Topic: NTT
Category: Audio/Video
Technorati: Linking Blogs

You may remember our report of JVC's "4K2K D-LIA Projector," and there's a demonstration of it in action.

JVC provided the projector, and NTT provided the 8MP video. 4K has a resolution of 4096 x 2180; at 24fps and RGB10bit, the uncompressed 2 hour video weighed in at 6.5TB. NTT's compression format of choice was JPEG200, for some reason.

NTT, NTT West Japan, NTT East Japan, and the Tokyo International Film Festival Committee have announced that they will hold a demonstration of a 4K digital cinema system at the 17th annual Tokyo International Film Festival, to be held from October 23rd to 31st.

At the demonstration, devices using the 4K specification as being promoted by the "Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI)," comprised of Hollywood movie studios, will be used to play a "4K Digital Cinema" version of "Shitsu Rakuen."

The demonstration itself will be held for o­ne day each in both Osaka and Tokyo - Osaka will be o­n October 25th at the Navio TOHO Plex (Osaka Shikitaku Kakudachou 7-10 HEP NAVIO 8F), to open doors at 7:00 PM and raise the curtains at 7:20 PM. Tokyo will be o­n October 28th at Cinema Mediage (Minatoku Odaiba 1-7-1 Aqua City inside Odaiba Mediage), with doors opening at 7:00 PM and curtains raising at 7:20PM.

Registrations for the demonstration will be taken o­nline - the Tokyo show will accept registrations at MovieWalker, and the Osaka demonstration registrations will be accepted at the Official Application Site, "Eiga no Hanamichi," and Goo Movies. The cutoff is 1:00 PM o­n the 18th. Furthermore, because "Shitsu Rakuen" is rated R15, those under 15 years of age will not be admitted.

The projector used will be Victor's "4K2K D-LIA Projector." The video used will be in an 8MP system developed by NTT, which takes 35mm film and "telecines" it using a DCI standard 4K resolution (4096 x 2180 dot), at 24fps, using RGB10bit video. The roughly 2 hour video uncompressed is 6.5TB, but using JPEG2000, it has been compressed to 385GB. Data is transferred to the JPEG2000 decoder using an IP network connection from the server, is decoded, then output to the projector.

While this demonstration will actually have a server at the site to output video, NTT has said that it is possible to transmit 4K video from remote locations using an fiber optic connection.

Mr. Yuuji Inoue, president of NTT's 3rd management division, spoke about the merits of digital cinema. He emphasized that the major advantages were the reduced operation costs such as those stemming from film deterioration, as well as video quality when comparing the images of copying and re-copying film. (Don't know if that came out so clearly; he's talking about losing generations when you copy from an analog video source.)

Furthermore, as the digitalization of the video enables transmission to be done over the internet, Mr. Inoue said that "From a technical standpoint, opening movies at the same time throughout the world would be simple; you can also transmit the same video as the original." Also, since DCI is currently tackling the question of security standards, "the system can also defend against damage coming from pirated copies of movies. Transmission can be done for a limited amount of time."

As for NTT's involvment with digital cinema, Mr. Inoue said that "this is o­ne pillar of our broadband business that will use fiber optics. We would like to become involved with the development and industrialization of this technology while accepting the reaction of the audience of this demonstration."

Mr. Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, General Producer of the Tokyo International Film Festival explains: "I am extremely happy that we are able to demonstrate this 4K digital cinema. The world of movies will change greatly. I feel that just like going from publishing to paperless, digital cinema using broadband will be extremely important to moviegoers."

As for the digital cinema expansion of the future, it was predicted that "while cinema complexes (cinecon) are growing in Japan, American cinema complexes feature o­nly Hollywood movies - even if the theater has 8 screens, 3 of them are showing 'Harry Potter,' for example. Thanks to the reduced costs provided by the switch to digital cinema, independent films and those not intended for general audiences can be chosen by those who want to see them." Also hinted at what the fusion of TV and movie; following from the digitalization of TV broadcast example, it should be simple to broadcast to TVs soon after the movies, or even broadcast TV shows in movie theaters.

Furthermore, although the "4K2K Projector" made by Victor used during this demonstration is mostly the same as the o­ne displayed at CEATEC, as far as hardware is concerned, "the video has been customized for movies by 24P and such, so I think the video quality is quite different."



Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20041014/4k.htm

Press Release:
http://www.ntt.co.jp/news/news04/0410/041014.html