Our last day of presentations started off with a Washington, DC Update on legislative actions which affect the TV and motion picture industries.  The presentation is given each year by Jim Burger, who is a DC media lawyer and lobbyist for various industry groups and his presentation is always entertaining, regardless of the fact he is a lawyer.

The main DC issues to cover this year were the ubiquitous "Analog Shut Off" of terrestrial broadcast TV, Digital Rights Management issues and the Digital Television 'Broadcast Flag" which is designed to prevent DTV programming from being illegally distributed on the internet.

Well, as I have recently written for our latest PMI newsletter, a final date was finally agreed upon and sent to President Bush, which sets the date for analog transmissions to end at February 17, 2009.  This is just after the Super Bowl game that year and was moved up from one of the other proposed dates right after March Madness. (Note:  When Jim mentioned the Super Bowl, his power point played the Steeler fight song – Here We Go!)  I guess the politicians are bigger football fans than they are basketball!  Other provisions include a subsidy of one-and-one-half billion dollars to provide owners of analog TV receivers to obtain A-to-D (analog to digital) converters called the "Grandma Provision" or some such thing and some other various public service funding, such as the 9/11 Fund.  I believe there were also some provisions for educating the public through the transition, as well.

Unfortunately, somebody realized a clerical error was made that caused the bill presented to the House and the Senate for approval to differ slightly and now its legality is being challenged.  There are even lawsuits being filed!  Yikes! And we PAY these people in Washington!!  So, we still may not have a final end to this thing.

When talking about Digital Rights Management, Jim took us through a brief history of big studio lawsuits, going back to Sony being sued over Betamax VCR's.  Now studios are suing search engine sites for "inducing" users to illegally obtain their content.  He mentioned the mantra "People are bad, devices are not" when talking about studios trying to sue people for supplying equipment and software that could be used to obtain copyrighted materials illegally, along with legally received content.

The famed "Broadcast Flag" issue goes way back.  The flag is a part of the DTV ATSC standard that provides for the insertion of a certain code in the digital broadcast data stream that would prevent television content from being disseminated over the internet.  But the FCC has never been able to get a law passed that required receivers to utilize the flag or for broadcasters to insert it.  At one point, a couple years ago, CBS (I think it was) threatened to pull all of their HDTV programming if the flag usage was not mandated.  It wasn't and they didn't.  And that is history. 

Well, the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC was overstepping its bounds by proposing the enforcement of the flag.  But now, Congress is trying to introduce a NEW bill to reinstate the thing.  They are also trying to include an audio protection flag for digital radio (I guess stuff like Sirius and the like?) which should muddy the whole issue. 

There was another presentation following Jim by a person from Universal Studios about Content Piracy and how content flows like water.  He described a scenario where a river splits into two branches for a while and then re-connects later.  One branch of the river he likened to a raging river, which represented pirated material and the other branch as a dry creek bed, which stood for legally obtained content.  It was good for a few laughs, but he then gave the sobering fact that Univeral alone loses over a billion dollars a year on piracy. 

So it is Universal's (and other studios) big job to try to stem this tide.  One possible solution presented was to make obtaining legal content as easy as possible for the consumer.  An example of this would be services like iTunes, which has made legally purchasing and downloading as easy and quick as possible, at a good price.  Another way is to provide the content at a good quality level.  To prove both of these two points, he showed a Saturday Night Live commercial parody from his laptop, on the two huge Panasonic DLP projector screens we were using all week.  He had purchased this the day before on iTunes for $2.  He played it, we all laughed and then he told us it was being shown at 320 x 240 pixels, scaled up to the 1920 x 1080 projectors.  Was there artifacts?  Yes.  Were they noticeable?  Sure.  Did this interfere with the pleasure we all had in viewing it?  Absolutely not!  In fact, so long as the audio is good (which it was) who cares what it looks like!  We just wanted to hear the jokes. Good point.

