In no particular order...
UK - SKY 3d TV (launches officially in August 2010)
UAE - 2 channels currently - DU and Etisalat.
SPAIN - TV3 3D (Barcelona) and Canal+ 3D (Madrid)
ITALY - Nothing (Now that the FiFA deal has finished.
USA
No 3d TV channels actually confirmed as On- Air yet?
DIRECT TV may have a channel in association with PANASONIC.
SONY may launch their own 3dTV channel?
DISCOVERY plan to launch a 3dTV channel in the US in 2011?
ESPN plan to launch a 3d TV channel in 2011?
WEALTH TV plans on broadcasting 3D (via HD cable)
FRANCE. CANAL+ 3D broadcast of the 2010 World Cup ORANGE are running an IPTV 3d channel.
NETHERLANDS Some cablecasts in 3D.
GERMANY - DEUTSCHE TELECOM - from September will start broadcasting 3dtv on an IPTV platform.
Rumours that GOOGLE may launch 3d channel on EutelSat?
Showing posts with label real d. Show all posts
Showing posts with label real d. Show all posts
Monday, 12 July 2010
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
What is Native Screen Pixel Parallax? NPP
What is Native Pixel Parallax?
Well, put simply - this is the concept that by basically using some maths, you can calculate 'what works' in pixels on your screen.
Explanation: When we shoot 3d with two cameras, it is the vertical disparities (the differences) between left and right camera that the brain 'sees' and then tries to 'fuse' the images and create an artificial state of mind that makes us 'see' depth or '3d'. So the distances between those cameras should be equivalent to or near to the natural 'interocular' which is about 65mm. (2 and a half inches in old money...). If the disparities are too much then it gives you a headache and makes watching a 3d sequence a very uncomfortable experience, in some cases if the disparities are too extreme it will mean there is no picture for the brain to fuse and it just shuts down any attempt to 'fuse' for depth.
Now here is the problem, if you shoot your 3d footage and for whatever reason you have had to shoot at a larger than 65mm interaxial, you may well end up with some stereo footage that 'works' on a small computer screen, but will not work on a large 3dhd plasma - or possibly, you may have a sequence that works on a 46" 3dhd plasma - and equally it won't work on a 30 foot cinema screen.
So some of the world's Stereographers have come up with a plan. They have come up with a numeric chart of 3d 'depth' that allows for average screen sizes and average distances from the screen. Obviously this isn't a perfect science, but it's a start... (Note to reader: It's quite hard 'blogging' about stereo 3d production, because not all the experts agree on certain principles... They all seem to have a different viewpoint to the same problems. So my position is try and be polite and take on board everyone's views and then when I am in the position of filming use the different advice as required....)
So here are some of the maths involved. You decide.
A 30 foot cinema screen = 360 inches (30 x 12inches) Human interocular = 2.5 inches
2.5 as a percentage of 360 = 0.7 percent - Now take that as a percentage of the resolution (2K)
then you end up with 14pixels. So any disparities larger than 14 pixels would represent an unnatural disparity which we have trouble fusing...(Based on 2k resolution on a 30 foot wide cinema screen)
Now try a 46" plasma. Width is less than 46" (The manufacturers get that measurement by measuring diagonally corner to corner of the screen) The width is about 40 inches so if we do the same thing and take
2.5" as a percent of 40" we end up with roughly 6 percent. If the Pixel resolution of the screen is 1920 x 1080
then 6 percent of 1920 should give you about 115 pixels. So theoretically you shouldn't go over 115 pixels on a 46" screen.
Simples?
When we look at 'Infinity' our eyes are parallel and anything we see across the depths will have 2.5" disparity.
The thing is when you 'scale' an image down (less than life size) to fit onto the 46" screen, then surely the disparities would be scaled down, or we are 'seeing' something totally unnatural?
If we only ever filmed Ortho stereoscopically (all measurements = real life) and then we only ever viewed our material back at life size on a large cinema screen - everything would be fine. A 6 foot man would be 6 foot tall and the disparities would be the same as real life - nothing over 2.5".
In reality we have to shoot for a range of different screen sizes - therein lie the problems. My conclusion is that whatever size screen you are shooting for always try and get the cameras as close to a natural condition as possible. If you are 'over' or 'under' the magic 2.5" then some post production can correct some a percentage of error.
