Category Archives: Societies

Societies really imply a lot of special efforts by individual. Here's some news from some of the many in this field.

CinemaCon and NAB/SMPTE Events Posted

Here are the links for the daily events of CinemaCon 2016 and the Future of Cinema SMPTE/NAB. Note that they follow each other, separated only by one day. Enjoy that Friday off~!

CinemaCon 2016 ScheduleMake sure to note that there is an International Day schedule – which is on the 11th – as well as a schedule for the day of the 11th. Don’t miss anything~! http://cinemacon.com/schedule/2016-events/

SMPTE/NAB Future of CinemaThere is always something about the Future of Cinema Schedule – Note that if you decide that there is something that doesn’t seem interesting in the description, and you use that time to go to meet or eat – it will be THE seminar that everyone talks about for the next six months. “Hey~! Did you see the Correlative Timeshifting 4DmegaFrames per PixelSecond presentation? http://nab16.mapyourshow.com/7_0/sessions/index.cfm?advsrch-sessiontype=86&advsrch=true&advsrch-showresults=true

Good luck with that. 

CinemaCon/NAB 2106 – Perfect Dates

Most often NAB leads, and there is a week in between. This week is usually filled with the best hundred-twenty bucks in showbiz, as it buys you a bus seat on the EDCF tour of LA manufacturers and exhibitors and post houses. Who knows what will happen to this event this year since there is no such week in between. The week before? the week after? If only the ISCWest.com event were on the 8-10 of April, then true happiness would reign, but the merging of the two main events is good enough.

This article will be updated as news of the 3 events meanders in, but for now it is trending towards a Panglossian Best of All Possible Worlds Weeks. 

CinemaCon banner    SMPTE logo

CinemaCon/NAB 2106 – Perfect Dates

Most often NAB leads, and there is a week in between. This week is usually filled with the best hundred-twenty bucks in showbiz, as it buys you a bus seat on the EDCF tour of LA manufacturers and exhibitors and post houses. Who knows what will happen to this event this year since there is no such week in between. The week before? the week after? If only the ISCWest.com event were on the 8-10 of April, then true happiness would reign, but the merging of the two main events is good enough.

This article will be updated as news of the 3 events meanders in, but for now it is trending towards a Panglossian Best of All Possible Worlds Weeks. 

CinemaCon banner    SMPTE logo

CinemaCon/NAB 2106 – Perfect Dates

Most often NAB leads, and there is a week in between. This week is usually filled with the best hundred-twenty bucks in showbiz, as it buys you a bus seat on the EDCF tour of LA manufacturers and exhibitors and post houses. Who knows what will happen to this event this year since there is no such week in between. The week before? the week after? If only the ISCWest.com event were on the 8-10 of April, then true happiness would reign, but the merging of the two main events is good enough.

This article will be updated as news of the 3 events meanders in, but for now it is trending towards a Panglossian Best of All Possible Worlds Weeks. 

CinemaCon banner    SMPTE logo

JOIN SMPTE NOW~!

Why do I recommend that you join SMPTE, and JOIN SMPTE NOW? What has it meant for me?

Well, being the dullest knife in the drawer and from a different part of the entertainment technology biz, it has meant that I get a little bit closer to the unadulterated technical information that I use to make sense of things. For me, this means the free to members webcasts…and a digital copy of the Imaging Journal…far above my head, but every once in a while I stumble on an article from someone I know – I’ll say to them, “Hey! saw your article in the Journal. Nice. Thanks.” That’s worth the price of admission right there. 

“But can’t I have gotten that without spending $145 for an individual membership,” you ask? Maybe. But it actually feels good when I can say that I am a member. “Couldn’t it be less expensive?,” you ask. “I mean, is SMPTE gouging?” I don’t think so, and let me explain why.

If you want to go the next step in SMPTE, contributing your time and efforts to committees and study groups, then you have to pay a bunch more…something like $250. That additional cost goes into keeping the SMPTE structure up to the standards of the international groups that SMPTE belongs to, most especially the ISO. Imagine all the work that goes into submitting the SMPTE Standards and Recommended Practices to the ISO…then having the ISO say, “You didn’t have the required time period between draft submission and voting closure dates.” The costs of making all that right might have been wrapped into the costs of general membership, making the $145 a lot more – putting membership far out of reach of many. “Why~!~! That’s the opposite of gouging,” you say.

The hard part is the realization that you learn too much, yet how little that you know. As the saying goes: Kilometers wide, millimeters deep. People who you respect openly asking questions. You find that you can no longer pontificate since it is not only bad form, but you know that there is always so much more nuance that can be told. 

So, if you need an excuse to get some of your time back by not pontificating, and feel good if someone says, “You are a SMPTE member, aren’t you?”, join now. And tell them that C J sent you.

