High-Frame-Rate Exhibition: Limited Release Plans for Hobbit
By Rob Scott
August 10, 2012
August 10, 2012
- Warner Bros. will release the high-frame-rate version of Peter Jackson’s first “Hobbit” only to select cities, according to a source familiar with the plans.
- “People who have seen much of the film in 48 frames-per-second 3D tell Variety the picture now looks vastly better than the test footage shown this April at CinemaCon, which had not yet undergone post-production polishing and got a mixed reception from exhibitors,” reports Variety.
- The studio wants to test the marketplace with a limited HFR release and then expand with the next two installments.
- “As of now, there are still no theaters ready for HFR projection, though some require only a software upgrade that will be ready in September,” notes the article. “Warners is satisfied with the pace of efforts to ready theaters for HFR.”
- Although production gear vendors seem to agree that HFR is the future, equipment upgrades will differ for Series 1 and Series 2 Digital Cinema systems.
- “Each of the makers of the most popular 3D projection systems (RealD, MasterImage, Xpand and Dolby) says its systems are either HFR ready or easily upgradable, though several doubt each others’ claims,” notes Variety. “One thing that won’t be happening soon is a combination of 4K resolution — which is already in some theaters — 3D and high frame rates. Today’s gear and networks can’t handle that much data.”
- “That’s going to be a forklift upgrade when that comes about,” says Don Shaw, director, product management for Christie. “That would require a full-scale replacement of all of the equipment in a movie theater.”
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