, so that's why I never bother buying many CDs unless I really like all of the songs on the CD.

I have gotten some really horrid versions of MP3s that I just throw away immediately, though, then try again, lol! :)

I think it's great that Lucas is pushing for all digital because he is one of the few people who really can make a difference. Most directors are just at the mercy of the system, but Lucas has the POWER and INFLUENCE to make things happens, so what a great guy for at least having the courage and conviction to stick up for what he sees as the future. That is great, he has always pushed things forward.

We've had digital sound in auditoriums for a few decades now, but digital projection has lagged way behind.

[Darth Viscera]

I think that audio compression all has to do with the lowpass. The mark one ear can't really (IMO) pick up anything beyond 16kHz, which is very good for compressors.

MP3 is bad. It's a derivative of MPEG-1, which is more than 10 years old. LAME spruces it up a heck of a lot by adding efficiency and not encoding silence at 320kbps (!), but in the end it's the same technology you find on a crappy VCD, just optimized by the Fraunhofer Institute.

AAC, Vorbis, etc, are based on new tech (MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 in AAC's case, Vorbis isn't based on any MPEG-LA stuff but rather built from scratch), so they're a lot better. I encoded my AOTC soundtrack to an 80kbps vbr Vorbis album, and the whole thing was 39.6 megs for 74 minutes of audio. I compared it with the original CD audio, and couldn't detect an audible difference. 19x compression, not half bad.

Anyways, I don't think that analog technology is economically viable any longer. Sure, film grain is more comforting and natural to look upon than pixelation (coming from a guy who's encoded more than 1,000 hours of digital video), but digital is just far easier to distribute.

[CMJ]

Digital, almost by definition, has both advantages and disadvantages.....

The fact is digital projection would be great in respect to the quality of the movie as it aged. The print would not become distorted after multiple playings.

Marcus is correct in the fact that analogue has the smooth curve whereas Digital is binary aproximations of said curve. Apparently digital projection as it stands currently is roughly equivalent with Film(yes Jonathan saw a great digital projection...however not all digital projectors are up to Texas Instuments quality from what I have read). Digital projection will improve BUT can it ever truly surpass 35mm?

The answer is currently yes and no. The current way 35mm is printed wastes about half of the available space between frames(I read a long and complex article on this, and I can't quite recall all the specifics so bear with me). A process is being pioneered that could use that remaining film and thus create sharper images. From everything I've read about this new process it BLOWS away current 35mm & Digital projection by a large margin. Will it be used is the real question.....