Video Processing

All 3DAvatar™, AllThe3DTime™ [Updated]

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News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch previously said …(excerpted)

FirstShowing.Net —James Cameron Delivers Updates on Avatar 2 and Re-Release

Yep, James Cameron and Avatar are back in the news again, but … First, he confirmed that he is producing Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness (announced a few weeks ago) and that they’ll shoot it in native 3D using next generation 3D cameras. [Surprise?]

We don’t exactly know what Cameron will be directing next, … he’s been getting inspiration for Avatar 2 by traveling down to South America and meeting with native tribes. “I have an overall narrative arc for [Avatar] 2 and 3, and there are some modifications to that based on my experiences in the last few months from having gone down to the Amazon and actually hung out with various indigenous groups who are actually living this type of story for real… but it’s not changing the overall pattern,” he said.

Finally, Cameron talked about converting Titanic to 3D and also complained about how terrible the Clash of the Titans 3D conversion was (as we all know). …

Marketsaw.blogspot — EXCLUSIVE: James Cameron Interview! Talks AVATAR Re-release, Sequels, 3D Conversions & Working With Del Toro!

[Listen to the audio interview on this page]

 

0:40 – Cameron confirms he is producing Guillermo del Toro’s AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. The movie will be shot in native 3D using next generation FUSION 3D cameras from Pace. …

2:30 – Cameron talks about 3D conversions. TITANIC’s conversion is taking 8 months to a year to complete, not a fast turnaround like CLASH OF THE TITANS. Cameron: “(TITANS) showed a fundamental lack of knowledge about stereo space, …

5:00 – Cameron on how they are technically converting TITANIC. “You just can’t cut out edges, you’re going to get flat people moving around.” He will be using all his knowledge to put things on their right depth planes. They had tests for TITANIC from seven different conversion vendors on the exact same shots and they got back seven different answers as to were they thought things were spatially. “Some of them were not bad guesses and some of them were ridiculous.”

6:50 – The whole argument about conversion will go away for high end, first run 3D. Two years from now when there are thousands of 3D cameras out their shooting live feeds to 3D broadcast networks, how can a producer go to a studio and say…

9:05 – Cameron on talking with Steven Spielberg about converting his classic movies to 3D. …

11:20 – Cameron talks about AVATAR 2’s current status. …

12:04 – He is focusing his writing right now on the AVATAR novel (corresponds to the first film)…

12:45 – The AVATAR re-release will have 9 extra minutes, not 8 and it will all be CG. No extra footage of live action characters drinking coffee. Rainforest; some at night; a hunt sequence – …

15:45 – Cameron does not have the release timing of the 3D Blu-ray as …

In the News

Remote wiping technology Hard Disks

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[For the DCinema business, this isn’t in the direct line of possible solutions…but good to know. The original article is at:
Secure Business Intelligence Magazine: Remote wiping technology introduced for Toshiba products]

The company said that Wipe can automatically invalidate a hard disk drive security key when its power supply is turned off, instantly making all data in the drive indecipherable. Also, copier and printer systems vendors can now use Toshiba’s Wipe technology to securely invalidate sensitive document image data by automatically erasing the SED’s internal encryption key.

This feature can be used prior to system disposal or re-purposing to ensure that private data never leaves the control of the responsible business unit or IT department.

Integrator News

Update–UK Film Council’s Elimination Controversy

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Last weeks story: New pilot scheme launched to open up digital cinema to rural North Yorkshire, shows how important the Film Council has been for getting digital cinema started and the focus maintained on the non-blockbuster sites. 

Mr. Hunt slammed the management for each making over 100,000 pounds. Easy pickings for a publicity fight in a recession. On the other hand, Mr. Hunt didn’t explain how much money the Film Council was handling each year, what it takes to find the talent to be responsible for that type of operation, and what it takes to get people who can work with high powered producers, directors, studio personnel, etc.

The Film Council began just 10 years ago, and not just for capitalizing several hundred digital cinema systems in the UK; for a summation on its history see: Skillset: The Role of the UK Film Council 

[Update]: Other interesting news: an entity set up (via the aegis of the UK Cinema Exhibitors’ Association) to assist small and medium-sized UK cinemas, now the independent group named The Digital Funding Group LLP, has appointment of Sir Hayden Phillips as its Chairman. The full announcement is in a pdf at the end of this article. 

