RSS
Home
Texas companies love digital cinema
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
One of the world's largest sundials stands at the entrance to the world
headquarters of Texas Instruments. The large panels that serve as hourly
markers commemorate more than six decades of technological
advancements at TI. (Photo courtesy of Texas Instruments).
"Clear, sharp, bright and accurate images!" "Biggest and brightest presentation available!" The verve and enthusiasm accompanying new digital cinema technologies are reminiscent of the thrill movie-goers once felt in the 1950's when CinemaScope was first introduced. And why not? The magic and romance of bigger, brighter, and more colorful movies is part of what makes cinema so unique, and so different from other modern media outlets. Sitting in a darkened theater, with the light sparkling across the wide screen, something magical happens, something that connects the audience with the picture in an intimate way. Now, two Texas companies are working together to up the ante on that experience.
Texas Instruments, headquartered in Dallas, has announced that it's next generation of DLP Cinema projectors will offer a 4K option, which doubles the number of pixels as a standard 2K projector. TI doesn't manufacture the projectors themselves, but licenses the technology to other companies, including Barco, which has recently partnered with Cinemark as their exclusive provider for digital cinema projection. Cinemark Holdings Inc. is the world's second largest cinema exhibitor, and is headquartered in Plano, TX.
4K? 2K? DLP? What is all this stuff? Here's how it works in layman's terms: for the past 100 years or so, cinema has traditionally been shot and projected on 35mm film, which is just a long strip of semi-transparent material with images printed on it in sequence. When light passes through the film strip, the image is projected onto a screen on the other side of the room, and as thousands of frames are projected in rapid sequence, the image appears to move. Got it? Now, with DLP projectors, the film strip is replaced with electronic signals. Light shines on a chip with thousands of teeny-tiny mirrors on it; if the mirrors are facing the light source, they reflect one pixel of light through a lens, which projects the image onto a screen. The electronic signal tells each mirror when to switch on or off, forming a moving picture.
When digital cinema technology was first developed, it couldn't quite match the subtlety or clarity of traditional 35mm film. Nowadays, however, the quality of digital cinema is quite impressive - the new DLP projectors have a range of more than 35 trillion colors, and the 4K projectors promise four times as many pixels as the standard 2K projectors, making for an incredibly clear image. Moreover, digital prints won't fade, scratch, or deteriorate the way 35mm will.
So far, Sony Electronics has pretty much had the corner on the 4K market, partnering with powerhouses AMC and Regal Cinemas as their digital cinema provider. The new deal between Barco and Cinemark signals some competition in the field, but Sony seems ok with this as long as new technologies are being ushered in. "We feel 4K is the right resolution for this industry, and if TI has decided to endorse that resolution, we're happy they agree," says Gary Johns, VP at Sony's Digital Cinema Systems division in a Variety.com article published last Thursday.
Still not sure how DLP works? Watch this informative video from Texas Instruments!
Related Articles:
Comments