A rather basic and dry presentation followed on Editing Long-GOP MPEG Video.  What is a GOP?  Well, in MPEG compressed video streams a GOP stands for Group of Pictures.  This is basically a series of frames that separate full-quality frames called "I" frames.  Other frames between I frames contain only information that has changed since the last I frame, among other stuff.  MPEG-2 compression used in the hot technology known as HDV video is something like 15 frames in length.  That means that there is only two actual "frames" of video in one full second.  Basically, edits could only be made every ½ second, which just does not work for most applications.  Instead, the video either has to be completely decoded back into full-frames before editing can take place, or a native HDV editing application has to "re-encode" the stream at the desired edit points.  Suffice to say that manufacturers of editing systems are certainly working on solutions for this, as a lot of money is to be made in the technology.  A huge amount!

Next was a session which addressed some issues which were brought up on the first day of the presentations, concerning Formatting for Multiple Aspect Ratios.  The SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, a standards-setting body for the film and video industry) has proposed a set of recommended practices concerning the automatic of displays for different aspect ratios.  The presenter outlined several examples of how bad aspect display can happen.  In fact, I noticed an example of it right in the lobby of the hotel, where they have spent lots of money installing nice wide-screen plasma screens into the walls, mostly for displaying the day's schedule of events and other information.  One of these screens, though, has a TV receiver connected near a cozy spot off the lobby right above a fireplace.  Well, all the stations received on the set were standard 4:3 aspect ratio and the display was set to stretch the picture to fill the wide-screen display, which is a common mistake among wide-screen owners.  So, everyone looks 30 pounds heavier on those screens!

OK, so the proposed system would include a short burst of information packaged with each field or frame of video, buried in the "VANC" (Vertical Ancillary) area of the digital data stream, where stuff like closed caption and V-Chip data is hidden (along with digital audio in an SDI "baseband" signal).  This data, called AFD (Automatic Format Descriptor) would start at the original source (camera or telecine) and would then be carried throughout the production and distribution chain and eventually to the receiver.  This data would have provisions for indication of 4:3 or 16:9 aspect, "bar" data for setting the width of letter or shutter box bars, when other aspects are used and "pan and scan" data for determining cropping information, when it is needed.  This latter information can be updated each field, if needed, to provide dynamic picture positioning on small-format displays. 

The camera-to-display carriage of metadata would ensure proper display settings, but this would not always set well with wide-screen display owners.  Not many consumers out there are not happy spending multiple-thousands of dollars on plasma screens in order to watch 4:3 programs with shutter-boxes on the left and right.  This is the main reason for the "over weight" picture I described before.  But, it does provide a good way for setting a display automatically, when proper operation is desired.  The carrying-out of this practice will be a joint responsibility, shared between SMPTE, the professional equipment manufacturers, broadcasters and the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) which sets standards for home TV receivers and monitors.

This led to another session concerning another pesky DTV problem, one of improper Lip-Sync for Audio and Video.  This problem stems from the fact that both digital video and audio are processed and carried as separate streams of information, via different paths from origination, through post-production and distribution.  This "double-system" technique is nothing new, however.  Even in analog television, tape recorders lay video and audio to separate tracks on the tape and at TV stations video and audio are broadcast on completely separate carriers.  But the opportunities for losing the synchronization between the two worlds were minimal in the analog world.  It is much easier to lose sync in the digital world, however.  In fact, some parts of digital systems (especially digital displays and set-top boxes) have a delay that changes under different conditions.

Again, a proposal is in the works to try to provide a solution to this problem and to also provide an indicator when lip-sync is lost.  There are two approaches being taken in tackling this problem.  One is to embed and hidden synchronization signal from the original source which would be carried throughout the chain.  Another is a more localized approach, where lip sync is checked and ensured at each step and then carried through the chain a step at a time, re-inserting the sync-check signal at each step.  There are lots of pitfalls with both methods that will need to be worked out, but this system could work, if made to be robust enough.  Once again, it will take cooperation between various entities to make this work.  As Peter Symes of Grass Valley, who was the session moderator, put it, "This problem is, frankly, an embarrassment to the industry…".    Well put, I think.

Wow, all of this and it isn't even lunch time, yet!  For the past few years the Tech Retreat has hosted Steve Lampen of Belden to speak.  The subject:  Wire and cables.  You know, that stuff we use everyday to carry our signals from one place to another?  That technology we all take for granted most of the time?

