Disney/Pixar's latest film is being shown in 3D using state-of-the-art Sony projectors in some theaters.
(Credit: Disney/Pixar)I went to an opening-day screening of the new Disney/Pixar film "Up," on Friday. I had a great time and not just because of the movie. There was an interesting technology story, too.
The Camera 7 theater in the Silicon Valley city of Campbell recently installed four new digital cinema projectors. They're the best on the market today: Sony's SRXR220, which lists for about $200,000 with the usual required accessories.
Sony also has a slightly less expensive model, the SRXR210, for smaller screens. What puts these projectors ahead of the competition is their native resolution: 4,096 pixels x 2,160 pixels, a standard known as "4K." That's over four times as many pixels as HDTV, which displays 1,920 pixels x 1,080 pixels.
I wrote about 4K technology back in August 2007 ("After HDTV, what's next?") and predicted that "you'll be seeing it in theaters within the next few years." I'm pleased to say that 4K is ahead of that schedule.
I wrote that post after attending a screening of some of the earliest 4K content at the ACM Siggraph conference in Los Angeles, including "Crossing the Line," a short film by "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson. The Siggraph demonstration also used a Sony projector, the much smaller SRXT105.
I was amazed by the picture quality in that screening, and I'm even more impressed by what I saw from the newer SRXR220. As I wrote in 2007, these projectors create smooth, sharp images using LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) technology, which I think is inherently superior to TI's DLP (Digital Light Processing) micro-mirror chips, which are used in other digital-cinema projectors.
On Friday, we got to see more than just a movie, too. Sony has provided the Camera 7 with a bunch of PlayStation 3 game consoles and configured the projectors to display multiple games up on the big screen so that up to 64 people can play at the same time.
Before the movie, we got to see just one game, Sony's "Gran Turismo 5: Prologue," filling the whole screen. Coincidentally, that's my favorite game on the PS3 (though I must admit to limited experience with that platform since I don't own one), so I was happy with the choice.
Although the PS3's native output is limited to HD resolution, the image quality was very impressive. The movie itself was even better. I don't know what the movie's native resolution was, but it looked great, with bright, saturated colors and good detail in both highlights and shadows.
The movie was presented using RealD's 3D technology, re-branded as Disney Digital 3-D in the advertising for "Up," though the glasses we received were marked RealD as usual. Now that I've seen movies in state-of-the-art theaters using both RealD and Dolby 3D Digital Cinema, I think they're both fairly similar in overall quality.
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to make another comparison: between Sony's 4K technology and the new small-screen "IMAX Digital" theaters that are popping up around the country, generally as one or more screens out of several in a multiplex.
I've seen a couple of movies ("Watchmen" and "Star Trek") in IMAX Digital theaters now, and the quality didn't measure up to my expectations. According to the Wikipedia article on IMAX Digital, these theaters use a pair of HD-resolution (also called 2K) projectors--but I don't think this approach will produce better than HD-equivalent resolution. Two superimposed images can be brighter than one, but the resolution can't be twice as good as a single projector.
In my experience, IMAX Digital theaters fall short of the quality of these Sony 4K projectors...and, of course, they're vastly inferior to real IMAX theaters. Every time I've attended a showing in an IMAX Digital theater, I've heard other customers expressing their disappointment. I don't know why IMAX is diluting its brand this way.
Similarly, I don't know why Sony hasn't established a new brand for these 4K projectors. I know I'm going to be tracking the arrival of this technology in other Silicon Valley theaters, but Sony isn't helping.
Anyway, the new Sony 4K technology is out there. If you can find it, I bet you'll like it.
I've been signing up with some of the major job sites. I started with NotchUp.com, mostly because I was curious about NotchUp's rather unusual strategy. Candidates are paid for interviews set up through NotchUp.com, while NotchUp itself gets fees from the participating companies.
NotchUp recommends that candidates ask for approximately a full day's pay for an interview. That seems like an extraordinarily high price. Companies are free to make a lower offer, though. I set my asking price well below that day's-pay level, and I'm still not surprised I've had no inquiries. I wonder if it's working for anyone else.
