Sony Enters the U.K. Telepresence Market With a 3-D HD System

18 September, 2007 01:20 PM EST
Sony Enters the U.K. Telepresence Market With a 3-D HD System
Posted By: Rich Costello, Research Director - Gartner

http://blog.gartner.com/blog/comminn.php

Sony, in conjunction with videoconferencing distributors Imago and Teleportal, recently announced the launch of Sony 3D Telepresence for the U.K. market. The Sony Telepresence solution is described as utilizing three-dimensional (3-D) technology to display participants as life-size in appearance, live, within an apparent 3-D environment. The Sony HD Video Communication (PCS-HG90) system's built-in MCU provides true high-definition (HD), two-way communication in real time between up to four sites. The PCS-HG90 supports H.264 HD over standard IP networks up to 8 Mbps to deliver high-quality, HD video 1280 x 720 resolution at 30P and 60P. The system also offers wideband stereo sound. The price tag on a single, HD roll-about system with a 50-inch screen (available now) is about US$60,000. Sony Telepresence room configurations, specifically designed for the high end of the telepresence market, are expected to become available in fall 2007. No word yet on availability beyond the U.K. market.

Sony is a late-comer to the telepresence market, joining vendors such as Cisco, HP, Polycom, Tandberg, Telanetix, Teliris and others, but it could make a significant impact based on its high-visibility brand name and great reputation for technology. If it can also deliver the Sony Telepresence solution at a lower price point than the competition - an issue for many video customers who feel that the cost of telepresence in general is an inhibitor to adoption - that could be a key differentiator for the company's success in the telepresence market (see "The Gartner View on Enterprise Video", "Toolkit Tutorial: Buying Into Video Telepresence", and "Hype Cycle for Enterprise Communication Applications, 2007".

Movie studios hope to spawn new franchises

Excerpt From Los Angeles Times Article - Sept 18, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-franchise18sep18,1,2046660.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

The $160-million fantasy "Beowulf," co-produced by Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Stephen Bing's Shangri-La Entertainment, is not expected to start a franchise.

But director Robert Zemeckis' version of the epic 8th century poem could do wonders for 3-D exhibition and the motion-capture technique he pioneered with "The Polar Express." The film will get the widest 3-D and Imax release ever at a combined 1,100 theaters when it comes out Nov. 16, said Rob Moore, Paramount's president of worldwide marketing and distribution.

A 20-minute reel featuring a digitally rendered Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother impressed observers at this summer's Comic-Con in San Diego. "The movie is so unique and different it's hard to get a handle on how big it will be," Moore said. "The 3-D visuals will blow people away."

Fujitsu, Fujitsu Laboratories Develop Real-time 3D Stereo Sensor

Fujitsu, Fujitsu Laboratories Develop Real-time 3D Stereo Sensor LSI for Robots

Sep 13, 2007 12:14
Toshiyuki Oomori, Nikkei Electronics

View seen from left eye

View seen from right eye

3D measurement results

Fujitsu Ltd. and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. announced, Sept. 12, 2007, that their joint development of an LSI chip, which performs processing for robots so they can recognize shapes and moves of subjects in real-time.

Like human eyes, the chip performs 3D stereo image processing, which senses the depth based on parallax between images transmitted from two cameras on the robot's both sides. Given its compact size and low power, the chip can be applied to relatively small robots, the companies said.

Featuring 256 parallel computing circuits, the chip can perform high-speed product-sum operation processing on image data. In addition, equipped with a dedicated circuit for calculating color gradation patterns in an image, the chip can extract about 2,000 edges, corners and other distinctions at 30 fps. Even faster pattern matching is also available through its parallel processing circuits that swiftly calculate matches in two patterns.

Furthermore, the chip supports matching at more precise resolutions than the pixel resolution, as well as matching by enlarging, downsizing and rotating patters that look different depending on viewing distances and angles. It consumes approximately 2.7 W when operating at 200 MHz.

Part of this new LSI is Fujitsu's development in "The Project for the Standard Platform of Next-Generation Robots" from fiscal 2005 to 2007, contracted by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) as part of its "21st Century Robot Challenge Program." The companies will reveal details of this LSI at the "25th Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan" to be held at Chiba Institute of Technology.

Motorola sues Aruba for patent infringement on 3D and wireless technology

Posted by Will on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 5:48 pm under Financial, Technologies, Motorola, Announcements
Tagged: aruba, lawsuit, moto, motorola, sue, suit, symbol, valley and wireless

What better way to inject some much needed coin into the company coffers than to go out and take other people’s money? It looks like Motorola is going to join in on the fun that Broadcom and Nokia are having with their IP legal battles. The embattled mobile phone once-giant is claiming that their recent acquisition of Symbol also gave them the rights to some technology related to 3D representations and short-range wireless networking and management.

Motorola isn’t actually the one suing Aruba, rather, Motorola’s subsidiaries Symbol Technologies and Wireless Valley Communications have filed for a monetary damages and a permanent injunction against Aruba (a supplier of wireless networking equipment for offices).