One would think a half-hour talk about wire might be a tad boring, but Steve's talks are anything but.  I think he should tape them and release DVD's!  (Hey, there's a business opportunity!)  This year Steve chose the technology of twisted-pair cables.  Twisted pairs have been around as long as telephone systems have.  They are the basic wiring technology of the telecommunications industry.  And now, thanks to the proliferation of computer networking, twisted pairs (multiple twisted pairs, actually) have received even more attention. 

Four-pair twisted cabling has become the de-facto standard of both home and professional computer networks.  Steve gave us a quick review of the history of network cables, going way back to the days of "thicknet" Ethernet cables, up to the present "standard", the Cat5e twisted pair cable.  Each step along the pathway provided faster data rate carriage, with minimal attenuation and degradation of the signals.  The Cat5e cable provides a 1000mbps (mega-bits per second) data rate, referred to commonly as "Gigabit Ethernet". 

The next step in this technology is Category 6 cabling.  This cable provides a small plastic separator down the center to properly space the individual pairs.  Another further iteration is the Cat6a cable which has the separator plus an overall spiraling plastic cord to keep adjoining cables from getting too close.  All of this with the goal of higher data rates, which also require all other components to become critical, connectors and patch cords included.  So, special versions of these are being released for high speed applications.

But an interesting thing happens at this 10gbps rate.  The good old coaxial cable, the stuff many plants have TONS of running around their plant, becomes a good carrier for this data.  All that is needed is small, inexpensive passive converters, called "baluns" (for balanced-to-unbalanced).  So, we may have the opportunity to reuse some of that stuff we already have so much of.

After lunch, we had a session on the subject of Audio Metadata in Digital TV Systems.  This has been a long-lived subject in digital television and there was not too much new information here.  But it did get me to think a bit about how audio levels are set and monitored these days.  This may cause me to consider some changes in my own plant concerning audio levels.

One interesting note was a comparison of the "old way" of setting analog audio levels, where signals were normally set to a maximum level at all times, to keep the signal to noise ratio as large as possible.  This is why standard analog Vu (Volume Unit) meters only had 3 decibels of signal above the reference zero level.  However, in digital audio, noise is not much of a factor, but clipping of digital audio signals is harsh.  So, the "reference" level is set quite a bit lower, usually at -20db.  This provides 20 decibels of "headroom" above the reference, which is quite a bit more play-space than 3 decibels used to be.  Signals can be much more dynamic, but peaks can go much higher than what older analog systems would allow. 

The last sessions of the Retreat were on data compression for digital video.  This is something we all use daily in our jobs, but the nuts-and-bolts of the technology can bore you to tears!  A couple gems came from the sessions, however. 

One point of clarification was made concerning H.264, AVC, and MPEG-4 Part10:  They are all exactly the same thing!  No need, I guess, for an AVC-to-H.264 converter!  This compression format is the "hot" system of the moment, as it is used in mobile video applications, such as video podcasting.

Here's a good one:  So, film-based material has a inherent grain pattern in its texture.  Some say this is part of film's "look".  But, many compression techniques see this grain as noise and either filter it out or suffer a higher data rate.  This can result in decoded video with a "plastic" look, when the grain is removed or when compression artifacts replace the grain.

OK, so the proposed "solution" to this dilemma is to pre-filter the video to remove the grain before the compression takes place and then add it back at the decoder before it is displayed.  These guys are serious about this!!  They actually have created a set of metadata tags that would describe the grain to be re-inserted.  Granularity size and shape and other variations would control the look at the decoder.  I wonder if there could be user-settings in decoders for this?  "Hey, I think I would like the grain in this movie to be a little more annoying. Crank up the grain factor!"

Well, the 12^th Annual Tech Retreat has come to a close.  I have been writing this blog entry throughout the course of the day on Friday, at the airport Friday night and now at home on Saturday.  I plan to probably write one more entry, later this weekend, to wrap this up and perhaps report a bit about some of the technology displays which were shown. 

Big shouts to the DS List members reading this blog, along with all the PMI folks at home.  Thanks for the positive feedback.