Finally, you may deliberately shoot over or under for a special effect! But try not to blow the viewers mind! I am learning by trial and error. Everyday I shoot some more stuff and then work it out.
Well, put simply - this is the concept that by basically using some maths, you can calculate 'what works' in pixels on your screen.
Explanation: When we shoot 3d with two cameras, it is the vertical disparities (the differences) between left and right camera that the brain 'sees' and then tries to 'fuse' the images and create an artificial state of mind that makes us 'see' depth or '3d'. So the distances between those cameras should be equivalent to or near to the natural 'interocular' which is about 65mm. (2 and a half inches in old money...). If the disparities are too much then it gives you a headache and makes watching a 3d sequence a very uncomfortable experience, in some cases if the disparities are too extreme it will mean there is no picture for the brain to fuse and it just shuts down any attempt to 'fuse' for depth.
Now here is the problem, if you shoot your 3d footage and for whatever reason you have had to shoot at a larger than 65mm interaxial, you may well end up with some stereo footage that 'works' on a small computer screen, but will not work on a large 3dhd plasma - or possibly, you may have a sequence that works on a 46" 3dhd plasma - and equally it won't work on a 30 foot cinema screen.
So some of the world's Stereographers have come up with a plan. They have come up with a numeric chart of 3d 'depth' that allows for average screen sizes and average distances from the screen. Obviously this isn't a perfect science, but it's a start... (Note to reader: It's quite hard 'blogging' about stereo 3d production, because not all the experts agree on certain principles... They all seem to have a different viewpoint to the same problems. So my position is try and be polite and take on board everyone's views and then when I am in the position of filming use the different advice as required....)
So here are some of the maths involved. You decide.
A 30 foot cinema screen = 360 inches (30 x 12inches) Human interocular = 2.5 inches
2.5 as a percentage of 360 = 0.7 percent - Now take that as a percentage of the resolution (2K)
then you end up with 14pixels. So any disparities larger than 14 pixels would represent an unnatural disparity which we have trouble fusing...(Based on 2k resolution on a 30 foot wide cinema screen)
Now try a 46" plasma. Width is less than 46" (The manufacturers get that measurement by measuring diagonally corner to corner of the screen) The width is about 40 inches so if we do the same thing and take
2.5" as a percent of 40" we end up with roughly 6 percent. If the Pixel resolution of the screen is 1920 x 1080
then 6 percent of 1920 should give you about 115 pixels. So theoretically you shouldn't go over 115 pixels on a 46" screen.
Simples?
When we look at 'Infinity' our eyes are parallel and anything we see across the depths will have 2.5" disparity.
The thing is when you 'scale' an image down (less than life size) to fit onto the 46" screen, then surely the disparities would be scaled down, or we are 'seeing' something totally unnatural?
If we only ever filmed Ortho stereoscopically (all measurements = real life) and then we only ever viewed our material back at life size on a large cinema screen - everything would be fine. A 6 foot man would be 6 foot tall and the disparities would be the same as real life - nothing over 2.5".
In reality we have to shoot for a range of different screen sizes - therein lie the problems. My conclusion is that whatever size screen you are shooting for always try and get the cameras as close to a natural condition as possible. If you are 'over' or 'under' the magic 2.5" then some post production can correct some a percentage of error.
Finally, you may deliberately shoot over or under for a special effect! But try not to blow the viewers mind! I am learning by trial and error. Everyday I shoot some more stuff and then work it out.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Motion artefacts / temporal occlusion 101 - JAN 2010
Yesterday, Simon Stappleton from Procam North and I, and Dr Bernie Harper from Liverpool University took two Sony XD cams off the shelf to take a look specifcally at motion issues as I had read some stuff on line about 3d blur and movement and how things can get tricky when shooting movement. I wanted to find out for myself what happened under different circumstances. During my 3d training I have come across loads of people in the film and TV bizz who are full of advice and are quite happy to tell you how it should be done... But then when I asked the questions, I found out that although everyone is ready with advice, NOT MANY have actually shot 3d!(I guess thats just a bit like life...)We put the cameras onto the prototype Procam SbS Plate, a special plate that Jonathan Bolton at Procam North had engineered so that we could mount ANY camera Side by Side for trials. When you are training it's hard to get access to large mirror rigs, apart from the obvious reasons of cost, ie you need a team of Nasa trained scientists to program it, align it, and 'fly it' for you. Pretty much all of that technology is very expensive to hire, and because 3d is the latest 'in thing' particularly in London and the South east, access is very limited.
