[HN Gopher] IMAX emulates PalmPilot software to power Oppenheime...
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IMAX emulates PalmPilot software to power Oppenheimer's 70 mm
release
Author : riffraff
Score : 126 points
Date : 2023-07-21 18:52 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| mkl wrote:
| Why does a biopic need "the highest quality imaging format ever
| devised"?
| riffraff wrote:
| Christopher Nolan likes it.
| gambiting wrote:
| Why does anything need anything. It's a film, a piece of art -
| if they want to record it in 80K resolution for the fun of it,
| the question should be - why not?
| pessimizer wrote:
| The higher the numbers, the better the thing.
| failuser wrote:
| To feel like you are actually witnessing the first nuke test.
| atoav wrote:
| It doesn't. And humanity doesn't need a biopic.
|
| There is a saying by German film maker Alexander Kluge:
|
| He who wants to express something has to in turn impress
| something.
|
| And having the resolution of 70mm film certainly helps with the
| impeession part. Whether artistic expression is actually needed
| is a different more philosophic question. I'd say yes, but I
| studied art, so I am biased.
| tehnub wrote:
| Immersiveness. Maybe it's intriguing to look at the human face
| in extreme detail?
| meghan_rain wrote:
| submarine article
| toast0 wrote:
| Yep, Palm PR is almost certainly still out there pushing good
| vibes.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Seeing that PalmPilot emulator is how I feel using Instagram on
| an iPad.
| veave wrote:
| Why haven't they gone digital?
| hatsunearu wrote:
| A 135 photographic film frame (distinct from 35mm movie film)
| roughly has about 24MP - 48MP digital equivalent resolution.
|
| That has a photographic area of 864 square millimeters.
|
| 70mm movie film has 3395 square millimeters. That's like 943MP
| - 1886MP digital equivalent, if we use the same standards as
| 135 photographic film frame.
|
| There's no way you can replicate that amount of quality with
| digital cinema, at least right now.
|
| IMAX is similar in size to 6x7 medium format photography, which
| only recently has been fully replaced by digital cameras. The
| cameras that replace medium format photography (usually used
| for stuff like magazine cover photos, high end product
| photography, high end portraits and other high quality still
| applications) range from the sony a7r4 with a 61MP sensor,
| hasselblad cameras with 100mp sensors and phase one with a
| 150MP sensor.
|
| The digital video equivalent is 16K, which exists but it's just
| not common at all.
| mips_r4300i wrote:
| IMAX 70mm is still the absolute benchmark for film quality, and
| has been so for decades. A really rough estimate is you'd need
| a 15-20k digital projector to approach the resolution of the
| film.
|
| However, IMAX tried to go mass-market around 2008 and that's
| why you see so many supposedly-IMAX theaters now. They
| typically use 2K DLP projectors. Yeah, basically the same res
| as a gaming PC from 2011.
|
| My theater has the crummy 2k digital, and let em tell you, you
| can DEFINITELY see the pixels. I would call it passable but
| it's not really great at all. The only benefit of these IMAX
| locations is that normal digital cinema can be even worse!
|
| There are newer 4k laser projectors that some theaters are
| retrofitting into their old huge IMAX locations, but these
| still aren't going to hold a candle. 4k still isn't even enough
| to really come close to 35mm.
|
| The digital tech just isn't there yet.
| grumpyprole wrote:
| Consider also that resolution is only one factor. Bandwidth
| is another. Digital movies are often full of compression
| artefacts, especially when there's a lot going on in the
| scene.
| CobsterLock wrote:
| As far as I know, movie theaters do not compress video. Its
| seems like they have a digital surrogate for movie reals
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Package
| smitelli wrote:
| That's true; with a cap of 250 Mbps for the DCP stream,
| and a 4K frame size of 4096 x 2160, that's ~28 bits per
| pixel (if the soundtrack is disregarded). There might be
| a small amount of subsampling or run length encoding
| going on, but it's entirely plausible to distribute and
| play an uncompressed film on a professional projector.
|
| EDIT: Forgot to factor time into the math. Divide that by
| 24 frames per second. That got me curious, so I looked
| into it and found they're using JPEG 2000 on each frame
| with no inter-frame deltas. Essentially like a constant
| stream of I-frames.
| wmf wrote:
| IMAX has been digital for years but digital projectors haven't
| caught up to IMAX film resolution so they are keeping the film
| projectors around.
