This story is worth several good minutes – Still Playing: The Theater That Saw The Birth Of Cinema
Category Archives: Exhibition
Artist’s Intent Exposed~! See it here first. Where? In the cinema, the temporary home provided by exhibitors.
The Earliest Exhibitor
This story is worth several good minutes – Still Playing: The Theater That Saw The Birth Of Cinema
New Harkness Darkness Challenge
In the film projector days, it was mandatory for the projectionist to walk by the projector several times per showing to adjust the focus of the lens. For many reasons, mostly dealing with heat stability and the elimination of the sometimes tight/sometimes loose film track, this isn’t required anymore. It is common for focus to remain astoundingly stable over months. Relative color problems have also gone from potentially horrid – as owners stretched a bulb far past its prime – to nuanced imperfections as xenon bulb technology was refined for digital life. No longer do we see the blues disappear and the white point slip so that the yellows turn brown…well, we can, but not often nor nearly as bad as it often was.
Bulbs don’t burn out perfectly though. The remains of a burned out bulb will show the darkening residue from the tungsten electrode (the anode) coating the inside of the glass and pits where arc bounces around giving the effect of ‘bulb flicker’, often long before its the mandatory death date. (Jim Slater has an excellent article in Cinema Technology if anyone needs a refresher course in xenon bulbs. Oram Eichstätt – The home of the XBO) (Cinema Equipment Sales has a reprint of a well done Ray Boegner piece: Everything you wanted to know about xenon bulbs…)
The loss of a skilled and caring pair of eyes on the screen before and during the movie (or alternative content) presentation is a loss regardless of how good the equipment is. This Quality Assurance problem was mentioned for the first time in recent memory during a CinemaCon 2015 seminar, The Unintended Consequences of Digital Cinema. Most usually these seminars have a billion years of expertise on stage, but in an effort to be polite to competitors onstage and customers who chose competitor’s products, many speakers leave trails too nuanced to parse. In this case, Carolyn Giardina – Contributing Editor of The Hollywood Reporter – prompted the panel, especially Rich Phillips – CTO of Arts Alliance – to speak clearly about quality assurance errors that are slipping by, to the extent that some exhibitors figure it is acceptable of the audience to be QA examiner in the non-premium rooms.
Quelle Horreur~!
Just in time, Harkness comes through with an iPhone app that works to get eyes in the room, and measure the screen with ease. They bill their new Digital Screen Verifier as the “World’s Most Accurate Light Meter App for the iPhone”. They will be selling this $40 iOS-only app alongside the handheld device that they introduced a few years ago. Here’s more of their verbiage:
Utilising pioneering proprietary technology, the Digital Screen Verifier from Harkness Screens is a unique utility for iPhones that allows cinema engineers and exhibitors to ensure that brightness levels in digital cinema are regular checked and maintained. Quick and easy to use, this relatively accurate (+/- 1fL) low-cost light measurement tool allows brightness readings to be taken (in foot lamberts) using white test patterns from a digital cinema projector. Its unique functionality allows light readings taken in the field to be directly imported into Harkness’ cloud-based Digital Screen Archiver tool in real-time to form a semi-automated entry-level solution to screen monitoring and auditorium maintenance.
They showed this at CinemaCon, but it took a couple extra weeks to become available at the Apple AppStore, but with all the Barco Laser and DolbyVision announcement sucking all the juice from the potential customer’s technology bandwidth it may be just as well that they can legitimately re-introduce this cool stuff as a follow up item.
They also followed up on an earlier announcement that they are working to put the Qalif products from Highlands Technology into the cinema. The Qalif Calibration system is an incredible piece of kit. And the follow-up tool will be a nice monitoring device for those who can’t afford to put a microphone in the sound field and limit their needs to what is available from the back wall. Bottom line is that Post Installation Quality Assurance is getting a major boost from a market leader.
