Thanks!

"Pixel Data:
The image data is stored at 10 bits/component (Y/Cb/Cr) 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."

"Storage:
The picture information was compressed and stored using a QuBit compression system
produced by QuVis of Topeka, KS. The QuBit uses proprietary wavelet compression
technology with a user selectable SNR. This unit compressed the movie to an average
data rate of 37 Mbits/sec for a total of 32 Gbytes of data for the entire presentation
(including trailers). The compressed data is stored on four computer HD drives with a
total capacity of 72 Gbytes. As an entire digital cinema production, distribution, and
exhibition infrastructure develops, other technologies will likely be tested."

PostIndustry magazine said:
"Planet of the Apes" will be digitally
projected on Aug. 10 in a special
screening at the AMC Empire 25 in
Manhattan. Lucasfilm's THX division
supervised the creation of the digital
master and handled the on-site
technical preparations for both the
sound and projection. Playback will
come from an Avica FilmStore digital
cinema player while projection will be
handled via Texas Instruments' DLP
Cinema projector."

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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The TI website specifies "an average data rate of 37 Mbits/sec" which is pretty hefty, even for the 1280 x 1024 pixels of current displays. Future higher-resolution systems may require even higher data rates.

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The difference is that they are faster (10,000 RPM vs 7200 or 5400 RPM), and you can have up to 15 drives on a single bus, as opposed to two on an IDE bus.

I was curious just how fast I could extract data out of my own hard drive. The fastest way you can access a hard drive is to read consecutive sectors -- one after another. This minimizes the amount of head motion on the hard drive.

I'm running Linux on my desktop machine, so I have the ability to easily run timing tests. Here's my simple test:

$ dd if=/dev/hda3 of=/dev/null bs=1048576

This is the basic data copy command. I'm telling the computer to read from a 1.4GByte partition, and "copy" the data to /dev/null, in other words, read the data, then throw it away.

The operation completed in 324 seconds.

So, 1.4GBytes / 324 seconds = 4.8 MBytes/Sec = 38 MBits/Sec

All I have is a boring, old 5400 RPM IDE drive. Even with the most basic, inexpensive hard drive, I was able to sustain enough continuous bandwidth to support this application. And this is on an obsolete computer! If I had a 7200 RPM drive, or a more modern chipset, or a RAID chipset, the results would only be better.

So yes, I believe that it would be entirely possible to use commodity PC hardware for DLP storage. I doubt you could use windows to control the hard drive thought ... it would probably require either Linux, some other Unix, or a real-time operating system like Be. It would also require that the movie data be placed linearly on the drive, but that's entirely feasible.

I agree that it would easily be possible to run the DLP data off of consumer grade hardware, but that's probably not what should be done. Of course, it would have to be a really crappy hard drive to poop out on reading DLP movies constantly. It shouldn't be doing much (if any) writing, and the data should be linear, meaning the head movement should be minimized. A server grade HD would be MUCH more reliable in the long run obviously. But c'mon, do you seriously think that the industry WON'T go with the cheaper method?

Remember, money is more important than quality to the big-wigs.

I've owned several SCSI drives I've always hated them. What is up with this "termination" BS? Limits of ancient technology, I guess. SCSI has a faster bus than IDE, that's for sure, but there is just something about them that reminds me of piss poor quality. They're not as great as some people would have you believe. Firewire drives have proven to be faster (for me).

RAID arrays kick ass, and as Scott pointed out are not cheap. However technology MUST advance, and SCSI will be obsolete someday, as will IDE and Firewire. Someday soon we will have massive drives more reliable than SCSI RAID arrays, and they'll be cheaper. Some techno geeks may think otherwise, but that'll mostly be because they'll want to have a platform to argue where they can feel superior to the common computer user.

The drives internally are SCSI and have 4 primary drives and 4 secondary drives that are mirror set.

Also, there are other systems being investigated as sources other than the QuVis QuBit.