Photo opportunity: 6.30pm, Monday 27 October, Tower Extension Lecture Theatre, Dr Monk with Dr Rodley.
New technology that promises to revolutionise the global cinema industry will be the subject of a University of Dundee lecture on Monday 27 October.
Digital Cinema, the Opportunities and the Challenges by Dr David Monk, Vice President of Texas Instruments (TI) Europe, will demonstrate how digital cinema technology will change our experience of the cinema offering an image of extraordinary quality as well as improved choice and availability.
Though digital cameras and equipment are nothing new in the film industry, the all-digital distribution and projection of movies has only recently arrived to complete the chain.
A digitally-produced or converted film can be distributed to cinemas electronically, marking the potential end for celluloid. Movies are stored digitally, and distributed electronically to individual digital projectors.
From the viewer’s perspective, digital surpasses film by offering incredible clarity and detail with a range of 35 trillion colours. Digital pieces of work are also a lot easier to preserve than traditional celluloid.
Today’s event marks the start of the third year of a flagship University of Dundee multi-disciplinary course that has attracted students from across the globe.
The Masters course in Display Technology, Systems and Applications (DisplayMasters) is led by the University of Dundee’s Division of Electronic Engineering and Physics. Students move around the UK, taking eight short courses hosted by the Universities of Dundee, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Nottingham Trent, and Abertay Dundee. This collaborative consortium enables students to benefit from each of the universities’ expertise.
DisplayMasters student numbers are increasing year on year. This week new students from countries as far flung as India, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Bangladesh, and China will be arriving in Dundee to start the 2003-04 programme.
The course has strong links with industry (it has attracted over £100,000 in student sponsorship) including local companies such as NCR, Dundee, and Compugraphics in Glenrothes, Fife.
As part of the course, students take industry placements with companies such as BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace), Smiths Avionics, NCR, Hitachi, Avecia, and others.
Dr David Rodley, Course Co-ordinator, said, "Like many leading industrialists, Dr Monk understands the need for highly trained personnel in the Displays sector, and he has been extremely supportive of the DisplayMasters programme. It is a real pleasure to welcome him back to the University to demonstrate the value and applications of the company’s ground-breaking technology to a wider audience.
The deformable mirror technology is extremely impressive, and this lecture is typical of the way in which DisplayMasters brings together world-leading expertise from academia and industry to the benefit of both UK and international students."
TI spent 20 years and $1 billion developing DLP Cinema (the world’s only trademarked digital cinema technology), which encompasses every aspect of the movie-making process from production to distribution to screening.
It is expected that Dr Monk will have a digital light projector and examples of the digital mirror arrays for inspection.
The public lecture begins at 6.45pm in the Tower Extension Lecture Theatre, Tower Building, University of Dundee.
By Esther Black, Press Officer 01382 344768 e.z.black@dundee.ac.uk