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RESOLUTION MATTERS Joined once again by Megapixel, we cover the importance of native 8K and IP-based workflows in the landscape of LED volume production Part 3
AS WITH ANY bleeding-edge technology, ICVFX poses certain challenges. Ensuring panels are camera-ready and managing cinema-grade colour accuracy are just a few – and in parts one and two of this series, we explored the ways the HELIOS LED Processing Platform is fulfilling these demands. This time around, we’re putting the spotlight on all-important fidelity and simplified workflows. “One of the difficulties with LED volume is the enormous amount of pixels. With 8K, we’re looking at about 32 million of them,” begins Megapixel CEO Jeremy Hochman. “In a typical workflow, you’d have many 4K signals coming into switching equipment, routers, canvas managers and finally into LED processing. We composite those signals together inside HELIOS as an 8K, or even 16K, raster.” With a 1RU appliance serving as a single point to channel pixel data through, crews can expect a much more resilient system. With fewer components, there’s less to maintain. While not every volume needs the pixel capacity of 8K directly, there’s spatiality to consider. It’s important to move content around within a raster, to facilitate region of interest. Key lights or flags may need to overlap with other sections where video is displayed, for example. With volumes larger than 32-million pixels, another Megapixel processor can be added seamlessly. “There’s a web server living within every HELIOS,” Hochman continues. “Any stacked devices talk to each other, from within the same network. You can walk into a volume with your smartphone and black out the screen, or adjust brightness, gamma and other parameters. It brings real simplicity to a very complex system.” Hochman also notes benefits in years to come: “The system is extensible enough that when content starts to become 8K
EVERYTHING YOU NEED HELIOS simplifies the workflow process, leading to a more resilient system
rasters, instead of lots of 4K ones, we’ll be able to ingest it in a native manner.” Almost certainly, this day will come in line with the full adoption of the IP-based workflow. With the increasing prevalence of the SMPTE 2110 suite of standards, it doesn’t look like an all too distant future. “Once this kind of workflow is online, creatives will be able to send us content that fits the volume exactly. They’ll send a raster that’s 16K by 3K, for example. That opens up the potential of those video payloads running on native fibre. The content server and rendering won’t necessarily have to live within a 2m cable distance of the volume itself,” says Hochman. With HELIOS’s cloud connectivity, there’s further potential that one individual could control multiple stages from a single location. In a world where this level of expertise is spread thin, the benefit is obvious. Boots on the ground will always be needed, to physically handle LED modules and peripheral tech – but the advanced work of monitoring overall system health needn’t be done in person, across 1000 stages globally. Ultimately, it’s a step towards making ICVFX a viable means of creation for more productions. FUTURE-PROOFING One concern as filmmaking advances is updating hardware to meet new needs. This need not be the case with HELIOS. “When we talk about HELIOS processing, it’s more than just the 1RU chassis – that’s just the ingest point,” Hochman explains. “That particular piece of hardware has full modularity on all inputs and outputs. Baseband inputs like
DisplayPort, HDMI and 12G-SDI can all be combined as needed. We also have existing SFP inputs, for four SMPTE 2110 channels. “With output, everything is IT fibre- based. The signal leaving HELIOS at that point is native IT infrastructure compliant. So, we are running a proprietary protocol, but it’s on standard switching hardware.” The importance of the native SMPTE 2110 workflow cannot be overstated. In addition to facilitating refined content delivery, it provides a solve for the shortcomings of physical connections. HDMI and DisplayPort, for example, were predominantly designed for short- distance use. They simply do not handle large-format, multi-raster signalling as well as IP-based connections. Hochman’s outlook is a positive one. “As the industry builds more fixed volumes, they need to be managed. IT infrastructure will make that happen. If a volume isn’t online, production is stopped. And that’s what, $50,000 a minute?” he laughs. “With HELIOS, we’re providing more potential than ever, but making the tools easier to use and troubleshoot.” “As the industry builds fixed volumes, they need to be managed”
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