Digital Cinema in 10 years time?

[Dave Gray]

Hey Guys,

Just been finishing up my thesis and though it would be a cool discussion to have here. Though it has probably been discussed multiple times before.

I ask the question, as the title suggests:

Where do you think digital cinema will be in 10 years?

A few startling facts to think about.

The first digital cinema camera was only conceived a decade ago when Panavision and Sony teamed up to produce the F900. The first fully digital film was only released 7 Years ago.

Even now red seems like a fairly new company; however they are nearly half as old as digital cinema; well at least a third as old.

Ten years ago I doubt the Sony team thought that in 2009 there would be a camera that cost's less than a small car; shooting with a s35 sized sensor creating 4k resolutions while at the same time looking filmic. By the end of the summer (hopefully) that kind of technology is going to be costing less than.. well a lot of things.

Looking forwards to the responses.

Maybe someone from Red would like to jump in and say where they can see themselves in ten years? If they can even imagine that far ahead? The advancement you guys have made in the 3 years since announcing the red one is astounding.

Just thought maybe this should be moved to cinematography? Feel free to move it if so.

 

[Jannard]

I think that 10 years from now we will see a brand new 16K format in special theaters. 4K will have been the home standard for several years and 8K Wall displays will be common in new houses. Retinal projection systems will be the primary personal delivery system. But what do I know?

Jim

 

[Kevin Wild]

And we'll have the same ratio of great to good to awful movies out there.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Who will be right? Those who insist 2k or 1080p is more than enough resolution, or those that say that more and more resolution is a good thing?

Back in 2001 I personally gave digital cinema 10 years before it was totally mainstream. I'll be keen to see how that prediction holds up in 2011.

Graeme

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

I just posted on another tread:

"ARRI forgot an old German concept from 30s about a mass production car for the people

a.k.a. VOLKSWAGEN... ("Volks" in German = people, "Wagen" in German = Car)

They are still making a notion like in that interview with Franz Kraus, who as CEO of ARRI AG, that making movies is such an elite thing that needs an elite equipment, etc...

From that mistake they didn't learn nothing at all and it means there are not going to be one of the major players in a digital cinema future...

Here we know well who will be one of them for sure... :sifone: "

 

[Dave Gray]

Cheers guys, interesting responses so far. 2011 still another 2 years so could happen. Depends if the distribution system gets sorted out really. I currently only know of one digital cinema within an hours drive of me at the moment.

If we go with Jim and that homes will have 4k/8k what would that do for the average persons T.V/viewing area? Are we going to be seeing houses with panels that are 110" wide?
Are we even going to have that much space in houses if population keeps increasing at this rate? But that's another topic entirely haha.
Retinal projection is certainly a very interesting thought. I didn't realise how far along it was developed.
I'm still not 100% sure your been serious or not on that one though tbh.

Sanjin I don't suppose you've got a link to that article/interview? Could be a good quote for me to use.

Once we get to 8k; would it even be worth pushing resolution even further? As Graeme mentioned there are plenty of people happy with 2k.

I think the most interesting advancements could be the expansions in dynamic range such as the Panavision's Dynamax sensor. Once we've reached the insane dynamic ranges that could be possible from 6 exposures of one pixel. People will be able to imprint whatever look they want; such as a specific film stocks response could be emulated pretty accurately. As most things get D.I'd to the max now a days does that even really matter so much?

By the time we get there with better dynamic range than film, are people still going to want to be chasing film as the gold standard? Be interesting to see how that one plays out.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I think we were all happy with 2k until we could see what 4k looked like. Now 2k just looks so 20th century....

Graeme

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Somehow I reinterpreted "thoughts" of ARRI concept when Franz Kraus, who as CEO of ARRI AG, said:

"Digital cinematography is neither cheap nor easy - not even with a Red camera."

So it means you would not get an affordable 2K or 4K +... camera from ARRI soon or even simply, never.

 

[Dave Gray]

I think we were all happy with 2k until we could see what 4k looked like. Now 2k just looks so 20th century....

Graeme

What's going to happen when we see what 9k looks like haha.

I think the problem is that you guys are developing faster than all the other technology can keep up.

Maybe red should get into the home cinema market haha :couch:


Cheers for that Sanjin.

