Sophia Antipolis, France—May 21, 2004
Doremi Plays D-Cinema in Cannes
Doremi Technologies, the D-Cinema branch of Doremi Labs Inc., Burbank CA, took
part in the digital screening of James Cameron’s latest movie ‘Ghosts of the
Abyss’ before an audience of 2,500 selected VIPs, including the Director
himself, at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie breaks new technical ground as
it is shot and posted in 3D using the 1080/23.98P 10-bit HD standard. Of the
many digital screenings at Cannes this year, this was unique as the only one
sourced from disk rather than tape.
Those who had seen other screenings of the movie were highly impressed with
this, its first 3D digital screening in Europe. Comments were very favourable in
general and some considered the digital projection as was ahead, particularly
for quality, colours and 3D relief.
The set-up for the 3D projection reflected the current state-of-the-art in
D-Cinema technology. It used synchronised ‘left eye’ and ‘right eye’ replays,
each of which came from a standalone Doremi V1-UHD HD uncompressed HD disk
recorder with 70-minute internal storage working at 23.98P, 10 bits. A third and
fourth V1-UHD were used as a backup with 140 minutes of material mirroring the
two ‘eyes’. The replay of all four devices was run from a DNF disk control
panel, also complete with a standby, so the backup material was always instantly
available to replace any faulty ‘eye’ playback. In the event, the backup was not
needed.
Precise frame synchronization of the replay of the two ‘eyes’ was essential for
both the images and the sound to be correct. This was achieved by use of the
advanced Digital Genlocking module embedded in V1-UHDs for the purpose of making
accurate frame-synch replays of multiple synchronised sources.
Projection used two Barco ELM R18 Director projectors installed at the Louis
Lumiere Grand Auditorium. Each was capable of throwing 17,000 ANSI lumens onto
the polarised 18-metre screen specially made for the event by Demospec. The
audio was also sourced by the Doremi V1-UHDs as a part of their replay. For
this, each of the ‘left and ‘right’ players delivered a total of three AES
channels to supply the resident six-channel (5.1) Dolby installation.
The Doremi V1-UHD is an uncompressed 4:2:2 HD real-time disk recorder able to
operate at 8 or 10 bits, 4:2:2 resolution in any HDTV standard. Besides its use
in showcase D-cinema, it is an affordable highest-quality drop-in VTR
replacement for the growing HD post market. It contains many practical features
such as the convenience of mixed formats on the disk, VTR-like controls, front
panel LCD display and an SD monitoring output as well as HD-SDI. In addition the
Doremi range includes disk recorders suitable for various D-cinema applications
– and any SD or HD digital projection or display requirements.