Ready for a 4:4:4 World?

According to Amnon Band, founder of BandPro Film & Digital, Burbank, Calif., it's a 4:4:4 world. That was the message delivered by representatives of BandPro, Sony, and Zeiss during an unusual three-day “One World on HD” Media Forum last month, which drew journalists to the company's headquarters from as far away as Tokyo, Shenzhen, Moscow, Sao Paulo, and even New York.

Carl Zeiss specs its DigiPrime 3.9mm Superwide T1.9 as ideal for CGI, since it shows little color fringing.

Uncompressed 4:4:4 (RGB) is superior to 4:2:2 or compressed HDCAM, particularly where Digital Cinema or complex effects are concerned. With improved availability of Sony's portable HDCAM SR VTR, the SRW-1, and SRPC-1 HD digital processor, capture in the field of 4:4:4 from Sony's F950 CineAlta camera is now within reach of anyone.

This is the HD camera-recorder combo critical to George Lucas' Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Robert Rodriquez's Sin City, and Michael Mann's upcoming Miami Vice. So the consensus during BandPro's Media Forum was that 4:4:4 recording will rapidly eclipse the others, at least at the high end. Amnon Band is betting all his chips on it.

BandPro, with offices in Munich and Tel Aviv, is responsible for a third of worldwide Sony CineAlta sales and therefore knows a thing or two about HD production trends in far-flung markets. BandPro also owns 16×9 Inc., which specializes in accessories for both HD and low-cost HDV camcorders.

BandPro's advocacy of uncompressed 4:4:4 production was discussed by Band, Michael Bravin, and Jeff Cree of BandPro; Martin Kreitl of BandPro Munich; Kornelius Mueller of Zeiss; and John Scarcella, president of Sony Broadcast and Business Solutions.

Mueller described a lightning-fast two-year development cycle for the DigiPrimes at the urging of BandPro, as compared to the typical 10-year cycle for a new series of film primes. He announced with pride that 1,000 DigiPrimes have been sold to date. The two companies have forged close ties: BandPro put up development funds for the creation of Zeiss's DigiPrimes.

Kreitl said that 95 percent of films in Germany are made for TV, and of those, 90 percent are shot in Super 16. With budgets dropping fast by 20 percent to 25 percent, he suggested that HD production would grow due to cost advantages because HD broadcasting in Europe is only beginning on a pilot basis. BandPro Munich, set up to manage European sales of DigiPrimes, has morphed into a major dealer of HD equipment and is playing a central role in the spread of HD production in Europe.

Cree, well-known former Sony HD production guru, said that “cost plus” contracts in commercials have been replaced by fixed-cost contracts, so there's now real incentive for producers to save money to realize greater profits. He said also that completion bonds in feature production were lower when films were originated digitally, because masters could be cloned for protection (not possible with negative). He gave as an example Star Wars Episode III, which always made three masters.

As proof of burgeoning HD activity in the L.A. market, Cree remarked that despite a total of 450 Sony F900s extant in L.A. (no doubt sold by BandPro), they are still hard to rent.

Journalists were given tours of BandPro's partners in 4:4:4 production, including Clairmont Cameras, Plus 8 Digital, and the Santa Fe Workshops, which in seven years have introduced more than 600 experienced DPs and DITs (Digital Imaging Technicians) to the finer techniques of HD image-making.

New items shown or announced at BandPro's “One World on HD” Media Forum included a working (and stunning) Zeiss 3.9 SuperWide; an upcoming Zeiss DigiZoom 17mm-112mm, T 1.9 (working prototype at NAB); Sony's update to the venerable F900, the F900R, basically unchanged but mounted in a smaller HDW 750 chassis with optional boards for slow shutter, time-lapse, and variable frame rate recording (available NAB); and a curious MPEG-4 application demonstrated by Marker Karahadian of Plus 8 — dailies on a compact Flash memory card for viewing on a Treo 650.