Here’s the official SMPTE Membership Referral Program link:

SMPTE Member Referral Program | Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers

 

JOIN SMPTE NOW~!

Why do I recommend that you join SMPTE, and JOIN SMPTE NOW? What has it meant for me?

Well, being the dullest knife in the drawer and from a different part of the entertainment technology biz, it has meant that I get a little bit closer to the unadulterated technical information that I use to make sense of things. For me, this means the free to members webcasts…and a digital copy of the Imaging Journal…far above my head, but every once in a while I stumble on an article from someone I know – I’ll say to them, “Hey! saw your article in the Journal. Nice. Thanks.” That’s worth the price of admission right there. 

“But can’t I have gotten that without spending $145 for an individual membership,” you ask? Maybe. But it actually feels good when I can say that I am a member. “Couldn’t it be less expensive?,” you ask. “I mean, is SMPTE gouging?” I don’t think so, and let me explain why.

If you want to go the next step in SMPTE, contributing your time and efforts to committees and study groups, then you have to pay a bunch more…something like $250. That additional cost goes into keeping the SMPTE structure up to the standards of the international groups that SMPTE belongs to, most especially the ISO. Imagine all the work that goes into submitting the SMPTE Standards and Recommended Practices to the ISO…then having the ISO say, “You didn’t have the required time period between draft submission and voting closure dates.” The costs of making all that right might have been wrapped into the costs of general membership, making the $145 a lot more – putting membership far out of reach of many. “Why~!~! That’s the opposite of gouging,” you say.

The hard part is the realization that you learn too much, yet how little that you know. As the saying goes: Kilometers wide, millimeters deep. People who you respect openly asking questions. You find that you can no longer pontificate since it is not only bad form, but you know that there is always so much more nuance that can be told. 

So, if you need an excuse to get some of your time back by not pontificating, and feel good if someone says, “You are a SMPTE member, aren’t you?”, join now. And tell them that C J sent you.

Here’s the official SMPTE Membership Referral Program link:

SMPTE Member Referral Program | Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers

 

Technology Summit on Cinema | SMPTE/NAB2015

Technology Summit on Cinema | SMPTE/NAB2015Kicking off the yearly SMPTE program at NAB is a symposium with Bill Mead and featuring Tim Reed of Alamo Drafthouse, David Pflegl of Carmike, Steven Tsai or Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sean Romano of Deluxe Digital and Wendy Aylsworth.

Covering the entire breadth of the history and ending with, “Has the Industry done a good job?”, Digidia has presented all the YouTube videos on their site at:

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and

NAB sponsored Technology Summit on Cinema

Technology Summit on Cinema | SMPTE/NAB2015

Technology Summit on Cinema | SMPTE/NAB2015Kicking off the yearly SMPTE program at NAB is a symposium with Bill Mead and featuring Tim Reed of Alamo Drafthouse, David Pflegl of Carmike, Steven Tsai or Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sean Romano of Deluxe Digital and Wendy Aylsworth.

Covering the entire breadth of the history and ending with, “Has the Industry done a good job?”, Digidia has presented all the YouTube videos on their site at:

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and

NAB sponsored Technology Summit on Cinema

Visions of NAB Past…About the Future

Coming out of the great film to digital transition, it was a great convocation for looking at nuance not heretofore discussed. There are a great number of ‘casts on important topics dealing in the future of DCinema. Of course, as a SMPTE member of several committees, I can’t tell you whether we all know about these things already. But they are important nonetheless:

NAB2014’s single most important message to exhibitors

Out of all the activity at NAB2014, there is one presentation that stands out to Cinema Exhibitors.  John Hurst, the father of the software that goes into the making of every bit of DCI equipment presented a panel discussing the problems exhibitors are facing and how it is effecting the whole industry.  How not moving forward with upgrades is costing you money as new features are failing to reach critical mass.  An example of this is TKR (Theatre Key Retrieval) an automated system that would remove the need for dealing with KDMs/Emails. (Email me if you would like more videos covering these new technologies.)

If you own a cinema, this set of videos are a must watch.

