Tag Archives: RED

Lasers…somebody knows…Barco? RED???

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.

H. Potter kills 3D; RED kills Low Dynamic Range

The previous Harry Potter movie was moved from December 2008 to July 2009. This time, instead of losing their December slot, thus pushing back a July 2011 Part II slot of the last Harry Potter movie, Warner Bros have decided not to wait to de-flatten the movie, but rather to release the movie in 2D on schedule. (So, close one eye to get some 3D feeling.)

 

Those who remember Warner Bros’ Clash of the Titans will say that this is a good move. One could also say that Clash was an outlier, that the technology they chose was not ready for prime time, that post groups are now better geared up to make stereoscopic 3 dimensional conversions…

See: 
 ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I’ Loses 3D Release « FirstShowing.net

Or perhaps this is just a great way for the studio to release a 2D version of both movies, get the 3D right, then re-release to a great new box office.


More amazing is this clip from RED showing their new HDRx™ software in action. You can read the entire thread, but the shot is taken in a dark dark barn, with wide open doors and bright desert light outside, and in the distance is a building with a person sitting on the stoop. It would be difficult to make this work as HDR for a still. But the shot in the clip also shows a moving person going from light to dark, and an amazing amount of detail in the dark. The colors aren’t graded, but the technology allows that each stream of dark and light could be worked on separately. A true game changer:

 

RED HDRx™ Walk Desert Barn scene

IBC Don’t Miss Events and Booths

Using the Dolby 3D display system along with Dolby 7.1 surround on 11 September.


Sunday – 12 September 

Conference Session – Digital restoration – new technology, new business – 1:30-13:00


Conference Session – Lights. What camera? Action: The Cinematographer’s battle to keep control of his fast expanding toolbox | David Stump, VFX supervisor, ASC | 14:00-15:30

ACES IIF brings in a 16-bit linear system based on floating point mathematics, and one thing to consider is that the 10-bit Log pipeline has been as big an encumbrance for modern film stocks as it is for digital cameras. It came out of the ASC’s camera review project.

Cinematographers cannot afford to be nostalgic for film, but the steady penetration of digital cameras looks like killing off optical media within four years.


Conference Session – Post-Produciton Workflow – How fast is your workflow? 16:00-17:30


IBC2010 Awards Ceremony

Free to attend for all show visitors – The IBC Awards are presented to the worthy winners of the Innovation Awards, the Exhibition Design Awards, the Conference Awards, the Special Award, the Judges Prize and, of course, the International Honour for Excellence, which this year has been announced as Manolo Romero, the managing director of Olympic Broadcasting Services.

Where: The Auditorium, RAI        Time: 18:15 (18:30 start)


Amsterdam SuperMeet – Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, Dam Square; 19:00 – 23:00. Doors open at 16:00.

For information visit: http://www.supermeet.com/.

Singular Software is only showing at the Supermeet – See PluralEyes for yourself

 


Monday – 13 September | EU DCinema Forum

Stereoscopic 3D Day |

9:30 Keynote, Cameras, 11AM Editing and 2D/3D Creation, 14:00 Exhibition, 16:00 Questions


Monday Night Movie: Avatar (Special Edition) in 3D

A special screening of Avatar, starts at 18:30 on Monday 13 September using the RealD stereoscopic 3D system. 


Tuesday – EDCF

State of play: developments in D-cinema – 10AM – 13:00


Dolby – Booth 2.B28 Dolby Professional Reference Monitor;

Preview of the new PR4200, a new standard for video reference monitors
Promises P3 simulation

projection design – Booth 7.B20 projectiondesign 2K+ projector for production suites
Premier of cineo35 2.5k – the world’s first compact projector capable of showing images at a native 2560 x 1600 resolution.
Meaning that my FCP menus can be next to the image; promises 3D support and P3 simulation

Doremi – Booth 10.B10 – Qalif Cinema Set-up and qualification system

Premiered at CinemaExpo

Panasonic – Booth 11.E60 – I just want to see the AG-AF100 for myself. GH1 Lens, some of the hot rod extras, pro-build.

