Dolby is using CinemaCon to announce a slate of new titles that will be released with Dolby Surround 7.1 audio.

Most of the films are highly anticipated summer tentpole releases and include Walt Disney Studios “Pirates of the Carribbean: On Stranger Tides”, DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 2″, Disney/Pixar’s “Cars 2″ and Paramount Pictures’ “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon”. Dolby also landed the first Indian film to feature their enhanced audio offering; Ramesh Sippy Entertainment’s “Dum Maaro Dum” will be released in April with Dolby Surround 7.1.

Since introducing the product to exhibitors in June of 2010, more than 1,300 Dolby Surround 7.1 installations have been completed. Dolby now says it is one of the “fastest adopted cinema audio formats” in the company’s history.

Of course, what makes the enhanced audio offering possible are the 16 audio tracks, or channels, within digital cinema packages (DCPs). Including additional audio tracks in digital releases seems like a no brainer, however exhibitors still have to be equipped to playback the extra channels. That means having wiring in place for left rear and right rear surround channels, not to mention an audio processor that can route the audio to the proper speakers.

It has been argued by industry techies that distributors could include two additional channels in a DCP since the DCI spec calls for uncompressed audio. True, there isn’t necessarily a proprietary Dolby technology (that I know of) used to create 7.1 surround sound. On the other hand, Dolby has been aggressive in working with studios to mix their films properly for 7.1 surround and has supported exhibitors installing the necessary technology in their auditoriums.

At the end of February when the FDA approved a variance clearing the way for Kodak to sell their laser projection technology to cinema exhibitors we ran a post which started out stating it was meant to be a competitor to Texas Instruments DLP chip. It didn’t take long for a commenter to point out that the Kodak’s system actually uses the DLP chip.

I spent considerable time searching through all of Kodak’s marketing material and press releases trying to find any reference to TI’s DLP chip and came up empty. Multiple searches on Google, that bastion of all knowledge, finally turned up some information which seemed to confirm that Kodak employed DLP in its solution.

All of this made me realize how little I actually knew about Kodak’s laser technology. I figured there could be no better source for information on the system than Kodak itself. Thankfully, I was able to speak with Les Moore, Kodak’s chief operating officer for Digital Cinema, who managed to shed some light (no pun intended) on the new technology. Surely, my first question should come as no surprise.

Celluloid Junkie: After being corrected in a recent post about Kodak Laser Technology and its use of the DLP chip I found it difficult to determine conclusively whether you are actually using the chip. Are you?

Les Moore: Yes. What we did was we said, “Lasers are starting to hit a price power point that makes some sense for theatrical use. Let’s see what we can do to design a projector using lasers as the light source. Let’s take a good hard look at the benefits that lasers can bring to a projector and then optimize the projector to make use of the lasers. There are a few manufacturers out there making good products in the industry with DLP, let’s base it around a DLP engine.” So that’s what we did.

CJ: The reason I ask is that there is no reference to DLP in any of your marketing or technical material. Was that intentional?

LM: I thought we had said it. I don’t believe it is described in the FDA variance. You might be right. There was no intent to not include that information. I think you’re aware we’ve held some open sessions here in Rochester where folks can hear a presentation that walks through the technology from front to back and then we take people up to a theatre and do a demonstration. It’s been very clear in those presentations that it’s designed around a DLP. Maybe that’s something we need to work on. It wasn’t intentional.

CJ: What incentive do the DLP manufacturers have to make laser projection available to the market when they are presently installing their xenon based d-cinema projectors as fast as they possibly can? Wouldn’t they be undermining their own interests?

LM: Whenever a manufacturer of products has a product line they have to manage that portfolio. So it’s a fair question. You’ve got to decide when you’re going to invest in new technologies, when you’re going to launch another round of products. You’d be challenged if you said you were just going to ignore future products, but on the other hand you have to launch them at the right time. So I think what a manufacturer needs to do is look at the technology and ask what it brings to the customer and how quickly they can bring it to the customer and then internally make that decision. I have an array of xenon DLP products, they’re growing in the marketplace, on the other hand we’ve got some technology that’s ready to be commercialized at this point, brings significant value to exhibition. A manufacturer has to make that call as to whether they want to be the first one out with it or whether they want to wait a little longer. I’m not inside those companies heads but it’s kind of general product management. New technologies are always coming along, you’ve got to decide when you’re going to launch them.

CJ: Does the the exclusivity of the TI DLP chips to Barco, Christie and NEC hinder the development of Kodak’s laser technology?

LM: We pulled together some technology. We implemented in a proof of concept prototype projector. An important thing to do with technology, right? You want to make sure it really works. And we demonstrated that it does here on site. What we’re interested in doing is licensing that to those in the industry that can make use of it. Outside of digital cinema DLP devices are used in projection devices by a large number of companies. Within D-Cinema, then there’s three companies that can launch DLP based products into that space. Our technology is not limited to digital cinema. It’s technology. It describes how you would incorporate lasers into a projection. Perhaps in the digital cinema space there are some constraints but certainly outside the digital cinema space those same constraints do not exist.

