15th Annual HPA Technology Preview Set For February 17-20

Offering an up-close view of the latest in cinema, television, and related technologies, and insight into the ideas that will shape the industry’s future, the Hollywood Post Alliance’s 15th Annual HPA Technology Retreat will be held February 17-20 at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage, California.

The 4-Day Tech Retreat has become the premiere event in the broadcast and post production industry, providing a forum for industry leaders and technologists to review new technology developments and exchange ideas in an environment unadulterated by sales and marketing hype. Featuring top executives and researchers from Hollywood studios, broadcast networks, manufacturers, artists, and even the military, the event draws from all over the world.

“The Tech Retreat has again attracted some of our industry’s brightest minds to discuss its most important topics,” states HPA president Leon Silverman. “In these times of challenge in our industry, the Tech Retreat continues to provide real value. The information presented and the contacts that can be made at the Retreat offer vital skills and important industry networking for our attendees.”

Highlights of this year’s event include a Super Session entitled “Insight/Foresight: Visions of the Future.”  Speakers will include Steve Weinstein, CEO of MovieLabs, the research organization established by the major Hollywood studios, who will discuss emerging technologies for the distribution and use of motion pictures.  Other presentations at that session will cover the evolution of human perception and such seemingly impossible laboratory technologies as the ability to change focus after a scene is shot.

The Technology Retreat this year will also feature special presentations from the BBC on the extraordinary sharpness of high-frame-rate viewing, from the European Broadcasting Union on the issue of concatenated-compression, and from a Bollywood lab on maintaining a cinematographer's desired look via online techniques.

Warner Bros.’ Wendy Aylsworth will moderate a session on new advances in stereoscopy, from shooting through transmission to display.  Other presentations will cover such topics as the future of broadcasting, the quest for a new reference display, advanced processing hardware, software, and storage technologies, and spatial hearing.

The program will also include two days of the famed Breakfast Roundtables, with no-holds-barred discussions of dozens of hot topics, from the impact of the current economic downturn on the digital-cinema rollout to the brand-new industry DVP initiative for file-based masters.

The Demo Room, where Panasonic once introduced its variable-frame-rate digital camcorder technology (later sold as the Varicam) and Sony once introduced low-compression high-quality HDTV recording technology (later sold as HDCAM SR) each year features new technologies not shown before.   Among this year's more-than-60 demonstrations are full-color, motion holography and a "telepresence" system that allows separated work collaborators to appear to be in the same room.

A special post-retreat feature will be a presentation on the Metropolitan Opera's Emmy-award-winning Live Global Cinemacasts and how alternative content is providing new revenue streams for theaters and new outlets for content developers.

In addition, on Tuesday morning, ATSC (Advanced  Television Systems Committee) will present a half-day summit on “Audio Loudness & Lip-Sync,” and Charles Poynton, the person who came up with the 1080-line figure for HDTV, will hold a half-day workshop on the mathematics of HDTV and Digital Cinema.

Program chair Mark Schubin said that, despite economic conditions, the number of submissions for the main sessions remained at about six times more than could be accommodated. “Breakfast roundtables are actually higher than normal for this time period and so are technology demos,” he said. “Guess people aren’t asking whether they can afford to come to the Retreat but whether they can afford not to.”

Registration and a complete program are available on the HPA’s Web site. For additional assistance contact the HPA office at 213-614-0860.

The Technology Retreat is sponsored by the Hollywood Post Alliance, serving the professional community of businesses and individuals who provide expertise, support, tools and the infrastructure for the creation and finishing of motion pictures, television, commercials, digital media and other dynamic media content.