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The European Commission certifies the “success” of IP-RACINE, a BM coordinated project, which ensures the competitivity of the digital cinema

Jun 25, 2008 - BM news

IP-RACINE project has successfully concluded according to the four evaluators designated by the European Commission. The main goal of the project was to integrate all the digital cinema processes, from the scene to the screen. The final revision sessions of the project were held in the Barcelona Media (BM) headquarters, centre of coordination and management of the consortium which has executed the project, and which is formed by 15 partners, from 7 European countries.

According to the European evaluators, IP-RACINE has fully achieved its objectives. In particular, they have highlighted the success in the generation of technologies and digital cinema products to be introduced into the market by the main professionals of the industry. As it is required, the European Commission revises all the aspects of the projects it finances, to guarantee that they have progressed according to the contractual commitments and that they have covered the objectives.

IP-RACINE (Integrated Project – Research Area CINE) is a project financed by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme (2002 - 2006). The Research, with a more than ten million euro budget, has been carried out in 42 months and the consortium which has developed the tasks has been integrated by thirteen partners, industrial and academic ones, from six countries, among which there are Thomson, Grass Valley, Barco, MEDIAPRO, XDC, Hasselt University, FilmLight and Joanneum Research. Josep Blat, professor at the Computational Science and Artificial Intelligence Department of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and scientific director of the Graphics Group in BM, has been in charge of the scientific coordination of the project. María Eugenia Fuenmayor, director of the public support area projects, in BM, has coordinated the consortium.

Results and future

At the initial stage of IP-RACINE, end of 2004, the digital cinema was more a future market than a reality. At that moment, only 150 cinema screens had digital screens (about 0.1% of the total) and the production and post-production chain of the digital cinema was segmented in multiple processes. The IP-RACINE results contribute to increase the interoperability between the teams, they bring integrating applications to the chain, they reduce the costs and offer innovative technologies to the industry. All in all, the project ensures the competitivity of the European digital cinema. In addition, these advances appear in a more optimistic landscape for the present and future of the digital cinema: at the end of 2007, the percentage of cinema screens equipped for digital cinema was of 5,5%, a total of 4.627 screens, and the experts’ expectations indicate that in 2013 half of the world’s screens will be digital.

The list of technologies and new products generated by the partners of the IP-RACINE project includes the new camera VIPER and the portable storage box VENOM, by Grass Valley and Thomson. Brainstorm has developed a prototype that allows the directors and producers to check an advance of the final result of a recording while it is being made. DVS has created the CLIPSTER station for digital cinema post-production, of easy integration in the chain. FilmLight is the company responsible for Baselight, a new post-production tool for the colour calibration. Another partner, the Belgian company Barco, has achieved a compact digital projector of competitive cost, the BARCO DP-2000, suitable for screens of more than 20 meters.

BM Contribution

Apart from assuming the responsibility of managing the consortium of the project, Barcelona Media, has actively participated in the research process, above all by means of the Graphics & Image and Sound & Music groups. Among other contributions, the BM researchers have developed an improvement and an automatization of the recording and post-production process which confers to the audio the qualities of any scene, virtual or real, with an evolving realistic sound considering the actors and cameras movements.

During the three years and a half that the research has lasted, the IP-RACINE contributions have been presented and tested in the different professional and the cinema industry scenarios. The project has visited, among others, the Cannes Festival, The Venice Bienal, the NAB Show in Las Vegas (Nevada, USA), the Cinema Expo International in Amsterdam, the Orlando Showeast (Florida, USA) or the Asia Cinema 2007 in Macao, China.

Two project demonstrations:

Project diagram: