At the Linwood Dunn Theatre in Hollywood, Sony introduced its next generation of SR technology to a group of cinematographers, some of whom spoke to the group about their use of Sony’s tape format or, as Sony now calls it, “a process and a platform for  acquisition to delivery to display, all the way through the chain.”

Sony’s Rick Harding first spoke to cinematographer Curtis Clark, ASC, who is chair of the ASC Technology Committee. Clark spoke about the first meeting of the ASC Technology Committee, in January 2003, and the decision to do a survey of the DI process. “Between 10 and 15 percent of movies were doing the DI in 2003,” he said. “Cut to today and you’d be hard pressed to find any exceptions of productions not doing some form of DI. That has been an extraordinary transformation moving into digital imaging.” Clark noted that the DI was originally intended for film scans, until Digital Cinema cameras came out. “But they have to move beyond Rec. 709 color space to a film space more compatible with film image capture and a dynamic range to capture a wide range–at least 12 stops–and do that effortlessly and with integrity.” And that, said Clark, is Sony’s S-Log.

“I’ve spent time with The Sony F-35 and S-Log and it has a true 12-stop dynamic range that’s extremely usable,” he said. “But you have to combine that with a color gamut reproduction color space that the F-35 does with its S-Gamut. Those two things together provide the pedigree for the camera to be worthy to be called a digital motion picture camera. These are my personal comments.”

Clark also noted that digital cameras have to be ” understood within the context of an established workflow.” “We’re in this complex world where we’re trying to manage the conforms in and out of log and linear,” he said. “The SciTech Council with their interchange format holds the road map of where we need to go in terms of creating a clear management system and unambiguous transforms between log and linear. This makes sure that the filmmaker can retain his vision throughout the workflow. We need greater transparency and greater understanding of what it takes to go from capture to distribution.”

Cinematographer Sam Nicholson, ASC, who is CEO of Stargate Studios and an expert in VFX, spoke next. Nicholson noted that his first matte painting was with Linwood Dunn, on glass. “Now that we’re digital, we’re always looking at why it’s so expensive, why VFX are such a pain in the ass,” he said. “What we’re seeing that the most sophisticated work models are in sports and ironically in daytime TV, because they’re recording to solid state drives, shooting 100 pages, turning out an hour every day. What the SR technology has done for us is really given us that filmic quality we’ve all looked for, where the discussion of what you’re shooting on–whether it’s film or digital–has really gone away. We  mix all kinds of digital formats.”

Discussing the extraordinarily tight deadlines of creating VFX for TV shows, Nicholson “a couple of days in that process is an eternity.” “We’re all working twice as hard,” he said. “The only thing that can change that is the technology which allows us to work faster and achieve better quality.  Automating the workflow as much as possible allows us to have more time and more creative options. If you’re struggling transfering film or ingesting tape, you’re chasing problems. With data, we can automatically create 20 different resolution proxies that get distributed, frame accurate.”

Next up was Paul Chapman, senior vp of technology for Fotokem, which is now opening a new facility in Budapest. Fotokem has embraced SR technology, said Chapman. “Initially I said, it’s just another VTR format,” he said. “Now it’s become an enabling technology for DI and mastering. Working in S-Log has become easy to do.  It’s become an easy way to work.”

Fotokem has been increasingly involved in posting 3D productions, such as Hannah Montana 3D and Final Destination 3D. “HD SR on tape was the enabling technology,” said Chapman. “You record left eye and right eye on the same tape, multiplexed. We always make a back-up tape which becomes the new master. And that gives us confidence to work on original material.”

With regard to what he needs from the continuing evolution of SR, Chapman noted that “we’re doing a ride film project for a theme park being shot at 48 fps shot at SR, and we’re ingesting it into the Quantel Pablo for conform.” “The ability to deal with that frame rate is quite important,” he said. “The ability to do data recording is important as well. People don’t realize how much it matters to the quality of the images.”

Yasuhiko Mikami, senior manager of product planning at Sony’s B2B Business Group, gave a glimpse into the future of SR. “We owe a lot to this town for making this technology a success,” he said. He also noted Sony partners in creating workflow, which include AJA Video Systems, Avid, Panavision, DVS, Autodesk, FilmLight, and Quantel.

As an example, he introduced Craig Risebury, president of Filmlight,who spoke about how his company collaborated with Sony to create an integrated workflow for Baselight, Truelight and Northlight. “The first area of collaboration was color management with Truelight on Set,” he said. “Cooperation between the two companies paid off;  it allows you to view the S-Log output and change the look, capturing associated metadata and embed them into the picture stream, along with timecode, to avoid confusion down the line. You can view images out of the camera with the LUT applied, without affecting the raw footage. You look at the real thing right away and can start the post process right away, without touching the integrity of the footage.” Risebury said the company has plans to support Sony in other ways that will be unveiled at NAB 2010.

Mikami also revealed that next-generation SR file-based operations will support MXF transform.  “There will be a bit rate for every application: 880 Mbps HQ, 440 Mbps SQ and now 220 Mbps Lite, to reduce storage space or easily go through the pipeline. It makes sense to create original at highest possible rate, but it might be overkill for the broadcasters receiving this content.  SR Lite allows you to convert regular HDCAM recordings to a rate people can understand. It’s an economical way to handle SR recording.” Other new features of the next-gen SR include double speed 4:4:4 for recording and playback and easy migration from SRW-5800. There  will be an upgrade path for existing 5800s.

Another piece of good news is that Sony will reduce price of the SR tape by 25 percent starting with the small cassettes. “We want to make sure you can record as much data as you want and shelve it if you have to,” Mikami said. The future? Compact, removable memory cartridge; guaranteed transfer rate of 5 Gbps; storage capacity up to 1TBb.

Michael Bravin, CTO at Bandpro Film & Digital Inc. showed a clip shot by one of its customers in NYC,  a behind-the-scene documentary on the making of a Duracell commercial with the F-35.”Our customers love the F-35 but want something smaller for handheld and Steadicam,” said Bravin. “They also want solid state memory. And a camer they can use as a B camera.”

Speaking of B cameras, Mikami pointed out that the  SRW 9000, which has  been shipping  for two weeks, is a tape-based camera that offers a migration path. “This is the first time the Sony camcorder is modular enough to make change over the years as your business changes,” said Mikami. ” You can upgrade from 2/3inch to 35mm or go from SR tape to SR memory, in the same form factor. That’s how we safeguard your investment.”

Mikami also noted that Sony is also working on a file-based transcoder that will support J2K, MPEG, OpenEXR, DNxHD, and many other formats. Features will include flexible codec support, versatile ingest platform (4 HD VTRs simultaneously),; automated processing; advanced queue management and metadata mapping; and integrates with existing infrastructure.

“HDCASM SR isn’t just a tape format,” concluded Mikami. “It’s tape, file and memory; with selective bit rates, an open file format; we’ve lowered the price of the tape cost; it offers new workflow efficiency, offer real-time from HD to 4K; doubled transfer speeds, and you can record up to a 4K data.”

For more information, go to http://www.sony.com/production

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