OLYMPUS TECHNOZONE Vol.56 2003-01
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Test projection in Hollywood of eight-megapixel digital motion content
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| Our eight-megapixel high-fidelity digital movie camera was taken to the Paramount Studio Theater in Hollywood for a presentation that attracted
key people from the Hollywood movie world. The camera takes center stage in this commemorative picture. |
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We have also played an active role in promoting the consortium's drive toward the standardization of digital cinema.
In fact, various companies have cooperated with us. We now have devices for compressing data for distribution on networks and have developed suitable transmission technology for this purpose. The only other thing we need is a camera. That's why we approached Olympus. As we neared completion of the initial phase, we decided to take what we had achieved to Hollywood, the place where the standards are being set. We went there with you in June 2002.
We had been developing a camera and, even though it was only a prototype model, it had reached a level of development that warranted showing it to them. People in Hollywood were pretty impressed. More than 100 people came over to see the demonstration, including many key persons in the industry.
Yes, nearly all the most influential people in Hollywood came to have a look. They also saw the eight-megapixel image for the first time. It was on a huge 600-inch screen. And, you know, the content for evaluation comprised scenes full of greenery and delicate effects, such as whirls of mist and smoke.
There was also a really dark scene. Everything was extremely difficult to capture properly. I'd never seen anything like it. Then there was a side-by-side evaluation. A conventional image was projected on one half of the screen and a digital image taken by our camera was projected on the other half. I think that someone called it butterfly projection.
You could see the difference at a single glance.
The images were recorded using our Olympus camera and the projector was an eight-megapixel system manufactured by JVC. Real-time images were projected on the screen using this equipment. It was shown for the first time ever in the Paramount Studio theater. It had a tremendous impact.
Although the demonstration was informal, when I asked key persons in Hollywood how they felt about it, their reactions were extremely positive. I think that they were really excited by the potential of SHD digital cinema. Of course, they were quite direct about things that would need improvement, but we were able to inform them that we already have practical technology capable of achieving quality levels that far surpass HDTV. There are seven major studios including Paramount, Warner, and Disney in Hollywood that usually compete with each other, but they have joined forces to set up a consortium to create standards for digital cinema. Recently they have changed the name of the consortium to the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI). You can tell that that they have clearly made up their minds to venture into the digital cinema business. From this point onwards, I think that there will be rapid progress towards standardization. |
