MetaTroy Blog August 13, 2012
Background: Troyer Patented Laser Projector Apparatus
Metatron Inc.- Troyer California Company 1992 – 2002
First Phase: Research & Development and upgrade TRW military laser projector
Second Phase: develop new approach and build the proof of concept model
Metatron Laser Projector: prototype and patented 1999
Griffin Group backing building prototype: 1996 – 2000
First ten JVC assembled projectors with lasers for customers: 2003 (140 pre-orders)
Griffith Park Planetarium, Raytheon (Air Force Simulation); Famous Players—Canada and sister company (Vivendi) Europe, Themed: Universal City Walk Digital Dome
Projectors stolen before delivery by Zuddites (modern Luddites)
2003: Operatives frightened the Troyer team which broke up—went underground.
2004 —Troyer designed small projector; patents; had solid state lasers developed.
2004: Projector name changed from Metatron to Z*Tron Vision (Z*TV)
MetatronLaser Projector (1992 – 2004); Z*Tron Vision (name change in 2004)
How does Z*TV solves today’s problems for digital cinema?
What are the Digital Cinema issues for best images? How do we solve the problems?
How do we stop theaters from closing — Independent Theater Association (ITA)?
E Mail to Troyer from Bill Dever — President of ITA
On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 5:41 PM, devers03@netzero.net <devers03@netzero.net> wrote:
Diane,
If you have an inexpensive laser projection systems that had DCI compliance (Digital Cinema Initiative) then you have something quite profound and 2,000 theatres would fall into your lap. The issue is for many September is the drop dead date….they need a solution now or they are going away. But you need the following;
1. At least two working prototypes
2. The ability to manufacture in a very short period of time
I am interested, but I have little financial capability at the present moment and am actively working to prevent closure of theatres.
Bill Dever
Troyer note: Some theaters use a JVC small projector that does not have DCI clearance. Thus they are not allowed to show Hollywood Studio movies.
http://www.ita-usa.com/?p=2411
Solution to Deliver DCI Digital Projector for 2000 Plus Theaters
Troyer’s patented Z*Tron Vision Laser Projector has been validated by experts to solve the Digital Cinema problems. Troyer’s company, Metatron Inc., was the OEM for the JVC Hughes projector (1998 – 2003), but that process was stopped by competitors. It is suggested that Troyer and Team again make a deal with JVC (or other vendor) to assemble DCI approved Troyer laser projectors.
The Troyer patented process is KISS: keep it simple—streamline; low cost and also best image; full spectrum color, high contrast, real time Cinerama – Very high ticket sale with audiences longing for the new immersive thrill. Z*TV transforms any video feed to vivid bright dimensional Cinerama. Grab tickets to the dimensional Cinerama Vegas boxing or world soccer championship matches (or any sport), Opera, Music tours, 2D legacy features, National Geographic shows, etc. Hollywood studio movie open in dimensional Cinerama – video feeds delivered any way, any time. Laser Z*TV optically changes any feed to vivid dimensional Cinerama— automatically, real time (also flat screens).
KISS Solution: Not only are the ITA theaters closing, but also there is a great struggle for small theater chains, planetariums and dome IMAX type theaters. They all need an inexpensive KISS digital solution. There are many digital theaters being installed globally. There needs to be a KISS inexpensive solution for Brazil’s multi-purpose venues in each community with cinema, theater, conferences, club, performances, town meeting house, teen hang out, tools for content creation, real time staging TV shows.
Chaotic Approach for Last Ten Years to Digital Cinema:Sony, BARCO, Christies, NEC, Dolby, and many other companies have struggled to deliver digital cinema. There needs to be a strong focused Digital Cinema Solution to stop another ten years of contentious battling. Because of past interferences Troyer and team will not proceed unless they have support and protection from a strong strategic partner. The patented Z*TV is “disruptive.” The days are over when modern Luddite operatives get by with stopping the Z*TV progress so their stock does not crash.
LIPA Consortium: http://lipainfo.org/about-lipa/primary-objectives/
Quote: LIPA members believe that laser projectors hold many advantages over traditional projection techniques and that over time and with further development of laser technology, the advantages will grow. Projector manufacturers have long sought to develop products that provide the best possible picture on the theater screen. Xenon short-arc lamps have served the industry well and provided the best solution for many years — even with their handling safety hazards, high-temperatures, relatively-short lifetimes and difficulty of transportation and disposal. As in every other facet of life, technology continues to advance and lasers now promise advantages over the Xenon bulbs in high end projectors. They have the potential for:
- Brighter pictures & Expanded color gamut
- Lower power consumption
- Longer life
- Lower total cost of ownership
- Fewer heavy metals
- More flexible systems
Metatroy Blog August 14, 2012
A List of a some of the Companies and people who attended Metatron Laser Demonstrations (1996 – 2003): Sony, Disney, Dolby, IMAX, Kodak, Warner, Universal, Dream Works, Technicolor, Panavision, Carmel Development, Griffin Group, Griffith Park Planetarium, Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA, Siegfried (Siegfried & Roy), Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, etc. Shamrock (Roy Disney), Technology experts from these companies have attended the Metatron (Z*TV) California laser demonstrations and received white papers. It can be shown that these groups have realized for quite some time that laser projection is the solution—realizing this when they viewed the Troyer laser images on a large video screens including domes.
