Video Technology Magazine
Video Technology Magazine September 2004               

ASIS show Dallas Sep 27-30 2004
American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS).
ASIS International, has more than 33,000 members, is the preeminent international organization for professionals responsible for security, including managers and directors of security.

There 50th Annual Trade Show is this month. There should be lots of CCTV and survelance information.
Show info


Other upcomming Conferences
Machine Vision for Robot Guidance October 5 & 6, 2004 Nashville, TN

OLEDs 2004 (Organic Light Emitting Devices) Dates: 11/15/04 - 11/17/04 San Diego, CA

VISION 2004 Show October 20, 2004 Stuttgart, Germany

Photonics West 2005 Dates: 01/22/05 - 01/27/05 San Jose, CA

The Vision Show and Conference West May 17-19 2005 San Jose, CA , sponsored by AIA - Automated Imaging Association

International Robots & Vision September 27-29, 2005 Donald E. Stephens Convention Center Rosemont (Chicago), IL


Microsoft JPEG Security Hole
Newly discovered vulnerability could allow remote code execution of code thanks to a buffer-overrun vulnerability in the processing of JPEG image formats.

A common buffer-overflow vulnerability -- is listed as "critical." Microsoft is providing a patch for the latest security hole, which is likely to come under attack from computer worms or spyware and relies on the relatively trusted JPEG image format.

The bug affects versions of the Windows operating system, as well as other programs developed by Microsoft. Notable applications include: Windows XP and Windows XP SP1, Windows Server 2003, Office XP and Office XP SP3, Internet Explorer 6, Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft Project 2003 and Visio 2003, Microsoft Picture It!, and Microsoft Greetings. Some of the applications not listed as vulnerable to the flaw include Windows 2000 and earlier, as well as the newly released Windows XP Service Pack 2. Third-party applications may also be vulnerable.

Everyone is being urged to upgrade to the new XP Service Pack but that update is also defective leaving many systems totaly disabled!

Worse yet similar vulnerabilities in Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, and Thunderbird were discovered. Link Here

This is a warning to anyone creating Video and image codecs,that parsing these compressed streams must be done carefully with full bounds checking to be able to accept bad data without crashing or allowing exploits to dissable a system. With the current E-mail SPAM and virus problems now just opening an E-mail with HTML or going to a web site with a browser that relied on the Standard libraries or objects can compromise the computer.

Related Links:
Code to exploit Windows graphics flaw now public

When shared code bites back
Holes found in Windows XP update
Windows XP SP2 Rescue Remedies
Now what? Answers on Windows XP's SP2 update
Microsoft challenges hackers to crack service pack 2


SVP (Secure Video Processor) Video CopyProtection
NDS, STMicroelectronics and Thomson have announced they will develop a new anti-piracy technology called SVP (Secure Video Processor). This will require a special SVP processor in the box to play the encrypted video signal.
Yahoo New Article


Theora Codec Ported to Java
Fluendo Make the Flumotion, streaming media server based on the the GStreamer Open Source multimedia framework, which is emerging as the standard media framework on Unix and Linux platforms.
Fluendo has ported the Theora open source codec to Java. This means that ANY Java-capable browser can now be used to watch video streams on the net (clients don't have to download a player!, Like my original Livecam Product.).
You can watch a demo showing some boring guys sitting in the office.

Theora is part of the Xiph.Org Foundation that is deticated to "building a new era of Open multimedia".

List of Other JAVA Video Streaming Software


Sony Begins OLED Display Production
Sony beings production of full color OLED displays at 3.8" size for their Clie PEG-VZ90 'Personal Entertainment Handheld.' Sony's 'Super Top Emission' technology reaches 150cd/m^2 with 1000:1 contrast ratio.
Sony Press Release


Windows Media Player 10 Released

Available Here

Release on Sept. 2, 2004 WMP10 is in a large part about "Who can play what, where, how many times?" with it's new Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM is extended from the Windows PC across to other media playing devices. Supposidly it works with more than 70 portable devices.
In essence this is a poison pill to get people to give up the MP3 and other open compression formats, so eventualy you will only be able to play DRM controlled content.
A big part of Microsofts push is towards competing with Apple's iTunes music service, it also extends the DRM and other infrastructure to video as well. Keep in mind how much WM9 is already going after HD-DVD and HDTV cable services over satellite, broadcast and DSL(Akimbo) All of the Microsoft DRM will most likely also come right along with it.