Happy to be home, where there is at least some humidity in the air,

Ed

Hi folks.  Well, I just got back from the annual softball tournament held at a replica of Fenway Park at a huge local softball complex called "Big League Dreams".  Well, there was good news and bad news.  The good news is that niether I or anyone else injured themselves in any way.  The bad news is that my team lost twice in a row.  Oh, well. It's just for fun!

I have posted the pictures I have taken on a quick web page I threw together on my personal Verizon Online Account.  (Don't worry ML, it doesn't cost anyhing!)   So check them out at: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze8nunp/

A bit sore,

Ed

Well, today at the Tech Retreat, it was Big Boy Day.  All of the "west of Burbank" subjects were on the block today, ranging from large format video cameras and issues surrounding the implementation of D-Cinema (Digital Cinema).  While these subjects do not pertain to a whole lot of what I or my company do, they are interesting, none the same.  When it comes to TV Technology, this series is Geek Heaven!

Speaking of paradise, the weather here does not suck.  Mid-seventies and sunny today which is expected to continue through the weekend.  I am sitting on my room's balcony typing this now, which overlooks one of the pools and has a water slide running right in front.  Makes me wish I brought a swim suit (and my wife and kids!).  Just to make you feel bad for me, I have posted a picture of the view from my door.  They have some nice blue skies out here. 

Well, back to biz.  Several companies have developed very large format (super-duper hi-rez) cameras to serve high-end feature film uses (among other uses).  The one that deserves a special mention is the D20 camera from Arri, world-famous maker of film cameras.  The D20 was designed from the ground up to closely emulate a 35mm film camera.  So, it has features such as a 35mm CMOS image sensor which allows standard 35 mm prime and zoom lenses to be used.  Other "filmic" features include an optical viewfinder, with a rotating mirror and a 10-stop latitude of dynamic range.  The frame rate is variable from 1 to 60 frames-per-second, for over and under cranking operation.  The image rez is a huge 2880 x 2160 pixels, the image data from which is externally recorded on several options, including Sony HDCam-SR tape or a disk-based recording system. 

One especially exciting fact is that these cameras are available and are in use by the studios at this time for feature shooting.  They have been tested and evaluated by many well-known cinematographers, many of whose work we got to see clips of.  I have NO idea what such a camera costs, if it is even able to be purchased.

Other "big" cameras were discussed, most of which were in development by Japanese companies.  These cams had horizontal resolutions up to 8000 pixels.  Other cameras can capture up to 12K of resolution, which is just incredible.

Another interesting application presentation which utilized images from cameras like these was from Stargate Films.    These folks have a workflow they call the "Digital Backlot" where they are taking very high-rez background images (sometimes several which they "stitch" together) and then inserting green-screen shots of actors.  Then they do big virtual camera moves of the resulting picture in a 3D composting system.  They showed several examples of this and the results are stunning.  Very cool stuff.  One of the scenes was for a pilot which had scenes Moscow.  Instead of taking crews and actors to Russia, they just went a shot the background scenes and then added the actors later.  One of the examples was in a Moscow subway station, where they were not really supposed to be shooting.  So, the used a handheld HDV camera to get the shots they needed for the backgrounds and then stitched several of these plates together, then shooting the actors on green with the proper lighting.  The speaker mentioned that any shots in the TV series ER where the actors appear to be in Chicago are utilizing this technique.

There was also a great presentation on the new style of 3D Film Production which is beginning to really take off.  Several studios and their recent 3D projects were presented, including Disney with "Chicken Little" and Imageworks with "Polar Express" and the upcoming "Monster House".  3D is no longer a "gimmick" as it has been in the past and is now a way to create a more immersive viewing experience.  Gone are the days of "spears in the eye", as one presenter put it.  Instead, a quality 2D story is created and 3D is added later.  In fact, with animated projects such as Chicken Little, the 3D left-eye and right-eye images are simply created within the computer.  Other live-action films are shot with a dual camera system with which to create the stereoscopic image. 

Another company called In Three has a proprietary method where they can actually take existing 2D movies and create 3D images from them.  This method has incredible potential.  How does "The Wizard of Oz" sound in 3D?  How about "Casablanca"?  It is possible and about to start happening. 

