The Hollywood Professional Association’s Tech Retreat is among the most anticipated and enduring technical conferences every year, boasting industry-leading speakers, high grade networking opportunities, and rare candor between professionals working on the bleeding edge of technology. The 2021 HPA Tech Retreat, taking place February 15-26, will bring forth the expected high caliber content as well as new and important additions.
The Hollywood Professional Association has issued the call for proposals for the 2019 HPA Tech Retreat, which includes Tech Retreat Extra, the Supersession, breakfast roundtables, an Innovation Zone, and the main conference. Also open now are submissions for the breakfast roundtables. Now in its 24th year, the 2019 HPA Tech Retreat will take place February 11-15, 2019 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Desert, California.
Each year, Digital Cinema Report presents the Catalyst Award to the best new technology introduced at CinemaCon, the annual convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners. At this year’s show, held April 23-26 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, people from more than seventy countries gathered to discuss the latest issues, trends and technologies in motion picture distribution and exhibition. One technology trend stood out. For many reasons, until now, event cinema has been an exhibition afterthought. That changed this year. This year three of the seven Catalyst Award winners were specifically designed to facilitate event cinema. Event cinema is on the rise.
Rochester Institute of Technology researchers are developing and testing an astronomical imager inspired by an Oscar-award winning cinema projection system. RIT scientist Zoran Ninkov has modified Texas Instruments' Digital Micromirror Device found in Digital Light Processing projectors to simultaneously capture light signatures from multiple objects in the same area of sky. The RIT astronomical imaging system is competing with other technologies for deployment on future NASA space missions for surveying star and galaxy clusters.
MediaMation has launched its MX4D Esports Theatre concept for exhibition. Cinema owners are continually seeking new entertainment to engage patrons. With that in mind, MediaMation is planning to offer a scalable entertainment package that converts a new or existing MX4D theatre into an Esports gaming environment that can then be converted back to the MX4D theatre configuration.
CinemaCon 2017 featured a dizzying array of technology possibilities that, depending on who you talked to, were exciting, intimidating or overwhelming. The trade show, held at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, is the National Association of Theatre Owners’ annual gathering of exhibitors from around the world. More than one attendee labeled the show Digital Cinema 2.0. The digital cinema transition was not the end of anything; it was very much the beginning of something even bigger. That was because this year’s CinemaCon made it perfectly clear that the days of the basic 2K-projector, server and vanilla theatre management software package are numbered. To remain competitive, perhaps even simply to stay in business, exhibitors must learn to fully embrace new technology.
Christie has introduced the CP2308 projector, a Xenon lamp-based unit designed to meet the needs of smaller exhibitors who have wanted a DCI-compliant, full-featured yet affordable digital-cinema option.
Dolby Laboratories today introduced the Dolby Integrated Media Server IMS3000, which combines Dolby audio and image processing in one unit. According to the company, when coupled with the Dolby Multichannel Amplifier and SLS Express Series, it offers a complete, integrated solution from 5.1 to Dolby Atmos. In advance of CinemaCon 2017, I spoke with Michael Archer, Dolby’s vice president of worldwide cinema sales, to get a closer look.
Dolby Laboratories today announced a full spectrum of integrated solutions that will save exhibitors of all sizes both time and money while delivering audiences an experience they can trust from Dolby. The new Dolby Integrated Media Server IMS3000 combines Dolby audio and image processing in one unit. When coupled with the Dolby Multichannel Amplifier and SLS Express Series, they offer a complete, integrated solution from 5.1 to Dolby Atmos.
Allure, a Christie Company, has opened a product innovation center at its corporate headquarters in Atlanta. Envisioned as a place where digital signage, point-of-sale, creative and analytics solutions are brought together to represent the market verticals Allure serves, the recently launched center offers an immersive tour of engaging place-based technologies
