Hasta La Gadget!

You’ve probably seen the new phenomenon with your own eyes: A cineplex IMAX that doesn’t have the monster screen you grew up with in science-museum IMAX theaters. Here’s the what, the how and the why.

Just last night, comedian Aziz Ansari (from Parks and Recreation) published this piece describing the conspiracy of paying an extra $5 to see an “IMAX” movie that really wasn’t much bigger than a normal screen.

I actually visited IMAX HQ a few weeks back, and a major point of discussion was the retrofitting process so lovingly described by Aziz. Basically, IMAX used to build their own massive theaters in their own buildings. But now, in order to expand, the company has made a deals with major theater chains like AMC in which they’ll provide and install their proprietary mix of projectors, screens, speakers and hardware if the theater will foot the bill for the necessary structural renovations.

This plan, for better or worse, is IMAX’s only current design for expansion in the US.
This conversion process, which has a patented geometry, includes installing a screen that’s only slightly bigger (as little as 10 feet wider than before), but this screen is coupled with the removal of several rows of seats which allows it to be scooted roughly 30 feet closer to the audience, creating a sort of sitting too close the TV effect with a screen that, I was told, is perceived as 75 feet wider than before.

When the process was described to me, I thought it all sounded a bit hokey. But walking into IMAX’s test multiplex, an otherwise typical AMC located in a Canada, I was shown a side-by-side of the same theater before and after the retrofitting process.

I will say, the new screen looked much bigger and far more imposing—”night and day” would make for a fair analogy. My mind wasn’t mentally prepped for such a tangible difference, though I’d agree that it still fell short of, say, the unbelievable, multi-story beast of a screen that I watched Star Trek on several days later at a classic, standalone IMAX.

But the change I didn’t expect (and I can’t pretend to have perceived this tidbit up on my own) was a remarkable difference from acoustic paneling. Clapping in the original theater revealed a very live environment with a frightening amount of echo. The retrofit, however, absorbed the sound in a pleasant way, reminiscent of more than one acoustically-planned stage I performed on back in my band days.

There are other improvements as well, including a specifically non-THX-certified sound system, reaching up to 14,000W, that offers 117db of uncompressed digital sound without distortion. Engineers claimed that in a normal theater, the sweet spot for audio is in the dead center, and technicians make no effort to tend to those sitting in the back. Meanwhile, IMAX’s system promised the same surround experience anywhere in the theater.

I tested that theory during a screening of some Rolling Stones at the Max footage by moving from the center of the theater to the back right corner. And there’s absolutely no doubt, I lost a good deal of the side channels while the rear channel (in this case, it was the lead guitar, I believe), dominated the audio spectrum. I wouldn’t have expected IMAX to have achieved the impossible unless, you know, they claimed that they had.
The other chief part of this retrofitting process is the new digital IMAX projector. Since its debut in the 70s, the Xenon-lamp-powered projector has stayed mostly unchanged. But with film prints reaching around $40,000 apiece, IMAX has embraced the digital revolution in their theaters (the cameras are still film with no plans mentioned to change that).
With the digital installations, films arrive on a standard hard drive, encrypted with DRM provisions that state just when a theater is authorized to play a film…errr…video.
Their projector is actually two, 2K Christie projectors that spit out the same image at the same time. A camera is positioned in between the projector lenses, tracking screen brightness in real time. An integrated server aggregates this and other data, adjusting both projectors for thermal shift, making sure the images don’t change as they play. There are also a slew of other, top secret proprietary imaging adjustments going on at all times.

I know what you’re thinking: Why didn’t IMAX just use a 4K projector and save the hassle, especially with AMC announcing that all of their theaters would be equipped with 4K Sony projectors by 2012? IMAX does believe their projector offers a sub-pixel accuracy that, when combined with some extra imaging processing, looks better than Sony’s 4K.

You can see imperfections in their digital projection system just like any digital system. The screen door effect, while minimized, can be noticed in bright spots of the image—if you’re looking as closely and skeptically as I was. And you only need to move back in the theater to realize that the picture does appear sharper as you step away from the screen. In other words, it’s not hitting some theoretical maximum perceived resolution…or even the best of what IMAX film can show. (As IMAX archives their own film into 8K and 12K prints, you can assume that the company feels the resolution of their product is much higher that their digital projectors may show).

The good news is that IMAX’s digital projection system is “projector agnostic,” meaning if a more suitable base projector comes around (be it 2K, 4K or higher), the realtime syncing and adjustment system can scale accordingly. In other words, when every AMC is stocked with 4K projectors in a few years, hopefully IMAX will be upping the ante as necessary by dual wielding 4K+ projectors instead.

So is this new IMAX, with smaller screens, with digital projection, still IMAX? Honestly, there are probably only a small handful of technicians—who aren’t exactly sharing proprietary knowledge and decisions—capable of answering that question with scientific earnestness. To my eyes and my gut, it’s more IMAX Lite or Normal Theater Enhanced. Is a retrofitted theater worth your extra $5? For the movies most likely to make it to the screen (big budget action), I think so…though maybe not for a family of four.