New Harkness Darkness Challenge
In the film projector days, it was mandatory for the projectionist to walk by the projector several times per showing to adjust the focus of the lens. For many reasons, mostly dealing with heat stability and the elimination of the sometimes tight/sometimes loose film track, this isn’t required anymore. It is common for focus to remain astoundingly stable over months. Relative color problems have also gone from potentially horrid – as owners stretched a bulb far past its prime – to nuanced imperfections as xenon bulb technology was refined for digital life. No longer do we see the blues disappear and the white point slip so that the yellows turn brown…well, we can, but not often nor nearly as bad as it often was.
Bulbs don’t burn out perfectly though. The remains of a burned out bulb will show the darkening residue from the tungsten electrode (the anode) coating the inside of the glass and pits where arc bounces around giving the effect of ‘bulb flicker’, often long before its the mandatory death date. (Jim Slater has an excellent article in Cinema Technology if anyone needs a refresher course in xenon bulbs. Oram Eichstätt – The home of the XBO) (Cinema Equipment Sales has a reprint of a well done Ray Boegner piece: Everything you wanted to know about xenon bulbs…)
The loss of a skilled and caring pair of eyes on the screen before and during the movie (or alternative content) presentation is a loss regardless of how good the equipment is. This Quality Assurance problem was mentioned for the first time in recent memory during a CinemaCon 2015 seminar, The Unintended Consequences of Digital Cinema. Most usually these seminars have a billion years of expertise on stage, but in an effort to be polite to competitors onstage and customers who chose competitor’s products, many speakers leave trails too nuanced to parse. In this case, Carolyn Giardina – Contributing Editor of The Hollywood Reporter – prompted the panel, especially Rich Phillips – CTO of Arts Alliance – to speak clearly about quality assurance errors that are slipping by, to the extent that some exhibitors figure it is acceptable of the audience to be QA examiner in the non-premium rooms.
Quelle Horreur~!
Just in time, Harkness comes through with an iPhone app that works to get eyes in the room, and measure the screen with ease. They bill their new Digital Screen Verifier as the “World’s Most Accurate Light Meter App for the iPhone”. They will be selling this $40 iOS-only app alongside the handheld device that they introduced a few years ago. Here’s more of their verbiage:
Utilising pioneering proprietary technology, the Digital Screen Verifier from Harkness Screens is a unique utility for iPhones that allows cinema engineers and exhibitors to ensure that brightness levels in digital cinema are regular checked and maintained. Quick and easy to use, this relatively accurate (+/- 1fL) low-cost light measurement tool allows brightness readings to be taken (in foot lamberts) using white test patterns from a digital cinema projector. Its unique functionality allows light readings taken in the field to be directly imported into Harkness’ cloud-based Digital Screen Archiver tool in real-time to form a semi-automated entry-level solution to screen monitoring and auditorium maintenance.
They showed this at CinemaCon, but it took a couple extra weeks to become available at the Apple AppStore, but with all the Barco Laser and DolbyVision announcement sucking all the juice from the potential customer’s technology bandwidth it may be just as well that they can legitimately re-introduce this cool stuff as a follow up item.
They also followed up on an earlier announcement that they are working to put the Qalif products from Highlands Technology into the cinema. The Qalif Calibration system is an incredible piece of kit. And the follow-up tool will be a nice monitoring device for those who can’t afford to put a microphone in the sound field and limit their needs to what is available from the back wall. Bottom line is that Post Installation Quality Assurance is getting a major boost from a market leader.
CinemaCon Technology: Evolution Has Arrived
IMAX is making its pitch with their new dual-laser light projectors. Unfortunately, unless one is in Toronto the only screen to make a judgement upon is the horridly dark silver screen with the gold reflections of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Horrible green-grey cast to everything.
But the boutique niche of ultra-quality is what Dolby is moving into in an all-encompassing way. If all popcorn weren’t already GMO-Free, perhaps they would have attacked that problem as well.
Barco meanwhile has launched a full range of non-xenon projectors that will have the same Cost of Ownership as xenon in something like 3 years…or 2 or 5 or some number significantly less than the 10 years of their warranty. And, for those 25 or 30 thousand owners of C Series Barco projectors, there is a laser retrofit, with an S Series retrofit later this year.
