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The Future Holds...

Laser Light Engines, LLC, Again the First

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Laser Light Engines Announces First Shipment of Its Universal Laser Retrofit System for 2D and 3D Digital Cinema
SALEM, NH– May 22, 2013 –

Jeez, just the heading. “Universal” must mean One Product fits all. That ties into the other press release LLE had on the same day, that they will be teaming with Elbit Systems of Texas to productize a system with the name of DSG265. We’re guessing DSG is for De-Speckled Green, but 265 stumps us. 256 we could have understood if this were an 8 bit system, or 255 perhaps…but DCinema is 12 bit. Hmmm. Marketing.

“Retrofit” is interesting as well. The concept of productizing anything for a market that is essentially completely full – over 90% digital saturation in some markets – there just isn’t going to be a lot of customers looking to trade-in for new projectors. There also isn’t an overwhelming reason to do so since many of the future options of lasers for projectors aren’t developed yet. Plugging into the existing optics works well enough until the mysteries of bi-refringent glass and spinning the photons off the mirrors solves the problems of darkening and softening caused by post-lens 3D filters. So, expensive ultra fast lenses and a lot of optics (that the next generation of engineers will laugh at) will have to remain – retrofit is the way to make the investment in the laser-based light systems work in 2013.

“2D and 3D Cinema” – To those who say that 3D is dead or dying, let’s remember that the studio’s latest arrangements with the Chinese government is to bring the tentpole movies in 3D…not just some, but 100% in 3D. Most of the cinema conversions are 3D capable there, and the 3D-capable percentage in Russia and parts of the EU are higher than in the US as well.

But 3D to work correctly needs more light to the eyes. There are few articles and only a little science on what causes headaches and other problems with 3D, but from those who have seen 3D movies with more light, it is more comfortable. Logic says that more light will make tired eyes strain less with a concommittant reduction in headaches and complaints.

“Announces the First Shipment” – has a nice ring to it after all the speculation and probable NIH competition since LLE made their despeckle announcement a few CinemaCons ago. It seemed obvious to many that the Kodak flash was never going to be productized, and possibly was a stock play writ large. But an actual shipment…and to whom? Enquiring minds, etc.

Having to wait for the lawyers and the marketing team of the customer can be a boring proposition for a company, especially one which wants to avoid the arrows (and worse) that many pioneers have to suffer.

Laser Light Engines, Inc., (LLE), a leader in laser illumination for high brightness digital cinema and performance projection, announced the first shipment of a fully configured RGB-laser powered Universal Laser Retrofit System to a leading global innovator in the cinema space.

“Leading Global Innovator” – Isn’t that a nice way of saying that they are smart enough to buy our product?

“The shipment of this system marks a big step forward for LLE, toward full commercialization of our universal laser upgrade solution for the nearly 100,000 global 2D and 3D digital cinema projectors installed over the past few years,” said laser projection pioneer Bill Beck, founder and EVP at LLE. According to the company, the multi-engine system incorporates LLE’s recently announced, flagship DSG265™ despeckled GREEN color modules, and provides constant brightness, outstanding image quality, brilliant colors and smooth, immersive 3D.

One would think at first that Mr. Beck was hyperbolizing a bit there, implying that 100,000 is the potential market for LLE’s light engine. In fact, in a sense he probably is, but in a sense he is probably understating the potential. There are 4 DCinema projector manufacturers who all sell projectors in far greater volume outside the cinema. They are joined by dozens of other manufacturers who use the same TI chipset (minus the security bits) for other than cinema projectors. Given the way that 3D is developing and getting less expensive on the production and post-production side, creation of 3D material can slip into many more markets, from architecture and product design to executive or music auditoriums to amusement rides.

Productizing is the key, and the market is really huge.

In addition to providing numerous image quality benefits, the LLE solution eliminates frequent replacement of expensive Xenon arc lamps, and can reduce wall plug and HVAC energy consumption. “The LLE multi-engine system is projector, chipset, resolution and frame rate agnostic, and is compatible with most major 3D systems,” Beck said. “And the light from the engine can be delivered via optical fiber cable, enabling flexible new cost- and space-saving deployment models.”

What isn’t being said is almost as loud as what was said in that paragraph. The discussions at recent demonstrations left one with the impression that some companies are not actually able to move the laser position on the frequency curve in a way that benefits both the gamut but also the wall plug efficiency, actually saying that their system wasn’t showing any benefit there, and that the cost of fans at the lasers was a wash with the reduction of savings at the projector vent. One presumes that one is hearing someone saying that the brute force method is all we can do and it works but it doesn’t work well…and come’on, the music moves the screen more than these screen shakers do.

It is just that one can’t help remembering the earthquake in the San Fernando Valley in 1994 when two earthquakes happened in close time and proximity. The joining of the concentric waves caused a much stronger reaction in a nearly straight line from the source points to dozens of miles away, to the extent of chimneys falling and houses being thrown off their foundations all along and to the end of that line, with much less severe damage a block away on either side.

Likewise, the patterns from the shakers was discernible after two weeks, with the light changing colors all along the path where concentric circles joined. Dont’ get the wrong impression; it was a brave and noble act to hold a 2 week demonstration of laser technology. Christie and their parent company Ushio should be lauded. The industry needed it. There is only one way to learn such things and groups should be given honors for taking the expense and the risk.

“Frame rate agnostic” means the future of High Frame Rate is secured and the rest of the PR is stating that compromises no longer have to be made. If history is a guide, the studios allow compromises with specifications until a manufacturer shows that the compromise is no longer required and then sets a date certain for not making prints in that format. MPEG to JPEG, the evolution of security keys and the disappearance of pre-ghostbusted prints all followed that path: one day accepted, one day ‘no mas’.

Resolution agnostic is interesting since it implies 4K, and sure enough – though it isn’t in this press release – if one goes to the LLE website and clicks on the coming event link on

June 11, 2013, 5:00pm
“Laser6P™: A New Laser Illumination System for Premium Dual Projector 3D”
Projection Summit
Orlando, FL

one sees in plain black and white that Mr. Beck of LLE will speak about “LLE was the first to demonstrate laser illuminated, “6 primary”, true 4K 3D with full color and resolution in November of 2012. Both DLP Cinema and LCOS 4K projector platforms have been integrated.”

As exciting as seeing the new RealD screen technologies in action with multiple screens at different angles and light levels, seeing any of the matrix of what that sentence speaks of would be very interesting. The implication is that others have already seen it in private demonstrations,  since the verbiage says ‘already been demonstrated’.

In addition to this major milestone for digital cinema, Beck said LLE will be shipping other new products in the coming months, including both cinema and non-cinema applications such as precision 3D metrology.

“Precision 3D metrology” – We haven’t yet seen anything of the industry’s attempt to create a precision metrology on speckle (or when the distortion goes from bad to unacceptable) and these guys are making products dealing with the measurement of 3D. Wonders never cease.

About Laser Light Engines — Laser Light Engines, Inc. (LLE) is a leader in laser illumination for performance projection, such as 3D cinema; premium large venue and rental/staging. LLE’s laser illumination systems replace traditional, high-pressure gas discharge lamps, producing dramatically brighter and sharper images, with less energy use and lower operating costs. LLE’s universal engine can plug and play with new projection systems or retrofit tens of thousands of installations, worldwide.

Partnerships with key industry players, a portfolio of patented technology and expertise, and a multi-year head start in building laser illumination systems, all combine to make LLE the leader in this large and rapidly emerging market. The venture-funded company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Salem, New Hampshire, USA. For additional information visit: http://www.laserlightengines.com Laser Light Engines, LLE, DSG265 and Laser6P are trademarks of Laser Light Engines, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Boilerplate. Wish I had some. But actually, there is data in there. The beauty of boilerplate is that it is all lawyer vetted, so yes Alice, someone is thinking beyond retrofit and those lawyers are sure there is lower operating costs and less energy use in our future all from replacing xenon lamps with laser light.

The Future Holds...

Laser Light Engines, LLC, Again the First

Leave a comment

Laser Light Engines Announces First Shipment of Its Universal Laser Retrofit System for 2D and 3D Digital Cinema
SALEM, NH– May 22, 2013 –

Jeez, just the heading. “Universal” must mean One Product fits all. That ties into the other press release LLE had on the same day, that they will be teaming with Elbit Systems of Texas to productize a system with the name of DSG265. We’re guessing DSG is for De-Speckled Green, but 265 stumps us. 256 we could have understood if this were an 8 bit system, or 255 perhaps…but DCinema is 12 bit. Hmmm. Marketing.

“Retrofit” is interesting as well. The concept of productizing anything for a market that is essentially completely full – over 90% digital saturation in some markets – there just isn’t going to be a lot of customers looking to trade-in for new projectors. There also isn’t an overwhelming reason to do so since many of the future options of lasers for projectors aren’t developed yet. Plugging into the existing optics works well enough until the mysteries of bi-refringent glass and spinning the photons off the mirrors solves the problems of darkening and softening caused by post-lens 3D filters. So, expensive ultra fast lenses and a lot of optics (that the next generation of engineers will laugh at) will have to remain – retrofit is the way to make the investment in the laser-based light systems work in 2013.

“2D and 3D Cinema” – To those who say that 3D is dead or dying, let’s remember that the studio’s latest arrangements with the Chinese government is to bring the tentpole movies in 3D…not just some, but 100% in 3D. Most of the cinema conversions are 3D capable there, and the 3D-capable percentage in Russia and parts of the EU are higher than in the US as well.

But 3D to work correctly needs more light to the eyes. There are few articles and only a little science on what causes headaches and other problems with 3D, but from those who have seen 3D movies with more light, it is more comfortable. Logic says that more light will make tired eyes strain less with a concommittant reduction in headaches and complaints.

“Announces the First Shipment” – has a nice ring to it after all the speculation and probable NIH competition since LLE made their despeckle announcement a few CinemaCons ago. It seemed obvious to many that the Kodak flash was never going to be productized, and possibly was a stock play writ large. But an actual shipment…and to whom? Enquiring minds, etc.

Having to wait for the lawyers and the marketing team of the customer can be a boring proposition for a company, especially one which wants to avoid the arrows (and worse) that many pioneers have to suffer.

Laser Light Engines, Inc., (LLE), a leader in laser illumination for high brightness digital cinema and performance projection, announced the first shipment of a fully configured RGB-laser powered Universal Laser Retrofit System to a leading global innovator in the cinema space.

“Leading Global Innovator” – Isn’t that a nice way of saying that they are smart enough to buy our product?

“The shipment of this system marks a big step forward for LLE, toward full commercialization of our universal laser upgrade solution for the nearly 100,000 global 2D and 3D digital cinema projectors installed over the past few years,” said laser projection pioneer Bill Beck, founder and EVP at LLE. According to the company, the multi-engine system incorporates LLE’s recently announced, flagship DSG265™ despeckled GREEN color modules, and provides constant brightness, outstanding image quality, brilliant colors and smooth, immersive 3D.

One would think at first that Mr. Beck was hyperbolizing a bit there, implying that 100,000 is the potential market for LLE’s light engine. In fact, in a sense he probably is, but in a sense he is probably understating the potential. There are 4 DCinema projector manufacturers who all sell projectors in far greater volume outside the cinema. They are joined by dozens of other manufacturers who use the same TI chipset (minus the security bits) for other than cinema projectors. Given the way that 3D is developing and getting less expensive on the production and post-production side, creation of 3D material can slip into many more markets, from architecture and product design to executive or music auditoriums to amusement rides.

Productizing is the key, and the market is really huge.

In addition to providing numerous image quality benefits, the LLE solution eliminates frequent replacement of expensive Xenon arc lamps, and can reduce wall plug and HVAC energy consumption. “The LLE multi-engine system is projector, chipset, resolution and frame rate agnostic, and is compatible with most major 3D systems,” Beck said. “And the light from the engine can be delivered via optical fiber cable, enabling flexible new cost- and space-saving deployment models.”

What isn’t being said is almost as loud as what was said in that paragraph. The discussions at recent demonstrations left one with the impression that some companies are not actually able to move the laser position on the frequency curve in a way that benefits both the gamut but also the wall plug efficiency, actually saying that their system wasn’t showing any benefit there, and that the cost of fans at the lasers was a wash with the reduction of savings at the projector vent. One presumes that one is hearing someone saying that the brute force method is all we can do and it works but it doesn’t work well…and come’on, the music moves the screen more than these screen shakers do.

It is just that one can’t help remembering the earthquake in the San Fernando Valley in 1994 when two earthquakes happened in close time and proximity. The joining of the concentric waves caused a much stronger reaction in a nearly straight line from the source points to dozens of miles away, to the extent of chimneys falling and houses being thrown off their foundations all along and to the end of that line, with much less severe damage a block away on either side.

