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MillimeterMark In
Dec 1, 2006 11:00 AM
Making One from Many
By Dan Ochiva
The Mersive Sol software from Mersive Technology is a breakthrough in creating large, seamless high-resolution displays.
What if it took only a few minutes to create a large, seamless high-resolution display from multiple projectors, and you didn't have to worry about the way the projectors keystoned the image — or even if the projectors were the same make and model?
Producers of large-venue displays for tradeshows, museum installations, and digital signage have dealt with these headaches for years. Meanwhile, manufacturers such as SGI have sold large, multi-million-dollar display systems to solve these problems for the military, car designers, and oil and gas explorers.
Now, however, startup Mersive Technology (www.mersive.com) promises to easily solve this problem with a few clicks of its software.
This past October, Lexington, Ky.-based Mersive Technology debuted the heart of the system — its Mersive Sol server that runs Sol calibration and runtime software. Presented as a final proof of concept at IdeaFestival, an annual event held in downtown Louisville, Ky., the software setup created “The World's Highest-resolution Seamless Display,” a rear-projection screen 27'×5' (W×H) that delivered 50-million pixel resolution (9000×4500 pixels). The system also included 20 networked PCs, each equipped with dual graphic cards, and 80 projectors to light up the large rear screen.
Founded by University of Kentucky professor Christopher Jaynes and his former student Stephen Webb, Mersive is currently licensing its software for commercial use.
How does the technology work? Take just about any commercially available camera, point it at a projection display, and feed the output to the Sol software, which analyzes the layout of the projectors, the shape of their resulting display, and the overlapping regions. As long as the displayed images have about a 10-percent overlap, the software can compute geometric and intensity-blending parameters, and correct it for each projector as needed.
All this can be done in a matter of minutes, without a user in the loop. Even if you're faced with a mix of curved or warped screens, the system still needs only a minute or so to set things right.
Sol software works with any mix of off-the-shelf projectors and computers. Even sub-$1,000 projectors can deliver higher-resolution and higher-lumen output by layering their projected images on top of each other. That's right: Resolution and light output scale simply by adding more projectors and computers to control them.
Currently, the system works with high-resolution still images and any-resolution video. The Sol API (application programming interface) allows realtime applications such as flight simulators and engineering applications to leverage the technology.
“The Mersive Sol server is poised to change displays as we currently think of them,” says Randall Stevens, president and CEO of Mersive, who promises new experiences that shape and remove resolution constraints.
Digital Content Producer’s The Briefing Room
KLAS-TV Outfits News Crews With Fujinon XDCAM HD Lenses
KLAS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, recently launched its top-rated local news programming in HDTV. With the HDTV version of its Channel 8 Eyewitness News now available on DTV channel 8.1, KLAS-TV has the distinction of being the first station in Nevada to broadcast its local news in HD.
While KLAS-TV has been carrying the CBS primetime tier in HDTV for years, upgrading its entire local news operation represented a major investment in its station infrastructure, as well as a quantum leap in quality for its live local news product. For HD newsgathering and commercial production, KLAS-TV purchased 18 new Fujinon HS16×4.6ERM HD lenses, which are used in conjunction with 18 Sony PDW-530 XDCAM HD camcorders. …
Blackmagic Design Announces New HDLink Price at US $445
Blackmagic Design announced a new price for HDLink, the highly popular monitoring converter for professional postproduction editors and broadcast paint and effects artists. This market-leading SDI to DVI/HDMI converter is the only SDI monitoring solution that instantly switches between HD and SD, and includes 4:2:2 and Dual Link 4:4:4 feature-film quality.
Unlike other monitoring solutions, HDLink incorporates a built-in USB interface and software based on Windows XP and Mac OS X that allows full custom 10-bit look-up tables, combined with lift, gamma, and gain adjustments in red, green, and blue channels. This is vital when color calibrating for various popular brands of connected LCD panels, and ensures accurate broadcast-quality color representation of the HD-SDI video input. …
What video image processor is used on the set of CBS Evening News with Katie Couric?
