Texas Instruments Digital Light Processing Technology To Be Featured In Another Movie Industry ""First""Walt Disney Pictures' ""Tarzan,"" The First All-Digital Major Motion Picture Release, Being Projected Digitally With DLP Cinema Technology

Texas Instrumentsí (TI) highly acclaimed DLP Cinemaô technology is being used by Walt Disney Pictures to feature in an all-digital presentation of its animated adventure ""Tarzan"" The all-digital presentations began July 23rd in three theatres: - AMC Pleasure Island 24, 1500 Buena Vista Drive, Lake Buena Vista, Florida - AMC Media Center North 6, 770 N. First Street, Burbank, California - Edwards Irvine Spectrum, 65 Fortune Drive, Irvine, California Disney animators have always been on the lookout for more exciting ways to tell their stories. For ""Tarzan"", they invented a process that allows traditionally animated characters to move about in a 3-D world created with computer graphics. The all-digital presentation using DLP Cinema projection technology is significant because this is the first ever all-digital major motion picture release. The movie was produced digitally, mastered digitally with no film used in the process, delivered digitally, and will be projected digitally by DLP Cinema projectors. The entire process, from production to exhibition, will be digital. ""We are delighted and honored to be working with Walt Disney Pictures on this project,"" said Bob England, Senior Vice President and Manager of TI's Digital Imaging division, which is responsible for the development, manufacture and marketing of Digital Light Processingô (DLPô) technology. ""We're also very pleased to have a further opportunity to provide movie-goers the opportunity to judge for themselves the image quality that DLP Cinema technology offers in large screen theatre environments."" Over a period of more than two years, TI has worked with the movie industry to develop a version of DLP technology specifically tailored for the needs of the industry. The result of this collaboration is DLP Cinema technology - a version of DLP which has been exclusively developed for showing first run movies in theatres - and it is this which is at the heart of the projectors being used in these showings of ""Tarzan"". DLP Cinema technology's digital fidelity and digital stability allow it to deliver the level of image quality that is a requirement of everyone involved with movies, from creators to audiences. ""We are committed to working with the movie industry to make digital distribution and digital presentation a reality,"" said Paul Breedlove, DLP Cinema Program Director for TI's Digital Imaging division. ""This all-digital presentation of ëTarzaní is another opportunity to help the industry achieve that goal."" At the heart of DLP Cinema projection technology are three optical semiconductor chips developed specifically for cinema applications, each of which has an array of 1,300,000 (SXGA) mirrors. These tiny mirrors operate as optical switches to create a high resolution, high contrast, full color image. In addition to the movie industry specific DLP Cinema technology being developed, TI supplies DLP subsystems to more than thirty of the world's top projector manufacturers, who then design, manufacture and market DLP-based projectors for other markets. Over the past three years, DLP-based projectors have consistently won some of the audio-visual industry's most prestigious awards. Since shipments began in early 1996, TI has delivered over 170,000 DLP subsystems to its customers. There are now over fifty DLP-based products in the marketplace.Texas Instruments DLP Cinemaô Technical Presentation Of ""Tarzan""Source: The movie was transferred from digital source data generated by the Walt Disney Feature Animation's in-house digital production process, CAPS, directly to HD/D-5 format with no intermediate film element. Color timing was modified using a DaVinci 2K color corrector. The transfer was supervised by Disney Feature Animation, Buena Vista Home Entertainment Worldwide Technical Services, and Entertainment Technology Consultants. Resolution: The DLP Cinema prototype projector uses three TI Digital Micromirror Devicesô (DMDô, each with an array of 1280x1024 microscopic aluminum mirrors for a total of nearly 4 million mirrors. Each mirror is 16 µm square with a 1 µm space between each. The imaging mirror array is within 1 mm of the size of a CinemaScopeô film print image. The movie is projected through a Custom 1.51 anamorphic projection lens to create the 1.85:1 image on screen. The anamorphic lens was manufactured by ISCO-Optic of Germany. Contrast: The DLP Cinema prototype projector produces a sequential contrast ratio of 1000:1. Storage: The picture information was compressed and stored using a D-5 Panasonic Digital High Definition Recorder (AJ-HD2700). This unit performs a relatively mild 5:1 compression of the data, using an advanced JPEG intra-field adaptive compression scheme. As an entire digital cinema production, distribution, exhibition infrastructure develops, other storage technologies will be tested, and more robust nonlinear storage technologies are expected to be adopted. Pixel Data: The image data is stored at 10 bits/component (YCbCr) in 4:2:2 format. Since the DMD is a linear display device (i.e, no gamma characteristic as does a CRT), the data is gamma corrected and converted to linear RGB data. Each DMD displays 14 bits/color, linear data. Frame Rate: The TI DLP Cinema prototype projector displays at the standard film rate of 24 frames/sec. Since the DMD is not scanned like a CRT but is a virtually continuous display device, the display can be driven at 24 fps with no objectionable flicker. Shutter Rate: Unlike a film projector, DLP Cinema technology does not involve the use of a shutter. Since there is no film being mechanically pulled through a film gate, there is no need to douse the light. This results in a continuous flicker-free display and a more efficient use of the lamp output. Audio: The audio information is stored as 16-bit uncompressed PCM data on a Tascam MMR-8 hard disk-based digital audio recorder. Six of the eight available channels are used for left, center, right, right-surround, left-surround, and low frequency effects. A timecode signal from the AJ-HD2700 is used to synchronize the audio to the picture. Lamp: The prototype DLP Cinema projector uses a standard film projector lamp housing provided by Strong International with a custom lamp reflector. A standard 4 KW Xe lamp made by Osram is being used, producing approximately 10,000 lumens. This yields a screen luminance of approximately 12.5 foot Lamberts, which is roughly equivalent to the current Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) specification for nominal screen luminance. Greater than 80% brightness uniformity is achieved on screen. For more information, contact Ian McMurray, Texas Instruments, at 011/44/1604/663075 or email: i-mcmurray@ti.com, or visit TIís Web site at www.dlpcinema.com.