Interview
Interview with David McIntosh, Vice President, Sony Digital Cinema 4K Solutions for Europe and the Americas.
When I say ‘interview’, it was definitely more of a chat and a catchup with where Sony Digital Cinema were, having last spoken to David about 18 months ago and what should have been just a 30 minute slot, turned into nearer 60 minutes. I’d therefore like to thank David for his time. Below is a summary of some of the topics we talked about.
As I had seen the demonstration of the SRX-R515DS the day before we started by talking about that in a bit more detail. You can see more details about that later in this article.
We then turned our attention to the fact that all the other manufacturers were talking extensively about laser projectors. David suggested that it was something that was being worked on by Sony, but that they focus on quality so will only release something when it is right. He reminded me that Sony Digital Cinema is founded on what is best for the cinema and the cinema owner, which is why they have over 18,000 installations worldwide.
Something I had not realised was that Sony were the only manufacture who also a VPF provider as well, which gave them experience of banking and will allow them to create a new finance package based on an operating cost basis. Although, since the interview I have seen that Barco are now going to offer a financing deal as well.
As our conversation meandered through different topics, including the Event Cinema partnership with Vue and National Theatre Live, which is discussed in more detail below, I asked about the development of their accessibility glasses. Back in 2013 I saw a demonstration of the Sony Entertainment Access Glasses,
which are designed to allow films to be accessible to all, by providing an individual with a set of glasses which projects the subtitles onto the screen, without the whole auditorium needing to see them. Back in 2013 I was pretty impressed with the glasses but they were not perfect, so I was interested to hear that you were no longer able to purchase the 2013 version. Sony has decided to discontinue the sale of its Entertainment Access Glasses in Europe (continuing to supply in America) whilst they return to look at a more robust and commercially viable mark 2. Accessibility in the cinema is a hot topic at the moment, especially in America.
But David says that cinema is just fundamentally the tradition of storytelling around the camp fire being continued in a new way.
National Theatre Live & Vue Partnership
The previous day Sony had announced that their partnership with the National Theatre Live and Vue Entertainment would mean that The Beaux Stratagem and Hamlet were the next two productions to get the 4K treatment, along with the world’s first live 4K transmission to multiple cinemas.
The Beaux Stratagem would be shot and screened exclusively by Vue in Sony 4K using the Sony’s F55 4K camera and delivered as part of an encore screening to the cinemas as a 4K DCP.
While Hamlet will be the world’s first multi-site live 4K transmission on 15th October from the Barbican to selected Vue cinemas around the UK. It will be the first time that any theatrical production has been delivered live to multiple locations simultaneously for 4K projection. There was a broadcast in 2014 of War Horse in 4K but that was just to a single cinema. You can read more about that here. “This eagerly-awaited production of Hamlet has been the fastest-selling show in London theatre’s history”, says Emma Keith. “It’s wonderful that we have the opportunity to future-proof Hamlet in 4K, giving the widest possible audience a chance to experience this landmark production – both live and after the event.”
You can read the full press release here.
Back at the end of March 2015, I was lucky enough to see the first presentation in the partnership between the National Theatre Live, Vue and Sony when they presented the play ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’ in 4K at the Vue Cinema Piccadilly.
It was a real pleasure to watch the play, and the depth of field, and representation of the vivid colours made the production really immersive. I didn’t completely forget that I was in a cinema auditorium watching something on a screen rather than actually at the theatre, but that is only because part of my mind was always thinking about the technical aspects of what was going on. And I know there were lots of moments when I did completely forget about it. You can see a trailer for the production here:
I also watched War Horse which was transmitted and projected in 4K in 2014. The image and the way 
that the play was shot was definitely an improvement from War Horse and it was obvious that people were learning what the techniques to create the best possible experience.
What was however interesting, and something I was able to talk to David about was that I happened to be sitting next to the sound designer for the show. At one point an aeroplane is meant to fly over the heads of audience. The sound designer was upset because it was not as loud or as deafening as it is in the theatre. This led to a more general discussion where there was an obvious knowledge gap between the sound designers in the theatre and their understanding of the way sound in cinema and event cinema worked and conversely the sound engineers in event cinema and their understanding of theatre and what key effects may mean to the meaning of the whole show.
Our discussion about the partnership and enthusiasm with the National Theatre Live and Vue lead me on to observe that Sony is fairly unique that it has the ability to produce the end to end workflow for this sort of thing as it produces the cameras, broadcast kit and the display equipment in a way that none of the other manufactures can or do.
David explained that they really did want to get the in cinema experience as close to the in theatre experience. With the ‘Live’ transmission of the experience feeling like you are being there. David noted that there had been a member of the audience who was heard to say that “It had transformed his life” watching live events in their local cinema, because it had become a social experience for them, where they met up with friends.
This autumn’s presentations build on the success in March of Behind the Beautiful Forevers – the first NT Live production covered by the agreement that was recorded and screened exclusively to Vue customers in Sony 4K.
Contrast Test
Contrast ratio makes a huge difference to the way in which we see images on screen and in many ways can be more important than the overall brightness and resolution of an image. So from sun-drenched landscapes to action-packed adventure sequences in inky blackness spaces the better the contrast ratio the more detail which will be available to see. We already know that just making an image brighter won’t help.
Sony were doing demonstrations of the importance of contrast ratios. During the demonstration Sony showed the same content from the same player (a BluRay in this case), one used a standard DLP projector and the other used a Sony projector that had a higher contrast ratio. Throughout the demonstration it was easy to see that one image provided much more detail in the darkest scenes. This was of course the projector which had the higher contrast ratio and was the Sony projector. It is very easy to see why a higher contrast ratio projector will provide a better overall image. Sony’s R500 series 4K digital cinema projectors offer an industry-leading contrast ratio of up to 8000:1 and you can see a demonstration via the Sony website here.
Dual Projectors
Sony were showing up their dual stack SRX-R515DS setup. The SRX-R515DS combines two of the Sony SRX-R515 4K projectors to deliver a combined output of 30,000 lumens and are designed for 2D presentations on screens up to 19.5m or 23m on 3D screens.
The dual setup conforms to the DCI specification and the dual projectors can either be operated side-by-side or stacked vertically depending on the projection room requirements. As part of the package there is an auto alignment system that can be configured to also run from within a playlist, allowing the projectors to function as a single unit.
The use of two SRX-R515 projectors means that there are all the same specifications as the single projector, it is just that with the dual system, there is only one server and one projector is essentially just the lamp and projector head.
The projectors use the familiar High Pressure Mercury (HPM) multi-lamp arrays (6 per projector) which provide the advantage that even if one of the lamps go, the show is not lost. If one lamp fails during a show, the presentation continues uninterrupted with a slightly reduced brightness, but without impacting the audience’s enjoyment of the show. Being HPM the replacement of the lamp is via cartridges which can be achieved between screenings quickly and without any need for special protective clothing. Also the overall use of electricity is lower than using the equivalent Xenon lamp for the projectors.
The XCT-S10 cinema server and XCT-M10 integrated media bock support Dolby Atmos and also have USB 3.0 to allow for faster transfer speeds.
Sony were really pushing the cost of ownership, even with having two projectors per screen, they believe that it is lower than their competitors because of the use of the HPM lamps which can last for up to 5000 hours. The projector knows the status of each of the individual lamps and each one is under individual warranty.
No manual lens change is required- simply the removal of the filters from the light path, just like with any other 3D System, which is something that could really be motorised fairly easily.
I watched this demonstration twice from different aspects – there was definitely a moment while watching the 3D trailers where it felt like the entire auditorium was moving with the picture, like you might experience on a ride, something which I have only experienced twice.