On the recommendation of a friend in the business (he actually works for a different jobs site), I also signed up for TheLadders.com, which specializes in jobs with salaries above $100K/year (which we in California refer to as a "subsistence wage").
... Read more
I like the Belkin company. I remember when Belkin was basically nothing but a cable company, and by that, I mean a company that makes electrical and optical cables. They made good cables, and still do.
The Belkin F6C550-AVR UPS.
(Credit: Belkin International)But in recent years they have expanded into a wide variety of consumer products. I've always assumed Belkin's expansion was driven, at least in part, by the success of Monster Cable, which has made a lot of money selling expensive cables that (in my opinion, at least) are not always worth the price.
I imagine Belkin's engineering-oriented management deciding that selling well-engineered cables at a reasonable price would provide effective competition for Monster's marketing-focused strategy. I have no idea whether it went that way or not, but at least it's a sensible theory.
I sometimes wonder sometimes if Belkin isn't expanding too quickly. The company seems to be introducing new product lines faster than some companies introduce new products. That can lead to problems with product quality, customer support, and other critical business functions.
I've bought quite a few Belkin gizmos over the last several months, including the TuneTalk Stereo that I reviewed here back in September. (And also see this update to that review.) The TuneTalk Stereo was incorrectly marketed as compatible with the newly-released iPod classic, and although Belkin advised me that an upcoming iPod update would likely restore compatibility with the classic, my TuneTalk Stereo still isn't fully functional. Maybe the current models work fine; I don't know.
But I've continued to buy Belkin products, including several audio and video cables and a USB hub that I've had no problems with.
Unfortunately, just this week I've bought two Belkin products that didn't live up to my expectations. One was a fairly trivial little item, the F9H600-03 Surgemaster power strip. I needed a power strip so I could plug in some "wall wart" power supplies that wouldn't fit on the back of a UPS, and this product was the cheapest power strip with surge suppression available at my local Home Depot.
Since they were only about $8 each, I bought two of them; I figured I'd find a use for the other at some point. But when I plugged in the first one, it immediately made a loud snapping sound inside and released a puff of vile-smelling smoke. I was so eager to get it out of the house that I immediately wrapped it up in the Home Depot bag and took it out to the trash. I simply wasn't going to give it the chance to stink up my car in order to return it.
The other power strip worked fine, and I doubt it'll ever go bad. It's hooked up to an outlet on the year-old APC Smart-UPS that services my Power Mac G5, and three little power bricks are plugged into it in turn.
For many years, I've bought all of my UPSs from APC; I've always been happy with that brand. But when I went UPS shopping for one to put in my bedroom to protect the XO-1 from the One Laptop Per Child organization that has taken up residence on my nightstand, I bought a Belkin instead.
At least at my local Fry's on that day, the Belkin F6C550-AVR was a better deal than any of the APC UPSs in stock. The Belkin product was, by far, the cheapest model that offered an alarm disable function. APC's cheaper models don't have that feature, but if I'm going to be sleeping next to a UPS during an extended power outage, I need to be able to shut off the alarm.
Anyway, I got the Belkin model home and hooked it up to my XO-1, my alarm clock, the charger for my Palm Treo, and a 20W flourescent lamp.
After it had been plugged in for a few hours, I tested it by unplugging it from the wall. And wouldn't you know it, the flourescent lamp-- a cheap model without a starter or ballast, admittedly-- shut off for a second then turned itself back on. Subsequent testing produced the same result. That's clear evidence that the switchover time from AC power to the internal battery isn't as short as it ought to be. I tested one of my APC UPSs with the same lamp, and the lamp never flickered.
I didn't return this product either, since it meets my simple needs in this application. The XO-1 won't notice a brief power interruption since it has its own battery, but I wouldn't use the F6C550-AVR to protect a desktop computer.
Three incidents, especially when they involve unrelated problems in different products over the space of five months, don't really establish a trend. But I have to admit I'm going to be a little less likely to buy Belkin products going forward.
Except the cables. I still like Belkin cables.
- prev
- 1
- next