CJ: The studios are only offering VPFs up until a certain date, after which time most of the exhibition industry will already have been converted to xenon digital projectors. It will take them a number of years to pay those off. How does Kodak expect theatre owners to afford another digital revolution while the first one hasn’t even been paid for yet?

LM: We pulled a projector together and we’re licesning this to other manufacturers. Those manufacturers need to manage their product flow. If you’re an exhibitor what we’ve essentially done is given them another piece of data that they have to consider as they make the decision to move to digital. Prior to this they could say digital projection brings certain capabilities and new efficiencies to my booth. On the other hand, print film continues to be reliable and effective and a majority of audiences around the world are seeing great films and hearing great stories on motion picture film. An exhibitor now has to say there is some other technology coming. What we’ve done is prove that lasers are viable in the booth and they bring a lot of benefits to the theatre owner.

CJ: What are some of those benefits?

LM: Well, at a high level, total cost of ownership. It has higher brightness. It has built in 3D. When they originally designed the d-cinema DLP projectors 3D wasn’t a big portion of the business so they designed a great 2D projector. Well, lasers have 3D built in. And of course there’s been image quality improvements made by adding lasers. But let me provide some detail.

When you look at total cost of ownership, one thing you want to think about is if you want to simply replace the xenon light source, well yeah you’d have a laser projector at that point, but on the other hand you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of all the things that laser could bring to the equation. What the team did was redesign all of the optics in the projector. They went through and replaced the TIR prism with some very simple glass plates. So they reduced the cost of that section significantly. As well, a standard digital projector lens is fairly large physically and has a very low f-number. It’s a very fast lens so it’s very expensive. Our team replaced that lens with higher f-number lens because we don’t need the f-number and something that’s actually very small. The lens is a few inches long by an inch-and-half in diameter. So it’s a very small lens at a lower cost. So by adding lasers the cost of the projector is increased a little bit because lasers are more expensive than xenon. On the other hand if you can reduce the cost of the rest of the optics you can compensate for that in terms of the manufacturing cost. Then you have to think lasers are going to last 30,000 or more hours if they are properly cooled and if the design is done well. Lamp is 500, 1000 or 1,500 hours and exhibitors are replacing them multiple times per year. There’s enough elements here that are really changing the cost equation in a significant way that the exhibitor can take advantage of.

On the image quality side you certainly, with lasers, have a wider color gamut. So you’ll be able to represent more colors than a conventional xenon system will be able to represent. It actually ecompases the entire film space, which is significant. And then contrast ratio. Conventional xenon projector today has a white to black ration of 2,500 to 1 and we’re getting 10,000 to 1 or greater with this projector and you really notice it. You see these details in the blacks that in the conventional projector are crushed.

On the brightness side, most of the 3D systems out there use polarization to differentiate the left eye and the right eye. Lasers are hinherintely polarized. If you design your optical system to manage that polorization carefully, you’ve just removed one of the major inefficiencies in today’s 3D systems.

CJ: Can the Kodak system hit 14 foot lamberts in 3D on a 30 foot screen?

LM: Well, I can tell you what we did. We have an 11,000 lumen projector. Not a very big projector really. On a 40 foot silver screen we get 8 foot lamberts through the glasses to the eye for 3D. We’re very comfortable saying that this design could scale to 40,000 lumens, four times the brightness. If you chose to put that size of a projector on a 40 foot screen, clearly you’d have plenty of light. I guess you could argue that you could go from 8 foot lamberts to 14 foot lamberts by having one-and-half times the brightness.

CJ: Is there a limit to how big a screen can be used with Kodak’s laser technology?

LM: Not that I can think of. If you’re at 40,000 lumens you’re probably in that 60 foot screen range. Today’s xenon projectors, the big ones are 30,000 lumens. We’re comfortable we can go beyond that. I haven’t done the math on how big a screen size you can go to. We’ve more looked at it as what’s a reasonable screen size. Up to 60 feet we’re comfortable. I don’t see any fundamental reason why you couldn’t go beyond that.

CJ: How does the Kodak system deal with speckle?

LM: Speckle is one of the big issues with laser systems. The short answer is there is no one single method used to resolve speckle. The research guys here would build up a projector and introduce a solution to reduce speckle and it would reduce speckle, but it wasn’t gone. So they’d come up with another clever idea and add that in. There are probably half a dozen different things they’re doing in the projector that cumulatively have managed to reduce speckle to the point where you don’t notice it subjectively. You’re satisfied with the picture as you watch the movie and are comfortable with it. If you hear folks say that they’ve eliminated speckle, that speckle is totally gone, I think maybe what they’re saying is they’ve reduced it to a point where it’s subjectively not there, but to reduce it to zero that’s a different statement. We’re not actually saying it’s zero, we’re saying subjectively it’s reduced to a point where we’re comfortable with it. Studios and a number of folks who have come through, they don’t notice it.

