NAB The National Association of Broadcasters holds an annual meeting in Las Vegas. It's huge, largest in the world, and the exposition takes all of the LV Convention Center and the Hilton center as well.
After several days, looking at hundreds of millions of dollars at the largest video and broadcast convention in the world, the rush is on to 3-D. SONY, Panasonic, Hitachi, JVC, and hundreds of others are rushing into HD. Some looks pretty good, some not good, and headaches abound after watching misaligned 3-D.
Formats abound as well. As best we could figure there are at least 15 different non compatible formats. Of course the best systems are also HD. 3D requires dual images and HD 3-D requires twice the band width.
Opinion:
As a producer/director I like 3-D for certain projects, but in general I don't like it. 3-D is a production pain in the neck. It's a lot more more expensive, more difficult to shoot, and often gets in the way of story. Avitar thrived on it, and the 2D version is not nearly as good. The story in Avitar is generally considered to be not nearly as good as the 3D images. (It's pretty much "Pocahontas" in space). The 3-D made it Avitar an amazing achievement. It should be noted that animated and computer enhanced projects make the best 3-D images.
For the business production it's a cost and production nightmare. The change to new equipment with the associated increase in costs is a lot more than HD, which is still not fully implemented. About 90% of the "industrial production" out there is still standard definition. We shoot in HD but finish in standard definition because our customers simply don't have the capability of HD playback and don't want to even pay extra for HD at meetings. It's a slow transition to HD, and will be slower to 3-D.
Blue Ray is the HD standard for DVD, but it's predicted DVDs will go away in the not too distant future. I did not see any special 3-D playback machines. I think they are doing special encoding for Blue Ray for playback or use other specialized systems. Home 3-D means all new everything, screens, receivers, playback, and of course special glasses to watch TV.
Currently there is zero compatibility between systems and formats, and each requires different different kinds of special glasses.
For production major investment will be needed in new or expensive upgrades to edit systems requiring twice the memory capacity. For now production it takes two cameras instead of one and they have to be mounted on cumbersome rigs requiring special alignment for every shot. Oh yes, don't forget the lenses have to be perfectly matched, as in consecutive serial numbers, so the glass if from the same batch. Don't shoot it perfectly and the audience will get a near instant headache. In a small percentage of people 3-D actually triggers epileptic seizures. Call the lawyer- Joe goes to the corporate meeting and they give him a seizure!!
It is neat, looks cool and is absolutely the latest fad. Conversion from 2-D to 3-D is going on. The 3-D purists hate it, but there are some failures as well as very successful conversions. One of the conversion companies is going to covert some scenes from Proud American for a 3-D test. Of course we'll have to go to a specially equipped studio to see it! But it may be part of our release in theaters.
3-D IS coming, and the technology will get better, a little cheaper and more readily available, but it will be a very slow transition.
As a gimmick I love it. As a storyteller, in it's current form, it tends to get in the way.
The only constant is change. Yes indeed.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Shake Rattle and Roll
Its a beautiful Sunday afternoon, three of us sitting at a bay side restaurant, clear blue sky, warm sunshine pouring in through the open beam ceiling, palm trees gently sway with the fresh ocean breeze , lots of sailboats cruising San Diego bay; it is a "chamber of commerce postcard." Then a rumble and the entire restaurant and deck we are on starts to sway. I turned to Karen and daughter Michelle and together we said, "earthquake." As California people we are used to small quakes now and then, but this one continued longer, and got stronger. Moments later I said go go go - outside now. The patio we were on is on pilings, some 10 to 15 feet over rock and water with wood open beam ceiling and heavy outdoor heaters suspended overhead. The exit from the patio to the parking lot, an open area with no power poles, is just 20 feet from our table at the edge over the water. Most waiters and patrons are looking at each other wondering what to do. A few waiters move to the doorway. There is no panic, no shouting, just a lot of people wondering what to do. We walked very fast to the exit, followed by about 20-30 others. Once in the lot we watch as cars lurched back and forth. As the rocking subsided we jumped in our car and headed out of the lot, turning on the radio as we drove for higher ground. The is a major fault line running off shore San Diego, and if the epicenter was under the ocean nearby, it would likely generate a huge tsunami. Within a minute the radio announced it was a major quake centered inland, near Calexico Ca & Mexicali Mexico. No tsunami, so we returned to the restaurant, went back to our table and our glasses of California Chardonnay. There were three more aftershocks over the next thirty minutes, none big enough to cause another exit, all big enough to be felt by everyone.