The Samsung YH-999 ($499) and iRiver PMC-100 (price TBD) Portable Media Centers will be available at retail in the fall. Portable Media Center owners are able to download more than 200 films from CinemaNow in WM10.

Yahoo News has a Review posted and so does Slashdot .

Creative's Zen Portable Media Center is already shipping with it installed.

EnGadget - Review of Creative's new Zen Portable Media Center


Microsoft Codec Required For Blu-Ray Players

According to ExtremeTech, the Blu-Ray Disc Association (which consists of many big names, like Sony, Philips, and Pioneer) has decided to mandate Microsoft's VC-1 (aka VC-9, aka WMV9 HD) video codec. They will also support MPEG2 and hopefully that will be the default mode for most disks.
Here's an additional source for Blu-Ray info.
Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft created VC-1 that is now a SMPTE standard based on Windows Media Video 9. VC-1 is winning acceptance as a key component in various HD optical formats

HD-DVD the other competing format, mandates that it's disc players support MPEG2, VC-1, and H.264 (MPEG4 AVC).

With both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD incorporating Microsoft's patented video codecs, what will happen to Open Source media players?


More Blue-Ray News
9/15/04 - New York times just ran an article "Sony Set to Exert Influence on Discs"
'The purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by a group led by Sony will not only give the company an enormous film library but also considerable power in its fight to set the format for the next generation of digital video discs.' The article goes on to suggest that Sony is gearing up for another Betamax-style failure."
Slashdot article here


3D LCD Technology

Sharp’s 3D LCD Technology Model LL-151-3D
15-inch 3D LCD monitor delivers Glasses Free 3D images to the naked eye, and can be easily switched between 2D and 3D viewing for standard applications. The display uses a parallax barrier, light from the LCD is divided so that different patterns reach the viewer's left and right eyes

Unfortunatly the position of the viewers head for both distance from the screen and angle are critical to be able to properly view the 3D image. This is nothing new, and I had even see some one demonstrating this effect at the Trenton State Computer festival back in 1984! Funny because I always thought that this just wasn't good enough for a real product.
Also there is no 3D mouse support although we have code to do this

lenticular
Click image to enlarge

This parallax barrier is a simple corrugated plastic sheet called a Lenticular Lens. This similar to those thin fresnel lense used for wallet magnifiers. One key in getting this work is to match the dot pitch of the LCD's to the ridge spacing used on the lenticular lens.
Links on this
· Autostereoscopic lenticular images
· 3D Monitors - Stereoscopic LCD TFT Monitor and Kits from 3DZ
· PARALLAX PANORAMOGRAMS - MULTI-PHASE ANIMATIONS


Video Software Development services
Development of Video software is a very special skill and something that an ordinary software developers can very quickly get into trouble with. It embodies, real-time, buffer locking, complex parsing and algorithm development and is critical of timing and performance.

Video Technology Magazine has a software development team made up of experienced video software developers that specialize in all aspects of video.

With offices in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Minnesota (U.S.), and Bangalore, India. Video Technology Magazine Services is focused on video software development on Linux, Unix, Windows and many embedded systems platforms as well as Cell Phones and PDA's. Our team has worked on Digital Cinema, HDTV, Satellite, to cellphones. We specialized on Compression and streaming as well as motion image processing and correction. Our relationships with many companies and experts in this field allow VTS to provide exceptional service.
For more information see: Video Development Services


Multiple output video cards
multi-monitor
There are many important reasons to want multiple video output from a single computer. It increases productivity in a desktop work environment but it's also important for other applications such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Stereo Video, Simulators, Video Walls, Command and Control Centers, and blending multiple projector images into one super high res projection.