CJ: Is the Kodak laser technology backwards compatible? Can it be installed in the DLP projectors currently being rolled out?

LM: The approach we took was not one of backwards compatability. We redesigned the entire optical system of the projector. I don’t think it would really be practical to be field replacing the entire optical system of the projector. There are other companies exploring that kind of space of where they are essentially replacing the xenon bulb with a laser light source. Now you don’t get all the benefits. You don’t necessarily get higher contrast ratios or built in 3D. You may actually have to work on how you do your speckle reduction. But you do of course get the long life lasers and that’s certainly an important piece. I think it’s a fair approach and I think there will be companies that deploy those types of systems.

CJ: Some have described Kodak’s solution as disruptive technology. Would you agree?

LM: That’s a good question. It has a couple of parts to it. On the market side and how the market develops, we’ve already discussed that. But as a pure technology, lasers are a breakthrough technology. Suddenly you’re able to change the equation a little bit in terms of long life. I know folks have been working on making longer life xenon bulbs and they make small changes. This is dramatic. Suddenly you’re to 30,000 hours. With contrast it took another leap from 2,500 to 1 to 10,000 to 1. So I wouldn’t say it’s a disruptive technology, it’s more of a dramatic technology. It’s providing significant capabilities to the marketplace that weren’t available before.

CJ: Will it really take two-years to bring the solution to market?

LM: We’ve commercialized products in the past at Kodak. Our judgement is that once a licensee says go, you’re looking in the 12 months to 24 months kind of range. It’s hard to predict a little bit. I think in the FDA release we said up to two years and that’s probably fair.

CJ: Are there any limitations on the FDA variance you recently received?

LM: First off, this a breakthrough in a sense that there’s never been such a variance. The FDA defined rules for laser projection for laser light shows and there are a number of constraints around those. The laser systems go through an FDA approval and the site where the lasers are being used goes through an approval. Then on a show by show basis, each time that display company is going to run their show, they need to get an approval. That’s kind of the sequence in the laser light space. What we did was say, “Look, creating new FDA regulations working through those kinds of legalities could take a long time. Let’s see if we can work under the constraints of laser light shows, but get a variance to remove some of those obligations, obviously with some boundary conditions, but enabling us to put a Kodak projector into a theatre and show movies.” The variance that we receives said, “We’re okay with you doing that. We’re willing to release the obligation of having a site approval by the FDA and release the obligation of a having a show approval.” A theatre that purchases a projector with Kodak technology does not need to have site variances and does not need to have show variances.

The variance is on the FDA website so anybody can pull it down and review it. It speaks to things like installation by authorized personnel so it’s installed a certain way, to specific training that’s required of theatre and booth personnel, it speaks to the minimum distances around the booth. You don’t want to have it such that a person can get within inches of the projection lens. Think about it this way, coming out of a lens, the lens is maybe an inch-1/2 in diameter inch and a quarter. So You’ve got all that light coming out of there and it’s very concentrated, but by the time it gets to the screen it’s spread over a very large area. Between that actual lens output and the screen it’s diverging very rapidly. Some of the analysis that the FDA did and some of the folks here did was to look at when are you far enough distance away from that lens so that the beam is diverged sufficiently that the power per square inch is low enough.

CJ: In some countries there are government or authoritative bodies checking all laser projection installations being used for entertainment purposes. Manufacturers must supply drawings and specs related to an installation before equipment can go in. Will this be same in future projector installations internationally. Will there be any limiting issue for installations?

LM: We didn’t do international. That’s another hurdle to cross. We’ve got FDA variance, now you’ve got similar agencies in Europe and perhaps some others in Asia. They’ve got different constraints.

Kodak Laser Projection System

Kodak’s plans to create a light engine for digital cinema projectors that can compete with Texas Instruments DLP chip reached a crucial milestone earlier this week. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the variance application clearing the way for the commercialization of Kodak Laser Projection Systems which feature Kodak Laser Projection Technology.

Maybe, like me, you’re wondering what the FDA has to do with regulating anything that isn’t a food or a drug. Don’t they have eggs to inspect and clinical trials to oversee? Well yes, they do, however they also oversee any manufactured device that emits radiation. For the most part that means lots of medical equipment and x-ray machines, though laser light displays also fall into this category.

Much in the way pilots and drivers need licenses, a federal license demonstrating basic laser knowledge and safety is required to operate high powered laser systems. For instance, night clubs with laser light shows need to obtain variances for their lighting equipment. I’m not sure exactly what kind of variance Kodak applied for, but according to Les Moore, Kodak’s chief operating officer for Digital Cinema:

“The FDA variance serves as a template to be followed by manufacturers that we license to incorporate this new laser technology.”

In other words, any OEM choosing to manufacture a projector using Kodak Laser Projection Technology will have to file an application for their own variance. Kodak announced plans for a laser projection system last September and now hopes projectors with its technology will be brought to market over the next two years.