Now, we’re usually against “use the courts to handle your licensing negotiation” tactics, but seeing as how this law suit doesn’t really stem from licensing negotiations and the fact that poor, old Motorola could really use some help these days, we’re going to root for Moto on this one. Just this one time Moto (wait, didn’t we say that before?).

U.K. firms more Visible with deal

U.K. firms more Visible with deal

By Stuart Kemp

Feb 20, 2007

LONDON -- A triumvirate of U.K. production banners have united in their quest to raise £24 million ($47 million) from investors looking to benefit from an investment vehicle named Visible Films that employs both existing tax breaks and the new-look credit system here.

The trio of companies are the Recorded Picture Co., Ecosse Films and Samuelson Prods. and includes Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas ("The Last Emperor"), producer Douglas Rae ("Mrs. Brown") and Marc Samuelson, whose myriad credits include the recent "Stormbreaker" and "The Libertine."

The group aims to raise the investment cash through a system that takes in the new-look tax credit system installed here by the government Jan. 1 and the well-established 1998 Enterprise Investment Scheme.

Visible Films will give investors the opportunity to pump as much as £8 million ($16 million) into each banner's vehicle for production, but it does not ask them to invest in a slate of titles but instead the pedigree of the producers and companies involved.

Such pedigree is unquestioned, with titles made by the companies' three principals having won or been nominated for 14 Oscars, 11 Golden Globes and 26 BAFTAs.

By launching their own film-investment companies, the producers say they can "offer the public direct investment into their films."

The three new companies will be Visible Films (Ecosse) Plc., Visible Films (RPC) Plc. and Visible Films (Samuelson) Plc. "British films are now not only winning major awards in Hollywood and London but also are huge boxoffice successes. The Visible Films companies offer the opportunity to invest in producers who have made films such as 'Mrs. Brown,' 'The Last Emperor' or 'Wilde,' " Visible Films (Ecosse) producer Robert Bernstein said.

Said Thomas: "One of the attractions of this plan is that investors can be involved in a varied group of films with high aspirations and with risk mitigation from the tax relief available."

Added Samuelson: "Another attraction of investing in our schemes is the fact that investments will be channeled directly into making and distributing films."

The trio now await the rubber stamp go-ahead from financial watchdog the Financial Services Authority, which is expected by Wednesday.

Broadcasting ‘must reinvent itself rapidly'

Broadcasting ‘must reinvent itself rapidly’
Chris Forrester

Mark Selby, VP Multimedia at Nokia, says TV, if it is to survive, must reinvent itself rapidly.

Selby is speaking at the upcoming Broadcasting 2017 conference in London (BAFTA, September 27), which looks at the state of broadcasting ten years from now. Selby continued: “The economic, cultural and political implications of failure would be immense. The reinvention is possible but is the appetite for change sufficient?"

Mr Selby’s extensive background at Nokia perfectly qualifies him to speak on the importance of TV to mobiles. But recent experience shows that not all is well in this sector. The collapse of the British Telecom-backed Movio service which forced Virgin Mobile to curtail its own limited TV offering shows that lessons still need to be learnt. Greater education for the consumer on the benefits of video to handsets is also needed.

Mr Selby will also take part in an all-important revenue panel that contains Patrick Parodi, head of amobee mobile advertising, and Robin Truchy, a director at XBox Live Europe. - (c) Rapid TV News 2007

A Comeback in 3-D, but Without Those Flimsy Glasses

---

March 1, 2007

By JEFF LEEDS

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 28 — A little past the two-minute mark, the music video for Gwen Stefani’s recent single, “Wind It Up,” finds her chained to a fence while a flurry of bubbles and snowflakes float by. Viewed from a certain perspective — that is, through 3-D glasses — it is a dreamlike moment in which the flurry seems close enough to touch.

The video begins with Ms. Stefani yodeling, a homage to “The Sound of Music,” one of the her favorite films. But the idea of adding the bubbles and snow came from an unlikely source: James Cameron, the director behind effects-laden hits like “The Terminator” and “Titanic,” who visited Ms. Stefani’s set last October and shot a separate version of the video with 3-D equipment.

“I had mentioned to the director that any kind of atmospheric effects like snow or rain usually play in 3-D,” Mr. Cameron recalled.

While “Wind It Up” was not initially planned as a 3-D video, Ms. Stefani probably won’t be the last recording artist to follow Mr. Cameron’s lead.

As part of a newly created venture, Mr. Cameron is working with Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of the Interscope Geffen A&M record label, to produce music films, concerts and other content in 3-D to show in specially equipped theaters. Mr. Iovine and Mr. Cameron hope to deliver their first production by summer.

The two acknowledge that they have yet to work out many details: they say they don’t know how many productions will be created or which artists will be featured, but the idea has been discussed with Interscope artists including Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails. Many music fans may be too young to recall the last time 3-D was in vogue: the 1980s, when hordes donned flimsy multihued glasses to watch “Jaws 3” and other attractions.