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

I think that 10 years from now we will see a brand new 16K format in special theaters. 4K will have been the home standard for several years and 8K Wall displays will be common in new houses. Retinal projection systems will be the primary personal delivery system. But what do I know?

Jim

This makes me think of Back to the Future II... Remember what they thought 2015 would be like? Flying cars, dehydrated pizzas, weather control companies... In 10 years, things are going to be exactly the same as now, except cheaper and a little bit more advanced. 100inch LCD TV's for $1000, that kinda stuff. I don't know about retinal projection systems... but sounds sweet!!!

 

[Graeme Nattress]

The secret of practical high resolutions is good, but lossy, compression - ie, REDCODE. Many think of compression as "bad". But like Dr Strangelove learning to love the bomb, when you learn to love compression and make it work for you, rather than against you....

Graeme

 

[Darrell Wilkins]

Retinal projection is already a reality :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_retinal_display

I'm not sure where/how we will be watching the moving image in the future, but I predict that the innovations in camera technology will not just be about higher resolution and image quality. It will also be things that make it easier to make films.

A lot of this will come from computer power. Intelligent auto focus that can accurately keep a very short range in focus even when the camera and subject are moving at high speed.

Touch screen interfaces that allow a director to choose subjects on the screen and have the camera automatically refocus on them mid shot.

Cameras that can analyze and record environmental geometry as they record live action. So as you record your subject, your camera not only outputs a video feed, but a 3D model of what it sees. A kind of visual Lidar.

Cameras that can do accurate background removal on fly enabling you to extract your subject (or multiple subjects) from a scene and put in new backgrounds/effects on set - without a green screen.

Cameras that allow you to refocus in post production (this is not a joke - http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ ).

Voice recognition on the camera so when the director says cut...

...well at least being able to talk to the camera after each take with some notes on that shot. The camera would automatically, create meta-data and even file the footage in appropriate places based on what the director says.

There is no reason why this couldn't automatically package up the days rushes, filtering out what you don't want compressing the rest and firing it off to you iPhone (version 6) so you can watch them in the bar later on.

Much of this stuff is being done in various labs around the world at the moment. The winners in making the future digital cinema cameras (systems) are going to be the ones that know about the massive possibilities, realize what future film makers actually want and then develop the systems (at a reasonable price) to match them. Sound like any camera companies you know?

I realize that some of these ideas might be heresy to some film makers, but as I see it Red is very much about democracising film making. Certainly making it much more accessible. These sort of improvements don't necessarily give you a better image quality (or a better film) but they could make the whole process easier.

One last thing on the future of Digital Cinema, it might just be that we are carrying it around with us. Red Nano Integrated camera/projector @ 16k anyone?

Watch this and it will make sense :
http://tinyurl.com/pattiemae

-darrell

 

[J Davis]

By 2019 my phone will shoot 5K with shallow DOF and 20 stops of DR
no ... seriously!

there already is a korean phone released a few months ago that shoots 720p

 

[jpp]

The answer probably lies in the nature of cinema in 10 years, rather than the available or potential technologies -- whether traditional, 2d story-telling, which doesn't need much resolution and may actually be diminished by more, survives, or is replaced by a virtual reality or video game entertainment model which uses hyper-real imagery to exploit autonomic responses, as action pictures and porn do today.

Or the new technology may itself destroy traditional story-telling, which will no longer be competitive in a mass-market with addictive hyper-real stimulation.... With "movies", as we now know them, shown only in museums and attended by the over 70 crowd, like classical music is today.

 

[John K]

Hey Guys,


Where do you think digital cinema will be in 10 years?

My money is on lightweight personal OLED-based 3-D viewing goggles, particularly since these already exist in LCD form (although currently only at VHS resolution).

I can imagine small iPod-like devices into which you can download 2K or higher resolution movies. The stereo eyepieces screens would produce either 3-D or just the illusion of a 50 foot flat screen floating in space. Individual optical focus adjustments (like they have on binoculars) would allow viewers to set focus to match their own eyes "default" position, for maximum viewing comfort.

"See-through" OLED screens already exist, and I could imagine them being made like a pair of slightly bulky sunglasses, with an LCD-based variable ND behind the OLED so the viewer could keep an eye on the outside world, or shut it out, as required.

Add to this surround-sound headphones (which also already exist) and you will have a truly revolutionary personal viewing experience.