Likewise, the patterns from the shakers was discernible after two weeks, with the light changing colors all along the path where concentric circles joined. Dont’ get the wrong impression; it was a brave and noble act to hold a 2 week demonstration of laser technology. Christie and their parent company Ushio should be lauded. The industry needed it. There is only one way to learn such things and groups should be given honors for taking the expense and the risk.

“Frame rate agnostic” means the future of High Frame Rate is secured and the rest of the PR is stating that compromises no longer have to be made. If history is a guide, the studios allow compromises with specifications until a manufacturer shows that the compromise is no longer required and then sets a date certain for not making prints in that format. MPEG to JPEG, the evolution of security keys and the disappearance of pre-ghostbusted prints all followed that path: one day accepted, one day ‘no mas’.

Resolution agnostic is interesting since it implies 4K, and sure enough – though it isn’t in this press release – if one goes to the LLE website and clicks on the coming event link on

June 11, 2013, 5:00pm
“Laser6P™: A New Laser Illumination System for Premium Dual Projector 3D”
Projection Summit
Orlando, FL

one sees in plain black and white that Mr. Beck of LLE will speak about “LLE was the first to demonstrate laser illuminated, “6 primary”, true 4K 3D with full color and resolution in November of 2012. Both DLP Cinema and LCOS 4K projector platforms have been integrated.”

As exciting as seeing the new RealD screen technologies in action with multiple screens at different angles and light levels, seeing any of the matrix of what that sentence speaks of would be very interesting. The implication is that others have already seen it in private demonstrations,  since the verbiage says ‘already been demonstrated’.

In addition to this major milestone for digital cinema, Beck said LLE will be shipping other new products in the coming months, including both cinema and non-cinema applications such as precision 3D metrology.

“Precision 3D metrology” – We haven’t yet seen anything of the industry’s attempt to create a precision metrology on speckle (or when the distortion goes from bad to unacceptable) and these guys are making products dealing with the measurement of 3D. Wonders never cease.

About Laser Light Engines — Laser Light Engines, Inc. (LLE) is a leader in laser illumination for performance projection, such as 3D cinema; premium large venue and rental/staging. LLE’s laser illumination systems replace traditional, high-pressure gas discharge lamps, producing dramatically brighter and sharper images, with less energy use and lower operating costs. LLE’s universal engine can plug and play with new projection systems or retrofit tens of thousands of installations, worldwide.

Partnerships with key industry players, a portfolio of patented technology and expertise, and a multi-year head start in building laser illumination systems, all combine to make LLE the leader in this large and rapidly emerging market. The venture-funded company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Salem, New Hampshire, USA. For additional information visit: http://www.laserlightengines.com Laser Light Engines, LLE, DSG265 and Laser6P are trademarks of Laser Light Engines, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Boilerplate. Wish I had some. But actually, there is data in there. The beauty of boilerplate is that it is all lawyer vetted, so yes Alice, someone is thinking beyond retrofit and those lawyers are sure there is lower operating costs and less energy use in our future all from replacing xenon lamps with laser light.

The Future Holds...

Laser Light Engines Addresses Maturing Market

Leave a comment

Replacing the Xenon bulb with laser light via fibre to the projector head has made a few more advances and stumbles in the last 6 months. The requirement of screen shakers to avoid speckle took a dramatic hit this week (is moving standing waves an oxymoron? what if they are multi-colored?), even though high brightness 3D was seen by many and lauded at the same time.

As the industry matures to this obvious point, Bill Beck from Laser Light Engines has continued his educate motif and this week gave a presentation that changed from merely explaining important issues like why picking the correct laser primaries will affect efficiency (read: costs) to “Let’s ask the Right Questions”. Since this is CinemaCon week and there is no time to iterate on the nuance in these slides, we’ll just post them as a PDF, then write another more detailed article next week.

The Future Holds...

Laser Light Engines Addresses Maturing Market

Leave a comment

Replacing the Xenon bulb with laser light via fibre to the projector head has made a few more advances and stumbles in the last 6 months. The requirement of screen shakers to avoid speckle took a dramatic hit this week (is moving standing waves an oxymoron? what if they are multi-colored?), even though high brightness 3D was seen by many and lauded at the same time.

As the industry matures to this obvious point, Bill Beck from Laser Light Engines has continued his educate motif and this week gave a presentation that changed from merely explaining important issues like why picking the correct laser primaries will affect efficiency (read: costs) to “Let’s ask the Right Questions”. Since this is CinemaCon week and there is no time to iterate on the nuance in these slides, we’ll just post them as a PDF, then write another more detailed article next week.

Societies

Vegas 2013 SMPTE/NAB CinemaCon

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Calendar dates of SMPTE during NAB and CinemaCon

It happens again this year before switching back next year…CinemaCon immediately follows NAB in Vegas. This means that those who want to attend the SMTPE weekend, filled with more data than one can predict, but not NAB, and also attend CinemaCon, that there is a week in the middle.

Last year this was filled with a near-perfect EDCF bus tour arranged by Thomas MacCalla. From sound systems to important post houses (and who’ll forget being the first riders on the Universal Studios Transformers ride, or equally exciting, spending time talking with Laser Light Engines’ Bill Beck after the successful SMPTE showing of a laser driven Sony projector, and exchanging ideas with all the other european experts), the yearly bustour was yet again perhaps the highlight of the two weeks.

So what will it be in 2013? Can SMPTE out-do themselves…Can Nick Mitchell of Technicolor take the Marvin Hall Award for Telling Us What We Don’t Want to Hear again? Will there be another mis-named presentation that everyone complains for missing (what is white, really?) Will RealD demonstrat what they merely talk about at this coming SMPTE Hollywood Expo?

Societies

Vegas 2013 SMPTE/NAB CinemaCon

Leave a comment

Calendar dates of SMPTE during NAB and CinemaCon

It happens again this year before switching back next year…CinemaCon immediately follows NAB in Vegas. This means that those who want to attend the SMTPE weekend, filled with more data than one can predict, but not NAB, and also attend CinemaCon, that there is a week in the middle.

Last year this was filled with a near-perfect EDCF bus tour arranged by Thomas MacCalla. From sound systems to important post houses (and who’ll forget being the first riders on the Universal Studios Transformers ride, or equally exciting, spending time talking with Laser Light Engines’ Bill Beck after the successful SMPTE showing of a laser driven Sony projector, and exchanging ideas with all the other european experts), the yearly bustour was yet again perhaps the highlight of the two weeks.