https://metatroy.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/email-to-lipa-lude-troyer-laser-ztv-412/
https://metatroy.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/ztron-vision-ztv-troyer-metatroy-perspective/
Expert Evaluation 2002
Experts attend demonstration to verify that certain issues are resolved: 2002
The experts verify that indeed the problem issues are resolved: 2002/ 2003
The Zuddites (modern Luddites) stopped Z*TV from being delivered to clients
Today the same problems are issues; the industry is still looking for solutions
Example: Warner (Chris Cookson, Greg Thagard); Telcordia/ SAIC (Dr. Adam Drobot), DCI (Howard Lukk), JPL/ Griffith Park Planetarium (John Mosley); Sony—etc.
Issues to be solved for digital cinema big screens (2002 -2012)
- Full Color spectrum that is film like (arc lamps do not deliver full color)
- High contrast with good whites and blacks (star field quality blacks)
- No artifacts- ghosting’ blurring in fast moving images and with stereo
- Heat mitigation—reduce needed cooling for higher wattage big screens projection
- Vivid colored bright images (today’s stereo glasses and filters – dull—not bright
- Ability to show 3D dimensional images on curved screens (need lasers light)
- Inexpensive real time transformation with depth factor from 2D to 3D.
Warner VP of Technology & Experts View MetaTron Projector Images
In 2002 Warner Brothers VP of Technology, Chris Cookson and his colleagues asked Troyer and team for a private demonstration of the Metatron Laser Projector. The Burbank demonstration of the Laser Projector was in the leased lab at the International Video Convergence (IVC) post house in the old secure Lockheed Skunk Works building. IVC was the Warner post house where their features were transferred to DVD. Troyer claimed certain attributes that the Warner team wanted to verify by seeing the patented prototype. Note: white paper with claims provided for Warner group available.
State of Digital Cinema 2001 – 2003
At that point there was a battle of which digital cinema projector to adopt. The main battle was between the JVC Hughes with an ILA liquid crystal reflective light valve. The other was a projector made by Texas Instrument with a digital mirror device (DMD) reflective light valve (DLP). IMAX, BARCO and Christies had paid $10 million each for rights to use the DLP for digital cinema. The DMD had little mirrors that moved for the modulation. The small mirrors appeared like big squares in the enlarged big screen images. The JVC Hughes had a better image with no pixel squares, but had blurring in fast moving images. JVC also had problems with arc lamp heat created for big screen images. Liquid crystal does not like heat, thus it was difficult to keep the images stable.
Grating Light Valve for Lasers: Stanford graduates developed the Silicon Light Machine (SLM) grating light valve. Sony licensed it for entertainment paying $30 million dollars in 2001. Evans & Sutherland licensed the SLM for simulation and planetariums and paid $10 million. Rockwell Collins paid E&S 72.5 million for rights to simulation and planetarium and SLM laser projector in 2006. Kodak was patenting and working on their own version of the grating light valve for lasers. By 2007 it as finally established that the grating light valve approach was a lemon and mothballed.
FACT: Digital Cinema Uses Reflective Light Valves: DLP, ILA/ LCOS, etc.
JVC Hughes had turned their ILA projector over to Metatron Inc. as the OEM because the Metatron Laser Projector had solved their problems and added attributes of full color images, great blacks and whites and vivid in focus images on curved screens. The problems stopping the digital cinema layout of the JVC ILA were heat mitigation and artifacts (ghosting, blurring, heat on Liquid Crystal).
Heat mitigation: Fast moving expanded laser lines did not create heat. Troyer proved this by holding her hand in the path of the expanded laser beams as they were directed to the ILA light valve. Full spectrum color and high contrast: Troyer’s patent shared how to create full color images with mixed laser light (use deeper red- 635 nm or over). Got rid of the blurring and ghosting in fast moving images: Expanded laser beams are focused and do not scatter. They do not bleed into the black (improves contrast). The fast moving expanded laser beams cover one slot at a time, thus eliminating the problem of seeing the liquid crystal light valve slow decay which caused the blurring / ghosting. Flooding the light valve with arc lamp light ruined the contrast and caused the ghosting (blurring).
2012: Today the blurring artifact problem is still not solved. This article calls it the “Judder”. http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/08/trumbull-muren-and-others-vouch-for-high-frame-rate-cinema/
2000 – 2003—3D: The industry was excited about going digital because they would save money on film prints. They were not concentrating on 3D at that point. Finally the problem of not full spectrum dull (not bright) images showed up when digital 3D was delivered by arc lamps. Troyer was ringing the alarm with her laser demonstration to main studio players that arc lamp digital cinema was not film like because of the limited color spectrum. The reds were orange. There were no deep magentas, purples and honey mustard colors. The images looked like a big TV.