The price probably shouldn’t be the same as a standalone IMAX theater, but I think that the point Ansari misses is that cineplexes are already benefiting from a pricing structure that makes viewers pay the same amount no matter what screen they see a movie on (how many times do beautiful art films get shunned to a broom closet of a theater while summer blockbusters are played on a plex’s largest screen?). At minimum, the $5 IMAX premium ensures you see a movie on a screen that’s better than the best AMC or whoever has in their building.

Personally, I hate to know that we will probably never see another 12,700sqft foot IMAX screen built (like that found in Mumbai), and that 70mm film projection is being traded for digital before digital is undeniable image perfection. But if the compromise is that more people will be seeing movies in theaters with bigger pictures and tighter quality control, then maybe it’s a compromise worth making.

Look for lots more on our IMAX visit in the coming weeks.

Picture a single disc large enough to store your entire DVD collection. GE Global Research has done just that with its latest breakthrough that can put 500 Gigabytes of storage capacity in a standard DVD-size disc.

GE researchers said Monday that by using a micro-holographic storage material they can create capacity of 20 single-layer Blu-ray discs or 100 DVDs in a standard disc. GE’s micro-holographic discs will also be able to read and record on systems similar to a typical Blu-ray or DVD player.

“Our technology will pave the way for cost-effective, robust and reliable holographic drives that could be in every home,” said Brian Lawrence who leads GE’s holographic storage program in a statement. “The day when you can store your entire high definition movie collection on one disc and support high resolution formats like 3-D television is closer than you think.”

Holographic storage differ from current optical storage technologies in that it uses the entire volume of the disc material. DVDs and Blu-ray discs store information only on the surface of the disc.

In case of holographic storage, three-dimensional patterns are written into the disc and can be read out. Micro-holographic players using GE’s technology can play back CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray disc.

GE has been working on the technology for about six years, said the company. For now it is still in the labs but the GE has plans to commercialize it.  It will initially focus on the commercial archival industry for the technology and then offer it to consumers.

See also:
GE Press Release

[via The New York Times]

Photo: Overlapping blue lasers record holograms in a GE disc/GE

Star Trek will disappoint no one.

As the lights dimmed and the familiar Star Trek Federation logo slid on screen, the emotion of all those hours of watching Next Generation reruns as a kid came sloshing back into my brain, dripping out of my eyes as tears of pure happiness. I expect that it was essentially the same emotion Star Wars fans felt during the opening credits of Episode 1, but without the massive letdown afterwards. (Ha ha, suckers.)

But yes, to answer your question, there’s Kirk, there’s Spock, and there’s everyone you expect (even Pike!). Not all of the same mannerisms are there, but if you wanted to see the old actors you’d go watch the first six movies again. This implies that Kirk doesn’t do a two-hour Shatner impression, which is, of course, good news. Instead, he plays Kirk as a intelligent, brash, but friendly youngster that has confidence oozing out of every torpedo tube. And the new Spock is more Sylar than Spock, to be honest; though the rest of the casting is essentially spot on.

So long as you go into the movie expecting a “Star Trek” movie, in that there’s space and aliens and action and shooting and torpedoes and pew pew pew, you’ll come out happy. The movie is targeted enough toward the mainstream in that someone with zero Trek experience would enjoy it. Director J.J. Abrams also gives enough shout outs to old time staples that trekkers will be giddy at the slight nods and fanservice that say, in essence, “thank you for supporting us all these years, now here’s something you asked for.”

Think of it like Casino Royale was to the James Bond franchise: fewer gadgets, more action and an incredibly pugilistic lead. And lens flares. Lots, and lots, and lots of lens flares.

Kirk’s Enterprise has never looked better. These guys took the original ship, combined it with some designs of the Enterprise-B, then mashed it up with Picard’s Enterprise-E and then added a dash of ’60s non-Trek Sci Fi. The set design, however, is almost all touchscreen (like TNG), but with a tremendously updated UI. I’d hate to call it Apple-y, but there’s lots of glass and slick white finishes. Retro this is not—you’ll barely be able to equate the bridge to the original’s, other than the fact that the players are all sitting in the right places. Why Bones canoodles in the bridge so much instead of where he’s supposed to be is still beyond me.

And the plot? The plot makes as much sense as any other Star Trek movie. There’s even a very good explanation of why this movie is the way it is, which is the most I can say about that.

This is what Star Trek needs right now. After writing on Next Generation, Ron Moore went on (about a decade later) to reimagine Battlestar Galactica, a relatively realistic show (topic-wise) that just happened to be set in space. Sci Fi fans have moved on from the utopian, and what many accused as sterile, confines of TNG to a grittier, less kempt future.

That’s not to say Star Trek is now gritty—it’s just more…modern. And more sexy. Like when you upgrade from a six piece KFC meal to a 12 piece bucket: you’re going to get more breast and thigh.

It also doesn’t have any crap about the Prime Directive or any undertones about race that TOS and TNG dealt with, but it is a very good “restart” of the franchise. With this film as the base, I cannot wait to see where the franchise goes from here.