The company’s press release and marketing material boast state that Kodak Laser Projector Systems offer motion picture exhibitors a “higher dynamic range”, “wider color gamut” and “brighter 3D viewing”. Kodak’s light engine was designed to be on par with Xenon projection systems, but at a much lower operating cost. Moore told the Hollywood Reporter:

“We expect that the projectors based on our technology will be very cost effective compared to today’s digital cinema projectors. Exhibitors can expect to replace a Xenon bulb every 500-1,000 hours, whereas we expect these laser sources to last over 30,000 hours before they need to be replaced.”

While there’s no word on how much those laser sources will cost, Kodak is touting the low cost of its laser projection solution. The company is also well aware that such announcements might have a “ripple effect throughout the cinema world”.

Projectors using DLP technology have only recently become compliant with DCI’s specification and the industry was just beginning to feel comfortable with existing d-cinema products. Kodak is introducing another, potentially less expensive, solution in the midst of a long awaited digital cinema rollout and the fear is such moves could hold up the conversion plans of undecided theatre owners.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Over the past several years as Hollywood began churning out an increasing number of 3D films a single question has been on the minds of both exhibitors and moviegoers. When will it be possible to watch 3D movies without the need to wear glasses?

Whether they use polarized lenses, spectral filters or active shutters, theatre owners would like to do away with the glasses that have become an operational burden and overhead expense. Theatre patrons have mixed feelings about the spectacles, complaining about comfort and low light levels.

But 3D glasses may be a thing of the past according to Francois Vogel. His video demonstration of a new technology that enables 3D content to be viewed without glasses has been a huge hit on YouTube, generating over 4.4 million views since it appeared on the site January 14th. Jonathan Post has developed two diodes that, when placed on one’s temples, stimulates the eyes to blink 120 times per second, alternating between the left and right eye. This mimics the method used by 3D active shutter glasses.

Currently, the system works with 120Hz monitors and Post hopes to commercialize the product over the next year. The topic of 3D glasses is a hot topic among consumers as witnessed by the countless blog posts about the video, including one on Engadget which has received over 700 reader comments. However, if moviegoers think 3D glasses are uncomfortable, I find it hard to believe they will find fluttering eyelids to be a more soothing alternative.

What do you think of Post’s technology and this technique for viewing 3D without glasses? Does it have a future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Update [January 31, 2011]: I originally held back on posting this video as I thought it had to be a joke.  Particularly, I questioned whether the human eye could blink so quickly without causing flickering for the viewer.  So, I waited a few days and searched all over to find anything that would debunk the video as a hoax.  I couldn’t find anything other than posts about the video on reputable tech websites.

Even after publishing the post I was still skeptical.  So I decided to figure out whether it would be physically possible to blink fast enough for Francois Vogel’s “technology” to work; 60 blinks per second per eye.  All of my research revealed that the average human eye blink takes between 300 to 400 milliseconds.  There are 1,000 milliseconds in a second.  So let’s do some math:

1000 milliseconds / 60 blinks = 16.67 milliseconds

Some of the fastest body movements, like saccades which help the eye focus, can be as short as 20 milliseconds, which is still slower than 16.67 milliseconds.  With the human eye taking 300 milliseconds to blink at it’s fastest, it is more than likely that it could never ramp up to blink in 16.67 milliseconds.  The math doesn’t pencil.

So, while Jonathan Post and Vogel haven’t come out to admit their video is a hoax (at least not that I have seen), I think it’s safe to say that it is.

Screenshot of Cinedigm's Theatre Command Center

Timed to coincide with this year’s Cinema Expo conference being held in Amsterdam through Thursday two well known integrators have released enhanced versions of their theatre management systems (TMS). North American deployment entity Cinedigm has included centralized management features in their Theatre Command Center TMS and Norway’s Unique Digital is making the next version of their RosettaBridge software available.

A TMS is software that enables a multiplex to manage all of their digital cinema servers, projectors, content, security keys and logs within a given theatre, all from a central location. It is often attached to a library management server where d-cinema content is stored.

Theatre Command Center
Cinedigm was one of the first companies to develop a working TMS which they named Theatre Command Center. Their initial version was integrated with Christie projectors and Doremi servers. It’s key features were:

• Management of all content including MPEG, JPEG, trailers, preshow and alternative content.
• Ingest of content via any delivery method including USB, satellite and fiber optic wire.
• Remote operation of servers and projectors.
• Automated scheduling of playlists that allowed for the transfer of content to the correct screen.
• Integration with some point-of-sale systems as well as Cinedigms head office software.
• Web access allowed users to log in from any computer connected to the Internet.
• Real-time monitoring of d-cinema systems with system status alerts and notifications.
• System log management.
• Multi-language support.

Some of this functionality, such as content management and ingest, would be considered basic requirements for any TMS, no matter the manufacturer. Most of those who have been using the software that I’ve spoken with have had positive things to say about the software. The only consistent criticism I’ve heard is about the systems graphical user interface (GUI). I’m not familiar enough with Cinedigm’s TMS to add my own thoughts.

