LaserPacific Finishes Beta Testing

The first public screening here of footage from Imagica’s new Imager HSR Film Recorder unspooled in the Kodak Theatre, under the watchful eye of Makoto Tsukada, President & CEO, Imagica Technologies, Corp., along with Richard Antley, vice president of Imagica Corporation of America, and new sales manager Jim Connolly.
The Imager HSR Film Recorder, which is based on technology licensed from Eastman Kodak and priced at $500K, features the ability to record three frames per second in 2K resolution, a faster speed than other 2K film recorders. According to LaserPacific vice president/general manager of feature film services Glenn Kennel, the technology licensed from Kodak is the design of the imaging assembly, which includes the drivers for the D-ILA device, signal processing and LED illumination system.

Antley reported that the Imager HSR has been installed in Tokyo for a year and at Siam Film in Thailand for about 8 months. Closer to home, LaserPacific, a Kodak company, has been beta-testing it for a year prior to its commercial launch at NAB 2007.

LaserPacific vice president/general manager Glenn Kennel described testing of the Imager HSR during that period. “We did extensive comparative testing,” he said. “And we’re in the final stages of calibration for the variety of formats we output to and the various labs we work with.”

To describe the Imagica HSR’s speed, Antley said that a 90-minute feature film, at 3 fps would take 12 hours to record out to film. “You can output a feature in one day and get it to the lab,” he said. In answer to the question why Imagica would put out a 2K film recorder when the new resolution target appears to be 4K, Antley had an interesting answer. “4K output takes a whole lot of time,’ he said. “The real problem is extra capacity for 2K when the 4K printer is all tied up. And most jobs are still 2K.” Kevin Mullican, CTO of iO Films, who was at the screening, agreed. “He’s right that when we’re using the 4K recorder that we need more 2K.”

Imagica Corp. is working on an upgrade path to 4K, said Antley. “Expect a prototype by NAB 2008 and a launch by that IBC,” he promised. The upgrade path will either be a field upgrade or a trade-in. Antley also reported that although the Imagica HSR currently only supports Kodak (2242 / 5242) and Fuji (F-CI 8502 / 4502) Intermediate stocks it is working on support for B&W, the new Fuji R-DI and camera negative stocks as well as the possibility of supporting direct imaging of color print films.

The Imager HSR combines a newly developed optical engine with JVC’s D-ILA LCoS imaging device and LED illumination to record the data to intermediate film stock. The LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) is based on reflective technology similar to the DMD (digital micro mirror device) technology used in the DLP (Digital Light Processing) projector. Imager HSR support a wide range of file formats, including Cineon/DPX, TIFF, SGI (RGB) and YUV. In addition to exposing 35mm/4 perf film, Imager HSR can expose several frame sizes including Super 35 full aperture, Academy 4:3, Academy 16:9, Cinemascope, HD in Academy and 2K in Academy. All internal processing is 16-bit. The HSR film cassette, with a 2,250 foot roll capacity, has no internal drivers and thus no heat is generated that might be transferred to the film.

Antley said that the Imagica HSR results in better resolution reproduction than laser. “And we’ve pushed the quality level up with modulation transfer,” he said. “The Imagica HSR has a better depth of modulation, which has always been a problem with 2K recording. The HSR also offers good densities without flare, excellent color separation and excellent uniformity across the frame.”

How quickly DI facilities will adopt the Imagica HSR remains to be seen. LaserPacific’s Kennel noted that after the beta test, Imagica installed some upgrades, and the post facility is now just finishing its detailed calibrations for various output formats. “Once calibrated, we plan to use the Imagica HSR for feature film and trailer projects,” he says. “Our tests show that the picture quality matches that of our Arri laser film recorders.” Mullican said he was “excited about what I saw,” but still had some questions, about the images he saw-and about the price of the upgrade to 4K (Imagica has not yet set a price). But his concerns weren’t enough to dampen his enthusiasm. “I’d love to put it in production,” he said.