Once at home we found one vase broken, and some small items on the floor, but no real damage. Other neighbors had a few broken items as well. The folks in the town of Calexico California near the epicenter fared well considering the quake was larger than the one which struck Haiti. Calexico had major structural damage only to some older downtown buildings which had not been earthquake retrofitted. All the more modern structures held firm. Mexicali, a few feet away across the border, was much harder hit, with many building collapses. Building codes are important. Many commercial structures built to American standards in Mexico remained sound, and it's been reported that several of Mexicali's public buildings sustained major damage. Public buildings there were apparently built to a lesser standard due to cost cutting and corruption according to some reports. Regardless of the reason, as in Haiti, the damage was more severe than it should have been. So far two lives were lost and hundreds injured in those border communities.
The lessons for us; continue to live every day to it's fullest. Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wild fires, lightening, all take their toll and are beyond our control. Traffic accidents are more common, and often more deadly. Celebrate living in a country where the standards are higher, the corruption lower, emergency response superior, and most people do care for one another.
It's a beautiful day, with an aftershocks now and then to remind us of the limits to our "control." Is that rumble a truck going by or...
Its a beautiful Sunday afternoon, three of us sitting at a bay side restaurant, clear blue sky, warm sunshine pouring in through the open beam ceiling, palm trees gently sway with the fresh ocean breeze , lots of sailboats cruising San Diego bay; it is a "chamber of commerce postcard." Then a rumble and the entire restaurant and deck we are on starts to sway. I turned to Karen and daughter Michelle and together we said, "earthquake." As California people we are used to small quakes now and then, but this one continued longer, and got stronger. Moments later I said go go go - outside now. The patio we were on is on pilings, some 10 to 15 feet over rock and water with wood open beam ceiling and heavy outdoor heaters suspended overhead. The exit from the patio to the parking lot, an open area with no power poles, is just 20 feet from our table at the edge over the water. Most waiters and patrons are looking at each other wondering what to do. A few waiters move to the doorway. There is no panic, no shouting, just a lot of people wondering what to do. We walked very fast to the exit, followed by about 20-30 others. Once in the lot we watch as cars lurched back and forth. As the rocking subsided we jumped in our car and headed out of the lot, turning on the radio as we drove for higher ground. The is a major fault line running off shore San Diego, and if the epicenter was under the ocean nearby, it would likely generate a huge tsunami. Within a minute the radio announced it was a major quake centered inland, near Calexico Ca & Mexicali Mexico. No tsunami, so we returned to the restaurant, went back to our table and our glasses of California Chardonnay. There were three more aftershocks over the next thirty minutes, none big enough to cause another exit, all big enough to be felt by everyone.
Once at home we found one vase broken, and some small items on the floor, but no real damage. Other neighbors had a few broken items as well. The folks in the town of Calexico California near the epicenter fared well considering the quake was larger than the one which struck Haiti. Calexico had major structural damage only to some older downtown buildings which had not been earthquake retrofitted. All the more modern structures held firm. Mexicali, a few feet away across the border, was much harder hit, with many building collapses. Building codes are important. Many commercial structures built to American standards in Mexico remained sound, and it's been reported that several of Mexicali's public buildings sustained major damage. Public buildings there were apparently built to a lesser standard due to cost cutting and corruption according to some reports. Regardless of the reason, as in Haiti, the damage was more severe than it should have been. So far two lives were lost and hundreds injured in those border communities.
The lessons for us; continue to live every day to it's fullest. Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wild fires, lightening, all take their toll and are beyond our control. Traffic accidents are more common, and often more deadly. Celebrate living in a country where the standards are higher, the corruption lower, emergency response superior, and most people do care for one another.
It's a beautiful day, with an aftershocks now and then to remind us of the limits to our "control." Is that rumble a truck going by or...
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