It possible to drive multiple monitors using standard PCI VGA cards, with one output per PCI Slot + 1 AGP, but using a Multi-output cards is much easier to work with and saves space. Some even come with special driver software as well as offering cleaner wiring system.
Currently there are only a few manufacturers of Video Cards that support multiple output.
Colorgraphic, ATI, Matrox, nVidia, Appian, and 3D Labs.

My list for Multiple output video cards


More Rambling on Digital Cinema
Currently most theaters are being retrofitted with 2K projectors. There seems to be only 1 company with a 4K projector, Sony, and it's 10,000 lumens that should be fine for a 40 foot screen.

With a 2K projector that is 2048x1107 according to the Motion Picture Academy, but the projection devices only go to 2048x1080 so that is what all current 2K projectors support. At the 2K resolution on a typical 40 foot wide screen each pixel is just under a 1/4 inch (6mm) wide. These are large pixels. Most projectionist use binoculars to focus the screens so the pixels are actualy visible.

In my option each pixel should be no larger then 1/8 inch so that they are not visible from 15 Feet away. This would mean a 20 foot screen for 2K projector and 40 Foot for a 4K projector, although I don't think they will do that. For IMAX films it's not unusualy for a 92 Foot wide screen, I think it will be some time before we have digital projectors that can put out enough light and resolution to do a 92 foot screen justice.


CEDIA Expo 2004
CEDIA Expo 2004
The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA),
runs September 8-12, 2004, in Indianapolis.

Many companies plan to show Video related tech there, such as Brillian Corporation new LCoS based 65-inch 720p HDTV. Brillian only provider of Gen II LCoS(TM) technology according to them.


200 GigaByte Writable CD storage.
InPhase Technologies Tapestry™ HDS 200-R (WORM) Optical Drive uses holographic media to achive 200GB capacity and a 20 MBs transfer rate, Later Versions are expected to reach 1.6 TB (yes that's a Big B for Bytes).

Media like this is 8x the datarate of a full ATSC HDTV (SMPTE-310M) Feed of 19,392,658 bps. And would be more then sufficient for Digital Cinema and almost enough for UHDTV


Image of Media

Image of Drive
InPhase Web Site


Article goes here
The rest is coming soon, I have lots of photo's and data from my trip to Europe.

JLS 8/31/04

From the Chat Room
[O][N][U][R] :: I need a video format to 3gp mobile format file
By registering for $29.95 the Apple QuickTime Player you could export .3gp files. Nokia Developers Forum Also has a Media Converter that works well. See my August Article on Video on CellPhones or OverCell

Links
Global Conference Calendar For HDTV and Related topics.
North Carolina HDTV HDTV News
advanced-television.com

The Virtual Window Project Using LCD Monitors to provide a window like view of a remote scene
A seafood restaurant in Minnasota a few years ago had me quote them a price on such a system to display live video from Miami Beach. As the cost of hardware and bandwidth drop, I'm sure this will become more popular.

Here's an interesting link about Night Vision


DTV Transition Coming Fast
Public debates over HDTV and digital television that began in the early 1980s but not until Feb 1997 did things start to roll forward here.
The ASTC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) Standard A/52 which describes the "Digital Audio Compression (AC-3) Standard" and ATSC Document A/53 which describes the "ATSC Digital Television Standard".

A/53 is based on 8vbs and is required by law for all US TV stations to be transmitting a Simulcast on it right now. TV Broadcasters were given/loaned UHF Channels for this transition.

The FCC mandate for conversion to digital television (DTV) spectrum was announced in 1996, declaring that all U.S. television broadcasts would be digital by the year 2006. An addition to that mandate was the requirement that television stations in the top fifteen U.S. markets be capable of digital transmission by the fall of 1999.

Currently, officials cannot enforce the deadline without congressional action because of laws passed in 1996 and 1997 that state that broadcasters are not required to return the 6 megahertz of spectrum they were given to facilitate the transition until 85 percent of the homes in their viewing areas are capable of receiving a digital signal, but technically they must ask for an extension.