So what will it be in 2013? Can SMPTE out-do themselves…Can Nick Mitchell of Technicolor take the Marvin Hall Award for Telling Us What We Don’t Want to Hear again? Will there be another mis-named presentation that everyone complains for missing (what is white, really?) Will RealD demonstrat what they merely talk about at this coming SMPTE Hollywood Expo?

Interesting Blogs

HFR-S3D Post SMPTE/CinemaCon Hobbit

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Your analogy Michael, of going from standard definition to high definition or from VHS to DVD is a good one, but it doesn’t inform one of how it is similar. It is not that there are more pixels, it is that more pixels are able to be a discernible part of the picture…or can be if the director chooses. Another analogy would be to say that there is more depth of field, but instead of talking about the amount of available focus behind the point of focus, we get more ability to focus in front of the point of focus. Normally all that area in front is not only out of focus, but during any kind of motion in the scene or the camera, there is a smearing that contributes to destroying contrast in the picture. It is also very tiring for the eyes.

Cameron’s demonstration a year ago at CinemaCon made use of sword fighting and sweeping the camera around a fairly large room. The most vivid shot that allowed the technology to prove itself was a long, medium speed pan of several actors and actresses sitting at a long table with food and candles in front of them. There was also another set of actors whose backs were to us, so we’d see the back of their heads, with the view of the candles going in and out. At 24 frames per second (fps) the scene was typical, in-focus faces and quasi-focused candle flames with smeared blurs of the actors backs in front. At 48 frames per second, the smearing left. It wasn’t so important that the backs of these heads and shoulders were in focus, but that the smearing was gone so the discernible luminance of the scene increased – loosely, more contrast means colors and more colors means more natural feeling. The candle flames were brighter without being any more in focus.

Now I will bring 3D into the conversation and tell you that you are wrong Michael. 3D is not just a gimmick, and not just another tool. In fact, each picture that we see has dozens of clues of dimensionality without the parallax clues that stereoscopy brings. Everything from colors fading as we see them in the distance, to a fuzziness at the intersection of two objects (notice the shoulders compared to their background) to comparative sizes and not seeing a person’s legs when a table is in front of them, all tell the human visual system of eyes and brain and mind that there is a third dimension in the scene we are looking at. On the other hand, my guess is that most technical people in the business generally dislike the current implementations of Stereoscopic 3D, but for reasons that don’t have to do with the ugliness of the glasses or the upcharge or whether a well written scene could have served just as well. Most dislike it because even with the inherent horrors of the combination of high gain and silver screens (each with their own set of insurmountable problems), there isn’t enough light to do the process justice. And again, less light means more in-the-mud colors and fewer colors overall, especially whites and the light subtle colors that we normally use to discern subtle things.

I also was not a fan of S-3D until I saw the ‘dimensionalization’ of the final scene of Casablanca. I thought it was marvelous. It was on the other side of compelling. It was as if there needed to be an excuse to leave out the parallax. That doesn’t make badly shot or poorly dimensionalized S-3D OK, but it does make any S-3D ‘Not Ready for Prime Time’ when it isn’t then presented correctly – and that mostly has to do with the amount of light from the screen to the eyes. Which brings us back to High Frame Rates.

There was a two day set of SMPTE seminars dealing with digital cinema before NAB, which was the week before CinemaCon. Several thousand engineers got full geek treatment with an hour of ‘why lasers in the projector’ then seeing 6 minutes of demonstrations of Sony projectors with retrofit Laser Light Engines, Inc.’ laser systems, and 40 minutes on the various problems that high frame rates bring to the post production workflow, then 20 minutes of presentation from a technical representative from Peter Jackson’s team who explained some technical considerations of HFR.

There is a commonly held misconception that 24 frames per second was chosen because testing determined that this speed had something to do with the natural flutter rate of the eyes. In fact, 24 fps was chosen because it brought a movies sound to the point where it was not horrible. Similarly, there is some magic above 50 something fps and as we also learned (while Sperling was at Coachella missing the SMPTE event), there are potential problems to be wary of at 48 frames per second, demonstrated by Dr. Marty Banks of Cal Berkeley. So…

To answer one of your questions Michael, 48 frames was chosen at the time because they weren’t certain if equipment manufacturers would be able to get a working high frame rate system available by the time that The Hobbit was going to be released. But anyone who reads the trades most certainly knows that frame rates up to 60 have been in the specifications and doable since Series II projectors became available from Texas Instruments. Ah! but not in S-3D. As Sperling pointed out, this requires “in the projector” electronics to be fitted (or retrofitted) and a whole new way of thinking servers for the projector. An example: Sony announced to their 13,000 customers – give us $3,000 and we will retrofit your software to do S3D-HFR.

Going back though, to the demonstrations that Cameron did a year ago. In addition to 48fps S3D – which got rid of the front of focus blur – there were also identical shots taken at 60fps S3D. They were less WOW! but still importantly beneficial. Because of time constraints and the fact that we were sitting among Cameron’s other several thousand friends in the auditorium, there wasn’t a lot of time to look at these shots, but they reminded me of the arguments that George Massenburg made in a famous 3 part article entitled Lace and Filigree, written during audio’s transition to digital in the mid-80’s. There is something special as the speed improves akin to the benefits of increasing signal to noise in its various forms. Perhaps it all serves to put technology into the sphere of philosophy where it belongs. It certainly reminds us that all technology involves the art of compromise.

Last short aside, during the SMPTE event with the HFR panelists still on stage. One engineer came to the open mic and made a statement about government S3D skunkwork experiments that he had been part of which indicated that there was something that ‘popped’ at 53 fps and wondered if anyone else had run into that phenomena. The chair answered with a few speculations then expressed regret that Douglas Trumbull wasn’t there to give insights to his experiments in the field, since he not only had the longest record of making high frame rate movies but just opened a new digital high frame rate studio that has made several technical break-thoughs. And just like the Annie Hall/Marshall McLuhan moment, Doug came to the mic and added a few quips… OK; so that’s all we geeks get for high-level entertainment.

Keep up the good work. I enjoy the show and don’t begrudge any extra minutes you take to get all the interesting news of the week to us.