 

The article doesn’t mention Mr. Hunt’s salary or whether he offered to lower it and his staff costs to assist in the effort.

 

Christopher Hampton, most famous for the screenplays of Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement, made the lede quote, and described Hunt’s the decision as a “thrashy response”. He said he knew of films that would never have been made without the council, according to the Guardian article.

The word “quango” is used. Its definition is: noun ( pl. -gos) Brit., chiefly derogatory — a semipublic administrative body outside the civil service but with financial support from and senior appointments made by the government. (ORIGIN 1970s (originally U.S.): acronym from quasi (or quasi-autonomous) nongovernment(al) organization.)

There is an interesting set of slides that show 24 films that we financed (or partly financed) by the Film Council at:
UK Film Council axed – but how much did it fund films? 

Film-maker Ronan Bennett writes a great piece on the issues involved from his experience at:
Axing the Film Council: a move that impoverishes us all 

CGI

VFX Unions: Scott Ross Vs. Scott Ross

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Cameras

Micro Four Thirds and 3D

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This changes…well, maybe not everything, but a lot. Problems with capturing motion, problems with two lenses that don’t move simultaneously…Gone. Sure, others will tell of the limitations and the number of lines per, but we’ll have to wait until December to see what actually is coming out of the factory, or if there are any upsides or downsides to the variant of the micro four thirds standard that is called the LUMIX G Micro System…e.g., does it naturally match up to all other micro four thirds cameras?

micro four thirds logo

 

 

 

Meanwhile, check out the Millimeter article: 3D on the Cheap, Part 1

Edge Storage and Archiving

IEEE Symposium on Massive Storage Systems Papers Available

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The recently completed 26th IEEE (MSST2010) Symposium on Massive Storage Systems and Technologies Conference has made the papers available.

Anyone interested in storage can benefit from one or more of these. [Your editor’s favorite is a proposed Linear Tape File System. Wouldn’t it be great to have an open standard in the LTO5 mechanics space, with attached RAIDs?]

See the site: 

 

26th IEEE (MSST2010) Symposium on Massive Storage Systems and Technologies

Presentations and Papers

Storage and Networks

IEEE (MSST2010) Symposium on Massive Storage Systems Papers Available

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The recently completed 26th IEEE (MSST2010) Symposium on Massive Storage Systems and Technologies Conference has made the papers available.

Anyone interested in storage can benefit from one or more of these. [Your editor’s favorite is a proposed Linear Tape File System. Wouldn’t it be great to have an open standard in the LTO5 mechanics space, with attached RAIDs?]

See the site: 

26th IEEE (MSST2010) Symposium on Massive Storage Systems and Technologies

Presentations and Papers

Basic Lessons

Simple Great Passwords v Cracking Dictionaries For Rent

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Anyone who deals with projector or media players should certainly have good password practices. It would be logical that anyone who passes security keys around should also figure out a pattern for creating passwords.

The article’s idea of putting in the last letter of the site associated with the password is a good first stop. So, the password for dcinematools would start with an ‘s’, and since it is easier to have most letters following be small letter, making the ‘S’ capitalized is a second good stop. 

One imagines that eventually hackers will start putting the letters of typical phrases into their dictionary cracking databases. I find it easier to use the letters of some object that is in front of me all day, but never a whole word. So, if the American Heritage Dictionary is in front of me, I might choose the first three letters from each word, and put a number in between each, with one of them being shifted to a symbol. I also have found that I give numbers based upon sensitivity, so that public sites which might have their data stolen get higher (or lower) numbers while more secure sites get the opposite. 

Like all matters dealing with responsibility for other people’s assets (equipment, art, friendship…), passwords are a sometimes pain, often done away with without penalty, but important that one time that it was required. Having a pattern will, in this case with the human-machine relationship, make things easier the one time that it might matter.