There are now two bills in Congress that would make the 2006 deadline a hard deadline.
There are also two new studies of high-definition television's growth indicate that too few people will have the digital televisions needed to receive HDTV broadcasts by the end of 2006,

And just to make matters worse, the FCC and Congress what these channel back early, citing these channels are needed for public safety!
“In order to meet the Hero Act’s Dec. 31, 2006, deadline, 40 broadcast stations (36 analog and four digital) currently broadcasting on this spectrum on channels 63, 64, 68, 69 would be required to vacate these channels. In many of these markets, there is no available spectrum for station relocation, meaning the legislation may force some stations to cease over-the-air broadcasting,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. - September 9, 2004

September 7, 2004 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Report and Order Entitled "The Second Periodic Review of the Commission's Rules and Policies Affecting the Conversion to Digital Television" was released.
It describes new rules for Program System Information Protocol (PSIP), which accompanies every digital television program. The PSIP must contain any available content advisories for broadcast programming and DTV receivers. This ties to the V-chip technology we keep hearing about to restrict access to certain types of content.
The Association of Maximum Service Television's proposal for a DTV channel election and planning process and a request from many broadcasters asking the FCC to adopt rules allowing the use of distributed transmission systems for DTV. Other possible items for the Report and Order include the deadline for stations to build out authorized full power facilities, interference from DTV stations operating on Channel 51 after the transition, simulcast requirements, and rules for DTV translators and digital LPTV stations
The commission is also expected to take up the broadcast flag issue by considering rules for certifying devices that operate under the proposed digital copy protection scheme.

What is the growth?

The Yankee Group, a communications research company, predicts that 59.3 million U.S. homes will have HDTV capability by 2008.
About 11 million HDTV-capable TVs are now in 9.5 million U.S. households, according to the Consumer Electronics Association's March figures, the latest available.
This is not enough to reach the 85 percent threshold the Federal Communications Commission wants to reach by the end of 2006. The FCC wants consumers to move DTV not necessarily HDTV although most reporters can't seem to tell the difference.
More than 89 million of the 105 million households in the United States would be needed nationally to abandon the analog spectrum. The Yankee Group notes that the average retail price of HDTV-capable sets is declining 20 percent per year. The Consumer Electronics Association said it expects 1 million HDTV-cable-ready sets to be sold this year.

NBC is planning 399 hours of HDTV coverage of the Olympic Games, for 17 days. The network has 24-hour coverage on its regular network stations and additional coverage on MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Bravo and Telemundo. That adds up to 1,210 total hours of Olympic coverage.
Other Full time HDTV broadcasters are MSNBC, CNN Interactive and HDNet -- a 24-hour national high definition TV network founded by Mark Cuban who founded Broadcast.com and now owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks,


ASTC stands for "Any Television Standard or Computer"
The Above is a quote from Patrick Whittingham, Senior Vice President of Sony Broadcast Canada, who gave a talk back in Feb 1997 about the New ASTC (Advanced Television Systems Committee)

He concluded his 1997 presentation with noting that the next battle will be in the display area of television. He feels there will be a battle between PCTV - the television set driven by a PC- and CPUTV - the television with a CPU in it -.
Looking at the Windows Media PC it's easy to see this prediction is coming true.

 
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Prince's / Regal CineMedia HD Simulcasting

March 29, 2004 Prince made history with the first large scale HD cybercast, of a live concert. His Musicology Tour at Staples Center in Los Angeles was simultaneously transmitted via Satellite to 85 packed movie theaters in 43 Cites. Approximatly 25,000 additional Viewers. Tickets sold for $15 US , $17.50 at the Door at on the concert date. My understanding is most venues were sold out.

People had many questions as to how the croud would react.
1. Would the crowd cheer in the theater?
2. Would they wave their arms back and forth during slow numbers?
3. Would they dance?
4. Would they break out their lighters during the encore?
The answers to all of these, strangely enough, was yes.

The concert was shot in 1080i HD with 5.1 Dolby Digital audio, transmitted live via satellite, encrypted with proprietary equipment, and then projected at 85 Regal theatres Nation Wide via Christie RoadRunner L6 projectors (with native XGA resolution of 1024x768) and Dolby sound processors.

