October 2011

The SMPTE Symposium: Large-Sensor Imaging Revolution

Program developed in collaboration with the American Society of Cinematographers

Monday, 24 October 2011

For years, professional camera designs have included three image sensors and processing channels for red, green, and blue. But advances in semiconductor fabrication have made large high-performance CMOS sensors readily available—and that is fundamentally altering traditional workflows for signal processing and color management.

Produced in collaboration with the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), this symposium provides an in-depth look at the fundamental differences between three- and single-sensor systems, with emphasis on the practical implications, benefits, and limitations of the two approaches—all packed into a focused, one-day event!

Click here to register now!

Here are just a few of the topics to be covered at the SMPTE symposium:

• Large-Sensor Motion Picture Cameras: How We Got Here and Where We’re Going (David Leitner, producer, director, & DP). An overview of current large-sensor motion picture cameras with an eye to user trends and future developments. Lenses, sensors, and workflows will be discussed and consideration given to advantages and disadvantages of large-sensor cameras.
• High Dynamic Range Imaging (Michael Safai and Alaric Cole, Soviet Montage Productions). High Dynamic Range imaging is a set of techniques that produce expanded dynamic range of luminance. Enabled by new large-sensor digital cameras, multiple exposure shooting techniques are becoming feasible.
• Case Study: DSLR Workflow and Shooting with DSLR. In this session featured speaker Shane Hurlbut, ASC, presents a case study of his experiences and lessons learned during production with DSLR devices.

Shane Hurlbut: Featured SMPTE Symposium Speaker

Hurlbut is an accomplished cinematographer who graduated from Emerson College with a Bachelor of Arts in Film. The American Society of Cinematographers recognized Hurlbut after his first feature film The Rat Pack, directed by Rob Cohen in 1998. Over the course of the next decade Hurlbut lensed 17 additional features including Terminator: Salvation, and We Are Marshall, directed by McG, Greatest Game Ever Played, directed by Bill Paxton, and Drumline, directed by Charles Stone III. The highly anticipated Act of Valor, directed by Scott Waugh and Mike McCoy, details the covert operations of the U.S. Navy SEALS. The film was shot primarily on the Canon 5D Mark II camera and will be the first HDSLR full-length feature released by a major studio later this year.

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SMPTE 2011 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition

When:
25-27 October 2011: Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition

Where:
Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa
1755 North Highland Ave
Hollywood, CA

Every year, the SMPTE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition draws the world’s leading motion-imaging engineers, executives, scientists, and researchers. It also features an exhibit hall filled with the latest offerings from leading solutions providers.

With an exceptionally strong class of submissions, this year’s SMPTE conference promises to be exceptional, with presentations on new acquisition and broadcast technologies; cloud-computing production solutions; audio issues, including the U.S. CALM Act; and 3D acquisition, production, distribution, and display—and more! In addition to the outstanding speakers and hard to get networking opportunities, immediate access to conference manuscripts and PDFs of presentations is limited to conference attendees! Don't wait! Register today!

VFX Pioneer Scott Ross To Deliver Opening Keynote

Ross, whose production teams won multiple Academy Awards(r) for visual effects and founded and ran one of Hollywood's premier digital production studios, will discuss the current state of 2D-to-3D conversion, as well as address the combined impact of globalization and technology trends on visual effects and the vital role of standards in this dynamic area of movie production.

As one of the pioneers in digital media, Ross' career in entertainment and technology has spanned three decades. In the 1980s he led George Lucas' vast entertainment empire and in 1993 he founded, along with James Cameron and Stan Winston, Digital Domain, Inc., one of the largest digital production studios in the motion picture and advertising industries. In 2006 as Digital Domain's CEO and Chairman, he successfully sold Digital Domain to director Michael Bay and a group of private equity investors. Since 2006, Ross has developed and produced films, TV and location based entertainment around the world.  Ross currently works as a professional consultant and producer and serves on the boards of multiple technology and entertainment companies.

Click here for Rates and Program Information and to secure your Pre-Registration Discount Now!

FREE EXHIBIT PASS OFFER!

Now you can get a FREE EXHIBITS PASS for the SMPTE 2011 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition. Simply register for your Exhibits Pass at www.smpte2011.org and enter the discount code “smpte2011” at checkout for your FREE PASS!

Register today and get your free exhibits pass—just click here!

