3D CineForm

Prospect 2K is CineForm's next big thing for film-makers, but it is still in the development stage. We are working with partners to beta test this on real film projects like Lbs (see my first post.) In addition to Lbs we have another project with a partner I can't yet name. This is a cool project working with elements from a 3D IMAX film. Each frame (and for each eye -- left and right images) is 2048x1501 -- although I recommended that they reduce the resolution to 2048x1500 (that odd number simply bothered me -- although I tested to confirm no technical limitations with such weird vertical sizes.) This is a computer generated project so the images are razor sharp.


This new partner was having issues trying to edit from a mixture of Targa files, SGI files and PNGs -- about 100,000 of them. Playback was very slow. So I helped out with a few scripts to batch convert these frames into CineForm Intermediate AVIs. These new files are about 8 to 10 times smaller even while using a quality setting above what was used on Dust To Glory -- computer graphics are easy to compress as there is no noise component. Originally, the frames required 700+ GBytes; now they could nearly fit on a 60GB iPod (my yardstick these days -- I believe I can fit the entire 12 minute 4096x1714 StEM project on an iPod without visual loss.) Now as C.I. AVIs the playback is real-time and with multiple streams. I even tried successfully (for fun) playback of left and right channels as two picture in pictures so I could "cross-them-in" to view the 3D.

I'll tell more when I'm allowed.