Regal CineMedia (RCM), the organization behind the HD Simulcast, is a subsidiary of Regal Entertainment Group (REG) which represents over 500 theatres and over 6,000 screens in 39 states. With nearly twice as many screens as any single competitor, represents approximately 17% of the screens in the United States.

Regal CineMedia focuses exclusively on the expansion of high-margin ancillary businesses and the creation of new complementary business lines that leverage our existing asset and customer bases. The primary existing business lines include Advertising, Regal CineMeetings & EventsSM, Group Sales, Big Screen Concert Premieres, and Big Screen Education Programs. We are also building the largest digital network among U.S. theatre operators for the provision of advertising and supporting other RCM business initiatives.

Regal CineMedia has already done concerts with Prince, Phish, Kenny Chesney, Coldplay, Beyonce, Linkin Park, Elvis, Matchbox Twenty and The Who.

Is Regal’s New HD Simulcasting Digital Cinema?

Digital Theaters Pay Off for Regal

Regal CineMedia Customer Site
Regal CineMediaCorperate Site

Regal, Hughes Network Systems(HNS) DIRECTWAY BroadBand Satellite
Hughes Network Systems

8/2/2004 - DRUM CORPS INTERNATIONAL (DCI) COMPETITION MARCHING INTO A MOVIE THEATRE NEAR YOU Here is an example of some of the other stuff Regal is doing.


VOD To the Home - Moviebeam
Disney annouced that it will delay the MovieBeam until late 2005.
- MovieBeam is a service that Disney spent $68 Million US on to use a UHF TV signal, for DataCasting ( sending ) films over the airwaves to a $300 DVR type set top box appliance.
Because MovieBeam uses existing infrastructure–the broadcast airwaves–the costs of launching the service are relatively inexpensive, about $200,000 to $250,000 per city, says Disney spokeswoman Michelle Bergman.
The challenge was to insert the data "in a manner that did not damage the picture," says Ciciora, who also writes a column for CED. The engineers were able to accomplish the feat, squeezing up to 3 Megabits per second (Mbps) on the visual AM carrier in quadrature phase, and up to 1.5 Mbps in the aural FM carrier. The technique was dubbed dNTSC.
Disney currently is partnered with Samsung on a media server product that delivers the company's "MovieBeam" VOD service.
The DRM, Copy protection technology is licensed from Nagravision an affiliate of Swiss digital security giant Kudelski.

Disney would be offering 100's of films charging $6.99 to $8.99 per month for the box and another $1.99 to $3.99 to watch movies over a 24-hour period.

A Reuters report suggested that the technology could be embedded into existing set-tops and offered more widely, but that would mean doing a revenue share deal with whoever paid for the set tops (cable or satellite companies) or the manufacturer of the set-top which would be Motorola, or Scientific Atlanta or one of the big Japanese or European consumer electronics companies.

Disney fueling the rise of datacasting
Dotcast technology may hurt PRO channel operations
Can NTSC data insertion hurt BTSC services?
NDI Network: Analog


ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0

The new ATI TV Wonder manages to push uncompressed video down the USB 2.0 interface, producing superb image quality. It also comes with ATI's suite of multimedia applications and utilities.
Review here


Point-Of-Sale Video Advertising Network

Video Venue of Florida, offers a point-of-sale video advertising network. Full motion video advertisements with audio are delivered to weather-proof daylight-readable screens on fuel pumps across North America and are targeted to a highly captive audience.

Each ad is transmitted from the Company's Central Operations Center to a Hughes Network Systems satellite.(DIRECWAY® Broadband by Satellite)
The ads are received by Video Venue enabled stores across the country and are then viewed by fueling customers at individual fuel pumps. Advertisers can choose from a host of networks; each network consists of 300 locations, with multiple pumps at each location. Campaigns can be targeted by region or even by site, allowing for maximum relevancy, ensuring the right message is delivered to the right audience in the right place.
Video Venue, 7400 South Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34231; (Tel) 941-923-9966

Gilbarco, makes the CRIND Card Reader for Gas Pumps and now offers InfoScreen Interface With Satellite Video Support (SVS). InfoScreen has Full Motion MPEG video clips that are stored on local disk an looped, these are updated Via Satellite ever 2 to 4 weeks but new video can be pushed out in 24 Hours.