[Author’s salutations]

References:

 

High Frame Rates – The New Black, Getting to Speed

Combine 3, Drop 2, 120 becomes 24

 

Interesting Blogs

HFR-S3D Post SMPTE/CinemaCon Hobbit

Leave a comment

Your analogy Michael, of going from standard definition to high definition or from VHS to DVD is a good one, but it doesn’t inform one of how it is similar. It is not that there are more pixels, it is that more pixels are able to be a discernible part of the picture…or can be if the director chooses. Another analogy would be to say that there is more depth of field, but instead of talking about the amount of available focus behind the point of focus, we get more ability to focus in front of the point of focus. Normally all that area in front is not only out of focus, but during any kind of motion in the scene or the camera, there is a smearing that contributes to destroying contrast in the picture. It is also very tiring for the eyes.

Cameron’s demonstration a year ago at CinemaCon made use of sword fighting and sweeping the camera around a fairly large room. The most vivid shot that allowed the technology to prove itself was a long, medium speed pan of several actors and actresses sitting at a long table with food and candles in front of them. There was also another set of actors whose backs were to us, so we’d see the back of their heads, with the view of the candles going in and out. At 24 frames per second (fps) the scene was typical, in-focus faces and quasi-focused candle flames with smeared blurs of the actors backs in front. At 48 frames per second, the smearing left. It wasn’t so important that the backs of these heads and shoulders were in focus, but that the smearing was gone so the discernible luminance of the scene increased – loosely, more contrast means colors and more colors means more natural feeling. The candle flames were brighter without being any more in focus.

Now I will bring 3D into the conversation and tell you that you are wrong Michael. 3D is not just a gimmick, and not just another tool. In fact, each picture that we see has dozens of clues of dimensionality without the parallax clues that stereoscopy brings. Everything from colors fading as we see them in the distance, to a fuzziness at the intersection of two objects (notice the shoulders compared to their background) to comparative sizes and not seeing a person’s legs when a table is in front of them, all tell the human visual system of eyes and brain and mind that there is a third dimension in the scene we are looking at. On the other hand, my guess is that most technical people in the business generally dislike the current implementations of Stereoscopic 3D, but for reasons that don’t have to do with the ugliness of the glasses or the upcharge or whether a well written scene could have served just as well. Most dislike it because even with the inherent horrors of the combination of high gain and silver screens (each with their own set of insurmountable problems), there isn’t enough light to do the process justice. And again, less light means more in-the-mud colors and fewer colors overall, especially whites and the light subtle colors that we normally use to discern subtle things.

I also was not a fan of S-3D until I saw the ‘dimensionalization’ of the final scene of Casablanca. I thought it was marvelous. It was on the other side of compelling. It was as if there needed to be an excuse to leave out the parallax. That doesn’t make badly shot or poorly dimensionalized S-3D OK, but it does make any S-3D ‘Not Ready for Prime Time’ when it isn’t then presented correctly – and that mostly has to do with the amount of light from the screen to the eyes. Which brings us back to High Frame Rates.

There was a two day set of SMPTE seminars dealing with digital cinema before NAB, which was the week before CinemaCon. Several thousand engineers got full geek treatment with an hour of ‘why lasers in the projector’ then seeing 6 minutes of demonstrations of Sony projectors with retrofit Laser Light Engines, Inc.’ laser systems, and 40 minutes on the various problems that high frame rates bring to the post production workflow, then 20 minutes of presentation from a technical representative from Peter Jackson’s team who explained some technical considerations of HFR.

There is a commonly held misconception that 24 frames per second was chosen because testing determined that this speed had something to do with the natural flutter rate of the eyes. In fact, 24 fps was chosen because it brought a movies sound to the point where it was not horrible. Similarly, there is some magic above 50 something fps and as we also learned (while Sperling was at Coachella missing the SMPTE event), there are potential problems to be wary of at 48 frames per second, demonstrated by Dr. Marty Banks of Cal Berkeley. So…

To answer one of your questions Michael, 48 frames was chosen at the time because they weren’t certain if equipment manufacturers would be able to get a working high frame rate system available by the time that The Hobbit was going to be released. But anyone who reads the trades most certainly knows that frame rates up to 60 have been in the specifications and doable since Series II projectors became available from Texas Instruments. Ah! but not in S-3D. As Sperling pointed out, this requires “in the projector” electronics to be fitted (or retrofitted) and a whole new way of thinking servers for the projector. An example: Sony announced to their 13,000 customers – give us $3,000 and we will retrofit your software to do S3D-HFR.

Going back though, to the demonstrations that Cameron did a year ago. In addition to 48fps S3D – which got rid of the front of focus blur – there were also identical shots taken at 60fps S3D. They were less WOW! but still importantly beneficial. Because of time constraints and the fact that we were sitting among Cameron’s other several thousand friends in the auditorium, there wasn’t a lot of time to look at these shots, but they reminded me of the arguments that George Massenburg made in a famous 3 part article entitled Lace and Filigree, written during audio’s transition to digital in the mid-80’s. There is something special as the speed improves akin to the benefits of increasing signal to noise in its various forms. Perhaps it all serves to put technology into the sphere of philosophy where it belongs. It certainly reminds us that all technology involves the art of compromise.

Last short aside, during the SMPTE event with the HFR panelists still on stage. One engineer came to the open mic and made a statement about government S3D skunkwork experiments that he had been part of which indicated that there was something that ‘popped’ at 53 fps and wondered if anyone else had run into that phenomena. The chair answered with a few speculations then expressed regret that Douglas Trumbull wasn’t there to give insights to his experiments in the field, since he not only had the longest record of making high frame rate movies but just opened a new digital high frame rate studio that has made several technical break-thoughs. And just like the Annie Hall/Marshall McLuhan moment, Doug came to the mic and added a few quips… OK; so that’s all we geeks get for high-level entertainment.

Keep up the good work. I enjoy the show and don’t begrudge any extra minutes you take to get all the interesting news of the week to us.

[Author’s salutations]

References:

 

High Frame Rates – The New Black, Getting to Speed

Combine 3, Drop 2, 120 becomes 24

 

The Future Holds...

[Update] LLE, Sony, NAB and CinemaCon

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Since Bill Beck will be on the EDCF Bus Trip for the various sound system demos and visit to the Academy, we’ll hopefully get enough info to fill a new article on the current state of the technology and politics of laser. For example, the LIPA group’s lawyer [Laser Illuminated Projectors, Laser Illuminated Projector Association] gave an excellent slide presentation and talk on the legal aspects of public use lasers.