| themadturk wrote:
| A lot of "IMAX" theaters (and movies) are digital...but not
| those films created by Christopher Nolan. I love his movies,
| but he's an analog snob and believes the only legitimate place
| to enjoy his analog tech films is in a theater. I'm not saying
| he's entirely wrong, 70mm IMAX is probably the best film
| experience out there. But it's an ideal many moviegoers can't
| enjoy.
|
| To be fair, he recently said that 70mm IMAX format is also
| ideal as master for any downstream format, because all the
| information you're ever going to have for that movie is in the
| negative. And with the length (and therefore the size) of the
| movie, he acknowledges he may at last have reached the limits
| of analog film technology.
| waihtis wrote:
| You can find all kinds of interesting emulator implementations
| out there. I've personally seen a large manufacturing shop run
| some of their core business processes inside DOSBox.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Check out the "automatic fabric punching system" running on
| cassette tape:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWJZFQHklBg
|
| No need for emulation when the original equipment is still
| working.
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| I worked with a large factory running all their lines and
| processes off an emulated, embedded controller. It was running
| on a desktop PC using NT 3.51 interfacing directly with real-
| world I/O.
| nuclearazure wrote:
| So cool. Imagine having a portable computer you could program and
| take with you in your pocket.
|
| The iPhone future we have is disappointing compared to how I
| thought things would turn out.
| eddieroger wrote:
| I don't follow - there are apps on my iPhone right now that I
| wrote and put there. What am I missing?
|
| This functionality could probably be done with an iPhone or
| iPad and MFi today, if not a small form factor computer of some
| sort, or a Pi or Arduino.
| codetrotter wrote:
| The disappointing thing about my iPhone is that I cannot
| locally author and compile apps for iOS on iOS itself.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| I don't think you could do that on PalmPilots either.
| You're taking a cool story about use and history of the
| PalmPilot and turning it into Yet Another iPhone Complaint
| Thread.
| criddell wrote:
| You could!
|
| https://orbworks.com/pcpalm/
| bombcar wrote:
| The HP 100/200 LX certainly could. It had a serial port
| built in and could PCMCIA a parallel port. With DOS 5.0
| and software you could build a controller for all sorts
| of things on two AA batteries, and people did.
| serf wrote:
| yeah, you absolutely could -- and in a variety of
| different languages.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > I don't think you could do that on PalmPilots either.
|
| I wrote a couple of apps using Quartus Forth[1] entirely
| on the Palm IIIx. Admittedly fairly simple ones but done
| entirely locally.
|
| [1] http://www.quartus.net/products/forth/
| codetrotter wrote:
| Not trying to start an iPhone complaint thread. iPhone
| has been my preferred phone for many years, and continues
| to be so.
|
| I am still disappointed at having such a powerful piece
| of hardware in my pocket and not being able to write and
| run a native application for the device, on the device.
|
| Many years ago, when smartphones first became a thing, I
| had certain expectations about what would be possible and
| yet here we are over a decade later and it's still not
| possible to do that thing, simply because Apple doesn't
| want us to be able to do it.
|
| I think we should continue to talk about this until the
| day comes where it becomes possible.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| I too am disappointed at having a computer in my pocket I
| don't truly own.
|
| But I'm also disappointed at how HN seems to only have
| like 5 topics people want to discuss and the comments on
| every submission find their way back to those topics no
| matter how tenuous.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Sometimes I wish teddy bears would just invade, silence
| all humans and fix the world already.
|
| By any means necessary.
| doubled112 wrote:
| You were watching Care Bears as if it were a documentary?
| [deleted]
| serf wrote:
| >But I'm also disappointed at how HN seems to only have
| like 5 topics people want to discuss and the comments on
| every submission find their way back to those topics no
| matter how tenuous.
|
| doesn't that just point to the impact and magnitude of
| the perceived problem?
|
| "Yeah, I know the kitchen is on fire, but let's talk
| about how the pancakes _taste_. "
|
| 'group-attention' migrates back to the collective
| concern; seems unsurprising, espescially in the face of
| being reminded of a product that had these concerns
| handled well compared to our future selves.
| ciabattabread wrote:
| I'm glad Apple implemented dark mode so I don't have to
| keep on hearing about that complaint in every Apple
| discussion.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Why is this important to you? Have you done any embedded
| programming?
| codetrotter wrote:
| Yes I have done embedded programming. But that's not what
| I am talking about. I am talking about building and
| compiling regular iOS apps on iOS itself.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| True enough. I have Pythonista installed on my iPhone, but
| to be honest I don't play with it a lot.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| You bought it. You could have bought literally almost any
| other device.
