showing in theaters: the digital revolution; cinemas test a projector prototype that makes spools of film obsolete

By ANDREW C.
Star Wars: Episode 1 opens in the afternoon at theater 1 at Loews Cineplex-
\"The threat of the Ghost\", film premiere Peter Melnyk repeated for 28 years --
His professional ceremony, before the film passes through the spool, sprayed air on the interior of the old-fashioned movie projector in 1960s to remove dust.
But this time he cooked it.
Enamel and chrome century projectors are there as backup.
In this theater, the Lois Meadows Theatre in West Cowes and the two theaters in the suburbs of Los Angeles, the high of George Lucas
A technician waved a mouse to predict a technical blow from a computer\'s hard drive. On June 18, Mr.
Lucas and 20 th century Fox started these four.
The film is a week-long test of two new competing types of digital projectors that transmit film beams to standard screens using hard drives, microchips, Prism and LCD arrays-
There are no seven heavy film reels, and no dust spots, scratches, and persistent organic contaminants that have inevitably accumulated for a centuryold medium.
As an audience of 1 pM.
Performances screened by the audience from the theater-
Most of them have seen the standard version of the film ---
Gushing over what they just saw.
\"You didn\'t make friends in Kodak,\" audience John rebegi said during a visit to the projection booth led by Kevin Romano.
The founder of Cinecomm digital film, which produced a digital copy of the film.
I saw it was old-
\"It\'s an old-fashioned way, it\'s just blowing it away,\" he said . \"
Rybacki is a video technician from Norwood, NY. J.
Advertising another film, ideal husband, produced by Miramax Films, will be shown in Clearview Chelsea 9 in Manhattan and Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles until July 15 using a digital projection method.
Many film industry experts say digital films are likely to start replacing film in five to 10 years.
The technology will allow the industry to distribute films from studios to cinemas through coding satellite links, avoiding the high costs and delays of making thousands of prints of a new movie and shipping it across the country
Carl Goodman, digital media director at the American mobile imaging Museum in Queens, said the digital screenings of directors and photographers there could be admirable.
He said the shift to digital technology at both ends of the film business ---
Make them and show them-
Is an inevitable part of a larger shift in all electronic entertainment, similar to a shift from scratch --
LP is easy to appear on CD.
Gordon Radley, president, Lucas Pictures Ltd.
He said that the decision to release digital projections to the public was
Lucas believes that digital projectors are as good in many ways as existing movie projectors ---
And far ahead in other ways. At a side-by-
Film and digital version of the Phantom for Los Angeles film business executives and journalists
In June, half of the audience couldn\'t guess which one, he said.
Mark Gill, president of Miramax\'s Los Angeles Division, said Miramax was also eager to turn to digital pictures and decided to hold its own screening. Mr.
Jill said the company chose a traditional film, a period work with many subtle film plots, so that the audience would understand that this method could be used for any film.
\"An Ideal Husband is the opposite of digital movies,\" he said . \"
The industry has realized the commercial benefits of new projection methods.
When a movie is hit unexpectedly, like full monty, the movie theater in the small town will no longer have to wait for one of the remaining copies to be shipped to them.
When the movie is a box
Michael tagev said that office bombs, like \"Godzilla\", do not waste costs when making a lot of prints, up to $2,000 each, and there is no interest in showing them at the cinema, chairman and CEO of Cinecomm co-owned by Qualcommand Hughes-JVC.
His company made a digital copy of the Star Wars movie that is being released in params and winnica, California.
Using a projector made by HughesJVC Technology.
A competing digital projection system manufactured by Texas Instruments is being tested by N. Secaucus. J.
Burbank, California
Industry experts say the advertising system will not appear immediately in the largest theater like Ziegfeld in Manhattan, because the projection distance of digital images is limited.
However, they added that there may be no restrictions on their use in the near future.
Engineers are also trying to match the quality of 70mm films, which are twice as wide as traditional 35mm films.
Public opinion is already spreading.