Why buy anything else? Big room with ability to share profits with Dolby, then the choice is Dolby Vision. Studios will be releasing a special High Dynamic Range DCP for them, and the question will be whether Barco Laser system owners can get that DCP as well and whether Barco can tweak for them a bit more HDR instead of their previous goal of “Let’s keep everything at the DCI minimums until people know what they need and want.”
What we want is more…
Barco Auro will deliver their new object oriented system soon which incorporates some technology from the IOSONO purchase. Time will tell, especially since they have been talking about this for 2 or 3 years…but it aligns with the push for a standard interchange of immersive mixes, driven by the studios desire for the One Master and Open Source where possible, which DTS:X is driving toward with MDA.
But there should be no confusion with any of the other brilliant products shown or discussed at the show. The evolution to the Dolby complete package and Barco’s laser projectors is monumental.
CinemaCon Technology: Evolution Has Arrived
IMAX is making its pitch with their new dual-laser light projectors. Unfortunately, unless one is in Toronto the only screen to make a judgement upon is the horridly dark silver screen with the gold reflections of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Horrible green-grey cast to everything.
But the boutique niche of ultra-quality is what Dolby is moving into in an all-encompassing way. If all popcorn weren’t already GMO-Free, perhaps they would have attacked that problem as well.
Barco meanwhile has launched a full range of non-xenon projectors that will have the same Cost of Ownership as xenon in something like 3 years…or 2 or 5 or some number significantly less than the 10 years of their warranty. And, for those 25 or 30 thousand owners of C Series Barco projectors, there is a laser retrofit, with an S Series retrofit later this year.
Why buy anything else? Big room with ability to share profits with Dolby, then the choice is Dolby Vision. Studios will be releasing a special High Dynamic Range DCP for them, and the question will be whether Barco Laser system owners can get that DCP as well and whether Barco can tweak for them a bit more HDR instead of their previous goal of “Let’s keep everything at the DCI minimums until people know what they need and want.”
What we want is more…
Barco Auro will deliver their new object oriented system soon which incorporates some technology from the IOSONO purchase. Time will tell, especially since they have been talking about this for 2 or 3 years…but it aligns with the push for a standard interchange of immersive mixes, driven by the studios desire for the One Master and Open Source where possible, which DTS:X is driving toward with MDA.
But there should be no confusion with any of the other brilliant products shown or discussed at the show. The evolution to the Dolby complete package and Barco’s laser projectors is monumental.
Immersed Soundly | Laser Precision | CinemaCon 2015
Digital Cinema comprises an enormously broad sweep of technologies. The amount of nuance that must be de-layered to make intelligent decisions is daunting. A simple example: the fact that the new laser projectors can create 3D movies on low-gain white screens (paragraphs of nuance in just that phrase alone), means that woven screens can be used which would also benefit the audio from the speakers behind the screen.</p>
<hr id=”system-readmore” />
<p>Yet again, the industry is at a transition. In past transitions, when a company was able to show that an up-until-then unachievable standard could be met, the studios clamped down on the deliverables that went to the older equipment. MPEG was ubiquitous, then JPEG was shown and within a year the MPEG deliverables were verboten. The change in security keys, the anti-ghosting prints….</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be something if the studios said, “At this time next year, all DCI movie prints will be mastered at the SMPTE standard level of 48 candela per square meter.”</p>
<p>Post-Digital Era indeed~!</p>
<p>The laser systems at CinemaCon will have the new pitch of being commercially installed. Both Barco and Christie have their super ±60,000 lumens systems in the field, with announcements for many more. NEC launched their 6,000 lumen system for the smaller screens to similar success.</p>
<p>The amazing angle on new projector installs is that they are being made – except for rare cases – without the VPF deal. One manufacturer made 20,000 cinema-centric digital sales in 2014 according to their yearly prospectus.</p>