Training - is limited and expensive, but if you have the money then Pinewood and Shepperton run 3d training courses. Actually, on the subject of training I was very fortunate in being able to secure an 'Innovation Grant' from the RDA in our region, and that was used to get me superb access to some of the keenest and most intelligent minds on the planet who have been living and breathing 3d for 10 years or more. Now at last the technology is catching up...For our motion test shoot we shot a variety of settings - interlaced, progressive, different frame rates. We filmed loads of cars driving by and I spent hours in Noise Industries Dashwood Stereo 3d Cinema Toolbox looking at disparities and basically trying to understand what worked, what looked good and what looked bad. Whether or not to track convergence on the passing cars or leave convergence set at an optimal distance. I will talk about convergence in a separate post because it is another of those 'sensitive'' areas in the 3d community, and the idea of this blog is not to cause stress and anger, but to raise the issues for discussion...
In terms of motion - Point One: I would always shoot progressively for motion. Full stop. end. new para.
Yes, you can play with frame rates and electronic shutter speeds - but you must shoot progressively because of how the frames with movement on have motion artefacts when shooting interlaced. You may have seen it yourself in 2d TV - that weird jagged edge where the scan lines have captured slightly different moments in time so a waving hand breaks up across scan lines. If you combine stereo shots with this effect you end up with a mess that the brain can not fuse, so no 3d. Always shoot motion progressively.
Point Two: Your cameras should be synced or 'gen locked' so that each frame is written and captured at the same time - that is to say the beginning of each frame must start at that 1/50th or 1/25th of the second (or 1/60th) and scan each line, both camera's perfectly in sync. Line 1 right eye camera, scans at the same velocity and the identical moment in time as Line 1- left eye camera and so on through the full frame scan.
So Progressive and genlocked / synced. We did try some early days tests with 2 HVR-A1's that were not 'genlockable' but were synced through a dual lanc within 100ms and on the whole the results were not bad. Though we weren't filming anything with much movement - just some stuff around 'sets' for a tv drama, kitchens, living room, that kind of well lit set up in a TV studio. We used a digislate to mark top and bottom of each take to see how the sync help up over time and it was reasonable and useable.
Definitions:Motion artefacts - weird bits of video that are created when the technolgy has to 'predict' what the movement in the frame is - or how the technology sometimes fails to capture the action properly.
Temporal Occlusion - when the differences between the two shots are caused by time, by the the way the 2 cameras have recorded or 'captured' everso slightly different moments in time, and so they don't work in 3d.
My final thoughts - you can shoot on interlaced formats - I use 2 little HD JVC's shooting AVCHDs or MPEG.TS for 'Pre Viz' and ' recce' . They are not locked, not synced and interlaced!
But they show me enough to see what works and what doesn't work...
In terms of motion - Point One: I would always shoot progressively for motion. Full stop. end. new para.
Yes, you can play with frame rates and electronic shutter speeds - but you must shoot progressively because of how the frames with movement on have motion artefacts when shooting interlaced. You may have seen it yourself in 2d TV - that weird jagged edge where the scan lines have captured slightly different moments in time so a waving hand breaks up across scan lines. If you combine stereo shots with this effect you end up with a mess that the brain can not fuse, so no 3d. Always shoot motion progressively.
Point Two: Your cameras should be synced or 'gen locked' so that each frame is written and captured at the same time - that is to say the beginning of each frame must start at that 1/50th or 1/25th of the second (or 1/60th) and scan each line, both camera's perfectly in sync. Line 1 right eye camera, scans at the same velocity and the identical moment in time as Line 1- left eye camera and so on through the full frame scan.
So Progressive and genlocked / synced. We did try some early days tests with 2 HVR-A1's that were not 'genlockable' but were synced through a dual lanc within 100ms and on the whole the results were not bad. Though we weren't filming anything with much movement - just some stuff around 'sets' for a tv drama, kitchens, living room, that kind of well lit set up in a TV studio. We used a digislate to mark top and bottom of each take to see how the sync help up over time and it was reasonable and useable.