Uncategorized

Call for Papers–SMPTE 2010 Annual Tech Conference

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Early conference registration opens on 6 August, 2010. To register for the event and receive up to a 25% member discount, please visit
http://www.smpte.org/events/smpte_2010_annual_tech_conf/.
You can also visit the same site to reserve your hotel room at a discounted rate today.

We plan to get you updates shortly with regard to the speaker and presentation lineups for this event – and look forward to seeing you in California this Fall.

Societies

Call for Papers–SMPTE 2010 Annual Tech Conference

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SMPTE logoSMPTE is pleased to once again be holding its Annual Conference at the 
Renaissance Hollywood Hotel

Fall Conference – Register Early & Save Up To 25%

I also want to encourage you to save the date for the SMPTE Annual Conference & Expo, which takes place Oct. 26-28 in Hollywood – and to take advantage our early-registration discounts.

Early conference registration opens on 6 August, 2010. To register for the event and receive up to a 25% member discount, please visit
http://www.smpte.org/events/smpte_2010_annual_tech_conf/.
You can also visit the same site to reserve your hotel room at a discounted rate today.

We plan to get you updates shortly with regard to the speaker and presentation lineups for this event – and look forward to seeing you in California this Fall.

In the News

!!! Browser Auto-Complete–All Vulnerable

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This article takes a while to say that all browsers, except possibly Internet Explorer 8, are vulnerable to a simple attack that will cough up any data you have in your auto-complete file. That is, names, password, credit data? (who keeps credit card data in auto-complete? Have you checked your auto-complete file recently?)

Read the article: Auto-complete: browsers disclose private data – Update

Comments on original proof of concept site says some Mac OSX systems are giving the data, yet some not, even with Auto-Complete turned on.

Advice: Turn off Auto-Complete in all browsers until this is solved…regardless of what a pain in the ass this is. Oh, and don’t go to those hacker sites.

Articles and News

“…this form of discrimination is not acceptable…”

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From a 17 July 2010 Your Local Cinema AU article: Cinema to become more accessible – Following this article is the government announcement, including the $500,000AU investment into the cinemas.

Hoyts, Village, Greater Union Birch Carroll & Coyle and Reading have agreed to expand captioning and audio description services to a minimum of 132 locations over four years, making Australia the world leaders in cinema accessibility.

“This initiative by the cinemas provides full access anytime for consumers coupled with a commercial return for the cinema operator. This is a great example of access working in the mainstream, creating a win-win situation for everybody,” said Media Access Australia CEO Alex Varley.

Audio description, which provides a narration of important visual elements for people who are blind or vision impaired, will be delivered to patrons via personal headsets.

Captioning for Deaf or hearing impaired people will be delivered via personal Captiview viewing devices so that patrons can now go to any session of the accessible film on the accessible screen rather than only a specific open-captioned session.

Media Access Australia has been involved in the development of accessible cinema in Australia since its inception in 2001.  As one of the key players in helping reach this decision, with strong ties to international service providers, MAA has contributed advice on technologies and developments to stakeholders through all stages of the program’s growth.

MAA also played a key role in the Australian government’s Department of Health and Ageing program that saw 12 independent locations begin providing captions and audio description in 2009. As part of this program MAA created this website to ensure that patrons have the right information about accessible cinema and up-to-date news.

For a more detailed examination, read the press release from Bill Shorten’s office.

For a quick explanation, see below.

On top of the number of locations, a minimum of 242 screens will be made accessible across these locations, based on the overall size of the complex:

  • one screen for every complex with 6 or less screens
  • two screens for every complex with 7 to 12 screens
  • three screens for every complex with 13 or more screens

The timetable for achieving this goal is:

  • By the end of 2010 access would be provided in 24 screens (10% of proposed total)
  • By the end of 2011 access would be provided in 73 screens (30% of proposed total)
  • By the end of 2012 access would be provided in 145 screens (60% of proposed total)
  • By the end of 2013 access would be provided in 194 screens (80% of proposed total)
  • By the end of 2014 access would be provided in 242 screens (100% of proposed total)

Australia’s four major cinema groups and the Australian Government have agreed to jointly fast track new technology, as part of a bold new plan to improve cinema access for people who are deaf, blind, visually or hearing impaired.
Jul-17-2010