<p>Last year at this time Christie was still using a screen that had shakers attached to the rear to de-harmonize speckle. It will be interesting to see how they have progress from that technology. They also seemed to back away from the pitch that there would be any electricity savings due to the costs of cooling the lasers. Enquiring minds…</p>
<p>Christie’s laser links come from this sentence of their promo:</p>
<p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>The Christie Freedom laser illumination system platform includes the <a href=”http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/cinema/cinema-products/digital-cinema-projectors/Pages/Christie-CP42LH-3DLP-RGB-Digital-Cinema-Laser-Projector.aspx” target=”_blank” title=”Christie CP42LH”><strong>Christie CP42LH</strong></a> for Cinema, the <a href=”http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/business/products/projectors/3-chip-dlp/Pages/Christie-D4KLH60-3DLP-RGB-Digital-Laser-Projector.aspx” target=”_blank” title=”Christie D4K60LH”><strong>Christie D4K60LH</strong></a><strong> </strong>for Pro Venues, and the <a href=”http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/3D/products-and-solutions/projectors/Pages/Christie-Mirage-4KLH-3DLP-RGB-Digital-Laser-Projector.aspx” target=”_blank” title=”Christie Mirage 4KLH Promo”><strong>Christie Mirage 4KLH</strong></a> for immersive environments.</p>
<p>Christie also wants to be regarded for their contributions to the Dolby Laser Projector offering.</p>
<p>It might be that Barco will try to immerse their laser pitch with evolutions of the Auro and pre-auditorium entry and full surround systems that they showed last year. Instead of brisking people back and forth they will be showing several features in several different of the Caesars Ballrooms. As a line from their PR says:</p>
<p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>Visitors will be treated to hands-on demos of the world’s only laser projector capable of showing 4K 3D content at 60 FPS, Barco’s multi-screen, panoramic movie format, Barco Escape (powered by Alchemy-enabled projectors), and other innovative sight, sound, and engagement solutions designed to fascinate audiences while driving increased profitability for exhibitors.</p>
<p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>http://www.barco.com/en/News/Press-releases/CinemaBarco-brings-magic-and-showmanship-back-to-the-movies-showcasing-next-generation-theater-wide-.aspx</p>
<p>DTS will be making presentations of their DTS:X MDA system at the theater at the Palm. The pleasure of being Open Source will continue to be as compelling as the fact that the systems works for the companies who loathe to make hundreds of ‘prints’ for each movie release.</p>
<p>And that leaves the elephant in the room. With several pre-show announcements for their complete cinema package and a willingness to allow the chains to continue with their branding in association, Dolby is also ready with a working message about a working set of products.</p>
<p>Good luck to us all. Sounds like a lot of perfection will be on hand, and a lot of nuance to dig through to see it work its magic in a mutually beneficial manner.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For years the standard for light levels of movies was set at 48 candela/square meter, which is about 14 foot/lamberts. The tolerance is ~10 candela or 38 total, which is about 3 foot/lamberts or 11 total.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the amount of light coming through the usual 3D system was said to be 3 or 4 foot/Lamberts or 11 candela/square meter. And, typically in the technology biz, cool and clever solutions often come at the tail end of a transition. The argument in this case is that MasterImage has a new and very intelligent light/mirror system and RealD has new screen technology that removes some of the problems inherent with high gain screens.</p>
<p>Systems like these can bring the light to levels approaching the lowest levels of the standard, which looks best only if the print was mastered for the level measured at the eyes.</p>
<p>There are some who will say that 8 foot-Lamberts is enough for 3D for some magical reason (pointing to an ISDCF demo done in 2005), but it is untested, and pointedly, that isn’t the standard either. Demonstrations of Hugo and other movies at 48 candela/m2 are brilliant, but not too brilliant.</p>
Immersed Soundly | Laser Precision | CinemaCon 2015
