FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HD Cinema™ upgrades

New Sony HDW-F900 CineAlta camera and Sony HDW-F500 vtrs.

September 7, 2000-- HD Cinema™ and its joint venture partner Admit One Pictures have taken delivery of the newest Sony High Definition production and post equipment, the Sony HDW-F900 CineAlta 24p camcorder, and the Sony HDW-F500 24p vtr. This state of the art technology has just started being used as an alternative to 35mm film for productions such as the fourth season of episodes of "Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict" and LucasFilm, Ltd.'s use of the technology for live action sequences of "Star Wars: Episode II". Other television series shot in 24p include "Titus" and "Diagnosis Murder".

This equipment allows for production and post that meets the new ITU-709 International Standard that specifies a Common Image Format (CIF) of 16:9, 1920x1080 pixels, at 24, 25 or 30p progressive frame scanning rates, displayed at frequencies of either 50 or 60Hz. HD Video edit masters created are fully compatible with all current terrestrial and satellite digital broadcasting systems, and are easily downconverted with quality surpassing past technologies into current NTSC and PAL digital and analog formats.

The new camera has an increased dynamic range and contrast latitude, due to better highlight control and 12 bit processing. With the motion blur of the 24 frame rate, the combined effect is a much more filmic appearance of the High Definition video. The look is incredibly superior to that of standard DV video. The digital filmmaking community is learning that despite all the hype about using DV, the consumer cameras have way too much depth of field yet still have focusing problems, and very poor contrast capability and exposure control resulting in consistently blown out images.

One of the best reasons for HD digital video production and post is that a filmmaker can complete his movie and get it to festivals without incurring the cost of film stock, processing, telecine to video and audio syncronization. The producers and investors can gauge their chances for success with much less money spent up front. HD video has six times the resolution of DV. When both are viewed on small television monitors the HD obviously looks better, but using HD makes a HUGE difference when the video is blown up on a 40 foot screen for an audience. A DV originated project looks terrible blown up that big unless it has been transferred to film. With the new HD24p origination, the HD digitally projected movie looks significantly better than a DV to film transfer and projection.

It is only after a successful major theatrical distribution deal is negotiated that the cost of 35mm film out will be incurred, and the super deal is that it costs no more for 35mm film out from an HD master than a DV master, and it looks so much better. The look of HD24p out to 35mm is almost indistinguishable from 35mm originated material. Even now, and increasingly in the future, a limited theatrical release may need only digital projection, which brings up issues in post production of color correction monitoring. Now and even more in the future, multiple masters will be created. Some will be color corrected and adjusted to allow for greater compression for television transmission and viewing on consumer HD sets, and others color-corrected for theatrical projection using DLP or DILA digital theater projectors and fed by much higher data rate HD playback devices with no visible compression artifacts.

Shooting HD 24p is technically the easy part. Monitoring, downconversion with proper time code for off-line editing, and conforming the off-line lists now become much more complicated. All the HD monitors that camera owners originally bought prior to 2000 now do not work with the 24p progressive signals without modification. We purchased the new Sony BVM-D9H5U portable 9" monitor that accepts the HD 24p signal for field use, Shooting 1080/60i HD in the field allowed cost-conscious producers to use a field downconverter that allows monitoring on standard NTSC monitors. Of course it is harder to see details and the colors are not as accurate. For clients shooting 1080/60i there was the additional bonus of being able to output 29.97 time code with the video from the camera and record on BetaSP or DV for later offline editing. However with some downconverters there was a video delay that affected audio sync. For those now shooting in 1080/24p, dubbing the camera masters to standard video now requires the Sony F500 HDCAM vtr with the 3:2 pulldown board and the separate downconversion board for either NTSC and PAL transfers. The vtr automatically changes the time code to 29.97 NTSC or 25 frame PAL time
code. The purchase of a serial digital output option for the camera, combined with outboard time code and downconversion devices will again allow field downconversion, but at a cost of close to $10,000 in hardware.

Last modified: April 22, 2008