Prometheus Master Of Technology...

The greek god Prometheus brought fire from heaven and gave it to man, thus he has been our friend, the Master of Technology.

A professional product developer was hired to visualize the complex layers needed from the as builts.

I had posted an extensive technical explanation but somehow it got deleted so more later...

Hi Gi Joe,

As it is every speaker in this room is rear ported, the C4's only need 3.5 inches to the rear wall, which we corroborated in helene and still have a beautifully smooth response and decent soundstage, the center does too, the real trick are the 4 c1 hidden in the ceiling those get a plywood exoskeleton with a 2" wavegide along the back and top of the speaker. According to Dynaudio this will work perfectly, and "Danes don't lie"...

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You can see it's a Stewart Torus, First the DP1500 is being hacked with a .63 AP, with a complimenting matching Iris on the lens, the lens is also optimised for the Torus. We are using a higher wattage 2kw lamp. All of this means the highest on/off, ansi contrast and MTF on the planet.

There's a d-box, provisions for a Digital Cinema Dolby Sever in 2 and 3-D, and access to first run movies the wedenesday before they reach the movie theaters. Truly a no compromise image befitting a King,.

Check these renderings out:



Cantilevered Soffet "Voice of God" 7.1 surround array with Confidence 1's. The porthole on the right is for convergence only.





The vertical element that holds the Speaker fabric where it turns into the screen is a metal rod to minimise mass in the reflections.

Yeah a cool term, alas I believe it may have been coined by Tom Holman in his 10.5 surround channel experiment at UCLA school of Film. Both Holman and Bob Stuart had experimented with multichannel expansion of the 5.1/7.1 tracks and they (like ambisonics) had determined that a height channel would be useful. There is where I heard the "Voice of God" term used first. I am using it perhaps incorrectly but because in this case the all the surround channels are hung from this cantileverd dropped ceiling that is so clearly demarcated away from the walls and andgled down smack into the "spectator Killing zone" -I will take creative license and call it just that.

I have instructed the optical engineer modifying the Prometheus Barco Superkontrast, that this time around I want the Superkontrast MK II to live up to it's name.

No one in this forum has a remote clue of all the legwork involved in order to have had Barco to OK the Helene mod. It was like getting a marriage annulled by the Pope. The ticket to modifying these sets is to not void the warranty, that would be super foolish as I believe the sum of the cost of the parts probably exceeds the cost of the projector. The projector is 100% modular, I don't think the upcoming .98 competing product is. Barco acquiesced on a case by case bassos to honor the warranties assuming certain conditions were met.

All parts that are modified like light engine and lenses have to be clearly labeled with a date and description of the modification performed. This is in case a part is serviced and is swapped; now entering the pool of service parts. I assume.

Much more concern for the heat buildup exists on this chassis than on the larger dp90-100 which Odyssey uses. With closer space confines comes the possibility of accelerated heat buildup. In addition great strides have been made in this chassis to wards perfect uniformity, Barco is adamant that the integrity of the uniformity NOT BE SACRIFICED. This projector uses an O shaped optical path , a departure form the Delta Shaped path, this is credited for it's unmatched uniformity.

Prudently observing Barco's wishes we conservatively set the single aperture plate at .53 reduction and called it a day to monitor the heat levels. We also
limited the lamp size to 1,600 watts.

The purpose of Prometheus is to push the visual to the limit, audio is clearly secondary (we cover all our bases using the tried and proven natural sound of dynaudio esotar controlled directivity units- but we are working around the Torus screen with every known acoustical countermeasures to typical Torus sound anomalies as personally researched over 2 decades). I believe it will sound great -well see.

The Torus screen optimizes for ANSI contrast and MTF. The screen is ray traced to the room . In this case it was Don Stewart personally that did the ray tracing. The Barco Dp1500 control suite does offer the unique capability of trimming any shape during masking to any kind of screen flat, curved, or Torus. This is fortuitous.



Emboldened by the superior uniformity of the TORUS (and having comfort in the low heat levels thus far) I have instructed the optical engineers preparing the SUPERKONTRAST II to spare no sacrifice in obtaining the maximum possible contrast out of this opportunity to break the world MTF record for any HDTV device.


The Barco Communicator software has been on line in Helene with the engineers on the west coast for two months now. Heat and operational data has been collected and analyzed with extremely positive results.

We all now about the custom aperture plates that need be heat proof, we had three plates made. A .53 (Helene), a .63, a .73 this later one is a joke (a pinhole) so for Prometheus a .63. Much investigation with Barco and with a top optical engineer that worked on the .98 engine design for TI and now defected to a German lens Manufacturer has been made during the last few weeks. Greater aperture reduction is clearly yielding a severely diminished return. We also are comissioning with a New England custom lens technician a matching iris. The iris on the lens does not need to match the aperture in the light pipe just aproximate it. Say 60% reduction.

This are the secret tools that have been used thusfar to achieve increased contrast in digital cinema thus far.

