I was very excited to be invited to Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead for a presentation by Sony Digital Cinema at the beginning of June. I have had a long association with Norden Farm, having worked as a relief for them since 2001 shortly after the arts centre opened and as it was the first place I was paid to show a film, so I was interested to see how the change from film to digital had gone, and also because it was an opportunity to see the Sony Projector which I had not yet experienced.
Norden Farm Centre for the Arts is a former dairy farm with parts of it dating back to the 18th Century which was opened on 17th September 2000. The centre has a large multiple purpose 225 seat theatre space, along with a smaller 100 seat studio, bar and restaurant space, art gallery, meeting rooms and various other spaces. Up to 2,500 people a week visit the centre for a variety of live shows, films, classes and workshops. Originally Norden Farm had a Victoria 5 projector installed, they now have a Sony SRX-R515P which like the film projector was installed by Sound Associates. Matt Biss the technical manager of Norden Farm has retained the 35mm projector for the time being, although it is in storage rather than being operational. More details about the Norden Farm can be found at http://nordenfarm.org/.
The event was presented by Tim Potter, Solutions Account Manager, UK & Ireland who took an informal 
approach to the event. There was a short talk by Jane Corry, Chief Executive and Artistic Director for Norden Farm, who provided with a short introduction to the Arts Centre. Jane talked about the current financial situation in which Norden Farm, like many arts venues finds itself, in terms of having its Arts grants cut and therefore how important cinema has become as a result. She also talked about the effect of the change from film to digital has had on the audience, especially with the live events aspect where the audience talk about it in the foyer. It provides something which the audience can’t experience at home.
This event was to help Sony promote themselves, 4K and their SRX-R515P projector. The SRX-R515P is Sony’s small cinema digital projector and is their newest projector to market aimed at screens unto around 15 metres. This projector is different to all other Digital Cinema Projectors in a number of ways, apart from using Sony’s SXRD technology it also uses 6 mercury lamps rather than xenon bulbs as the light source, with the mercury lamps being configurable in 2,4,6 combination. According to Sony using the high-pressure mercury lamps reduces the lamp cost when you compare it to using Xenon lamps. This is in part because these are the same lamps which are used in ‘business’ projectors and therefore you benefit from some of the cost savings through mass manufacturer. There has been a recent software update which will allow any combination of mercury lamp to be used within the 6, and as each lamp lights up the whole screen rather than one area this allows for greater flexibility, for instance more lamps could be used for 3D rather than 2D, which in turn provides further operational cost savings.
The advantage the Sony projector has over other manufacturers is that because Sony supplies both the projector and the server it is possible for them to offer a single user interface, and a consistency with the Theatre management System as well. As is common with all of these projectors and servers Sony also offer tablet support of for the systems. There is still a requirement to change a lens between 2D and 3D on the SRX-R515P, although this is much similar and quicker than on previous models of their projector. The projector has 15,000 lumens of brightness and can handle both 48 and 60 frames per second; along with a high-speed content ingest/transfer and high capacity storage (4Tb, modified RAID 6). Of course the two big selling points for the SRX-R515P over others in this class of projector is that it is a 4K projector with a contrast ratio of 8000:1. And I have to say that I was really really impressed with the images which I experienced in the auditorium at Norden Farm – admittedly these were all 2D because Norden Farm does not show 3D films, it is the wrong audience demographic, but the 2D images I saw were stunning.
Right from the beginning we were left in no doubt that 4K was at the heart of Sony Entertainment, with its purpose being: “To deliver the Sony Digital Entertainment Experience to cinemas and their customers”. And we were shown how Sony is able to do everything from acquisition through production to display in 4K. It does seem that there are other players beginning to start working with 4K as well, iTunes has a section where you can download 4K content, while the World Cup and Wimbledon are both going to be shot in 4K. There was also a quote from Chrisopher Nolan in Variety Magazine saying “2K digital projectors are basically just high-definition TVs projected” – you can read the full article here: http://variety.com/2013/film/news/4k-tv-will-leave-the-film-biz-reeling-1200385822/.You can see this in a Sony 4K sales video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-W3lPnpqhQ. But I think it is fair to say that it wasn’t until Sony arrived with their 4K digital cinema projector that people in the industry were talking about 4K other than perhaps at the capture level to assist with special effects.
Some people may have missed that Sony now has three different options for 3D on its projectors, the original RealD, Easy on the Eye 3D and now Dolby, with the former two being for silver screen and Dolby being for a white screen.
Later on we were given a demonstration of the Sony Entertainment Access Glasses, which are designed to allow films to be accessible to all, by providing an individual with a set of glasses which projects the subtitles onto the screen, without the whole auditorium needing to see them. The system makes use of holographic technology to provide the closed caption feature, can also have audio asset added which allows the connection of third-party headphones to the glasses. The system can also be used to allow viewers to chose from one of six languages according to their preference. Sony’s entertainment access glasses can also support non Sony digital servers such as Doremi and Dolby. The system had been installed for the day at Norden Farm, and we were able to see for our selves how the system worked. They took a bit of getting use to, as you need to keep your head still, otherwise the subtitles fly all over the place. I like the idea of the glasses, but personally think that the 3rd generation of the system will be the best – whatever that may contain.
Sony claims that they have their TMS installed in over 13,000 screens across the world with two different flavours, the standard version for 5+ screen cinemas, and the TMS Lite for 5 and less screens, which will be launching during the year. According to the Sony publicity there are over 30 exhibitors in the US who have installed a Sony 4K projector with 15,000 installed worldwide.