The exhibit hall, covering approximately 15,000 sq. ft will include more than 60 companies from the motion imaging industry. Come and see the latest technologies and services. Check out new products and examine the most recent innovations in the motion imaging industry. The following companies will be participating:

AJA
AmberFin Ltd.
Amphenol
Artel Video Systems
Aspera
ATEME
Atempo
Avid Technology, Inc.
Avocent/Emerson Network Power
Belden/Telecast
Calibre UK Ltd.
Canon
Cheetah Technologies
Chyron
Ciena
CineFLOW
Cinegy
Clark Wire & Cable
Cobalt Digital Inc.
Communications Specialties, Inc.
Digital Rapids
Doremi Labs
Ensemble Designs
Ericsson
Evertz
EVS
FilmLight
Fixstars Corporation
Fraunhofer IIS.
Gepco International Inc.
Grass Valley
Harmonic
Harris
Hollywood DI
IEEE Broadcast Technology Society
Image Systems (formerly Digital Vision)
intoPIX
Konica Minolta Sensing Americas
Marshall Electronics
Matrox Video Products
Metaglue Corporation
Miranda Technologies Inc.
MPro Systems
NetApp
Nevion
NVIDIA Corporation
Omnitek
Pixel Power Inc.
Photo Research Inc.
PwC
SGL
Sierra Video
Snell
SRI International Sarnoff
Starfish Technologies Limited
Telestream
Tektronix
THX Ltd.
T-VIPS
Utah Scientific, Inc.
Vidyo Cast Division Vidyo Inc.
XenData

Click here to view the SOLD OUT EXHIBIT FLOOR!

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Sponsorship Opportunities Available for the Fall Conference

Sponsorship Packages start as low as $1,500 and include the following opportunities:
• Honors & Awards Ceremony (Includes a speaking opportunity)
• Industry Luncheon (Includes a speaking opportunity)
• Fellows Luncheon (Includes a speaking opportunity)
• Continental Breakfast
• Coffee Breaks
• And more!

Click here for more information on pricing and packages.

Thank you to our Sponsors

Industry Partners

Media Partner

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Annual Meeting of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers

When: Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Time: 18:00
Place: Grand Ballroom, Salon 1
Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa
Hollywood, CA

Notice is hereby given that an Annual Business Meeting of the voting members of SMPTE will be held at 18:00 on 26 October 2011 during the Annual Technical Conference at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel.

Come hear all the recent developments and future plans of your Society.

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San Francisco Section – 60th Anniversary Celebration

Saturday, 19 November 2011
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
37417 Niles Boulevard
San Francisco, CA

The San Francisco Section will celebrate the Section’s 60th anniversary by visiting the past and honoring the advancements in the theory and practice of engineering in motion pictures, television, and the allied arts and sciences credited to the San Francisco area.  As we wind back the clock, we will be venturing back into the dawn of the film industry in California with Bronco Billy and Charlie Chaplin at the Edison Theater, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Fremont California with the museum’s historian David Kiehn.

Click here for more information.

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SMPTE Events Calendar

Don't forget to check the SMPTE Events Calendar for updated listings of SMPTE events, Industry events, and Section meetings. You may also add your own events by clicking on "Add an Event" at the bottom of the calendar. Sections are especially encouraged to add their meeting dates. If you have trouble adding an event, please e-mail Roberta Gorman at rgorman@smpte.org.

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3D Workshops

3D@Home Consortium is hosting a full-day of educational, hands-on workshops on the entire 3D eco-system on Wednesday, 2 November 2011 in San Jose, CA. The program consists of two half-day sessions of basic and  intermediate material, designed to educate those that are new to 3D or those that need to understand the larger picture, from production to distribution to 3D systems and new technologies changing the 3D landscape.  Attendees may choose to attend the full-day of workshops, or only the AM or PM session.

Special Discount for SMPTE Members!  Use 'SMPTE20' when checking out for a 20% discount on the fees.

For more information, visit this website.

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In partnership with other groups, SMPTE is pleased to inform you of these industy events:

Digital Living Room

SMPTE President Peter Ludé, SVP, Sony Systems Engineering, will join nearly 100 top executives from Hollywood and Silicon Valley at the 6th Annual Digital Living Room summit on 7-8 December in the SF Bay Area. CBS, ABC, DirecTV, Verizon, DreamWorks and CNN join Pandora, Flixster, AOL, Logitech, Intel, Shazam, Gartner and many more in a unique conference.

Limited Early Bird Tickets Only $595 at http://bit.ly/oso9NT.

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DCS Free Trial Membership Offer

The Digital Cinema Society is an international educational cooperative dedicated to informing the entertainment industry about the integration of new technology.  Member benefits include access to educational seminars and networking events, DCS "Streaming Knowledge-on-Demand", and a monthly eNewsletter featuring unbiased coverage of the latest in Digital Cinema.  We invite to join us now for a free trial membership: www.digitalcinemasociety.org/join/join.php?o=f

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SMPTE PDA Now

MXF: The Fiddly Bits
Thursday, 20 October 10:00 PDT/13:00 EDT /19:00 CET

Bruce Devlin, CTO, Amberfin, continues unwrapping the MXF Standard by exploring the "fiddly bits" of MXF and file-based workflows. During this SMPTE PDA Now educational webcast, Devlin answers commonly asked MXF questions including: How do VANC, VBI and captions fit into MXF? What about Dolby E? How does Dolby E differ from discrete multichannel audio? How do you implement a growing file-based  MXF workflow? When can componentised storage of video and audio give improvements? Register Now!

