American Cinematographer - May 2001 - 116

provided by the HD Center and author the
using the Sony BDXE 1000 MPEG
video encoder and Dolby Digital AC-3 TM
audio encoder. Audio encoding is
controlled by Sony software; two other
audio options, Philips MPEG and Linear
discs

PCM,

are

also available to clients."

An entire team is dedicated to the

audio

portion alone; these specialists

collaborate with the members of the

original film's sound crew (if they're
available) to create the 5.1-channel
soundtrack. When everyone is happy
with the audio master, it is synced
("conformed") to the video master. The
audio team has 24 tracks at their
non-linear

15

editing systems. HD
multi-layer bluescreen
compositing can be done in real time,
providing savings for video and film
productions. In January 2001, the first
24p edit suite came online, providing a
much more direct route from DV produc¬
Ultimatte and

tion to theatrical film exhibition.

Says Hopkins, "The 24-frame
high-definition technology allows
producers of movies and TV to work in a
standard that can be universally trans¬
ferred to any format throughout the
world
as

NTSC and PAL video, as well

-

35mm film. The

link

between

technology is

the

film

and

a

key

video

worlds."

Sony's HD telecine achievements were
recognized with an Emmy Award. "It's
what I call 'retro,' transferring film an
entire frame at a time," Hopkins says of
Sony's telecine technique. "What Sony is
doing is going back to the old way of
[transferring]. The reason for that is the
high resolution you can get with the
area-array CCDs and pin registration."
Before any film is turned into
tape, a consultation screening is held
with a telecine operator (known as the
"colorist") and the director, who often
brings his or her cinematographer to the
screening. The film is then transferred to
HD and the director's color corrections
made tape-to-tape. Spots, stains
are also cleaned up at

and
this
stage. Once the quality-control staff
confirms that the customer is fully satis¬
are

scratches

Tape-to-Film Transfer
It looks like the first theatrically
released 24p hi-def feature might be the
low-budget, supernatural thriller Nicolas,
rather than the much-anticipated Star
Wars: Episode II. But any project shot on
tape, big-budget or small, must still be

fied with the master, it is downconverted
to D-1 tape and sent off to the DVD

Center.
DVD Center

David

transferred to film for theatrical exhibi¬
tion. If the work is done

up

this divi¬

sion, which creates close to 110 disc
versions

both HD and standard video

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

of films

each

month

for

(Sony relies

and

convert

DreamWorks, Disney, Fox, Paramount,
Warner Bros., Universal, New Line and

on the same EBR system to
CGI to 35mm, 65mm, or

VistaVision formats.)

third-party

clients

such

as

Miramax. The
HD

Telecine

Film-to-Tape

Transfer
Between 1996 and 1998, telecine
transfers accounted for the lion's share of
business at the HD Center; in 1998,
114

May 2001

company's newest highprofile release is the two-disc collector's
edition of Lawrence of Arabia.
"We

dark

started

doing DVDs in

1998," recalls Sterling. "We take the D-1
digital master videotape cassette

with lots of action

scene or one

requires more compression work. I feel
that compression and encoding has prac¬
tically become an art form in itself."
At long last, sound and picture go
into mass storage, usually a modified
Sony DVD 7000 player, which emulates a
replicated disc. From there, qualitycontrol checks

are

conducted for every

facet of the disc,

including closedcaptioning and subtitles. For most films,
the entire process takes about 10 days.
Sterling concludes, "It's interest¬
ing to see how DVD authoring has
created entirely new businesses that
started as little more than steps in the
disc-production process. For example,
menu
design, disc-quality control,
video/audio compression services, and
HTML design are all now generating
their

Sterling heads

by Sony, an
Electron Beam Recorder will be used for
projects.

disposal, providing plenty of space to
include special services such as multiplelanguage versions.
"The video-encoding process can
be tricky," Sterling explains, "because a

of

own revenue

streams in the world

digital commerce."
It's also interesting to see how the
first HD cameras (20 years ago!) got
people thinking about theatrical-quality
video production, and how their early HD
productions, in turn, gave rise to corpo¬
rate think-tanks like Sony's HD Center -
which stimulated even more HD projects.
Sony Pictures High-Definition
Center, 10202 West Washington
Boulevard, Culver City, California 902323195.
American Cinematographer - May 2001

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2001