The SuperKontast II will sport a third technique not previously considered. THIS CONCEPT IS NEW TO ME and it is still It is not very clear to me what combination of manual adjustment of the DMD and it's corresponding "SEMAPHORE" in the software side of the process but essentially there are ways of aligning the dmd while "setting it up" for native white where the contrast values of native white are maximised, this technique will be used to push the CR over the 5k-1 hump. I am calling it MAXIMUM CR NATIVE WHITE SEMAPHORE SETUP.

While achieving an extra 1.1k-1 in sequential contrast over the Superkontrast I is dignified, what we are after here is the elusive MTF. We will be taking the MTF pedal to the metal here. Don't let the dust trail incovenience you.

Am afraid some sparklies will be there, the choice is up to Don. What it must be is it must be white and not grey. My take a gain of 2 or so. You need gain in order to avoid cross reflectivity and be able to increase ANSI CR (MTF).I believe a value of 2.2 was used during the Ray tracing.

We need a balance to have a nice bright image in 2-d and an acceptable image in 3-d. Originally I had 23 ft lamberts in mind for 2-d using a 2kw lamp, now I have art wolfgang and others spousing 26, 45, 63 ft lamberts (hell I am considering jumping to 3kw for 2-d although I think the owner will object as he prefers the Film Look). What I will probaly do is get another lamphouse with a 4kw and use it for the 3-D movies.

This theater as discussed is my first Bel Air Digital Circuit and we expect 3-D to be a big part of it.

It is very easy to set the lamp power level though the Barco coomunicator software for which I am sketching an amx control interface.

I can't really expand too much on the new technique used for seting up native white, it is sort of TRADE SECRET in the dlp industry, but I was able to puull two or three more teeths of information.

As you all know when you calibrate these projectors to native white and then you switch the setting for rec 709 on/off contrast goes down. Using multiple techniques in the coding of the reflector and things like the mirror fold on the dmd and fine tuning somekind of filter (i can't read my handwriting there) it is possible to bring the native white really close to d65, during critical setup. That way the maximum bit depth is used for things like grayscale etc. Is a native white of d65 possible? I don't think so but apparently with a lot of care it can come close.

Gone

I ventured up to the tower today for the first time.

This is the original 3 passenger elevator.


When you get to the observation room there is a little hearth getting ready for a plasma.





Kinda cozy up there...



Back in the main hall these are the new stairs, the old ones had termites.

Conduit work for rack/isolation pedestal/ expoxy putty to prepare ToRUS screen corners.



Wall hanging hardware


Porthole locations...

There are now double aperture plates, this thing will go past 6,000-1.

he SuperKontrast is earning it's name...

Regarding designing for a review room.
The only 4k unit I saw was the JVC pro, and it was nice but sorto like a step back from the SK MKI.

I am really enamored with the DCI platform the way there is a sure foolproof way to calibrate, and the servo zoom lens seems to be a TI development. I also have a small but developing market of people in the indutry that could benefit from superior review rooms.

I will monitor however as TI migrates to 4k for the theater.

For non critical rooms I will look at lcos 4k, do you know any specifics?

That could bode well for immersion seeking people sitting close to the screen.

My designs always have a buffer zone for architectural and acoustical reasons so 4k is not needed. While on off cr is important it should not be wheiged the same as ANSI CR, MTF and COLOR.

It's Ironic but for some reason I don't expect the LCOS with xenon to be as easy to discern as is in 3dlp. The dlp is reflective and not transmissive.

I am happy the industry is heading that way, it imparts new heroic purpose to the SK approach.

One of them anyways.

The cantilevered floating soffit in reverse trapagon angle.

Believe it or not the entire staff at Steve Haas acoustics insist metal is better as a bitumastic resonance attenuator. Go Figure! They designed the floating room part.

The CMC construction foreman building the cantilevered ceiling was commenting how beautiful the design of the ceiling was, we got to talk and he is the same guy I had worked in 1993 in Dione, Ugo's old penthouse cinema. The length of tenures of the people working for the KOM are impressive, maybe I'll get a job there and quit trying to live the heroic life.


Pirreli Rubber Antistatic Flooring being applied under rack location.



Master Bedroom rs-2 niche is also Pirellitized...

The BRIC controller is located in ceiling by screen and connected to keypad.


A Bric controller eye/keypad is installed inside the bedroom media enclosure along with an infrared repeating system for the RS-2


Eventually both the screen and the projector will be controlled rs-232 by amx but for now...

The freaking armoires latticed glass door are drop dead gorgeous crafted by world famous master craftsman Paolo Roncoroni, he will also will be doing the millwork upstairs in Prometheus. He is also doing Michael Schumacher's theater outside Geneva (perhaps the reason why I'm spiffing my website), and is doing tons of work in Dubai, I am ready as soon as Paolo gives me the go ahead.



The bedroom system was fired up and precisely set up before burying the projector behind a large wood panel.



After a hard days work we lightened up the construction crews with some 1080p BD flesh tones...