February 25th, 2008
As a 3D visual effects artist, I spend a great deal of time recreating and manipulating reality. Sometimes it is rotoscoping a person out of video footage and erasing any trace of that person. Other times it involves creating a 3D character that is animated and inserted into the footage. And other times an actor is inserted into a completely digital world.
During much of this, there is a point when the flat image of the footage must be recreated in a 3D world. This can be done using tracking software most of the time, but still takes a great deal of dedication.
Standford has come up with a technology that could really help the digital artist in years to come as this technology matures and becomes commercially available.
At the most basic level, they have developed a camera that can take photos in 3D.
Here is how this new camera operates. Normally, a digital camera has one sensor behind the lens. This sensor sends the data to a processing chip to turn that data into an image. A crude version of the human eye.
The Stanford camera is designed more like a fly’s eye. In lieu of one eye, the sensor is comprised of a 16×16 grid of smaller eyes. Software then compares each side by side sensor and computes what has changed. Then it calculates how far away each element is from the camera based on the movement. Large change from one sensor to the next means large distance.
How will this affect the digital artist?
With depth information, you could easily pass an object or another person behind someone else already in the footage. This can be done today, but involves tedious rotoscoping. With this tech, it would be as easy as stacking the ‘layers’ in a compositing program like Shake (what we use as our studio’s compositor of choice).
Here’s the link to the article:
http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9874436-39.html
Categories: News, Technology |
Tags: 3d, depth matte, rotoscope, z-depth | No Comments
February 16th, 2008
We’ve reported in several posts that Blu-ray was gaining in popularity. This is one reason why last year, we switched entirely to Blu-ray (and I went into this a bit in depth here.
If there was any doubt that the HD format war has ended, the latest news should put it to rest. According to WIRED:
Toshiba put HD-DVD out of its misery today. Reuters confirmed this afternoon that it will cease manufacturing HD-DVD equipment, following earlier reports from Japan’s NHK public broadcasting network.
Reportedly, this was in response to the Warner Brothers switch to Blu-Ray and last weeks announcements by Blockbuster, Netflix and WalMart dropping HD-DVD as well. I think that the only major player in the HD-DVD camp right now is Microsoft. Oh well. That will be like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
In the end, they will also join Blu-Ray.
So we have a winner in the HD format war, at least when it comes to optical discs. Now the questions is who’s going to win? Blu-Ray or HD digital downloads?
Grin!
Categories: Distribution, News, Technology |
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February 11th, 2008
According to Reuters (in this article), Netflix has decided to stock only Blu-Ray movies. This is just the latest nail in the HD-DVD camp. Earlier this year Warner decided to jump ship from HD-DVD to the Blu-Ray camp.
This announcement shifted momentum towards an unstoppable course. We reported and this shift back on 4 Jan 08.
Here is what Reuters said:
Online video rental company Netflix Inc said on Monday it would exclusively stock Blu-ray high-definition DVDs after a decision by some the world’s biggest movie studios in favor of the Sony Corp developed format.
Netflix said that with such a clear signal from the industry, it will only buy Blu-ray discs going forward and will phase out stock of HD DVD by about the end of the year.
Feb 11, 2008 - Reuters
Clearly the writing has been on the wall for HD-DVD. The question is, what is the future of Blu-Ray? Apple has supported Blu-Ray publicly. However, they are also pushing for direct download with the AppleTV and iTunes (both for purchase and rental).
My thoughts? While direct-download will ultimately win, at least for the next few years, I think Blu-Ray will become the standard. People like to have a physical disc that they “own” and can sit on a shelf.
Do we need that piece of plastic on a shelf? In the end, no. After all, we’ve been taking pictures for years using nothing but compact flash and SD cards. Which brings us to a future article I am working on: data backup.
Categories: Distribution, News, Technology |
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January 8th, 2008
It appears that the second shoe may have dropped in the Blu-ray and HD-DVD format war. It was reported yesterday in the Financial Times (article) that Paramount could be dropping their support for HD-DVD and siding with the Blu-ray camp. Paramount says they plan to continue with HD-DVD, but their wording has become much less committed than last year when they were going to be exclusive HD-DVD.
According to Bloomberg:
Paramount can defect because a clause in its contract with the HD DVD camp allows the studio to switch to Blu-ray if Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. dropped its support of Toshiba’s standard, the newspaper reported today, citing unidentified people familiar with the plan. Warner Bros. said on Jan. 4 it would drop its support of HD DVD.
The information on this is changing rapidly, and we’ll keep you posted as it changes.
For those who may be a little confused over the Blu-ray/HD-DVD hype, allow me to briefly explain some of the similarities and differences.
Similarities
Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD support the same resolutions (1080p, 1080i, 720p, etc)
Both use the same compression codecs (H.264, MPEG-2 - enhanced for HD, SMPTE VC-1)
Both are backwards compatible and will play standard def DVDs
Both support Dolby TrueHD and the other Dolby variations
Differences
Like standard DVDs, there are single layer and double layer discs. Here is the size breakdown of each:
Data Capacity
Blu-ray: Single Sided: 25 Gigs of data
Blu-ray: Double Sided: 50 Gigs of data
Blu-ray: Quad Layer (prototype) 100 Gigs of data
HD-DVD: Single layer: 15 Gigs of data
HD-DVD: Dual layer: 30 Gigs of data
HD-DVD: Triple layer prototype: 45 Gigs of data
Video Capacity (for double layer disc)
Blu-ray: HD: up to 8.5 hours, SD: up to 23 hours
HD-DVD: HD: 5.1 hours, SD: up to 13 hours
As you can see above, Blu-ray can hold much more data than HD-DVD which is better for many reasons. While both will technically play the same resolution movies, Blu-ray has more space on the disc. With that extra space, you can do a few things.
One, you can bump the resolution up (Blu-ray would be able to add more resolution simply because it has more room on the disc) Or, two, take that extra space and add much more bonus material on each disc. Both are big advantages to consumers.
Also, Blu-ray uses Java as its interactive programming application. HD-DVD is based on HDi, a Microsoft format, that makes use of XML and some scripting. Java, I believe, is a superior application language for interactivity.
Some will argue that learning Java is more complex and will cost more. While it might be more expensive in the initial stage, BD-J will offer much more in the long term. After all, Java has already been chosen for many cellphones and mobile devices.
On a post production side, the reasons we decided to use a Blu-ray pipeline is the added storage space (to backup much more data per disc), the driver support from Apple (they sided with Blu-ray long ago and there are rumors of a Blu-ray drive to be included in the new Macs at Macworld 2008 next week). Not to mention, Blu-ray titles have been outselling HD-DVD content by at least a 2 to 1 margin.
In the HD-DVD camp, there isn’t much left. Immediately after the Warner announcement, the HD-DVD group cancelled their big CES announcement. And poor HD-DVD advocates, Toshiba and Microsoft, will be one of the big losers in this. Microsoft has invested in HD-DVD in their X-BOX and the only way to play Blu-ray on a Vista computer is via third-party software.
It will be interesting to see what Apple has up their sleeve at Macworld regarding built in Blu-ray support. An AppleTV with built in Blu-ray player, maybe? Only time will tell.
Categories: Featured, News |
Tags: blu-ray, Featured, hd-dvd, high definition, microsoft | No Comments
January 1st, 2008
Since you’re here, you already know about the update. I’m posting here just to document the move from Blogger to my own domain. Also this page is a landing page for the 301 redirect from the Blogger site to this site.
http://blog.reelsinmotion.com
Enjoy!
Categories: News |
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