Vista Systems Spyders
When Katie Couric made her debut as a primetime network news anchor, so did a pair of Vista Systems Spyders. Providing multiple image-processing tasks, the Vista Spyder systems support a Christie 16'×9' projection screen behind the set, an LED display in front of the news desk, and plasma screens on the set. The Spyders are networked and controlled via Vista Systems software; a Ross SDI router interfaces with the Spyders.
Business Intelligence: Controlling the Explosion in Business Video Production
By Steve Pattison, VP, Media Publisher
Businesses are asking their corporate video content production teams to produce more and more high-quality video and to publish the video via the Web, making it available globally. In the face of ever-shorter delivery timeframes, content production teams are also increasingly called on to manage the job of publishing. This leads to production teams seeking out ways to allow users to manage some publishing tasks themselves.
Network administrators, corporate video producers, presenters, and viewers might all work from separate locations, including remote offices located overseas. This can create headaches if the management and distribution pieces of the publishing solution are not adequately covered.
How can production teams best distribute business video while maintaining quality standards, and provide controls for other business users? What current technology is best suited for fulfilling today's corporate content distribution needs?
New video content management solutions can serve as a connection for the increasing number of components in the video infrastructure, providing centralized control for IT and video production teams and virtually unlimited scalability.
Web-based solutions are the most convenient and efficient method for creating and publishing business video. Users can view video from web browsers or create video using a camera connected to the Web. For example, Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, uses video management solutions to expand e-learning and employee training. With a web-based solution, it doesn't matter where viewers and presenters are based. By using video over the Web, Lamar University was able to provide video training for the staff, instead of sending employees to Austin for in-person training.
As more and more executives and department heads put video cameras in their offices for the purposes of communicating regularly to their teams, corporate video producers need solutions that help manage the creation and distribution of an ever-growing number of videos. Organizing a growing volume of video assets across multiple web properties and third-party portals, while setting variable security rights and enforcing branding standards, can be very challenging.
For example, a major aerospace company found that video presentations from presenters scattered across the world did not communicate a consistent corporate message. After implementing a web-based video management solution, the company was able to offer users a template for corporate videos, enforcing a standard that helps raise awareness of corporate messages.
There are many steps and approaches businesses can take to address video production demands. When evaluating alternatives, corporate content producers need to seek out video management solutions that are flexible enough to handle the changes that will occur in available video production technologies. These solutions need to be able to “plug in and unplug” various components in the video infrastructure, such as new encoder types, alternate streaming servers, different Content Distribution Networks (systems of computers networked together across the Internet to deliver rich media content), other video storage choices, and corporate portals (workspaces for centralized delivery of video assets).
Many providers of video management solutions have to custom-build “plug and unplug” capabilities, which take a lot of time and ratchets up the costs of the solution. Corporate video producers should look for solutions that accommodate multiple Content Distribution Networks or web-based peer-to-peer alternatives from the start, instead of tolerating costly customization options.
A central, web-based control system for the entire video infrastructure can provide a path to a successful and efficient enterprise video communications system. Given all of the new demands faced by video production teams, it's time to look at new technological solutions that make the workload lighter.
Steve Pattison is vice president of marketing and business development at Media Publisher (www.mediapublisher.com), a leading provider of enterprise video communications solutions.
Skillset
Final Cut Studio Complete
Hands-on Workshop
Jan. 8-19
Orlando, Fla.
$3,500
dvcreators.net
This 12-day hands-on workshop covers the entire Final Cut Studio: Final Cut Pro 5, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Motion 2. Spanning two weeks (with weekends off), this course includes computers with Apple courseware for each attendee's use during the workshop, an advanced Final Cut Pro 5 training DVD, and the chance to complete the Apple certification exam for each program. The first five days of class will cover Final Cut Pro, including LiveType and SoundTrack Pro, followed by three days on DVD Studio Pro 4, and then two days on Motion 2. Classes can also be taken separately. Call (800) 965-3976 for more details.