But the latest version of the technology has Hollywood buzzing again, particularly since 3-D showings of animated fare like “Chicken Little” have racked up impressive sales. Mr. Cameron is at work on a $200 million 3-D feature titled “Avatar.”

Mr. Iovine and Mr. Cameron are aware of the odds of changing consumer behavior. They are wagering that fans will be willing to trek to a movie theater and pay perhaps a few dollars more than the price of a regular ticket to see their favorite stars on the big screen and in 3-D. The glasses now resemble standard sunglasses, and musicians may be able to make their own designs.

The venture, led by the film producer Gene Kirkwood, also represents a distinctive take on what both the music-video and the concert can be. If it works, the partners said, fans could experience a concert as if they were on stage next to U2’s guitarist, the Edge, or see the members of Kiss in full makeup perform a pyrotechnic show seemingly right in front of them, all for a fraction of the price of seeing a headline act on tour.

“What it does is put you, the audience, right there with the performer onstage, in their creative reality,” Mr. Cameron said recently during a break in production from “Avatar.” “The whole idea of a concert may change.”

Mr. Iovine and Mr. Cameron have discussed with executives at Harrah’s Entertainment setting up a night club in Las Vegas where visitors would be surrounded by 3-D images and watch 3-D performances, though no deal has been struck.

Mr. Iovine also said that 3-D performances could become a new way for artists to build ties to their fans and generate much-needed revenue for the ailing music business.

“The record industry has to have lots of different revenue streams, and this just looks like one that’s creatively cool,” Mr. Iovine said. “And you can’t download it. You can’t get it anyplace else.”

Universal Studios parks itself in Korea

Universal Studios parks itself in Korea

By Carl DiOrio - The Hollywood Reporter

May 23, 2007

USKOR & Associates has nabbed exclusive rights to develop a Universal Studios theme park in Korea.

A site-selection review has been launched, with plans targeting a resort-style theme park development comparable in size and scope to Uni's biggest domestic parks, officials said.

"It has been my longtime dream to establish a Universal Studios theme park resort in Korea," USKOR vice chairman Simon Hwang said. "And the (exclusive option agreement) is an important step toward the fulfillment of that dream."

Universal Parks & Resorts chairman and CEO Thomas Williams said the Korea market boasts several attractive demographics, including a well-heeled consumer public and high entertainment industry growth.

"Korea has ideal conditions for a global theme park like Universal Studios," Williams said.

USKOR will be responsible for arranging full financing for the project as well as obtain governmental and public support, officials said. POSCO E&C has inked a letter of intent to join a USKOR-led consortium as the rightsholder's first strategic partner.

USKOR president Frank Stanek is 4a 0-year veteran of entertainment and theme parks, including various roles in the development of such resorts as Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan.

"In Korea, all the global theme park development projects announced so far have revolved around selection of a specific site before creation of a consensus with citizens, often resulting in the derailment of such projects," Stanek said.

USKORs "open-dialogue-based development approach" will better serve the project by forming investor-group agreement on site selection and other issues, officials said.

NBC Universal wholly owns Universal Studios Hollywood and holds a "significant" interest in Universal Orlando. NBC Uni also maintains licensing agreements for Universal Studios Japan in Osaka and Universal Mediterranean near Barcelona.

License agreements also have been announced for Universal Studios Dubailand in Dubai and Universal Studios Singapore.

Links referenced within this article

Find this article at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/international/news/e3i56be83607abfbbd09614705cd724cbe5