A Texas Instruments rep discussed the types of 3D presentation system used in theatres to display these productions.  The implementation of Digital Cinema is a huge enabling technology for 3D presentations.  Using high-rez video projectors, just one projector needs to be used, using active or passive polarization of the light which the projector emits.  This makes distributing 3D movies much more economical.

Speaking of Digital Cinema, it was the subject of the entire afternoon's presentation.  D-Cinema is basically the use of permanently-installed high resolution video projectors and digital video servers at local theaters.  Features and trailers are then electronically delivered to the theaters and shown on the projectors.  This concept has huge cost savings potential for studios and theater owners.  Also, rights-management issues are easily addressed, as studios can control the length of time and number of times a feature can be played before it is removed from the server. 

Well the good news is that D-Cinema is happening and the standards group which has been formed to guide the implementation is working well.  The DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) group is made up of various studio and post facility representatives who have worked out the standards necessary for this technology to work.

Basically, the digital information of the feature film's picture, audio and subtitles are packed into a DCP (Digital Cinema Package).  This file consists of JPEG2000 compressed video at either 2K or 4K resolution, 16 channels of 48Khz or 96Khz digital audio and other metadata all multiplexed into one file which is then delivered to the theater's servers, via satellite or other delivery mediums. 

Tests presented using D-Cinema include "The Corpse Bride", "Batman Returns" and the last "Harry Potter" installment from Warner Brothers, "Serenity" from Universal and "Chronicles of Narnia" from Disney, along with the previously mentioned "Chicken Little" in 3D.  This exciting technology is literally coming to a theater near you.

Well, tonight is the annual softball game, so I have to run.  I have heard that pictures I have posted on Myspace require readers to sign-up with Myspace.  I will try to fix this, if possible, or maybe find another place to post them.

See you later,

Ed

Mark Schubin, a television technology consultant and author from New York and easily the most knowledgeable person I know, is the director of the HPA Tech Retreat and has been for a number of years.  I always thought it was a good sign that a Hollywood-based group would use an expert from the east coast (or "the world west of Burbank" as the HPA president has been known to say.) to direct their seminars.

Anyway, Mark always does a session himself called the Technology Review.  He always presents lots of TV facts about recent technology related to our industry.  Some of the "highlights" this year include the ability to purchase a high-definition camcorder (HDV) for LESS than $800.  A 1 gigabyte memory card for LESS than $50.  And the fact that $2 media downloads are now a BIG business.  One can purchase (in Japan, I think) software for $20 that automatically fixes lip sync.

Other recent odd offerings that the DTV revolution has brought us include, a camera pan-head designated as "high-definition" and studio lights called "digital". (Someone commented that they are digital - they're either "on" or "off"!)   How about the fact that you can buy a "disposable" video camera at the local CVS for about $30?  And the HDV (High-Definition Digital Video) cameras I mentioned previously?  There were over 30,000 HDV cameras sold before March of 2005.  They will be everywhere!

On the storage front, the BIG news is that in the past year there were NO new tape formats introduced by anybody.  There have been less and less each year and this year it finally happened.  Hey, big news: Tape is dying!  There is a new TIVO-like device in development which records ALL channels, ALL the time, so viewers will never miss anything they want to watch.  Yikes! I'd love one of those!  And the high-definition DVD war is about to heat-up, with both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD format about to hit the market (possibly this April).  Both formats use MPEG compression, so MPEG lives on!  (The same type of compression is used in HDV camcorders.)

The Broadcast Panel is always a good event at the Retreat.  There were high-level representatives from ABC, CBS, NBC-Universal, Fox, PBS, Sinclair Group and even the soon-to-be-gone WB.  Most reported on the high-level of HD programming their networks are offering.  Some even showed us clips, as though we had never seen HD before.  But, for the most part, their comments were positive and most agreed that over-the-air broadcasting still has a long life ahead, although alternative distribution methods will be important for them to utilize, as content providers.