JENNY MACKLIN MP

Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services, and Indigenous Affairs
BILL SHORTEN MP
Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services  Parliamentary Secretary for Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction
17 July 2010
Better cinema access for hearing and vision-impaired
Australia’s four major cinema groups and the Australian Government have agreed to jointly fast track new audio description and captioning technology, as part of a bold new plan to improve cinema access for people who are deaf, blind, visually or hearing impaired.
The plan will provide cutting edge technology to allow people with impaired hearing or vision to enjoy movies in more cinemas across Australia, with 242 accessible screens to be available by 2014.
The Australian Government has committed $470,000 to the project, with the rest of the cost to be paid by the cinemas.
Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, and Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Bill Shorten, today announced the new Cinema Access Implementation Plan, an agreement between representatives of Village Roadshow, Greater Union, Hoyts and Reading Cinemas and disability sector representatives.
Ms Macklin said the current situation of cinema access was unacceptable and the plan offered a genuine opportunity for change.
“Cinemas have a responsibility to cater for the entire community and at the moment the situation is clearly not up to scratch,” Ms Macklin said.
“Less than 0.3 per cent of all cinema sessions in Australia are accessible, meaning that an accessible cinema is showing as few as three sessions a week.”
Under the agreement, captions and audio description will be available in 242 screens by 2014 – at least one in every cinema complex owned by the four cinema chains.
In addition all new cinemas constructed by the group will contain accessible technology.
Mr Shorten said that people with a hearing or vision impairment had a right to enjoy a trip to the movies.
“At the moment people with impaired hearing are being forced to travel across town to catch a Wednesday matinee, because there are so few cinemas offering captions,” he said.
“I am excited that major cinemas have recognised that this form of discrimination is not acceptable, and that they will improve their business by attracting a new group of customers.”
“Current rates of vision and hearing impairment in the general population will significantly increase with the ageing of the population, and it is not acceptable to ignore them any longer.”
Cinemas today unveiled the CaptiView technology, which will be rolled out in selected cinemas in Australia this year. This technology allows hearing-impaired patrons to use a screen that folds out from an armrest and delivers a captioned version of the film.
The four major cinema chains have also agreed:
·         That where there is existing accessible cinema technology in place, local managers will be sensitive to their local audiences, and draw upon their patrons to help them to innovate and implement new accessible technology.
·         To gain ongoing consumer input when implementing emerging platforms such as ‘Captiview’.
·         To adjust implementation of new technology options according to future innovation and consumer preferences.
·         That operators will work with the Australian Human Rights Commission and the disability peaks to develop or update disability action plans to help with operation and delivery of cinema access services for people with disability.
Cinema groups will also actively engage with distributors to ensure a reliable delivery of film content that includes audio description and captioning.
In addition to the grant funding, the Government has committed $30,000 to subsidise the costs of a new Accessible Cinema Advisory Group (ACAG), with members from the cinema industry and the disability sector.
The funding will allow the ACAG to continue to advise and assist the cinema industry to improve cinema accessibility in Australia and monitor the implementation of the Cinema Access Implementation Plan.
Current cinema access worldwide, from Media Access Australia:

 

Location
Population
Number of accessible cinema complexes
People per accessible cinema
UK
61,399,000
307
199,997
USA
309,147,000
630
490,710
Australia
22,325,000
24 (only 12 have audio description)
930,208

 

Post implementation:

 

Location
Population
Number of accessible cinema complexes
People per accessible cinema
Australia
22,325,000
144
155,035

 

Tangential Art and Science

Robotic Evolution

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 But if our robots did have that capability, we’d be able to do a whole lot more.

Second, the language capabilities of a 4-year-old child. When you talk to a 4-year-old, you hardly have to dumb down your grammar at all. That is much better than our current speech systems can do.

Third, the manual dexterity of a 6-year-old child. A 6-year-old can tie his shoelaces. A 6-year-old can do every operation that a Chinese worker does in a factory. That level of dexterity, which would require a combination of new sorts of sensors, new sorts of actuators, and new algorithms, will let our robots do a whole lot more in the world.