Digital Cinema comprises an enormously broad sweep of technologies. The amount of nuance that must be de-layered to make intelligent decisions is daunting. A simple example: the fact that the new laser projectors can create 3D movies on low-gain white screens (paragraphs of nuance in just that phrase alone), means that woven screens can be used which would also benefit the audio from the speakers behind the screen.</p>
<hr id=”system-readmore” />
<p>Yet again, the industry is at a transition. In past transitions, when a company was able to show that an up-until-then unachievable standard could be met, the studios clamped down on the deliverables that went to the older equipment. MPEG was ubiquitous, then JPEG was shown and within a year the MPEG deliverables were verboten. The change in security keys, the anti-ghosting prints….</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be something if the studios said, “At this time next year, all DCI movie prints will be mastered at the SMPTE standard level of 48 candela per square meter.”</p>
<p>Post-Digital Era indeed~!</p>
<p>The laser systems at CinemaCon will have the new pitch of being commercially installed. Both Barco and Christie have their super ±60,000 lumens systems in the field, with announcements for many more. NEC launched their 6,000 lumen system for the smaller screens to similar success.</p>
<p>The amazing angle on new projector installs is that they are being made – except for rare cases – without the VPF deal. One manufacturer made 20,000 cinema-centric digital sales in 2014 according to their yearly prospectus.</p>
<p>Last year at this time Christie was still using a screen that had shakers attached to the rear to de-harmonize speckle. It will be interesting to see how they have progress from that technology. They also seemed to back away from the pitch that there would be any electricity savings due to the costs of cooling the lasers. Enquiring minds…</p>
<p>Christie’s laser links come from this sentence of their promo:</p>
<p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>The Christie Freedom laser illumination system platform includes the <a href=”http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/cinema/cinema-products/digital-cinema-projectors/Pages/Christie-CP42LH-3DLP-RGB-Digital-Cinema-Laser-Projector.aspx” target=”_blank” title=”Christie CP42LH”><strong>Christie CP42LH</strong></a> for Cinema, the <a href=”http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/business/products/projectors/3-chip-dlp/Pages/Christie-D4KLH60-3DLP-RGB-Digital-Laser-Projector.aspx” target=”_blank” title=”Christie D4K60LH”><strong>Christie D4K60LH</strong></a><strong> </strong>for Pro Venues, and the <a href=”http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/3D/products-and-solutions/projectors/Pages/Christie-Mirage-4KLH-3DLP-RGB-Digital-Laser-Projector.aspx” target=”_blank” title=”Christie Mirage 4KLH Promo”><strong>Christie Mirage 4KLH</strong></a> for immersive environments.</p>
<p>Christie also wants to be regarded for their contributions to the Dolby Laser Projector offering.</p>
<p>It might be that Barco will try to immerse their laser pitch with evolutions of the Auro and pre-auditorium entry and full surround systems that they showed last year. Instead of brisking people back and forth they will be showing several features in several different of the Caesars Ballrooms. As a line from their PR says:</p>
<p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>Visitors will be treated to hands-on demos of the world’s only laser projector capable of showing 4K 3D content at 60 FPS, Barco’s multi-screen, panoramic movie format, Barco Escape (powered by Alchemy-enabled projectors), and other innovative sight, sound, and engagement solutions designed to fascinate audiences while driving increased profitability for exhibitors.</p>
<p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>http://www.barco.com/en/News/Press-releases/CinemaBarco-brings-magic-and-showmanship-back-to-the-movies-showcasing-next-generation-theater-wide-.aspx</p>
<p>DTS will be making presentations of their DTS:X MDA system at the theater at the Palm. The pleasure of being Open Source will continue to be as compelling as the fact that the systems works for the companies who loathe to make hundreds of ‘prints’ for each movie release.</p>
<p>And that leaves the elephant in the room. With several pre-show announcements for their complete cinema package and a willingness to allow the chains to continue with their branding in association, Dolby is also ready with a working message about a working set of products.</p>
