Digital video wins the battle over film

It was a battle waged relentlessly from the time the digital revolution made its presence felt.
And now, it seems it's come to its sad, but nevertheless inevitable conclusion. The two sides at the center of the argument of digital video versus celluloid projection have now laid their arms to rest as the former has seemingly emerged victorious. Following the closure of the processing and photo-finishing units belonging to one of the world's leading manufacturers of film, the players in the sphere of motion pictures are coming to terms with the need to change to the digital format.The aforementioned company, which had until now been the industry standard for provision of film for use in motion pictures, had admitted to being under severe financial duress due to the ever-increasing leaning to the digital format.
So much so that even other companies involved in this business are no longer manufacturing 35 mm movie projectors. And to add to the misery of die-hard film advocates, there are barely a few multiplexes anywhere in India, or even around the world that are capable of projecting films shot in the 35mm format. And film festivals are also bearing the brunt of this move. However, the silver lining seems to be that high definition video these days is capable of reproducing images that are close to the quality of film, and sometimes even better. The digital format has also allowed a generation of youngsters to latch onto the movie making bandwagon, which they would have been otherwise unable to, owing to the high cost of film.