Theater staff say the \"phantom\" digital performance of Paramus has attracted amateur technical files far away in Maryland.
Executives at Sony and Disney Studios, as well as owners of other theater chains, also visited to measure the audience\'s interest and assess the quality of the film.
Cinecomm in Rome.
It will be shown in the theater until July 15. As the 4 P. M.
Sir, the start time of the next show is approaching.
Romano walks to 41-foot-
On the wide screen in front of the dark auditorium, behind the glass panel at the back, introduce yourself and the digital machinery 125 feet away.
The new projector is a huge black box with three glowing red, green and blue lenses sitting next to the old projector with only one lens.
\"The movie is great . \"Romano said.
\"In the past 75 to 100, it has done great things for us.
But there\'s another way here.
You\'re looking at history.
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The transition to digital cinema is unlikely to be as smooth as Obama did.
Romano predicts that industry experts say studios and theater owners have not even started negotiating who will pay to switch to the new projection system.
But the first viewers of the new approach seem to be in awe of what they see.
About 20 people who had seen the film before it were shown later stayed to visit, and soon they spoke in jargon --
Conversation with Mr. Romano.
He explained that it would take three weeks to scan all the frames in 14,000-foot-
The length of the long film, The Phantom threat, turns it into a basic code of trillions of 0 and 1, the digital age, and then compresses the data.
He said the prototype projector costs about $250,000 and is expected to end up costing less than $100,000 per theater.
Conversations during the tour range from data compression ratios to xenon bulbs, from encryption software to Pluto hard disk arrays stored on 20 hard drives.
The data is only a visual part of the movie.
The digital soundtrack runs through the room in another black box.
Zev Eth, a 17-year-old advertising company, is a computer and Star Wars enthusiast from Englewood, who is immersed in it all.
\"All my friends who have seen it before will see it again in\" dij \",\" he said . \" He used a shorthand term for the word \"number.
\"This way is 30 times better.
\"In another corner of the movie complex, Star Wars movies are shown on the screen using standard projectors.
But a few minutes before the next show, only one couple sat in their seats.
When a tourist mentioned that the digital screening of the same film was about to begin in the hall, they quickly stood up and hurried to see it.
At the booth of the digital screening, Richard Sutton, Hughes\'s technician
JVC, clicked the mouse on the \"play\" icon on the display, the trailer, the advertisement, and finally the movie itself rolled ---
At least in a virtual way.
Occasionally, the audience will glance at the flashing red, green and blue beams in the projection booth from the shoulder.
The system works like a home projection TV. each movie moment is divided into three parts: red, green and blue, recorded separately, and then projected into three beams of light.
When the three beams are merged on the screen, the audience will see the fullcolor scene.
But the similarities between digital projectors and home TV are over here.
In the digital system, every frame of the movie is recorded as thousands of information, so that the nuances of shadows or colors are captured as they were originally shot. As Mr. Melnyk, the 49-year-old gray-
Hair projector, watch digital movie projector Upload sci-
He recalled the days when he danced between the two projectors, each of which lasted 20-
The minute reel of the movie runs seamlessly with the end of the previous roll, replacing the burnt carbon wire in the light source every 40 minutes.
\"This is the future ---
\"I am looking,\" said the gentleman.
Melnyk said the digital projector, though his old one was launched at the same time. The four-foot-
With the wide plate of the movie spinning, the movie winds into the projector.
But the light will only light up when there are some unexpected failures. There was none.
On Saturday, a picture description of the new digital movie projector incorrectly identified the person who demonstrated the digital movie projector.
He\'s Richard Sutton, Hughes\'s technician.
Not Kevin Romano, but JVC.
The related title misspelled the last name of the movie projector in some copies.
He\'s Peter Melnick, not Melnick.
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A version of this article was printed on page B00001 of the National edition on July 3, 1999 with the title: release in theaters: Digital Revolution;
The cinema tests a prototype of a projector that makes the film\'s axis obsolete.