The panel discussion on the Video Consumer Marketplace included a diverse group including reps from NBC-Universal, Direct TV, CEDIA (a trade group for home system designers and custom installers) and Sharp.  The NBC person described 3 important factors they consider when looking at alternate distribution paths- Quality, Security and to not find themselves competing against those who provide material "illegal and free".  The CEDIA rep claimed that much of the problems associated with DTV when it comes to consumer confusion and such is born by the equipment installers.  And Sharp reported something I have commented on myself, which is the fact that many consumers have high-definition-capable equipment and do not know how to use it properly.  Or, worse, they have no access to HD programming or do not know they can get it free, right over the air in most big markets. 

A Pittburgh-based presenter, Tom McDonough, which some of you "old-timers" at PMI will remember, gave a presentation on Mobile Video Services.  Tom works for Azcar in the 'Burgh, a systems designer and integration company, and recently worked on the new network operations center for locally-based Crown Castle Communications for their soon-to-hit "Modeo" mobile video distribution system.  This and other similar systems in the works enable users of wireless mobile devices, such as cell phones, laptops, PDA's and handheld media players to capture video and audio content.  These types of programs could include linear-style presentations such as streaming "live" video and non-linear programs that get downloaded and watched later (like a podcast).

Tom gave us lots of technical details on these types of systems and also some of the "business model" stuff on how these companies plan to make money on this technology.  He tossed the term "Content Aggregator" out at one point, which got me thinking of the future.  Hmmmm.

There was a long session presented on Digital Content Management, presented by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America).  Suffice to say that this is a very important subject for content providers which can be technically daunting and confusing.  The end goal, however, is to make this complicated subject as transparent to the user as possible.  Good luck on that. 

The bottom line is that the big studios do not want to release their high-def digital content on ay format that will allow it to be copied at will and distributed via cheap disks or free on the internet.  But they DO want to release their HD digital content!

Well that wraps-up the first day of fun and excitement.  More on Thursday.  (Hey, it IS Thursday!  I'd better get moving!)

Your dry freind in the desert,

Ed

Here's fun fact I just heard on the news:  It takes over 3,000 cows to provide the leather used to make footballs for one NFL season.  That's a lot of beef!  It probably took a thousand of them just for the balls used in the recent Steeler Super Bowl victory, as the ball was changed after every play (so there could be many "authentic Super Bowl souvenir balls to be later sold).

The entire morning session was devoted to display technology and the problems and advantages the newer technology has for those involved in post-production.  Why is this an issue for the post community?  Well, our traditional "reference" display in edit and QC rooms has always been the CRT-based monitor (monitors with "picture tubes").  These monitors can be very precise and consistent in their displays and are fairly easily calibrated and match to one another.  So, a picture seen on one monitor looks the same on another within or between facilities. 

But the venerable CRT (cathode ray tube)-based display is being quickly phased-out.  This is due to two main reasons.  First, the consumer electronics world is king when it comes to display technology.  Manufacturers will make MUCH more money selling millions of inexpensive consumer displays than they ever will selling expensive reference displays to post houses and the like.  And, as the consumer world moves to sexy, flat-screen technologies such as LCD and Plasma displays, so must the professional market.  The second reason is an environmental one.  Picture tubes require a fairly high content of lead and other ecologically dangerous elements in their design to work properly.  And the millions of CRT's which are discarded inside old TV sets go into landfills, where these elements eventually leak into and poison the environment.  There have been international agreements signed by equipment manufacturers to cut back significantly the use of these materials.

So, getting decent CRT reference monitors is already getting to be a problem, as manufacturers begin to phase them out and they will continue to get harder to come by.  It would make a certain amount of sense for post facilities to switch to the newer technologies anyway, as that is what people will be watching future television on, anyway.  At least this basic idea makes sense.  But, of course, there is much more to the story.

One problem is the many new types of technology and their various advantage and disadvantages.  The newer display types vary wildly when it comes to important factors such as brightness, black levels and colorimetry.  These new displays can be divided into two groups; direct view and projection.  Obviously, the most direct replacements for CRT monitors would be direct view displays, but projection systems also have their place in some post applications, especially when resolutions exceed what we currently call high-definition, such as digital-intermediary (DI) work for feature films.

The world of displays is one of acronyms, so I will try to define each of them, as we go!