Originally Cinedigm’s TMS was developed for exhibitors who signed up with them to deploy d-cinema equipment. Last year, the company decided to make the system available for sale to any theatre owner who wished to use it, whether they were using Cinedigm as an integrator or not. This was a model that other deployment groups such as Arts Alliance Media and Unique Digital had already adopted.

Based on the press release announcing the release of Theatre Command Center-Enterprise (or Enterprise as it has been dubbed) it is hard to tell what some of the new features and benefits of the software are. From what I can tell, it’s a TMS for TMS’s. Meaning, if you are an exhibitor with multiple theatre venues, Enterprise provides a view into the TMS’s located at all your sites. Such functionality would enable the consolidation of real-time data flowing back to a head office.

Cinedigm says that the system was developed (on a Microsoft Windows platform) to integrate with its Theatre Command Center in an effort to centralize scheduling and content management tasks. From the release:

Real-time events and statuses from all networked digital theatres are captured in a robust central Enterprise database for unprecedented operating control and business intelligence. Enterprise also centralizes preshow scheduling and content management functions to eliminate repetitive theatre tasks, improve consistency and control and reduce specialized resource costs and weekly setup time. Enterprise will also streamline and automate the calculation and reconciliation of virtual print fees.

Don’t underestimate the last point about keeping track of VPFs. It’s one thing to keep the books for a VPF when you have a handful of screens, but it can be rather complicated when you convert entire multiplexes and have to maintain proper accounting for equipment across dozens if not hundreds of screens.

RosettaBridge
In fact, this was a feature included by Unique Digital early on when they were developing their version of a TMS, RosettaBridge. The company released version 1.5 of their software late last week.

The systems original set of features included:

• Management of all content including MPEG, JPEG, trailers, preshow and alternative content.
• Automatic ingest of content by USB, FTP, CD/DVD, network drives and fiber optic wire.
• Playlist creation that allows for inclusion of content not present at the theatre yet.
• Automated KDM management including alerts for keys set to expire.
• Remote operation of servers and projectors.
• Integration with d-cinema equipment from all major vendors.
• Web access from any computer connected to the Internet.
• Automated scheduling of playlists and content transfer.
• Real-time monitoring of d-cinema systems with system status alerts and notifications.
• Log management for any device connected to the TMS.
• Integration with a scalable library server.

I have been given a demonstration of RosettaBridge and what stood out was the system’s slick GUI. Uniques TMS can be run from a touch screen with simple drag-and-drop functionality. It was pretty easy to get a quick visual overview of system health and state, as well as available and expired content with a Christmas trees worth of flashing icons. Like certain pieces of software for the Mac, it just looked pretty. Speaking of which, since the software is written in Java, it can be run on any platform, Mac or PC.

Screenshot of Unique Digital's RosettaBridge

I can’t vouch for how well Unique’s TMS works as I haven’t spoken with anyone whose used it for any length of time. The company is presently busy installing it in multiplexes all over Norway which they are presently converting to digital. When they’re done their TMS will be managing about 350 screens. As mentioned previously, Unique is making the software available for purchase to all theatre owners, regardless of integrator.

There was only a single paragraph in Unique’s press release about any new functionality included in the latest version of RosettaBridge:

Key new features include the ability to schedule multiple content ingests via the Content Management Transfer Module (CMTM) and integration with the latest GDC and Dolby software versions via their web based API’s. In addition the new version includes a film booking management system that ensures changes made in either the server or TMS are continuously synchronized across the network.

And just in case there was any doubt as to the timing of these announcements in relation to Cinema Expo, one only needs to read what Jim Miller, President of Cinedigm Software, had to say about Enterprise:

“Enterprise moves us very close to our goals of 15 minute weekly scheduling and virtually hands-free theatre operations, while dramatically increasing circuit-wide awareness, efficiency and control. We are currently working with a major UK business partner who has already installed over 40 TCC screens to bring Enterprise to Ireland and Europe, and are in discussions with several others.”

Last week Cinedigm announced a partnership with Sensio that will allow them to bring the FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament being held in South Africa this month to theatres all over the world. What’s more, the matches will be shown live and in 3D.

The press release sent around to promote the partnership was was pretty standard, but there was one sentence that raised a question for me:

“To kick things off, the companies will use Sensio’s technology and Cinedigm’s theatre technology design to bring select matches from this year’s FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament in Live 3D to hundreds of theatres around the world.”

My curiosity wasn’t necessarily stirred over which of the matches would be shown, because the release goes on to mention they’ll start with the quarterfinals. Instead, I was left wondering what “Sensio’s technology” actually was and how Cinedigm, a leading North American digital cinema integrator, would utilize it to project a live broadcast of a World Cup Soccer game in 3D. The rest of the press release only served to make me even more inquisitive, especially upon reading:

“…Cinedigm’s extensive experience in bringing live 3D sporting events to U.S. theatres through Sensio 3D format and CineLive technology.”