This next one may be out of bussiness already
PointMedia Corp. has introduced PointTV, also provides consumers with news, entertainment, e-commerce purchasing and promotional incentives while they are filling up at the gas pump.
PointMedia Partners With Screaming Media to Supply News and Entertainment to Petroleum Customers Article
PointMedia, 2700 Rte. 9, Cold Spring, NY 10516; (Tel) 845-265-9100.


Elevator Video Advertising Network
Nothing is sacred any more, even elevators have advertising in them now.
"In American culture, there's no place to hide," said Ted Rueter, director of Noise Free America, a New Orleans-based group dedicated to fighting noise and visual pollution.


InfoStation

Photo of InfoStation in Verona Italy

InfoStation From Italy
iNlink Digital Elevator Media from Australia

Captivate aka Captivate Network of Massachusetts, pipes in TV programming and ads into elevators in 400 office buildings in the US.
Captivate was reciently acquired by Gannett Co. Inc. Gannett is an international, multi-billion dollar news, information and communications company that publishes USA TODAY, as well an many local new papers and operates TV stations.


Litefast Holographic Graphics Display
Kinoton makes the Litefast a 360° holographic technology. It's not a real holographic display but an array of LED's spinning at 1000 RPM's.
Full motion video can run completely around the display and accepts a standard video input.
3x 4:3 or 2x 16:9 video images may be displayed


Multiple Monitors and video in MS Windows

multi-monitor

See my Article here


Video Resolution table updated
Back in November 2003 I did a Video format table with many of the HDTV, and other video format resolutions. I have recently updated in to include the Digital Cinema formats an some of the new computer display formats.

Video Format Table


QUXGA 3840x2400 Ultra High Res LCD's
QUXGA is really incredibly super high resolution, it is 4 times WUXGA(1920x1200) which is consider a very high res monitor. What this means is that I can play 4 full HDTV 1080p (1920x1080) video frames at the same time on one monitor and still have a lille room left over.

Chi Mei Optoelectronics makes the MD22292B2 & MD22292C2.
These are 22 inch QUXGA 3840 x 2400 LCD display with a 0.1245mm Pitch. (info)

I'm think these must be the core elements in the:
ViewSonic VP2290B2 22.2 in LCD Monitor 3840 x 2400 Pixels $5950 to $6356
IBM 9503DG3 & IBM T221 - 22.2 in LCD FLAT PANEL Monitor 3840 x 2400 Pixels $4000 to $9571
IDTech MD22292B 9.2 Million Pixels Ultra Wide TFT LCD Monitor

This exceptionally high resolution (3840 x 2400) can only be achieved today by combining multiple DVI channels and synchronizing them.

The Graphics Adapters needed to drive these QUXGA displays are:
Matrox Parhelia HR256, Matrox G200MMS The Parhelia HR256 is available for $2,500 US
3D Labs WildCat III 6110 & 3D Labs WildCat IV 7110
ELSA GLoria4 900XGL & ELSA Quadro FX1000
ATI FireGL4
nVidia Quadro 4 900XGL/980XGL, Quadro FX-1000, FX-2000, FX-3000


The State of Digital Cinema
Regal Entertainment Group Co-Chairman and Co-CEO Kurt Hall anticipate that it will cost $100,000-$150,000 to fit each of the United States' 30,000-plus movie screens. If this is correct, the investment required to outfit a 24-plex will be $2.4 million to $3.6 million a nearly impossible sum to recoup at current ticket prices.
The price tag to outfit all U.S. screens could be more than $3 billion.