| cramjabsyn wrote:
| The google garden isn't much better
| fsflover wrote:
| > portable computer you could program and take with you in your
| pocket
|
| This is exactly what Librem 5 is. It runs desktop an FSF-
| endorsed OS (Debian-based). My daily driver btw.
| zymhan wrote:
| Just jailbreak it any be done.
|
| Yes, it's potentially less secure. You can't have your cake and
| eat it too.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| I'm enjoying eating my own cake on my non-rooted GrapheneOS
| mobile.
| layer8 wrote:
| Banking apps will refuse to work on a jailbroken device.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| You can often tweak those apps to stub the jailbreak
| detection (if you're jailbroken)
| necubi wrote:
| Back in the day if you wanted to develop for PalmOS you had to
| pay Metroworks (IIRC) $~300 for their CodeWarrior C++ compiler,
| so the fact that XCode is free is a pretty big improvement.
| inconceivable wrote:
| you can do this already. look up rpi based cyberdecks.
| Saris wrote:
| You pretty much can with android devices since you can pull up
| a shell and install packages, and you have access to a
| filesystem.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [Dupe]
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Bunch of posts and discussion last few days:
|
| _1 day ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800223
|
| _2 days ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789643
|
| _3 days ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36781724
| archo wrote:
| -- Related --
|
| _IMAX movies still need a Palm Pilot to work_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800223 - 2023-07-20
| (9-comments)
|
| Original Article : https://www.theverge.com/23801118/imax-
| movie-palm-pilot-oppe...
|
| _IMAX Still Runs on PalmPilot Operating System_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789643 - 2023-07-19
| (6-comments)
|
| Original Article :
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x5gb/imax-still-runs-on-
| pa...
|
| _IMAX projector motors are controlled using an emulated
| PalmOS app_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36781724 -
| 2023-07-19 (3-comments)
|
| Original Article :
| https://twitter.com/LudyLotad/status/1681341878476718097
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| If only the inventor of the PalmPilot could reckon with the
| destructive force he brought upon the world.
| bredren wrote:
| > Motherboard contacted IMAX about the antiquity
|
| Is "anachronism" a better fit here?
| dale_glass wrote:
| Nice.
|
| Digital IMAX is disappointing. Hardly "MAX" anything. It's just
| 2.9K, which doesn't even measure up to my at this point mundane
| 4K monitors.
|
| I hope they come up with a better digital one. 4K is great for
| home use but in a cinema it's not quite there.
| tehnub wrote:
| Well, I think "IMAX with Laser" is 4K.
|
| https://www.imax.com/news/imax-laser-here
| xdennis wrote:
| But this is about the film version, though.
|
| Digital IMAX is pointless, but it is still technically "MAX" as
| the max is for physical size, not resolution.
|
| The original reason IMAX uses 70mm film (8.3x the area of 35mm)
| is because projecting onto a larger screen required a more
| powerful lamp, which would produce more heat and burn 35mm
| film, so they had to place it farther away from the lamp,
| meaning the film had to be larger.
| failTide wrote:
| That 16K Sphere in vegas could be worth checking out
| Yhippa wrote:
| You sent me down the rabbit hole. It turns out there are only
| 19 theatres that are serving up the film version: https://www.w
| ashingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/07/.... This image
| near the bottom of the article shows the comparisons of the
| formats: https://gfx-data.news-
| engineering.aws.wapo.pub/ai2html/Cropp....
|
| Now I have huge FOMO and don't have a city close to me to see
| it. I haven't seen a movie in theatres in years and it would
| have been nice to treat myself to this one.
| mips_r4300i wrote:
| Same here, the FOMO led me to finding a film theater, luckily
| I found a 70mm non-IMAX showing in driving distance.
|
| Honestly looking forward to not seeing pixelated digital
| screendoor for this one.
|
| Most IMAX locations are just gonna be 2048x1080. Even sitting
| way in the back it looks low-res.
| sva_ wrote:
| If anyone currently in Hamburg, Germany plans to watch this
| movie, the movie theater "Savoy" (seems to be independent -
| no chain) offers the Oppenheimer movie in original English
| language (no dubs/subs) in the original 70mm version.
|
| I think I'm gonna attend next week.
|
| Edit: I'm seeing the list above which claims there are no
| German cinemas who have the original 70mm film. However
| this[0] German cinema in Hamburg clearly claims to have
| original 70mm version ("OV"). Not sure if I either
| misunderstand something, the list is incorrect, or if the
| cinema is lying?