Recognising the value of their brand and telling the customers that they are viewing a film which is not only in 4K, but which is presented by a brand which they know and understand, Sony have put together a toolkit on their website to help cinemas with the Sony 4K projector make sure that their audiences know what equipment is installed, and that they are watching the feature in 4K; in much the same way as all the other manufacturers have a similar set of stings, although this toolkit also includes additional marketing information as well. http://www.pro.sony.eu/cinema-toolkit
I was very lucky to be given an opportunity to interview, Oliver Pasch, the Sales Director for Digital Cinema at Sony, and outside in the sunshine which was an added bonus. I started by saying how impressed I had been with the images which I had seen in the morning presentation, which started a discussion around image quality, and Oliver talked about the concept of what do we expect from a good image on the screen? What one person sees and expects is not necessarily the same as someone else. For instance someone who is old will be used to seeing 24 frames a second on a screen, while someone who spends large amounts of their time playing computer games is likely to consider a higher frame rate to produce a better image, and be use to seeing images in that way.
When I told Oliver that for the first time ever I had wanted to actually sit in the front row of the cinema, brought up dynamic range of the projector which I had been experiencing and why it is so important. In fact a couple of weeks later Oliver had an article published in Film Journal International on this subject, which you can read here: http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/news-and-features/features/technology/e3i179f7eaee5dd25c1f8ab917c69080a90.
Sony obviously care greatly about 4K, it was mentioned constantly during the presentation in the morning, it was highlighted in the sting before each showreel and Oliver talked about it a lot during our interview. Oliver believes that the amount of 4K content will continue to grow and that it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation at the moment. Nor should we worry that video game consoles and TVs are being introduced which are 4K as well as the Cinema Experience is more than just that. 4K is not just about pixels. 10,000:1 = human eye which is close to where we are, wider colour gammer only ones which keep the same colour gambit in 2D and 3D compared to others. It is about getting consistent brightness, with SXRD you don’t get too much light, therefore meaning that the blacks are black and don’t look washed out by turning up the brightness of the lamp. In fact this discussion takes me back to a piece of work I did a few years ago when 4K was just really being introduced and I spoke to Michael Karagosian, who said that it was not just about resolution, but colour and contrast were also important: http://www.the4kdiaries.com/?p=70
Of course I asked about the requirement to change a lens between 2D and 3D on a projector, especially in a world where there is no-one to actually do that now. The answer was as you can imagine, both diplomatic and two fold; that in a lot of theatres what has happened is that they now have a dedicated 3D and 2D auditor so that the lens does not need to be changed, and that it if we can send a man to the moon then it should be impossible to resolve it in the future. With the SRX-R515P still needing a lens change, although it can be done in a few seconds, Oliver believes he holds the record for the quickest lens change, the decision had been made to continue to use the two lens configuration because it means that there is no triple flash and therefore provides a better quality of 3D experience to the audience, and no one on the team wanted to go to triple flash.
The discussion moved onto the future and what that held and Oliver believes that Lazer light is one of the next big things, but is still 2-3 years away. Especially as laser projectors are essentially still illegal to use, and there are technical issues around the green light part of the process, but he believes that these are commercial issues which manufactures will need to resolve. For now the new Mercury technoligy will stay for a while. We talked about High Frame Rates, and Oliver suggested that they would instead become Variable Frame Rate (VFR); rather controversially the question was raised as to whether HFR was actually a success as there other than the two films which have been announced in HFR there are no other current projects which are doing HFR.
An interesting question arose around whether the image quality produced from the different servers were the same and whether any comparisons had been done. It is not unusual to talk compare one projector to another, but it is less common to look at the varieties of server and whether they all decode the JPEG2000 in the same way.
I picked up more about the point which had been made in the morning that Sony owned the entire production process, from content capture, through editing, distribution to the projectors, servers and other devices which the content is viewed with; something which is unique amongst any other company, especially in the cinema exhibition side. Which lead me to ask whether it meant that they worked with their collegues in other parts of Sony. The answer was as you would expect from an organisation the size of Sony, but I was pleased to hear that they Digital Cinema division has a good relationship with Sony Pictures.
Talking to the technicians at Norden Farm, including the Technical Manager Matthew Biss who’ve I ‘ve known for a long time, all talked warmly over the experience of using the Sony Projector, and had nothing but praise for it. Matt explained that the projector has allowed them to do a lot more than the film projector ever could – Norden Farm makes a point of rehearsing ever film which they show. And it certainly feels like the arts centre has been taken under the wing of Sony, which obviously is a benefit to both parties.
In summary, I was really really impressed with what I saw, it was one of the best pictures I have ever seen. It is obvious that the change to digital has been a really big benefit to Matt Biss and his team at Norden Farm and also to the audiences who attend not just the films but the other events at the arts centre. As many of you will know I am a big fan of 35mm, but I really do think this is one venue which has really benefitted form this change, and it has allowed the technicians to do more with their time. For the size of screen they have it is one of the most beautiful images I have seen projected. But I heard on several occasions that Sony wanted to provide the audience with the best possible cinema experience, which you can’t argue with.
Full details about Sony 4K and their 4K Projectors, including specifications for the SRX-R515P can be found on their website: http://www.pro.sony.eu/dcinema.
While writing this article and thinking about my interview with Oliver, I couldn’t help thinking and referencing the work I did in 2010 when other 4K projectors were just coming to market, and while I know it was for a competitor manufacturer, I would recommend having a listen to the interviews I did with people like Patrick von Sychowski from Reliance Media Works, http://www.the4kdiaries.com/?p=64.