| An introduction to peripherals |
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Contrary to 35 mm projectors, digital cinema projectors are able to project content from all kinds of sources on the screen. For cinema owners, this represents a great potential for additional revenue. It’s now possible to give cinema audiences access to all kinds of exciting new content on the big screen: opera or live concerts by satellite, video game parties or host a conference by connecting the speaker´s laptop to the projector. These ´alternative projections´, that are often seen as added value that come with the system for free, are not necessarily obvious and can be quite hazardous to handle. Digital cinema projectors were primarily designed to project images and sounds of feature films from the digital cinema server. Connecting other devices - that generally means external video sources - may hold some surprises: bad aspect ratio, artifacts, audio noise, ... In several chapters Cineserver will give you explanations and tips about how to get alternative content screenings running smoothly with the different kinds of video players. Firstly, we will discuss several aspects of video:
Following chapters will discuss how to connect audio sources, we´ll discuss how to connect laptops and different consumer and professional video players and will have a separate section about satellite receivers. The inputs of a digital cinema projectorSeveral inputs are available on the input panel of d-cinema projectors to connect video players. The main ones are the two HD-SDI inputs that securely connect the cinema server to the digital cinema projector. This connection is known as dual link HD-SDI and provides a nominal 2.970 Gbit/s connection. Digital cinema projectors commonly also have two DVI (older projectors) or HDMI inputs (some more modern models) on the input panel. These connectors can be used by the projectionist to plug in a DVD player, a laptop or a satellite receiver, most often using an intermediate device.   When video players are equipped with DVI or HDMI connectors, projectionists can plug them directly into the d-cinema projector. We will however see that the compatibility of the interfaces of the projector and peripherals does not guarantee a ‘plug and play’ alternative content projection: an intermediate device commonly called a ‘scaler’ is often useful for improving the quality of the projection and optimizing the settings.   The quality of picture and sound that is the result of the connecting a device to the d-cinema projector also depends greatly on the quality of the source. The end result is not the same if you connect a DVD player (with a resolution of 720 x 576 pixels) or a Blu-ray or HDCAM SR player (both capable of a 1920 x 1080 pixels and colours well above the DVD). On the big screen, the image’s faults are obviously going to be more noticeable than on a small television screen. Therefore, if available, a High Definition image is highly preferred for what is often called 'alternative content'. |
| Last Updated on Friday, 11 February 2011 14:55 |