Click here for more information on upcoming SMPTE PDA webinars and more.

IMPORTANT! The fourth SMPTE PDA educational webcast in the MXF series (scheduled for 20 October 2011) is titled "MXF Implementation: How is it Being Applied in the Real World?" To ensure this content includes YOUR "real world," please tell SMPTE how you or your organization have applied MXF. To do this, please take a few minutes to complete this very brief online survey. Your anonymous responses will form the basis of discussion during webcast.

Please note: Individuals who participate in all four SMPTE PDA Now educational webcasts will receive a SMPTE certificate of participation.

Special Recognition for SMPTE Professional Development Sponsors

Ongoing education is such an important requirement for today's successful engineers and technologists!  Work flows and underlying technologies evolve and change disruptively at an almost frightening pace. In turn, it is imperative to find affordable, convenient opportunities to learn about relevant technology advancements. At SMPTE, that's where the Professional Development Academy comes in! SMPTE PDA Now educational webcasts are free to SMPTE Members. Our virtual classroom offerings are deeply discounted to Members. This is possible only through the generous support of our educational sponsors. Companies like AJA Video Systems, Black Magic Design and now Quantum have demonstrated their commitment helping SMPTE Members advance their careers. These companies sponsor the SMPTE Professional Development Academy so SMPTE can provide educational services that are both affordable and convenient.  Please consider adding your company's name to the list of those committed to industry education and professional development. Become a sponsor of the SMPTE Professional Development Academy today! For more information and to sign up for sponsorship, please visit us at https://www.smpte.org/education/pda_now/sponsorships#top

Thanks to sponsors!

and

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The Business of Entertainment V (co-produced by SMPTE)

Saturday, 22 October 2011
9:30 - 17:30 PDT
The Fletcher-Jones Foundation Auditorium on the campus of Woodbury University
7500 Glenoaks Blvd.
Burbank, CA

This event will include a presentation titled, “A Technology Update from the Front Lines of Change” by SMPTE Past Governor Rick Dean, THX, who will cover the fundamentals and opportunities of technological advances in an industry where technology can be both friend… and foe. This presentation is co-sponsored by SMPTE.

SMPTE members receive a 35% discount from the full retail ticket price! Just enter the code "SMPTE" during the online ordering process and this will lower the ticket price to $45.50.

Click here for more information.

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SMPTE and the Cisco Networking Academy

There is no doubt that the Motion Imaging Industry has undergone tremendous change over the past several years. The disruptive transition from traditional workflows to file-based workflows has created the need for industry technologists to fully understand essential networking concepts such as network architectures, protocols, network addressing, subnets, Ethernet and many more concepts increasingly utilized in our day-to-day work. In the past, only a few options existed to acquire this essential knowledge and these options generally were expensive and always required travel.

Today, SMPTE is helping to more easily access opportunities to learn these critical principles through its Professional Development Academy. SMPTE is now part of the Cisco Networking Academy network and, as such, now offers the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Course, Networking Fundamentals through its innovative blended virtual classroom environment. That's right, virtual classroom! There is no travel and the seven week course can be completed using your high speed Internet connected computer. Led by an expert instructor, course participants complete online lessons, complete learning assessments and actually configure simulated networks using Cisco's Packet Tracer program.

Registration for the next course beginning 28 November 2011 will open very soon! For more information please visit us at www.cvent.com/d/qcqjlb.

Thank you to our sponsor!

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New Engineering Documents

The following SMPTE Engineering Documents were published during September 2011. Links to the documents in the SMPTE Store are noted below.

SMPTE ST 330:2011 (Revision of SMPTE 330M-2004), Unique Material Identifier (UMI)

http://store.smpte.org/product-p/st%200330-2011.htm

Extract from Scope

This standard defines the format of the unique material identifier (UMID).  The UMID provides a method of identification for instances of audiovisual material and thus enables the material to be linked with its associated metadata. The UMID itself is neither intended for the identification of copyright nor the ownership of rights. Nor, for example, does it identify program content or works. The UMID consists of an ordered group of components each providing a key aspect to the identification of the audiovisual material, be it picture, sound or data. A key property of a UMID generated in accordance with this standard is that it is possible to use the resulting UMID simply as a globally unique dumb number.

The UMID can exist in one of two forms:

• A basic UMID, which contains the minimum components necessary for unique identification; and
• An extended UMID, which attaches a packed metadata set (source pack) to the basic UMID.