Definitions:Motion artefacts - weird bits of video that are created when the technolgy has to 'predict' what the movement in the frame is - or how the technology sometimes fails to capture the action properly.
Temporal Occlusion - when the differences between the two shots are caused by time, by the the way the 2 cameras have recorded or 'captured' everso slightly different moments in time, and so they don't work in 3d.
My final thoughts - you can shoot on interlaced formats - I use 2 little HD JVC's shooting AVCHDs or MPEG.TS for 'Pre Viz' and ' recce' . They are not locked, not synced and interlaced!
But they show me enough to see what works and what doesn't work...
Sunday, 20 December 2009
A Christmas Carol - Not a good 3d experience DEC 2009
On one of those rare 'days off' moments - I decided to take the kids to see a 3d movie, kind of busmans holiday! Nevertheless we turned up at the local multiplex which had recently had its main screen converted to 3d.Infact, it was using the new Dolby 3d system which I had read was vastly superior to the Real D system, so I was keen to hand over my hard earned and get into the cinema... We took quite a load of kids with us, as our kids brought their friends who brought their friends! We ended up with 12 kids and 3 adults.The first thing I noticed was that the glasses were duly handed out, beautiful shiny mirror look lenses and deep wrap around sides. I later discovered this is to maximise light the coming into each lens. During my stereography training I was told that the Dolby 3d system uses a combination of filtering to very finely control the colour information to each eye, so that although the channel separation is slightly less than the Real D polariser system the final result is better overall colour reproduction. I was looking forward to this screening, probably more than the dozen kids I was sat with!
I noticed there was a lot of activity pre-movie as the audience kept popping up and down to the attendant getting 'wipes' for their 3d glasses, getting them cleaned. I had to for some of our kids.
As the lights went down and the opening title sequence began I noticed I could see something in my lenses.
Again I cleaned them but it wasn't on the lens. What I could see was the reflection of my eyes and eyelids and lashes in the lens, as they were so shiny. Also the ambient light in the auditorium was very high, not helping the situation. In the UK they have strict regulations governing light levels in cinemas, and generally the cinemas have 3 levels. The walking in / walking out level well lit 'house lights' - then the next level of dimming is the spot reel or the adverts before the main presentation, I assume they have that lighting so that we can juggle our popcorn and kids, and get settled for the main movie. Finally, darkness for the main feature.
However, in my cinema trip, the lights never dimmed down to full darkness for the movie. You could extend your hand out and clearly see a shadow cast on the floor from the lights above. This caused problems with the 3d viewing because the images I could see through my lenses were overlaid with reflections, also the movie itself had a fairly 'dark' feel to it (being set in Winter in Dickensian London).
And therein spoilt what should have been a great 3d experience. The trouble is these multiscreen movies have very few people involved in their running. It's all done by computers... as they say. A Christmas Carol started and I went off like Scrooge trying to track down the projectionist. I went to the front of house area, to find a couple of students selling popcorn and coffee, they told me the projectionist had 'gone home' and would be back later to turn everything off... I asked for the manager, there was none. So the next day I'm on the internet and phone trying to find someone from the Vue Cinema chain to talk to... No luck. I sent an email to their customer services team who eventually reply with some brush off corporate letter about local planning regulations on light levels in public buildings... And didn't take on any of my points about 3d needing more careful light control than 2d so that the viewer can properly extract disparities and depth information for proper 3d viewing. I think they were worried about me trying to get my 50 quid back from them for the trip, but I made it clear I just wanted some technical dialogue on their procedures and spec for 3d cinemas... Bah humbug!
I noticed there was a lot of activity pre-movie as the audience kept popping up and down to the attendant getting 'wipes' for their 3d glasses, getting them cleaned. I had to for some of our kids.
As the lights went down and the opening title sequence began I noticed I could see something in my lenses.
Again I cleaned them but it wasn't on the lens. What I could see was the reflection of my eyes and eyelids and lashes in the lens, as they were so shiny. Also the ambient light in the auditorium was very high, not helping the situation. In the UK they have strict regulations governing light levels in cinemas, and generally the cinemas have 3 levels. The walking in / walking out level well lit 'house lights' - then the next level of dimming is the spot reel or the adverts before the main presentation, I assume they have that lighting so that we can juggle our popcorn and kids, and get settled for the main movie. Finally, darkness for the main feature.
