News posts from 2002

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

The Soderberg article contains the same cheerleading we've been hearing on the part of TI for half a decade. From TI's perspective, it's important to establish a monopoly on theatrical digital exhibition in the next 15 years, before their DLP patent portfolio expires. Without some weight being thrown around behind the scenes, widespread digital retrofitting is unlikely to happen, because exhibitors know that if they wait another decade, there will be more competition in the market, and the associated costs of upgrading their projectors from 35 mm film to DLP will be fraction of what they are today for technology that will have since been improved many times over.

Those looking for something new in the article will be disappointed. Just the same, thanks for the heads-up, Jeff!

[Frank Granovski]

They should have kept making manual cameras, and with mounts to use Zeiss and/or Leica lenses. They should also have made better lenses for their cams. I've got to track down old ones all the time, and with even these, it is slim pickin'.

[Dennis Hull]

Won't save wear on Don's XL1s tape drive, but I wonder if the Panasonic and Phillips DVD recorders that claim to take Firewire input and convert to DVD discs would save Don's time anyhow?? Would appear to save having to download DV tape info to some editing/conversion computer suite and use computer DVD write drive to burn DVD discs. Anyone have any experience or thoughts on using these $900 DVD recorders to burn DVD disc using Firewire output from DV camcorder??

[Dylan Couper]

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Tanaka : Interesting. Too bad Magic Bullet couldn't remove the artifacts of inane, insipid imbecility from this feature. <g> -->>>


Yep, once you pull all that out though, you are left with a 3 minute long show. :)

[Adrian Douglas]

No wonder they are having trouble, they have licensed Kodak and Fuji to use their F mount on their pro digital cameras which cost a lot less than the Nikon versions

[Ken Tanaka]

And that represents just the titling and credits (which I'm sure are beautifully rendered). ;-)

[Ken Tanaka]

Yes, Nikon became badly tangled by its (1980's) decision to enter a portion of the semiconductor industry, which has seen breathtaking troughs with few intervening peaks during the past decade. Nearly every move in that business costs a player $1bil. That, coupled with a Japanese economy still-swooning from nearly 40 years of self-delusion and a moribund management has really weakened Nikon. It's particularly regrettable because they own the preeminent name in photography.

Japanese companys' financial statements are notoriously opaque and clouded by interpretations. So it would be impossible for anyone except an financial analyst skilled in following Japanese companies to assess Nikon's true position. But, as a layperson, I do not see their aquisition as a viable way forward through. I'd bet that Nikon's whole right now is worth much less than the sum of its parts and that aquisition would certainly lead to demolition. Rather, perhaps overly optimistically, I see them freeing themselves from their millstones and building on their still-powerful consumer and commercial brand identity in the optical spheres.

[Rik Sanchez]

The best thing from the article was using the site's search engine and finding out that there are 3 theaters in town that use digital projectors, now I know where I'm seeing Spy Kids 2.

[Doug Miller]

I was just looking at the Hitachi dockable DVD deck. It is being sold as a broadcast deck and connects to their camera head. I have not found out yet what it will take to connect it to other docable cameras. It appears to be small and lightweight. It is supposed to ship in the next month or so. There are hard drive units that connect to DV so it seems to make sense that DVD field units can't be far away.

[Dan Holly]

Nice story by By Amy Harmon in the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/movies/14DIGI.html

[Ken Tanaka]

Dan,
Thanks so much for posting a link to this very interesting article. I've taken the liberty of moving it to this forum since we've had several other "digital cinema" threads here recently.

[Jeff Donald]

Saw this article about parallel processing and 33 Dual Processor G4 servers http://daugerresearch.com/fractaldem...Benchmark.html

Jeff

[Ken Tanaka]

Naw, still requires an add-in proc. <g>

This is pretty impressive performance. It will take a while for the price/performance relationship of Apple's XServe platform to penetrate the corporate world...if it ever does. But in the scientific world, such as JPL and NOAA, where computing horsepower is of preeminent importance it should be quite a boon.

[Ken Tanaka]

Well it looks like WiebeTech has been busy lately. On the heels of introducing a 200Gb drive in October, they've now topped themselves by offering a 250Gb Firewire / USB drive. That's one heckuva big drive! But unlike their 200Gb SuperGb drive, this big drive is not bus-powered. Also, the product data sheet indicates that it's not a 7200rpm drive, suggesting that it's a 5400rpm unit.

Still, it's a landmark for such a unit. To learn more see their site at:
http://www.wiebetech.com/

[Christian Calson]

Recently saw this feature, from InDigEnt, shot on a PAL PD150. It was beautiful although it had the markings of the brown-y/green-y Sony look, which I'm not a fan of personally, but it was otherwise beautiful and clear. I think there's a slight color difference in shooting between Sony MiniDV and Canon MiniDV. It's probably just me. Good luck to you all on finishing your films. You can find out more about InDigEnt at http://www.indigent.net/.

Christian
www.nebunule.com