8k Camera, 8k Projector, 8k Digital Cinema.

I visited NAB at Las Vegas this year. 24th to 27th Apr 06. Some of the biggest companies in broadcast, post production, audio, video and other film/video related disciplines exhibit there. For us Post guys, there's Discreet, Apple, Adobe, Avid, Sony, Panasonic, Thomson, Cintel, DaVinci and loads of others. Great if you're a techie or even if you're somehow connected to this business.

At one corner of the exhibition in the Central hall, just behind the LED lite panels, was an interesting display.

An 8k presentation. This was by NHK, the Japanese broadcasting company. A projection, at 8k. Yes 8k. Not 2k, not 4k, but honest to God 8k. There were two projectors. Something like one showing red/green and one doing blue. Both 8k. Maybe a Sony special edition by the looks of it.

There were shots of New York, Japan and other places. All on a large screen. And all the footage shown had been shot on 8k, digitally, and projected with music to match with an 8k projection.

Outside there was also the camera that shot it all. And the high speed storage, compression and transmission systems. These are installed at some museums and other such institutions in Japan.

Mind you, this is not some prototype, releasing in some summer or fall or spring. It is for real. Not that you can go out and buy any of this, but you can see and enjoy the results nevertheless.

And since none of the stuff shown seemed to be originated on film, one wonders... what if it had been? I doubt if film, scanned as 8k and then shown on that gigantic screen would have the clean sharp - maybe what some might call a 'digital look' - that these images showed.

If anyone is concerned about the done to death proclamation, 'Film is dead' then after seeing this 8k demo, I can assure you that neither HD nor even 2k film DI will kill off film. No sir, as long as you shoot film, you are bound by its limits. And yes these limits are for all to see when one sees an 8k DCinema demo.

Sort of like if one were to shoot on still 35 mm film and use the best possible scanner to get a high resolution image vis a vis shooting with the best possible digital still camera. Not too many will disagree that digital still cameras have more or less done away with film cameras.

By simply surpassing 35 mm film not trying to imitate them. I believe now that movie film will also be done for, by exceptional quality digital cinema cameras. But at the present time there's probably not one single camera that can honestly do that as easily as a film camera can. But it will be there surely in the next 1-3 years.

And oh yes. Just outside the theatre, was showing was a large 3D HD projection. Using cross polaroids. And a 3D display on LCD TVs as well. Both awesome. HD in 3D. What an amazing way to view it. SD in 3D probably would be a strain to watch because of the low res, but HD3D is something else.