<p>Good luck to us all. Sounds like a lot of perfection will be on hand, and a lot of nuance to dig through to see it work its magic in a mutually beneficial manner.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For years the standard for light levels of movies was set at 48 candela/square meter, which is about 14 foot/lamberts. The tolerance is ~10 candela or 38 total, which is about 3 foot/lamberts or 11 total.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the amount of light coming through the usual 3D system was said to be 3 or 4 foot/Lamberts or 11 candela/square meter. And, typically in the technology biz, cool and clever solutions often come at the tail end of a transition. The argument in this case is that MasterImage has a new and very intelligent light/mirror system and RealD has new screen technology that removes some of the problems inherent with high gain screens.</p>
<p>Systems like these can bring the light to levels approaching the lowest levels of the standard, which looks best only if the print was mastered for the level measured at the eyes.</p>
<p>There are some who will say that 8 foot-Lamberts is enough for 3D for some magical reason (pointing to an ISDCF demo done in 2005), but it is untested, and pointedly, that isn’t the standard either. Demonstrations of Hugo and other movies at 48 candela/m2 are brilliant, but not too brilliant.</p>
And Over In This Corner…CinemaCon Interesting 2015
The inevitability of lasers in the projector and more encompassing audio on the walls have dominated much of the conversation for the last few years, taking over for the plateau’d 3D. It would have been nice if the whole world didn’t have to get stuck in the mire of ‘not enough light’ that the 3D technology got stuck in, generating so many claims of gimmick and fraud. Hope kind of prevailed before logic, but most likely the new generation of movie-goers will forgive and forget.
And already there is new parties at the laser table – Power Technology, Inc will be attracting attention at Booth 2824. This a mature company in other markets which is introducing products that put laser illumination
Over at Cinema Equipment and Supplies is a feature that anyone interesting in Quality Assurance will want to see: Cielo. The separation between management and the tech details of a facility is finally breached – look for it at Booth 819F.
And, don’t forget our sponsors:
And Over In This Corner…CinemaCon Interesting 2015
The inevitability of lasers in the projector and more encompassing audio on the walls have dominated much of the conversation for the last few years, taking over for the plateau’d 3D. It would have been nice if the whole world didn’t have to get stuck in the mire of ‘not enough light’ that the 3D technology got stuck in, generating so many claims of gimmick and fraud. Hope kind of prevailed before logic, but most likely the new generation of movie-goers will forgive and forget.
And already there is new parties at the laser table – Power Technology, Inc will be attracting attention at Booth 2824. This a mature company in other markets which is introducing products that put laser illumination
Over at Cinema Equipment and Supplies is a feature that anyone interesting in Quality Assurance will want to see: Cielo. The separation between management and the tech details of a facility is finally breached – look for it at Booth 819F.
And, don’t forget our sponsors:
Dolby Subtly Sings Seattle
The new Vimeo presentation, The Transformation of Seattle’s Cinerama Theatre, is 5 minutes of Chapter Headings for an unwritten series. It serves to highlight several points of technology, each that could/should be described in 30 minutes or more.
The coming CinemaCon will be one that exposes loudly some of the technology areas that were allowed to stay “under-served” in the past. Alluded to in the video is how much better a picture is when it is properly exposed and how much better audio is when not so subtle points are accommodated for.
How to extol the many virtues of doing things right without pointing out how horrid some decisions have been in the past– and not smearing anyone who didn’t have access to unavailable choices – will be interesting. It may make this one of the great CinemaCons for the technology crowd.
Hat tip to Mel Lambert for pointing out the piece.
Dolby Subtly Sings Seattle
The new Vimeo presentation, The Transformation of Seattle’s Cinerama Theatre, is 5 minutes of Chapter Headings for an unwritten series. It serves to highlight several points of technology, each that could/should be described in 30 minutes or more.
The coming CinemaCon will be one that exposes loudly some of the technology areas that were allowed to stay “under-served” in the past. Alluded to in the video is how much better a picture is when it is properly exposed and how much better audio is when not so subtle points are accommodated for.