[Original Article] The Art of Reading Press Releases Kit includes chicken bones and Roman dice. But what are we to make of the first paragraph of LLE’s fresh press release issued days in front of the SMPTE/NAB Technology Symposium on Cinema on April 14th?

Laser Light Engines, Inc. (LLE), a venture-backed, laser-illumination developer today announced the world’s first public demonstration of fully-despeckled, high brightness 3D, high frame rate (HFR), wide color gamut (WCG) laser projection on a silver 3D screen at the upcoming NAB Technology Symposium on Cinema (TSC), on April 14, 2012 from 4:14pm-5:45pm PDT in Room #S222.

Bill Beck, founder and EVP of Business Development for LLE will be presenting an invited talk on Laser Illumination Systems for 2D and 3D Digital Cinema. “We appreciate the opportunity to educate and update the NAB Digital Cinema community with both a tutorial and a live demonstration of laser 3D on a silver screen in conjunction with SONY,” Beck said. “Since its founding, LLE has been committed to laser-driven light sources that exceed the requirements of digital cinema”. LLE was the first to achieve full laser despeckling on a white screen in 2010, but with the rapid proliferation of 3D, and other advancements to be discussed at this year’s TSC, had to develop additional technology to meet new, more challenging requirements.

Venture-backed: Well, we know that LLE has had a number of interesting investors over the last few years. All laser technologies have been money consumers as obvious and thrilling ideas need a extraordinary effort to get past the vagaries of such precision.

Laser-Illumination developer: There are many, of course. Polaroid Kodak used the engines of a California company rather than LLE’s system for their one-off, pre-prototype projector system. Sony R&D has had releases in the past about their engines, so the fact that this Technology Symposium exhibition is with Sony is interesting…though both companies are careful to point out that this is a technology showing (nothing more, nothing less.) Barco has had some great demonstrations in the recent past, and RED is promising to blow everyone out of the water with their offering. Christie’s mother company Ushio is known to have laser technology, but ‘focused’ more in the IR region.

“world’s first public demonstration of fully-despeckled, high brightness 3D, high frame rate (HFR), wide color gamut (WCG) laser projection on a silver 3D screen”: To parse this, it may appear that the “silver 3D screen” portion that modifies enough to make the “world’s first public demonstration” be valid. But it also may be the “fully-despeckled” phrase. Other companies give their buzz-words that indicate that they have gotten the speckles down to a responsible level, currently an unmeasurable quantity since there is no agreed-upon way to compare one to one. An industry group has been set up to change this, but until then we only know that getting the speckle out of green is the most difficult, and we know that LLE says: Fully-despeckled. One presumes: Zero doesn’t need an industry standard.

But is there a downside to being fully despeckled? Despeckling must, to some degree, be as simple as broadening the Q of the light since it is the narrowness that causes the effect of speckling. But that would have a negative effect as the light approaches the mirrors perhaps. We’ll see if anyone can phrase a question that makes Bill speak to their secret sauce. I suspect 4th and 5th dimension activity.

But what about “wide gamut”? The DCI spec does the opposite of constrict the gamut. It invites manufacturers to get as broad as possible in the XYZ space. But there are limits and distortions with every light. Going “negative” on one or more points to get better effects along the line of purples will have effects in the greens, where the eye is most sensitive. Hopefully Bill Beck will give details here too.

But it is that “silver 3D screen” part that is the rub. Silver implies aluminum and high-gain. Aluminum holds the photon polarity of the RealD and MasterImage systems, so even if the laser light engine were to give them full brightness at the screen with a low gain screen, they would still have to use the silver screen to keep their left-right effect working. Some would say that it is the high-gain problem, giving much of the auditorium less than responsible light levels as the window of ‘gain’ decreases…and they would be right. 23 degrees off the horizontal and/or vertical center and the viewer typically has half the light or less.

But the aluminum also distorts the screen’s image, usually making it impossible to get the 70-90% luminosity level at the sides (as measured from the center), or to get a responsible white point anywhere. This is much of the reason that France’s CNC has banned the silver screen for cinemas showing 2D films and will probably force them out completely as time goes on.

Notwithstanding, this is an interesting release and an interesting step for both technical and political reasons. It will be interesting to see if LLE can parlay this into interesting motion at CinemaCon the following week.

Also interesting is that both parties, Sony and LLE, are being careful in their press releases to say that this joint project is only for this demo. No way to tell how to parse that for absolute truth.

The Future Holds...

[Update] LLE, Sony, NAB and CinemaCon

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Since Bill Beck will be on the EDCF Bus Trip for the various sound system demos and visit to the Academy, we’ll hopefully get enough info to fill a new article on the current state of the technology and politics of laser. For example, the LIPA group’s lawyer [Laser Illuminated Projectors, Laser Illuminated Projector Association] gave an excellent slide presentation and talk on the legal aspects of public use lasers.

[Original Article] The Art of Reading Press Releases Kit includes chicken bones and Roman dice. But what are we to make of the first paragraph of LLE’s fresh press release issued days in front of the SMPTE/NAB Technology Symposium on Cinema on April 14th?

Laser Light Engines, Inc. (LLE), a venture-backed, laser-illumination developer today announced the world’s first public demonstration of fully-despeckled, high brightness 3D, high frame rate (HFR), wide color gamut (WCG) laser projection on a silver 3D screen at the upcoming NAB Technology Symposium on Cinema (TSC), on April 14, 2012 from 4:14pm-5:45pm PDT in Room #S222.

Bill Beck, founder and EVP of Business Development for LLE will be presenting an invited talk on Laser Illumination Systems for 2D and 3D Digital Cinema. “We appreciate the opportunity to educate and update the NAB Digital Cinema community with both a tutorial and a live demonstration of laser 3D on a silver screen in conjunction with SONY,” Beck said. “Since its founding, LLE has been committed to laser-driven light sources that exceed the requirements of digital cinema”. LLE was the first to achieve full laser despeckling on a white screen in 2010, but with the rapid proliferation of 3D, and other advancements to be discussed at this year’s TSC, had to develop additional technology to meet new, more challenging requirements.

Venture-backed: Well, we know that LLE has had a number of interesting investors over the last few years. All laser technologies have been money consumers as obvious and thrilling ideas need a extraordinary effort to get past the vagaries of such precision.