I was aware that Cinedigm had done a good job broadcasting live 3D events into theatres previously, and even attended some of the events, such as the 2009 NBA All-Star Saturday Night and the 2010 NCAA Men’s Final Four. I knew that the company had created the CineLive Network specifically for this purpose. However I thought it was about time to actually understand what this Sensio technology actually was and why it was being referred to as a 3D format.

A quick visit to Sensio’s website provided me with little more than the company’s history and mission which made it clear that their focus is on 3D technology. The professional 3D cinema section of the website only lists two different products:

• SFX Pro Cinema – 3D live encoder/decoder for digital cinema and live events
• CineLive – Cinedigm’s exclusive product which allows live 3D and 2D content broadcasting into digital cinemas

So now I knew that Sensio had something to do with encoding and decoding live 3D content. But specifics were hard to come by. With enough clicking around on the website I came across Sensio’s media kit which contained the same verbiage sent to me by Cinedigm’s PR firm, HL Group, when I inquired about the company and its technology:

Sensio develops and markets stereoscopic 3D digital compression, decompression and display formatting technologies. Its solutions are deployed on a global scale by content creators, game developers, broadcasters, specialty channels, and digital cinemas. . . It’s flagship technology, Sensio 3D, allows the high-quality distribution of 3D content through conventional existing 2D broadcast networks and playback on any 3D display device, including plasma TVs, LED/LCD, HDTVs, PC and glass free 3D displays, as well as home theater and digital cinema projectors.

Finally I had my answer. Sensio must be enabling Cinedigm to receive and decode 3D content that arrives through their satellite network. Presumably the content is being compressed at the live event in a proprietary manner that allows it to be transmitted over a standard broadcast network. What Cinedigm must bring to the relationship is cinema technology experience as well as strong relationships with theatre owners.

So, now that you’re up to speed on how Cinedigm will bring live FIFA World Cup matches in 3D to movie theatres, do you plan on attending one of the broadcasts?

With the demand for digital 3D films at an all time high, Technicolor has decided to jump into the fray with what they are calling an affordable, alternative solution that has stirred up intense debate. The leading motion picture service company is introducing the Technicolor 3D Solution, which will allow exhibitors to use their existing 35mm film projectors to project 3D releases without upgrading to more costly digital cinema equipment. And there’s the rub; rather than using digital content Technicolor’s solution is film based.

Even though the technology relies on celluloid, rather than bits and bytes, Ahmad Ouri, Technicolor’s Head of Strategy, Technology & Marketing, on Wednesday assured roughly 400 members of the industry that the technology was not old or steeped in the past. Sitting on a panel titled 3D’s Impact On Digital Deployment at the 3D Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles, Ouri explained, “It’s actually new technology that we’re introducing that’s perhaps based on an older concept. A lot of people have experienced 3D on film historically. We’re introducing a system that is basically an over/under film based solution that’s two-perf based on a format that Technicolor brought to market decades ago called Techniscope.”

Techniscope was first introduced in 1963 and used by the likes of spaghetti-western filmmaker Sergio Leone in an effort to find more economical ways to shoot. By halving the size of each film frame less film stock could be used, though the image quality was less than that of the four-perf (or four sprocket hole) format. Technicolor 3D Solution uses a special split lens that can be mounted to a conventional 35mm projector which then assembles the left eye and right eye images as the film runs through the projector. The system requires the same type of silver screen and circular polarized glasses employed by digital 3D systems such as MasterImage and RealD.  Technicolor already distributes glasses for both of these companies and will begin to distribute their own branded, polarized glasses.

Technicolor has already shown the system to the studios and most of the North American exhibitors, not to mention a few filmmakers and members of the press. Last month, Technicolor worked with Warner Bros. and AMC Entertainment to run a two week trial of the solution at a multiplex in Burbank during the release of “The Final Destination”. Exit polls performed by research firm OTX showed the “quality” and “satisfaction” scores of Technicolor 3D Solution to be the same as the digital 3D version playing in the same theatre. According to Technicolor, their system actually ranked slightly higher.

Technicolor is hoping their solution will help exhibitors quickly ramp up the number of 3D screens at their disposal to play such films as James Cameron’s 3D opus “Avatar”, one of the most highly anticipated releases in the last few years. There are at least 10 3D films being released in 2009 with 12 scheduled for 2010 as of now. More are likely to be added. Unfortunately, thanks to the high price of digital cinema equipment and the global financial meltdown only 2,500 screens in North America (out of a possible 40,000) are capable of playing 3D movies. Many big blockbuster releases open on more than 3,000 screens which has forced studios to distribute 2D versions of 3D titles. However, 3D versions earn more than twice the box office than 2D versions of the same release, in part because theatre owners charge a premium ticket price for 3D movies. Thus, expanding the 3D install base has been a major priority for both distributors and exhibitors.

In the press release announcing the product Frederic Rose, Chairman and CEO of Thomson/Technicolor said:

“In today’s economic environment, it’s a harsh reality that not every exhibitor has access to the funding required to install digital 3D projection systems. It was the desire to make 3D accessible to the masses that resulted in Technicolor creating a 3D solution to fill the gap between celluloid and digital cinema.”