Private equity changing face of film industry

Private equity changing face of film industry By Scott Roxborough and Jonathan Landreth - The Hollywood Reporter May 23, 2007 Complete coverage from Cannes: News, reviews, video and more CANNES -- Private equity has transformed the U.S. film industry. Players like Relativity Media, which invested in slates at Sony and Universal; Dune Entertainment, which is backing films at 20th Century Fox; and Merrill Lynch, which is close to funding the new Tom Cruise-headed United Artists, are underwriting the major studios. But with the U.S. market stuffed with hedge fund cash, equity groups are looking abroad for investment opportunities in the media space. Where and how the big players decide to invest could radically reshape the industry in Europe and Asia. While hedge funds are famously tight-lipped about what investments they are eying, the difference between the international and U.S. markets suggest that private equity strategies will take a different form abroad. "Hedge funds are interested in volume and there is no one company in Europe or Asia that can deliver a slate of $30 million-$40 million pictures," said Brian Gilmore, principal at investment banker house Capitoline Global Finance. "So what you are seeing is funds looking at assets -- companies they can buy and merge with others to get the volume they need." The pre-Cannes fusion of European sales groups Celluloid Dreams and HanWay to create Dreamachine is a deal that is being watched closely by private equity groups as a possible model for future cross-border hookups. "I really like the Dreamachine deal, it looks very smart," the director of film finance at one of Europe's leading national banks told The Hollywood Reporter. "Alone, neither of these companies was big enough to be able to go to the next level, to access financing to do big pictures. Together, they should have the volume to access debt financing, enough to get backing for slates of pictures in the $10 million-$40 million range." Because of the Byzantine system of film financing in Europe -- with complicated national tax structures and state subsidies, many observers see outside equity buying into distribution-based companies rather than production houses. "We've been approached by equity firms that like the idea of a company that has all the separate parts of the distribution chain in house," said Andreas Klein, CEO of German indie Splendid, which bundles theatrical, DVD, TV sales and synchronization duties under one corporate roof. Similarly, in Asia, investment banks and hedge funds are targeting whole companies. With backing by ABN-AMRO, Fireworks International recently paid $50 million for a 36% stake in Taewon Entertainment of South Korea. Fireworks has committed an additional $50 million in various forms to, among other things, help Taewon buy into CGI companies in the region. "Taewon is our Korean partner and our film partner," said David Roberts, managing director and head of Asian Equities for ABN-AMRO, adding that the equity investment is aimed at helping Taewon to become a leader in making Hollywood films with an "Asian feel." That isn't to say no one is investing directly in foreign film slates. The Weinsteins have set up a $285 million fund, with the help of Goldman Sachs, to invest in movies with Asian themes and elements. The fund will be used to finance the production, acquisition and marketing of about 31 Asian films to be distributed by the Weinstein Co. over six years. And at Cannes, principals in the fledgling Hong Kong-based A3 Intl. Film Fund declared their intentions to begin to raise $100 million during the next three months for the purpose of making 30 Asian films with varying budget levels during the next five years. European production companies with a strong track record -- like Luc Besson's Europa Corp. ("Arthur and the Invisibles," "Taxi," "The Transporter") or the U.K.'s Big Talk Productions ("Hot Fuzz," "Shaun of the Dead") could also be targets for big-pocketed funds. "This is all about making quality product that will sell internationally," Capitoline exec Gilmore says. "It's about giving the Luc Bessons or Pedro Almodovars of the world -- who can deliver the quality -- the capital to take it to the next level. Whether that's by buying assets or debt-financing foreign slates is going to vary from territory to territory and company to company."

China Film Group digitizing 2,000 screens

China Film Group digitizing 2,000 screens

By Jonathan Landreth - The Hollywood Reporter

May 31, 2007

BEIJING -- State-run moviemaking giant China Film Group Corp. plans to build about 2,000 digital cinemas in a new joint venture partnership with the country's leading steelmaker, Shougang Steel, company executives said Wednesday.

Dubbed China Film Group & Shougang Digital Cinema Building Co. Ltd., the joint venture, first unveiled to local media last week, believes the use of digital cinema technology will help stem some of China's rampant movie piracy problem.

Last year, about 93% of the discs sold in China were illegal copies, costing moviemakers upward of $2.6 billion in lost ticket sales, according to MPA estimates.

"The goal of our cooperation is to build digital cinemas across the country," Han Sanping, CFGC's board chairman told the official Xinhua news agency. "We will build about 2,000 new digital screens before the end of 2008."

Zhang Wenxi, Shougang's culture department chief, confirmed the China Film partnership in an interview but declined to offer financial details of the deal or detail how the joint venture plans to achieve its goal in a year when Beijing is set to host the Summer Olympics.

A ban on construction in the capital is expected to go into effect before the games begin on Aug. 8, 2008.

China now has about 3,000 modern movie screens, only 124 of which were digital in 2005, according to a recent report from the Nielsen Co. and Screen Digest. The number of digital screens in China rose from just 93 in 2004, with growth led by China Film, with 91 digital screens, and Stellar Film, with 27.

China Film's digital screens account for roughly half of their total 180 screens, a total that makes it the second-largest distributor in the country after Shanghai United Cinema Circuit, the report said.

Both groups began installing digital cinema systems in 2002 once the government's plan to encourage digital cinema began to take shape.

CFGC released 39 digital films in 2006, earning 120 million yuan ($15.38 million) at the boxoffice, company data shows.

In June 2006, China Film signed an exclusive 30-year deal with Archer Entertainment Media Communications to digitize screens across China, the Nielsen report said. As part of the deal, Archer gained rights to redevelop cinema venues and to control all aspects of digital production, distribution and exhibition.

In November, Warner Bros. International Cinema pulled out of China after four years when new government rules limited the company to holding a minority share in the theaters they were building.

It was not clear how the China Film deal with Archer will relate to the new partnership with Shougang, which, according to general manager Wang Qinghai, is expanding into electronics, architecture, shipping, finance, media and culture, Xinhua reported.

The China Film-Shougang deal is not the first pairing of unlikely partners in China's burgeoning media and culture business.

Last week at the Festival de Cannes, JA Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of alternative energy firm the Jian Group, said it will begin shooting its first five feature films this summer (HR 5/20).

New 3D Display Technology - In the O.R.