How to extol the many virtues of doing things right without pointing out how horrid some decisions have been in the past– and not smearing anyone who didn’t have access to unavailable choices – will be interesting. It may make this one of the great CinemaCons for the technology crowd.
Hat tip to Mel Lambert for pointing out the piece.
MDA Immersive Audio Demo’d, and Openly (Patently?) More
To copy directly from the Open Source Initiative website:
Open Standards Requirement for Software
The Requirement
An “open standard” must not prohibit conforming implementations in open source software.
The Criteria
To comply with the Open Standards Requirement, an “open standard” must satisfy the following criteria. If an “open standard” does not meet these criteria, it will be discriminating against open source developers.
- No Intentional Secrets: The standard MUST NOT withhold any detail necessary for interoperable implementation. As flaws are inevitable, the standard MUST define a process for fixing flaws identified during implementation and interoperability testing and to incorporate said changes into a revised version or superseding version of the standard to be released under terms that do not violate the OSR.
- Availability: The standard MUST be freely and publicly available (e.g., from a stable web site) under royalty-free terms at reasonable and non-discriminatory cost.
- Patents: All patents essential to implementation of the standard MUST:
- be licensed under royalty-free terms for unrestricted use, or
- be covered by a promise of non-assertion when practiced by open source software
- No Agreements: There MUST NOT be any requirement for execution of a license agreement, NDA, grant, click-through, or any other form of paperwork to deploy conforming implementations of the standard.
- No OSR-Incompatible Dependencies: Implementation of the standard MUST NOT require any other technology that fails to meet the criteria of this Requirement.
One can imagine that each phrase was fought over in countless hours of committee work. Let’s see how the Digital Standard Organization uses “open standard” on their site. Notice the differences and similarities. There will be a test…ongoing and on the floor of conventions and when you read PR everywhere. Notice that the term is tied to Free in this usage, but that usage comes directly from:
Origins
The Digistan definition of a free and open standard is based on the EU’s EIF v1 definition of “open standard” with the language cleaned-up and made more explicit. Our analysis of the importance of vendor capture in determining the openness of a standard comes from this analysis.
Picking our way through their site:
Politicization of terminology
What is an open standard? The Wikipedia page shows many definitions, which specify characteristics of a specification, or of the processes that produce it and make it available.
To understand why there is no single agreed definition, and to let us build a canonical definition, we can start with two observations:
-
- The standardization process is driven by two conflicting economic motives. Established vendors see standards as a route to direct profits, while the market at large sees standards as a route to lower costs.
- As the economic has become digital, governments – both as users and regulators – have become engaged in the conflict between these two interest groups.
The definitions collected on Wikipedia can be grouped into those made by vendors, and those made by the rest of the market. The variation in definition comes from the various viewpoints expressed (e.g. W3C focuses on process while Denmark focuses on user cost).
We, the Digital Standards Organization, explicitly take the side of “the market at large”. We do not accept the definitions of “open standard” produced by vendor bodies, including W3C to some extent. We do not accept the attempts of some legacy vendors to stretch “open standard” to include RAND-licensed standards.
An open standard must be aimed at creating unrestricted competition between vendors and unrestricted choice for users. Any barrier – including RAND, FRAND, and variants – to vendor competition or user choice is incompatible with the needs of the market at large.
There is more at: Digital Standards Organization Rationale. Finally, onward to another page, which nicely correlates with the OSI group statement above:
Definition of a Free and Open Standard
The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard as follows:
- A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.
- The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties.
- The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute, and use it freely.
- The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
- There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of products based on the standard.
What have we learned? There is a community usage of Open Standard with developers. It is clear in that group what they mean by the term. There is another usage that does not fit into the logical extension of anyone’s definition, but which is held tightly by those who want to exploit the words.
How the term is used in the theatrical exhibition side of professional audio remains to be seen.
There will be more on this topic, but this should start the conversation, and give enough background for some moments of interest at CinemaCon 2014.