|
| [0] https://savoy.premiumkino.de/vorstellung/oppenheimer/2023
| 072...
| tehnub wrote:
| IMO the ranking goes like this:
|
| 1. IMAX 70mm
|
| 2. 70mm (non-IMAX, 2.2/1 aspect ratio)
|
| 3. Dual Laser IMAX (4K, can show the full 1.43/1 picture
| instead of just 1.9/1)
|
| 4. Single laser IMAX (4K, shows 1.9/1)
|
| 5. Dolby Cinema (4K, aspect ratio)
|
| 6. 35mm film
|
| 7. Non-laser IMAX
|
| 8. Regular theater
|
| (1) is the most special, (2) is still quite special as only
| every few years do these theaters typically bring out 70mm
| projectors, (3) is also pretty special because rarely do
| movies return to IMAX where you can see the full uncropped
| image. (4) and (5) will still have great picture and sound
| quality compared to almost any home setup (OLED has contrast
| advantage always). (6) is pretty special, as [0] says: The
| 35mm prints have been made photochemically, preserving all
| the rich analog color of the original 65mm photography. (7)
| will have a big screen and good sound. (8) regular theaters
| are still good too. The value of the movie-going experience
| is not insignificant, which you get at any theater.
|
| [0]: https://www.oppenheimermovie.com/tickets/formats/
| KerrAvon wrote:
| > The value of the movie-going experience is not
| insignificant, which you get at any theater.
|
| Not arguing, just curious: what do you perceive the value
| to be in going to a (8) plain 'ol regular theater? As
| opposed to something like a 65" OLED in your living room.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| The word used should be "simulates", not "emulates".
|
| The software is designed to mimic the look and feel of the old
| projectionist software (which ran on PP). It does not in any way
| emulate PalmOS or the PP hardware.
| gzalo wrote:
| Are you sure? If they took all the trouble to write software to
| simulate how palm form inputs are rendered, why wouldn't they
| just create a new UI?
| usrusr wrote:
| To skip operator retraining? At least that's how I read team
| "it's only look and feel, not an emulator". My objection to
| that would be that a hypothetical outcome of a modern UI with
| identical menu layout not being good enough would be one of
| those things that you only ever learn the hard way. But who
| knows, perhaps it _was_ a new UI that was vetoed out by
| someone in a very powerful position and then they had to skin
| it up. But the far more likely explanation is that they had
| software, were running out of hardware devices to put in
| projection time until someone tried their hand on running one
| of the numerous palm emulators in existence on an RPi or
| similar.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| From the article, the design " _mimics the look and feel of a
| PalmPilot to keep it simple and familiar for IMAX film
| projectionists_ "
| iwanttocomment wrote:
| Yeah, and the article also quotes IMAX as stating "IMAX
| Engineering designed and manufactured an _emulator_ ".
|
| You can certainly have a true emulator that also "mimics
| the look and feel" of the thing it's emulating.
|
| If you have any actual evidence that the IMAX tool is not
| truly an emulator other than conjecture, we'd all be very
| interested.
| rkagerer wrote:
| There are PalmOS emulators out there, wouldn't make sense
| for them to roll their own instead of licensing one of
| those. I had one on my last Android phone that was a
| treat for using my beloved old Palm apps.
|
| I suspect the HN crowd's interpretation is correct that
| they merely replicated the look and feel. Which makes
| sense - Palm is still the best GUI I've ever been
| fortunate enough to use.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _It does not in any way emulate PalmOS or the PP hardware._
|
| Citation? Here's IMAX Engineering confirming that it's
| emulating a Palm Pilot.
|
| _"The original Quick Turn Reel Units operated on Palm Pilots.
| In advance of the release of_ Oppenheimer _, IMAX Engineering
| designed and manufactured an emulator that mimics the look and
| feel of a Palm Pilot to keep it simple and familiar for IMAX
| film projectionists," an IMAX spokesperson told Motherboard._
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x5gb/imax-still-runs-on-pa...
| ScoobleDoodle wrote:
| That's not a quote from IMAX engineering. That's a quote from
| an IMAX spokesperson of what engineering said. And in the
| game of telephone something is lost along the way. I would
| guess they meant: IMAX Engineering designed and manufactured
| a system that emulates the look and feel of a Palm Pilot to
| keep it simple and familiar for IMAX film projectionists. But
| mixed it up in a way that means something different to us
| techies.
| CharlesW wrote:
| If we assume simplicity/safety trumps other considerations
| for a solution rolled out just before the year's biggest
| release, "emulator" is probably correct and "emulates look
| and feel" is a spokesperson mischaracterization.
| grumpyprole wrote:
| You are stated this as a fact, can you provide a reference?