NAB 2014 – 22 – Looking Forward – Intro and Overview – John Hurst
NAB 2014 – 23 – Looking Forward – Panel – Mastering houses are front line to problems
NAB 2014 – 24 – Looking Forward – Panel – Why won’t cinemas upgrade
NAB 2014 – 25 – Looking Forward – Panel – What we miss out on by not upgrading
NAB 2014 – 26 – Looking Forward – Panel – Is this harder than it should be and 3D subtitles
NAB 2014 – 27 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q1, Software based Players Not Secure
NAB 2014 – 28 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q2, We NEED a deadline for upgrades
NAB 2014 – 29 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q3, What happened to TKR(Theatre Key Retrieval) and FLMx
NAB 2014 – 30 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q4, How to fix motivation for upgrading
NAB 2014 – 31 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q5, Content Marking Issues
NAB 2014 – 32 – Looking Forward – Panel – Is 2 years long enough to expect upgrades? Not 10+ years

Visions of NAB Past…About the Future

Coming out of the great film to digital transition, it was a great convocation for looking at nuance not heretofore discussed. There are a great number of ‘casts on important topics dealing in the future of DCinema. Of course, as a SMPTE member of several committees, I can’t tell you whether we all know about these things already. But they are important nonetheless:

NAB2014’s single most important message to exhibitors

Out of all the activity at NAB2014, there is one presentation that stands out to Cinema Exhibitors.  John Hurst, the father of the software that goes into the making of every bit of DCI equipment presented a panel discussing the problems exhibitors are facing and how it is effecting the whole industry.  How not moving forward with upgrades is costing you money as new features are failing to reach critical mass.  An example of this is TKR (Theatre Key Retrieval) an automated system that would remove the need for dealing with KDMs/Emails. (Email me if you would like more videos covering these new technologies.)

If you own a cinema, this set of videos are a must watch.

NAB 2014 – 22 – Looking Forward – Intro and Overview – John Hurst
NAB 2014 – 23 – Looking Forward – Panel – Mastering houses are front line to problems
NAB 2014 – 24 – Looking Forward – Panel – Why won’t cinemas upgrade
NAB 2014 – 25 – Looking Forward – Panel – What we miss out on by not upgrading
NAB 2014 – 26 – Looking Forward – Panel – Is this harder than it should be and 3D subtitles
NAB 2014 – 27 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q1, Software based Players Not Secure
NAB 2014 – 28 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q2, We NEED a deadline for upgrades
NAB 2014 – 29 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q3, What happened to TKR(Theatre Key Retrieval) and FLMx
NAB 2014 – 30 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q4, How to fix motivation for upgrading
NAB 2014 – 31 – Looking Forward – Panel – Q5, Content Marking Issues
NAB 2014 – 32 – Looking Forward – Panel – Is 2 years long enough to expect upgrades? Not 10+ years

SMPTE’s Metamers

but takes different meanings depending on the many different possible viewpoints. One group will use the word to mean that two articles of clothing can look identical under the lighting of the store, but will look wildly different in the light of the bedroom. It is also metamerism that allows what looks one way on the screen in RGB to look similar when printed with CMYK inks. It is also used in the controlled tests of the lab when a person is asked to mix 3 colors in order to match a target color – in fact, it was similar tests that the then young International Commission on Illumination (the CIE) used to proof the tri-stimulus system and to come up with the various color models that we are familiar with (think horseshoe).

SMPTE Screen for Committee Work

Metamers are in the news because of laser light replacing xenon, and, like the always present but exacerbated ‘speckle’ is something that heretofore sloppy but lucky implementations were able to hide – not that the engineers were sloppy, but the technology was so ‘force over subtlety’ that the age didn’t allow any better. Unlike speckle, no one knows for certain whether metamers will be an actual audience problem. It may be something that we run into everyday and ignore. There are things like this that we just don’t notice on the movie screen as well – for example, what is seen as a circle if you are in a center seat takes the shape of an ellipse if you are over to the side. But the human visual system compensates for this with ease – you see it but you ignore it…except for stereoscopic movies, where the brain ‘sees’ an ellipse, and just adds that to the pile of straw waiting to get too heavy…bringing headaches and dissatisfied customers…force over subtlety yet again.

New Audio Systems – The attempt for same sound with different structures

Now, with increased computational power and the desire to immerse the audience with ‘natural’ sound, the audio world has entered the realm of (attempting) the creation of an equivalent set of combined sounds taking different presentation positions (the Object of object-based audio essence–OBAE) while attempting to create the same sound regardless of different variables – an audio metamer for want of a better term. The new Object-based audio systems presume that they can dial in a particular set of numbers to get a different arrangement of speakers to act just like another…across different systems with different crossovers and spectral response.

Good luck with that. The term of art is: to be subjectively consistent, making best use of the available resources.

Lest this progress be decried as just another manufacturer’s method of raking over the audience to get more money…or the exhibitor’s money since better audio doesn’t really have a ‘return from end-user’ built into the business model…directors are also pushing for this change, since it is the logical extension of what we all imagined audio could be back in our teen-age, garage-band, more-speakers-in-the-car days.