This standard specifies the formats of each component in both the basic UMID and the extended UMID. This standard also identifies and specifies methods by which the components of the identifier can be created. A glossary is provided to define the terms used in this standard and this scope.

SMPTE ST 377-1:2011 (Revision of SMPTE 377-1-2009), Material Exchange Format (MXF) – File Format Specification

http://store.smpte.org/product-p/st%200377-1-2011.htm

Extract from Scope

This document defines the data structure of the Material Exchange Format (MXF) for the interchange of audio-visual material. It defines the data structure for network transport and may be used on storage media. This document does not define internal storage formats for MXF compliant devices. The document defines all the components of the MXF file specification including all those in the File Header, File Body and File Footer. It defines the application of Partitions in the file that provide valuable features such as the ability for an MXF file to serve many application requirements and recovery of partially received files. The document also defines key features of the file structure including the Partition Packs, the Structural Metadata, the Primer Pack, the Random Index Pack and Index Tables. The document does not define either the Essence Container or the Descriptive Metadata. Instead, it defines the requirements for these components to be added as a plug-in to an MXF file.

SMPTE ST 381-2:2011, Material Exchange Format (MXF) – Mapping MPEG Streams into the MXF Constrained Generic Container

http://store.smpte.org/product-p/st%200381-2-2011.htm

Extract from Scope

This standard specifies the mapping of video and audio MPEG ES, as identified by an ISO/IEC 13818-1 stream_id value, as well as the carriage of data streams extracted from higher level MPEG multiplexes, into the MXF Generic Container described in SMPTE ST 379-2. This includes, but is not limited to, ISO/IEC 13818-2 MPEG video stream, ISO/IEC 11172-2 MPEG video streams, ISO/IEC 14496-2 MPEG visual streams, ISO/IEC 14496-10 video streams, ISO/IEC 13818-3 MPEG audio streams, ISO/IEC 11172-3 MPEG audio streams, and ISO/IEC 14496-3 MPEG audio streams. It does not include ISO/IEC 14496-15 video streams.  The document outlines single stream mapping and synchronized multi-stream mapping along with synchronization requirements for the MXF encapsulation of co-timed MPEG Essence streams. This standard defines SMPTE universal labels to be used to uniquely identify specific MPEG implementations. The Essence Element Keys and an Essence Container Label for MPEG streams are detailed along with CBE and VBE indexing of MPEG content using Index Tables.  In order to achieve interoperability within any given Operational Pattern, restrictions may be placed on the way in which this Essence Container can be implemented. The reader is advised to carefully study the appropriate Operational Pattern document before implementation.

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SMPTE Book:
3D Cinema and Television Technology: The First 100 Years Available for Purchase

This compendium contains over 50 papers published in the SMPTE Journal during the past century from 1919 to 2010. These historic SMPTE papers provide a foundation for understanding the current innovations in 3D stereoscopic areas, including acquisition, content creation, exhibition, distribution, and display technology. Edited by Michael D. Smith, Peter Ludé, and Bill Hogan, the papers in this book contain a wealth of information on the transformation of 3D from its early days of experimentation to current applications in media and entertainment. This book will serves as an important reference tool in any technical library.

Member price: $69
Non-member price: $89

Click here to purchase a copy.

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Shopping at Amazon Can Benefit SMPTE!

Every time you start your Amazon shopping experience from SMPTE, you help SMPTE at no cost to you! Click here to start shopping.

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SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal

The October issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal is themed "Facilities Infrastructure." Papers cover an array issues on the topic, including camera line-up technologies, new test pattern sequences, issues surrounding progressive production, best practices on optical transmitter receiver and system testing, and pathological test codes. Click here to view the latest issue.

Also, please note, October marks the launch of the new digital library. Stay tuned for upcoming information!

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Welcome, New Members

Welcome to the 50 new members and Sustaining member company who recently joined the Society. SMPTE is happy to have you on board, and we hope that you will find your membership to be rewarding.

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Promote Your Organization with SMPTE

Taking advantage of one of SMPTE's outstanding promotional opportunities is a great way to ensure your organization stays front of mind with the most important people in the Motion Imaging Industry. Advertising on www.smpte.org, in SMPTE newsletters or in the SMPTE Journal provides visibility to a group you cannot access any other way. Want to demonstrate your company's commitment to elevating the Industry and SMPTE's furthering education and professional development efforts? There is no better way than to sponsor SMPTE's Professional Development Academy (SMPTE PDA). Supporting SMPTE PDA through one of its highly cost-effective sponsorships is a win-win-win. For more information, please visit SMPTE at www.smpte.org/about/promotional_opportunities/.

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SMPTE Staff Contacts

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