MDA Immersive Audio Demo’d, and Openly (Patently?) More
To copy directly from the Open Source Initiative website:
Open Standards Requirement for Software
The Requirement
An “open standard” must not prohibit conforming implementations in open source software.
The Criteria
To comply with the Open Standards Requirement, an “open standard” must satisfy the following criteria. If an “open standard” does not meet these criteria, it will be discriminating against open source developers.
- No Intentional Secrets: The standard MUST NOT withhold any detail necessary for interoperable implementation. As flaws are inevitable, the standard MUST define a process for fixing flaws identified during implementation and interoperability testing and to incorporate said changes into a revised version or superseding version of the standard to be released under terms that do not violate the OSR.
- Availability: The standard MUST be freely and publicly available (e.g., from a stable web site) under royalty-free terms at reasonable and non-discriminatory cost.
- Patents: All patents essential to implementation of the standard MUST:
- be licensed under royalty-free terms for unrestricted use, or
- be covered by a promise of non-assertion when practiced by open source software
- No Agreements: There MUST NOT be any requirement for execution of a license agreement, NDA, grant, click-through, or any other form of paperwork to deploy conforming implementations of the standard.
- No OSR-Incompatible Dependencies: Implementation of the standard MUST NOT require any other technology that fails to meet the criteria of this Requirement.
One can imagine that each phrase was fought over in countless hours of committee work. Let’s see how the Digital Standard Organization uses “open standard” on their site. Notice the differences and similarities. There will be a test…ongoing and on the floor of conventions and when you read PR everywhere. Notice that the term is tied to Free in this usage, but that usage comes directly from:
Origins
The Digistan definition of a free and open standard is based on the EU’s EIF v1 definition of “open standard” with the language cleaned-up and made more explicit. Our analysis of the importance of vendor capture in determining the openness of a standard comes from this analysis.
Picking our way through their site:
Politicization of terminology
What is an open standard? The Wikipedia page shows many definitions, which specify characteristics of a specification, or of the processes that produce it and make it available.
To understand why there is no single agreed definition, and to let us build a canonical definition, we can start with two observations:
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- The standardization process is driven by two conflicting economic motives. Established vendors see standards as a route to direct profits, while the market at large sees standards as a route to lower costs.
- As the economic has become digital, governments – both as users and regulators – have become engaged in the conflict between these two interest groups.
The definitions collected on Wikipedia can be grouped into those made by vendors, and those made by the rest of the market. The variation in definition comes from the various viewpoints expressed (e.g. W3C focuses on process while Denmark focuses on user cost).
We, the Digital Standards Organization, explicitly take the side of “the market at large”. We do not accept the definitions of “open standard” produced by vendor bodies, including W3C to some extent. We do not accept the attempts of some legacy vendors to stretch “open standard” to include RAND-licensed standards.
An open standard must be aimed at creating unrestricted competition between vendors and unrestricted choice for users. Any barrier – including RAND, FRAND, and variants – to vendor competition or user choice is incompatible with the needs of the market at large.
There is more at: Digital Standards Organization Rationale. Finally, onward to another page, which nicely correlates with the OSI group statement above:
Definition of a Free and Open Standard
The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard as follows:
- A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.
- The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties.
- The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute, and use it freely.
- The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
- There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of products based on the standard.
What have we learned? There is a community usage of Open Standard with developers. It is clear in that group what they mean by the term. There is another usage that does not fit into the logical extension of anyone’s definition, but which is held tightly by those who want to exploit the words.
How the term is used in the theatrical exhibition side of professional audio remains to be seen.
There will be more on this topic, but this should start the conversation, and give enough background for some moments of interest at CinemaCon 2014.
[Update] QC the Screen – Harkness Webinar
Harkness calls it “Screen Lifecycle Management” and they feel that they have the apps to help with that.
“Anything to help Quality Control” is what we call it: Free Webinar 26th February 2014
SCREEN LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT WITH THE HARKNESS APPS – WEB SEMINAR
The only thing better is if you and they were to join the SMPTE Study Groups that are working on Light and Audio Quality. Join Now.