Other industry executives on Wednesday’s panel didn’t exactly see Technicolor’s solution in a similar light. “I think that any money invested in technology that’s not digital is something that’s not good for the industry in general and for where we are taking the industry,” said RealD’s President of Worldwide Cinema, Joseph Peixoto. “Exhibitors, if they had money to invest in interim solutions I think that they should contribute that to the digital rollout that’s upon us. I think everyone should not be distracted.”

“We agree that digital is and the digital transition is going to happen,” Ouri argued. “Frankly we’ve been supporting it longer than anybody on this panel. We spent more money on digital cinema starting with Disney in 1999. We continue to do so and we have a majority of market share for mastering and distribution. This is not meant to compete or replace the digital rollout or delay it. It is meant to address the screens that otherwise would run what could be a 3D film on a 2D film screen today. It’s grading the 2D film screens to be able to show 3D to more consumers in a way that’s affordable and available today.”

Chuck Goldwater, President of Cinedigm‘s Media Services Group believes that exhibitors should be spending all of their pennies on digital cinema, rather than on what he sees as an interim solution. “You know you can only squeeze so much efficiency out of that. It’s like putting fuel additive in an old clunker when there’s new, more fuel efficient cars,” he said. “Exhibitors who want to make an investment instead of making an investment in their older film projectors can channel that investment into the first step for them of a digital conversation which is clearly the long term and exponential leap into the future.”

Ouri held his ground and even provided some cursory financial modeling for attendees of the conference. “The silver screen is an investment that is not a throw away, so it is a step toward digital,” he explained. “The payback, we estimate, is just one feature run. So they get one Disney movie and they payback all their costs. So we believe that’s efficient, not inefficient.”

“For those screens that for two to five years are not going to see digital the question is do we leave the consumers just experiencing 2D or do we give them an alternative?” he asked “It might be a distraction, but there is money left on the table by the studios and the exhibitors and frankly it’s not an insignificant number of dollars.”

A little bird told us that the Hollywood studios are starting to take note of the impact instant 140-character-or-less reviews can have on the box office prospects of a newly released films. Well, actually, it’s a Washington Post articles that examines what impact if any Twitter had on the mixed fortunes of film like  Brüno and G.I. Joe. From the article:

“I think Twitter can’t be stopped,” says Stephen Bruno, the Weinstein Co.’s senior director of marketing. “Now you have to see it as an addition to the campaign of any movie. People want real-time news, and suddenly a studio can give it to them in a first-person way.”

Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, says studios are worrying about a time when “people will be Twittering during the opening credits — and leaving when they don’t like them.” But he also warns, “The next step [for the Twitter Effect] is for studio marketing to manipulate it.”

While Twitter is no doubt having some impact, Boxofficemojo.com‘s president injects a note of realism into the debate at the end of the article:

“Revolutionize moviegoing? No,” he said. “But all the tiny little bits together [Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and others] can add up to something meaningful.”

A sample of Tweets of Quantin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds from today:

Akilah_Zomg Inglourious Basterds was fantastic! Love love love love, go see it!

Thenatt Inglourious Basterds FANTASTIC!!! Go watch it!!! I clapped!! I never clap LMFAO….

RobertDonohue Inglourious Basterds. Not what I expected. Still very good. I must say I enjoyed District 9 more. I wish there were more basterds scenes.

aprilismissing So Inglourious Basterds is the best movie I’ve seen in quite a long time. Def. catching it again this weekend.

taylorisgreat inglourious basterds totally scalps district 9. read em n weep.

So it seems that early Twitts are greater fans of QT than critics.

The announcement on Celluloid Junkie that Texas Instruments is developing 4K projector solutions is causing waves throughout the industry. The story was picked up by both THR.com (DLP making the jump to 4K) and Variety (TI leaping into 4K fray), which despite their headline both acknowledge that TI was effectively forced into this situation by the Sony tie up with Regal and AMC.Perhaps the best other coverage came from Eric Taub in the New York Times:

TI has always said that 2K is good enough, with tests showing that consumers can’t see the difference.

TI has been against 4K, until they were for it. On Thursday, the company announced that it would now market 4K technology, which will be incorporated into their next-generation projector technology to be manufactured by a variety of partners.

The company will continue to sell 2K projectors to the majority of its customers, according to Nancy Fares, business manager for TI’s DLP Cinema Products Group.

Ms. Fares said that this is not a case of TI trying to play catchup to Sony, which recently announced a number of large contracts to install its 4K projectors in AMC, Muvico, and Regal Entertainment cinemas. Texas Instruments has been working on 4K technology for two years, she said.

And when TI said that most consumers can’t see the difference between a 2K and 4K image, the company is sticking to its guns.

Their 4K technology will only be installed in about 20 percent of its customers’ theaters, the “brightest and biggest” with screens 70 feet and larger in size.

