Projection on the cheap
Then Dacko thought of Apple TV, which plays high-def content at 1280 by 720 - his film's native resolution. Plugging it into the theater's LCD projector, he could play his flick without a tape deck. "Now that Apple's audio codec does 5.1 audio, I can play a full high-def 5.1 movie off this box."
And he could purchase an Apple TV outright for just $299. "That's less than half what I'd pay someone just to put my movie on an HDCam tape."
All he needed was a way to convert his film to Apple's Apple-centric H.264 video format. And he found it inside FinalCut Pro, the Apple app he used the edit the picture. Using the latest version of QuickTime, FinalCut can now convert to iTunes format with a single click.
Well, a single click and some spare time. FinalCut needed seven hours to compress the file - from 275GB down to a mere 3GB. But once it did, Dacko could copy his movie onto his Apple TV, tuck it under his arm, and carry it to the theater. Toting Apple's 7.7- by 7.7- by 1-inch media player was no more difficult than toting a tape.
Projection room kludge
In the end, Dacko didn't plug the device straight into the theater's LCD projector. The projector couldn't handle 1280 by 720, slightly cropping the image, so he put a signal processor in front of his Apple TV to set things right, taking the resolution down to 1024 by 768. That's hardly HD, but it's better than Dacko could have done with DigiBeta. And he's sure that with a little tinkering, he could run things without a converter box. "I bought that Apple TV the night before the premiere," he admitted.
As he continues to screen films, he can simply load them onto his Apple TV and lug it from theater to theater, doing away with tapes entirely. "I wish I had thought of this before," Dacko said. "I could just create multiple versions on my movie on Apple TV - in every possible aspect ratio and format. All the theater would have to do is plug it in."
Why not lug a laptop from theater to theater? Apple TV offers projector-friendly AV ports, including an HDMI jack. It uses an interface that even the most computer-phobic projectionists can quickly learn to use. And it's designed specifically for streaming video. A laptop processor can so easily bog down with other tasks.
And, of course, it's cheap. When you're an indie filmmaker, that's terribly important. ®
Apple TV goes to the movies
COMMENTS
Apple TV getting better by staying the same
AppleTV was a ccused of being a flop because TV & Film pilferers did so in MPEG-4/ASP (XviD et al). Now they do it in MPEG-4/AVC (H.264) many of the 720p downloads work directly & gorgeously.
AppleTV was way ahead of it's time & now the world's catching up it better than ever!
McD
Apple TV is just an iPod
You could have an ipod or Zen and a pile of cables and adaptors to do this job. However the Apple TV does it and has a load of outputs.
It's simply an ipod for people with a static screen and is therefore useful for this moviemaker, or for attaching to an in-car screen. It's just a hobby for apple.
There's little chance of it becoming a mainstream thing unless a miracle occurs and they add a DVD Rip programme to itunes or PVR functionality to the AppleTV.
Re: t3e
>T3e
did you write that on an iPhone or iPod Touch?
cause they both seem unable to start a new sentence or line without insisting on caps. like they don't let you copy & paste. and they get REALLY slow when you write more than a couple paragraphs of text. and if you hit delete when it's running slow, it deletes half of what you've written because the key buffer is faster than the screen response...
21st Century my tits.
720p on a Big Screen?
God I hope that screen wasn't too huge. I have a 100 inch screen with a 720p projector connected to my computer via HDMI, and even the highest quality 720p videos that I can find end up with disturbingly large pixels. Maybe I'm just overly picky, or maybe I sit too close, but I can't imagine 720p looking too great at all on a 20-30 foot wide screen.
Enough with the pro/anti Apple stuff already
OK, you either love or hate Apple. We understand. Did anyone get the subtext? I'll spell it out for you: This is the future of film-making.
If the pirates win, and Hollywood crumbles, and the oceans reclaim the coasts, this is what we will be left with: independent film-makers walking from theatre to theatre, showing their films, asking, "So, what did you think?", collecting a little charity, and on to the next theatre. It's going to be like a punk band, only a little more sedate.
Whether it's Apple TV, or a kludged together Kubuntu box, or a custom system built with solder and bailing wire, films are not going to be created by these mega corporations, sold to huge distribution companies, etc. They'll be made by small shops, sold discretely, if at all, and "toured" around.
You say, "Never...Hollywood will never go away." I believe that like I believe "The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire" (Ooh...that smarts, doesn't it?) I know. I'm hitting below the belt. Face it. Everything has a shelf life. The center cannot hold. It is already crumbling.
I don't care who provides me with the hardware. This particular film-maker solved his particular problem in his own way. That's what like. That, and he didn't whine about it to anyone in IT.