Laser-Illumination developer: There are many, of course. Polaroid Kodak used the engines of a California company rather than LLE’s system for their one-off, pre-prototype projector system. Sony R&D has had releases in the past about their engines, so the fact that this Technology Symposium exhibition is with Sony is interesting…though both companies are careful to point out that this is a technology showing (nothing more, nothing less.) Barco has had some great demonstrations in the recent past, and RED is promising to blow everyone out of the water with their offering. Christie’s mother company Ushio is known to have laser technology, but ‘focused’ more in the IR region.

“world’s first public demonstration of fully-despeckled, high brightness 3D, high frame rate (HFR), wide color gamut (WCG) laser projection on a silver 3D screen”: To parse this, it may appear that the “silver 3D screen” portion that modifies enough to make the “world’s first public demonstration” be valid. But it also may be the “fully-despeckled” phrase. Other companies give their buzz-words that indicate that they have gotten the speckles down to a responsible level, currently an unmeasurable quantity since there is no agreed-upon way to compare one to one. An industry group has been set up to change this, but until then we only know that getting the speckle out of green is the most difficult, and we know that LLE says: Fully-despeckled. One presumes: Zero doesn’t need an industry standard.

But is there a downside to being fully despeckled? Despeckling must, to some degree, be as simple as broadening the Q of the light since it is the narrowness that causes the effect of speckling. But that would have a negative effect as the light approaches the mirrors perhaps. We’ll see if anyone can phrase a question that makes Bill speak to their secret sauce. I suspect 4th and 5th dimension activity.

But what about “wide gamut”? The DCI spec does the opposite of constrict the gamut. It invites manufacturers to get as broad as possible in the XYZ space. But there are limits and distortions with every light. Going “negative” on one or more points to get better effects along the line of purples will have effects in the greens, where the eye is most sensitive. Hopefully Bill Beck will give details here too.

But it is that “silver 3D screen” part that is the rub. Silver implies aluminum and high-gain. Aluminum holds the photon polarity of the RealD and MasterImage systems, so even if the laser light engine were to give them full brightness at the screen with a low gain screen, they would still have to use the silver screen to keep their left-right effect working. Some would say that it is the high-gain problem, giving much of the auditorium less than responsible light levels as the window of ‘gain’ decreases…and they would be right. 23 degrees off the horizontal and/or vertical center and the viewer typically has half the light or less.

But the aluminum also distorts the screen’s image, usually making it impossible to get the 70-90% luminosity level at the sides (as measured from the center), or to get a responsible white point anywhere. This is much of the reason that France’s CNC has banned the silver screen for cinemas showing 2D films and will probably force them out completely as time goes on.

Notwithstanding, this is an interesting release and an interesting step for both technical and political reasons. It will be interesting to see if LLE can parlay this into interesting motion at CinemaCon the following week.

Also interesting is that both parties, Sony and LLE, are being careful in their press releases to say that this joint project is only for this demo. No way to tell how to parse that for absolute truth.

The Future Holds...

Lasers…somebody knows…Barco? RED???

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The basic exception was Laser Light Engines (LLE), who have a deal with IMAX to put lasers into the big room cinemas. If ever there were a nice niche to start this adventure with, this is it. Specialized, contained to dozens and hundreds instead of 10’s of thousands, able to absorb any exceptional pricing, able to evolve. Delivery was scheduled to begin in Spring 2012.

Then the film maker turned digital imaging specialist Kodak shows a system that they clearly are not productizing. But they are playing in the game. They helped set up the organization which is working (throughout the world?) to take projection booth laser systems out of the field of laser entertainment systems, which require a special technology variance for every set-up. Kodak was able to get one by themselves, but the Laser Illuminated Projection Association – LIPA – includes Sony and IMAX, plus LLE and Kodak in this effort. In the US, the over-riding entity is the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, which is in charge of ensuring laser equipment safety.

This spring, LLE showed up in Hollywood at that chapter’s SMPTE meeting with Sony and Barco giving powerpoint presentations. Sony had made a couple of public remarks previously, but one had to be culling their online tech papers to notice. And until this point Barco had been quiet…except that the week before they did a demo at the RED Studios Hollywood lot. Nice splash.

Then nothing. No remarks from anyone at CineExpo or CineEurope. The idea has gelled that digital laser projection is 2 years away, or more.

Then this week. The RED user group message board lit up after two pre-viewer comments placed at the head of a thread by RED owner Jim Jannard: Mark L. Pederson of OffHollywood and Stephen Pizzo, Co-Founder of Element Technica and now partner of 3ality Technica, make remarks about having watched a demo of RED’s laser projector. “Vibrant”, “clean”, “never seen projection so …”, etc. Then a few non-answers to poorly phrased guesses (for example, that 4K is a benchmark, and passive 3D did leak out, but both could mean several things) and that was that…25 pages of wasted time thereafter. [Can anyone please vouch for the merits of Misters Pederson and Pizzo as to their ability to discern whether the technology they viewed is comparibly better than what has been seen otherwise?)

Barco, on the hand (and yet similarly) have made an announcement that 9 and 10 January will be their big days. – D3D Cinema to Present Giant Screen 4K 3D Laser Projection Demo at 2nd Annual Moody Digital Cinema Symposium – Well, actually, no. Barco only said, “We’re fully committed to providing the highest quality solutions for giant screen theaters” and some similar non-relevent info about how wonderful their partner is. Basically though, their name is on a press release announcing that they will butterfly laser driven digital cinema light against 15 perf 70mm and 4 other “revolutions”:

  • The FIRST demonstration of Barco’s revolutionary laser light engine on a giant screen
  • The FIRST demonstration of true DLP 4K resolution 3D on a giant screen
  • The FIRST 4K 3D comparison of ‘ultra-reality’ 48 frame/sec & 60 frame/sec content
  • The FIRST giant 3D 500 mbps comparison, nearly double the current cinema bit rate standard

Not withstanding the lack of filtering for marketing bits, and regardless of how some of the terms have been ill-defined in the past (4K 3D, for example), this is still a pretty good line-up.

Prediction: 2012 will be the year that several studios tell their exhibition partners a final date for film distribution (in 2013) and 2012 will have more than one commercial laser system in the field.

Prediction 3 – there may not be more than one DCI compliant system in the field though. RED might find that, if they thought bringing a small camera to market was a difficult trick, supporting projectors is a whole different matter…even if it is only to post-houses and their owners.

Regardless, this is mostly good news. That the RED is using passive doesn’t exactly mean silver screen passive. Perhaps Dolby passive, which would certainly be good news. If it is silver screen passive, that is bad news. Since silver screens don’t comply with SMPTE standards, they may end up on the scrap heap of history. But that is a different story for another article.