Thu 6 Sep 2007

New 3D Display Technology

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD under Technology, Endoscopic Surgery, Visualization, Future, camera, Medical Devices, Device Company, future vision, surgery, HDTV

this sure beats the old system!

Better for Creature Features than the OR

Phillips just demo’d an intriguing display at the Berlin consumer-electronics show. It is an amalgam of 9 x 42-inch displays on a grid creating a 132 inch display that reportedly can display 3D images without the need for glasses.

Why this is so important: 3D display technology is badly needed for endoscopic surgery. In order to see in 3D you need stereo vision which requires 2 separate images taken from slighly different angles and them superimposed. You body does this with your 2 eyes slighly separate on your face. In traditional laparoscopic surgery there is a single telescope and a single camera so all the images are in 2D. Unfortunately, depth perception is lost. How does the surgen operate then? What heppens with training and practice is that your brain picks up and other clues primarily shadowing and touch perception from your hands and the surgeon becomes able to interpolate a 3D space even though all of the visual skills are mising. This is one of the hardest if not the hardest step to learn when I teach surgeons to first perform laparoscopic surgery and some people just have a much harder time than others. Interestingly, with HD displays there is a pseudo-enhancement of depth perception that engineers and visual scientists tell me is due to the enhanced color fidelity and resolution and shadowing which allows the brain to pick up more 3D clues of the space from the 2D image! Still, the lack of true 3D data increases the difficulty of the procedures especially complex ones requiring suturing.

What is available today: Currently there are some attempts to address this limitation. They have required the use of head mounted displays with separate displays for each eye and separate imaging chips or lenses on the scopes but these have been heavy and cumbersome to use. Others such as some of the robotic solutions have immersed the surgeon’s head in a remote 2-panel display station but this also is a very complex solution. For years I have seen many many attempts at no-glasses 3D displays from various companies but all suffered from narrow viewing angles or poor resolution or other design issues.

2d

How this solution works. This is a display technology that they call 2D + depth. In order to generate a 3D image, the display requires a regular 2D representation of the image and a depth-map. This depth-map indicates the distance between each pixel and the viewer. The 2D image and the depth-map are used to create images on the screen, and these images are then merged by the viewer’s brain into a 3D sensation.

Lenticular Screen: The system works with lenses on the screen that provide a slgly different view for each eye (without the red-green glasses of the 50’s). A sheet of transparent lenses, is fixed on an LCD screen. This sheet sends different images to each eye, and so a person sees two images. These two images are combined by our brain, to create a 3D effect.

I’ll have to get ahold of one of these displays to see if it holds promise for the OR…

3-D-ready screens popping out all over - Aug 16, 2007

3-D-ready screens popping out all over

By Carolyn Giardina

Aug 16, 2007

The Walt Disney Co.'s October rerelease of "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 3-D digital cinema proved a success, playing in 168 theaters and grossing $8.7 million. It even ran in some venues until New Year's Day.

On Oct. 19, Disney again is rereleasing the film, but this year the studio is planning for a four-week run in about 600 theaters.

The 3-D-ready screens then will be needed to accommodate the debut of Paramount Pictures' 3-D "Beowulf" on Nov. 16, says Chuck Viane, president of distribution at Disney. "I would say within 12-18 months the marketplace will take care of itself," he says. "While the initial (3-D) installations are going on, you have to be quite cognizant of what is available to you in 3-D."

This shift could mark the arrival of a new stage in the 3-D digital-cinema movement.

Big titles are driving installations. Paramount estimates there will be 1,000 3-D-ready screens for "Beowulf," but that figure is skewed as it counts film-based Imax screens as well as digital installations from Real D and Dolby Digital Cinema. For digital 3-D releases, 3-D provider Real D is more optimistic, saying that it expects to exceed 1,000 screens in the fall. Dolby, which announced a 3-D digital-cinema system in March at ShoWest, is testing its technology in theaters and plans to roll out in time for "Nightmare" and "Beowulf." The company did not yet have screen-count figures.

Says John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners: "We are very bullish on 3-D and digital cinema. But filmmakers and distributors have to be realistic about the pace of integration when scheduling their movies for release."

This topic caught some attention recently when DreamWorks Animation's 3-D "Monsters vs. Aliens" was scheduled to open May 15, 2009 -- one week shy of Fox's James Cameron-helmed 3-D feature "Avatar." But this is not the only example as 2009 might see about 10 major 3-D digital releases.

"I think the biggest challenge is how quickly (2-D) digital cinema is going to roll out, that appears to be on a good track right now," Real D president Joshua Greer says. "As we get closer, I believe release patterns will work themselves out."

Adds Paramount president of distribution Jim Tharp: "So far (screen count) has not impacted our release date decisions. It would be a huge concern if there were movies coming out (in the same time frame) this year -- then it would not be adequate."