TI has meanwhile put out a press release providing details:

Texas Instruments will deliver the enhanced DLP Cinema 4K chip to its licensees, Barco, Christie Digital and NEC, which will extend the breadth of products to exhibitors to over 12 projector models. All projectors with the next generation DLP Cinema electronics platform, regardless of the resolution, will have the leading attributes for which DLP Cinema products are known, including precise DCI compliant colors, superior contrast ratios and light output necessary to illuminate the largest auditoriums. The solutions provide the capability to light up theatre screens as big as 100 feet and 3D screens as big as 75 feet, which has been a challenge for competing technologies.

It then includes a quote from Cinemark’s CEO calling DLP Cinema the exhibitor’s “exclusive platform of choice for 4K deployments.” It also confirms that “the next generation DLP Cinema electronics platform combines the three boards needed to produce images into a single board,” making it cheaper for its licensees, not to mention also making ‘DCI-compliant’.

Christie is the first of those three licensees to have put out a press release about its plans for the 4K chip:

Christie, the world leader in digital cinema projection, is pleased to introduce the new Christie Solaria(TM) series digital cinema projectors, based on Texas Instruments’ (TI) industry-preferred and proven DLP Cinema(R) technology. The five new products in the series offer a wide range of resolution and brightness levels for exhibitors who require projection from the smallest to the largest screens. The new product line includes the Christie CP2210, Christie CP2220 and the Christie CP2230 – all available at 2K and 4K-ready; as well as Christie’s premium 4K projectors for screens up to 100 feet: the Christie CP4220 and the Christie CP4230, delivering an unprecedented 30,000 lumens of brightness.

But Barco went one better by announcing that they have tied up exclusively with Cinemark to roll out 4K projectors for “the world’s second largest motion pictures exhibitor.” From the press release:

As part of this agreement, Cinemark is also partnering with the DLP Cinema® product group from Texas Instruments (TI) (NYSE: TXN) and media server provider Doremi to secure the industry’s best-in-class and brightest digital cinema solution. This group of partners, representing more than 100 years in combined cinema expertise, will employ the full spectrum of Barco’s upcoming new family of enhanced DLP Cinema next generation 4K projectors.

Cinemark plans to deploy digital cinema as part of the DCIP initiative. More than 3,000 digital projectors are to be installed in nearly 300 theater sites throughout the US, which include Cinemark’s Century, Cine Arts and Tinseltown brands. Every theater will show the industry’s biggest and brightest images, projected from Barco DLP powered projectors and driven by Doremi’s 4K integrated media block. The agreement also includes plans for Cinemark’s international locations in Latin America, which would bring the overall deployment to more than 4,600 screens.

It’s getting difficult to keep up with this flurry of announcements. It seems the 4K dam has broken.

The biggest question right now is what effect this will have on existing 2K deployment plans – while the smaller question is what Sony’s response will be. As a chip maker TI will be well familiar with the apocryphal story of Osborne Computer Corporation (OCC) and the infamous Osborne Effect:

The Osborne effect is exhibited when a company’s premature revelation of information about future products results in customers not purchasing (or delaying purchases of) the current offering. Its origin is a purported suicidal marketing mistake made by the Osborne Computer Corporation in the 1980s when its announcement of a successor to its Osborne 1 system led to a sharp reduction in sales, and the delay of the successor system created a revenue vacuum from which the company did not recover. This statement is a common myth.

The Osborne Effect may be a myth, but it still sends shivers down the spines of tech marketers. We won’t know for sure until the discussion gets underway at this week’s European Cinema Summit in Brussels and next week’s Cinema Expo in Amsterdam what the impact of TI’s ‘jump’ will be.

TI is developing but has not commercialized a 4K DLP Cinema system and is pushing for a big exhibitor—perhaps DCIP partner Cinemark–to come onboard, Celluloid Junkie sources report.

Nancy Fares, business manager for DLP Cinema Products Group, was contacted for comment. She only responded: “We have always said our technology is capable of going higher to a resolution of 4K and even higher. It’s about what the market needs and wants.”

AMC and Regal—DCIP’s two additional participants–have demonstrated interest in the resolution, as both recently announced deals to deploy Sony 4K digital cinema projectors.

Some insiders opine that a 4K announcement from TI might lead AMC and Regal to review their Sony deals. Considering the stakes, other insiders question why TI would not have already made the alleged development public.

DLP Cinema projectors are installed in an estimated 6,000 sites in North America, compared with Sony’s estimated 400. But Regal represents a total of 6,775 screens in the US and AMC encompasses 4,628, giving Sony the potential to overtake DLP Cinema with these installations.
Meanwhile, any announcement by TI of a move into 4K may potentially slow further 2K deployments. One insider pointed out that many exhibitors remember the shift from 1.3K to 2K, with 1.3K projectors have to be written off. It has also been suggested that while DCI specifications approve of both 2K and 4K projection, there might be a fear of a competitive disadvantage of 2K, particularly as major Regal and AMC have already committed to 4K.