JVC Hughes Base Projector with ILA Light Valve: Troyer chose the JVC Hughes with an ILA reflective light valve as the base projector, because the Hughes ILA was the most evolved reflective light valve to show best spatially modulated laser images. The infra red CRT produced the picture (best image at that time). The light source was argon and krypton lasers. The laser light optic train was designed by Troyer and team so that the collimation, coherence and polarization were retained in the image on the screen.
The Warner experts at the Burbank lab verified that the Troyer claims were true
- Full spectrum color that matched film
- High contrast with good white and blacks (star field quality)
- Heat mitigation with laser raster scanning method.
- Always in focused images, even on curved surfaces – with any video feed
- Ghosting (blurring) artifacts in fast moving images were eliminated.
DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) Mandates Full Color Spectrum
The Metatron demonstrations were the first time viewers saw full color spectrum video images, thus realizing that more realistic colored images were possible. Also the Troyer patent was published February 2001 so the claims could be studied, the first claim calling for the deeper red (635 nm or over) with cyan (blue green) added. The Troyer patent explained prior laser patents that called for more orange red for better brightness and to match the color standard at that time. Orange red limited the color spectrum span.
DCI was just started (Digital Cinema Initiative). Howard Lukk was head engineer at IVC post house, but also VP of Technology for DCI. After seeing the Metatron demonstration and realizing full color spectrum was possible, Howard Lukk made sure the DCI mandates included full color. The DCI mandates also call for the addition of blue green cyan to enhance the laser color wavelengths of Red, Green and Blue. Troyer’s patent explains why adding deeper red and cyan reduces speckle.
http://www.slideshare.net/metatroy/troyer-patent-portfolio-2012
Read the 2001 patent claims in the published Troyer patent. Claim One states that cyan (blue green nm) is added with deep red (over 635 nm) green and blue laser wave mixture.
Magic of MetaTron (Z*TV): auto dimensional imaging
Z*Tron Vision (Z*TV) automatically transforms any video feed to full color: Boxing match, sports, Opera, live camera images, or favorite TV show. The added magic: 2D legacy movies or other feeds appear dimensional on curved screens and are in focus from any angle in the room. The Z depth factor is spatially modulated into every pixel in the expanded laser beam and retained to the screen. This is only possible if the attributes of lasers are retained in the image: collimation, coherence and polarization. The modulated pixel Z factor automatically provides depth (3D) to the images by separating the foreground from the background, enhanced when images are on curved screens.
3D Titanic: Global post house struggle to find best 2D to 3D process. James Cameron spent millions using a costly and time consuming 3D process with his 2D legacy feature: Titanic. Cameron and team delivered Avatar, the reigning première 3D experience, after spending years building stereo cameras and studying best camera angles and layered graphics for best immersion. What are Cameron’s conclusions?
TechCrunch Interview with James Cameron
TechCrunch: Is the future of 3D about the movies or TV?
Cameron: The future of 3D will be defined by TV. The reason for that is it’s going to solve this whole conversion issue. Because the 3D production cycle for TV is so short. You don’t have time to do a conversion. It just doesn’t exist. It’s just not part of the vocabulary. So, the tools for shooting it, posting it, delivering it, displaying it, are all going to be proven in the TV markets and then movie guys are just going to have to get in line with it.
TechCrunch: What do you think about the state of 3D TV’s?
Cameron: Mid level big flat panels are 3D now. — It’s really not that big a deal anymore. So, I think where it’s ultimately got to end, is glasses free viewing in the home, on the big screen.
Today Converting 2D to 3D
http://www.google.com/patents/US7116324
Converting 2D to 3D— this is a Digital Domain patent purchased from True 3D. This patented process can be compared to other 2D to 3D software. Reading the claims gives an idea why the 2D to 3D process is so time consuming and costly. Imagine the shock when it is realized that this can be done in real time with the Z*TV patented process – as well as real time color enhancement. The 3D transformed 2D image can be enhanced with real time 2D to 3D depth software or post manipulated in the DI (digital Intermediary) process. Z*TV is the ultimate in KISS: keep it simple: streamline with the instant transfer (IT) of the video feed to Z depth infinite focused vivid colored images.
Today the Judder Effect
http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/08/trumbull-muren-and-others-vouch-for-high-frame-rate-cinema/ — There is still a big issue with blurring and ghosting. This article calls it “Judder”. Many feel that a faster frame rate will cure the problem. The Troyer patented process eliminates any of these artifacts as long as the optic path is set up correctly and the teaching of the Troyer’s claims is followed. The demonstration models images that eliminated “judder” were set at 60 cycles per second for expanded laser lines that were spatially modulated line by line.
3D Without Glasses is the Cat’s Meow
http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/8072488.html
Ed Buckley founder of Light Blue Optics wrote a patent in 2004 in England with colleagues—that was for what they called “holography”. Buckley and team raised over $150 million for a “holographic” laser projector that had infinite focus (adjusted to curves) they called Light Blue Optics (LBO). The projector infringes on the Troyer patent claims. Buckley and the other founder left Light Blue Optics and are now helping support other display companies.
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