In the fall, National Geographic's "Seamonsters 3D" and "Lions 3D" are actually expected to open, but according to Real D, these would run during the day. Real D predicts there will be five or six 3-D openings in 2008, including "U2 3D" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

Predicts Viane: "2009 has more than its share of announced 3-D titles. Then you will see the digital revolution take over. Instead of everybody having one 3-D screen in a building, you will start to see theaters put in two, possibly even three, auditoriums that are 3-D capable. They will be able to hold over successful 3-D while still opening new 3-D. When you hear people like Robert Rodriguez talking about 3-D, they are not pipe dreams; their films are going to be made. (Exhibitors) are going to want to accommodate that product. They aren't going to want to give up those products early."

Kapor: 3D Internet is on the brink of mainstream

Kapor: 3D Internet is on the brink of mainstream

Posted by Martin LaMonica | 2 comments

Cambridge, Mass.--The industry around virtual worlds, also referred to as the 3-D Internet, is chaotic and messy but on the brink of mainstream adoption, said Mitch Kapor, chairman of the Linden Labs and PC industry pioneer.

Kapor spoke here on Friday in an event organized by IBM and the MIT media Lab on virtual worlds. Linden Labs is the maker of Second Life, a popular virtual world environment.

During his talk, Kapor drew many parallels between the early days of the PC and virtual worlds: there are many people who are skeptical of virtual worlds and the product is not suitable for many tasks.

Mitch Kapor says virtual worlds are a disruptive technology on the brink of larger acceptance.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)

But people's passion for virtual worlds, albeit early adopters belie the potential impact of the technology, Kapor argued. That enthusiasm is mirrored in the deluge of media coverage of virtual worlds--sometimes hundreds of articles a day.

"What's driving this and why it's so darned disruptive is this shared sense of a few thousand crazy people thinking that it is really important and a really really big deal, even though they can't fully articulate it and don't know where it's going," Kapor said.

He described a moment of insight while watching a Suzanne Vega concert recorded in Second Life. He realized the potential of the medium when he saw the involvement of the spectators who could have been anywhere in the world and the simulation of Vega performing and interacting with people.

"I realized these virtual worlds become what we imagine they could be and the limits and constraints are enormously less than that of the physical world," he said.

"It reminded me of a drug experience in the days when we didn't know how dangerous recreational drugs could be," said Kapor, a self-professed product of the 60s.

Kapor said that some of the choices that Linden Labs has made will become more commonplace in other virtual worlds.

Specifically, he said having user the ability to generate content, rather grahics professionals--which was a radical notion when Linden labs was starting a few years ago--will become the norm.

Kapor predicted that, as a disruptive technology, the 3-D Internet opens up markets for hardware and software products. For example, hardware, such as goggles and gloves, to create a more immersive experience will emerge.

He also said that there will be huge demand for "reality acquisition devices" that allow people to create replicas of physical goods in the virtual world. More technical infrastructure, such as today's application servers, will be required to create more sophisticated and scalable applications and virtual worlds.

Finally, Kapor sees a parallel in what the PC did for desktop publishing and what the 3-D Internet can do for three-dimensional printing, where specially designed printers spray layers of powder to create physical goods.

Moving forward, Kapor said that the technical infrastructure of Second Life will become increasingly standards-based and open. The first step to doing that was open sourcing the client software.

"Long-term, there shouldn't be any single proprietary standard protocol used in the thing so Second Life becomes part of something larger," he said. "My view is that it's very prudent to do this because if we don't do it, another company will and we will end up being crushed."

Digital cinema is wowing theater owners, movie fans

By Jonathan Sidener Tuesday, June 12 2007, 01:37 AM EDT

Unreel Future

Irish rockers U2 created a buzz at the recent Cannes Film Festival with a 55-minute preview of a high-tech concert movie, "U2 3D." By pushing the technical limits of 3-D digital cinema, the film will showcase the strengths and weaknesses of cinema made without celluloid.

Producers plan to limit release of the final 90-minute version to theaters equipped with digital, 3-D projectors. Unlike animated 3-D movies such as "Chicken Little" and "Monster House," "U2 3D" will show off the format's potential for live-action special effects.

A Reuters reporter at Cannes wrote that when U2 lead singer Bono reached toward the 3-D camera, it looked as if he were about to step off the screen into the theater.

The turbocharged music video will do more than demonstrate the technical prowess of digital cinema. It will introduce many consumers to a type of entertainment the industry calls ODS, or "other digital stuff." The category includes anything other than movies - for example, sports or music - that might draw paying customers into a theater.

In recent months, two ODS projects have captured media attention.

On New Year's Eve, New York's Metropolitan Opera broadcast the first of a series of live, high-definition performances, sending Mozart's "The Magic Flute" to theaters in several cities.

In February, the NBA's All-Star Game in Las Vegas featured the first sports event broadcast in live, high-definition 3-D. The game was sent over a high-speed network to two theaters at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.

"U2 3D," which doesn't have a release date, will also underscore the downside of Hollywood's transition to digital: its glacial speed.

