We went for a very quick visit to CineEurope in Barcelona – it turned out that, like the recent AWE event, the show didn’t start until 11.00 am! However, we got around the small show, just, in the few hours we had before our plane home. Exhibitors were grumbling that Cinemacon and CineEurope were too close together, with the US version later in the year than normal and the European one the earliest that it has been for a long time which meant quite a lot of potential visitors didn’t attend and the numbers seemed quite down, according to brands. It also meant that there weren’t many product announcements as they had been saved for the US event.
At this point, your reporter has to make a confession. At the final demo of the day, he left his paper notebook on the seat beside his and forgot to pick it up during the Sony demo – realising only when he got to the airport that it was missing. Sadly, Sony was unable to find it. After 24 years, this is the first time this has happened without a recovery of a notebook! As a result, we know that we missed some details although as soon as the loss was discovered, he did a ‘brain dump’ of topics covered.
Sony only had a demo suite and Samsung wasn’t there at all, except in a panel session. Cionic didn’t show its Vision 2020 light steering projector, which was a disappointment to me after Chris’s very positive comments. (Cinionic Demos Awesome Light Steering Projector)
I was surprised, given how out of fashion 3D seems to be, to see so many potential providers of 3D cinema technology. It was also interesting to see that part of thinking behind different product plans and launches were influenced by the issue of patents. RealD has patents on 3D that support light doubling (and, as I understand it has taken action in the past against those it viewed as in breach of the patent). At least one of the companies did not want us to report on products shown on the booth, but we took the view that products that were on public show were ‘fair game’. (If companies show us private products, not on the front of their booths, that’s a different matter!).
Another topic that I discussed with some at the show is that it was slightly surprising to me that the trend to UST projection, which could be very convenient in cinemas, but it seems that UST typically needs some digital correction and that, of course, gets away from ‘pure undistorted’ pixels, which is a mandate by DCI.
The other interesting feedback that we got on projection is that 90% of cinema screens, these days, are just 2K with only 10% at 4K.
Movie content was also being promoted at CineEurope. Image:Meko
