Cinema Summit focuses on HFR and 4K

Cinema Summit focuses on HFR and 4K

April 2016, NAB  – At the start of NAB, SMPTE held the Digital Cinema Summit.  The highlight speaker was Ang Lee who spoke following a discussion that HDR was not a tradeoff for future films, but was a technology that must be adopted due to its benefits in the story telling and immersive aspects of films.  He spoke on pushing the limits of cinema.

One of the examples was with his film “Life of Pi”.  In this film, the story is the enticing element. One aspect of the story was how to visually represent an irrational number and bring it to the screen as an experience.  The film used 3D as an extra dimension in this story telling.  HDR and HFR are also new technologies that can help with the story telling.  HFR (High Frame Rate) has been under a recent resurgence as an alternative the traditional 24fps, and have been championed at NAB and other events by Doug Trumbull.  Doug has been advocating 120fps content for both 2D and 3D films.  Doug’s latest workflows include cameras, servers and editing flow for support of 3D, HDR, and 4K all at 120fps.

The workflow has over 40x the data of standard film, but produces an entirely different cinema experience.  At NAB they had previews of an 11min clip of Ang Lee’s new film ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,’ that was shot in 4K, HDR, 3D at 120fps.  The preview was shown using dual Christie laser projectors and standard surround sound.

The clip provided an exposure to a new level of a “clarity of image” that has not been seen before by cinema audiences.  This clarity of image defines a new challenge for the storyteller to be able to utilize this technology and enhance the story being told.  The HFR feature also brings new cinematic capabilities to both 2D and 3D films.  The HFR aspect also brings a new level of brightness and smoothness to the playback which can be used to enhance cinematic emotions and action without causing viewer fatigue.  The overall common experience of the audience after viewing the clip – mostly related to technology and secondarily the cinematic use of the technology was   “WOW!”.

Opportunities are huge in transforming IP to the cloud

Opportunities are huge in transforming IP to the cloud

April, NAB – At the end of the day, the market is more and more competitive and we need our customers not only survive but also thrive – stated Charlie Vogt, CEO of Imagine Communications (IC), moderator of the power session “Transformation 2016: Media Technology Using IP, Cloud and Virtualization”. The session that took place at the Imagine Communications booth during NAB show, was featuring the panelists: Antonio Neri, EVP/GM, Enterprise Group, HPE and Steve Guggenheimer, CVP and Chief Evangelist of Microsoft Corporation.

Cloud-based technologies become more and more popular and there is a less speculation and more interest. But as the technology grows in popularity there is complexity involved. The options to choose from, the providers to select in order to put the pieces together.  In the broadcast world everyone knows how complex the market is – stated the panelists – we want to make the complexity understandable. The cooperation between IC, Microsoft and HP Enterprise allow the companies to get full solution and reduce their own risk. So the customer does not need to talk to separate partners. It also to avoid confusion what works together etc. and what is not the best fit.

IC, Microsoft and HP Enterprise provide the leaders innovators solution. Microsoft is platform provider. HP is more cloud broker. Prior to NAB Imagine Communication launched 3 important applications, that required months and months of testing if the new solutions work. As Charlie Vogt mentioned IC and it’s partners goal is their customers to thrive versus not just survive.  The reason is the move to the cloud, while necessary is scary, the broadcast community has been on premise for over 50 years, and the change is new.

The discussion included that cloud is a partnership – the tools, workflow, software and support all need to work together to provide the reliability and features of the current solution.  As it moves to the cloud the partnership with HPE addresses the security aspects of the Azure cloud which are new to the broadcast community.