Only about 1,000 theaters worldwide are capable of screening a digital 3-D movie today, according to industry estimates. There are more theaters capable of showing digital 2-D movies, but digital theaters are still a small percentage of theaters in this country and worldwide.

It's been nearly nine years since October 1998, when the industry released its first digital movie to theaters: the obscure "The Last Broadcast."

Industry consortium Digital Cinema Initiatives is only now finalizing the digital-cinema standard and certification process intended to ensure that studios, distribution companies and hardware manufacturers have a common digital game plan.

Despite the slow transition, digital cinema has many fans. Proponents say it improves the moviegoing experience, whether it's a 3-D basketball game or "Rocky 17."

Traditional film is prone to slight movements, up and down and left and right, as mechanical sprockets speed individual frames past the projector bulb. Dust and other objects leave scratches and dings on images after repeated showings.

Digital movies aren't subject to jittery movements and don't degrade, no matter how many times they're projected onto the big screen.

Digital cinema is expected to simplify theater operations. To show a traditional film movie on six screens, a theater owner would need six copies of the film. But one digital copy could run on all six screens.

Digital-cinema proponents include Ultra Star Cinemas, which has digital projectors in all 102 of its theaters and side-by-side film projectors pointed at some of those screens.

The Southern California movie chain says digital films are far better, so it uses only its film projectors when a movie isn't released in digital.

"Why would we offer our customers chuck steak when we have filet mignon?" said Damon Rubio, Ultra Star operations vice president.

In recent months, roughly 90 percent of movies have been released in digital.

"Every summer blockbuster will be released in digital," Rubio said. "About the only time we use the film projectors is around the Oscars. The art films from smaller studios are not always released in digital."

While the digital transition has crawled through the past nine years, there are signs that things are picking up.

At the beginning of the year, there were about 2,500 digital theaters in the United States, said Andrew Stucker, director of Sony's digital-cinema division. By the end of the year, that number should double.

"Still, with about 39,000 theaters in the U.S., that's a small percentage," Stucker said.

A number of forces will speed the transition, including 3-D, he said. With digital, it's easier to shoot and display 3-D movies, he added. And moviegoers are embracing 3-D movies.

"Movies shown in 3-D are bringing in from 30 to 50 percent higher box-office revenues," Stucker said. "In 2007 and 2008, something like 18 major movies will be released in 3-D."

Although film technology stays much the same year after year, digital technology continues to evolve. While some companies push a version of digital cinema roughly equivalent to today's HDTV, Sony and others are backing a technology known as 4K - four times the resolution of HDTV.

Capitalizing on the popularity of 3-D and the current interest in the latest "Spider-Man" sequel, Sony remastered the movie in 4K and showed it in 3-D in a handful of theaters around the world in May.

Stucker said films using the 4K technology will rival the visual appeal of such movies as "Lawrence of Arabia," which was shot on 70 mm film, instead of the more economical 35 mm used today.

"We should see the first film shot in 4K within 12 to 18 months, max," he said.

Longtime Hollywood film production company Technicolor sees digital cinema as the inevitable future, despite the slow start and competing technologies. The company's digital division provides a number of services, including testing of digital hardware and installing digital projection systems in theaters.

With the expectation of major cost-cutting and the potential to lure customers back into the seats with 3-D and alternative content, "it's mostly a question of when," said Curt Behlmer, chief operating officer of Technicolor Digital Cinema.

With industry standards nearly complete, Behlmer sees 2008 as the year digital cinema takes off.

"Right now, nobody's making any money from digital cinema," he said. "The studios still have to print a lot of film, along with the cost of producing digital versions. The exhibitors aren't making anything extra from digital.

"But when you put digital side by side with film, everyone agrees it's the future. Right now, everybody is investing in that future."

Posts tagged '3D Internet'

June 15, 2007 12:50 PM PDT

3-D: The Killer App/Cinema Expo

June 18

3-D: The Killer App/Cinema Expo

VARIETY

Posted: Fri., Jun. 15, 2007, 6:40pm PT

Heavy hitters bet big on 3-D

Plexes to upgrade with top directors

By PETER DEBRUGE

Next summer, New Line plans to release 'Journey 3-D' on as many as 2,000 digital screens. Viewed through comfortable polarized lenses, stereoscopic films now avoid the eye strain associated with old-school 3-D.

The future's so bright, you'll have to wear shades -- or polarized lenses, to be precise -- to appreciate the revolution in 3-D filmmaking.

Over the years, audiences have been jabbed in the eye often enough to be wary of the faddish, even gimmicky nature of 3-D, compounded in the past by headache-inducing red-blue anaglyph glasses. But this time around, the format is here to stay, say top execs from virtually every studio. Thanks to advances in digital projection, the picture looks crystal clear and supports, for the first time, the prospect of a wide 3-D release.

"I couldn't be more excited about it," says DreamWorks Animation topper Jeffrey Katzenberg, who recently announced the studio's intention to release every toon in 3-D, beginning with 2009's "Monsters vs. Aliens."

