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The phrase “digital cinema” or “DC” has become a catch-all description of a wide range of technologies, from high-definition cameras to digital dailies, digital intermediate and digital projection. The Digital Cinema Summit, an annual gathering held the weekend before NAB, offers a snapshot of the current state of the field, as engineers, directors, cinematographers, theater chain owners and other experts on digital media gather to discuss the previous year’s developments, as well as coming trends. Meanwhile, the manufacturer exhibitions at NAB itself feature a number of products that can be considered part of the digital cinema pipeline. Acquistion Cinematography using digital cameras has become a technological Tower of Babel, with competing resolutions, color spaces, aspect ratios, recording formats and more. At this year’s NAB, many new cameras were introduced. Here are just a few of them: On the lower end, JVC introduced the first low-cost HD camcorder, the JY-HD10U, which can record 720/30p or 480/60p onto Mini-DV tapes. It uses MPEG-2 compression, which reduces file sizes enough that video can be transmitted over a FireWire cable. The camera, which will be available at the end of June, will come in at a breakthrough price of $3,995. On the higher end, several cameras with high-resolution and color depth were on display. Dalsa made news with the prototype of its Origin camera, which was designed specifically for moviemaking, not adapted from an existing video paradigm. It contains a single 35mm-film-size CCD, meaning that it can use standard 35mm motion picture lenses. The resolution is 4K by 2K, which gives it four times more detail than the 1920-by-1080-pixel 24p Sony CineAlta camera used to shoot Star Wars: Episode II. Meanwhile, Sony introduced a new version of its HDC-F950 CineAlta camera that will capture RGB 4:4:4 images (click here). Despite these advances, film cameras still produce higher resolution images with a larger gamut of color than any digital cinema camera, and it seems likely that the two technologies will co-exist for some time. Many features will continue to use film, particularly in combination with the digital intermediate process and high-resolution scanners, such as the new Spirit 4K Datacine, which can scan 2K in real-time, and 4K at six to eight seconds per frame. Dailies and Previews JVC announced a high-definition delivery system based on its D-VHS format. Dubbed Pro-HD, the system consists of an encoder that converts HD media into MPEG-2 files, a Pro-HD D-VHS recorder that records the MPEG-2 files to a password-protected D-VHS tape, and a playback-only deck for watching the tapes. LaserPacific and several Hollywood studios have tested the system, which is currently being used for dailies screenings on The Pirates of the Caribbean. Another system, from Cohen Communications and Heuris, uses a rentable MPEG encoding and playback system to convert an HD master into MPEG-2 data that can be stored on hard drives or DVD-RAMs. The viewer has instant access to all sections of the dailies, even in the screening room. Sample Digital’s online dailies delivery system uses Windows Media 9 technology to play back footage organized by date, scene and take. Used by Columbia Tristar for Sniper II, the system allows users with broadband connections to upload and view full-screen dailies, then send comments that point to specific timecode locations. These processes also dovetail with digital previews. At the Digital Cinema Summit, LaserPacific’s Leon Silverman described how a color-corrected 24P HD master with up to eight tracks of uncompressed audio can be uploaded to a QuBit server for digital projection. Finishing In the last two years, the digital intermediate process has been used on an increasing number of features, and color correction has become more advanced in non-linear editing systems. Both of these trends may mean that picture editors will be increasingly involved in setting the look of their projects. Quantel is making a big push into this area with the iQ, part of the company’s family of products that use scalable hardware with powerful and flexible editing and compositing software. Used for previsualization, digital assembly and color correction, the iQ can now handle 4K material. The system can also be combined with Pandora or da Vinci color-correction products allowing non-linear material to be manipulated with all the creative flexibility of a telecine session. Pandora launched its new Pogle Evolution, a control surface used for color correction. Pandora and Quantel are also partners in the development of Freeflow, a high-speed fibre link between Pandora’s color correction equipment and Quantel’s iQ editing and effects system. This might enable closer collaboration between editors and colorists. Da Vinci showed 2K Soft, a stand-alone software color corrector that will enable editors, cinematographers or anyone else working with digitized images to make color corrections that can be exported and then used for reference by a colorist working with a da Vinci 2K system. The color enhancements are exported as a color-decision list (CDL), so that they remain separate from the underlying images. Discreet’s new lustre system is used to design the look of a film. Able to handle real-time primary color correction on 2K film scans, and to process images of 2K, 4K and above, lustre offers tools for both color timers trained in film labs and colorists more familiar with video. The system was developed with the Hungarian company Colorfront and operates on non-proprietary computer hardware. Distribution Digital Cinema Solutions (DCS) makes theatrical projection systems based on Windows Media 9 compression. At NAB, they displayed a projector and drive array and said they can fit an entire HD feature with 5.1 audio into 6 GB. The company has made progress particularly with art house and specialty theaters: Landmark hired DCS to install PC-based digital cinema delivery systems in their theaters nationwide (approximately 200 screens), and other exhibitors, including Laemmle and Angelika, have also selected the DSC Cinema System. The company successfully showed four films at Sundance this year using the system, and most major film festivals now allow digital delivery for entrants. Before digital presentation in more theaters can become a reality, however, the major studios need to agree on a technical standard. They are currently deliberating the choices in a closed forum called the Digital Cinema Initiative and claim that they will establish a standard by the end of 2003. The question of who will pay to install digital storage and projection systems remains unanswered. .
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