Canon – Booth 11.E50 – Will they show a PL lens friendly APS-C sensor unit like that Panni? 


Sony – Booth 12.A10 – Will they have fixed the NEX-VG10 omissions? will they have a new Reference Monitor? 

RED – No Booth – Presentation at Assimilate, and BandPro, among others according to this schedule.


Avid – Booth 7.J20 – New Media Pro Release


ASSIMILATE – Booth 7.K01


The Foundry – Booth 7.J18


Band Pro – Booth 12.B20


Autodesk – Booth 7.D25


Bluefish444 – Booth 7.J07


Digital Vision – Booth 7.A28

FilmLight – Booth 7.F31 – annual drinks event at booth – Sat, 18:00-20:00.


DVS DI – Booth 7.E25 – CLIPSTER/ Stereoscopic/ Apple ProRes 422


Cine-tal – no booth, but their Cinemage B will be displayed at several booths.


IBC Hall 1


T-VIPS, Booth 1.B71 – Just because they can mention JPEG 2000 and high speed 3D

A highlight of its stand will be a groundbreaking demonstration of lossless JPEG2000 video transport, perhaps the most compelling reason to date for broadcasters and operators to switch to JPEG2000 video transport. The main advantage of JPEG2000 compression  is that it enables significant bandwidth savings when compared to un-compressed video transport and makes possibe the backhaul of HD and 3D video over 1 gigabit ethernet streams without loss of visual quality.


IBC Hall 5


Altera, Booth 5.A19 – Single-chip 4K, format-conversion reference design with integrated serial digital interface (SDI)

Red’s EPIC/Scarlett Problems {Update}

July 6 Update: A new Jannard post says the EPIC bug has been found and demented (and insinuates that it was the same bug that was holding back the Scarlet) and insists that they are back on the road of building the most best great and ultimate. A hint that the manufacturer is found, by saying that it will be built in the US, though that is not explicitly stated. The delivery dates are not hinted at, though some versions will definitely be in 2011 since the 28K sensor won’t be available since then. 


 

Jim Jannard continued his excellent client experiment by filling everyone in on further bug and manufacturing delays in a 14 June reduser.com post;

 

… we have a bug. It has held us up now for two months. We have working cameras, as you know. But we aren’t going to release anything until the cameras are done and bug free. And we have stumbled on an issue that has caused us considerable grief. It is unexpected and it has us baffled.

The fix could be tomorrow. Or not.

We have been a “lucky” company up to this point. The moon and stars lined up for us for the RED ONE (since we didn’t have a clue what we were doing in the beginning) and the RED ONE did all we asked. The M-X sensor is incredible… as you know. Our new ASICs for the EPIC and Scarlet are complicate times a million. And they work. Another miracle. Everything was late but on track. Then we hit a snag.

We have an army working on this. 24/7. Trust me when I tell you that we have been humbled. I have questioned our aggressive goals every day.

So what does this mean? Obviously another delay. To compound matters, the company that was to make Scarlet has made an incredible announcement recently and has significant issues. You can probably figure out who this is. This will force us to find a new manufacturing partner for that product. When we 1st got wind of this, we decided to make EPIC in the US, hoping that the company would find a solution in time for Scarlet production. That now seems unlikely so we are now scrambling for a new partner.

The manufacturing problem that is mentioned is presumed to be tied to Foxconn in China who is undergoing some major restructuring. It has to have several manufacturers scrabbling. For example, Apple has long made iPhone and other products with this group.

The EPIC and Scarlet camera are meant to bridge the original RED ONE, the Scarlet with 3K resolution and 5K or better for the EPIC. As recently as April, the EPIC was slatted for shipping in July, the Scarlet in August. 

Richard Lackey’s http://dcinema.wordpress.com/ has a great synopsis.