Fourth, the social understanding of an 8- or 9-year-old child. Eight- or 9-year-olds understand the difference between their knowledge of the world and the knowledge of someone they are interacting with. When showing a robot how to do a task, they know to look at where the eyes of the robot are looking. They also know how to take social cues from the robot.

If we make progress in any of those four directions our robots will get a lot better than they are now.

Read the entire John Hawks article:
Evo-devo-robo

The Future Holds...

Laser Light Engines gets IMAX funding– Putting Light on the Subject

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This year marks the transition from the InterOp set of standards to a full SMPTE implementation. This transition is supposed to be completed world-wide by April of 2011. But there is one part of the DCI and SMPTE specs that is being ignored; the need for 48 candelas per meter2 (14 foot Lamberts) of light bouncing off the screen during presentation. This is attainable and probably done regularly for 2D movies, but because of the nature of current 3D technology (some versions which suck up 80% of the light sent from the projector), most facilities are barely getting 3 ftL (10 cd/m2) to the eyes during 3D movies.*

Against this background, Laser Light Engines of Salem New Hampshire USA announces that the IMAX group has made an investment in their company and their technologies. This is auspicious for several reasons.

IMAX once had an unmatchable system for making and presenting movies. Their film stock recorded nearly post card sized frames which could be presented in an immersive style, saturating screens of immense proportions. They took a PR hit for allowing the IMAX name to be used for movies shot in 35mm and upgraded digitally during the mastering and print phase, but still shown in 15/70 (15 perf/70millimeter). They took another hit for surviving by creating a multiplex version of IMAX. Recently they have taken a hit for showing 3D movies digitally, which although done in the best way possible, could never match the dual 15/70 versions.

Using two Christie projectors allowed a full 2K image to be triple flashed to the screen with far more intensity than a single projector could produce. (Although the Sony digital system produces a 4K image, with 4 times the data of 2K, their 3D system divides their 4K chip into 2 x 2K images. Sony also hasn’t progressed their LCOS system into the very largest screens due to contrast issues.) But even with two projectors, the amount of available light to the screen still doesn’t meet SMPTE specifications.

Enter LASER technology from Laser Light Engines (LLE). For several years this company in Salem, New Hampshire, USA, has been approaching and dealing with the detailed challenges which will usher in the next technology leap for digital cinema. This week they have announced an agreement with IMAX which should help each company meet internal goals, as well as the expectations of their audience.

[Press Release attached as pdf for logged in readers.]

If it were as simple as finding 3 LASERs and firing them at the Texas Instruments DLP or Sony LCOS chip, this would have been done long ago. But it is not that simple. At this year’s ShoWest convention, LLE announced that they had met one of the lingering challenges, eliminating the effects of speckle in the green channel, in this case a LASER of 546 nm. (Blue and Red LASERs are at 455 nm and 615 nm.)

It might be difficult for IMAX to portray this to the blogosphere, where they have taken the most hits recently. It is also not prudent to pollute one’s own bathwater by speculating upon a future technology that shows the compromises of existing technology. On the other hand, there is a growing realization that 3D technology may have been generally introduced before it is ready, and speculation is rampant that it is being pushed merely for commercial reasons. That speculation does a dis-service to several hundreds of artists who have done incredible work in the field. Perhaps some clever marketing guru will figure a way to explain that today’s version of 3D is above good enough, well worth paying more for, as there  are extra costs in the production/post-production and exhibition chain…but wow~! the future.

The mantra of this news magazine is that Engineering is the Art of Compromise. Continuous refinements knock away at these compromises, which is why this news is so exciting…there is nothing so refined as LASER technology and no bigger need than to become more green, more efficient, safer, brighter – issues that LASER technology can handle. There will be more on this topic, as well as its companion – optical fibre – in further issues.

[There is a Boston Globe:Boston.com:Business:Technology article named
Casting some light on 3-D of 11 July 2010 that came before the IMAX news. Conjecture on whether exhibitors would change the high heat, short life Xenon bulbs for a slightly more expensive, much longer life, lower heat LASER seems a bit mis-placed, but the article explains many other issues very well.]

* Our series that begins with Scotopic Issues with 3D, and Silver Screens examines these issues.

…Like Tangents In Rain