Direct view technologies include LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and PDP (Plasma Display Panels) technologies.  Projection technologies include DLP (Digital Light Processor), LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) and SXRD (Silicon Crystal Reflective Display).  All of these displays are called "Fixed Pixel Displays" (FPD) which means that individual pixels (picture elements) are fixed in a permanent grid pattern.  By definition, CRT's do not have pixels but are rather made of a continually-varying electron beam scanning across and down a surface of phosphors. 

Another major difference between these technologies and the CRT is the color gamut they can display.  "Gamut" refers to all of the different colors that a display can reproduce.  Most new displays fall short of the CRT's gamut, especially in the green axis.  Brightness levels and black levels are also major differences.

Other non-color issues pertain to the fact that all of these "digital" displays are inherently progressive in nature.  This means that each "scan line" is traced sequentially from the top to the bottom of the screen.  But, most "normal" video formats are interlaced, which means odd-numbered lines are scanned first and then even lines follow.  Translating these interlaced frames into progressive frames for display is referred to as "de-interlacing" and can prevent many problems depending upon how this processing is done.  Other processing problems include scaling the input picture to fit the FPD, noise handling and film-mode detection.

One company's solution, Silicon Optix who now owns the well-known company Teranex, offers a high-quality outboard processor, which will translate incoming video and feeds the display with its native resolution and format.  This way, the display's own internal processing, which is generally inferior, is never utilized.

Another company called E-Cinema Systems, purchases raw display panels from manufacturers and designs and builds their own processors and associated driver electronics.  This type of reference monitor includes careful inspection of these LCD panels to weed out any with defects, which are normally acceptable in consumer electronics. 

One additional consideration is the delay this processing introduces.  When used in conjunction with CRT monitors, this sync delay is quite noticeable.  Even when used alone, companion audio delays must be included to maintain "lip-sync".

A few future display technologies include LED (Light Emitting Diode) usage for ultra-bright displays and SED (Surface Emitting Diode) systems which simulate a "thin CRT" type of display, which could also be on a thin, flexible surface.

The afternoon Wednesday sessions include Mark Schubin's annual Technology Review and the broadcaster panel, among a few other subjects, which I will write more about later.  I'm bushed!

See ya',

Ed

Hello, from Ranch Mirage, California, the site of the annual HP Tech Retreat, which begins on Wednesday.  So, as it is now Tuesday evening, there is nothing yet to report.

The trip in was just fine.  Pittsburgh to Phoenix; Phoenix to Ontario, CA; A rental car into the Palm Springs area.  Rocky Bleier (former 70's-era Pittsburgh Steeler) was on the flight into Phoenix.  Wow!

I have not been to Phoenix in 10 years or so.  I noticed that it is MUCH smoggier now than it was then.  Probably a sign of the humongous population growth.  For those readers who do not know much PMI history, we used to have a Division in Phoenix many moons ago.  It was a "learning experience", for sure.  I think David was able to fly there and back in his sleep!

By the way, Tuesdays that follow holiday Mondays are called "Virtual Monday" by regular business commuters at the airport.  The security line went all the way to the door, which I was told is normal for Mondays on regular weeks.

Well, since I had a rental car with unlimited mileage and an afternoon to kill, I decided to take a drive through the Johua Tree National Park, which is just a short distance from Palm Springs.  What a place!  Just miles and miles of nothing but huge rocks, cactus and, of course, the famous Joshua Trees.  Tons of them.  There were many moments when I felt like I was the only one around for miles and miles.  When I turned off the main road and shut off the car, I could hear ringing in my ears, it was THAT quiet.  A real cathedral of nature, for sure.  I may get to post a picture or two in my Myspace.com account, if I get the time (and the right connection!).

Well, I'll add some better stuff tomorrow. Special hugs and kisses to my wife and kids at home.  I love you!  Sorry, all you other readers - I love you, too!

See you Wednesday.

Ed

Hi.  This is my new blog on Myspace.com.  Thanks for checking it out!  I am planning to use this space to log my trip to the 2006 HPA Technology Retreat.  But, I do not leave until next Tuesday, so see you then.

Ed