SMPTE Student Chapter Sees the Big Picture

Solent’s Student Chapter of SMPTE met this evening to discuss recent trends and were joined by cinema guru Peter Wilson. Peter is the founder of High Definition Digital Cinema and has been instrumental in several advancements and standardisation within the sector. He provided the student chapter with an introduction to digital cinema technologies which led to some interesting discussions on possible future developments.

We looked at where digital cinema has come from with 15,600 telephone circuits being used in early trials in the 1980s to its modern standardisation by SMPTE and the ITU with features such as 3D, Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) and High Dynamic Range (HDR). The students learned about the differences between resolution and modulation transfer functions as well as the operational and creative impact such as with depth of field and lens choices. We heard about some of the historical and political context and look forward to seeing digital cinema develop to include satellite and IP distribution in the near future.

It was great to get students together from across the years as well as the courses across the Media Technology programme and we continued making plans to help the chapter grow. The chapter is led by its student members and we look forward to helping them to deliver a programme of talks and workshops with support from the wider society and industry partners. Thanks to Peter for his support at tonight's meeting.