However, in my cinema trip, the lights never dimmed down to full darkness for the movie. You could extend your hand out and clearly see a shadow cast on the floor from the lights above. This caused problems with the 3d viewing because the images I could see through my lenses were overlaid with reflections, also the movie itself had a fairly 'dark' feel to it (being set in Winter in Dickensian London).
And therein spoilt what should have been a great 3d experience. The trouble is these multiscreen movies have very few people involved in their running. It's all done by computers... as they say. A Christmas Carol started and I went off like Scrooge trying to track down the projectionist. I went to the front of house area, to find a couple of students selling popcorn and coffee, they told me the projectionist had 'gone home' and would be back later to turn everything off... I asked for the manager, there was none. So the next day I'm on the internet and phone trying to find someone from the Vue Cinema chain to talk to... No luck. I sent an email to their customer services team who eventually reply with some brush off corporate letter about local planning regulations on light levels in public buildings... And didn't take on any of my points about 3d needing more careful light control than 2d so that the viewer can properly extract disparities and depth information for proper 3d viewing. I think they were worried about me trying to get my 50 quid back from them for the trip, but I made it clear I just wanted some technical dialogue on their procedures and spec for 3d cinemas... Bah humbug!
Friday, 17 April 2009
3d stereoscopy - getting started
Last year (2009) I decided to find out about how to shoot stereo 3d for films, commercials and virals. And so began a journey of discovery...
I am currently working as a commercials director signed to The Mob Film Co. http://www.mobfilm.com/. I am based in the North West of England (Manchester - if you want to look it up on Google earth). For the past couple of years I have been busy adding virals and low budget commercials to my reel. I noticed over the last couple of years that the broadcasters are no longer using trained directors, but preferring to go for the more flexible (for flexible read low cost) option of self shooting AP's. Not that I have anything against self shooting, self editing AP's. Some of my best friends are self shooting AP's! It's just that the budgets imposed by the broadcasters and commissioners mean that there is no other way for the production companies to produce the programs. But over the last couple of years I have, on more than one occasion, had my ears chewed off by VT and Film Editors moaning about having to wade through hours of shite to get enough material to cobble together, for the latest hit 'reality doc'.
So anyway, I wanted to find out about who was filming stereo 3d on my 'patch'. The answer in 2009 was a resounding NO-ONE! So I decided to find out about training. At the time the only company I could find that was offering any training associated with Stereo 3d was a well established and respected I-Max Producer Phil Streather http://www.plf.cc/ Unfortunately for me 2009 was a 'quiet' year as a director and I didn't have enough money to pay for the 'premium rate' to train with the pro's for 3-5 days at Pinewood. So then I went on a journey around all the camera hire companies in the North west to see if anyone had any 3d kit that I could look at and get my hands on, to try and work out for myself how this whole 3d thing worked... Sadly no-one had any spare kit, most of the big players had kit in London that they could 'bring up' for a fee, or they had contacts where they could 'cross-hire' but sadly my bank balance was not quite big enough, I required something a little more in the 'self shooting AP' budget range!
So on my journey I came across Jonathan Bolton at Procam North http://www.procamtvnorth.com/
I discovered that Jon had an interest in 3d and like me he believed there was a potential to produce stereo 3d for broadcasters and production companies outside of London.
Up to very recently the South East has had a commercial hold on all the 3d kit, which is fair enough, as only the bigger players in the South (London) could afford to shoot stereo 3d.
It seemed to me at least, to be a world of super computers with lenses, and mirror rigs with military grade DC motors controlled by Nasa trained physicists and technicians and specialist 'Stereographers' commanding breathtaking Hollywood fees!
BUT - the more I researched the more I discovered facts about stereo 3d that made me realise that it was achievable with NON Hollywood priced teams, and then when Sky TV announced they would be launching a 3d TV channel in the UK - I knew it must be cheaper than 250k a day! Because there is no broadcast model on the planet that can substain those types of costs!!!
(No disrespect to Sky! At least they are transmitting a 3d channel...)
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