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, when a child emulates their parents, they are running
| their brain.
| sillywalk wrote:
| I wonder why they chose Palm, but then why not, and what else
| would they use? Ipaq?
|
| It's not clear, but I assume it sends commands to the actual film
| hardware, and its not doing some real-time control.
|
| "The software shows a handful of controls for the projectionist
| to queue up the film and control the platters that feed film at
| six feet per second. " [0]
|
| [0] https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/imax-using-20-year-old-
| pa...
| photoGrant wrote:
| I'm making it up, but want to say it had a serial port. Also,
| fun fact - they emulated instead of redesigned literally for
| aesthetic reasons.
| snotrockets wrote:
| PalmPilots used a serial port to connect to a computer,
| modem, or the infra-red module.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| There was also a folding keyboard that used the serial port
| in the dock connector.
| sbarre wrote:
| I think it's a bit unfair to say "for aesthetic reasons".
|
| The article says it's because projectionists are familiar
| with the Palm Pilot UI (because to them it's just another
| tool), and rather than get them to re-learn a different UI,
| they used emulation to provide the same familiar UI on newer
| hardware.
|
| We (technology/digital experts) take for granted our level of
| comfort in sussing out how a new UI works.
| photoGrant wrote:
| I don't say it lightly. It's trivial to remove the process
| entirely. The whole point of this style of projection is
| that it's as much theatre as the theatre itself. It's kept,
| including the aesthetic of the Pilot device itself, purely
| for nostalgic decoration and little more!
| sbarre wrote:
| Ok well the text of the literal article we're commenting
| on seems to contradict you, but all good.
| [deleted]
| abruzzi wrote:
| thats exactly why. It was a simple serial connection that
| could connect directly with other simple embedded systems. My
| local Lowes home store had a palm pilot that controlled their
| security system, and it was still in use just pre-COVID for
| exactly the same reason.
| toast0 wrote:
| They definitely did. My brother was happy to get my ibm
| branded palm pilot (WorkPad) because it would interface with
| serial obd-ii dongles. And the ice rink where my kiddo plays
| hockey has a scoreboard that was sold with a palm pilot to
| control it (someone in the beer league built replacement
| software for a PC when palm pilots became hard to source)
| rythie wrote:
| Palm was the market leader, it would have been the obvious
| choice. Palm had been around since 1996 and by 1998 had sold 30
| million devices [1]. PocketPC didn't come out until 2000, in
| 2001 they had only sold 1.25 million devices, equating to less
| than 10% market share [2]. From what I remember Palm Pilots
| were the go to choice for PDAs, they were simple and worked.
| Other devices had come and gone. It would have been odd if they
| chosen something else. I doubt anyone was thinking it would be
| used for 20 years, though I don't think people would have
| thought it would go away at the time.
|
| [1] https://history-computer.com/palm-pilot-guide/ [2]
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/pocket-pc-sales-1-million-and-...
| zgluck wrote:
| Did you you ever attempt programming anything under PalmOs
| back then? It was quite fragile because of the extremely low
| amount of memory on board, which forced the use of
| relocatable memory handles, a bit like classic mac OS.
|
| https://www.fuw.edu.pl/~michalj/palmos/Memory.html
|
| PalmOS and it's extreme focus on low end hardware was a super
| weird choice at the time. The one reason for using PalmOS was
| extreme battery life, which obviously was not a factor here.
|
| There existed plenty better alternatives at the time.
| ericcumbee wrote:
| That device specifically was cheap and readily available. If
| it failed you could have gone to any OfficeMax or Circuit
| City and picked up a replacement.
| cududa wrote:
| Totally guessing here.
|
| iPAQ ran Windows Mobile (a derivative of windows CE). I believe
| custom drivers were not well supported.
|
| As well, back around 2009 I looked into Windows CE for a hobby
| project I thought about commercializing, and the licensing
| costs were INSANE. IIRC, there was a revenue component too.
|
| While I don't recall all specifics, I believe using Windows
| Mobile in an industrial use case it violated the EULA and you'd
| need to use a proper Windows CE env.
|
| Total total guess here, but I wonder if they were tied to
| Windows CE, still paying licensing costs, given how few "true"
| imax screens there are, if the base licensing costs they'd have
| locked into 20 years ago, would've made "true" imax screens
| unprofitable/ have retired them at the onset of the pandemic
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