NAB 3D-D3 (Day Three)

"My last day on the NAB was quite short, but very interesting. I told yesterday was planning to go to listen to Alvin Tofler. I read his book “Powershift” in my early 20's and it taught me so much about the evolution and shapes of the current science-fiction we are now living in. Remember when 2000 sounded like blue neons, electric cars and portable visio-phones ? There were even guys selling us the very idea of “Intelligent Computers”. Only the one that believed them are now dumber than their blueberry.

On the way to the hotel check out, I ran into Chris Ward from Lightspeed Design. After I told him I'll enjoy my right to remain silent until his lawyer gave me a phone call, he delighted me with a few details about what they are working on over there. Want a hint ? Looks at what they do the best and expect to see it even better ! Catchy isn't it ? I should work in the PR, I would sell 3D cell phones.

By the way, I eventually decided I would bypass Alvin to enjoy a little more of Chris. Am I burning my idols or is the casual chat with 3D maniacs now more valuable than the keynote of the world's futurologist ? I wish I had a copy of Tofler's speech.

This was a good move for I met by French accomplice in 3D hunt : Stephane. He tipped me on a booth I would have missed : Evertz. They built a real-time 4:4:4 Dual HD-SDI 3D card with two inputs and three ouputs (7732DVP-3D-HD). This $7K marvel can input a couple of 4:4:4 HD signals, flip the beam-splite'd one, exit both in full res, along with a 3D-encoded control, in side-by-sive, over-under, interlaced or checkerboard. For there's 4 HD-SDI, you could input 4 camera in 4:2:2 and mix them live for Pierre Alio's auto-stereoscopic HDTV.


Evertz 3D booth


The Dolby booth being right away, it was too tempting to play luck, after all it's Las Vegas. Bingo. There was an Infitec color-coding device free-wheeling on a shelve. The coating shows nice on a simple digital picture.


Dolby RGB filter color wheel


From that point on I went to the NHK booth. On the way I stopped by to greet Florian Maier at the P+S Technik booth. He is the CAD guy who help industrialized Alain Derobe's beam splitter rig. Alain is our top-notch stereographer in France, the giant we're ridding the shoulders. While I was chatting with him, Etan, from TDVision came along. Soon we where joined by Marty Brenneis, the dad of Kerner's stereoscopic camera. He frowned at the $15K rig, mentioning the lack of any motorization. I should have asked him about the price of his own opto-electro-mechanical beast. The last figures I was told are around $2M of development cost. These guys lucky enough to fly daily a space shuttle should remember past century when they were pedaling on the way to the sand box. By the way, Marty, I'd love to see you camera and have a sneak view of the 3D Holy Grail in Santa Lucas.


Florian showing the P+S Technik 3D Rig to Ethan from TDVision


The interview with Atsushi Murakami was great. He is the head stereographer at NHK Media Technology. He designed all the equipment used for Scar. We talked about history of electronic 3D, 3D cinematography, future of 3D, all sort of 3D chat.


Atsushi Murakami, Lead Stereographer at NHK Media Technologies



SpectronIQ 3D screens on NHK booth


Then I ran to the airport and flown back to L.A.

NOTE: This small blogging of the NAB 3D let to a couple emails of product managers worrying I did not seems to enjoy their product. Let's make a couple things clear. I'm a F*****g perfectionist and will always put the finger where it hurts. I'm sorry about that, and I apologies for this on a regular basis to my subordinates and relatives. Complains should be addressed to my parents, not to me. If your product really sucks, I just don't mention it. Because I don't like to have to choose between being hypocrite or impolite, and anyone should have a chance to improve before receiving bad publicity. For this blog is free, and delivered for free, I intend to enjoy and enforce my freedom. On the other hand, I swear I'll do my best not to give you bad credits in a serious (ie paid for) publication without double-checking with you. Unless you really screwed the whole earth like Microsoft did with vista. That one was easy."

By Bernard Mendiburu, Digital Stereographer