The National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) president John Fithian frequently cites the fact that "the studios stand to save millions of dollars in film print costs and distribution costs. We do not see any similar savings for cinema operators."
Julian Levin, Executive VP digital exhibition and nontheatrical sales and distribution at 20th Century Fox, points out that there are many benefits the the theater operators. Flexablity to move content between screens, better advertising and the ability to have alternative programming such as sports, concerts and things as an alternate source of funds.
According to the Hollywood Reporter the studios collectively will save $700 million-$1 billion a year. But dividing that figure by the number of U.S. screens yields an annual per-screen savings of about $26,000 -- a fraction of the estimated cost of the d-cinema upgrade.


Since 1999, TI DLP's have projected over 150,000 showing of More than 120 movies to more than 17 million people worldwide. Currently there are more than 240 DLP projectors installed in theaters located in cities around the world.
From what I can tell most of this has been on Christie projectors

Christie has their work horse 2K projector the CP200H , this will output from 10,000 to 25,000 Lumens and uses water cooled TI DLP Technology DLP are Digital Light Processors which is a fancy name for Digital Micromirror Devices (DMD).


Christie Projector

Photo of 2 Christie Projectors in the Projection booth at the ETC in Hollywood.

Barco XLM H25 projector has a light output of 27000 center lumen and a native resolution of 2048x1080 pixels. It has a 1700:1 Contrast Ratio
There are over 50 BARCO D-Cine Premier 2K DP100 DLP Cinema projectors installed at this time.

Sony has a new 4K (4096 X 2160) digital projector SRX-R110 , this outputs 10,000 Lumens and uses their LCoS technology called Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD)

Sony SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display)
Size: 1.55" across Diagonal
Resolution: 4096(H) X 2160(V) Pixels
Reflectivity: 72%
Contrast: Over 4000:1
Pixel Pitch: 8.5µm
Width (between pixels): 0.35µm
Response Speed: 5msec (tr + tf)
Liquid Crystal Mode: Vertical Aligned Mode
Alignment Layer: Inorganic Thin Film
Backplane Process: 0.35µm MOS Process
Liquid Crystal Cell Gap:Less than 2µm

JVC's flavor of LCOS is called D-ILA. JVC has it up 2048 x 1536 pixels on a single 1.3" chip (labeled a QXGA device). Enough for 2K Projection as well as 1080p HDTV.

Kodak Digital Cinema system is based on the JVC LCoS device. JVC also has the DLA-QX1G QXGA resolution, 7000 ANSI lumens and 1000:1 contrast but it too pricy at $225,000.00

Some other cinema projectors are the
Digital Projection from the UK
InFocus ScreenPlay 777, 2000 lumens of with 3000:1 contrast ratio, for smaller screens.

On the back end, current compression methods used in theaters today include MPEG2, Qualcomm ABSolute and QuVIS wavelet.
ABSDCT™ Qualcomm DCT Image Compression | QPE™ (Wavelet) Quvis Wavelet Image Compression

These projectors take image data in 10 bits/component (Y/Cb/Cr) in 4:2:2 format. Since the DMD is a linear display device (i.e., no gamma characteristic as does a CRT), the data is gamma corrected and converted to linear RGB data. Each DMD displays at least 15 bits/color, linear data.

For Film distribution there are also many interesting things going on.
Microspace’s digital cinema initiative called VELOCITY is a Ku-band satellite service for high-bandwidth data transmission from one location or to many. Microspace offers its VELOCITY® satellite service under an innovative fixed pricing model. The Microspace’s VELOCITY service has been tested and proven for the digital cinema industry, specifically in the Digital Cinema Laboratory, a unit of the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California (USC). Microspace donated a complete system to USC for testing in conjunction with other digital cinema technologies.

Photo of ETC Theater in Hollywood.

DRM, Digital Rights Management is a critical component of the New Digital Cinema systems being deployed. As of yet these are not really worked out.
See Last months issued on Digital Cinema System Specification

DCinema Today Online Magazine

HDTV Record My Notes on HD and Digital Cinema Recording and processing hardware

Windows Media 9 Series for Digital Cinema Applications

Display Technologies Guide at AudioHolics.

Cinema Systems India




Copyright © 2004, John L. Sokol
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