Bonus: there’s a four-issue Star Trek: Countdown comic series that prequels the movie. Though, you might want to wait until after you watch to read, since it gives away a few plot points. To tell you more would be to spoil too much. It’s too much even to tell you what KIND of fans would like the comic. You can download the first one here for your iPhone.

Do you ever stop to realize that another human being carefully conceived and designed every object you will touch today? It’s a pretty amazing thought, and after Objectified, you’ll be thinking it more often.

And that’s exactly the point. Like Helvetica, director Gary Hustwit‘s previous documentary triumph about the most prevalent typeface on earth, Objectified sings the praises of those very people who, while not necessarily under-appreciated, definitely operate in the background—they design your stuff. It’s a secret little world, and through Objectified, we get to live in it.

Take this lamp I bought at a flea market last weekend. I Googled the only thing on the bottom that would identify it (“WINDSOR L-10”) and got zero relevant results. It’s old, pre-internet for sure, so I wasn’t surprised. But who designed it? It’s so tiny and Wall-e like (essentially a hybrid of Wall-e himself and the task lamp Pixar uses in their logo)—I want to know more! Someone designed this, and I love imagining the moment of its conception.

My lamp only cost $15, so odds are it wasn’t designed by any of the überheavyweights featured in Objectified: There’s Apple’s Jonathan Ive, Smart Design (of Flip Video fame) founders Davin Stowell and Dan Formosa, the legendary Dieter Rams of Braun, the folks at IDEO (who designed the first laptop, among many other things), Naoto Fukusawa (father of the Infobar), Chris Bangle, the infamous (and former) chief designer of BMW, and many others. It’s a star-studded group. Also featured prominently is Rob Walker, who writes my favorite New York Times column “Consumed” in the magazine every Sunday—he is a joy in every scene he is in, including where he dreams of an ad campaign encouraging people to got out and use and be satisfied with the stuff they already own.

But what’s great (and where Helvetica also ruled) is that Hustwit is a master interviewer. He gets his subjects to speak about what can be a jargon and marketing-voodoo laden industry with total clarity and comfort that folks that didn’t go to design school can comprehend freely. Ive, holding up the single aluminum block from which a unibody MacBook is hewn while trying to control his massive biceps, speaks about how designers are ultimately obsessive, borderline neurotic people. He can’t look at an object anywhere without seeing the multiple layers of intent involved-who designed it, who it’s designed for, what it does well. To Ive, it’s an illness.

To others, it’s desire. Marc Newson, who designs everything but is famous especially for aviation-related like the EADS spaceplane, puts it this way: “I want to have things that don’t exist yet,” which I think we can all relate to here.

One place where Objectified gets somewhat tripped up is in its hesitance to boldly define the inherent conflict of the designer, especially now: good design should last and improve with time, which is often directly opposed to the interests of a commercial designer’s clients who want people to keep buying things. This theme does come up in the film, but where Helvetica had the postmodernism vs. modernism conflict-in-a-bubble at its heart, which served as the perfect organizational structure to not only be entertaining, but to also school everyone in design theory, Objectified lacks a similar conflict by which everything can be defined.

I was disappointed to not see more of the good design vs. capitalism conflict mainly because it’s going to be the most important concept in gadget design over the next few decades—not only for the environmental concerns, but because software is more than ever the representation of a gadget’s heart and soul. This is not a new concept: when fondling the Grid Compass (the world’s first laptop computer he helped design), Bill Moggridge of IDEO says it only took a few seconds for the user experience to be completely about the software interface on its 320×200 screen, with the hardware dropping away almost completely. And he designed it! As an interesting contrast, Naoto Fukasawa explains that in Japan, interactions with a tangible object are much more important, culturally, to the Japanese. Which makes sense when you see the horrid software being run by such a beautiful phone as the Infobar.

This concept also fits snugly in with a designer’s environmental concerns—since software doesn’t fill up a landfill, having hardware that can be re-upped to latest and greatest status over the web makes the earth happy too.

This choice to not hang the whole film on this idea was of course a conscious one, and it probably ensured a broader, more appealing film in the end. I just missed the elegance of everything fitting together into nice ideological halves in Helvetica.

But when judged alone, Objectified gets the job done beautifully and does for industrial designers what Helvetica did for graphic designers: lets us step into their frame of reference and greater appreciate, or at the very least notice, their omnipresent work.

Trailer:

More info: objectifiedfilm.com

Enjoy movies under the stars with Open Air Cinema. If you’ve got a McMansion with a giant yard, use it to create your own drive-in, with no cars required. These inflatable movie screens aren’t new, but Target has just begun carrying them–meaning more people than ever will have access to professional-quality outdoor screens.

Target is carrying three sizes of outdoor screens: 9 foot, 12 foot, and 16 foot. Put one on the edge of the pool for the ultimate summer party. The screens are made of wrinkle-resistant nylon, have black backs to prevent light from leaking through, and come with quiet air blowers. Prices range from $499 to $1,149.99.

Note that this price is for the screen only. You’ll need to get a projector capable of creating that large an image on your own.