But that isn’t what we are here to write about. Our topic has to do with the many and several ways to achieve KAVI-based bliss when using the SMPTE Committee site. That is the true -mer, sharing knowledge (or in the case of your author here, only sharing time since he all too often finds himself as the dullest crayon in the room during these engineering meetings.) But getting into the process of using the SMPTE website needs some explaining for the novice. This may be the first of many tutorials.

Soon (hopefully, and relatively) there will be pictures and arrows here, with tips from good/better/best people making comments on this article. Because everyone has met this problem, not only learning how to guide themselves through the login and the disappearing Record My Attendance and the Please Vote emails with cryptic messages.

{mp4 width=”660″ height=”400″}smpte_1{/mp4}

SMPTE’s Metamers

but takes different meanings depending on the many different possible viewpoints. One group will use the word to mean that two articles of clothing can look identical under the lighting of the store, but will look wildly different in the light of the bedroom. It is also metamerism that allows what looks one way on the screen in RGB to look similar when printed with CMYK inks. It is also used in the controlled tests of the lab when a person is asked to mix 3 colors in order to match a target color – in fact, it was similar tests that the then young International Commission on Illumination (the CIE) used to proof the tri-stimulus system and to come up with the various color models that we are familiar with (think horseshoe).

SMPTE Screen for Committee Work

Metamers are in the news because of laser light replacing xenon, and, like the always present but exacerbated ‘speckle’ is something that heretofore sloppy but lucky implementations were able to hide – not that the engineers were sloppy, but the technology was so ‘force over subtlety’ that the age didn’t allow any better. Unlike speckle, no one knows for certain whether metamers will be an actual audience problem. It may be something that we run into everyday and ignore. There are things like this that we just don’t notice on the movie screen as well – for example, what is seen as a circle if you are in a center seat takes the shape of an ellipse if you are over to the side. But the human visual system compensates for this with ease – you see it but you ignore it…except for stereoscopic movies, where the brain ‘sees’ an ellipse, and just adds that to the pile of straw waiting to get too heavy…bringing headaches and dissatisfied customers…force over subtlety yet again.

New Audio Systems – The attempt for same sound with different structures

Now, with increased computational power and the desire to immerse the audience with ‘natural’ sound, the audio world has entered the realm of (attempting) the creation of an equivalent set of combined sounds taking different presentation positions (the Object of object-based audio essence–OBAE) while attempting to create the same sound regardless of different variables – an audio metamer for want of a better term. The new Object-based audio systems presume that they can dial in a particular set of numbers to get a different arrangement of speakers to act just like another…across different systems with different crossovers and spectral response.

Good luck with that. The term of art is: to be subjectively consistent, making best use of the available resources.

Lest this progress be decried as just another manufacturer’s method of raking over the audience to get more money…or the exhibitor’s money since better audio doesn’t really have a ‘return from end-user’ built into the business model…directors are also pushing for this change, since it is the logical extension of what we all imagined audio could be back in our teen-age, garage-band, more-speakers-in-the-car days.

But that isn’t what we are here to write about. Our topic has to do with the many and several ways to achieve KAVI-based bliss when using the SMPTE Committee site. That is the true -mer, sharing knowledge (or in the case of your author here, only sharing time since he all too often finds himself as the dullest crayon in the room during these engineering meetings.) But getting into the process of using the SMPTE website needs some explaining for the novice. This may be the first of many tutorials.

Soon (hopefully, and relatively) there will be pictures and arrows here, with tips from good/better/best people making comments on this article. Because everyone has met this problem, not only learning how to guide themselves through the login and the disappearing Record My Attendance and the Please Vote emails with cryptic messages.

{mp4 width=”660″ height=”400″}smpte_1{/mp4}

Update: CinemaCon/SMPTE/NAB 2014

CinemaCon has placed their Schedule of Events Online.

2014 Schedule of Events – CinemaCon — Celebrating the Moviegoing Experience

March 24-27 – CinemaCon — March 24 – 27 (Monday thru Thursday)

SMPTE/NAB Technology Summit On Cinema April 5 and 6 (Saturday and Sunday before the NAB Exhibits open.

NAB Show — Exhibits April 7 – 10; Monday thru Thursday

Yes, this is a reversal from previous years. Somewhat the same time spans though. If one were to go to the CinemaCon, leaving Thursday, there would be 9 days before getting morning cakes and coffee and sitting for 2 days through several excellent SMPTE presentations.

There was a time when this event was the place for everyone to get caught up to the current methods that the digital cinema industry was developing and using to go from 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 installed systems. In a lot of regards it was catch and patch can. But for the last few years it has been more pointedly scientific reports on how to get to the next level, that level that is beyond the idiosyncratic 24 frame movie. It is hard to predict from the agenda how it could be better than the seminars of the last 2 years.

Meanwhile, CinemaCon gets to celebrate another year of record income and what looks like another good year following.