Digital Daily System at the Academy of Film and Television HFF Potsdam
HD content should ideally be monitored uncompressed in its source format and resolution. This article describes how future screenings of image sequences with up to 2K resolution will be conducted in several Academy for Film and Television Potsdam (HFF) cinemas. The project centres on three remote-controlled server systems supplied by DVC, feeding Kinoton and Panasonic projectors.
Introduction
Since the end of 2006, in three of the six
cinemas of the Academy for Film and Television Potsdam (HFF) „Konrad
Wolf“ digital acceptance systems are installed which allow the
direct viewing of virtually every type of file based content in
high resolution without conversions or other delays.
The heart of each of these three systems is the DVC ClipRecorder
XTreme DVI whose playback software QuickClip Server, developed
by Drastic Technologies, was specially modified for the use of
HFF Potsdam to achieve more flexibility for file formats,
position and colour-resolution. The students can load the
content to be viewed from the central server to the three
systems. This happens via a web interface developed together by
HFF, DVC and Drastic. The playback functions of the three
systems will be remote controlled with a Crestron media control
from the auditorium. While two of the three systems are
connected to Panasonic DLP projectors of 1280x1024 resolution,
the real highlight of the installation is a DCP 70 D-Cinema
projector. The DCP 70 is based on the DLP-Cinema-Technique of
Texas Instruments (TI), which is purchased from TI by Barco, one
of only three licence holders throughout the world (picture 1).
The projector features a native display with a maximum
resolution of 2048x1080 pixels and corresponds to the DCI-specifications.
The point of origin
The syllabus at the HFF consists of eleven
different study courses and is very practically oriented. Hence,
in the curricula a large number of student projects are fixed.
This leads to a high level of in-house production. Some of these
productions are still accomplished by traditional means - PAL or
negative / lab based. But for a long time animation films have
been produced which are computer generated and file-based at
high-resolution. They are output via the Management Graphics
Cine III film recorder of the HFF or transferred to other HD
formats. Since 2003 a Thomson Spirit Datacine 2K film scanner
with Transfer Engine has been installed at HFF. This combination
allows users to generate DPX files with high resolution from
16-mm or 35-mm film which are supplied to the post production
pipeline via a central Framestore with 15 TB of storage capacity
at the moment.
Other high-resolution file formats are generated by the Final
Cut, Flame, Cyborg, Combustion, Maya and After Effects
workplaces, and also by digital photo cameras for stop motion
animation.
The problem
The increasing file-based processing in
resolutions higher than SD (PAL) led not only to an increased
amount of data, but posed the problem that the file formats used
could not be played back at their native resolution in real-time
with the existing technology.
The data had to be down-converted in a time consuming process
and then transferred to classical VTR formats to scale them to
the HFF cinemas projection screen size. The time this process
was taking was unacceptable not only from the point of not being
able to review content quickly but because of the amount of
storage involved it was in only possible to keep the
high-resolution projects for a short time.
Another problem occurred during film acceptances especially with
the viewing of digital film artefacts in SD formats. As the
presentation of the material was carried out only at lower
resolution this impaired the viewer’s ability to make critical
judgements.
Under these circumstances important details of the film remained
concealed to the viewers and as the next step following the end
acceptance is often the film exposure, which is subject to high
external expenses, poor decisions at this point lead to
unnecessary additional costs.
The aesthetic judgement of newer high-resolution recording
procedures was not possible with down converted material.
However, with the present trend towards high-resolution
productions it is precisely this judgement that is critical
within the scope of film education and the investigation of
newer artistic representation forms.
Method of resolution
The solution of the problem described was to be reached by the use of systems which satisfied the following criteria:
- Playback of all file formats used at the HFF
on a real-time basis with the synchronous binding of initially
up to six audio channels
- Display of all formats and colour depths used in the
production process
- Integration in a high-speed network for rapid transfer of data
and future ability to connect to a SAN.
- Complete remote control of the systems, both during the
loading of files and also during all playback functions to allow
an easy and secure workflow to a wide range of users without the
involvement of further support staff.
To find out how a system to solve these issues was developed by DVC download the rest of this case study here.
Since 1990 DVC Digitalvideo Computing GmbH has
been producing and selling integrated system solutions for the
DigitalVideo and HDTV markets. DVC is the European master
distributor for several well-known manufacturers in the HDTV/Digitalvideo,
desktop video, broadcasting and streaming media market. DVC’s
own product lines include the ClipRecorder and ScreenDisk series
and the MPEGEngine for uncompressed disk recording and high-end
encoding; examples are film scanning, video post-editing and
broadband video transfer. Together with Kinoton, as a strategic
partner, DVC offers Server systems and solutions for the growing
future markets of DigitalCinema and HD presentation.
View the website: www.digitalvideo.de:
Contact: Harald Nater ; Tel: +49 8152 93010; Email: info@digitalvideo.de