"I think it is the single most important transformational innovation that has occurred in the filmmaking business in 60 years, since color," he tells Variety. "To have spent all these years here, to see something come along that could literally transform your business and give you new opportunities -- creative, financial, just on every level -- is pretty amazing. It answers a critical issue about piracy and video windows."

Paramount, New Line, Disney, Sony, Warner and Fox all have major 3-D projects in the works. The live-action "U2 3D" wowed auds at Cannes, where the market was buzzing with pitches for stereoscopic projects. And with helmers like James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson and Robert Rodriguez sold on the format, exhibitors can rest assured that content from the industry's top innovators is on the way.

Content will drive conversion, first to digital projection, and then to 3-D with a simple upgrade offered by companies such as Real D or Dolby. For the digital 3-D releases of "Chicken Little," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Meet the Robinsons," Disney helped push Real D installations in several hundred theaters. Those pics, in turn, delivered per-screen grosses two to three times those for "flat" 35mm presentations of the same film (aided by auds' willingness to pay premiums of up to 30% for tickets).

"It's just a matter of time before the tipping point for 3-D happens because, like anything else, if the content exists, the technology will come up to support it," says Buena Vista distribution prexy Chuck Viane.

By May 29, 2009, a date on which two 3-D films are currently scheduled to open wide -- "Monsters vs. Aliens" and Cameron's "Avatar" -- there should be at least 4,000 screens capable of projecting digital 3-D, estimates Real D chairman-CEO Michael Lewis. "3-D has sort of been the killer app of digital. As more and more of these films come out and we see them perform well, there's going to be an even bigger push to get more screens out there. So if the content keeps up, I think we'll see a lot more than 4,000."

That's a realistic estimate, explains Nancy Fares, business manager for Texas Instruments' DLP Cinema Products division, since there are already more than 4,000 DLP projectors in the market. "With the deployment happening today, potentially every single screen that is a DLP cinema can be 3-D enabled," she says.

In the meantime, Paramount hopes to release "Beowulf" on at least 1,000 screens in November, and New Line expects that number to double before "Journey 3-D" (the first live-action narrative feature shot in digital 3-D) opens in August 2008.

Walden, which produced "Journey," is fully committed to the format, which the company has been investigating since 2001, when co-founder Cary Granat first partnered with Cameron to produce two underwater docus, "Ghosts of the Abyss" and "Aliens of the Deep," as a way of exploring stereoscopic filmmaking.

"In fairness, there really hasn't been a film in the last 10 years that's been purposefully produced only as a 3-D film, versus films that have been converted to 3-D for select sequences and theaters, which is why we shot 'Journey' the way we did, with every scene in mind for fully immersing you in the frame," says Granat.

The 3-D format has a very bumpy history, and even though the polarization method (a major improvement over those red-blue lenses used for "Spy Kids 3-D") has existed for more than 70 years, the method's dependence on two projectors made it largely impractical.

For the past two decades, only Imax programmed polarized 3-D pics with any regularity, crossing over from special-interest docus to Hollywood tentpoles with "The Polar Express" in 2005.

The film earned $65 million in Imax 3-D and prompted the company to try the same approach with computer-animated "The Ant Bully" and "Open Season" as well as select live-action sequences from "Superman Returns" and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." (To stay competitive, Imax will also upgrade to digital projectors, planning to switch from its current two-strip 70mm system in 2009.)

"When 'Polar Express' came out, I think we were a little euphoric, and we thought, 'Put it in 3-D, and they will come,'" says Imax co-chair and co-CEO Rich Gelfond. "Since then, our views have been refined a little bit, and we've learned it really has to be the right kind of project. It's not the magic bullet."

"You can't just start making 3-D movies on any script," agrees "Journey" producer Beau Flynn. "It really only works for sci-fi, fantasy, action."

But others are more optimistic. "It's going to be a lot broader than that," says Katzenberg. "If you look at the 500 movies released each year, you'll see pretty consistently that about 65 movies represent about 75% of the business. I went back and looked at the last three years using my own litmus test, and I think more than two-thirds of those 65 films would lend themselves to 3-D, so if you do the math, that's more than 50% of the business."

"The biggest thing about 3-D is education," says Buzz Hays, a senior producer on Sony Imageworks' 3-D stereoscopic pipeline. "Very few directors have any experience with it whatsoever, but if you get them to step away from the video monitor for a few seconds, the whole world is 3-D."

And even if the learning curve is steep at first, it's a new toy that's already attracted the business's top helmers. If Cameron can make it work with "Avatar," and Spielberg and Jackson are ready to try it on "Tintin," surely the rest of the industry will follow.

Based on technology already in development for home viewing, Granat forecasts another major innovation facing the theatrical 3-D experience.

"Eventually, what you're going to see is that you don't need glasses," he says. "That's probably about two years away."

Thomson Media and DLP predict it's farther off than that, but confirm the possibility.

In 3-D's bright future, maybe you won't need shades after all.