June 2002
Meeting Review
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June 2002 Meeting Review |
Review of 2002 Toronto Sections of AES and SMPTE Annual Joint Meeting
On April 9th of this year, AES and SMPTE joined forces once again at Ryerson Eaton Lecture theatre to present an update from Kodak showing improvements and developments to sound and picture in film.Colin Davis of Kodak Canada gave a brief retrospective and update relating to both analog and digital photographic sound recording technologies. Colin began the discussion with a look back on the history of sound on film and brought us up to date with a comparison between the various surround formats available today and how these related to current projector technology. For example: the SR track is optimized for the white light reader, SRD for green light and SDDS for red light. He also discussed the benefits of the new High Magenta film format both to sound and picture.
Christopher DuMont of Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY presented a paper outlining design improvements developed for motion picture film projectors that are intended to improve the quality of the overall screen image. In particular, new designs for the intermittent, or Geneva mechanism, and for a "Universal" lamp house are described meaning less heat, smaller bulbs and easy retrofit.. These improved designs allow the system light efficiency and uniformity to be improved, resulting in significant increase in screen luminance. Chris also described the operation, alignment and maintenance of the new design.
Roger Morton also of Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY then presented a progress report on research into film based Digital Intermediate or Data-centric systems. The goal is a cinema delivery system that provides onscreen cinema quality that is superior to today's 35mm quality to provide 70mm quality. A system that consistently provides across all theatres, improved realism or classic looks, and can also enable new looks, artistic and special effects. Furthermore, we seek to eliminate perceptible digital artifacts and improve productivity in post-production. He also outlined a two variable method for conceptually assessing the overall performance of digital systems and report on some capabilities provided by algorithms created in support of this research.
Some of the measurements used include: sharpness, detail, accurate texture and realism. The benefit of 35mm digital includes: greater sharpness, more detail, less visual grain, improved steadiness, wider dynamic range and less dirt, therefore as he described a whole new category of look.
We would like to thank Colin Davis of Kodak for organizing the presentation and his colloquies from New York for their updates. We would also like to thank Kodak for hosting the break.
by Anne Reynolds, Exec Committee Member
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