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Filed under: Business •Cameras •Distribution •Post Production •Production •

HPA Tech Retreat - Day 3, etc.

Day 3 Highlights

Wade Hanniball of Universal (who says he has not crossed the Alps on elephants while eating someone’s liver with fava beans and a nice chianti) said that digital cinema distribution makes sense only when all screens in a multiplex have digital projection: as a film moves from the main screen on the first weekend to smaller screens later in its run, it makes no sense to start on digital and then have to switch to 35mm film.

Pixar’s Rob Bogart and Rick Sayer discovered that digital projectors calibrated to the DC28 (Digital Cinema Initiative) spec clipped certain colors in “Cars”, and found that the gamut attached to the DC28 reference white point didn’t accommodate films timed to D65 or D55 white points. They offered Virtual White calibration as the solution—an expanded gamut that encompasses all three white points and includes most of the colors encoded in most of the DCI Distribution packages (DCPs, the “release prints” of digital cinema), which, surprisingly, the DC28 projector gamut does not do nearly so well. Sony have already modified their SXRD projectors for Virtual White, and other projector suppliers are following suit.

Dolby showed a high dynamic range LCD with modulated LED backlighting: a monochrome version of the image is fed to the LED array, while the foreground image is pre-processed to account for the “brightness haloes” created around scene details by the diffused backlighting. Residual halo errors are masked by “veiling luminance” in the human visual system. The result is a visually accurate LCD image with high brightness, high contrast, and very deep blacks, along with reduced power consumption. Active monitoring and calibration provide an even illumination, both when the display is made and through its life as LEDs age differentially.

Dolby’s Dave Schnuelle shows the color gamut of their HDR LCD.

Jim DeFilippis and Yves Montane from Fox described evaluating HD displays to replace CRTs. They tested LCDs, plasmas, and OLED screens, and found them all lacking in some aspects (and superior to CRTs in others). While they aren’t yet satisfied with CRT alternatives, they found a couple of LCDs they’ll make do with until something better comes along (and no, they didn’t say which LCDs they chose: go do your own tests, or go work for Fox if you really want to know!).

Jed Deame of Silicon Optix described the company’s HQV benchmark DVDs, a set of test-sequence disks for SD and HD display evaluation. Remember “The Video Standard”? The HQV DVDs provide a similar set of test signals for the DTV era, stressing scalers, deinterlacers, noise reducers, and the like. Silicon Optix will be adding a community section to the HQV site in months to come, so that users can test their own displays and share their results online.

Belden’s Steve Lampen talked about HDMI cables: intra-pair delay, wire gauge, eye patterns, connector shielding, crosstalk, impedance mismatches, and more. Sound boring? Only if you haven’t seen a Steve presentation; the man can make “plain old wires” into high entertainment:

Jerry Pierce, formerly Universal’s senior VP for Technology, opined that Internet TV delivery is about 2 years away. He discussed ad-supported free distribution, low-cost SD streams with limited functionality ($1-$2/hr), and premium-rate HD streams with full search/step/trick-play modes ($2-$4/hr). He broke audiences down by gender: girls have Destination, Background, and ADD viewing modes, while boys have Lean Forward, Lean Back, Lie Down, and Ignore modes (!). Different delivery stream qualities and costs suit different modes; one size will definitely not fit all.

Mark Schubin wrapped up the three days of Total Tech Overload with the handing out of door prizes: ATSC tuners, HDMI switches, a TiVo, a Blu-Ray player, and similar geeky toys, but this time, no glow-in-the-dark statues of St. Clare, the patron saint of Television.

Mark Schubin chooses a winner.

Oh, the first opera commissioned for TV? The BBC’s 1938 “Cinderella”. So now we all know.

(next: demo room pix)

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