The Future Holds...

The Laser Trend

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LLE then publicized an industry effort to shift the regulatory basis for lasers in cinemas. Sony has announced participation with that effort, though they haven’t made any further announcements since their 2008 technology release (or the recent rumor that they are working with a French group on a cinema-based laser project.) And now NATO, the US-centric national association of theater owners, is forming a laser task force 

Here are a few paragraphs of the Optics.com article. Er note that the anti-green speckle effort that is mentioned in the article takes on significance when reports come back from Rochester indicating that they haven’t completely handled the problem yet.

Optics.org – Laser projectors promise brighter 3D experience – Excerpts:

“Xenon lamps have reached their practical limit for high-brightness applications,” said Bill Beck, a co-founder of LLE. “High-lumen projection tops out at about 30,000 lumens with an 8 kW power supply. Most of the size, weight and power consumption of these projectors is driven by the illumination system and supporting optics, which is why they are very big.”

Laser alternative
LLE’s alternative is a light engine producing red, green and blue primaries from the same laser source, with the output coupled to a digital projector using optical fiber. With virtually all the laser power successfully reaching the projector chips, the result is a system that can deliver two- to five-times the brightness level of a xenon lamp.

“Our design is a diode-pumped, solid-state laser system using very mature, low-cost GaAs pump diode bars, MOPA architecture, and non-linear optics for wavelength conversion,” commented Beck. “It satisfies all the key requirements: power for 3D brightness, a long lifetime, and high wall-plug efficiency for decreased operating costs. The beam also has a low etendue, which is beneficial for fiber delivery and for scaling the power to higher levels.”

The company says that it can scale up the power of its system by aggregating the output from several light engines. “Our strategy is to provide RGB engines in increments of 30,000 white balanced lumens,” said Beck. “These will initially be aggregated, so as to supply projectors with input powers of up to 60-90,000 lm. In terms of watts, these modules would output 75-90 watts of RGB.” The company envisages these multiple RGB engines being delivered to a digital projector by optical fiber, potentially 50 feet away, allowing “a very small box to become a very bright box.”

Speckle secret
LLE also says it has cracked one of the field’s particular headaches: green speckle. When a highly coherent light source is used for projection displays, viewers can sometimes perceive an interference pattern as an image artifact, although the severity of this problem can be very subjective. It just so happens that the green channel is the hardest to acceptably ‘de-speckle’, because of the eye’s high sensitivity to those wavelengths.

Beck is keeping the secret of LLE’s victory over green speckle to himself, but admits that it was not an easy fight. “Dealing with speckle was one of the key challenges, up there alongside the development of a low-cost middle-volume manufacturing platform. We have worked for three years to eliminate the speckle, and have existing and pending IP in this area. All I can tell you is that it is really, really hard and lots of people have tried.”

The LLE light engine is also green in spirit, contributing to the energy savings that the cinema industry expects to make as digital projection systems become more widely adopted. LLE predicts that RGB laser illumination will reduce operating costs for movie theater owners by potentially $10,000 per screen per year, by eliminating the need to replace expensive xenon arc lamp projector bulbs and reducing electricity use by as much as 50 per cent. As Beck noted: “Our business model is very much in line with the trend to replace low-efficiency lamps with solid-state solutions, offsetting higher up-front price with lower total cost of ownership.”

Other Articles in this series:

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

3D Wonders

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.

The Future Holds...

Laser Light Engines | Doug Darrow | CEO

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Originally published as: Laser Light Engines Hires Industry Veteran Doug Darrow as CEO | Business Wire
October 26, 2009 08:00 AM Eastern Time  

Continues:

“Doug’s experience developing the Digital Cinema market is unparalleled,” said Jiong Ma, principal, Braemar Energy Ventures, and director of Laser Light Engines. “His leadership will be invaluable to the continued progress of Laser Light Engines.”

Mr. Darrow succeeds Bill Beck, Laser Light Engines’ co-founder, who will remain active in the company as executive vice president, business development. “We started Laser Light Engines two years ago to bring the benefits of high brightness, energy efficient solid-state laser illumination to Digital Cinema and other large scale projection applications. Having demonstrated our technology, it is now time to drive commercialization and widespread adoption,” said Mr. Beck. “We are all very pleased to have one of the most experienced players in the industry to lead the next phase of the company’s growth.”

Laser Light Engines combines advanced laser technology with high volume manufacturing processes to provide high brightness, energy efficient, long lifetime, color-controllable light sources for demanding illumination applications worldwide. The company is developing solid-state light sources for 2D and 3D Digital Cinema and other large venue projectors. Laser Light Engines will produce light sources that have three to five times the brightness, 100 times the life and half the power consumption of arc lamps, the incumbent technology. The company will manufacture a light source module that can be incorporated into a standard Digital Cinema or advertising projection system.

“I am very excited to be joining the Laser Light Engines team and look forward to bringing high brightness laser engines into the market,” said Mr. Darrow. “These innovative solutions have many advantages that promise to revolutionize large screen applications.”

Prior to joining Laser Light Engines, Mr. Darrow spent twenty-three years with Texas Instruments. His most recent role was in the DLP Cinema® Products Division where he led all marketing for the division, as well as its effort to develop break-though solutions for Digital Cinema. He played a key role in changing the entertainment industry, driving digital movie distribution and transitioning the theatrical industry away from its 100-year old film format. A leading expert on the future of movie distribution and 3D, Mr. Darrow has been a featured panel member at CES 2009, a keynote speaker at 2008’s ShoWest and a recipient of that event’s “Digital Cinema Pioneer Award.”

Laser Light Engines’ investors include Braemar Energy Ventures and Harris & Harris Group.

About Laser Light Engines

Laser Light Engines designs, develops and manufactures OEM laser-driven light engines that enable broad new product categories. The company’s advanced solid state lighting combines advanced laser technology with high volume manufacturing processes to provide high brightness, long lifetime, energy efficient, and color controllable light engines for demanding illumination applications worldwide.

Laser Light Engines was recently named to the 2009 AlwaysOn OnHollywood Top 100 Private Companies list, which honors the best up and coming companies in digital media and entertainment.

Contacts

Laser Light Engines
Bill Beck, 617-290-3861
[email protected]
or
CJP Communications
Gina Sorice, 212-279-3115 ext. 243
[email protected]