RED should start working on this immediately:violent:

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

In 10 years I don't think resolution will be important. We'll have super high resolution sensors but they'll be put to use capturing more data not more lpm.

EDIT: Oops. Hit enter...

We'll also start to see the first line of selective focus sensors. Sensors with microlensing to adjust your DOF in post. Use custom Bokehs.

Software will be able to automatically generate a 3D Scene as good as any key is today with enough movement in the subject/camera.

It'll become normal to relight scenes in post. The 3D data will generate normal data so that you can add a backlight as need be.

In 10 years all 3D will be rendered in real time and onset capture will be simple and common on larger budget films. Films will be 'capturing' voxel data not pixels. 10% camera shifts will be possible. Not just pan and scan... actual minor changes in camera angle.

All of this will frustrate the old guard who are used to the film being finished when the cameras stop rolling.

DPs will rightfully start demanding budgets take into account their 3D post time.

The first successful performance capture movie will be released ala beowulf but on a SkyCaptain budget.

10 years from now will be the cusp where cameras transition from 2D imaging devices into true 3D scene capture in real time. It'll be the start of the transition to everything being 3D. With infinite DR, infinitely noise free, infinite DOF adjustability, nearly infinite resolution. But it'll still be awkward.

 

[Jeff Carpenter]

what's your thesis about? any chance we could have a look at it?

Hey Guys,

Just been finishing up my thesis and though it would be a cool discussion to have here. Though it has probably been discussed multiple times before.

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

I say forget 10, let's jump 20 years ahead.

If Moore's (and Hendy's and Kryder's) law remains constant, by 2029 we can expect...

-A $1,000 desktop to have a processor that can do about 10 Quadrillion calculations per second.

-Desktop hard drives will commonly be 10 Petabytes in size for about $100-200.

-Camera sensors will be going for a dollar a megapixel.

What I imagine is what I call the "Flatcam", basically a quarter inch thick box, about the size of an iPhone, one side would be an array of lenticular lens, each one running at several megapixels each.

It will be recording to an internal memory, which will be several hundred terabytes (perhaps even a couple of Petabytes). It'll be totally integratable with a wearable computer (most likely a pair of glasses, or clothing embedded computer systems), so you can either project the image and the controls on the back of the camera, or onto an external computer control module somewhere on your body, or hanging in front of your eyes in an Reality Layover, so you'll be able to adjust focus, sharpness, exposure, and hundreds of other variables by hand gestures or mouth and eye movements detected by a camera module pointing at you.

The camera will be totally module, with multiple layers, pancaked into the iPhone sized device, the lenticular array will be removable, and replaceable by a new upgraded array, or a conventional one or two lens system, with manual controls on the lens.

There will also be a battery, memory, and screen layer, which will also be totally modular, and hot swappable.

While home theaters will regularly be 4-8K set-ups, the camera will be recording close to 40-50K (1-3 megapixels from each lenticular module, with maybe a hundred on front of each camera), and is totally scalable to any kind of display, everything from old HD setups, to projection on a 100 foot display at a Football stadium. The modules will be so cheap that people will regularly be shooting at far higher resolutions than can actually be displayed, simply for the freedom of scalability, and because there is no reason to really hold back on resolutions since memory is cheap and massive.

All for a few thousand dollars.

 

[Nir Shelter]

My money is on true individual 3D projections retina or goggles.
With selectable viewing angles and field immersion points and for this to happen all that "unnecessary resolution" is needed.

But with a personalized viewpoint what will the future hold for traditional theatres? I suppose they will be needed for large sound scapes and reverb reproduction. Possibly even fake wind with TC coordinated fan systems for that extra bit of realty pushed into the experience.

Either way the craft of story telling wont change, structure/character and meaning (to mention a only a very few) will be what stories are made of how ever the films are experienced.

 

[David Wyatt]

Something tells me 3D will be pretty old hat in 10 years...what would be cooler than that? I remember seeing an interesting tv series in the Nineties called "Wild Palms" where one of the storylines concerned a new home entertainment system coming out which involved realistic holographic projection...that was pretty cool (although I think they got a little ahead of themselves by setting it in 2007!!). Maybe we won't see anything like that before 2020 but personally I demand my own holodeck by at least 2030!! :coolgleam: